The Importance and Consequences of Mussar and Yiras Shamayim
Do you know why there are so many Tisha B'av’s in Klal Yisroel (the first and second Churban, Jews expelled from Spain, and more)? Because there aren’t enough real Yom Kippur’s. I once read a fascinating story that happened in Auschwitz. There was a Jew who was an unusually talented violinist, and the Germans forced him to entertain them... on the night of Yom Kippur.
He played the Niggun of Kol Nidrei. The wicked Germans actually liked it, and they made him play it again and again. This part of the story is hard to believe, but if I’m not mistaken, the cruel Germans were actually emotional with tears when they heard this Niggun!
What’s going on? How do we make sense of such an odd story? The truth about the entire destruction of Europe was the spiritual decline of Klal Yisroel. This is Pashut (obvious). The main decline of Yiddishkeit started with the reform movement and its founder, Moses Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn had once been a practicing Jew. So where did he go “off”?
The question was asked to his children: What was different about your father “in his good days” that caused him to go off the Derech? They remembered that the one difference between him and normal practicing Jew was that he didn’t seem to have any special fear on Yamim Nora'im! The Pele Yoetz says that it’s a gift from Shamayim that even the lowest Jews have a certain awe of Yamim Nora'im.
Even a world famous secular American Jewish baseball player wouldn’t play a crucially important game on Yom Kippur. But Mendelsohn had no real Yiras Shamayim. He tried to get on the “good side” of the Goyim in Germany by becoming like them, Rachmana Litzlan (they said that indeed, he was a Goy in a Jewish body).
Notice how those very same Germans perpetrated the worst Holocaust in the history of mankind. (P.S. The Ohr Sameach in his Sefer, Meshech Chochma, forewarned the Holocaust years earlier). Just like the Yetzer Hara; when a person gets on his “good side” and listens to him, in the end he destroys that same person. (Gemara).
One of the #1 fighters against the Haskalah was R' Yisroel Salanter Zatzal. He was constantly bemoaning the fact that we lost our fear of Elul and the Yamim Nora'im.
In Ohr Yisroel he writes how in the olden days people were petrified of Elul, and today it’s all cool, Rachmana Litzlan, with no true fear, Hashem Y’racheim. Notice how he was aiming at the Shoresh of the horrific spiritual decline caused by the Haskalah. Their leader had no fear during Yamim Nora'im.
When did Amalek come and attack us? In: ר פ יד יםִ Refidim, when we became weak (ר ִפ ִה) in Torah and Yiras Shamayim. (Medrash). So our punishment is Amalek, about whom it says: ו ל ֹאִי ר אִאֱ לֹה יםִתצאִכהִיח He had no fear of Hashem. When a Yid loses his “fear” of Hashem, then he invites “fearless” Goyim, Chas V'shalom, who are not “afraid” to be cruel and act like animals.
When the Kol Nidrei niggun moved those Germans in Auschwitz, it tells us how Yom Kippur is the Shoresh of everything. If we would have had a serious Yom Kippur, the Germans would have been totally different people.
Notice how R' Yisroel Salanter Zatzal was also involved in spreading Limud HaMussar. Limud HaMussar means Yiras Shamayim, and R' Yisroel Salanter was the father of the Mussar movement. R' Gershon Liebman Zatzal said that if there would not have been so much antagonism against Mussar, then there would not have been a Holocaust.
How important it is to be Machshiv Mussar. One of the famous Gedolei Yisroel had once been involved in being a: מ ת נ ג ד opponent against Mussar. He was then a young Bachur and a famous: ע ִיילוּ genius. He admitted that later in life he had suffered from a tremendous: פ ִר ִיוֹן drop because of this, & he had great regret for his opposition to Mussar, although he became a true Gadol.
The more you are Machshiv Mussar, the more it helps you. The Velt says: Take your pick: Mussar, or Yissurim, Rachmana Litzlan (they both have the same letters).
