LM 22.5 — Chosam b'Soch Chosam, Part 5 of 10 · תורה כ״ב

תורה כ״ב, we're up to paragraph ח'. We will be starting, going to use ר' חיים קרמר's note to help us sum up where we're at so that we can go forward. They said the תורה starts off, to mitigate any decree, a judgment that is going to be issued against the world, רחמנא ליצלן, this involves the צדיקים. The גזר דין is the דין תורה. We know that תורה לא בשמים היא, and therefore the צדיקים, who we will see play a dual role, one of their roles as is to give an עצה, as it were, to הקדוש ברוך הוא, and as part of this עצה, they're going to minimize whatever the sin was that was that was committed to argue that there should be a מיתוק in the דין, that it should be that it should be tempered.

On the other hand, the צדיקים also בבחינה of רגלין. We said רגלין is עצה. רגלין is also that they are sent. They're sent from הקדוש ברוך הוא to give תוכחה, to give rebuke to the people so that the people will do תשובה, the people will repent. And we explored this whole idea of of what it means to have a מיתוק in the דין, what what it means to try to argue and affect and temper the דין before it's issued and after it's issued. And in terms of having a tempering of the judgment upon תשובה, there is always going to be a consequence for actions.

But we discussed a lot of ideas, and that the idea that whenever there's a a decree that's issued, on one hand it's it's a consequence of action, and it's needed to, if you think about it, to restore balance in the world. People did an עבירה, and for that there's an effect. On Also, the reason that sometimes there's ייסורים is to give a message to get people to do תשובה. If that In both ways, if that balance is changed by people doing תשובה, they're not the same person, they got the message without need for the ייסורים, right?

They they self-corrected or they corrected with the צדיק, or alternatively they were able to affect something in the תשובה to otherwise change the balance in the world, then there might not need a need- there might not be a need for that גזר דין. So it's not חס ושלום to say הקדוש ברוך הוא is just מוותר, lets bygones be bygones. It's that through the תשובה process there can actually be a tempering of the judgment. Now, this is the צדיקים arguing on behalf of the people to temper the דין. But in order for the for this process to work, the צדיקים have to give תוכחה to the people, there has to be a connection.

There's the In in this role, the צדיקים are going to be the משפיע, as it were, they're giving the תוכחה, the people have to be מקבל. That connection is formed through אמונה. The people have to have אמונת חכמים. They have There has to be a relationship there between the people and the צדיקים, between those who need to receive the מוסר, and we're talking about מוסר at a at a primal level, we're talking about self-correction, not just to the effect of the גזר דין. So the outer seal, as it were, the תורה's חותם בתוך חותם, is the אמונה with the חכמים.

In order for The first thing that has to be, working backwards, is there has to be a connection between the people and the צדיק, and at that point, then the inner seal, the צדיק will be able to do to do their job. How is this אמונה developed? So ר' חיים קרמר says that perfect faith is drawn only through the שבעה רועים, within whom are encompassed the leaders of the generation. And we said, well, there's here I am, I'm trying to do the right thing, and there's leaders the leaders of the generation attaching to the שבעה רועים, developing אמונה, and that would allow me to attach myself to the צדיק and to do מוסר.

But if you look at the world, the influence is not always held by the שבעה רועים, by the צדיקים. There's false leaders also, the people that have עזות, they're כלבים, they bark. We talked about the significance of this. So how is it that we can break the influence, the immediate influence of the false leaders? There needs to be a certain עזות דקדושה, and we actually explained that this dynamic exists in the people attaching themselves to the צדיקים, to the true leaders, and being able to get out of the immediate influence of the false leaders, and it exists also on a פרטיותדיק level between the influence, the immediate influence of the גוף and us being able to get in touch with our own with our own נשמה.

Now, how does a person tap into this עזות דקדושה to break out of the immediate influence? The through a קול דקדושה. We talked about a קול of צעקה, of screaming out, of תפילה, קול of אנחה, שופר, זמרה, different types of different types of קולות. Now, the the קול, a person feels a certain חיסרון, they're trapped by the leaders, by their גוף, and now they need to break out of that influence, there has to be a קול. The problem is that because the world has a it's in a balance, the whenever there's a קול דקדושה, then the negative forces will also be stirred up.

So here here here a person is, and now on one hand they they they feel like their life is lacking something. Here on one hand is the קול דקדושה that's trying to pull them, to forge that connection, to get them out of the influence of the גוף, of the negative leaders. On the other hand, now that the קול דקדושה ...was raised, the negative קול, which we call an echo, is raised also, and it says, "No, you know what you're missing?" Again, we're simplifying a little bit, this was explored in the שיעורים, "You're not missing going to the בית מדרש, you're not missing the קדושה, you're missing you're not going on enough vacation.

You obviously just don't have the best גשמיות." And now the person is caught in the middle. Therefore, paragraph ח is going to start out telling us how we should sensitize ourselves to the קול of קדושה and not get trapped and confused by the corresponding קול הברה. וההויה לבחינת בשר הוא על ידי השימוש. So now you have the two parts, you have the two prerogatives, you have the עצם, the structure, what is the תכלית, the תפקיד of a person, and now you have the בשר. Again, this applies both in the פרטיותדיק dynamic and also the כלליות.

So when you have the בשר, it has its own priorities, it has its own תאוות, it has its own גשמיותדיק preferences, and yet on the other hand, the בשר is also the vehicle, it's the הלבשה, it's the dressing, it's the interface with the עצם, with the structure in order to accomplish the תפקיד, in order to, in the כלליותדיק sense, get close to the צדיק and to be able to fulfill as a nation the תפקיד of the nation. So how is it that the בשר is going to play its role vis-a-vis the עצם? And that's going to be הוא על ידי השימוש, using, functioning through מעשים, through בשרדיק activities to service the עצם.

When the גוף carries out the priorities of the נשמה, when the people still so the people the the people subscribe and relate in a practical way to to the צדיק, that's going to be where it becomes one integrated whole, one system, על ידי שמשמשין את החכם. He brings over here in the note a גמרא from בבא קמא. It says sometimes, כששאלו תנא או אמורא שאלה הוא אומר להם שקודם שיענה, that a תנא or אמורא before answering a question would request שישמשו אותו, right? You have to bridge the connection. Otherwise there's going to be In order for two things to to to get together, there there has to be there has to be a connection over there, a משפיע and a מקבל.

If you know, for instance, if you're going to try to attach Even if you're going to glue two things, they they might not they might not stick, they might not go together. It has to be that they're receptive to a connection. Maybe you have to you have to sand it down first, or you have to remove any impediments, take off the dirt, or a rough surface might stick better better than a smooth surface. So in order for two things to attach, there has to be there has to be a point of attachment. How is it that you can ready the people, ready the בשר, that there should be an אמונת חכמים?

How can you ready the כלי to be able to be מקבל from the משפיע? You can sensitize the בשר to the רוחניות in order by taking the מעשים and making it that the מעשים also are משמש the the עצם, that the מעשים are משמש the רוחניות cause. So over here it says, how is it that the people can become can forge this connection with the צדיק? Through being משמש the חכם. He mentions over here from the שיחות שרפי קודש, so how could we be משמש over here רבינו to make sure He says, ובזה שנשמר שלא יגיע לו על ידינו שום ביזיון וקלון, that there shouldn't be any ביזיון attributed to the צדיק, and to give צדקה on his behalf, and to print ספרים.

So there's ways, even if we're not around the צדיק, to be משמש a צדיק. נעשה בחינת בשר להחכם, that's how we can make this connection by using our מעשים towards towards the צדיק. וכן על ידי שמשמש הגוף להנשמה בעשיית מצוות מעשיות, in order that we're going to be that the גוף is going to be משמש the נשמה, or corresponding to the people being משמש the צדיק, נעשה הגוף בחינת בשר להנשמה, meaning the the נשמה in in our context the נשמה, by the way, if you have a loose נשמה, right? A נשמה is not going to be מקיים מצוות unless it's in the body.

Using the example that we gave before, let's say somebody driving a car, just to give let's say two examples to bring out the point: if I if I am driving a car, so then you could say, "I made a right turn." Now that might include stepping on the gas, going into the turn, it might include checking my mirrors, it might include turning the steering wheel. Do I say that the car is doing something, it's part of this process? No, it's a מרכבה just solely for for me. I'm just executing my רצון through the car. On the other hand, let's say I'm taking a cab, and now there's a driver.

