LM 22.3 — Chosam b'Soch Chosam, Part 3 of 10 · תורה כ״ב

Torah כ״ב, we're up to paragraph ה'. We will remind ourselves some of the ideas that we discussed, and then we will move forward. We started off the Torah talking about the dual role of the tzaddikim, and specifically in the context of a גזר דין, when רחמנא ליצלן there's going to be a דין in the world, a negative גזר דין in the world, that דין is going to be a פסק, it's going to be a דין תורה, and the הסתכל באורייתא וברא עלמא, the world is an expression of Torah, of of רצון השם, and there's a klal, we understand, we unpacked a lot of this in the first שיעור, תורה לא בשמים היא, and therefore, when Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to pass a גזר דין on the world, on the Yidden, this is going to involve getting an eitzah, or collaborating as it were, be very careful how we speak, with with the tzaddikim.

And in this context, the tzaddikim are למודי השם, they're teachers of Hashem as it were, they offer eitzah. We spoke about a בחינה of רגלין, and when the tzaddikim are are in a position, like Moshe Rabbeinu by the עגל, to daven on behalf of Klal Yisrael, they'll mitigate the עבירה, they'll explain, they'll speak on behalf of Klal Yisrael. On the other hand, also in a in the role of רגלין, the tzaddikim are going to be the emissaries, the שלוחים, the רגלין, the agents of Hakadosh Baruch Hu to go give the people mussar. And when they give the people mussar, they might play up what the עבירה is, change get the people to do mussar to change who they are, maybe the גזר דין, we said, won't apply anymore to who they've become, it'll change the balance in the world.

Ultimately, the point of a גזר דין is not to effect punishment, there is an idea of consequence, of real consequence, mitzvot and aveirot, if a person touches fire they get burnt, but also there's a point of a דין to bring the world back into a balance, to bring in line with רצון השם. If ratzon Hashem can be accomplished some other way, in a sweet way, then maybe that can be accomplished in a different way, and there can be a mituk in the din, and in the first shiur we spoke at length about about a mituk in the din and how tzaddikim approach it, and why we explained as well that the tzaddikim cover up what the din is, they don't articulate it.

There's a difference between between where the tzaddikim, so to speak, approach HaKadosh Baruch Hu and daven on behalf of Klal Yisrael, and when the the din is already articulated, it's already it's it's already in the world, it's already been given over, so to speak, to the disciplinarians, to the executioners, that once the סטרא אחרא, the other forces, can be יונק and they get hold of the din, the dynamic changes in terms of how it can be mitigated. עיין שם, go go back to the the first shiur discussed this idea, but each shiur also stands on its own.

The after that, we said, so that that's one level of why the tzaddikim will seal up the in terms of what the din is, both in terms of as they daven to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and also as they give musar, but when the tzaddikim are going to give musar to the people, the musar has to be received. And the that's the second level. How how is it that the tzaddik can accomplish their job, give תוכחה, give musar, and it'll be received? There has to be a relationship between the people and the tzaddikim, and this is going to be emunah.

If chas v'shalom emunah is lacking, then this could lead to פירוד, to machloket, to a disruption in the force, so to speak, to galut, and we discussed, we referenced I think last time, Torah ז', the relationship between tefillah, emunah, nes, Eretz Yisrael, and this emunah comes via comes via a relationship with the tzaddikim. All of the ideas, the avodah that we had that that we discussed, has application both on a פרטיות'דיק level: I have my avodah, and I have to understand the dynamic between my guf, my neshamah, how I can achieve my potential, fulfill my role, be the perfect be be the perfect person, and there's a we we've discussed the role of the tzaddik in my avodah.

And also there's a role in a my an avodah in a כלליות'דיק level, as part of the Jewish nation, as part of creating a broader shleimus, and the tzaddik certainly has a a role in that broader context as well. Now, there's different leadership in the in the world. Some of it might present itself even with a face of of being for the right reasons, but there are tzaddikim, and then there's also the negative leadership. Now, the tzaddikim and the other leaders are not really coming from the same place. A person who wants wealth, honor, they're really at the top of that mountain.

A tzaddik is coming at it from his bitul. The ultimate power is a connection, is being a conduit to the Ein Sof, to the infinite, so to speak, kivayachol, and therefore the tzaddikim are trying to their leadership is to is to create a shleimus within the system, and connect Klal Yisrael to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, bring a bring malchus into the world. The negative leadership are not really the equivalent at that level, because they're not trying to become a pipeline to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. They really are just at the they're that's really subjective. They're not leading to the ultimate emet, they're just Their brand of whatever their subjective priorities are, and therefore, we have to understand, but at our altitude, negative leadership might have more sway, more influence, and we need to break past that using an azus d'kedushah.

We need to push through the same way that there's a certain brazenness that the that the gashmiyus, that the this-worldly considerations are pushing back, so to speak, against kedushah, against the Ribono Shel Olam, so we need to push back against these things that have influence at our level. We're going to discuss that in the dynamic of the neshamah and the guf, of of being able to push past, using this azus, through the immediate influence, and this is where paragraph ה begins. וצריך כל אדם לרחם מאד על בשרא דגופא, every person has to have רחמים, compassion, over their the flesh of their גוף, להראות ליה מכל ההארה מכל השגה שהנשמה משגת, in order to show it, to illuminate it with the light, with the perceptions that the נשמה has, שהגוף גם כן ידע מזאת השגות, that the guf should also be able to have a daas is more than just know, but it's like an integrated

knowledge from this hasagah. What does this mean? So, first of all, I'm just going to suggest over here one understanding. What's the difference between We talk about rachamim, we talk about rachamim and chesed. Chesed means that I'm giving, not necessarily even an understanding who I'm giving to. It's just an outward an outward type of idea. That's why chesed and gevurah go together. If you just want to give everybody hundred-dollar bills, that might not necessarily be good for them. You need rules, you need structure, you need to you need to guidelines in order to make sure that you're going to achieve the ultimate good.

