Parshas Mishpatim ''The Catch 22''

Shemot 21-22 "And these are the Ordinances That you shall place before them";

These laws were given close to the giving of the ten commandments and the laws of the altar to give us insight into Judaism, it is not just a religion it applies to all areas of life and to be holy one must conduct himself from within the frame work of Halachah no less in our business dealing than in the areas of purity or matters of ritual. This the civil law, the Tort, these were to set up zedek justice, equality, fairness. these are the laws regarding the Jewish bondsman, the sale of a daughter, murder and manslaughter, killing of a slave, penalty for bodily injury, negligent death, whether by your animal or a pit laws of property damage, and responsibility of a borrower, seduction, sensitivity to the helpless and abandoned, theft of livestock, self-defense, payment for theft or damages by livestock and the laws of custodians,... and now to the point which I wanted to get to,

The commandment to extend free loans.

Why? Perek 22 Pasuk v24; ... אם כסף תלוה את עמי "When you lend money to my people, to the poor person who is with you, לא תהיה לו כנשה, do not act toward him as a creditor, do not lay interest on him." I want to explore the likutey Halachot that Reb Nosson connected to the this parsha. it is found in Choshen Mispat chalaha haloah Hashem [otiot; א, (A) ב (B) l'phei ozter Hayirah mamon and parnusha פה, #85]. on the verse, אם כסף תלוה את עמי- 'there are days of good and days of bad these are the aspect of; "ביום טובה היה בטוב וביום רעה ראה" On the good days go with the good and on the bad days look. Ok it is pashut, on the good days, but what this, on the bad days... look? what does it mean to Look?
Thus one has to, see and to look very deeply and very well to find the good inside the bad days, thus a person will find the good even inside the bad days. Why? "because the whole world is full of his glory", כי מלא כל הארץ כבודו, Even in the the tongues or the languages of the nations. Because enclosed and cloaked in them are the letters of the Torah. And they are the aspect of 'Good days' It is only because they are so cloaked, covered with the bad days or they are so many more of them, and it makes it hard to find them or to see them. For nothing even the evil can exist for it is sustained only by the good that is cloaked inside of it.

However, the one who merits, he who has so destroyed his Yeitzer HaRah, or one who has attached himself completely to a Tzaddik who has completely subdued His Yeitzer HaRah. which by the way is the easier of the two, then that person can and will be able to find all of the letters of the Torah that have been cloaked in the languages of the nations. ie.'the bad days'. From this aspect of 'that person is able to find and extract all the good in these bad days', and if a person can do this, 'to mamash' to find the good from amidst the bad days he will never have a problem with or be lacking in parnusha. why? Because he by his being attached to the Tzaddik or by subduing his Yeitzer HaRah, has brought down for himself Bracha and Shefa Tovah. And he is about to receive spiritual bounty dafka though the letters of Torah which he was able to discover and uncover though his finding of the good in the bad. Because the letters of Torah are the building blocks of everything. And as such the Torah is source of all Bracha and all Shefa! That means when a person is able to attach himself to the letters of Torah, when he has found the good in the worst he therefore has attached himself to the source of all blessing and bounty!

Now when a person has not merited to this because the bad days have become so strong or numerous that they completely hide and cover over the good days he cannot find any letters of the Torah, which are really hidden in all of his day to day actions, and his business dealings. And now the Bracha and shefa can only come down, through a Tzimtzum gadol, a very very great and powerful constrictions and difficulties, thus this person will be forced to take loans to live. Because when he is not seeing the good in even the worst of days, and only seeing bad he then is 'not' connecting to the source, ie. 'the Otiot ha Torah' for they are source of all Blessing and Shefa.

