LM 22.9 — Chosam b'Soch Chosam, Part 9 of 10 · תורה כ״ב

Torah כ״ב we are about to start, or rather continue, paragraph י״א, coming really to the end of where we've addressed the ideas in this Torah, and then mention some מאמרי חז״ל. In this particular case, I'm going to jump into the text, and then we'll sum up a little bit the ideas of the Torah through the lens of paragraph י״א. In this particular case, I would recommend going back to the last shiur, the previous shiur. At minute marker 40 and about 30 seconds, we actually started paragraph י״א, but we we we dug a little bit deep into the first few lines, the idea of ירידה לצורך עלייה, just profound.

And I really I really think that it's worth going back to listen to that, because now I'm just going to read through the the text of the first few lines so that we can go vayter. I think I mentioned the last time, these Torot just I I find that they hit home personally. If if you're enjoying them, if you're growing through them, please share, put on your status, drop the stars in Spotify or iTunes, but Be'ezrat Hashem should be a zechut, a zechut for us, our families, for כלל ישראל in these challenging times. Says the Torah: אך כשרוצים לצאת ממדרגת נעשה ונשמע, paragraph י״א, למדרגת נעשה ונשמע גבוהה הימנה.

We are talking about נעשה ונשמע as a as the cycle of avodah, as the way we approach avodah. There's נעשה, there's the avodah that we have, it's what we're doing, it's the the the avodah and the ideas that we've been able to adopt, to integrate, to make our own. And then there's נשמע, we will hear, it's what we're striving for. We relate to it, but we have not yet been able to incorporate it and draw it down. And then, as we work on ourselves and we expand, we get to that level that was previously נשמע, we turn that into נעשה, and then we go to the higher level.

צריך להיות ירידה קודם העלייה. Necessarily so. It's not that we grow despite the yeridah, but there needs to be a yeridah before the aliyah. Last shiur, 40 minutes, 30 seconds, go back, listen. We unpacked it, it's beautiful, I'm sure it's endless in what we can do with it. כי הירידה היא תכלית העלייה. We we we've mentioned many times, or at least a couple times, גם זו לטובה doesn't necessarily mean or it's not tovah now. It's the recognition, there's an emunah there. גם זו לטובה, what it means is there's a recognition that it's part of a process.

What's going on now tovah, once we get there, we will be able to look back and understand that רחמנא ליצלן the layoff, the failed shidduch, whatever it was was part of a process, and I wouldn't have had it if I could do it myself, I would not have made it any other way. By getting laid off, God forbid, from a corporate job, a person was able to make a startup, something entrepreneurial, and and work for themselves, have an unbelievably better quality of life, more money. By losing one shidduch, a person ended up getting the shidduch of their dreams, and on the way, they ended up doubling down, being able to daven, they created a relationship with Hashem.

It was the blessing that ever happened to them. The yeridah is תכלית העלייה. It's part of the process, it's the part of the aliyah, and it's intrinsically part of the aliyah. That's the tachlis of the yeridah. But so much so that, okay, so the yeridah is part of the aliyah, but halavai that I shouldn't have to have the yeridah. No, because צריך להיות ירידה קודם העלייה. And when a person is able to just think about this concept, and meditate on this concept, and even perhaps experience it many times, if a person would have a notebook and see how this process works its way through, and it's true over and over again, and this is the way it works, and the way that it has to work, when unfortunately a person is going through a challenging time, when there seems to be הסתר and there seems to be חושך, then after after going through this and

looking back and understanding, a person will understand that this is part of the system. Nobody goes into the big game without the training part of it. Nobody could just, you know, fall in love. Love is something, it's a relationship that's built from sacrifice, it's a relationship that's invested in, and what the outcome of that, the consequence of that is made up of the of the investment. So the aliyah is What are we really looking for? We're looking for deveikus to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The deveikus is made up of the investment, it's made up of the mesirat nefesh.

There's מ״ן and there's מ״ד. It's made up of אתערותא דלתתא, אתערותא דלעילא. We have this this iterative process. It comes up all over the place. It's based on our action, and it's based on the input, it's based on the investment, and there's a corresponding closeness. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants nothing more than to be close to us, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu set up a system whereby there's not going to be נהמא דכיסופא, there's not going to be bread of shame. He's going to give us the opportunity to earn it. Earning requires investment, and and the reality also is, by the way, I heard somebody one time give this mashal: The best way to not get into an accident is to not leave the station.

The point of life is not to not get into an accident, the point of life is to get to a destination. So there are times that a person will have failures also, but there is a there is a process. Sometimes there's a perceived yeridah, and sometimes there's an actual yeridah, but several different ways to look at this. For now, we will leave it as is. So הירידה היא תכלית העלייה, כמו שאמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה, לא היה דוד ראוי לעשות מעשה, ולא היו ישראל ראוים לאותו מעשה. He references the מעשה with Bat Sheva, he references the עגל, אלא שנתן השם יתברך להם מכשול לטובת העולם, הקדוש ברוך הוא gave them a מכשול for the good of the world, כמו שאמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה, להורות תשובה.

We're not we're not going to go into that now, but we talk about the עגל by Klal Yisrael, we talk about David Melech Yisrael, the the the ultimate Klal Yisrael and the king of Yisrael who were responsible and representative of the nation of the ultimate aliyot, and talks about the system that Hakadosh Baruch Hu designed, whereby this involved a certain yeridah on a national level, on a individual level, although involving the king, where there were certain things that were put into the בריאה. The י״ג מדות came into the בריאה after the עגל. David Hamelech, we have a we have Tehillim, we have all of the things David Hamelech said, his whole life in תשובה, the things that came into the world and into the בריאה, the access that we got of being able to get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu as a result of that process that involved the yeridah, you know, whatever it means

exactly that hakadosh baruch hu set up the circumstances whereby there was a sin, but this was part of the process, and to the extent that it was yeridah that leads תכלית עליה, and we were the the world and Klal Yisrael was the beneficiaries of that. וזה, this is where we got to והמכשלה הזאת תחת ידך. It's a פסוק in Yeshayahu פרק ג' פסוק ד' פסוק ו' rather, just going to read it over here. I have Rabbi Schwab on Yeshayahu, so we'll just maybe comment for a second a point that he makes, but the פסוק over here it's talking about the by the churban, it says כי יתפוש איש באחיו בית אביו שמלה לך קצין תהיה לנו.

That a man will take hold of his of his brother of his father's house, and say, "You have a garment, you have a שמלה, לך קצין תהיה לנו, you should be our leader, והמכשלה הזאת תחת ידך. And this michsholah will be under your control, this this this chaos he trans- or this stumbling block." So the the way that Rav Schwab goes into it, and then we'll quote the Gemara in a second in Shabbos, he says, "A שמלה it's a you have a you they go over to somebody and say, 'You wear a long coat, you look you act very rabbinical.'" He says this based on the Beur HaGra.

That that this person, they go over, "You should be our leader." And he says והמכשלה הזאת literally the stumbling block, the vacuum of leadership in which a person stumbles over the other for lack of direction, meaning that this situation of chaos, they're looking for a leader that could be able to to clean up the mess, so to speak. Rav Schwab further brings that in אגדה based on the פסוק, חז״ל say, אין אדם עומד We're going to quote this language in a second, so that's why I'm reading it also from the גמרא, אין אדם עומד על דברי תורה אלא אם כן נכשל בהם.

The way that Rav Schwab brings it, he says, paraphrased, "If a person stumbles a michsholah on a matter of Torah law and renders an incorrect decision on it and then correct it, he will never forget this halachah." But what wouldn't have been better if he didn't make the mistake? That there's part of the process of the michsholah, what gives this this devar Torah a kiyum that he's never going to forget it, the fact that he not only that he struggled with it, that it takeh that that it takeh went in the wrong direction, that he made a mistake and that he corrected it.