So chesed is outward. What's rachamim? So one way of understanding this is that rachamim is not just מצד the giver; rachamim is מצד what you're giving to, it's מצד the keli. When I if when I have rachamim over something, I have mercy, it's not just that I'm giving willy-nilly. What I'm doing is that there's something that aroused my mercy. Somebody is a rachmanus, it's rachmanus on whatever it is that I'm bestowing to. So in this case, it's not just we're talking about that the that the guf needs to get and the neshamah needs to give; we're talking about a relationship between the neshamah and the guf and and our avodah that's going to be the the sorry state of the physical body in order to light up the guf, that the guf is is really part of this process.

The guf also was created by Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's a kli for the or to be able to elevate the guf. Now, by the way, this is also this this is perhaps a relative idea, this is not just absolute. What what do we mean by that? The Biur HaLikutim says even a person has שכלי, כח המדמה, and the שכל הנגלה, their certain intellect, but vis-a-vis the neshamah, these things could be guf. So when we talk about גוף-נשמה perhaps, perhaps we can say that it's really בערך, and we're talking about something relative. We're talking about or and a kli.

We mentioned in the last Torah that avodah really is, if you think concentric circles, right, like a like a dartboard, there are things that I've already worked past, there are things that I'm working on now, there are things that I hope to be working on the future, and there are things that are not even on my radar. Rav Dessler talks about the נקודת הבחירה. A person that's born into a gang of thieves, maybe his בחירה is not to kill a person when he gets caught, but in terms of in terms of the theft itself, perhaps a person's not even holding there, this is not something that they're working on.

However, tomorrow a person is going to learn more, they're going to get better, and the idea of taking something that doesn't belong to them, chas v'shalom, that's not that's that that's something that first they'll have to push back against it, and then at some point it won't have be anything that they can consider. So when we talk about elevating the guf, we have the neshamah, we have the the light, we have what we're working on, our connection with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and we have we have certain things that are physical. And as we elevate the physical, then we're going to be moving in a direction where the the neshamah, the good things that we're working on are going to become more elevated, the things that we've already gotten past we're not even working on anymore, we've already pushed those aside, and the way that we do that is we take the world that we're living

in at the guf level, and we elevate that to make our entire life, our entire scope, more spiritual. So over here, we put it in terms that a person should have rachamim on the guf. The guf doesn't want to stay there in a sorry state, in like almost like an animal-esque, a נפש בהמית type state, and what we want to do is we want to light up the guf, make it not that it's going to be like opaque, that it'll be like translucent. We're going to shine shine light through the guf, so that the גוף גם כן ידע מזאת השגות, that it will also know.

Again, da'at is like an an a integrated knowledge. It's something when you know something, it automatically it automatically affects you. You can't be you could be divorced from something that you know intellectually, but something that is just part of your operating system, something that you know in your kishkes, it's not something that you can ignore. Everything If a person knows who their mother is, who their child is, who their spouse is, that comes along with certain feelings towards the person. There's a da'at over there. Now there's a note over here that discusses the idea from a Zohar, the way that the way that I understand what he's trying to bring out of it is that the the guf really does have, so to speak, animal inclinations.

So you can't just Oh, you can't just present the guf and say, "Act better!" So right? In other words, you can't just elevate the guf by shining a light at it. Go go shine a light kavi lehavdil at a cow. But however, there there is a process. There's a link. The there are chain links where you can change one thing, and then there's going to be a domino effect. So the way that the Zohar says it over here, לא מודיעין ליה לבר נש בעוד דאיהו קם בתקפא דגופא כד כדכאמרן. You can't just light up the body when the body is in full force, when the body is awake, when it has gashmiyut, this-worldly considerations.

And he he references over here the what what could be accomplished during sleep when the body, so to speak, recedes, and the neshamah is more present, אלא מלאכא אודע לנשמתא, which he mentions like in a chalom, the the neshamah can be exposed to something, ונשמתא לבר נש, and then the neshamah is able to translate that into the guf so that it'll elevate the person. Back in the text: בבחינת ומבשרך לא תתעלם, from your own flesh you shouldn't hide. The peshat of this pasuk is talking about the mitzvah of tzedakah, that a person should should be mekayem their kerovim, they should give tzedakah to בשרך, to their relatives, but we're in in penimiyut we're going to learn this pasuk: מבשרך דייקא, specifically from your בשר, specifically from your flesh, שלא תעלים עיניך מלרחם על בשרך.

A person should not hide from having rachamim, from having mercy. In the pasuk it means on their relatives, but our closest relative is ourself. A person shouldn't not have rachamim on on their own flesh, היינו בשר גופך, כי צריכין לרחם מאד על הגוף, a person has to have mercy on their גוף, לראות לזככו, to purify it from its תאוות, כדי שיוכל להודיעו מכל הארות והשגות שהנשמה משגת, in order that we should be able to light it up, a full integration, a full illumination of the guf. If you think about the example that we've used before talking about maybe a מרכבה, a person is driving a car.

Or for that matter, by the way, a a person wants to take something off a shelf, I don't tell my hand to get it. My hand is an extension of me. Now that's really all part of me. But let's say I was driving a car. I wouldn't say that the that there's me and the car and the car Maybe if there was a wagon driver, there are two different prerogatives, there are two different de'ot. I could say, well, I hired him and he does what I want to do. But at a certain point, if I am just driving a car, I'm riding a bicycle, the bicycle is doing nothing.

