Landlord. And finally he got his wish. Finally the landlord gets a heart attack and dies.
Now this man tells me an entire story. He and his landlord weren't on speaking terms. Of course it's all his side. The landlord is no good, he's wicked. Now, this landlord could never raise the rent because it was a rent-controlled apartment. The tenant was paying $38 since 1970! For a big apartment!
And that wasn’t enough for him. He was a malshin too. He went to the government more than once to complain against this poor landlord. For the $38 he wasn't getting enough services. And the landlord finally got a broken heart and he died.
Now this man doesn't know that he's a complete failure. He pats himself on the back as he tells me the story of what a good man he is. He recounts his virtues. He davens so well, he learns well. He gets along with Hashem very well. But I know he's a failure because with his landlord he's a complete failure. It’s impossible that he should get along with Hashem.
Worldwide Success
You have to succeed with your landlord. You have to succeed with your children. You have to succeed with your neighbors. You have to succeed with the goyim on your block. If you succeed to the best of your abilities, then you're going to succeed with Hakadosh Baruch Hu too because your relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu depends on your character.
And so middos is a fundamental criterion of a person's relationship to Hashem. That’s why it’s so important to have an ambition to work on ourselves, to get into our minds an ambition to be perfect. Because not only will we be more successful in this world, with people, with our friends, but we’ll be more successful with our most important Friend, Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Part III. Chanukah Loyalty
Focus on Loyalty
Now, this principle is so big, so all-encompassing, that each middah deserves a long discussion for itself, how it plays out in our relationship with Hashem. But for the time being that’s all we’re going to say about middos in general because the maamar Chazal we began with tonight is teaching us this principle specifically in the middah of loyalty.
The Chachomim, with their sharp eyes, saw that it was Yosef’s loyalty to his master — he wasn’t his master in Torah by the way; he was a gentile slaveowner — but that’s what made Yosef successful with Hashem. It was in Potiphar’s house that he climbed the ladder of loyalty to Hashem.
And therefore if a man claims, “I am an eved Hashem. I am loyal to Hashem. Oh yes, with mesiras nefesh!” but when it comes to his flesh and blood master, he is a crook, then forget about his claim. Even if he has a long laundry list of excuses and he wants to retaliate and stick up for his rights as a member of the proletariat, it won’t help a bit.
If when it comes to taking a salary, he takes the full salary, but when it comes to delivering work, he cheats his master and doesn't work loyally, so you have every reason to disbelieve him when he claims to be an eved ne'eman to Hashem. Because it’s against his nature! He may profess loyalty, but it’s only a superficiality. Loyalty has to be something that is applied to everybody, to man and to Hashem. And if he won’t apply it to man, it’s not true he is loyal to Hashem. Only if you're working on being a ne'eman to a basar v’dam master, then you have some hope of working your way up the ladder and becoming a ne'eman to the real Master, Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
Loyalty at Home
Not only with a boss. You have to succeed with loyalty to your wife too. וֹּ ̇¿ׁ ̆ƒ‡ ¿ּב ָ̃ בַ„ ¿ו – A man has to cling to his wife. He has to be loyal to his wife through thick and thin. It’s poshut that way because he’s not being loyal only to her—by being a dovak b’ishto, he is actually being a dovak baHashem.
Like it states, ∆ם≈ יכ ֹ̃ל¡‡ 'ַהּב יםƒ ̃ב≈¿ּ„הַ ∆ םּ ַ̇‡ ¿ו – You who are dovak, loyal, to Hashem through thick and thin, וֹםּהַי כ∆ם¿ּלּוּכ יםƒּחַ י – that’s called living successfully. And who doesn’t want that? To live successfully!
But the test is: can you be loyal to your fellow man? Are you loyal to your spouse? Are you loyal to your rebbi, to your yeshiva? If not, then it’s merely lip service to say that you’ll be loyal to Hashem. Because it’s easy to say words of loyalty to someone that you don’t see, but when you have to be tested with the acid test of being loyal to a bosor v’dom, a wife or an employer or a friend, and you can withstand that test, then actually you’re ready for the greater dveikus of 'ַהּב יםƒ ̃ב≈¿ּ„הַ ∆ םּ ַ̇‡ ¿ו.