And therefore, that's what the פסוק says at the end, והמכשלה הזאת תחת ידך, once the person stumbled, and then the mistake was pointed out to him, baruch Hashem, now it's going to be תחת ידך. Now, just parenthetically, because, you know, once we have the navi open, just a little bit of מוסר השכל, and we're going to go right back into into Likutey Moharan. Rav Schwab is going on the פסוק, he says the the the navi is telling us that there will be such a shortage of leadership that one will take hold of his brother, close family member, irrespective of his ability to lead, and tell him, "We have nothing to wear, but you still look respectable." The had the person who has a long coat, "You have a nice long garment, become our leader, take over, and bring some order to the mess in which all order has been broken down." And he continues on

in פסוק ז' and פסוק ח' that the person who they go to says, "Despite my respectable appearance, I swear I know nothing of leadership. I can't even feed or clothe my own family, much less become a political leader." And he points out that the humble and honest rejection of leadership by those remaining in Yerushalayim speaks very highly of the Jewish character, even in the worst times, and חז״ל say, אפילו בשעת כשלונה של ירושלים לא פסקו ממנה אנשי אמנה. At least people had a certain amount of integrity that they were willing to point out that they were not fit for leadership despite the the the kavod.

But Rav Schwab points out the pasuk ח', the trap which caused the people to stumble and deteriorate was their delusion that they were frum because they faithfully discharged their religious duties, such as regularly attending the בית המקדש for prayer, for korbanot. They were lulled into a sense of self-satisfaction with their quote in quotes religious lives, notwithstanding their personal and communal lives outside the בית המקדש, which were conducted in direct opposition to God's will. We've quoted Rav Hirsch before, who said, you know, it got to a point where perhaps tongue-in-cheek, it's there's quoted in the introduction of Chorev by Dayan Grunfeld, says whatever it means, I didn't look up the exact quote, they should close all of the shuls for a hundred years because people, same idea, were lulled into a sense of doing what I'm supposed to do, because they went into shul morning, afternoon, night, not taking into consideration, now what's the point of

shul, avodah? It's where you take a break, you go into the teivah, you go into the shul, you get out of the distraction of lives, in the morning you look forward and in the at night you look backwards, in Minchah you take a break in the middle of the day to calibrate yourself so that the avodah can take place in the streets. And people sort of left their avodah in the shul, and then they went about their daily lives that contradicted it. People lost the sense of avodah. And Rav Schwab continues on: they behaved as if God's eyes as if God's eyes did not see what they were doing and thinking.

They felt that they were religious, so they made no effort to improve their lives. And he talks about the gradual deterioration of Jewish people starting off with the surface religiosity. Okay, so be that as it may, to me that that affects me that we have this pasuk over here, we are engaging Baruch Hashem in avodah, in פנימיות התורה, in trying to engage directly with our פנימיות. The Gemara in Shabbos when it quotes that when it's going on this pasuk, he says: דברים שאין בני אדם עומדים עליהם אלא אם כן נכשלים בהן, ישנן תחת ידך. It's talking about the מכשלה הזאת, it's talking about דברי תורה.

And Rashi comments: שאין אדם עומד עליהם על בוריין לעמוד כהלכתן, a person is not able to truly unless you chew it up, unless you you're you're nichshal in it. Why why is it important to be nichshal? If you tell me an idea and it sounds good, maybe you could tell me a better idea, I'll say it also sounds good. But if you tell me something that seems on the mark, will I ever really know, will I ever really know that it's right, that it's less right, that it's more fuzzy? You tell me something and I take it for what it's worth.

Until you chew something up and now you see the the the problems with it, and and that you make a mistake in it, you go the wrong way, and then you realize why what initially seemed right actually can't be, you chew it up and you see the contradictions, the compare, the contrast, you see the avodah of Tosafot, what the Mishnah is doing to what the Gemara is doing to משניות and ברייתות, and Tosafot is doing to to גמרות, and you compare and contrast and you find out: how could this be? There seems to be something.

And then you come up with a third idea to be machria between those two. And now it sticks, now you see the bigger picture, you're able to understand the truth and the entirety of the structure. Not that it's haphazard, but the beautiful, exquisite structure that's created by the Torah, and now it sticks. The idea that something that the Torah says is not just a truth, but that the Torah represents the truth, that it everything is accounted for, and sometimes you don't see it until later, right, in other words, it's like something seems out of place, and then all of a sudden the final piece clicks into place, and you realize that everything was part of one process.

Says Rashi: אלא אם כן נכשל בהן, עד שאומרם ב׳ וג׳ פעמים בשיבוש, דהיינו דהיינו טעמי תורה המסותרין. The the until a person makes a mistake a couple of times, and then they're able to be zocheh to the to the hidden reasons of Torah. So now in the text of Likutey Moharan: וזה המכשלה הזאת תחת ידך, this מכשלה, מכשלה is representing Torah, this will be תחת ידך, it'll be in your hand, אלו דברי תורה. This is going to be, we'll see soon, the nishma. This is going to be what a person becomes zocheh to, שאין אדם עומד עליהן, a person is not able to comprehend, there's not going to be קיום, אלא אם כן נכשל בהן, unless they are nichshal.

In the context of what we're talking about, unless there is a yeridah that is letzorech aliyah. That is part of the process, there has to be a yeridah. דברי תורה שהם בחינת הדיבורים שסביבות המצוה. דברי תורה are, it says אלו דברי תורה, so דברי תורה שהם וידבר ה׳ אל משה כנ״ל. We quoted this earlier in אות ט׳, שהם בחינת נסתר. There are parts of the Torah that seem to be ancillary, we don't understand what the point of these words are, it's not direct. And we we understand that they're Torah, but as far as we're concerned, it seems to be obscure, it seems to not necessarily be relevant.

בחינת נשמע, בחינת תפלה כנ״ל, this represents the nishma, the things that we have yet to understand, because אין אדם עומד עליהם, a person is not עומד, זה בחינת תפלה, כי אין עמידה אלא תפלה, עמידה represents tefillah, a person not עומד on these things, a person not attain these ideas of of Torah, this deveikut to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, this attachment through תורה, ולעשות מדברי תורה, שהוא בחינת נשמע, and to make from the דברי תורה, which we say are these elements of Torah that's beyond a person, to be davuk in הקדוש ברוך הוא, אורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא כולא חד, right?

שהוא בחינת נשמע, יעשה ממנו בחינת נעשה, and until a person's able to take these things that are beyond him and to draw it down, to integrate, to adopt, to make it one's own, to relate to them, עד שיהא העמידה, שהיא בחינת תפלה, until there a person is going to have an עמידה, until there's going to be a tefillah, a person's going to be able to reach out beyond oneself to connect, יהא עליהם, meaning היינו, שיהיה לו בחינת עמידה, בחינת תפלה, בחינת נשמע גבוה יותר, that as a person goes through this process, he will reach out, what was previously nishma will now become will become his naaseh, and now, we always say concentric circles, I'm in the middle and then I have a circle beyond me.

As I reach out, as I adopt, as I relate to the nishma, and I make the next circle outside of me, I bring that into myself, or I expand myself, now there's going to be the next נשמע, כי שיהא מן הנשמע נעשה, once I make the nishma into נעשה, I bring the outer circle into myself, יעלה לנשמע גבוה ממנו כנ״ל, then I will be able to expand into and start relating to the next level of נשמע. וזה אי אפשר אלא אם כן נכשל בהן, כי לעלות מדרגא לדרגא צריך ירידה תחילה שהיא המכשול. I mean, this is we started it last week, but we would say, halavai.

I understand that this is how it works sometimes, but wouldn't it be better to not be נכשל? And the Rabbeinu says no. He says it's part of the process. I mean, a person person wants to go up a ladder, they push their foot down. You put the pressure down. The down-up dynamic, we said if a person winds up for a pitch, a person reaches down first to swing an axe, part of the process in the world, whenever there's an aliyah, there is a yeridah beforehand that exists in different contexts. And through this yeridah, by the way, we spoke in Torah ו׳ also, we spoke in I forget the other תורות, what's the greatest כבוד שמים?