The bicycle just ends up being an extension of myself. The more that the guf has its own has its own prerogative, the the all of a sudden I want the car to do something, and there's something wrong with the car, it needs an oil change. There's something wrong chas veshalom, right? With the with the steering wheel, all of a sudden it has to put When when the system is bishleimut, it can just execute on what I want it to do. When there's something that's that there there's gunk, there's mechitzot, there's stuff that's clogging the pipes, all of a sudden I have to yield to it.

So the the the the right relationship with the guf is that the guf should really be subservient to the neshamah. The way to do this is to remove the mechitzot. The way to do this is to illuminate the guf so that really the neshamah is just shining through it. The more guf considerations, the more the guf is בתקפו, that it has its own things, then the harder the harder that this is going to be. We need to break past all of that. And and and really, by the way, this is this is in in both directions.

This this relationship exists Let's let's take a step back, right? If you if you have a guf and neshama, if you if a person is a very spiritually oriented person, or even an example that we can all relate to, a person is sichli and he's totally involved in working on a project, or for that matter, by the way, distracted, I guess, in and and playing some sort of a game. Let's not even talk about it in a spiritual sense. In an intellectual sense, you have people Not everybody has this problem, okay? People will forget to eat.

They'll forget to do something that's really a basic a basic human need. Or or or even, let's say, on Shabbos, there are people that are mamash very, very addicted to to smoking cigarettes, let's say, and on Shabbos, if you ask them, they're able They can't In a million years they can't go 25 hours without smoking a cigarette. And somehow their neshama is more illuminated, and their body is able to go without And but immediately after Shabbos that they need it. On the other hand, a person can have guf things, and that can also affect their spirituality, the way that they're open, the way that they understand things.

It can affect their mood, their ability to plug in. The guf and the neshama are really working together. The more that the guf is purified, the more that the neshama is is prominent, then the more that the guf is going to recede into the background, and vice versa. So a person needs to illuminate the גוף, כי הנשמה של כל אדם היא רואה ומשגת תמיד דברים עליונים מאוד, perhaps we can say like subliminal messaging, there are things that the neshama is sensitive to that אבל הגוף אינו יודע בהם. But the guf is simply not sensitive to these things.

The the more in line that the neshama is now able to act as a medium and transmit this to the guf, it can't go straight to the guf, then this will also affect the physicality, the gashmiyut of the person. But there are things that the neshama is sensitive to that in order to elevate the guf, there needs to be some sort of an interaction over there. על כן צריך כל אדם לרחם מאוד על בשר הגוף, a person has to have mercy on their גוף, לראות לזכך הגוף, to be able to purify it from the animal type of attachment, from its גוף תאוות, עד שתוכל הנשמה להודיע לו מכל מה שהיא רואה ומשגת תמיד, כנ״ל.

Until until the neshama, the spiritual considerations are going to be there's going to be a daat, there's going to be a connection until the guf, mamash a person can feel uplifted. A person can get to a point where, let's use as an analogy, dieting or exercise, the more that a person works on it, if a person just enjoys eating healthy, they eat a salad and they say, "ugh," the more that a person works on it and they start eating healthy and they start exercising, they might have something super greasy and they might actually feel sick afterwards.

It's an analogy. The same thing works in ruchniyut and gashmiyut. If a person develops a taste for ruchniyut, it can elevate the guf until the guf is also going to be sensitive to spiritual considerations, there's also going to be an enjoyment over there. He quotes over here a pasuk from Tehillim, David Hamelech says, "כמו חלב ודשן תשבע נפשי, ושפתי רננות יהלל פי," that that it was like like fat, like saturated with with richness. You know, perhaps this could be one peshat also. It says that Moshe Rabbeinu didn't eat for forty days and forty nights. Why?

Because he was holding, at least temporarily, in that state, in such an elevated state, not that he didn't need to eat, he would have starved to death, no, it's as if maybe we could say that his guf was actually nourished by the spirituality. That's not a state that we really are sensitive to in this world, but in principle, a guf, you have people that can train themselves that that really where their guf would not have been able to be sustained, they would have collapsed, they would have needed nourishment, people can train themselves where their guf just doesn't govern.

וכשהגוף הוא בבחינה זו, and when the guf is purified to this extent, we're using by analogy, you know, not necessarily everything in a spiritual sense, but just in this שכלי גוף dynamic, but that's also the נשמה גוף dynamic, היא טוב להנשמה. That will be very good for the neshamah. Why? שלפעמים נופלת מדרגתה, וכשהגוף צח ובר, תוכל הנשמה להתרומם ולחזור למדרגתה על ידי הגוף. Okay, so this is this is a little bit of a different context, and it seems to be pivoting a little bit into the next point: maybe I shouldn't just just not care about the guf.

In other words, on one hand, we're saying, well, if the guf is prominent, then that's going to inhibit my growth, it's going to bring the neshamah down. But let's not even talk about that. What if I just say, you know what, I'm not going to pay attention to the guf at all, I'm not going to try to elevate it, I'm not going to try to breed it to a spiritual sensitivity where it gets closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu by eating food, etc., I'm just going to ignore it. Will the neshamah, in principle, will the neshamah be worse off for that?

Now, perhaps this is a bit theoretical because we live in the olam ha-asiyah, we live in a physical world, there's really no no in the middle, our entire job is to elevate the gashmiyus, to have the Shechinah be shorah in this world, so if we use the physical things as a medium for ruchniyus, then maybe we could say that happens mimela. But however, in principle, is there a specific benefit to the neshamah by doing this, or is it really only to bring up the guf? Now, on one hand, we said there is a benefit to the neshamah, because if the guf and the neshamah work together, then this process, really they both travel together, the more that a person's psychology, their brain, their focus is focused on gashmiyus, that's going to hold back how much they can grow.

