So when the Chasam Sofer was a child, his Rabbi, R'' Natan Adler, would make sure that he wouldn't look at anything that was tamei. He didn't want him to see a dog, didn't want him to see a cat, didn't want him to see a pig, a non-kosher bird, he didn't want him to look at non-Jews. So people thought that this was like crazy, extreme. Nobody did this. There's no halachah that says you're not allowed to look at a dog. There's no halachah that says you can't look at a pig. There's in the Kitvei HaAri that you shouldn't look at an animal that's tamei, but no one kept that. Everyone walks in the street, everyone sees horses, everyone sees birds, dogs, pigs. Why was R'' Natan Adler so extreme with the Chasam Sofer? So the story goes that R'' Natan Adler said that when the Chasam Sofer was a child, R'' Natan Adler saw that the Chasam Sofer had a... and then by taking it, לקיחה.

Over here, it says, ויראו בני האלהים את בנות האדם כי טובות הנה ויקחו להם נשים מכל אשר בחרו. It doesn't mention חמדה. It goes straight from ראיה to לקיחה. Why does it skip the חמדה? The Kli Yakar asks this kashya. Why does it omit the חמדה? And the Kli Yakar explains that a person only has חמדה when there is a מונע, when there is something preventing him from taking what he wants. If a person sees something and he cannot have it right away, it stays in his heart, he desires it, he covets it, and then eventually he takes it. But if a person is powerful, if a person has the ability to take whatever he wants whenever he wants, and nobody can stand in his way, nobody can stop him, there is no interval between the ראיה and the לקיחה. As soon as he sees it, he takes it immediately. And therefore, by בני האלהים, since they were the שרים and the שופטים, they were the powerful rulers of the generation and nobody could stop them, there was no מונע. And since there was no מונע, there was no חמדה. It went immediately from ראיה to לקיחה: ויראו בני האלהים, and right away ויקחו להם נשים מכל אשר בחרו. The Kli Yakar also gives a second terutz. דבר אחר, כי טובות הנה, that was the חמדה. When a person desires something, he expresses that it is good in his eyes. Now, why does the Torah call them בני האלהים? Because Elokim means judges, שופטים, like we find in the תורה, עד האלהים יבא דבר שניהם, אלהים לא תקלל. They were the judges, the aristocracy, the leaders of society who were supposed to uphold law and order. And what did they do? ויקחו להם נשים מכל אשר בחרו. Rashi brings from the Midrash, מכל אשר בחרו, even an אשת איש, a married woman, even זכר, even בהמה. They took whatever they wanted, and nobody could say a word to them. This led to the total השחתה of the generation, כי השחית כל בשר את דרכו על הארץ. And the Gemara in Sanhedrin tells us, לא נחתם גזר דינם אלא על הגזל. Even though they were guilty of arayot, and they were guilty of avodah zarah, the final decree, the גזר דין, was only sealed because of גזל, כי מלאה הארץ חמס מפניהם. Why? Because when it comes to עבירות between a person and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, בין אדם למקום, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is mevater, He waits patiently for teshuvah. But when it comes to bein adam lachavero, when the powerful exploit the weak, when there is corruption and theft and nobody can stop it, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu will not tolerate. That is when the גזר דין is sealed. When the very people who are supposed to enforce justice, the שופטים, the בני האלהים, are the ones committing the crimes, the entire society falls apart. There is no one left to fix it. And that is why Hakadosh Baruch Hu brought the Mabul and destroyed the entire world, and only Noach, who was an איש צדיק תמים בדורותיו, was saved.

The Ramban famously understands the beginning of קדושים תהיו to mean that a person could theoretically observe every single law in the Torah and still be an awful, despicable person who's completely removed from God. He calls this a naval birshut haTorah, a person who indulges in every physical pleasure permitted by the Torah, but entirely loses the point. Because the Torah didn't explicitly forbid it, he thinks it's okay. The phrase used to describe such a person, naval birshut haTorah, is completely brilliant, because not only does it identify the problem of taking the laws of the Torah and twisting them into something awful, but it also reflects the complete failure to internalize what the Torah is truly all about. A person like that isn't really observing the Torah in any meaningful way. If keeping the laws of the Torah leads a person to indulge in self-gratification and lose all connection with what God wants, that person is entirely missing the point. They're a naval birshut haTorah, a scoundrel with the permission of the Torah, and their understanding of קדושים תהיו is deeply, fundamentally flawed. Let's pause to contemplate that idea and see what we can learn from it for our own lives. How does a person avoid falling into this trap? What does it truly mean to be קדוש? And how can we make sure that our religious observance is bringing us closer to God, rather than taking us further away? To answer that, let's take a look at the commentary of the Ramban, and see what he has to say. He begins by pointing out that after the Torah gives us all of the specific commandments regarding forbidden relationships and forbidden foods, it adds this general command: קדושים תהיו. Why did the Torah need to add this general command, if it already gave us all the details? The Ramban explains that a person could easily keep all the details and still be entirely immersed in materialism. He could eat permissible foods in a disgusting, gluttonous way, he could indulge in physical pleasures permitted by the Torah without any restraint, and he could speak in an inappropriate, vulgar way, because none of those things were explicitly forbidden by the specific commandments. And so the Torah comes along and gives us a general command: קדושים תהיו. Be holy. Sanctify yourself even in that which is permitted to you. Don't just look for what's forbidden, and assume that everything else is a free-for-all. Look for what God wants from you in every aspect of your life, and bring holiness into everything that you do. That's the true meaning of קדושים תהיו. It's not just about avoiding sin, it's about actively pursuing holiness. It's about taking the physical world and elevating it, rather than letting it drag us down. When a person understands that this is the goal, everything changes. Religious observance is no longer a checklist of do's and don'ts, it becomes a holistic way of life that elevates every moment and every action. And that's why the command of קדושים תהיו is so central to the entire Torah. It's the overarching principle that gives meaning to all of the specific details. Without it, the details can be twisted into something unrecognizable, but with it, they become a path to true holiness and closeness to God. This idea, that holiness is about restraint and elevation, is not unique to the Ramban. We find it echoed throughout our tradition. In the Gemara in Masechet Yevamot, the Chachamim teach us: קדש עצמך במותר לך, sanctify yourself in that which is permitted to you. This is the exact same principle that the Ramban is articulating. It's not enough to merely refrain from that which is forbidden. We have to exercise restraint and self-control even in the realm of the permissible. Why? Because the ultimate goal is not just to follow rules, it's to become a holy person. And becoming a holy person requires us to master our desires, rather than let our desires master us. When we give in to every desire just because it's technically permitted, we become enslaved to our physical drives. But when we exercise restraint, when we choose to step back even when we don't strictly have to, we demonstrate that our physical desires don't control us. We control them, and we choose to dedicate our lives to something higher, to something holy.