When there's a Baal Teshuvah, when there's a ger, when when a person, even in themself, when they're having a difficult time, that will, unfortunately they're having a difficult time, but that might generate כיסופין, that might generate a desire, a yearning. Is there is there any bigger desire and yearning for meaning than when a person feels like they're living a a life without meaning, that when everything is all of a sudden routine, they just want to be alive again? Now, that doesn't mean that a person should should go in the wrong direction lechatchilah, but I think that we can understand and we've spoken out that the greatest כבוד שמים, the greatest yearning, the greatest drive that a person has, it's like in anything else.

Even let's say working out, weight loss, maintenance or, you know, improving on something that you're already good at is much, much harder than when a person has to get in shape, when a person has to has to reverse the direction and come from far away and they see they they they see how much there is to go, and they keep their eye on the ball, and they see tangible accomplishments and they're getting closer. That's what generates it, and that's what we have this process: that a person should be able to to get closer and to to to want to get closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and generate aliyah, and generate the enthusiasm and generate the adrenaline, this comes from a process of yeridah that's built in.

וזה ״ביום ההוא יבוקש עון ישראל ואיננו״, on that day, it's a pasuk in Jeremiah, they will search for sin and there won't be any. What does it mean? כי לעתיד יהיה כולו תשובה. Le'atid lavo in Torah ו׳ we discussed this, paragraph ג׳, you can go back and listen, כי לעתיד לבוא יהא כולו תשובה, in Olam Haba it's going to be יום שכולו שבת, יום שכולו תשובה. ועל ידי התשובה, זדונות נעשים זכויות. And through teshuvah, the aveirot are going to become zechuyot. The Maharsha over there on the on the Gemara says that it's a דבר תמוה, how how could it be that a חוטא is נשכר?

It seems to make no sense. Now you're telling me that the only way to get really close is going to be that a person does aveirot, and further, that all of the aveirot become mitzvot. So, I have a trick. What should I do? Maybe, chas veshalom, a person should do aveirot all day, then they'll get to le'atid lavo or they'll try to do teshuvah. Now, listen, it's a lot easier to rack up aveirot than it is to rack up mitzvot. You'll turn all the aveirot into mitzvot and then have a nice day, they're doing well.

Obviously, that doesn't make any sense. The Maharsha says that that a person does teshuva me'ahava, that once they do real teshuva, they're going to add to מעשים טובים. A person is going to end up way higher than they would have been. And you see it מעשה בכל יום. You see you see some of the drive, some of the yearning, some of the enthusiasm that ba'alei teshuva had. Now, there's obviously a negative from the experiences that a person has had from going in the wrong direction. Again, a person shouldn't go in the wrong direction, but the truth is is that all of us on our levels have things that we've on whatever level we're at, things that we're doing well and things that we הלוואי that we should all be that we should all be ba'alei teshuva.

A person who's mamash a tzadik, so then it could be that that ירידה can be generated by, again, by sort of going down to be מקרב people. There's various ways that this that this dynamic can be tapped into, each person on their own level going up to the tzadik who, if he's not going on his own direction the on his own, then the tzadik could be could be going going down, engaging in other things as a process to bring part of Klal Yisrael back and and part of a broader discussion, that tzadik can be can be also engaged in ירידה לצורך עליה.

For a person who's already ba'al teshuva, has his own problems, then they don't have they they don't have to simulate this in other ways. But in any event, the only way to truly have a קיום of Torah is this process: רצוא ושוב, ימי אהבה, ימי שנאה, it's part of the process. It's not a it's not a despite, but it's it's one of the difficult things. And we know that tzadik tzadik gets up seven times, a rasha falls only once. A tzadik doesn't get up despite his falls, as the the the the getting up is through the falls.

You can't have light unless you have choshech. The process is illustrated all over the place, and once a person really starts coming to an understanding of avodah, it's not so much that you say, well, okay, so 50% of the time I'm growing and 50% of the time I'm falling. Once a person truly understands and relates and appreciates this process, once a person is able to come close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, yes, it feels different, it's a different avodah, a person is able to relate to HaKadosh Baruch Hu in the choshech, just like in its own way he's able to relate to HaKadosh Baruch Hu in the or.

Everything has its avodah. The training sessions and the difficult times have their avodah, and a person can mamash get close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and work on that aspect of the relationship the same way that a person is able to work on the relationship. Sometimes a person can have much more growth, even if they don't see it initially, during the hard times as they have during the good times, and they would realize during the good times that they wouldn't have been nearly as good if the person wasn't able to build their emunah in the in the לילה at night.

So over here it says that through teshuva the zedonot become zechuyot. Once a person has teshuva and they have teshuva me'ahava, so now they never would have had that, part of that process was the aveirah, it has to be honest teshuva. It's not just like, "Oh let me check the box, I did aveiros, now I do teshuvah and now they become mitzvot." But once a person really gets gets close, they do teshuvah, they get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, they do תשובה מאהבה, and now they're able to reflect on those aveiros, the level of what they do and the level of of of increase in what they are what they can do and what they are capable of was built mamash through the adversity, and that becomes part of the part of the zechuyot.

ויהיה נעשה מעבירות ישראל תורה, and from the aveiros of Yisrael, from the yeridah, that's where Torah comes from, from the machshalah, that's where it ends up being תחת תחת ידים, what was the lashon of it, תחת ידך? ועל כן יבקשו אז עוונות. So that's why, לעתיד לבוא, a person wants to grow, part of the growth process is the yeridah, which means that if there will be no heichi timtzi of the yeridah, there's too much clarity, there's no challenging times, it's all good, so what happens? Now you've lost, you've lost that that that windup. If you don't wind up, then you can't have a fast pitch.

So it's going to be לעתיד לבוא and people are going to be seeking the avonos, they're going to be seeking the process, seeking the challenge, right? How much how much do you have a challenge to opt for the right thing to do when there's no appeal to the wrong thing to do, right? Imagine if everything tasted the way that its nutritional information was, going on a diet would be super easy, if it's a good mashal. כי יבקשו ויחפצו אז אחר עוונות ישראל, because people will be they'll be jealous of the growth opportunity, they'll be seeking it, they'll be desiring it.

They're going to want to have that that that כיסופין, that the the Shemoneh Esrei that they had after they were they were getting out of a difficult time or thanking Hakadosh Baruch Hu for getting out of a good time, whether it's in in terms of the request or in terms of maybe the thanks afterwards. The Asher Yatzar that a person was able to make when they were having a challenging problem, they want to tap into that Asher Yatzar all the time, and we know how hard that is. כי יבקשו ויחפצו אז אחר עוונות ישראל, they're going to seek the yeridah as it were, איך לוקחין עוד איזה עוון, how can they take, how can they tap into a certain yeridah, how can they tap back into this process so that they can have that that unbelievable boost כדי לעשות ממנו תורה in order to have the aliyah.

וזהו, he mentions over here in Likutei Halachos, by the way, in Halachos Techumin, he says that by Achashverosh, we have a Purim tie-in, at the end of galut, he says that they needed לשוב לירושלים ולבנות בית המקדש, they needed an unbelievable aliyah, which needed a it says that they קימו וקבלו, they needed a להשיג מחדש בחינת התורה, they needed another acceptance of Torah, and they needed this process of נעשה ונשמע, which means that they needed a tremendous yeridah. And he says, מרדכי ידע את כל אשר עשה, Mordechai is the one who understood this process. He understood what was going on.

כי מרדכי ידע את כל אשר נעשה, שהיה יודע את כל בחינת הנעשה, he understood this process of נעשה ונשמע. He understood that that that the ability of what was necessary, the yeridah, what was going on in the velt, that they needed this yeridah in order to make the נשמע into נעשה and to go to the to the next level of נשמע so that they could be zocheh to go back and rebuild the Beis Hamikdash. כי צריכין לעשות בכל פעם מנשמע נעשה. He understood what they had to do, what the avodah was and and this process.