Be that as it may, even growth itself has ups and downs, aliyot and yeridot. And therefore, it says over here, what happens, we introduced a theoretical question: can a person just have their guf and their neshamah operating on totally separate tracks and I won't elevate the guf? The answer is the answer is no, because there is something that's governing your daat. If theoretic- If theoretically you could just put your mind in a place and grow, and not pay attention to the guf, I'm going to sit there and meditate, okay, maybe a person can do that.

However, a neshamah, our spiritual activities also have ups and downs, aliyot v'yeridot, and there's a lot of a lot of a lot of different examples and a lot of different ways that we could think about this. Some of them are mamash, I guess you could say, ups and downs, and some of them maybe are perceived ups and downs. One example we've used in the past is think about a kid who's learning to ride a bicycle. So, he doesn't even know how to do the pedals, and all of a sudden, you know, that he's in the choshech and he comes to or.

He works on himself and now he's able to really get momentum and go on the pedals, and he has the training wheels on. Now that he starts being able to ride very well, comes comes his comes his father, and his father takes off the training wheels. Now, while the kid was doing well, the father was walking around behind him, playing on his phone, who knows? Now that he's going to take off the training wheels because the kid knows how to ride his bike and gain his own momentum, the father, first of all, is actually ironically going to be paying much more attention so the kid doesn't fall.

He might be running behind the child with his hand an inch away from the seat. So actually, in this in this time, this zone of choshech that we're about to discuss, it could be that the father is actually paying even more attention. A lot of what we discuss in Rabbi Nachman is is is is finding an attachment to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, not despite the darkness, but in the darkness. But come comes this kid, all of a sudden now, he's riding, he feels secure, he has his training wheels, and all of a sudden, he feels all left alone.

The training wheels come come off. So now, that's a period of light, and then darkness. And the person might have to push, the person might have to fail a few times before he's successful. This is, by the way, a positive part of the process. If growth happens through pushing, and we don't push, then all that's going to happen is that we're going to plateau, right? תענוג תמידי אינו תענוג, even in terms of pleasure. If a person walks into a nice, warm room in the winter, right, and then they get used to it, so then that initial pleasure, that contrast doesn't exist.

The entire process across across every spectrum exists in ratzo v'shov. Avodah is ratzo v'shov, pleasure is ratzo v'shov, we we have ups and downs. Therefore, the neshamah, the growth, there's times that we're going to be having ימי אהבה, there's times that we're going to be having ימי שנאה. That's part of the process. I know we mentioned a lot of different, you know, ראשי פרקים as to where we see this, but the neshamah is not always just going to be in a state of meditation and closeness to Hakadosh Baruch Hu with nothing else going on. What happens now when a person has a down?

Maybe that down is because they took the training wheels off, maybe they graduated from eighth grade, they were at the top of the school and now they became a freshman in high school, and then they were a senior in high school, they became a freshman in college. All of a sudden, they're starting at the bottom, or maybe they just stam really had mamash yeridah, right? They went up ten steps, they went down nine. Hopefully, next time they go up ten and they go back down nine. At that point, where is their head space? There's a risk over there.

Now, the guf is going to become more prominent. וכשה or so what can happen is, if the neshamah falls from its מדרגה, וכשהגוף צח ובר, תוכל הנשמה להתרומם ולחזור למדרגתה על ידי הגוף. Now, what this is for several reasons. Now, this person feels less attached to his neshamah. He's enjoying davenen and learning less. He just wants to go, he just wants to go eat, he wants to go hang out. So, his guf is going to be governing. But what guf is governing? The guf, if he has a purified guf, so then he will first of all, his his guf will not have the actual gashmiyut will not have as much of an attachment, it won't drag his neshamah down, because he won't be as governed by his by these actual animalistic desires because he's purified guf to that extent, and he'll be able to get back to his spiritual self.

But the other thing is that even the guf has been trained to get sipuk from certain spiritual things. If you take a person that's a very spiritual person, and now they just don't feel like learning, they're having a difficult time. So, what do you do? You say, okay, listen, let's go to a non-kosher restaurant, let's go to a place with all sorts of disgusting things. The truth is they'll feel worse about themselves, not just because they did the wrong thing, they no longer, if they ever did, will get pleasure from that type of thing. So, he says, when a person has purified the guf, they learned to get pleasure from spiritual things, even when they're not totally driven by spiritual concerns, the guf will bring them back, היינו על ידי תענוגי הגוף תוכל להיזכר ולעלות לתענוגים שלה.

Now, that they understand, they say, you know what, I'm going to take off, I can't learn. I'm going to go to a kumzitz, I'm going to sit there with achdut, with ahavat Yisrael, we're going to sing about things, they're going to tell, who knows, like story This is the type of thing that he does when he takes a break, that will inspire him back to to to start learning again. In certain ways, this is even higher expression, by the way. We said of kavod shamayim is when you bring the things that are farthest from Hashem closest, right?

I think I heard once an idea that what's the holiest day of the year? People might say Rosh Hashanah, Rosh Hashanah might be the most powerful day of the year, people might say Yom Kippur, it's Shabbos. Yom Kippur has six עליות, Shabbos has seven עליות. Shabbos is more of an opportunity to elevate, and yet we're not sitting in shul not eating, not drinking, not anointing, not doing anything. Shabbos is a place with the greatest opportunity. It's the greatest opportunity where the neshamah is so strong, not just that it could be separated, but that it actually elevates so that it brings kavod Hashem, kavod shamayim that the שכינה שורה into the guf as well.

The eating is different in Shabbos. We spoke in one of the earlier תורות, even the mitzvah of ziug, the mitzvah of the ייחוד is different in the שישה ימים and also on Shabbos. And that's even if everything is performed halachically correct, but it's a different maaseh, it attaches to a person differently. And he says, כי מאחר שהגוף גם כן טוב וכשר אינו נלכד בתענוגים. Now, I think the straightforward way of reading this is that the גוף itself is not going to become attached. If a person is a very physical person, then eating will be one experience.