For the whole idea of taking loans is from the concept or aspect of that there are 'good and bad days'! He says to himself "I'll barrow on the bad days 'today', and hope to pay it back when the good days come." the whole reason a majority of people take loans is because they have a lack or Hashem forbid no parnusha. 'Ain Lo Attah' he dos not have right now but he hopes to have in the future. So instead of praying and T'shuvah where he would reconnect with the Torah, he instead wants to short cut Hashem and barrow his way out of this situation. He just puts himself in a worse situation, then by complaining, and focusing on the negative, its a catch 22, because by focusing on and speaking about the negative we increase the covering and we distance and detach ourselves further from the Bracha and Shefa. its a vicious cycle because if he does not see the good on these days he brings more bad on himself Hashem forbid! He must stop and find the good before its covered to deeply. that why we should all live by the klal "Ain shum y'ush b'olam klal" there is no such thing as despair in the world at all!!! But instead we live by this klal 'the lie'... how is it usually said? This is the "normal" way we all say it "I'm going through rough times". Because he feels he is having bad days he goes to his friend and barrows for now and hopes that his friend will wait til the good days return. the only reason a person barrows is that he feels he is in a period or having bad days thus he cuts himself off from the blessing and shefa.

Once a person comes into the situation where he takes loans it's very hard for him to come out from this. and the majority of people can not pay them back on time. It is like the Rabbis o.b.m. teach that "the giver of the loan says to himself "ha la vie, I hope he'll pay me back on time" the gemorra asks ha la vie? why doesn't he say v'die, surely! he should pay me back on time" But because the giver knows that after he the borrower does not have Emunah sh'leima, and he cannot see, 'that even in the bad days there is really good', he asks himself how will he ever reach the good days? How if he never sees the good, how will he ever have the money to pay me back the loan?

Because the truth is! good days and bad days are in every single day! to the extent that a person is able to overcome the Yeitzer Harah and strengthen the good over the bad.

It is only by a person overcoming his Yeitzer Harah and or by attaching to the Tzaddik, that he can see! "That the whole world is full of his glory" and that he whole world is full of good! by this he will be able to look very well. This is the only way for him to bring about the good days. once a person can do this and focus on the good, When he has come to do this he will certainly be able receive his parnusha each and everyday and we will never have to come into debt or to take loans.

But the person who, was forced to fall into debt and take loans, because he has damaged his Emunah, and it is only because he could not find or see the good in the bad days, because it also works in the reverse Hashem forbid, that if person chooses to see only the bad he will bring on more and more bad days. And it will become very very difficult to come out of the debt/loan cycle. The reason is because he can now only focus on the bad so that the bad get stronger and stronger everyday. The truth is, it is because a person is not making the effort to find the good in the bad days. as explained above, 'to see that" the whole world is full of his glory"!!!

Therefore in truth a person has to be very very careful not to fall into debt, specificality a person who has already sinned and he has caused damage and has not overpowered his Yeitzer Harah and has let the the evil overpower the good, and now! This person he wants to return to Hashem in T'shuvah. And what is the main part of T'shuvah? It is precisely in finding the good that is concealed in the bad. He has to believe in himself, and that there is for sure a measure of good letf inside himself. And that there is still hope for him to return to Hashem. Like it says, "you requested, 'from there', Hashem your G-d, 'mi sham dika' from there! what does it mean from there? from all the places where you were pushed amongst the Goyim, not just where he lived, but where one has fallen, and from and mainly from the mindset of the Goyim! which comes about through sin that damages the Emunah.

Therefore someone who wants to be a Baal T'shuvah he needs to be very very careful not to fall into debt because when he falls into debt he cannot possibly see the good! It becomes very hard, but it is possible if he will work hard. "l'veh rasha... any time the rasha is doing evil, 'he is escorting the evil' ie."me-'laveh' hamalka" to escort the queen, the"lo'veh to lend so "lo'veh rasha" can also mean 'he barrows evil' The main source of evil comes from your allowing the aspect of the bad days to overpower the aspect good days. this is how we come to this level of debt and of borrowing. Therefore the pasuk warns if you loan a person money do not run after him! If the poor person cannot pay we have to have Rachim and chessed on him to take him out of being a baal choev.

In short we have to help him see the good!

May it be that the K'dosh one bless us, that we see and can focus on the good, and attach ourselves to the 'otiot ha torah', the source of all blessing and bounty and to be able see the letters of Torah in every thing, and all the chessed that Hashem does for us each and everyday, even in these the darkest of days in this world for if we can see the light in the darkness, for the light sustains the darkness there is no darkness with out light may it be that we can enable the overpowering of the the bad, so we can attach ourselves to the light and to the source of all speedily in the these days at our time Amen!

Gut Shabbos Reb Nati