But okay, in the text, וזהו ואיננו, what does it mean that there's not going to be there? In the end of days they would be seeking, בההוא יומא יבוקש עוון ישראל ואיננו, they're going to be looking for a sin and there's not going to be any, the way that we're learning over here, כי כל העוונות נכללין באין, all of the sins will be niklal in the אין, היינו באין סוף. That's what it means, ואיננו. They'll be seeking sins and there won't be any sins. There will be ואיננו, ששם העוונות נתהפכין לזכויות על ידי התשובה, שזהו בחינת ירידה תכלית העליה הנ״ל.

That at the end of days, so we've mentioned before, that where do sins exist? They don't exist really at the higher level highest levels of emet. Hakadosh Baruch Hu Ein Sof, and there's there's only there's only or and there's only truth. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted us to be able to get close to Him. How do you get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu without the process of yeridah? So Hakadosh Baruch Hu created, at a certain altitude, He created a a world, and we live within that framework of the world with tov and ra and bechirah and and and ups and downs.

However, once once a person is outside that system looking in, they they look back and they realize all of those things that were previously challenges, and we've had this before, the things that we were working on last year, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, when we look back, we might not be able to believe that certain things had an appeal for us. Looking back, we we we want those aveirot Those aveirot and the entire idea of ra just pashut doesn't exist. Imagine in this world somebody sends, I think that there's a mashal someplace in the Zohar that has to do with a king that that employs a זונה to try to attract the prince, but in any event, imagine that a person is enticed by a certain pleasure, let's say a certain food, and they're going, they're fighting back and forth, and it looks so delicious.

And then the game is over and they look back and they see that the food was actually not food. It was a piece of wax. It gave off a certain smell. Not only not only are they no longer enticed by it, they they look back and now that they now that they see what it was, they don't even understand what they were actually even enticed by. I mean, you could think this this happens in the world, whether it's whether it's gambling, think about like, you know, ongoing gambling or gaming and marketing, there's a tremendous chochmah to to gaming things, or if when a person's in an amusement park and they have to do things for a certain amount of tickets, and then when the game is over and you look back and you were mamash staying up all night, let's say, to play a game, waking up waking up too late, going to sleep too

late, and then you look back and what was it? For paper tickets? For points? You're not even like getting money out of it. You're not getting anything. You were just attracted in the context of a particular game. And now when you look back when you're on the outside of it, you don't even understand not only you're not pulled by it, you don't even understand what the pull was. So now, in the end of days, a person has these aveirot, but the aveirot, when he looks back at it, he understands that what was this? This was a facade.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu put into process a certain yearning, which a person no longer relates to those aveirot as aveirot. These aveirot were there as a heichi timtzei that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave to get closer to him. But the truth is it's like imagine a person is, we've used this example in the past, that there's a pressure pushing back against my chest and I'm pushing forward. And then all of a sudden I span out and I realize that it's my arm that's actually coming around and my own arm is pushing back against my chest. There's no counter force.

I'm generating it myself. It's actually all within my ratzon. I'm doing it. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, there's nothing counter to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, there's nothing counter to emet. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, kivyachol kivyachol, reached around to the to to generate the the perception of a counter force so that we could have this fight. But the truth is is everything is נכלל in the Ein Sof. There really is nothing other than Ein Sof. There's the gift that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us of the perception of ra in this world so that we can have בחירות, that we can get closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and make the right choice, but it doesn't exist.

It's really only mitzvot and that yeridah was only לתכלית עליה. וזה, although Reb Chaim Kramer in the note over here, we've talked about this before, maybe it was in Torah ו, I don't remember, he mentions in note 151 on page 384, "In this world, a spiritual fall leads to repentance so that once one may afterwards rise to a higher level. In the future world, all will be repentance." We spoke about that when we said יום שכולו שבת, in other words, so what's if if everything is going to be static, תענוג תמידי אינו תענוג, so what pleasure is there if there's no how if you can't get closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu?

So, now what, right? So he says, "But people in any case will rise from level to level striving to be included in the Ein Sof." So that there is also going to be not just that you remain static and you get used to just sort of a plateau in the next world, but there will be the pleasure of coming closer and closer and and new perceptions and and and knowledge and acknowledgements and experiencing closeness to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I don't know how that works, but there will be this without the necessity of the yeridah, so to speak, in the next world.

There will be a coming closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. וזה, and this is the pasuk in הושע, שובה ישראל עד ה' אלקיך כי כשלת בעונך, return to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, your God, כי כשלת בעונך, because you have stumbled in your sins. היינו על ידי התשובה יעשה מהעבירות בחינת מכשלה, through teshuvah the aveirot will become a בחינת מכשלה. What's מכשלה שהוא תורה? It's what you stumbled over and through that process of stumbling over it, it was a kiyum through the process of yearning, of reaching out, a person was able to to to attach themselves to נשמע, to attach themselves to those דברי תורה that were previously בהסתר, that were previously outside of oneself, and and they're able to have a kiyum of Torah and to keep on going until again we reach תורת השם, תפלת השם, everything that we've discussed.

Now, the Reb Chaim Kramer in his note, page 386, brings at this point the Mei Nahal reviews the lesson within the context of the last section, so we're going to go through it in this order, it's a little bit out of order, but looking back on our Torah through the perspective of paragraph יא, he says, Rebbe Nachman explained that נעשה ונשמע, this process means ascending from one level to the next, transforming the hidden into the revealed, right, relating to the נשמע and bringing it in. One cannot achieve, we relate that in paragraph ט, one cannot achieve this unless he first experiences a fall, unless there's first a yeridah.

That's the process. That's what we just discussed in paragraph 11. Why is there a need for the spiritual fall? Hakadosh Baruch Hu brings nisyonot. He tests a person, toppling him from the level he's already achieved, which we discussed we discussed this idea in the last shiur at the end, by causing his body's brazenness, his azus and desires to overpower him. His task is to withstand the body's azus, right, to be able to cut through it by constantly sighing, generating a kol, bringing out, we talked in the last Torah, bringing generating a kol and a tefillah to generate generate new mochin, which is going to be the neshamah, new ideas in Torah that they can relate to, but as a person generates this kol, which we spoke in paragraph 5, these sounds, these kolot subdue the body, it brings down the azus of the guf, making it possible for the neshamah to find expression even in

the guf itself. We talked about the guf being משמש the neshamah. Another heavenly test was the false leaders. We said being able to to cut through the influence of the false leadership, of the false influence, and in favor of the true tzadikim. These serve as obstacles to see if he will cry out to be saved from this false influence, from these false leaders, and arouse the sounds of holiness which is needed to cut through, to draw to the true leaders, to the שבעה רועים, to the emunah that he needs to generate the relationship between the the tzadikim.

And once he's able to do this, to rise to higher levels, then this will help him complete his faith, the emunah, accepting rebuke from the leaders, which in turn allows the tzadikim to be able to seal the judgments, bring peace to the world, which is where we started off with the the חותם and חותם בתוך חותם. With this, we're now going to learn together a Mishnah in פרק ה', משנה כ' in Masechet Avot. We're going to understand the Mishnah and it's also going to open up another understanding in how we're relating to this middah of azus.

On one hand azus d'kedushah, on the other hand the azus of the guf. Is it the same middah that's directed in two different directions? Is it fundamentally a different middah? Let's, let's dig in. וזה פירוש המשנה יהודה בן תימא אומר הוי עז כנמר. This Mishnah is so important, it is the, the Baal Haturim used it to start off the Tur. נמצא, a person needs to be, have this middah of azus, azus in a good way, boldness, enthusiasm. עז כנמר, נמצא שמזהיר על עזות דקדושה. The very first thing we have to understand if a person is going to accomplish, a person has to have this middah of boldness, of קדושה, שצריך האדם שיהיה עז כנמר.