The Ladder of Loyalty
And so when we come back to Yosef Hatzaddik, we can understand better now what Chazal are telling us that what Yosef did in the house of Potiphar, the loyalty he evinced by working dutifully for his boss, that’s why Hakadosh Baruch Hu freed him eventually and made him the mishneh lamelech.
Because Yosef wasn't serving Potiphar. He was, but that wasn’t it; he was serving Hakadosh Baruch Hu. When Yosef Hatzaddik was doing his utmost for the benefit of his master's property, he was doing it in order to ascend the ladder of greatness; he was working himself over, perfecting his character in order to be a better servant of Hashem.
That’s why he didn't grumble and try to get out of it by saying, “I'm here against my will and I'll be disloyal to my master. I was sold into this, and therefore why should I be loyal?”
The Unhappy Teacher
It’s like the yeshiva man, let's say, who has to leave the kollel. He needs parnassah and so he takes a job teaching in the afternoon Hebrew school. But he has excuses—he doesn’t want to be there anyhow. He wants to be back in the kollel, only that because of the kesubah, the kinyan he made, so he had to sell himself into slavery. So number one, he comes ten minutes late. They’re not paying him enough anyhow—that’s his excuse. And now the children are breaking up all the furniture in the meantime.
Now, this man was hired to get paid, not so much for teaching them. He’s getting paid to guard the furniture of the Hebrew school.
יםƒ„לָ¿י רּימּ וƒׁ ̆ כַר¿ׂ ̆ – He has to guard the children they shouldn't run out in the street and get hurt by cars (Nedarim 37a). That's the main job, כַר¿ׂ ̆ רּימּ וƒׁ ̆. If he'll teach them anything, good and well, but the main purpose is that the children shouldn't break the furniture and shouldn't get run over. And he was ten minutes late.
And then in the middle, he goes out and lights a cigarette. Of course he shouldn't do that even on break because there's no smoking in that building. There are signs. But no smoking signs are only for fools, not for wise guys. He doesn’t have to be loyal to the rules. And so he stands and smokes a cigarette, talking to another fellow from the next-door class, and in the meantime, the kids are raising the roof in both rooms.
Yosef’s Rise to Greatness
No, Yosef was just the opposite. He said, “I’m a slave to Potiphar, and I'm going to be the best possible one I can be.” He had more of a reason than the Hebrew school teacher to be lazy, but he knew that all of life is a preparation for serving Hashem. He knew what the Gra said—he was before the Gra but he knew it—that whatever he would be in bein adam lachaveiro, that’s who he would be bein adam laMakom.
And therefore, Yosef’s loyalty in the house of Potiphar wasn’t just loyalty to Potiphar, to a gentile boss. It was a reflection of his nature, of the traits that he had developed. And it was that perfection of character, the middah of loyalty, that Hashem was looking for, and that's why he succeeded; that's why Hakadosh Baruch Hu was matzliach him.
And that’s a lesson the Chachomim want us to take away from this episode, that the loyalty of a person in his daily life, among his fellow human beings, that’s what Hashem is looking for. ı∆ר∆‡ נ≈י¿∆מ‡נ∆¿ּב ≈ﬠ ינ ַי – My eyes are always looking for the loyal ones, יƒ„מָּƒע ׁ̇∆ ב∆ ̆לָ – those are the ones I want sitting by My side (Tehillim 101:6). They’re the ones who find favor in His eyes most because it’s there that He’ll find the fertile soil of loyalty to Hashem.
Mattisyahu Arrives
Now, before we end our gathering for tonight and daven Maariv, I don't want to forget to mention the theme of the day. Tomorrow night is Chanukah, and I wanted therefore to talk to you about one of the heroes of Chanukah, and that’s Mattisyahu.
You know, we don't know anything about Mattisyahu's past. We never heard of him before Chanukah. All of a sudden, he appears on the scene, a hero who is raising the banner of loyalty to Hashem, a kana'i who is fighting for kavod Shamayim. From where did such a greatness of character burst into our history?
