At the beginning of Parshas Devarim, we read a very important Rashi. It teaches something so fundamental, so deep, that it tells you everything about how we’re supposed to speak to people when they’ve done something wrong.
Moshe Rabbeinu is giving rebuke. But he doesn’t start by pointing fingers. He doesn’t call anyone out. Instead, he names places; places where they sinned: Di Zahav, Chatzeiros, Paran... He’s reminding them of what they did, but not by spelling it out. He’s saying it indirectly, as if, “Remember what happened in Las Vegas?” He doesn’t say what the person did in Las Vegas, but they know and they remember.
That’s the brilliance of Moshe Rabbeinu. Where did he learn this method? He learned it from Hashem Himself.
Think back to Adam HaRishon. After he ate from the Eitz HaDaas, Hashem didn’t yell or scream. He just said, “Ayeka—Where are you?” Of course Hashem knew where Adam was. Why then did he ask this question? Because he wanted to give Adam the chance to come forward, to admit it. To own it.
And what did Adam do? He said, “I was afraid because I was unclothed, so I hid.” Hashem then said, “Who told you that? Did you eat from the tree?” Again, a question. Not a statement. Hashem was giving Adam the space to take responsibility.
But instead, Adam blamed Chava. “The woman You gave me is at fault. She gave me from the Eitz HaDaas...” This same blaming continued when Chava blamed the snake. No one owned what they did. And that was the problem. Rashi says that was the real aveira. Adam didn’t say, “I’m sorry. I messed up.” He blamed someone else.
And that’s why Moshe Rabbeinu, when giving rebuke, doesn’t tell Bnei Yisrael what they did wrong. He just mentions where they did it. Why? Because when you accuse someone directly, you own the rebuke. But when you speak indirectly, they own it.
If you scream at someone—your child, your student, anyone—they just think you’re out of control. “My rebbi's yelling again. My father’s always on edge.” But when you speak in a way that helps them realize it themselves, that’s when it sinks in, that’s when they grow, that’s when they take ownership.
And the truth is, this generation has a big problem: we don’t own things.
Everything is someone else’s fault. Our father, our mother, our school, the system, the world. Our therapist said it’s because we had a hard childhood. And maybe we did. Maybe we had trauma. We should never minimize that. But if nothing is our fault, then nothing is ours to fix. We’ve handed over our life to everyone else. And if we don’t own our stuff, how will we fix it? When we don’t take responsibility, the whole world owes us, and we become a victim. And then the world is supposed to give us a trip here, a therapy session there, and make everything okay because we’ve decided it’s not our fault.
That’s not Judaism. That’s not Torah.
Rashi says that Moshe made sure to state the rebuke to everyone, to all of Klal Yisrael together, because if he said it to just some of them, and those people repeated it to the others, the rest would say, “Oh, if I had been there, I would’ve answered Moshe back. I would’ve told him what’s what.”
But he said it to everyone. He said it “El kol Yisrael.” Everyone was present and everyone heard it firsthand, and Moshe paused and gave them a chance to respond. “Anyone want to say something? Anyone want to answer me?”
No one said a word. They owned it.
And that’s why, immediately after that rebuke, Moshe gives them a bracha: “Hashem Elokei Avoseichem yosef aleichem kachem elef pe’amim—Hashem should bless you and multiply you a thousand-fold.”
Wait a second! You just rebuked them, and now you’re blessing them? Yes. If a person takes responsibility, if they accept the rebuke, they deserve a bracha.
Let me tell you something personal.
I used to play hockey, big time. One day, I had a huge game in Monsey. The ice was terrible: too warm with water on top, and that slows you down. It was slow ice, as they say, and very hard to skate.
I came home late that night, and saw my father. “So, how’d the game go?” he asked. I told him, “Ugh, terrible! The ice was so slow, I couldn’t skate properly.”
And my father said, “Oh, Zechariah, you lost.” “I didn’t say we lost!” I replied. “How do you know we lost?” He looked at me and said words I will never forgot: “Winners don’t make excuses.” Nobody ever says, “Let me tell you why I won...” Above us, this is a mindset. It’s how you look at the world. Do you live life as a winner, doing your very best, and if something doesn’t go right, you take responsibility for the part that you could do better next time? Or do you adopt a losing attitude, and when things go wrong, you shift the blame and turn responsibility over to someone else?
Here’s a story.
There was once a Jew who never davened, never learned, and never put on tefillin. After 120 years, he comes to the Beis Din Shel Ma’alah. “What happened?” they ask. “It’s not my fault!” he says. “My parents were secular, and I never learned how to read Hebrew. I couldn’t daven and I couldn’t learn. It wasn’t me. I didn’t know.”
So they give him a pass. Literally. A passport, signed by three rabbanim: “This Jew is allowed to go to Gan Eden or Gehinnom anytime he wants.” In and out, as he pleases. So he goes to Gan Eden... but he doesn’t know anyone. It’s boring and quiet with shiurim all day. Not for him. So he tries Gehinnom.
And wow—it’s a party. Fire, music, people, energy. He’s amazed with the crowd. Until they tell him that in five minutes, Shabbos will be over, and he won’t want to be there anymore. Sure enough, five minutes later, the heat hits. The fellow runs to the gate to leave, but the angel stops him: “You can’t leave without a passport.” “I have one! Here, take a look!”
The angel grabs it, and begins looking at it, this way, and that way... And then he throws it into the fire. “What are you doing?” yells the man. “That’s my only way out!” “What did it say in the passport?” asks the angel. “Because I couldn’t read, I can enter and exit Gan Eden and Gehinnom anytime I want. Why did you throw it into the fire? Can’t you read!” The angel looks back at the man. “No, they never taught me how to read up here.”
Always remember, winners have no excuses.
I was very close with Rabbi Ronnie Greenwald, zt”l. He was a master in reaching teens. One day I was visiting Camp Sternberg, and I saw him talking with a girl who had piercings and tattoos. When she walked out, he turned to me and said something that hit me. “You see the tattoos, the piercings? That’s not Chani. That’s her trauma. Chani is underneath all that. Beneath, that’s the real Chani.”
“So you’re helping with the trauma,” I said. “Great. But who’s helping the real Chani? Who’s helping Chani’s neshama? Who’s helping her find Torah, mitzvos, Yiddishkeit?”
Because here’s the truth: the world is full of trauma. But if we stay on the floor, if we stay stuck, if we let our excuses define us, we’re done.
Tisha B’av is full of trauma. We read the Kinnos—mothers eating children, arrows raining down on young boys, hundreds of girls jumping off boats to escape Roman slavery, the Beis Hamikdash burning, our people being slaughtered. It’s overwhelming. But Hashem says: “I’m with you in the pain.” You can sit on the floor. You can cry. You can mourn. But not forever.
At chatzos, we get up. Why? Because we can’t stay in the trauma. We can cry, we can scream, and we can fall, but we have to get back up. The same people who are crying over the worst tragedies in Jewish history, just a few hours later, they’re in the bakery, buying bagels and lox for the break-fast.
Why? Because we’re not allowed to stay on the floor. You have a right to be a victim and you have a right to cry. But you also have a responsibility to become a survivor. To take that pain and rebuild with it. That’s the message of Tisha B’av.
We cry. We remember. We mourn. But then? We get up. We keep going. Because Am Yisrael doesn’t end on the floor. We rebuild from the ashes.