The driver could really do whatever he wants. The driver happens to have the priority that he wants to make פרנסה, he wants to get a good rating in Uber, whatever it is. And therefore, when I say, "I would like to make a right turn," I tell the driver, and then the driver does, because of his own decision, what I want. The more that the גוף is משמש the נשמה, the more that it becomes just one unified whole, and the and the גוף is really just a function of the נשמה. The more that the גוף has its own priorities, even if one of those priorities might be in line for the time being with רוחניותדיק goals, but there's still a פירוד over there, it's two separate things.

And what we're trying to move to is where the בשר is a הלבשה, the בשר is a מרכבה for the נשמה. וכשהבשר בבחינה זו, when the בשר becomes בטל to the עצם, אז וירושלים מבשר אתן. Then it's going to be מקיים the פסוק, ירושלים is a מבשר. מבשר is like somebody who announces good news, good tidings. He mentions over here that there's a lot of דוגמאות in דרשות in חז״ל that put together the idea of בשר and בשורה, news and בשר. Okay, we'll take it for what it is. מבשר הנימול הנ״ל. So we actually mentioned the idea of מילה at the end of אות ה', we're now making a connection between ירושלים, which is מבשר, or linking מבשר, בשורה, news, and בשר.

ירושלים is the epitome of אמונה, ירושלים קריה נאמנה. And we're linking בשר to נימול, to מילה. What's מילה? מילה is representative, יסוד, right? מילה is a breaking of the תאוות הגוף. It's where some of the בשר, the מילה gets cut off, it gets removed. It's a שבירה of the תאוות. Once there's a שבירה of the תאוות, those things that are that are standing in the way and are also creating their own pull, it's its own תאווה. Once there's a שבירה in the in the תאווה, the שבירה in the מידות, so then that makes it able that we could attach ourselves to the נשמה, attach ourselves to the צדיק.

נשלם ירושלים, שהיא קריה נאמנה, היינו, so then there could be a שלימות in ירושלים, a שלימות in the אמונה. And a שלימות in the אמונה doesn't mean disregarding the בשר, it means where the בשר is the בשר to the עצם. It doesn't mean disregarding the גוף, it means where the גוף is it's a מרכבה, it's together, it's an integrated whole with the נשמה. קריה נאמנה, היינו, שזוכין לבא לאמונה שהיא כללות הקדושה שמקבלין מצדיקי הדור האמתיים, this becomes the full expression of אמונה where the where the the people are able to get close to the צדיקים.

It's one whole, it's one nation with the priorities of the צדיקים who, in their own way, have a total התבטלות to הקדוש ברוך הוא. But the real שלימות is where the צדיקים are the צדיקים of the עם. שאי אפשר להתקרב אליהם כי על ידי עזות דקדושה. But the only way for the people to get close to the צדיק is to have an עזות דקדושה. The עזות דקדושה is necessarily is necessary to break through the תאווה that are pulling people in other directions. And the more that a person identifies with their גוף, the more that a person identifies with those תאוות and those priorities, it's not that I have 100% I want to do the right thing, and then there's the יצר הרע, it's an external party, it's trying to pull me in the wrong direction, but I 100% align with הקדוש ברוך הוא, with the צדיק.

No, a person thinks that I have a תאווה, I want chocolate cake, this is what I want to do. And we don't know who who am I? Where who do I identify with? When a person has עזות דקדושה, they're able to break through this confusion, break through the בלבול between the קול דקדושה and the הבערה, שהוא בחינת כל הקולות דקדושה, that the עזות דקדושה is able to to understand for what it is the קול דקדושה. And we understand that the other stuff is just noise, it's static, it's not actually competing. Maybe it seems to be competing because it seems to have a lot more influence down here.

The קול דקדושה is rooted much higher than anything that's גשמיות in this world. But from where I stand, if my antenna is up, I I get a lot of static at my level. I I seem to hear a lot of noise telling me, well, I want to go on vacation, I want to eat more. So for me it sounds like a competing noise. But when I can break through all of the קולות at my altitude and I can I can hear something that's really much higher, I can hear those קולות דקדושה, then I understand that everything else is just static, it's just getting in the way.

I need to break through and then I can align myself with the צדיק. שעל ידי זה משברין עזות דסטרא אחרא, I'm able to break the עזות of the סטרא אחרא, שהוא בחינת עזות הגוף, וזוכין Even though it's, like we said, it's כלבים, it makes a lot of noise, but it's just barking. וזוכין להתקרב ולהדבק עליהם, and then a person can get close, they can be nourished from the אמונה of the שבעה רועים. ועל ידי זה זוכין לאמונה שלימה, שהוא בחינת ירושלים קריה נאמנה כנ״ל. We've referenced תורה ז' before, talking about ארץ ישראל, talking about אמונה in that context.

But when a person can break through the the the עזות of the סטרא אחרא, then they can align themselves with אמונה, they can be nourished from the שבעה רועים, רעיא מהימנא, all the שבעה רועים, and משה רבינו specifically. And coming back around to the beginning of the תורה, once this אמונה is in place, once this outer seal's in place, the connection between the גוף and נשמה, but in a כלליותדיק sense, the connection between the people and the צדיק based on אמונה, so now the צדיק are able to effect a מיתוק in the דין, like we explained in the first שיעור, that the that the חיצונים won't have access to be יונק from the דין תורה, but rather the צדיקים are going to be able to effect a מיתוק in the דין תורה.

And we had said that when when there's a גזר דין, it could lead to גלות. So this אמונה, this link which is associated with ירושלים, so now there can be a מיתוק in the דין, and אם ירצה השם, there won't be a need for גלות, there won't be a need for for גזירות. Now as we go into paragraph ט, just gonna use Reb Chaim Kramer's note to introduce paragraph ט, and also I wanted to go back and mention one thing. He says in note 93, he says in the previous section, in section ח, paragraph ח, רבי נחמן explained that one attains the category of flesh.

How does one attain the category of בשר? So it's it's the בשר is on the עצם, it's the בשר is essentially a means to an end, but it's an integrated whole. It doesn't have its own personality. The בשר is the vehicle through which the נשמה connects, through which we connect with the נשמה, through which the נשמה connects to the צדיק, through through which there's a שלימות in the system and getting close to הקדוש ברוך הוא by performing מצוות and by serving the sage through מעשים, right? In other words, in a we we are able to get in to in touch with our נשמה by having our גוף perform מצוות, and we're able to get the the נפש is able to get close to the צדיק by being משמש the צדיק.

This allows him to break through the עזות of the סטרא אחרא, the brazenness of the other side, but that's סור מרע. Well, now is עשה טוב. Now, what do we do with that? So just I I wanted to mention the from he he also brings from note 88 that there's actually he brings three different ways of being משמש a תלמיד חכם, which just in point, it allows us What does it mean to be משמש a תלמיד חכם? One of them he says is actually somebody who somebody who is learning, but somebody who learns in depth.

When we look in let's say a משנה, very often a person can see statements in a משנה and it seems to be one מחלוקת, and as a person learns גמרא, they'll see another מחלוקת about a different set of facts, a different הלכה, and some and the גמרא will end up saying, well, maybe these תנאים are like those תנאים, or maybe this מחלוקת, לימא כתנאי, is actually the מחלוקת of תנאים, but it's not. They seem to be arguing about something else. And the גמרא explains, no, the presentation it's תורה שבעל פה. The presentation of the מחלוקת in a particular particular set of circumstances is just an expression of a legal principle, but that's just a particular application.

The legal principle is the same in this instance as that instance, and then the גמרא will have one of a couple reasons. Either it'll say, no, maybe they must be arguing about something else, there's no reason to have the same argument twice, or it would say, oh, we see that the אמוראים are actually supported because we see that their position was already discussed by תנאים. They both whom have who to rely on. But in order to be משמש a תלמיד חכם, to understand what was the תלמיד חכם saying when he presented a particular statement, a particular application of a rule, you need to delve deeper.