A person needs to be bold like a leopard, כנגד כל הקמים כנגדו, against anything that's standing opposite him, למונעו to prevent him, אותו, חס ושלום, מעבודתו. I'm going to suggest something that might be a little bit outside of the way that we were that we were learning until now, but I think that there is some degree of emet to it. And if anybody if if anybody has a thought, I would love to hear it. The way that we've been discussing until now, there's different centers of influence that are vying for a person's loyalty, for a person's allegiance.

There's the negative leaders and there's the positive leaders, the שבעה רועים. And we alluded to the idea also, this applies in a כלליותדיק context, it also applies in a פרטיותדיק context, a person's guf, a person's neshamah vying for his loyalty. And there's really two issues going on. One is that a person has to quiet down the negative influence so so that he's not carried away by it. And then the other thing is that there's a positive action: a person has to get close to the שבעה רועים, which is it's not just mimela. In other words, you can have something that's reciprocal, a seesaw.

Once once you're not going down, so then you're automatically going up. If I push back against the azus of the the negative azus, do I automatically attach myself to שבעה רועים? And I think that we alluded to it that it's really part of a two-step process: there's there's countering the negative influence and there's also developing the azus d'kedushah. I want to take this perhaps a step further because, on one hand, you could have a a a force and I have to go against that force. Even, by the way, that means just to stay in the same place.

You have to be pushing back pushing back against against the force. So I could say that there's עז כנמר כנגד כל הקמים כנגדו. Everything that gets up opposite me למונעו to push me away, to prevent me from from עבודה, חס ושלום, a person needs this azus d'kedushah. I'd like to take it a step further and say, even it's קמים כנגדו, it's קם, whatever is an obstacle for me, besides for what might be vying for my loyalty and trying to push me in a negative direction, let's say it was just קם, let's say it was just standing there, let's say it was just a wall, it was the status quo, the laziness, the lethargy, the עפר, the atzlut, whatever it was, just the neutral, so to speak, not even necessarily an aveirah.

And there's הרגל נעשה טבע. Actually, there's a certain maalah of putting myself into a matzav where there is a status quo that doesn't necessarily have to be pushed back against. If a person is in a situation where people's 9-to-5 is negative, they'll gear towards the negative. 9-to-5 could be work. 9-to-5, so to speak, could be learning three sedarim a day. Let's say a person is they're a very studious person, they're a very regimented person, and whatever matzav they're in, they're going to go with the flow and they're not going to push back. What Where is this person holding if they have the the the foresight and the they're Baruch Hashem able to be in a matzav, maybe their if they're in yeshivah, their parents put them in the matzav where they're they're in a yeshivah.

So now they keep the sedarim, they keep the schedule the same way that they would keep the schedule any place. They get up for Shacharit, they go to three sedarim a day. Is that person getting closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, or are they going with the flow? Perhaps we could say that עבודתו, it's not just avodah, it's עבודתו, it's a personal עבודה. Besides for the fact that I don't want to be doing עבירות, and besides the fact that I want to be doing good actions, things that will put me in a מצב where I can awaken myself to הקדוש ברוך הוא, and I can I can expose myself to the right ideas, every person has their own personal עבודה.

Every single person, whether you could say almost like, you know, bigger, smaller, it doesn't make a difference, every single person that's alive has an עבודה that could never have been accomplished from אדם הראשון until now. And in the שלימות of the world, besides for a person's individual שלימות, in the שלימות of a world, there are no extra pieces. Like we've we've said before, sometimes we we tie it into תורה ב׳, unbelievable at the end of the Torah, we're not building a building, we're building an arch. If any one piece of that arch is is not there, then the entire thing doesn't have stability and cannot stand, no matter how small the piece.

It's all necessary for the the integrity of the structure. We all have to explore our own individual עבודה. We all have to develop ourselves and get close to הקדוש ברוך הוא. Part of that is going to be not is going to be putting ourselves intelligently into a מצב that's not going to draw us away. But besides for countering the negative עזות, we also have to start our day with an עזות, עז כנמר, with a positive עזות. We also have to break away from the mold. Now, you know, there's different levels of this. A lot of people, you know, for when you read stories sometimes of גדולים, people did not become a גדול, people did not rise to leadership from within the system generally, they were all doing something different.

Having said that, for every thousand people that left the system, 999 you never heard from again, only one person rose to the top. So there is a very big מעלה of being part of of being part of a ציבור in that way, and a person has to be very, very sure that they know what they're doing before they start doing something different, because they're going once a person breaks away, even in in a particular idea, they now lose the strength and the stability of the system, and they are going to be relying on themselves. So there's a lot to say about that topic, but I'd like to suggest over here that עז כנמר is not just in the face of a counterforce, but it's even in the it's even to rise above the status quo, and even when that status quo is, might not necessarily be negative, but it might be קמים כנגדו to push

him away from developing his own personal עבודה, even if it's otherwise עבודה'דיק, but it's going to push him away from from finding his own individuality. Maybe, we're going to put that aside, it's a nice idea to think about. Vetichaf umiyad, immediately, מפורש שם in the משנה, גודל הפגם ואיסור של עזות פנים דסטרא אחרא. So now, עזות sounds like a very positive מדה. Not only a positive מדה, it's necessary. It's it's the first words almost that we're looking at when we open up a Tur Shulchan Aruch. So the we immediately have to say, now, like every מדה, everything that's powerful in the world, there's going to be a positive application, negative application, זה לעומת זה.

The Rav Yehuda ben Teima tells us before you associate עזות as a wonderful מדה that could be used negatively also, we have to highlight this: there's a גודל פגם ואיסור of עזות פנים דסטרא אחרא, כמו שכתוב שם הוא היה אומר עז פנים לגיהנם. And I'm going to suggest in a second that this is not just one מדה that can that can be used for the positive or negative, there's actually a profound difference between the עזות דקדושה and the עזות פנים of the סטרא אחרא, even though they seem to be a similar מדה, just used differently.

Let's let's hang on for a second. ואם כן, אפשר לטעות חס ושלום, a person can make a mistake because they the person's developing עזות, a person has to push back, a person has to be different. And but when is it positive and when is it negative? It's not always clear, right? If we look at, just to use one example, look at Korach. Korach had convinced some of the holiest people in Klal Yisrael that there was a competition between him and Moshe Rabbeinu. Now, in hindsight, we look back and with such clarity, and over there is Moshe and over there is Korach, he must have had a very compelling argument.

It's hard for my vantage point, I don't know enough, to be able to really unpack that, but if a person just takes a step back and says this is Klal Yisrael, this is the דור דעה, this is the דור המדבר, these people were not just willy-nilly and going after going after Korach. Sometimes something could look so similar, and yet which way do I go? I'm I'm looking at, that's why also, by the way, a person has to be very careful before they get involved in fights of of of ממש צדיקים, arguing, I'm down here and there's two clouds and you start arguing which cloud is higher, the the tzaddikim, the gedolim, they're having a machlokes l'shem shamayim, we talked about this maybe in Torah י״ב, they're they're having a machlokes l'shem shamayim and I am reading into this, all all of the, when I get into a machlokes, it's personal, it's for my kavod, I'm

going to attribute the considerations that I have when I get into a machlokes, because that's the way I relate to it, to the gedolim, and now instead of trying to for me to be mevatel myself to the way the gedolim think, what I really end up doing is plugging the tzaddikim, plugging the gedolim into the way that I think, and I'm megashmem the the their Torah, I'm megashmem their outlook. Instead of saying that they're fired up because of avodat Hashem, because of a principled approach, I take their I take their viewpoints and their machlokes and the fact that they're all fired up and I plug that into the idea that it's that it's only for kavod.

So that's another application where a person could be on the sideline and they're trying to judge between two competing forces, which by the way sometimes is even much more dangerous where instead of, so to speak, tov and ra, it's two people that are that are fighting in the name of tov. That could be much more confusing when there's just, you know, straightforward whether it's to do the wrong thing or to do the right thing. But in any event, a person is on the sidelines, they're trying to judge between two forces, either of which are much more powerful and influential than they are, and they're trying to figure out what the right thing to do is.

