The following is a brief summary of some of thoughts said over by R' Frand in his annual Teshuva Derasha which was broadcast live from Baltimore on the TCN network this evening. I summarized the first part of the shiur in a post from Thursday evening (
http://kosherbeers.blogspot.com/2019/10/thursdays-thoughts-on-teshuva-rabbi.html) and am attempting to summarize the rest of the derasha in this post. This was a very powerful derasha and my attempt to summarize should not be viewed as an exact transcript as it is based on my notes. Any perceived inconsistency is the result of my efforts to transcribe the shiur and should not be attributed to R' Frand.
The next section of the derasha began with a story involving R' Yossi Heber, the brother of R' Dovid Heber from Baltimore. He had been working in marketing and landed a big account - Kraft Jello. Now because Jello is not kosher, he could sample the product he was marketing. Yet he worked diligently on finding a way to market it albeit, without ever tasting it. He had a co-worker "Nancy" who told him how impressed she was with the way that he stayed with the account and that if she had that will power she would have lost 30 lbs. This is a lesson on living life about CD (cognitive dissonance - see first post).
R' Frand then noted that in the description of non kosher animals in Parshas Shemini there are four animals who have only one kosher sign, including the pig. In describing the pig's signs the Torah states "וְאֶת־הַֽ֠חֲזִ֠יר כִּֽי־מַפְרִ֨יס פַּרְסָ֜ה ה֗וּא וְשֹׁסַ֥ע שֶׁ֨סַע֙ פַּרְסָ֔ה וְה֖וּא גֵּרָ֣ה לֹֽא־יִגָּ֑ר טָמֵ֥א ה֖וּא לָכֶֽם". But why does the Torah tell us that it has a kosher sign (and even mention it first) if the bottom line is that without two kosher signs its not kosher? R' Frand quoted the Klei Yakar who explained that if the animal has only one sign it is more disgusting from no signs. Similarly, remarked R' Frand people will assume that with one kosher attribute they are OK and will not want to try and will have a more difficult time doing teshuva.
R' Frand gave suggestions to avoid CD. He first discussed being a diligent worker and noted that Ya'akov was mentioned eight times by the Rambam in the Yad Chazakah, but only one time was he called Ya'akov HaTzadik. This occurred in the discussion of how Ya'akov worked diligently for Lavan, even though Lavan was stealing from him. Regardless of how your employer treats you, you as the employee must give an honest days work.
R' Frand mentioned a statistic that the average American worker spends more than an hour a day on internet sites unrelated to work. And this is in addition to time lost from work for personal calls, texting, phone apps and the like.
R' Frand told a story about his father in law R' Ya'akov Blumenkrantz ztl who would ride the bus to raise money for the yeshiva. One day a man offered him a ride back to the yeshiva so that he would not need to take the bus. The next day he walked into the yeshiva office and put the bus fare that he had been advanced by the yeshiva on the desk, as he had not taken the bus and did not want to improperly keep the nickel.
R' Frand stated that the Al Cheit for Massa U'Matan means treating customers, competitors, employees and workers with honesty.
R' Frand also mentioned that people pay lip service to the concept that a person's financials are set by Hashem on Rosh Hashanah, but if we really believed that, we would not attempt to cut corners. He told a story about a Rav who sold his airline miles and was prepared to redeem $3,000 of airline miles, but did not go forward with the transaction because he was informed that the airlines said that the practice was illegal. He did not attempt to verify whether the airlines were correct that it was illegal, but accepted that they believed that it was illegal and did not proceed with the transaction.
He also talked about being careful with relationship boundaries in the workplace and told a story about a salesman who gave his file for his biggest client to his manager and told him that he could not service the account anymore. The salesman explained that he was too attracted to the buyer to continue doing business with that account. This is living without CD.
R' Frand also referenced a book by Ari Wasserman called Making It All Work - Women Surviving and Thriving in the Workplace. He mentioned anecdotes and examples of how familiarity, even in an atmosphere of frum employees, can cause lines to blur as working together can cause people to feel others in the workplace, even if they did not act on it.
R' Frand also spoke about avoiding CD and sending mixed messages to the family by going places and doing things on vacation that would not be done at home. He talked about a trip to Cypress Gardens (a forerunner to Epcot) where they encountered a Mennonite family who remarked that they come to that park because other theme parks were not the proper environment for their family.
R' Frand talked about we want our children to come to shul to daven, but do we give them the right example? People go to Kiddush club rather than hear the Haftorah, or stop in at multiple Kiddushes on the way home from shul, causing the family to wait an hour to start lunch, before he then falls asleep midway through the meal from all the scotch at the prior Kiddushes.
R' Frand told a story about Dovy Kurland whose 100 year old father did not learn in school and learned his Judaism from being in shul. He asked his son - why would you need a sign to tell people not to speak in shul? To him it was a given. He also told a story he heard from Shmuel Hyatt who went to the aufruf of the grandson of the Sanzer Rebbi. There were 22 aliyos and not a word spoken between aliyos. Why? Because there was a problem of speaking between aliyos and the Rebbi decided that speaking would be banned. He had to post ushers and even so there were fights and people had to be removed from shul. But it was important to him that the talking stop and the result was that 22 aliyah shabbos with no speaking.
R' Frand gave another example of CD from the story about Eliyahu confronting the prophets of Ba'al and asking for how long will you straddle both sides - worshiping Hashem one day and the Avodah Zarah another. It was not that he wished them to worship Avodah Zarah, but he could deal with them if they did, but not if they tried to do both.
The same symptoms can be seen Rivka. She was concerned about the child in her womb until she found out that the reason that it kicked in seeming contradictory times was that it was two different children and she had a rasha and a tzaddik. But why was she happy when she knew that there was a rasha inside as well? Because at least she knew that it was not one person acting in two different directions.
R' Frand noted that the final Ashamnu is "Teetanu." This is learned from Ya'akov who protested that he did not want to be C'Mtaateah - a liar or a faker.
R' Frand noted that at the end of Yom Kippur we say the Hashem Hu Ha'Elokim 7 times. This was the response from the Jewish people when Eliyahu confronted the prophets of Ba'al. Why do we say this at the end of Yom Kippur? Because after Elul and Rosh Hashanah and the 10 days of repentance, Eliyahu comes and asks - how long will you straddle both sides? To this we need to respond with full force - Hashem Hu Ha'Elokim - I will make a change and wont live with CD - I will recognize Hashem fully.
May we all iyh have mechil gemura as a result of our teshuva.
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