You need to understand the underlying reason. You need to to look at it, so to speak, as as a סימן and סיבה, right? In other words, a cause and symptom. What what was really underlying what a particular צדיק said? That's how you're משמש the תלמידי חכמים. That's how you're bringing alive their תורה. Another another way that he brings, in note 88, I'm reading from Reb Chaim Kramer, page 357, another thing that he brings is that the study, the שקלא וטריא, you can't just open up a שולחן ערוך or a קיצור שולחן ערוך, again, for the same reason sort of we said a second ago, you won't be able to be מדמה מילתא למילתא, you'll have a lot of ideas, but we we live in this world.

This ideas, we need to ground the תורה, we have to incorporate the תורה, we need to integrate the תורה, we need to take the תורה and it has to be a תורת חיים for us. The study, the ideas, that's only a preparation for the final decision, but there is a stage at which we appreciate הוה אמינא, we appreciate the truth inherent in הוה אמינא, and then there's a stage at which we're עסוקי שמעתתא אליבא דהלכתא. How are you משמש? When you see the final decision in practice. Sometimes the גמרא will bring in support of a הלכה a מעשה רב.

We we see how it was actually conducted, or you'll see a תנא that supported a particular position, but in practice he did something else. So seeing the actual הנהגה, being משמש, seeing the final decision in a למעשה'דיק way, the the conduct, that's being משמש a תלמיד a תלמיד חכם. And then the third thing is the third way that he brings from כתובות דף צ״ו עמוד א׳, he says that the גמרא says that all of the chores that a servant performs for his master, a student should perform for his רבי, except for undoing his shoes. Okay, there's a סוגיא over there, but the idea of a שימוש תלמידי חכמים is literally just to serve the תלמיד חכם, although we know that even a a true צדיק, a true תלמיד חכם, even his mundane actions are מצוות also, even the conversation, you can learn a tremendous amount from the שיחה of of a תלמיד חכם of a

צדיק, but nevertheless, the idea of coming close See, it's interesting, because on one hand, the צדיק'ס mundane actions might be within ד' אמות של הלכה, is being מקיים שולחן ערוך. When the צדיק ties his right shoe first, then it's not just a mundane task, he's being מקיים, הריני מוכן ומזומן לקיים a מצוה that's stated in שולחן ערוך, here's how I need to do everything a person, how does he sleep on his side, which limb he washes first in the shower, so that's not really a mundane action in a certain sense for a תלמיד חכם. On the other hand, I'm trying to become close to the תלמיד חכם, so when I do those actions, in my head I'm not holding there, so for me it's mundane.

But perhaps you could say, two things I guess, perhaps number one you could say that when I serve the תלמיד חכם, so I'm doing it in in his service, it turns the idea of mundane actions into קדושה and bridges that gap. But further, it just it bridges even on the relationship, like, level of of however I perceive my actions, it allows me to become close to the תלמיד חכם, and once you're aligned with somebody, so that opens up those connections. Okay, איך שיהיה, there's a lot of different ways that we could talk about this. So as we go into paragraph ט, we're performing מצות and we're serving, being משמש תלמיד חכם, allowing us to break the עזות of the סטרא אחרא.

In this section now we're going to detail how one can be sure that his עזות stems from holiness, that it's a boldness as we said. Is עזות boldness, or is it brazenness? Is it a חוצפה? So so a person now has עזות, but it's a it's very subtle. Is it Are we reinforcing Are we fooling ourself, or are we reinforcing a negative מדה, or are we re-engaging in a positive מדה? Says רבינו in paragraph ט, ולבוא לעזות דקדושה הנ״ל, how do we get It's not It's not always easy. How are we going to get this עזות דקדושה?

We said the קול צעקה, קול אנחה, through sounds, כל אלו, we need to be משבר, we need to break the תאוה, break the גוף, not reinforce the גוף. Person is is learning with a חברותא, and in the context of a סוגיא, but they ממש get angry at their חברותא. Now, ברוך השם, it's better to get angry, I guess, in the בית מדרש than to get angry in the streets. However, if they're not just seeking the truth and then they're getting very enthusiastic and worked up because the truth is important, what they're doing is they're taking it personally.

Even after they close the גמרא, they're still annoyed at the person. They're reinforcing the מדה of anger, that's very, very subtle. This person might have worked on a lot of things, but he still might have to work on the מדה of anger. He might not have worked on that one iota. By the way, you know, sometimes you have one of these pieces and you say, if you would listen to only one piece, then you know it was worth coming here for this. This has to just light us up right now. It's so it's so deep when you read it.

It's so obvious, in a certain sense. It's it's clarity, it's אמת. הוא על ידי שמחה. Because שמחה is a is a force. שמחה is an enthusiasm. שמחה is something that's larger than life. You can do something that transcends any כחות you have. The בעל התניא talks about the idea of עצבות. He says if two people are wrestling, even if one is physically stronger than the other, but he but he he's lethargic, he's בעצבות, he's going to lose that battle. שמחה allows somebody to just be resilient, to come back, to come back for more. Somebody insults them, it doesn't make a difference.

I'm settled, I'm מנוחת הנפש, I'm doing exactly what I have to be doing, I have drive. And brazenness, the idea of a negative energy of pushing back, "I'm not trying to rise higher, I'm trying to push you down." So yes, I'm going to build myself up through some sort of a negative energy, right? That that is a profound difference, which sometimes you you might almost not be able to put your finger on it, but once you put your finger on it, you can tell that it's that that it's מקצה לקצה. ובבחינת כי חדות השם, the delight in השם, היא מעזכם, that's your strength, but we're learning that as לשון of עזות.

That is the עזות, the חדות השם, the delight in השם, that is the עזות דקדושה. That's That That's how you get the עזות דקדושה. It's not just another redirection of the same energy. It's live energy, but is it negative energy, or is it positive energy? It's not two competing things going in the same direction, it's two things going in the opposite directions. One of them is a negative עזות, it's a pushing back, it's a It's a trying to to to break you, it's a trying to cover up the עזות דקדושה, and the other one is is attaching yourself to אמת.

It's It's anchoring yourself so that you're not going to get disturbed by any of the by by any of the negative forces. היינו על ידי בחינת נעשה There's a piece, I don't have it with me. Maybe next time we'll mention, I think it's the third letter in אגרות חזון איש. He talks about about about חיים in the context of breaking מדות. I have to see שבירת המדות, I have to see exactly what it says. But we are a person is able to have שמחת החיים, true שמחה, היינו על ידי בחינת נעשה ונשמע שהוא בחינת שמחה.

Let's go into that in a second, but I do want to just I think it's important, I want to read just two notes from רב עטיאס's print. If you have it, you have it, but if not, just listen. It's it's unbelievable. Note 142, he says, דבר זה חושי כי כשאדם עצוב ומדוכדך, this It's You see it. You see it in front of your face. The face The senses will tell you this. If a person is depressed, a person is crushed, קל מאד לרעים דסטרא אחרא לכפות עליו את שיעבודם. When does a person all of a sudden have תאוות, questions?

They fall. Yes, everybody has תאוות, we're human beings, this is part of life. When is a person most susceptible to these things? When they're When they're depressed, when they're down. ולהרהר סרה מקדושה, כי הוא נוטה בקלות לאמונות כוזביות. All of a sudden they have questions. Things bother them. "Why should I be sitting in the בית מדרש? Am I Is this really what I should be doing with my life?" They're There is a a healthy way of making a חשבון הנפש, but the things that that are מפריע somebody, what bothers somebody, that's when they're feeling down.

If a person is having certain questions and they're in an emotional state of depression, take those questions, write them down, put them aside, you can revisit them later. It could be that the substance of something has to be dealt with, but the idea of whether it bothers you, there could be a million things that come up. None of us know a hundred percent of everything all the time. The fact that somebody has a question does not necessarily It's not necessarily מפריע them. It's not doesn't necessarily push them off course. The fact that something is going to push somebody aside, that happens because of עצבות.

כמו שרואים, כל זה במציאות, השם ירחם. לעומת זאת, כשאדם בשמחה, יש ליה עזות דקדושה, they persevere, they have strength, ויש ליה כח להתקרב לשבעת הרועים האמיתיים שיש בכל דור, and they're able to attach themselves to the right leaders, right? And even just a מחלוקת among people, מחלוקת among leaders, right, or or seeing, perceiving מחלוקת among גדולים, all these things happen when something ain't right with me, when I'm בעצבות. So when I know that I'm doing the right thing, yes, okay, something happened, I have a question, what did the צדיק mean by this, why did he do...