We already said that in order to accomplish anything, a person has to employ a middah of azut, to employ to to get to my own avodah, I can't just, you know, sit there and and decide, you know, which wind I want to blow with. A person has to be assertive and make an affirmative act. So he says, כי בהכרח צריכין לעזות בשביל הקדושה כנ״ל, כי אי אפשר להתקרב אל הקדושה באמת, כי אם על ידי עזות כנ״ל. And I think this is very much in line with how we're learning it. To get to קדושה באמת, a person could go with kedushah, a person can go with the flow, they're not doing anything wrong.

A person wants avodato, that was the diyuk that I tried to make, his avodah, a person wants to to get to kedushah, but not just kedushah, kedushah b'emet. If I'm just going with with popular ideas and I happen to, Baruch Hashem, put myself into a place where the popular idea is good, is that kedushah? It's kedushah. קדושה באמת is something that at its core, it's something that's primal, it's something that speaks to me. Maybe. So he says, וכמו שאמר הוא בעצמו, הוי עז כנמר, כנמר, ומצד אחר, עזות רע מאוד. So this middah of azut is necessary.

A person can't say, as long as I'm not in a negative situation, let me just stay on the side, I won't employ azut at all, and this way, Baruch Hashem, I'll go with the flow. No, azut is necessary. Now that azut is necessary, that's very dangerous because a second ago we just suggested that it's so hard and so difficult. It's difficult enough where you have tov and ra to to always make the right decisions. Sometimes there's this perception of tov and tov and that that could be where you have ממש somebody who's a Moshe Rabbeinu and a Korach.

But what if you ממש have like, you know, two gedolim, which is a fight that we shouldn't get involved in at all and we just totally reframe their machloket the way that we want? The whole thing is just so confusing and yet you you just told me I can't get anywhere unless I push back! היינו מי שהוא עז פנים שלא בשביל הקדושה, because if a person employs azut panim not for kedushah, but rather for their own purpose, either towards the wrong leadership, or if we plug this into the the the more פרטיותדיק dynamic in the גוף נשמה framework to fulfill his own ta'avot, right?

I'm not doing It's Shabbos, what do you mean? I need a tremendous amount of meat and liquor and whatever in the name of Shabbos Kodesh. Is it? Or is it for ta'avot? Every person has to make their own cheshbon. מכל שכן מי שהוא עז פנים כנגד הקדושה שמעיז פנים נגד יראי השם וכיוצא, and certainly if it's not for just ta'avot, which is bad enough, but it's something that's ממש כנגד כנגד קדושה and כנגד יראי השם, somebody that's pushing back against the chachamim, they're cynical, they're pushing back they're pushing back against the gedolim, against the right way, שאז זהו עזות רע מאוד, כי עז פנים לגיהנם.

ואם כן, נפל פותא בבירא. He's using a language from a Gemara in Shabbos, which just to just to read to you, says, רב אחא בר יעקב says that the refuah it's referencing is only in a in a way that, שצמחה ולא ראה, לא שמש ולא ירח ולא גשם, it has all of these details. Comes רב נחמן בר יצחק, says, נפל פותא בבירא, means Rashi explains, נפלו רפואות הפואה בבור, דאין אדם נזהר בכל אלו, it's not practicable. And therefore, when you apply to our situation, we said that the only way to be successful is azut d'kedushah, and on the other hand, the fine line between עז פנים לגיהנם, it's almost just, you know, stay out of it.

Do I want to risk עז פנים לגיהנם to try to affect to try to affect any sort of growth, kedushah, success? How am I supposed to how am I supposed to deal with azut if that's the key, but then it's also going to be a downfall? And where does that leave me? And I would like to suggest, if you'll join me, a a a a way of looking at this, which I think to me is the key to opening this up. We've been looking at the middah of azus as going against the tide, or at least breaking breaking away from the momentum, challenging stability.

And when you say that that is the middah, well then the difference between עזות דקדושה and the azus of the סטרא אחרא is almost more an application and it becomes outside circumstances stances that might dictate how the middah is used, but is the middah itself really positive or negative? Many middot are not positive or negative, it's really just a matter of cultivating and oneself in in terms of how to use it. But I would like to recast the idea of עזות דקדושה and עזות דסטרא אחרא really being fundamentally coming from two different שרשים, and if we look at it like that, instead of saying, "Listen, I did everything I was supposed to do.

I cultivated this middah of azus, the idea of not resting on my laurels, of getting up, of fighting." There were other factors that sort of diverted the momentum of my azus in the wrong direction, but you know, how was I supposed to prevent that? If we if we broaden the scope of our picture and we say, "No, azus is not is not just a middah, the application of azus is azus is not just the way that azus is applied, but it's actually fundamentally different even though it looks the same. The the the azus itself looks the same, it just looks like a difference in application, then then then perhaps it becomes easier to work on because the beginning of the movie, so to speak, starts way before the person engaging in the עזות'דיק behavior." So I'm going to reframe and really we can come at it from a couple of different directions because this this

this dynamic of עזות דסטרא אחרא and עזות דקדושה, we said, exists on a כללי-istic level, the false leaders versus the שבעה רועים and the tzadikim, but it exists also on a פרטי-istic level, the influence of the guf and the neshamah. And for these purposes, I I think it's easier to grasp and to make the point from the from the individual perspective. When a person has עזות דסטרא אחרא, the in other words, they want their guf to govern. A person could could eat and sustain the body, and when they sustain the body, that's really לתכלית of the neshamah.

They want to sustain the keli so that the the כלי בעצם is going to be ראוי to have the or in it, then then everything that they eat, everything that they engage in, everything that they do מצד the guf is really a spiritual-oriented activity. The guf is in service of the neshamah. When a person follows his ta'avot, they want to eat, they want to engage in some sort of a pleasure for its own sake. Well, first of all, what does it even mean for its own sake? The guf doesn't really have its own sake, right?

In other words, we said that the neshamah is חלק אלוקה ממעל. In the In the beginning, there was only הקדוש ברוך הוא and אור אין סוף and חותמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא אמת. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a היכי תמצי during this particular stage of existence where we're will be able to have nisyonot and have a fight so that we can ultimately choose the good and create our own success, so that we can earn our success, so that we can earn our deveikut in Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so that Hakadosh Baruch Hu could give us reward and give us good in the best possible way.

And this this dynamic will ultimately expire after the 6,000 years or whatever this stage is, but in any event, the the the the idea of the guf having its own considerations is not an inherent part of reality. It's a It's an interim idea, an interim stage so that we can engage in avodah in the the the world the way it is. So that means that when there's azut, when there's... when there's noise, there's influence coming from the guf, coming from the תאוות הגוף, what we're really doing when we follow that is, and sometimes we've almost like labeled the idea of kavod and ga'avah as avodah zarah, what we're really doing is we're putting ourself at the center, or on top, if you want to say that everything is subservient to our ta'avot.

What we're What we're doing is we're not acknowledging that the entire world is really a function of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu's considerations are the only real considerations and everything else is just sort of getting in the way in a facade to be able to get past. What we're saying is that there is some sort of a substance, there is some sort of a legitimate concern that's coming from the guf, and now we want everything to serve us in a כללי-istic sense, even if you're going to say that it's not necessarily the תאוות הגוף per se, but it would still be the sitra achra, it would be these other considerations that Hakadosh Baruch Hu really put into place in order so that we should make a decision to get past and attach ourselves to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

עזות דקדושה is actually is actually coming from anavah. עזות דקדושה is coming from hitbatlut. עזות דקדושה is saying that if we take the sum total of influences that are going on at the altitude of this world, within like a within the dome, within the universe, within the bubble of the world, and and we say it's true from this perspective, from within, there's all these factors that have that are driven by for different reasons and different considerations and some of them are very very compelling, but all of this is only a creation of Hakadosh Baruch Hu to create this.