It’s a big question because you have to know that there’s no such thing as becoming truly great suddenly, overnight. You think that out of thin air, he became a loyal eved Hashem, someone willing to put everything on the line for his loyalty? No, that’s not how it works.
All the Days of Mattisyahu
The answer is that Mattisyahu, he was an elderly man by that time, and we have to say that he had lived a long life of loyalty. You can be sure if you'd examine Mattisyahu's career, you would see that he was loyal to everything. He had lived a life of mesiras nefesh for tikkun hamiddos because he understood that he was getting his training to be ne'eman to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
And so he didn’t shirk his responsibilities to his wife. He didn’t shirk his responsibility to his children. He didn’t shirk his responsibilities to his parents and to his employer and to his neighbors and community. And that’s why when the time came he didn't shirk his responsibilities to Hashem either. Otherwise, a man who shirks his job to his fellow man will try to get out of doing the job for Hakadosh Baruch Hu too. “Let other people do it. I'm an elderly man. Let other people fight the battle of the Torah.”
No! He was an eved ne'eman. All of his life, all ofּיָהו¿ ̇יƒּ ̇מַ ימ ≈יƒּב, he was fiercely loyal, and that’s why he was able to stand up to the greatest test of loyalty that man can face. He had trained himself all his life in being a loyal person, and as a result he was a ne'eman no matter what.
The Loyal Chashmonaim
And so, when he saw that the Yevanim with their powerful army and wealthy government were undertaking a gezeiras hashmad against the nation and everything seemed to be lost—“What’s the use of being loyal?” the weaklings said. “We’re being slaughtered! It’s a lost cause!”—that’s when Mattisyahu and others like him were able to muster their strength, the strength of loyalty, the loyalty muscles they had exercised all their lives. And Mattisyahu told the people, “Chas v’shalom! We're not lost! We’re loyal till the end! Even if we have to run and hide in the caves and suffer every kind of discomfort and peril for Hashem.”
Something like that requires strong loyalty. In the caves there were no longer any medicines available. There was no longer any heating when it was cold. You didn't have water when you wanted to drink. You didn't have food. They lived like animals. They lived with diseases. You understand how they fell like flies many times to the elements. Rain, wetness, discomfort. In addition the enemy didn't sit quietly. They pursued them into the caves. They slaughtered them in the caves. And if they caught them, they inflicted the worst tortures on them.
But loyalty is loyalty, and Mattisyahu said, “≈לַי‡ לַה׳ יƒמ – Whoever is loyal to Hashem come with me. We’ll suffer and maybe even worse, but because of our loyalty we’re going to outlast all the nations!”
And that’s what happened. A small group of Jews rose up in loyalty to Hashem and that’s when Hashem did nissim for the Am Yisroel. Because they deserved it! They deserved it because of their perfection of character—it was their perfection of character that resulted in their mesiras nefesh.
The Ladder to Eternity
And therefore, when a person knows that by being loyal, that’s the first step towards loyalty to Hashem, that should be enough incentive for his whole life. All his life, he goes out of his way to be loyal to his friends and his wife and his children—even to the rov of his shul he can be loyal—and he’s perfecting his character for the relationship that matters most.
Of course, you have to do more than that—there are other middos too, and there’s Torah and mitzvos. But you have to know that this is already a ladder, a ladder of loyalty.
It’s a ָהˆ ¿ַר‡ ָבּˆּמו ָםּסול, a ladder that’s standing on the ground among people, but it’s מָה¿ָׁ מַיּ ̆הַ ַיﬠƒּ‚מַׁ וֹ ̆‡רֹ, it takes you all the way up to Hashem. And it’s a ladder that every man and woman, every boy and girl, can start climbing: Be loyal to everyone around you! And once you're steadfast and loyal to flesh and blood, to your wife and your husband and your neighbors and friends and your boss, then you can climb higher and higher and be zocheh to be an eved ne'eman to Hashem!
Have a Wonderful Shabbos