Yeah, okay, I don't understand everything, but but the idea of of everything pushing me aside and dampening me, ואינו נרתע מהרועים דסטרא אחרא הללו, כי אדם שמח הוא אדם חזק ועז לטובה. One more note we have to read, and this is going to pull from the from ליקוטי הלכות. He starts off saying that by עזרא ונחמיה, when the Jews came up from from the end of גלות בבל at בית שני, the עזרא ונחמיה, they gathered all the people on ראש השנה in the streets of ירושלים, and עזרא read the תורה in front of them and they cried.

That's a positive thing! They're making a חשבון הנפש, they're clopping על חטא, it's terrible! And they realized that they were עובר on so many of the הלכות to the point that many of them ממש or some of them, might not have been, you know, many in context, a group of them it seems, married גוים, and the תורה שבעל פה tells us, חז״ל tell us exactly what was going on. But without talking about judging the people or being critical, just in terms of the פסוקים, comes עזרא ונחמיה, it's ראש השנה, לכן, אכלו ושתו כי השמחה היא כוחכם.

You want strength? Don't beat yourself up! What does the מצודת דוד say on those פסוקים? שהשמחה של מצוה היא תיתן לכם עוז ותעצומות. You need strength, you want to connect? The connecting is not through breaking yourself down. You want to break away the the the עזות דסטרא אחרא, you want to break away the negative energy? What you do is light it up and the darkness will recede. What are you going to do? You're going to say, "Darkness, go away," but it's dark, you're not letting in any light, it has no place to go. You want the strength so that the קליפה falls away?

Just attach yourself to the light, attach yourself to the שמחה. And Rabbeinu is not saying just that the שמחה is your מעוזכם, your strength, he says that that's in the context of our lesson, the עזות דקדושה. Listen to the words of ליקוטי הלכות in בהמה טהורה ד' כ״ט: ואל תעצבו כי חדות השם היא מעזכם. What does it mean? כי זה עיקר האזהרה שהזהיר אותם אז נחמיה, and עזרא also, כשראה שנפל עליהם יראה ופחד גדול, כשקראו לפניהם את התורה, they're reading the תורה and the people are בפחד. You might say that's great! It's great, the people finally are getting it, it's finally hitting home, let them sit and cry, it's good for them!

Why? Because they saw that they were עובר אז כמעט על כל התורה, כי נכשלו אז בנשים נכריות, על כן אמר להם, what did the נביא tell them? שאף על פי שעשו מה שעשו, you did what you did, that was Forget about what you did, we'll clean up the spilled milk later, we're not worried about that right this second. You did it, that's where you're holding right now, so that's where your עבודה is. But what's your עבודה? ועל שום שנפל עליהם יראה ונתעוררו בתשובה, now you have התעוררות לתשובה, now you're turned, forget about where you're holding, where are you facing?

You're facing in the right direction, okay? יזהרו מאוד מאוד מעצבות. Be careful that you don't get depressed, because now what you need, if anything, now that you're so low, what you need is the strength to break through, בבחינת ואל תעצבו, שלא יבואו על ידי היראה והפחד לעצבות חס ושלום. Don't come to יראה and פחד, כי חדוות... sorry, שלא יבואו על ידי יראה ופחד לעצבות חס ושלום, your יראה and פחד shouldn't bring you to depression, כי חדוות השם היא מעוזכם. It's the שמחה, it's the delighting in השם, that's your strength, that's your עזות, that's what's going to allow you to break free.

כי השם יתברך מחזק אותנו בשמחה וחדווה בכל מקום שאנחנו שם. Where's your עבודה? השם is with you, השם is with you in the חושך, השם is with you in the darkness, that is where you are. Now the question is what's your עבודה now? Forget about your עבודה over what happened in the past, yes, you need to be נתעורר, but you have the תשובה, now you're נתעורר בתשובה. What do you do going forward? You need to break away. How are you going to break away? You can't just have the negative energy of of of pushing everything else down, you need to have the שמחה.

The שמחה is what's going to, ברוך השם, ah, I have שמחה that I'm connected with הקדוש ברוך הוא, I have the right priorities now. Everything else will fall away, and if there's other על חטאs that I have to klopp, I'll deal with that because that's part of my עבודה and I'm going to have שמחה in the עבודה of תשובה. כמו שאמר רבינו שאפילו אם אדם הוא כמו שהוא, תיכף שנתעורר לשוב אל השם יתברך, תיכף הוא עבירה גדולה שיש לו עצבות What is better than a person who is doing all the wrong things, who had the wrong priorities, who now literally has unbelievably the right priorities?

That's something ממש to dance over. We've said so many times that the biggest גילוי כבוד השם יתברך is when the people that are the farthest away come close. Now you've been facing in the wrong direction and now finally finally not just facing the wrong direction, you've been barreling forward in the wrong direction, now you come forward to want to literally turn around, is there any better שמחה to have than that? What, cuz I was going in the right direction now I'm going faster? I ממש had an about-face, throw a party. ולכן גם בראש השנה ויום הכיפורים צריכין להתחזק להיות בשמחה כנ״ל.

Okay, that is If that doesn't light you up, then I don't know what what possibly could. So back in the text, it says that this is this is what we need, בבחינת כי חדות השם היא מעזכם היינו על ידי בחינת נעשה ונשמע. This is a בחינה of ממש נעשה ונשמע that that when a person does the שימוש, they make themselves receptive, they do the נעשה, that's the עשיה part, ועזות דקדושה the אב״י הנחל explains now comes from the נשמע. Now I put aside the the מפרשים, the פרפראות לחכמה I think, has a discussion how really נעשה ונשמע is totally threaded throughout this entire lesson.

I'm just going to reference now note part of the note 3, just from the very beginning of Reb Chaim Kramer's notes, where he he starts to lay out some of the ways that נעשה ונשמע is threaded throughout this lesson. He says that נעשה is a בחינה of תורה and נשמע is a בחינה of תפילה. נעשה is a בחינה of נגלה and נשמע is a בחינה of נסתר. נעשה is what we have in front of us, נשמע is what we don't have yet, it's נסתר. We're דאוונינג, we're trying to bridge a connection. And when we do תפילה, like what we said in previous תורות, that you're trying to attach to something even over טבע.

Not cuz it's Not cuz It's hidden from the טבע the way that we see it, but it's perfect to is a טבע, הקדוש ברוך הוא could do anything He wants. We're connecting with הקדוש ברוך הוא to ask Him for something, that sounds perfectly rational to me, but it's hidden. And there there's there's different levels. There's נעשה, נעשה is the נגלה. נשמע, like we spoke about in the past תורה, in terms of the מקיפין. There's two parts really that are part of נשמע, the part of the נסתר. One is the yearning, the desiring to pray for the higher level, to acknowledge its existence.

Like in the last תורה we we we went through this in in depth, the idea that now I have a relationship with something outside of myself and I can even דאוון for it. And then the other is actually attaining that higher level. And that's so there's נעשה, there's the תורה, the מצוות that I do, and now I דאוון for מצוות that I don't even relate to, and then finally I I I dip my toe and I start to do those מצוות, and I keep on attaining ever higher levels of נעשה ונשמע. It's not a process It's not a process that finishes.

I I think I mentioned once, I remember I don't know who was speaking, but somebody was speaking by Reb Chaim Kanievsky's, one of the הספדים, זכר צדיק וקדוש לברכה, and he mentioned you know that Reb Chaim Kanievsky was just his the way that we related to him, I mean, larger than life: אשכנזים, ספרדים, חסידים, ליטוויש, everybody. Whether people talked about his כל התורה כולה סדר, just larger almost than any any limitations. And it might have been Rav Aharon Feldman from from Ner Yisroel שליט״א, but anyway, there was lots of הספדים. And he says, "So what did we lose?" In other words, we're making such a big deal about it, and he suggested that what Reb Chaim Kanievsky did was was almost more than any of us can really relate to in a practical sense, but to say that a human being was not capable of it, you couldn't say that because we had a Reb

Chaim Kanievsky in the world. We had a human being that tells us that this is within the human capability. Maybe I can't do it כל התורה כולה, I can't do it in once a year. Can I take that סדר and divide it up over 10 years, over 20 years? Sure I can. Maybe a person if you look through the סדר, it might be perfectly attainable, and then if you do חזרה, who in whatever realm you want to you want to talk about it, right? Nothing was undoable because you can't say something's undoable when somebody's doing it.

