We continue going through the sefer Tomar Devorah, which talks about God's Thirteen attributes of mercy and how we are supposed to emulate them. We are up to the third Middah, which is called the V’Over Al Pesha / He passes over sin. . “ This is a great attribute, ” says the Tomar Devorah, “ because God's forgiveness is not through a messenger. God Himself forgives ," as it says Ki Imcha Haselicha/With You, is forgiveness. And what is the Selicha ? God washes away the dirt of the sin… and he quotes two Pesukim: Yeshaya 4,4, אם רחץ ה׳ את צאת בנות ציון “If God will clean and wash the excrement of the daughters of Sion,” and Yehezkiel 36, 25 says, וזרקתי עליכם מים טהורים I will sprinkle upon you purifying waters. And that's what Over Al Pesha means, that God Himself cleanses the sin. When a person sins, it creates negative forces. It creates dirt, smells, odors. It's not something that we can pick up on, but actually, in Parashat Toldot, when Esav came in to Yitzhak, it says he smelled the smell of Gehinom that came in with him. And when Yaakov walks in, he smells the smell of Gan Eden on him. This is because our sins and our Mitzvot produce different forces, different energies. In the Sephardic prayers on Rosh Hashanah, it says, “ My sins, if my friends would smell them, they would run and stay far away.” Sins smell. And not only doesn't God walk away from us, but He, so to say, changes the diapers, which is something that only a mother does. Rav Yitzhak Blazer gives the mashal that if a stranger saw a child that was all soiled, he’d walk out to the other room. He wouldn’t want anything to do with him. Only a mother comes in with love and a hug. Ignoring the smell, she cleans the child in the most delicate of fashions, until he comes out sparkle and clean. And that is , kal v’yachol, what Hashem does for us. He cleans up our mess. Now, what does that have to do with us? Says the Tomar Devorah, That's the way man has to act. He shouldn't say, ‘I have to fix what he messed up?’ No. A person has to say, ‘if God Himself cleans up our mess, we have to clean up the other person's mess.’ That means, practically speaking, that if somebody causes a problem in a business, in a school, etc, you are now going to go and fix up their mess. That takes a tremendous amount of self-control. And sometimes it’s a situation of I told you so. You many find yourself in a situation where you tried to avoid the problem, but the person didn’t listen to you and created a mess. But you are not just going to let them sit there and suffer. You're going to pull them out of their mess. Raising children definitely gives many good opportunities for this Middah. This is one of God's attributes, and the more that we arouse our merciful attributes, the more God arouses His towards us. Have a wonderful day.

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