Really, I'm going to subscribe to something higher. If I can just see through all of that, I can attach myself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, then בעצם there's יחוד. בעצם, there's only one consideration. All of these all of these ideas, these these whether it's theologies, whether it's philosophies, whether it's physical ta'avah, all of these things only exist down here. They exist within the world. They exist within the a universe where there's a perception of רע, And there's this battle going on, but all of that is was wasn't here originally and it's not going to be here at the end of days.

All of these things are really only temporary, and there's only one thing, not only that will exist later on, but there's actually only one consideration that even put them into place and allowed them to be so compelling. And now, I see that. I attach myself to the true emet. So, that's a total hitbatlut, that's anavah, that's taking everything that I want, I feel the תאוות הגוף, I see all of the things in the world, and I'm able to put them all aside and and say, you know what? I see through all of that. So now, what what we're suggesting, and then we'll go on and we'll see if it fits, is that the azut of the guf and the azut of the sitra achra is not equal to to עזות דקדושה.

The azut of the guf and the sitra achra is whether you want to label it עבודה זרה, whether you want to label it as a self-serving עבודה זרה, whether you want to label it as putting blinders on, but not as hitbatlut, as a gaavah, something that's self-serving, or and if it's not even self-serving, it's serving something else that's really that's really at a lower level, as it were. I mean, this is just the way that I'm thinking about it, I hope that the terms are not confusing, than Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Whereas the azut of kedushah is subscribing to emet, and understanding that that if I if if I'm not seeing it, then it just means I'm not seeing it yet, but it's a recognition that there's a ייחוד of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and everything is coming from Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

And and no matter what no matter what is going on in life, and no matter how compelling it is, and no matter what the taavah looks like, and no matter whatever else seems to be going on, whether it's politically, whether it's physically, in any in in any expression of it, I see through all of that. It's total I'm totally mevatel every other consideration to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it's total anavah, and nothing else is even worth considering. So now when I engage azut, azut is not really where things stem from. That's not really the shoresh of the midah.

In a certain sense, we would say it's siman, not sibah. It's actually indicative. It's the consequence of a much of a much deeper way of how we're relating to the world. And therefore על זה ביקש התנא, the Mishnah goes on and the תנא says, יהי רצון שתבנה עירך במהרה בימינו, יהי רצון may it build may it be Hakadosh Baruch Hu's will that Yerushalayim should be built up, and it goes on ותן חלקנו בתורתך, we should have a chelek in your Torah, right, Torat Hashem. שלכאורה הוא פליאה גדולה וכולי, אדם משתומם על זה, this seems to be very very strange.

מה שייכות יש לתפילה זו אל הקודם? First of all, what does this tefillah of rebuild rebuilding Yerushalayim have to do with what we were talking about a second ago, the azut? וגם אין דרך המשנה להתפלל תפילה ובקשה באמצע דבריו, as much as we know from our learning through our journey through Breslov Torah, the idea of of combining Torah and tefillah, this is not the derech of the Mishnah. אך עתה מבואר היטב, but now we can explain it well. היינו שהתפלל רבי יהודה בן תימא was was being מתפלל שיזכה לידע איך להתנהג בענין העזות. Now that we're saying, the way that we're learning, that azut really is coming from something much deeper, it's a question of what's at the center.

Is it me or is it total anavah, is it total hitbatlut to Hakadosh Baruch Hu? What gives us that perspective from down here, where all we all we have is competing considerations? How do I break past all of that to understand whether I'm fighting the tide to engage in, like we said before, עבודה זו, my individual avodah, even if it seems to break away from other עבודה'דיק considerations, or is it really, no, it's for my own kavod, my own ga'avah? You know what you have to do? You have to reach the נשמע, you have to reach outside the system, you have to you have to be in touch with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you have to have התבטלות, and tefillah is עבודה שבלב, and that's tefillah.

That that actually relates directly to engaging azut d'kedushah, and knowing that you're doing it properly, it starts with tefillah. היינו שלא יהיה שום עזות דסטרא אחרא, that that none of it is עזות דסטרא אחרא, רק שיזכה שיהיה לו עזות דקדושה, שעל ידו נבנה ירושלים, קרית נאמנה. That through the azut d'kedushah, that leads to to to being able to attach oneself to the שבעה רועים instead of the the the negative influences, and that leads to, we said, to emunah. Jerusalem is קרית נאמנה. היינו שזוכים לאמונה על ידי העזות. The azut leads to emunah because through the שבעה רועים, כמבואר לעיל, like we explained earlier on.

And we said that Jerusalem is called קרית נאמנה to tell us that that it's azut to the שבעה רועים, to emunah, which is associated with the building of Jerusalem. שאי אפשר להתקרב להצדיקים אמתיים, because it's impossible to engage and to have full loyalty to subscribe to, to have that relationship with the צדיקים אמתיים, שהם בחינת כללות של שבעה רועים, שהם כללות הקדושה, שעיקר אמונה נמשך על ידם. That's really where emunah comes from, that our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu via the tzaddikim, via the שבעה רועים, via our emunah in Chazal, via emunah in the chachamim and the appropriate leadership, all of that is really coming through azut.

Well, how do we know which azut we're employing? We have to start off with tefillah, we have to start off with the yehi ratzon, we have to start off with the נשמע. That's where we anchor ourself, in the example we gave before, outside the world, outside of these considerations, because the נשמע is reaching out beyond, it's reaching out to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it's התבטלות, it's ענוה, כי אם על ידי עזות כנ״ל, וזה יהי רצון שתבנה עירך במהרה בימינו, היינו שהעזות, עזות דקדושה שממנה נבנה ירושלים קריה נאמנה כנ״ל, like we described. Ach al kol panim, how does a person come to עזות דקדושה in order to come to the שבעה רועים, to emunah, to ירושלים קריה נאמנה, again with the ultimate goal is to is to have the relationship with the tzadikim because, like we started off, to be mevatel the gezeirot, cuz the tzadikim are the are the conduit through which we're able to they

they bring us back to teshuvah, and also they're the tzadikim are also able to be mevatel the gezeirot. הוא על ידי ותן חלקנו בתורתך, right? אורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא חד הוא, and also Klal Yisrael also. Klal Yisrael really is also the same structure, right? There's the רמ״ח איברים שס״ה גידים, there's רמ״ח positive mitzvot and שס״ה negative mitzvot, it's all one structure. We relate directly to Torah, but how do we make it our own? How do we make it our avodah? Where do we find our chelek in Torah? Where do we find our individual avodah to be metaken ourselves, to be metaken the world?

היינו על ידי שמשיגים בחינת נעשה ונשמע. By engaging in נעשה ונשמע, this process where we take the nishma, the tefillah, and we bring it in, שעושים מהנשמע נעשה, we continually get bigger, we bring those outer circles within our avodah, מתורת ה' תורתו, that we bring the תורת ה' into תורתו, that we relate to, היינו שזוכה להשיג תורת ה' כנ״ל, that we expand ourself. We can only do that through hitbatlut, cuz otherwise we're we're limited by our own perception, we're limited by our own considerations. How do we have hitbatlut? Torah and tefillah, we've said many times, go together.

But how is it that we have to be mevatel ourselves so that we can engage in תורת ה' and then bring that in, and consistently have this process where תורת ה' becomes חלקנו בתורתך, we make תורת ה' תורתו, וזהו ותן חלקנו בתורתך, שיהיה חלקנו שהוא חלק שלנו בתורה. It becomes ours, and that means that that becomes the way that we think, that becomes Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us all good middot, so to speak, bad middot, He gives us things that are easy for us, things that are challenging for us, we don't all start off as just being, you know, machines.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants us to engage in Torah so that we can perfect ourself and perfect the world, but how do we make it our תורה, היינו בחינת תורתו, בחינת נעשה? So again, sorry, so so that's the תפילה, ותן חלקנו בתורתך, שיהיה חלקנו שהוא חלק שלנו בתורה, היינו בחינת תורתו, בחינת נעשה, which is בתורתך. We take the we take the nishma, we take תורת ה', היינו תורת ה' mamash, and then we turn that into na'aseh, we bring we expand ourself so that the Hakadosh Baruch Hu's Torah, as it were, gets brought in, היינו שיזכה להכלל באין כנ״ל.