Once Reb Chaim Kanievsky זצ״ל was נפטר, so now it's something that you're going to read about. It's something in the storybook. It's something that, "Oh, the חפץ חיים, the חפץ חיים did this." Do I believe all the stories? Do I believe some of the stories? The person was an angel. Is it Is it real? It's somebody from the generations of past. It's something that we don't relate to as a practical way. So we have this We we have this That's what happens when you attach yourself to a צדיק, you can attach yourself to something that's larger than you.

You You You go through this process: נעשה, it's what I do. I break down my עזות דקדושה. And נשמע, and I make myself receptive to something that's that I didn't that that I hear that it's farther away from me. I I I heard it, and now I'm going to incorporate it, and then I'll move till until that's the נעשה, and I'm going to continue to go through this process. So נעשה ונשמע, though, and we're linking that to זה בחינת שמחה. This is a בחינה of שמחה. It says over here, the דברי זוהר, the the בני נחל ציין לדברי תיקוני זוהר, it says, בההוא זמנא דאמרו ישראל נעשה ונשמע, מיד ישמחו השמים ותגל הארץ.

They rejoiced, the world rejoiced! כמו שאמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה, בשעה שאמרו ישראל נעשה ונשמע, ירדו ששים רבוא מלאכים, the 600,000 מלאכים came down, ונתנו שני עטרות בראשם, and put crowns on the Jews' heads. It's a גמרא in שבת. כל אחד, the end of the גמרא says, כל אחד, אחד כנגד נעשה ואחד כנגד נשמע. כשחטאו, when they sinned by the עגל, נלקחו, that these crowns were taken from them. והעבר, but once we had it, it wasn't totally gone, we had a relationship with it. We have the כחות. והעתיד, once a person does something in every area of life, now it's doable.

A person a person worked out, they stopped working out, it's much easier to get it back the second time. If you knew something and you forgot it, it's much easier to do it to do it again the second time, right? ועתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא להחזירם להם, but הקדוש ברוך הוא's לעתיד לבוא is going to give us back. We have a relationship with these crowns. But what were those crowns? שנאמר ושמחת עולם על ראשם. The שמחת עולם is on their head, it's like a crown. It's on top. And and it's going to return, we're going to get it back, these crowns.

But those crowns are שמחת עולם על ראשם. נמצא שנעשה ונשמע הם בחינת שמחה. So we see the relationship of נעשה ונשמע, this process with שמחה, בחינת ושמחת עולם על ראשם, כנ״ל. Just two two brief points, mentions he quotes here from ליקוטי הלכות that first of all, נעשה came before נשמע, it says it's מורה על עוצם תשוקת רצונם שהוא בתוקף גדול. The נעשה that we're going to do even before we hear about it, the idea that we're going to jump in, that is that that is שמחה, that's associated with רצון, רצון is associated with with with כתר, the שמחה on the on the deepest of levels is able to connect us with הקדוש ברוך הוא.

And he mentions over here he also mentions over here the idea of combining נעשה ונשמע of תורה and תפלה. תורה is consequence, there's דין, there's שכר ועונש for מצות and עבירות. But when we connect it with תפלה, we have the נעשה ונשמע together, it goes to שמחה, then that's where that can bring that can bring a מיתוק in the דין, because תפלה is a בחינה of רחמים. So again, sort of bring us back to what we started the תורה with, to bring a מיתוק in the דין, a מיתוק in the גזרה when we have when we engage in נעשה ונשמע, תורה and תפלה together, which brings שמחה, brings a connection to הקדוש ברוך הוא, which is which changes the dynamic in the world.

Now we're we're we're attached, we're bringing through attached to הקדוש ברוך הוא, and we we want that the גזר דין should be at a higher altitude, not subject to any of the to to the סטרא אחרא, to any of the other negative כחות in the world to turn the דין into a דין אכזרי, but rather we're attached to הקדוש ברוך הוא through רחמים, so that also is able to effect a מיתוק in the in the גזר דין. Okay, so now we explained that to be זוכה to אמונה שלימה which is the outer חותם, the חותם of the ידים which is able to preserve, act as a protection, allow the inner חותם to do its job, the צדיקים, a בחינה of רגלין, to have a מיתוק in the גזר דין.

How are we able to preserve that אמונה, or how are we able to build that אמונה? We have to build the אמונה in the חכמים, we have to be able to draw down from the שבעה רועים. How do we get close to the שבעה רועים? How do we not get distracted, and how do we not get our strength diverted to the negative leaders? How do we attach to the true leaders and not just the immediate influences? That's through an עזות דקדושה, which requires שמחה, and we linked שמחה to a בחינה of נעשה ונשמע. Now we're going to take a step back.

At the end, we'll try to sum this up. The באבי הנחל has a has a summary, Reb Chaim Kramer brings it on the note on page 364. We're now going to explain that נעשה ונשמע is a בחינה of בראשית ברא, which we're going to associate with נגלה ונסתר, with תורה and תפלה. We're going to come back and start addressing the ספרא דצניעותא, the passage that we started off the תורה with all the way at the beginning. ודע, כי שני העדיים, the two crowns, שהכתירו בחורב, the two crowns of נעשה ונשמע that that the כלל ישראל received by הר סיני מנעשה ונשמע, these were a בחינה, we said, of שמחה through which a person can be, or כלל ישראל can be זוכה to עזות דקדושה to attach themselves with אמונה to the leaders, to the צדיקים, to the חכמים, through which through which there's התבטלות, so that on a כלליותדיק level, there's an attachment to הקדוש

ברוך הוא, to the אמת. And, just bringing it to the first point, through this, through this attachment, whatever need there was for, חס ושלום, רחמנא ליצלן, a גזרה for יסורים, we can we can have that attachment through the צדיק, and we can do תשובה, and we can obviate the need for the דין, have this מיתוק הדין. Now this נעשה ונשמע, or later on, we're going to draw a a contradiction between מאמרי חז״ל. In one in one hand, it seems that כלל ישראל lost the crowns, and משה רבינו was given the crowns of נעשה ונשמע. And Reb Chaim Kramer brings this on page 360.

And so that when the Jews sinned and משה רבינו now had the crowns, in order to achieve the connection that would have been used through the crowns or through this נעשה ונשמע, that now comes through an attachment to the צדיק. He also brings that a מדרש in דברים רבה that משה רבינו tells them after the עגל, you lost נעשה, so be certain to guard נשמע, but that they still had נשמע, so did they, did they lose both crowns, did they lose run, one crown? We're going to have to address that. But over here it says הן בחינת בראשית ברא כמו בספרא דצניעותא בראשית דא מאמר.

בראשית is a מאמר, and בראשית, this comes from a גמרא really that says that the world, the, that creations with was with ten מאמרים, but it only says ויאמר nine times, and we say בראשית נמי מאמר הוא. One way of one way that we've discussed this in the past is that בראשית means the creation of time. To have a היכי תמצי of creation without having some sort of a a timeline, to create something it means a second ago it wasn't created, and now it is, you're able to effect change. If there's no if there's no possibility of any sort of a change, there's only אין סופיות, היה הוה ויהיה, then there's no possibility of creating.

The other, הקדוש ברוך הוא put into place the היכי תמצי of creation, and then the other nine unfolded מכח אל הפועל. However we define it over here, בראשית דא מאמר, ברא חצי מאמר. Let's just read a little bit on, right, even just the words בראשית. בראשית, if you cut it in half, is one word, and then ברא is the first half of that word, is half a מאמר, but more, דא עדן עילאה, עדן תתאה, חכמה עילאה, חכמה תתאה, אב ובן. We're going to say that נשמע is the full complement of In other words, first of all, when you have something that's בכח, so then within the potential exists the actual.