If a person is, let's say, distracted, they're running, they're a very שכליות'דיק person, it'll actually be much easier, let's say, to eat healthy. They won't become as absorbed by the eating, by the flavors. They eat because they have to eat, it's time to eat, and then they move on. The גוף itself won't become as trapped, as נלכד, as ensnared in the תענוגים. Perhaps we could say this is I think the text is referring to the גוף, refers to the נשמה as well. We said that there's a dynamic relationship over there. The נשמה could bring the גוף up, the גוף could bring the נשמה down.

The נשמה also won't become as ensnared in תענוגים, and that would be in any physical sort of תענוגים. ועל כן תוכל הנשמה לחזור על ידי תענוגי הגוף למעלתה. So therefore, if the תענוגים of the גוף are enhanced and trained and cultivated to be spiritual as well, pleasure is not really a physical thing. It's interesting, as much as there's תאוה to serve the physical things, the idea of pleasure in a certain sense is a רוחניות'דיק type. It's not an emotion. It's a הרגשה, it's a feeling. Pleasure could light somebody up, it could transform somebody into a different person, it could put them into a different place.

When the pleasures or it could drag a person down, right? Like I guess it's a interesting discussion, what is pleasure? So על כן תוכל הנשמה to return to its spirituality, even through the תענוגי הגוף, לתענוגים שלה, it can bring that into the spiritual side. So it can use pleasure through the גוף. The נשמה בעצם doesn't want to just do spiritual things now, a person's having a ירידה. However, so what happens when he has a ירידה? He's going to do what the גוף wants. But depending where his גוף is holding, what's going to come next? Is the גוף going to drag the going to now all of a sudden govern, and front and center is going to be these physical activities and physical concerns, and that's all of a sudden going to turn him into a more גוף, into a more animal-type person, and also it's going to dull and desensitize the נשמה?

Or no, if the גוף itself is getting pleasure from spiritual ideas, this will actually bring him back, so now the spiritual concerns are going to restore the the vitality of his of of the נשמה, so to speak, to make it more prominent, and that will actually enabled him to go back into his prior level. Okay, period. Now, another idea. וכן גם כן על ידי הרשימו. There is a concept called a רשימו. Brings from Sha'ar HaKavvanot over here that there's always a רשימו, an imprint. It's almost like a negative, right? And he brings, this is the לשון, כבר הודעתיך כי כל דבר קדושה ורוחניות אף על פי שמסתלק עם כל זה נשאר שם לעולם בחינת רשימו זעיר תמיד ואינו מסתלק משם.

There's always an effect, an imprint. There's something left over. Think about if something good smelled and then you remove the thing that smelled good from the room, there's still what's left over what's left over, a smell. I don't know if that's a good example. Whenever קדושה is in a place, even if the קדושה leaves, the tzadik leaves a town, we have in the פרשה, it leaves something it leaves something over. So what does this mean now? When the person is in a state, is in a מצב of doing well, then even when he's no longer doing well, the גוף is not left to just be גוף.

It's not left to just be animal. There's going to be a רשימו שיש בגוף על ידי ההארה שהאירה בו הנשמה. נשמה מקודם, when the נשמה lit up the guf, even if now the person is having yeridah, now the person is not doing as well neshamah-wise, he's not he's not as spiritual. He was busy davening a ten-minute Shemoneh Esrei, a twenty-minute Shemoneh Esrei. He was davening He wasn't davening just for ברך עלינו to have more parnasah so that he could do let alone chas veshalom דברים אסורים, but just to to have physical things. He was davening that he should have money mamash to give to tzedakah, he should have yishuv hadaat to be able to sit and learn, mamash everything physical that he was looking for was mamash spiritual.

And now he he lost a little bit of the fire. He's not davening as well. He didn't lose it all. He's a different person. It's as if a person, let's say, blows up a balloon. That first time you blow up the balloon is very hard. The second time you blow up the balloon to the same the same amount of big, it's easier. Or if you ever I I think I think what was his name? Roger Bannister or something? I remember reading the person nobody ever beat a four-minute mile. The second that somebody beat a four-minute mile, all of a sudden next year like a bunch of people, I don't know, 15, 20 people did it.

You can look this this up. It could be the story is true, the facts might not be. Once something is accomplished, once something had an effect, even when it goes away, all of a sudden it's accessible. It's doable. It's like if you're playing a game and you get out at a certain level, you were never able to get there, all of a sudden now you raise the bar and now, all of a sudden, that's where you're able to get. When the neshamah lights up the guf, even when the ha'arah goes away, the guf is different.

And at that point, תוכל אתה לחזור ולעלות ולהתעלות למדרגתך, he can get back to where he was. He brings over here from the Sichot HaRan a lot of different expressions of that. One of them, he says the the the idea of focused growth. He says, וכי עלה על דעתי לכסוף ולהתגעגע לידע מה שאני יודע עכשיו, I never even it occurred to me that I would get where I'm getting because I didn't know the מציאות. I didn't know what I was shoot shooting for. And he says had I known אם אם הייתי יודע שהשם יתברך יעשה ממני מה שאני עתה, had I known what I could have got to, דהיינו חידוש כזה, הייתי עושה ביום אחד מה שעשיתי בשנה כולה.

It would have been focused it would have been focused growth. I would have known it was attainable. This idea comes up a little bit different, but I heard by יוסף הצדיק, when יוסף הצדיק was going to do chas veshalom, or he was in a position potentially to do the aveirah with אשת פוטיפר, it says that he saw a vision of the choshen with his name on it. Choshen with his name on it? What are we even talking about? I heard Rav Aaron Lopiansky say, a person is about to do an aveirah, a terrible aveirah, and you say, "If you do this aveirah, then you're not going to be the גדול הדור"?

