Sefer Yishayahu: Sins and Consequences

      This week we began Sefer Yishayahu. Many points in this Perek are based around the fact that Hashem is in control of everything and that if we follow in His ways we will be rewarded and if we don't, we will be punished. This seems to reiterate through out most of the beginning of the Perek. The Perek starts off with Yishayahu set with a difficult task. He must tell Bnei Yisrael that if they don't stop sinning, Hashem will abandon them and punish them. Bnei Yisrael were probably very confused, because as we discussed, they were in the middle of sort of a "Golden Age". Everything was going great for them; they had very little problems. So naturally when Yishayahu came along telling them to stop sinning, they thought he was a nut-job. He compares Bnei Yisrael to the nations of סדום and עמורה, because they were acting like them through the sins that they did.
      In the middle of this Perek, Hashem tells Bnei Yisrael that He doesn't want their Korbanot or prayers any more. This in it self is strange, because at first it doesn't give a reason as to why this is. However, as we continued going through the Pasukim, we saw that it might be because Bnei Yisrael were giving the Korbanot  for all the wrong reasons and they were just doing it for the sake of giving Korbanot. Instead of giving Korbanot as thanks or a gifts to Hashem, they were merely giving them to say they gave Korbanot. They don't seem to think that what they are doing is wrong; they thought that what they were doing would bring them closer to Hashem.
      Yishayahu tells them after to stop giving Korbanot and to purify themselves; scrub themselves clean from their sins. He tells them to do the good, (learn, seek justice, protect the weak, help the orphan, and argue for the widow) and stop the bad. However the מלבים tells us that it might be saying that they need to take action for their sins instead of just regretting it, which brings in בין אדם למקום and בין אדם לחבירו. Regretting is enough for בין אדם למקום but you must "scrub"for בין אדם לחבירו. This could also be a reason why Hashem refusing their Korbanot; the people need to start doing more mitzvot בין אדם לחבירו.
      I found this interesting because I thought that mitzvot בין אדם למקום are more important than mitzvot בין אדם לחבירו. So why do we need to worry more about mitzvot בין אדם לחבירו? The answer could be that nowadays and then reaching out to each other had a lot of influence on reaching out to Hashem. If we can communicate well and discuss well with each other it will help us all communicate better with Hashem.