When you actualize potential, in a certain sense it's able to to go from A to B. It has a certain more of a it's more tangible, articulable, but it's also a narrowing. If you take a raw emotion and you put it into words, so then in a certain way it's limiting. Once you actualize it, בכח it's broader and it represents the full complement. That's going to be, the way that we're discussing it, it's נשמע. We spoke earlier and coming from the last תורה, that there's the פנימיות and then there's the מקיפין. There's what you already do, what you already relate to, and then there's going on to the next step, something that you don't relate to yet.

As you advance, you'll realize that the more advanced thing that you are is inclusive of what you had before. Now you internalize that, you turn that into the actual, and you're you're able to reach something higher, something more abstract. That's נשמע, something in the future, something that you that you will hear, something that you haven't heard yet, something that's בהעלם, something that's hidden. נשמע is בראשית, it's the complement. It's עדן עליון, חכמה עילאה, it's אב, it represents all of that. נעשה is the חצי מאמר, it's going to be the עדן תחתון, the חכמה תחתאה, it's a בחינה of בן.

Why? כי נעשה ונשמע, these are the crowns that כלל ישראל received on הר סיני, הם בחינת נסתרות ונגלות, the things that we are able to relate to and the things that we have yet to relate to, maybe not even yet in this stage of the world, maybe not until the next stage. נעשה הוא בחינת נגלות. נעשה, what we are going to do, it's something that we're actual, we can do במעשה, that's a בחינה of נגלות, something that we understand, היינו המצות, the practical part of the מצות, שאפשר לכל אחד לקיים לפי מדרגתו, what a person is able to achieve, accomplish, relate to now.

ונשמע, what they're going to hear, היא בחינת נסתרות, it's something that still for right now it's בהעלם, it's hidden, it's there, but has not yet been actualized. It's like we can use the example of like a a coal, if you blow on it the flame is there, but even if you cut the coal in half, you're not going to see the flame. There has to be something there to activate it, so it's there, you're not introducing anything else, although there has to be a process, you have to blow on it, כח אחר מעורב בו, like we just had in בבא קמא, you have to actualize it, and then what was there can end up coming out.

But it's not yet בגלוי. מה שהוא גבוה ונסתר ממנו, what's above it, what is still hidden, שאינו יכול לעשות עבודה בזה right now, it's not yet our עבודה. There's I remember hearing a point that somebody made one time when a person's reading גדולים books, a lot of the stories that that are spoken are really בתורת a סימן, not a סיבה. They're indicative, they're illustrative of a certain type of a behavior, of a certain type of a level, but that's not how they reached it. A friend of mine was one time was reading one of these מוסר ספרים that spoke about stories of רב חיים קניבסקי זכר צדיק וקדוש לברכה, and he said, "You know, not only are these not stories that I relate to, many of them would be אסור for me to actually do.

That's simply not my עבודה, I'm not there, that's not where my family is." A person has to understand what their עבודה is. So, yes, it's important to have goalposts to understand where to strive to, but to do an עבודה that's not where you're holding, a person who's learning by learning an hour a day, so learn an hour and five minutes a day, learn an hour and ten minutes a day. A person that says, "You know what, that's it, a new leaf, I'm going to learn ten hours a day," at some point they'll either just break or it won't even necessarily it won't even necessarily change him.

A person has to do עבודה that speaks to him, that's where he's holding, that's עבודה. Otherwise, otherwise it could be games. Obviously we're speaking very broad strokes, a person needs to have a רבי, have חברים, and make חשבון הנפש. למשל אצל כל מצוה יש דברים שסביבות המצוה. So when it comes to מצוות, מצוות we said are בגלוי, there are things that are סביבות המצוה. כי מלבד הציווי הנאמר בתורה לקיים המצוה, besides for what's בגלוי even the way that the תורה presents the מצוה, יש עוד לזה דברים בתורה, there's other things that are in the תורה, כגון וידבר ה' אל משה, ושאר כל דיבורי התורה שסביבות המצוה, other parts of the תורה that are around the מצוה.

We know that every single word in the תורה, every letter, how many דרשות are there by something an extra letter in the תורה, that there's an extra ו? Whether an ו is, you know, a conjunction, it's "and", or even if maybe it's spelled with a ו or without a ו, or it's a plural word that's spelled in a way that's singular, and these are might be part of the פסוק that that doesn't even necessarily go to the heart of the description of the מצוה. We'll speak about this in two ways: one is that he brings examples over here, for instance, by פטר חמור, the מצוה starts קדש לי כל בכור, but it says וידבר ה' אל משה לאמר קדש לי כל בכור.

Is this just an introduction? Is this just filler? There's a מצוה of of an a לא תעשה, it says ויאמר משה אל העם זכור את היום הזה אשר יצאתם ממצרים מבית עבדים כי בחוזק יד הוציא ה' אתכם מזה ולא יאכל חמץ. But again, there's an introduction, ויאמר משה אל העם. There's there's secrets and things that are equally as important, but in a different way than what's explicitly said in the פסוקים related to a tangible, articulable מצוה. And he says, let's this one more thought, but I'm going to read a few more lines first, והעבודה שיש בדיבורי התורה הללו שסביבות המצוה, what you might think on the surface is filler, הם בבחינת נשמה, בבחינת נסתר.

רש״י, really, and the רמב״ן talks about it also, is עומד on this at the very beginning in in the beginning of the תורה, the first רש״י, I think, says really, why doesn't the תורה start with החודש הזה לכם? If the תורה is a book of מצוות, then it should start with the first מצוה, and yet, so the the רמב״ן asks already a question on רש״י, says that אמונה is is our anchor, אמונה is at the heart, why is this a חידוש to say why did the תורה not leave out the פרשה of בראשית? But it's a question.

In other words, how are we relating to the תורה if it's בנגלה, besides for how the ראשונים deal with the deal with the answers, but just to appreciate what we're asking, if the תורה is essentially a message, the message is how we should live our life, we have the תרי״ג מצוות, the positive מצוות, the negative מצוות, and then there seem to be there's filler either just literally like we said וידבר ה' אל משה לאמר, or even the stories, are those on a lower level, on a higher level, on a different level, how do we relate to that?

כי המצוה בעצמה אנו יכולים לקיים, that's going to be the נעשה, אך העבודה שיש באלו הדיבורים אין אנו יודעים. The some of the the the things that seem to be in the words around the מצוות, they don't seem to be giving us a definite a definite call to action, so is it what should we be learning from this? Is that בבחינת נשמה, בבחינת נסתר, this is something that's that's נסתר. I'm going to just reference the ליקוטי הלכות in יורה דעה חלק ב' הלכות מילה says באמת לא היתה התורה צריכה לספר רק עצם המצוות, really the תורה could have just and potentially, if we think about it, should have just been giving us מצוות, giving giving us directions, כגון מצות ציצית, מצות תפילין, this is really the עיקר תורה כדי לקיים מצותיה, that's the basis of רש״י's question.

What about the סיפורים of the תורה from בראשית עד החודש הזה לכם, like we just referenced, which is החודש הזה לכם is the מצוה ראשונה, and all of the other stories that come after that? ואפילו אצל כל מצוה ומצוה יש עוד דברים וסיפורים, even embedded within the מצוות, after we start החודש הזה לכם, by most by most מצוות, וידבר ה' אל משה like we said. He says עיקר התורה is the מצוה עצמה, אך כל אלו הסיפורים, כל אלו דברי תורה שסביבות כל מצוה ומצוה, all of these things that you would think are introductions, are fillers, זהו בבחינת התורה הנעלמת, there's hidden things to learn from there, שהוא גבוה יותר מן התורה שבנגלה.

We're just not sensitive to it, so you think it's not real. There's colors outside of the spectrum of colors, outside of ROYGBIV as the ultraviolet, you can't see it, you think it's less substantial. There's maybe things on sound waves that are outside of the realm of what you can hear, they're less substantial, but they're not less substantial, it happens to be that that's because of your limitations, that's because of our limitations in terms of the effect, in terms of what could affect even in this world that that something that doesn't have our limitations, or in the עולמות, right?

So that is that is incredibly incredibly precise, just to use an example that we might be able to relate to. If you talk about to to a chemist or somebody who's a physicist and you go over to them and you want to connect two things and you say, "Well, what's the difference? Why can't I just put any two things together?" But if you put it together, there might be certain gases, some of them you might see or smell, some of them you might not. So imagine talking to a scientist today and telling him, "Oh, psh, what's the difference?