And with and with with every there's two ways to look at that: on one hand, we're taking Hakadosh Baruch Hu's Torah, torato, and we're making it ours; on the other hand, the way that we do that, you look at it from the other direction, is each time we're being mevatel ourself, we're being mevatel our own considerations, we're viewing it only through the lens of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Yet the truth is that we do have a certain personality and personality traits and likes and dislikes, but all of those were really given to us as resources, as tools, as specific things that came directly from Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

It's not that we start off with a body and now Hashem' says that we should serve Hashem'. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us the full palette of our likes, dislikes, everything in our personality came from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it's all rooted in the middot of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in order that we should perfect it. None of it was driven from us. Yes, we have our own individual personality and and so forth, but none of it is driven from us and we have to sort of turn it around, everything was coming from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, be'etzem it's נכלל באין סוף.

It's not just that we have to bring תורת ה' into us, what we're really also doing by blurring those lines is we're being mevatel ourself and saying everything that we have, everything that we like, everything that we see is really an expression of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and we become nikkalel in the אין סוף, שיזכה להשיג תורת ה', until we're able we can we should be able to look into ourself. There's times that the Gemara says, why do I need a פסוק, סברא הוא. If a person would have a real clarity of sevara, so then they would be able to look into themself and mamash see the emet, right, בחינת נשמע שעל ידי זה זוכין לשמחה כנ״ל.

When a person has תורת ה', they have nishma, they're able to reach out beyond themself, they're able to have simcha, right, שמח בחלקו, they're able to to to to not be only things in this world are not shalem, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is, kivayachol, there's a total yichud Hashem', that's total shleimus, the Torah is shleimus, right, ruchniyus and attachment to Hakadosh Baruch Hu is shleimus. Everything in this world is limited by boundaries, physical considerations. The way to achieve shleimus is when you reach out beyond and you realize that it's all part of one yichud, it's all part of one puzzle, and each one is an individual piece, but it's all it's all coordinated by one by by one synthesized, integrated whole that's driven by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that be'etsem is simcha.

So once a person has the simcha, they have this בחינת נעשה ונשמע. so attached to a shleimus that's greater than oneself, and that's the context that you look at things in, שעל ידי זה זוכין לעזות דקדושה כנ״ל, בחינת כי חדות השם, which is שמחה, היא מעוזכם, that is your strength, that's your azus kanal. When a person understands that this is what azus is, this is simcha, this is how he views everything going on the world, not driven by him, that's why people, you know, a person has a dollar, they want $2. That's why a person can never truly achieve happiness without subscribing to ruchniyus, because everything within this structure is chaser.

All of these things we could talk about for hours, right? But really, what's the true simcha? The true simcha is when you realize איזהו עשיר השמח בחלקו, because in this world we only have a chelek, we don't have shleimus. The simcha, the shleimus comes from the fact that we understand that we're part of a greater whole, that we're that that anything that we have, if we want everything, it's only a chelek, but if we have everything that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us, יש לי רב, יש לי כל, then that be'etsem is simcha. That's be'etsem understanding that it's a process of נעשה ונשמע, that we're attached to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

וזהו בושת פנים לגן עדן. Now, going back to the Sifra DeTzniuta, Bereishis, ירא בשת, מאמר שלם, and we attach to עדן עילאה. What does the Mishnah mean, בושת פנים לגן עדן, that through בושת פנים we're zocheh to Gan Eden? כי באמת זהו העזות דקדושה הנמשך מבושת. And now it fits beautifully with how he explained it. עזות דקדושה really comes from hitbatlut, it comes from anavah, it comes from בושת, it comes from ירא בשת, it comes from tefillah. It comes from subscribing to being mevatel the hishtadlut to הקדוש ברוך הוא, כי לעזות דקדושה זוכין על ידי שמחה וחדוה, the עזות דקדושה we we are zocheh to through the simcha, through the חדוה, through the בחינה of כי חדות השם היא מעוזכם כנ״ל, the the way that we're describing simcha, right, part of that larger process, ולחדות השם זוכין על ידי בחינת נעשה ונשמע כנ״ל, this process of what we have and continuously growing and expanding and

reaching outside of ourself, and tefillah, and ירא בשת, that's נשמע, and then turning the נשמע into נעשה, turning the תורת השם into תורתו, והשם חלקנו בתורתך, right? ועיקר שלימות השמחה הוא על ידי יראה. The עיקר שמחה is only not simcha in and of itself when we're happy when things subscribe to us. The עיקר שמחה really comes from yirah. It's part of this process, this awe of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, this recognizing our function, things that on our own we wouldn't have the chutzpah to do, and yet when we're שלוחו של אדם כמותו, right, when we're a shaliach of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we're here in this world to to do something that's much greater than us, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives us all of the resource and the strength to do that.

That's a yirah. That's something that we can accomplish that we would never have the chutzpah to do, and yet we're able to do it because because we're a servant of Hashem. And that's simcha. That means that we're exactly where we need to be. על ידי יראה שהיא בחינת נשמע, בחינת תפילה, כנ״ל, all of this is like we're describing, ויראה היא בושת, we said Bereishit is מאמר שלם, it's ירא בשת, נמצא שזה העזות דקדושה נמשך מבושת, which means, and again, it fits together in the way that I was suggesting to read the first half, that the whole idea of עזות דקדושה is really coming from בושת, which is ירא בשת, which is tefillah, which is really bekoach.

We said that the koach really encompasses the פועל, because we said נעשה ונשמע is Torah and tefillah, the נשמע is tefillah, but it's coming from it's coming from the ירא בשת, the relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's where we're able to to be mevatel ourselves, to have עזות דקדושה, and through that we're able to engage in נעשה ונשמע, and also subscribe to Torah, and we're able to be mevatel the סטרא אחרא, we're able to be mevatel all of the other considerations, because when we're mevatel ourselves to to the true emet, to the true יחוד, there is nothing else.

It's not Hashem versus everything else. It's Hashem, and there is no anything else, because all of that only exists in the עולם השקר, in the עולם ההעלם, right? וזה בושת פנים לגן עדן. This is what it means that עז פנים לגיהנם, but בושת פנים לגן עדן. That בושת פנים is really the עזות דקדושה, they're one and the same. The בושת פנים, the התבטלות, is not at the same altitude as the עז פנים. It's not עזות דקדושה and the עז פנים, it's בושת which is התבטלות to something much greater versus the עז פנים. בושת פנים לגן עדן, כי העזות הזאת דקדושה שהוא בחינת בושת, הוא בחינת עדן, בחינת עדן עילאה.

This is one of the seven ideas that we attach ourself to not נעשה ונשמע, to נשמע, that that's something that's that's that that's aligned with tefillah, something that's aligned with something outside of our system. We're reaching beyond. The simcha, the עדן עילאה, the נשמע, the tefillah, the ירא בשת, the relationship with הקדוש ברוך הוא, שהרי הוא בחינת נשמע, בחינת יראה, בחינת תפילה, כנ״ל, where we're able to be mevatel ourselves to the Ein Sof. Everything everything at this level is the nishma. That's where we have our avodah, but we only view our avodah like yeridah, that it's not just yeridah letzorech aliyah, it's yeridah for the tachlit of the aliyah.

We only view ourselves in the context of our avodah and our relationship with Hashem. ולבוא לעזות הזאת, התפלל: "יהי רצון שתבנה עירך". That's where we daven for קרית נאמנה, for emunah, because the azus leads the simchah to the נעשה ונשמע, the process of the the the עזות דקדושה leads us to be able to to choose the right leadership, to be mevatel ourselves, to have emunah in the tzadikim, Which ultimately is where we derive our emunah from, which is we're able to have a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that the gezeirah and really the underlying purpose, why there would have been any gezeirah, is going to become batal.

And then אם ירצה השם, next time will be home stretch and we will be able to finish this Torah, although הדרן עלך, I mean we could probably spend our entire lives on this Torah.