Because usually in life, whether in professional life, in social life, and sometimes even in religious life, what matters most is the bottom line, the outcome. What's the bottom line? And we judge the outcome. The question of how you got there, did you sweat? Did you give it your all? Did you sleep less? Did you feel the burden? Did you put in sweat, blood, and tears? That's not the ultimate question. The ultimate question is results. Did you succeed? Did you fail? Did you do good? Did you do bad? Is this a good result? A bad result? Judged by the outcome, bottom line. Torah, Judaism, and especially Chasidut comes and revolutionizes that entire model. It says, you think the outcome is what matters? The outcome is in the hands of Hashem. It's completely not your business. How can you be judged by that which is out of your control? The question isn't outcome. The question is effort. There is a famous story with the Rabbi Maharash, the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Shmuel of Lubavitch, that he took ill in his life, and the doctors commanded him that he has to do every day some wood chopping. He has to cut wood, which is physical labor. It would strengthen his lungs, his body, wood chopping. So he was chopping wood. One day, a simple woodchopper passed by and he saw the Rebbe chopping wood. He looked at him and smiled. He said, Rebbe, you're not doing it right. You're chopping wood, but you're not sweating. He said, what do you mean? The pieces of wood are getting chopped. The logs are becoming cut up into small pieces. The woodchopper said, it's true, you're cutting wood, but if you don't sweat, you're not chopping wood. To chop wood means you gotta sweat, give it your all, put your muscles into it. The Rebbe said, that's an incredible lesson. You could do a mitzvah, you could be an eved Hashem, but you're not sweating. There's no perspiration, there's no exertion, there's no yegiah. Chopping wood means you gotta sweat. The main thing is, are you sweating? Did you do your best? Did you give it your all? I remember my father telling me in the name of his grandfather a story of the Alter Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Ladi, the founder of Chabad, he had a Chasid, a very successful merchant, a very, very wealthy merchant. And then he had a brother, his brother was also a merchant, but wasn't successful at all, a failure. Everything he touched, the opposite of the Midas touch, everything he touched turned to ashes, didn't work. So, the wealthy brother, he had this arrogance, this haughtiness, this smugness. Look at me, I'm a successful man. Look at you, what a loser. His poor brother came into the Alter Rebbe, he was crying. The Alter Rebbe called the wealthy brother. He said to him, listen to me, do you think you have a better head for business than your brother? Do you think you're working harder than your brother? Your brother has as good a head as you, and he works just as hard, if not harder than you. The difference is that Hashem decided to bless you, and to challenge him. You have nothing to boast about, because your wealth is not a result of your genius, it's a result of a divine blessing. In fact, you're failing your test because of your smugness and arrogance, and your brother is succeeding in his test because of his emunah and bitachon. And this is true in everything in life. Everything we do, success is a gift from God. The outcome is not yours. The only thing you can do is the effort. That's why the reward is for the effort. That's why the Mishnah says, לפום צערא אגרא. According to the pain, the effort, is the reward. And they all point to the same thing, that the primary cause of assimilation is a lack of Jewish education. They say the cure for assimilation is Jewish education. And of course, education in general, Jewish education specifically, depends on the home. It depends on having a mother and a father, on having children, on having a Jewish home, a warm home. As I pointed out before, the word bayit, and bayit is connected to av, it's connected to father, it's connected to building blocks. A home is a place where you have a mother and a father and children.

Maybe over there we say that אכילת בשר ושתיית יין is an aveirah, because you're turning yourself happy when you're supposed to be heartbroken. Maybe over there that's true. Whereas, whereas over here, by the nine days, or by שבוע שחל בו, or by thirty days, since the chiyuv is not on a person, you're not an avel, so maybe over there, since there's no chovah to be sad, there's only that we're supposed to avoid things that are mesameach, we're supposed to avoid things that bring simchah, and the minhag was not to eat meat and wine, so over there, the eating of meat and wine is not an aveirah in of itself. It's just that there's a minhag not to eat meat and wine.