That's not what's on his mind. The answer is no. It's because one more example, and then and then it'll tie it together. It's an example I've used many times before, something that I heard. I don't think that I saw it myself. That they took a they took a research. Do people do better on tests if they start off with zero and get points for right answers, or do they do better if they start off with 100 and they lose points when when they don't have when when they get wrong answers? Or also, will a person put his life at risk for $100?

Probably not. But let's say they already have the $100 and somebody comes to steal their wallet, a lot of people will do a lot more dangerous things. People fighting to preserve their land, right? When When a person views it as being part of themself, it's not only accessible and attainable, but it's something that they actually did achieve. It's part of them, it's something that they had, they just have to get back there. That's That's very different. It's very different than trying to get something where, you know, either it's not even focused. I I just know that I want to change.

I don't know where I could go, I don't know what could I become, I don't know what I could achieve. I just know that I don't want to be physical versus something that's very focused growth. I'm very goal-oriented. I know exactly what I want to achieve. But even more than that, when it's something someplace I know I've been before, it's that much easier to get back there. And therefore, when the kedushah had an imprint on the guf and now the kedushah was there, now the person has to had a yeridah, but he needs to become elevated, it's profoundly different.

And it's much more accessible, attainable, easier to get back, and this is the maalah of elevating the guf, the benefit even to the neshamah. וזה בחינת Okay, period. Now, וזה בחינת מבשרי אחזה אלוקה. From my basar, from my flesh, I behold HaKadosh Baruch Hu. מבשרי דייקא, not despite, specifically from my basar, specifically from my flesh. היינו על ידי בשר הגוף יחזה אלוקה, היינו השגת אלוקות. What I can achieve by lighting up my guf can't be achieved otherwise. היינו שהאדם בגופו יראה ויחזה השגות עליונות שהנשמה משגת תמיד. It's not there are cer- certain things my neshamah might be sensitive to, that's different from when I'm able to take that, translate it to my guf, elevate my guf, not only I think this is separate from the last point.

Besides what we were just talking about, let's say that a person has a yeridah, so if they elevate their guf, it'll be easier to get back there, but besides that, even for where the neshamah can go further afterwards, I'm a different person, what I'm conscious of, even in this iterative process we said that at every level there is a guf and a neshamah, so I'm also always using as a jump as as a platform for growth where I'm holding now. The more that I elevate my guf, that elevates where I'm holding now, that elevates what I can become.

In our concentric circles example, I'm expanding, I'm expanding what my guf is, so but also, by definition, I'm expanding where I can go from there. The more elevated, the more clear, the more translucent, the more that the neshamah is shining through the guf, the more that I can attach myself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. This exists on a פרטיות level, and this also exists on a כלליותדיק level. The more that I push back against, we said, the influences in this world, the more that I could see the difference by the by the tzadikim and the other leadership, the more that I could breed emunah, the more that I can also attach to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that going back, that the gezeirot won't be applicable, that there could be a mituk in the din.

אבל כשיש להגוף עזות מבחינת והכלבים עזי נפש, so we've been talking about this on a פרטיות, on a specific level. Now, let's talk about it also at the leadership level. The guf has עזות, עזות the sitra achra, the other leadership, the other influence, the כלבים, like we said, are the other leaders who are the עזי נפש, they're brazen like dogs. אין הנשמה יכולה למשוך עצמו לקרב אל הגוף להודיע לו מהשגות אלו. You're breaking that attachment, you're breaking those links in the chain. Instead of the guf having momentum and going up towards the neshamah and trying to bridge that gap between the guf and the spiritual, the guf takes on its own autonomy.

You want it to do something, and the guf has it has it needs an oil change, it needs to it needs to go for a car wash, it needs its own consideration, its primary thing is not necessarily just getting the driver where he needs to go. It's not going to be sensitive to the spiritual concerns, and even if you told it, it wouldn't have an impact. כי כי תוכל לילכד בתוקף העזות הגוף. Now, the guf becomes ensnared in the physical consideration. So, this, by the way, meshes what what we said earlier, this language of of of what's becoming ensnared, it's the guf that's becoming ensnared.

And then you can go, you want to teach, you know, translate some sort of פנימיות התורה and tell it to to to a goy, somebody who has no business, no shaychut, doesn't understand what you're talking about, will it have an effect? It's מה שהגוף עז וחזק בתאוות. The guf is חזק בתאוות. Now, interestingly, and again, this is a little bit my suggestion, usually we think about ta'avot as being, and I think I'd love to hear what you think about this, usually we think about ta'avot as being very physical. Now, that's true about physical ta'avot. Ta'avot on its own, could I have, so to speak, a drive for kedushah?

The idea of having an ambition, having a goal, having a drive, having a desire is not בעצם a physical thing. We mentioned, I was looking for how it was stated, and it was a little bit my הרגשה, the the ta'avah of mamon. Ta'avah of mamon is linked in many places to עבודה זרה. We we suggested that a ta'avah of mamon is mamash indicative. Why is it עבודה זרה? Why is it so bad? Why is it such a terrible ta'avah? If a person wants to do something ruchniyut and then they have a ta'avah to eat, they have a ta'avah to to be with a woman, a עריותדיק pleasure, that's already a physical pleasure.

Now, they're between a rock and a hard place, there's the שכל and the גוף. What about money? Money is a very interesting thing. A person that works mamash 24 hours a day, they mamash work all the time, why? Because they want to amass money. Now, this person, so you could say, "Well, it's useful." Now, this person, let's say, for argument's sake, he gets to the point where he he could never work a day in his life, he's going to have a million dollars a year, and he provides also for his children, and his children's children, whatever, even outside the realm of השתדלות, whatever you could say are his concerns, he's already provided for, so that there's no point in in just amassing amassing more wealth.

