V'atem hadveikim b'Hashem Elokeichem chayim kulchem hayom.
"And you who cleave to Hashem your G-d, you all are alive today."

Hanitzmadim l'baal peor k'tzmidin al ydei isha.  V'atem hadveikim b'Hashem Elokeichem, dvukim mamash.
Those who latch on to baal peor, are like bangles on the arm of a woman.  And you who cleave to Hashem, are truly attached."
 
 

What is the difference between hanitzmadim and hadveikim?
From the words of the Medrash we learn that nitzmadim is an external and loose connection.  Dveikim is an intrinsic and eternal connection.

The Torah describes the involvement of Am Yisrael in the sin and drive of peor as external and temporary.  Just as a trinket is easily removed from the arm and discarded, so was the attachment of Am Yisrael to the abhorrent, obscene peor.
 

V'atem hadveikim b'Hashem Elokeichem chayim kulchem hayom.

These words of Moshe Rabbainu to us are a great source of encouragement.  Am Yisrael,  Moshe Rabbainu tells us, your true place is with Hashem.  Only with Hashem and with His Torah are you capable of bonding, of connecting, and of finding true fulfilment, pleasure and meaning to your existence.

Am Yisrael are not told that they won't try, chas veshalom, to dabble in foreign cultures, to mimic the behaviour and temperament of the seventy nations of the world, and to taste their impure and even putrid lifestyles.

However, Moshe Rabbainu tells us that ultimately, Atem Hadveikim b'Hashem Elokeichem, our connection and place is only with Hashem and His Torah.  This is the deepest part of every Jew's personality, and ultimately only this connection is what will give us comfort and will satisfy our most basic needs.

Let us compare it to an undernourished starving child who enters a room and sees unhealthy candy on the table.  He can eat the candy.  It will very temporarily delay his hunger pangs.  The only thing, however, that will truly provide the solution to the problem is real nutrition.  The only nutrition of the Jewish neshama is Torah and mitzvos; tefilla, chesed, tikun hamiddos.
Am Yisrael can try to copy the goyim.  Materialistically hedonistic lifestyle, malice and hatred, competitive careers and politics, slanderous evil talk, immoral behaviour all provide a temporary outlet to offset emptiness, by deluding the starving soul into feigned satisfaction or relief.  And sadly, these behaviours are addictive, one can become temporarily stuck to them.

V'atem hadvaikim b'Hashem Elokeichem.

Am Yisrael are dvaikim b'Hashem, connected to Hashem.  We need this connection for our very sustenance and survival.  Often, we may find ourselves in situations that seem to call for a response of impatience, anger or despair.  These may seem to be alternative and legitimate responses to situations.  But for the Jew, these are no answers at all.  They merely postpone further confrontation with ourselves, and when the further scenes do arrive, the intensity of the emptiness which accompanies them increases.

Rav Levi Yitzchak miBerditchev explains as follows:
It is true that the reward for mitzvos is in the World-to-Come.  However, when a person learns Torah and fulfils mitzvos, Chayim kulchem HAYOM, he immediately is reinvigorated and refuelled with chiyus, vitality and strength.  This is not something for which he must wait around.  It happens instantaneously, HAYOM, today, now.

According to what has just been said, we can conclude that most of us are truly starved for chiyus!  Why not nourish ourselves with tikun hamiddos, working to uproot jealousy and anger and laziness and impatience, etc.?  Why not nourish ourselves with tefilla for which we first prepare by quieting out all the mental noise??
And of course by Torah, by chesed?

Why deny ourselves?

A person, explains the Pri Tzaddik, can accomplish even more through his yearnings and longings than he does through his actual deeds.  Moshe Rabbainu, through his tefillos affected the entire functioning of Am Yisrael in Eretz Yisrael for all generations.  And so it is with all the tefillos of Am Yisrael, whether we see immediate results, or we still wait for them to come.  They all are effective.  In words of chazal:

Kol hamisabel al Yerushalayim zocheh v'roeh b'simchasa,
Every person who mourns the destruction of Yerushalalyim, merits and sees in the joy of Yerushalayim.

This Tisha b'av, I was reading the autobiography, entitled "Bas Ami,"  of Hadassah Levine, H"YD, a great Tzaddekes, a Kedosha, who went through the gehinom of the shoah, recorded the events, and shortly afterwards died of tuberculosis.  May Hashem avenge her blood and the blood of all the Kedoshei Elyon.
She was present in the Telzer camp, on the spot when  all the men were brutally shot by the german and lithuanian men-beasts.  By the fresh mass grave she cried Kaddish and read out the perek lamed-zayin in Yechezkel about Tchiyas Hamaisim.  What gave her the strength to continue?
 

That night, she describes how, utterly numbed and exhausted, her spirit broken, Hadassah fell asleep... and beheld a wondrous and astonishing dream,  a spectacle of splendour and of awe, a vision not of this world.  A great great clear and bright Light filled the barn in which she was interned.  She shut her eyes.  The deceased were rising from their graves!! All the men, all the nation. They were shaking off the earth from their clothes, a huge, huge multitude of people!!

She understood the meaning of the vision, with perfect clairvoyance.  THE DAY WOULD COME, EVEN THOUGH IT MIGHT TAKE TIME, THAT THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD WOULD BE JUDGED, AND HASHEM'S PEOPLE WOULD BE RESTRENGTHENED AND REVIVED AND WE WILL BE RESTORED TO OUR FORMER GLORY.  (Bas Ami, p.35)

This awesome vision gave her strength to withstand her further sufferings and trials.

Let Hadassah Levine's faith be a beacon of light to us.
May Hashem avenge the blood of all His faithful servants.

Let us never forget who we are and what are our goals, devaikim b'Hashem.

Ki Ata ba'aish hetzatah uba'aish Ata asid livnosah.
"For You, through fire consumed Yerushalayim, and through fire You will rebuild her."
Baruch Menachem Tzion uBoneh Yerushalayim.

Amen.
 

A gutten Erev Shabbos
from Yerushalayim Ir HaKodesh
 

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