Why can't you just to put these two things together? It's good enough for a connection." He tells you, "Well, because these two metals will act as conductors, and those won't. These two gases, well, one will be a catalyst, and the other won't." And now we'll say, "Oh, that makes sense." But what if you were talking to somebody 500 years ago, somebody that didn't have that information? Or, for that matter, just a first grader. And he knows that this first grader knows that electricity conducts metal, but he says, "Well, what's metal? Metal's something that's cold and and hard.

So, I could just use a cold rock. So, why can't I just use a a rock for electricity?" Who knows? Use any example that makes sense to you. But the bottom line is that does it make something less real, the fact that it's not within our realm of understanding? Absolutely not. I do just want to reference over here תורה י״ג, if you want to go back, if you remember this תורה, don't remember this תורה, י״ג חלק ב', okay? Just so that these are not net-new concepts. It's all comes together. I'm just going to quote for one minute from ב' and then another section of י״ג in a second.

Says this is י״ג paragraph ב', "בבחינת התגלות התורה שלעתיד לבוא." The התגלות of תורה that's going to be when we're no longer limited by the this-worldly frame of perception. "כמו בזהר שלעתיד יתגלי אורייתא דעתיקא סתימאה." That לעתיד לבוא we're going to have a different level of גילוי, a different altitude of גילוי. Further, in paragraph ה', in the middle he says, "וכיסי שבבחינת תורה הם דברים שכיסה עתיק יומין." But listen to this words over here, "והם מכסים את עצמם בסיפורי התורה." These hidden secrets, where are they? These are in the סיפורי תורה. One aspect of what we're talking about is בהעלם, and over there, רבינו brings a זוהר.

He says, just listen to the words because we read it before, but we'll read it again, it's important. רבי שמעון, where is this זוהר if you want to look it up, בהעלותך חלק ג' דף קנ״ב, okay? This is language of the זוהר: "טפשין דעלמא", the stupid ones of the world, "לא מסתכלי אלא בההוא לבושא", they're looking only at the לבוש of the תורה, "דהוא סיפור דאורייתא", they listen to stories and they say, "Well, a story, that's just surface-deep." "ולא ידעי יתיר", and they don't understand any more than that. "ולא מסתכלי במה דהוא תחות ההוא לבושא", and they don't understand what's underneath that לבוש.

"אינון דידעין יתיר", those who understand that there's more, "לא מסתכלין בלבושא", they they don't they don't get trapped by the interface, by the way that it presents itself. "אלא בגופא דהוא תחות ההוא לבושא", they understand what's really underneath it, what's underneath the הלבשה. "חכימין עבדי דמלכא עילאה אינון דקיימו בטורא דסיני", the חכמים that they are the עבדים of המלך, of הקדוש ברוך הוא, the ones that stood at סיני, "לא מסתכלי אלא בנשמתא", they they looked at the נשמה of the תורה, what was the inside, the truth of it, "דהיא עיקרא דכולא אורייתא ממש", because those secrets, that's really the עיקר of the תורה, "ולזמנא דאתי", לעתיד לבוא, "זמינין לאסתכלא בנשמתא דנשמתא דאורייתא", we're going to see the inner of the inner of the תורה.

And further he says, "רבי שמעון אמר ווי לההוא בר נש דאמר", אוי וויי to the person that he says, "דהא אורייתא אתת לאחזאה סיפורא בעלמא", that the תורה is just stories, "ומילין דהדיוטות", that somebody's coming and going, "דהא אי הכי אפילו בזמנא דא", because if so, that even in זמן הזה, "אנן יכלין למעבד אורייתא", we can make our own תורה, we can make poetry that's nicer, stories that are better, "במילין דהדיוטות", in simple words, "ובשבחא יתיר מכולהו", and praises that are even praises that are even better. One second, lost the place. "אחזאה מילא דעלמא", it's just trying to bring out some some things of the world, "אפילו אינון קפסירי דעלמא", even other מושלים, "אית בינייהו מילין עילאין יתיר", maybe maybe that was good for then, but this is for now.

"אי הכי ניזל", I heard one time a beautiful piece just to interrupt for a second, I forgot who I heard it from, but he said נעשה ונשמע. There's a famous question says that הקדוש ברוך הוא held the mountain over כלל ישראל's heads, כפה עליהם הר כגיגית, and the question is that this was after נעשה ונשמע. נעשה ונשמע was a full-blown acceptance of the תורה. Why did הקדוש ברוך הוא have to then hold the mountain over the over the heads of the Jews? Maybe it was רב יצחק ברקוביץ, I don't remember, could be, but why did הקדוש ברוך הוא then have to hold the mountain over the heads of the Jews to say, "You have to accept this"?

They already accepted it. It was the greatest statement of acceptance ever. And he explained that if you would have said נעשה ונשמע, then that means that they looked around the world and they accepted it. You gave them presentation of something, and they acknowledged that it was 100% appropriate. But then the world changes, information changes, social norms change. Look around the world now, the way that people relate to certain things, we don't have to go into details, and you almost don't know what's right, which one is more advanced yet, and that doesn't mean that what the תורה said was wrong.

When they accepted the תורה, maybe it was 100% right in terms of the way to relate to certain norms and family ideas. So what הקדוש ברוך הוא did was was was said the way that I remembered, he said, "No. Listen, when you said נעשה ונשמע, you looked around, and כלל ישראל understood that this is 100% the truth. But לו יצויר, lest you're going to come later and you're going to say, 'Yes, it was true, and there's been a transition into something else.' What does it mean that כפה עליהן הר כגיגית, that it was over their heads?

It means that it was מוכרח. It was you acknowledged it was true, but that's not what makes it true. The idea that truth stands on its own, that it's objective truth, that it's anchored outside of anything in the world, it's המקום. הקדוש ברוך הוא is the universal context. The תורה is coming from הקדוש ברוך הוא, that's מוכרח, that has to be, the mountain is over your heads. You can either acknowledge that 2 + 2 = 4, or you don't have to. The כלל ישראל did acknowledge it, and they accepted it with נעשה ונשמע. But what made it true was not the fact that they accepted it; what made it true is that it's true.

So הקדוש ברוך הוא gave them a chance to say נעשה ונשמע, to accept it, to acknowledge it on their own, and then he showed them that they were able to see through, and they say yes, that this is true, they accepted it, but it's true forever because it's inherently true. And אי הכי, so he says otherwise, if it would not be like that, ניזיל אבתרייהו ונעביד מיניה אורייתא כהאי גוונא, we can make another תורה. חס ושלום. אלא כל מילין דאורייתא מילין עילאיין אינון ורזין עילאין. What we're talking in the תורה is that every single word, every letter, every everything about the תורה, some of it is נעשה, some of it is בגלוי, some of it is something we can relate to, and some of it is נשמע, some of it is beyond us, we're not there yet.

However, really the נעשה is the חצי מאמר, it's what we relate to, but we understand that there's a נשמע, there's something that's way beyond that. וזה בחינת תורה ותפילה. נעשה, הוא בחינת תורה, היינו הנגלות. נעשה is the בחינה of תורה, the command part of the תורה, the instruction, מה שיודע לקיים, what we're able to relate to. By the way, quotes over here in the note to go back, and there's a תיקוני זהר that's brought in תורה ח' אות ז' talking about the תורה and תפילה coming together, but not for now. So he says, ונשמע הם בחינת נסתרות, בחינת דיבורי התורה, שהם הדיבורים של התורה שסביבות כל מצוה, שהם בחינת נסתר כנ״ל.

Now, both can go together. Maybe you'll say, 'Listen, I can only talk about what I can relate to.' But if you only talk about what you can relate to, so then does that mean that you are having some sort of a glimpse into infinity? In other words, there's something that's a million miles long, and there's something within your field of view, but you understand that that represents the tip of something that's infinite, that's much greater, and now you attach yourself to something much greater through that? But or does that mean that, 'No, my field of vision is 10 feet, so that means that as far as I'm concerned, this is only 10 feet.'

Then you're taking away, you're undermining that part that you relate to as well. It's very important, even though there's נגלה, that you relate to that as being part of something much larger, that you're only relating to that there's levels of the iceberg, you're only relating to that part you see, but that doesn't represent what it actually is, even the part you see. שאינו יודע איך לעבוד בזה את השם יתברך. But למעשה, our the חלק of what we have עבודה is part of the נגלה. And therefore, נשמע is בחינת תפילה, שהיא דביקות, כי שמיעה תליא בליבא.