So, you could say, "Well, there's a ta'avah," but there is no ta'avah. The person is working, maybe he goes on vacation for a week a year, maybe he gets a lot of כבוד when he walks in someplace. The person doesn't have any physical pleasure, in fact, he's actually working very hard. It caused a lot of anxiety and stress. Not only is he putting aside ruchniyut, get listen to this, the person is actually he's not even taking off of work and going and doing דברים אסורים. So, he's not a spiritual person, so let him go, let him go out to eat all the time, let him go do do עבירות.

He doesn't have time to do עבירות. He's sitting there, what's his ta'avah? What's prominent? The the the ta'avah for money. The ta'avah for money is not even a pleasure. It's actually just a ta'avah. It's a desire that even pushes aside it's the יצר הרע's יצר הרע, if you will. So, perhaps we could say over here that that he's לכוד בתוקף עז הגוף מה שהגוף עז וחזק בתאוות. Not only is the גוף strong that the that that there's a physical thing that a person wants more than the spiritual, it's the ta'avah itself. What is the person אין דבר עומד בפני הרצון, right?

What does the person have רצון for? Even if I'm sitting in a room and I'm not actually doing anything, I'm not learning, and I'm not doing something that's אסור, but what is it that I'm daydreaming about? The more that a person is in the גוף, that's even much more dangerous. It's the ta'avah that becomes strong. A person can desire to be kadosh and he has a hard time doing it. Over here, he's מתגבר in the ta'avot itself. וצריך ל is my suggestion, but I I I think that it reads into the words perhaps, וצריך לזה עזות דקדושה, היינו קולות כנ״ל, he needs to break out of that.

When we talked about קול, עזות דקדושה, davening out loud with kavanah, things that are inspired by voice, by acts. In Torah ה׳ we talked about the thunder to fix the עקמומיות שבלב, שעל ידי זה נשבר עזות הגוף. How do you break this עזות הגוף? Through a sigh, through an אנחה that breaks the גוף, כי אנחה שוברת גופו של אדם. He has to have an עזות דקדושה to break out of this. וכשנשבר עזות ותקיפות הגוף, על ידי זה תוכל הנשמה להזכיר עצמה על הגוף, כי לא תהיה נלכדת שם. You need to break the hold. When at that point, once the גוף is going in the wrong direction, a person needs to do something that has a קול, that has an עזות דקדושה, and עזות is a is a is a boldness, right?

I mean, there's a translation: brazenness versus boldness, עזות good עזות, bad עזות. A person needs to push back against the momentum, that is an עזות, and it's this עזות דקדושה that is required. We'll see if we can finish up to paragraph finish פרק ה׳ and then go to פרק ו׳. וזה, and this that we explained through an אנחה, through a sigh that could break the גוף, בחינת over a פסוק in Tehillim, with David, David is one of the שבעה רועים, מקול אנחתי, from the sound, the voice, the עזות דקדושה of the אנחה, of the sigh, דבקה עצמי לבשרי.

My עצם, what's my עצם? My עצם is my נשמה, who I truly am, was able to cleave to my בשר. עצמי היא הנשמה, שהיא עצם האדם, כי עיקר עצמיות האדם מה שנקרא אצל האדם אני, הוא הנשמה. This is the I. The body is going to go into the ground, but the the נשמה is not limited by that, the true self, what's going to ultimately go before the כסא הכבוד, the the נשמה, the spiritual self, right? שהיא עצם הקיים לעד. That's what really is goes on. It's it's קיים לעד, it's it's it's eternal, the גוף is not.

אבל מחמת עזות הגוף בתאוותיו, אזי הנשמה שהיא עצם האדם רחוקה מבשרו וגופו, that but because of the עזות of the גוף, because of the תאוות, so what's front and center, what's dominating the person's mind, what's dominating a person's his תאוה, where his desires lie, what what drives a wedge between the נשמה and the גוף? The עזות of the גוף. And therefore a person needs, ועל ידי קול אנחה, שהיא בחינת עזות דקדושה, through what we're describing as the עזות דקדושה, כנ״ל על ידי זה נשבר עזות גופו, that is able to break through the momentum of pushing past that the גוף is going beyond its boundaries, ואז מתקרבת ומתדבקת העצם לבשר.

Now it's the opposite. The the עצם, the נשמה, the אני, the true self can control, היינו הנשמה להגוף, that the נשמה control the גוף. וזהו מקול אנחתי דבקה עצמי לבשרי כנ״ל. And that's what David Hamelech means: מקול, from the sound, from the עזות דקדושה, I was able to create to take away that wedge, to drive the connection between the עצם, between the נשמה and the גוף. And again, we're talking about this on a פרטיות level and on a כלליותדיק level, in terms of the נשמה of the גוף, and the גוף, we're also talking about in terms of being able to cleave to the צדיקים, rather than the the the brazen dogs, like we said, the other leadership.

ובחינת קול התקיעות, back to the שופר, הוא בחינת מקול אנחתי, והוא משבר גופו של אדם. The the the the אנחה we said breaks the גוף, the shofar over here we relate to עזות, the תקיעות are מקול אנחתי, the sound of my אנחה, the אנחה is what breaks the גוף, הוא משבר גופו של אדם בבחינת אם יתקע שופר בעיר ועם לא יחרדו. What's a tremble? A tremble is is that that a person's like doesn't have control of his גוף. If the shofar blows in the ear in the city, so there's going to be a חרדה that's going to break the גוף with that עזות, ועל ידם יוכל לבוא לרועים הנ״ל.

