There are many cases brought down in Chazal of great Torah scholars who emerged from wicked people such as Shemaya and Avtalyon who descended from Nevuzaraden and Rabbi Meir who descended from Neron. Obviously both Nevuzaraden and Neron had incredible strength. But the force that sustained them was impure. Their children who were born after they converted, purified and whitened those forces. While their fathers' connection to divinity was outshone by evil, their descendants' power of kedusha (holiness)outweighed all evil.

Every soul has a link to a higher source. Even Haman who was from Amalek had some relationship to kedusha. In fact Chazal tell us that his descendants taught Torah in Bnei Brak. Titus was an exception. Although he initially had a connection with Hashem, he severed himself completely from holiness. Through free choice, non-Jews can choose to disconnect from their divine spark to the point where they become insensitive like elephant skin and lose the chibur that keeps them going. This choice would have been possible for Jews too had it not been for the brit (covenant)Hashem made with our forefather Yaakov. When it says, "V'nichrisa hanefeshhahum'Yisrael,"(The soul is cut off from its people.)  it doesn't mean Hashem cut the strings but rather the person did. Even so Karet doesn't work completely with Jews. There will always be some connection, however tenuous, left.

Tefilah is about rachamim (mercy) which is related to Yaakov. It's the part of him that could see that within challenge and difficulty and brokenness there's also goodness and potential and purity. This is what drives prayer. We tend to confuse feeling connected from being connected. A person may be praying a terrible tefilah that is dry and unfocused. But the fact that he's davening at all shows he wants a relationship with Hashem and that alone is strong enough to create some level of connection. It says in the Gemara that women, children, and servants are obligated in tefilah because they too need rachamim. If you feel rachamim when you pray for yourself and others that rachamim fuels tefilah. The Gemara says that if a person refrains from praying for mercy for his friend he is called a sinner because the potential is there for everyone. Western culture has adopted the stoic attitude of suffering in silence as something noble. It isn't exactly so. A person in need of Hashem's mercy should tell people so that others can pray for him.

The destruction of the second beit hamikdash was caused by baseless hatred, a reflection of not believing in ourselves and our fellow Jews. The spies spoke loshon hara about Eretz Yisrael. The idea of loshon hara is failing to believe that everything in this world is an emanation of Hashem. The closer one is to the Almighty, the more the picture of good will overpowers the picture of evil. The spies didn't believe in themselves and their capacity for closeness. That seed stayed within us and festered until our lack of belief in ourselves and in having an absolute holy potential in life came to the fore and eventually caused the destruction.

Chazal say the Torah cannot endure unless there are people who are meimit atzmo alev (willing to die for it). It was that kind of din, that kind of gevurat hanefesh (spiritual strength) that the wicked people who were destined to have children who were tzadikim had. In order for Torah to continue to exist, we need that kind of force. In the Zohar, the body and soul are compared to two wrestlers who fight continually. The battleground is identity.  For tzadikim, their body isn't their essential self. They are souls that use their body, just as a person uses a toothbrush or shoes. For the wicked ones, their body is their identity. Meimit atzmo alev doesn't mean deprivation. The battle isn't over material things but the essential self. A Jew has to have an identity that is Torah oriented. So if a woman is earning a large salary, as long as what she owns isn't what she is, she's on the right path. On the other hand one could think that a woman who marries a kolel boy and is earning minimum pay, is less involved in physicality. But it may not be so. If the issue is her identity, her feeling of deprivation because of the luxuries she doesn't have, her resentment could absorb her identity just as luxuries could absorb the well-off woman's identity.

In Klal Zayin, Seif Gimmel, the Chofetz Chaim writes that just as you can't accept loshon hara from one person you cannot accept it from two people. A person could think that if two witnesses have validity in a court of Jewish law, perhaps that applies to loshon hara too. But the Chofetz Chaim refutes this. He brings proof from the Gemara in Nidda which discusses the story of Gedalaya ben Achikam. Yochananon ben Koreah came to warn Gedalya that his life was in danger. Gedalya was correct in not believing Yochanan and the group of people who accompanied him. But his mistake was that he wasn't concerned.  The Gemara writes that Yishmael ben Netanya filled up a pit with the corpses he killed, "through the hand of Gedalaya."  Since Gedalya should have taken precautions after Yochanan's warning and did not, chazal consider it as if he killed these people. Still the Gemara implies that although it was a group who gave Gedalaya the warning, he was correct for not believing them.

In Seif Daled, the Chofetz Chaim writes that if there is a rumor going around that someone sinned against the Torah, one may not believe it fully although one may be concerned until it becomes clarified. The Chofetz Chaim warns that one cannot tell people about it and spread it like it is true. Rav Gifter referred to this halacha in the book, Guard Your Tongue, advising people not to bring newspapers into their homes as they are usually full of rumors and loshon hara.

In Parshat Va'etchanan Moshe tells the Jewish people, "IV'asisa et hayashar vahatov l'man yitovlach." (You should do what is fair and good in the eyes of Hashem so that it will be good for you.) Rashi understands right and good to mean that one should go lifnim meshurat hadin, beyond the letter of the law. The Gemara says Jerusalem was destroyed because people failed to act in this manner. There are many stories of righteous tzadikim who lived this way.

An example of this was the Chofetz Chaim who helped his wife manage a grocery store. Once a non-Jew purchased salt and erroneously received the wrong quantity. The Chofetz Chaim did not know who he was but he knew where he lived. So he hired a wagon and had a huge sack of salt delivered to the village making sure each villager received some salt.

The question of the wise son as it appears in the Hagadah is mentioned in this Parsha. "When the child shall say to you what are the testimonies and the decrees and the ordinances that Hashem has commanded you..."  A critical aspect of wisdom is understanding that things are not all the same. The Torah tells us how to answer the wise son, "Hashem commanded us to perform all these decrees to fear Hashem all of our days to give us life as of this day." Rav Alpert explains that the son tells his father, "I am committed to do all these laws but tell me father how is it relevant." The father answers, "I don't know but I want you to be a good Jew. Go out and look at those that are meticulous to keep the law where are they and those who are not careful to hold on to the law where are they. If you are meticulous, you will be a link in the everlasting chain."  

"Ki hi chachmaschem u'binascham b'einei haamim." (For this is your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of the nations.)  Hashem says, if you observe the Torah, the non- Jews will appreciate and recognize its divine source. If you deny the laws, they will treat us with disdain. In Germany, the Jews left observance thinking it would help them gain esteem but it did nothing to raise their regard. On the contrary, when Jews hold fast to their ideals, they are respected. When the famous baseball player, Sandy Kolfax, refused to pitch on Yom Kippur the world admired him for holding on to his religious principles.

Hashem's name is repeated twice in the Shema to teach us that although now He is recognized by only a few, ultimately He will be recognized by all. In the first verse we are commanded, "To love Hashem with all our heart..."  How can the Almighty legislate an emotion to love Him?  It is possible to create an environment conducive to it. Meditating on the positive attributes of Hashem will bring us to love Him. We say further in Shema, "Let these words be on your heart." By focusing on the Torah we will come to recognize Hashem's greatness and our love for Him will grow. We must teach these words to our children and show them what is most important to us, namely our devotion and faithfulness to Hashem. We must speak of it constantly. If a person speaks about his love of Torah and tzadikim it shows this is what he cares about. We are told to tie the tefilin on our arms and place it on our heads where our brain is and to put the mezuzot on our doorposts so that we are surrounded with the signs that remind us to constantly think about Hashem.