So what's תפילה? תפילה is דביקות. תפילה is something that's תלוי in the לב, it's תלוי the לשון of תפילה, it says that תפילה is מלכות. דוד המלך says, 'ואני תפילה.' It says, 'נפתולי אלקים.' תפילה is a התחברות. תפילה is where we attach to הקדוש ברוך הוא. That attachment, the relationship, almost by definition, is much larger than anything that we understand. Again, the relationship between a parent and let's say an infant, a mother and infant the second it's born, is not a infant relationship. A parent with a 5-year-old is not a 5-year-old relationship. The depth of the relationship is much, much deeper, maybe much, much deeper than anything between adults.

And yet, if you ask the 5-year-old to understand in its own terms what that relationship is made of, the 5-year-old really has no idea, it's very simplistic. The depth of the relationship is almost by definition something that's deeper than what we can relate to. That's תפילה, that's דביקות. He brings over here from ליקוטי מוהר״ן תנינא תורה פ״ד, maybe we should talk to הקדוש ברוך הוא, that the עיקר תפילה should be really in our own words, very התבודדות. But למעשה, we have the נביאים, the אנשי כנסת הגדולה that gave us magic words and the key to opening up certain things, so we have the תפילה of the אנשי כנסת הגדולה, so there's we leverage both, which is a greater discussion not for now.

But as far as as far as תפילה, as far as the דביקות, as far as something that resonates from within us much, much deeper, that is the לב. He asks actually an interesting question over here, going a drop longer than I thought, but he asks an interesting question. He says נעשה ונשמע doesn't seem to make sense. First of all, how can you do what you didn't hear? And second of all, it says, ויאמרו כל אשר דבר השם נעשה ונשמע. But השם already said, so what do you mean נעשה we'll do and then we'll hear? But the דיבור, it says כל אשר דיבר השם, the דיבור actually came first.

So if then if you hear what was spoken to do, so really the words came first. And he says, "No, there's a difference between," so to speak, "like listening and and and hearing, right?" In other words, if there's an intent intent listening, listening doesn't mean that you heard something, it could be in the background, it could be you could even parrot it back. The idea of listening is something to resonate, to internalize to something. And I'll I'll I'll say one level deeper, sort of in my own language: When you hear something, is it that I want something, you don't know what I want, so that so you hear it in order to be able to do.

What's the product? What's the connection? What's actually the התחברות between us? Really, the substance of the instruction. Now, I have to say it in a way that's palatable, in the way that, you know, tone can make all the difference, I say it in a way that's palatable in order that you should be able to do the instruction to get it done because I need something done. Alternatively, I'll tell you no, what's the product? The product is the connection. I want you to go do something for me, but the truth is I don't really need it done.

Why am I telling you to do something? Because through your listening and understanding my needs and executing on a certain way, that's going to show and create and then show the connection. The product is the connection. Very, folks, I myself should think about this concept many many more times, but think about this many more and more times. When you talk about תפילה, you're asking הקדוש ברוך הוא, it's a profound difference, מקצה לקצה, night and day. You're asking הקדוש ברוך הוא for health, you're asking הקדוש ברוך הוא for wealth. Are you asking because you need something and therefore you're but if you could theoretically get it without asking, then you wouldn't need to ask?

Or is it no, the connection is the product, and it's just that הקדוש ברוך הוא set up a dynamic world where you need to ask for things in order that there should be grounds to create a connection. We could talk about this for another hour and a half. Think about it. Would love to hear from you. It's a much different way to understand תפילה. But what that means is that since the connection is so much deeper than anything that we could possibly possibly imagine, it's all בהעלם, it's all hidden. It's much deeper than we can think.

כמו שכתוב ונתת לעבדך לב שומע by שלמה המלך that he asks for לב שומע. He wants הבנת הלב to be able to judge. The לב, בינה is שמיעה. It's in it's in a בינה, right? So he says, ועבודה שבלב זו תפילה, this relates to תפילה, היינו ביטול ודבקות לאין סוף. תפילה is not my understanding, תפילה is not my doing, it's not doing something בגלוי. תפילה is where is is where it's it's in the connection, it's in the לב, it's התבטלות, it's being מבטל myself to a relationship, something greater than anything that I can imagine. ועבודה yeah ועבודה שבלב זו תפילה, היינו ביטול ודבקות לאין סוף, כי אין סוף הוא בחינת מה שאין בו תפיסה, because by definition I don't have a תפיסה.

Every time I understand something, I understand how much there is to to know. Every time I get to the end of a room and I open the door, I see a room that's even much larger than it. I can get ever closer to the אין סוף. Every time I reach the plateau, I realize how nice the view is, and I want to get an even higher view. ומאחר שאין לו תפיסה בזה, היינו בדיבורי התורה הנ״ל, כי הוא בחינת נסתר הנ״ל, so that there's a part of תפילה that's something that we can't relate to, that's a בחינה of נסתר, הוא בחינת תפילה, that's really בחינה of תפילה, which again goes together.

In other words, if you have something infinite that you have no relationship to, or in our like we said before, the פנימי and the מקיף in the עבודה, if there's something that you just have no attachment to, there's no bridge, there's no point at which you relate to it, so then you you're you're not not even going to go zero to one. On the other hand, if you only relate to something on your own terms without realizing that it's just a taste, it's the tip of the iceberg, it's something that's much greater, and the more that you know, the more that you're going to then relate to the next level, so then also you have nothing.

תורה and תפילה בעצם go together, the נגלה and the נסתר, the נעשה and the נשמע. ומאחר שאין לו דבקות sorry, ומאחר שאין לו בדיבורי sorry, הוא בחינת תפילה דבקות שהוא רק ביטול לאין סוף. תפילה is where you understand, you grab on to that piece that you you have this דבקות, this השתוקקות to do something, a thirst. What's a thirst? Where there's a lack, there's a חסר. Like we saw that in the beginning of תורה ח׳, that a person groans, they bring in the רוח חיים, it could be that there could always be luxury, it could always eat something that tastes good, but where there's a thirst, that means that there's a need, I'm filling a gap.

And the more that you understand that there's רוח חיים, that there's עץ חיים, that there's תורה, that there's רבונו של עולם, that there's הקדוש ברוך הוא, the more that you realize that no matter what step you thought that you achieved, that there's something lacking. Now just coming back, by the way, to the to to the contradiction we asked before: So did משה רבינו take both crowns, the צדיק has both crowns, or is it that is it that the people kept the נשמע? And the way that he explained over here in the note, I think it was the איבי הנחל, the way that he explained, let me just see so I can quote the right the right thing, yeah, they said the I think באיבי הנחל.

So he says that really there's three different things. There's נעשה, but there's two levels of נשמע. There's נעשה, which is the נגלה that you relate to. There's נשמע, that's the פנימי. There's נשמע, which is the מקיף in the things that you're working towards, that נעלם, and we have to rely on the צדיק for this to create this connection. We had it, we lost it, therefore we have אמונה in צדיקים, we draw from the שבעה רועים, we connect ourselves to the צדיק, and we relate to that עבודה. The צדיקים are the ones that have this התבטלות.

But there's another level of נשמע. What's that נשמע? That's the product, it's not a היכי תמצי, it's a product, it's a thing, it's a השתוקקות, it's a desire, it's a relationship, it's something, it's something that who are our ambitions? What are our goals? I might not reach a hundred steps, I might only take five steps, but those five steps are going to be in the direction. What's going to pull me there? The goal and the ambition of reaching the end. That desire, רצון, השתוקקות, that's also part of נשמע. That's what draws me out, that's what creates the connection what I'm looking towards, that we still have.

And that part says משה רבינו that you lost the נעשה, but keep the נשמע, because that's the anchor that's going to keep you connected to הקדוש ברוך הוא, to the צדיק through the צדיק, and and through this, through תורה and תפילה, so that's בעצם how we're able to have נעשה ונשמע, שמחה, the עזות, the קדושה, to attach yourself to the right צדיקים, to הקדוש ברוך הוא, to have a מיתוק in the דין.