And through this breaking of the גוף, through the קול שופר and through the the קול שופר creating the חרדה and the sigh and the breaking of the גוף, a person is able to come to emunah to the שבעה רועים. More on the shofar: וזה בחינת תקיעה שברים תרועה תקיעה. The three sounds of the שופר, הם הקולות, קול עז, this is the עזות דקדושה, the the the קול עז, the the the breaking through, שברים שעל ידם נשבר עזות הגוף. So first we have the קול, First we have the עזות דקדושה. This is able to be נשברים תרועה, to break the guf, so to speak, it leads to the אנחה, and then we have a, this, that's a שברים, then we have a תרועה, which is a בחינה of again דוד המלך ואתה תרעה את עמי, and you tend my nation הנ״ל, we said already תרעה is רעי אמונה the שבעה רועים, שהם הרועים דקדושה שאי אפשר

להתקרב להם כי אם על ידי עזות דקדושה שהם בחינת קולות דקדושה בחינת קול שופר כנ״ל. So we have a תקיעה, a שברים and תרועה, the three sounds of the shofar. The first תקיעה is breaking through, the sound of the shofar that creates the עזות דקדושה. There's the שברים that breaks the guf, it creates a חרדה, and then there's the final תרועה which is לשון of רעי אמונה that's getting close to the צדיקים. And this applies to to again to ourself, to getting close to our neshamah, to getting close to kedushah, to making this bond. This also applies to getting close to the צדיקים, to the שבעה רועים.

And now coming back to שמירת הברית, right כנגד the תאוה כוללת, we had one of the earlier תורות the the idea of of ענייני קדושה. Now we're going to bring in Avraham, another of the שבעה רועים. So it brings from Likutei Halachot over here, it says that's why we we mentioned before, it says לך לך, the לך, the אני, the עצם, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is telling us to get back in touch with ourself, okay, every one of these things is a gem. וזה וימל את בשר ערלתם בעצם היום הזה, it says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that Avraham, Hakadosh Baruch Hu commanded Avraham to do a brit milah and he was מל himself the בשר ערלתם בעצם היום הזה.

This is representative of azus d'kedushah, that on that day, bedavka by day, he wasn't scared of the goyim, he wasn't scared of the influences, כתיב בעצם היום הזה נימול אברהם, again that it was דוקא ביום. היום הזה that says by מילה, זה בחינת קול שופר שמצותו ביום, ובבחינת יענך השם ביום צרה, scream out to הקדוש ברוך הוא ביום צרה. This pasuk has 70 letters, 70 letters keneged the שבעים קולות, we quoted this in the last Torah that a woman when she's giving birth, שבעים קולות that's מוליד in this context of growth, of being מוליד the מקיפין, of being מוליד the new מוחין, that there are things that I do, that I don't do yet, and then things beyond me, how do I bring those things onto the table?

Through through a crying out. This יענך השם ביום, ביום צרה, screaming out ביום is also כנגד היום הזה of milah. He brings over here from from the the מים עמוקים that that when the baby cries out by day it says it's incredible time for tefillah, not just that what's accomplished for the baby by himself, but anybody who hears the baby crying מתפלל באותה שעה, שחייב כל אדם להתפלל על כל צרותיו בעת בכי הנימול מיסורי המילה, שכל זה עולה בלי מונע מכל קליפה, שיכלל בזה גם תפילתו, that the the tefillah goes straight, it's breaking through, it's cutting off the בשר, it's ממש forming forming this attachment, through this tzeakah that that goes straight to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and we can attach our tefillot, they're going to go straight up.

So Otzar Hayirah brings this from Rabbi Eliyahu, I think this was Rabbi Eliyahu Gutmacher mi-Graditz zatzal on Masechet Shabbat דף ק״ל, okay, it's note 110 in the Otzar Hayirah print. But in any event we see that milah, shofar, we have an anacha that breaks the guf, we have the קול שופר, the עזות דקדושה, we're linking this as well to milah and to the the milah which is cutting off the בשר, but when is it? בעצם היום הזה, at the time of עזות דקדושה, and yom is like shofar, that it's the שבעים קולות שעל ידו נימול ונשבר ערלת בשר, that through the קול עז, through through this crying, there is a the the בשר is is נימול, it's circumcised, and that that's going to break the עזות הגוף from its תאוות, ומקבל אור העצם, and to make the neshama prominent, the אור הנשמה, so that through these three things, the קול אנחה, the קול שופר, and

the קול of the crying of the תינוק by milah, we daven by a brit, in the yom, this עזות דקדושה is able to become prominent, go against the azut of of the guf, and and attach ourself both to our own neshama and רעי אמונה to the tzadikim. I will mention one other thing over here which is very interesting, he brings from Parperaot laChochmah אות ח׳ that the shofar is דוקא by day. A lot of times when a person is in a מצב of חושך, then, you know, that's not the right time, you know, אל תרצה אדם בשעת כעסו.

When a person is going through something, it's not always the person doesn't have clarity. When do they have clarity? When they can when they could take a step back, and he brings וימת מלך מצרים, אז ויאנחו בני ישראל מן העבודה. When the king of Mitzrayim died, that's when all of a sudden they had a second to take a step back and sigh, מאחר שמרגיש כבר בצרת נפשו וצועק להשם העונה בעת צרה. When all of a sudden we have a small window, when we're when we're trapped by the the physical, a lot of times we, you know, that that becomes very difficult to all of a sudden make a pivot, but sometimes, sometimes a person have all of a sudden a hit'orerut, sometimes it stops, there's a breather, and all of a sudden they have a hit'orerut, a הרהור תשובה, when they're all of a sudden there's light, that's where a person can have a sigh

and that can break the guf. Even just, even just for a split moment, we mentioned earlier by Aharon HaKohen when he took by the עגל, he took it directly from the hands. We quoted a Zohar that had he thrown it on the floor and then picked it up, it would have broken the chain and and and the the the egel wouldn't have of happened. But, but over here also, when there's a break, when there's a a split of daylight, when a person feels the tzarah they realize how שקוע they are in in aveirot, then they're able to to take advantage of that moment and get out of it.