Good evening. With God's help, today is the 22nd of Av. Next week I will be away almost the entire week — perhaps Wednesday and Thursday, but not Sunday, Monday or Tuesday. So today I will also speak about the month of Elul and about Rosh Chodesh Elul.

In any case, Parashat Reeh is always read on the Shabbat when the month of Elul is blessed — so Elul already begins to occupy us within Reeh itself. We will take one idea from the parasha, and then speak about Elul and the days of return that are drawing near.

And thank God, we are already in the second half of Av — the good half.

Rashi does address this question, as many commentators do, and he answers it in a few words:

The Sifsei Chachamim gives an example. The word asher appears at the very end of the Torah:

And the Midrash reads it: "asher you shattered — yishar kochacha, may your strength be firm, that you shattered them." How do we get from asher to yishar koach? This is not ashrecha, not "well done" — it is strength: you had great strength to shatter them. So asher in the holy tongue flows from the root of power.

Idolaters used the asherah tree — why? Because its trunk was exceptionally strong. They reasoned: if we are going to worship a tree, let us take the strongest tree in nature. Not some shrub — a tree that is powerful.

Now see how beautiful this is. "The blessing asher you will listen" — meaning: I am giving you the blessing so that you will have the strength to listen to the commandments of Hashem. Not im, not a chance, not a gamble. The gamble belongs only to the curse.

The very fact that a person is alive, rises in the morning, walks and speaks — the Holy One says: I have already given you the blessing, the strength to listen to My commandments. It is already inside you. And that is precisely what Rashi said in a few words: "on condition that you listen" — I give you the blessing so that by its power you will be able to listen.

A person will say: how am I supposed to put on tefillin? God forbid, my right hand is paralysed — how do I bind them on the left arm? I have no working hand.

As for the curse — God forbid, the Holy One does not give us a curse. How could it be that the Holy One would hand us a curse?

As we said, Parashat Reeh always falls before Rosh Chodesh Elul. Why is the month called Elul? It is an Aramaic word, and it means to search. Where is the proof?

Targum Onkelos renders vayaturu as viyalelun — let them search. To scout, to search — that is Elul. And what are we searching for in Elul?

That is why this is the month of mercy and forgiveness.

And since we are already searching for acronyms — here is the famous one:

Note the order: who begins? I do. Meaning: I must be the one to draw close to the Holy One, and then my Beloved is mine. So what is the difficulty? Shir HaShirim contains the reverse verse:

We find this very dispute in Megillat Eikha, which we read this month. How does Eikha end?

Each side, so to speak, throws it back to the other. Israel says: we have no strength to return — draw close to us, give us the strength. And the Holy One says: you begin.

If I look into a mirror — what do I see? Myself. If I look into water, into a spring — whom do I see? Myself. And if I move my face away, the face in the spring vanishes. So the heart of man to man: if you want to know whether someone loves you — love him, and you will find that he loves you. Each is the reflection of the other.

Where is the proof? In the chapter we recite — "A song of ascents. I lift my eyes to the mountains; from where will my help come?":

Those horses carried the Egyptians in pursuit of Israel, just before the splitting of the sea: "He took six hundred chosen chariots... and officers over them all." Galloping, galloping, galloping.

And that is the comparison: who is the rider? The Holy One. And the horse — that is us. Wherever you take Me, I go with you. So who, as it were, is steering whom? Hashem is your shadow at your right hand: wherever you go, the Holy One says, I am coming with you. Take Me to good places — I am with you, and the abundance is yours. Go elsewhere — then do not come complaining that there is no abundance. Everything we have depends on us alone.

On Rosh Hashana we bless: "Blessed are You, Hashem... who sanctified us with His commandments and commanded us to hear the sound of the shofar." And what does the ba'al toke'a do the instant the blessing ends? He blows.

Yet halakha states that if you did not hear it, you have not fulfilled the mitzva (we have whole halakhot about one who blows into a pit). So how does it work? The Holy One hears the blast through our ears. He hears the sound only after you have heard it — not the raw blast, but what has passed through our hearing. And that is exactly "Hashem is your shadow."

And this is "Return us to You, Hashem, and we shall return" — He blows through us, and we return. That is how mercy is awakened. And with God's help, this is the blast of the King Mashiach: the great shofar.

And with this I will close: what does to hear the sound of the shofar mean? In the holy tongue, "to hear" is not to listen — it is to understand. When you want to say in Hebrew that you have understood, you say shamati, I heard: I heard with my ears, and I also understood.

Shlomo HaMelech did not ask for hearing ears but for a hearing heart — for the heart is what understands. Binah sits in the heart, and it is the heart that hears and comprehends.