LM 23.2 — Tzivisa Tzedek, Part 2 of 7 · תורה כ״ג

We are in תורה כ״ג בעזרת השם. We're going to be learning from page ל״ה in the standard print, the paragraph starting וזה שאמרו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה: ויחן פני העיר. We had a introduction last time to this series of Torot of סבא דבי אתונא, and started talking about this Torah in general. Section א', ר' חיים Kramer starts off in review: a person must have faith, emunah, that the Ribono Shel Olam provides him with sustenance. One can attain this faith, this emunah, with truth, with emet. And in the last shiur, we discussed a lot of the interdependency between emet and emunah and how that works, why emet is built on emunah, and emunah is built on emet.

And he continues: doing so causes a person to be attached to the אור הפנים. We had said that the פנים דקדושה represents emet. The אור הפנים, the light, as it were, coming off of the source of light is how we relate to it, and attached to the אור הפנים, life, joy, and the countenance of holiness, all of these things represent a connection with the Hakadosh Baruch Hu, a connection with the source of energy, an expansion of self, of vitality. However, a person who lacks faith, he says, so that he thinks his own efforts bring him income, and we actually in the last shiur discussed a lot of five different aspects of the תאוות ממון, and not having emunah that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the one providing income, so this we linked to עבודה זרה, to something that's not connected with the source of life, the source of truth, with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, cutting oneself off

from emunah and emet, which is an aspect of עבודה זרה, relating to something else as the source which manifests in תאוות ממון. He is then attached, he says, to the countenance of the other side, to the sitra achra, to death, mitah, to atzvut. As we're still really towards the beginning of paragraph א', I think this is enough of an introduction as we start to explore the relationship with money really being at the heart of emunah and emet, and or תאוות ממון as being representative of עבודה זרה. Continuing along: וזה שאמרו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה, a Gemara in שבת, דף ל״ג, it's discussing Yaakov after being by Lavan for twenty years and then encountering Esav on the way home, Yaakov was grateful for the safe haven that Shechem seemed to offer to him, and Yaakov, it says, ויחן את פני העיר, he graced the פני העיר.

We discussed last time the idea of פני העיר, something that goes to the heart of a city, so over here if Yaakov is providing chen, we can see that Yaakov is providing a certain tikkun to the city. Perhaps we could say that this goes to the heart of where Shechem needed the tikkun. חד אמר: מטבע תיקן להם, one of the שיטות in the Gemara says that Yaakov established a system of coinage, וחד אמר: מרחצאות תיקן להם, that he established bathhouses. היינו הך ולא פליגי, these opinions do not argue, they actually compliment each other, כי יעקב הוא בחינת אמת.

Yaakov is a bechinah of emes. Last shiur we mentioned if you line up the Avot with the sefiros, we say that chesed, which would be on the right, the chasadim, chesed is Avraham Avinu. Gevurah is represented by Yitzchak. Tiferet, which would be the ממוצע between them, is emes or rachamim, but Yaakov Avinu is associated with tiferet. Over here it says Yaakov is associated with emes, כמו שכתוב, there's a pasuk in Michah: תתן אמת ליעקב. As an aside, I saw in one of the notes it says אמת ליעקב, if you rearrange the letters, this is יעקב לא מת, Yaakov didn't die.

And we said last time also that emes is something that's נצחי, meaning that certainly if I tell you something that's false, but even if I tell you something that's true, but it's true based on particular circumstances, that means it's not intrinsically true, it's circumstantially appropriate, but it will at some point die, so to speak, because if those circumstances change, then whatever the statement was isn't necessarily true under the new set of circumstances or doesn't necessarily line up in the same way. Only something that is בעצם עצמיות intrinsically true, only חותמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא אמת, the world is dependent on Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the world is dependent on HaMakom, even things that seem to be intrinsically true in this world are only because Hakadosh Baruch Hu set up a self-contained system that expresses itself that way, right, the idea, idea of one plus one is two, that is a, as far we relate to it,

that is a true statement. Something can't change and say that one plus one is not two. But the only thing that is literally intrinsically true at the core of truth that is unchanging, totally not dependent on anything else, אין סוף, infinite, the context under which everything else exists is HaMakom, is Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So something that is emes is לא מת. והוא בחינת אור הפנים. We said last time that פנים דקדושה is representative of emes, and therefore, הוא בחינת אור הפנים. The way that we relate to truth is if Yaakov is emes, so this relates to אור הפנים.

ותיכף כשבא, when Yaakov came to שכם, נתתקן אמונה, יעקב was מתקן אמונה. We had said last time that emes and emunah are interdependent, right? Very briefly, when a person has emunah, a person can be faithful to or attribute themselves to or fill in a gap something that's not emes as far as they're concerned. It's not something that they've validated, that they do did due diligence on, that they relate to as fact as far as they're concerned. But rather, there's a gap. They they they they subscribe to something. What's the difference between emunah and just any one of a million things that I could just, you know, make a decision not to decide?

Where Where is one considered emunah and one is considered foolish? Where emunah is built on emes, the example we used last time is I validate a certain situation, I do research on a particular doctor, I know his education, I know his history, I know his experience, I know at my personal experience, and then when he tells me a particular, let's say medication to take or a path of treatment, that is emunah. I'm filling in a gap. I I haven't researched that particular drug. However, that's not arbitrary, that is a gap that I'm subscribing to and giving over my decision-making capacity over which path of treatment to take based on emes, and that's why that would be emunah down a certain path.

And we explained the other way around, also. Emes and emunah are interdependent. Emes is really built on emunah. How do I know anything? Even if I did that research, the things that I have validated as fact, at some point I'm believing my eyes, I'm believing things that I read, the source textbook, I'm believing my parents, I'm believing the the the מסורה, I'm believing somebody else's research. So things that I take as fact are also based on emunah. That's one way of looking at it. I'm sure there's, we'll encounter other discussions as we go, but emes and emunah are interdependent.

So Yaakov Yaakov represents emes, אור הפנים. He comes to Shechem and he's מתקן אמונה. Rav Chaim Kramer points out, how do we know that the faith of Shechem's citizens, that the emunah of Shechem needed to be rectified? He says, first of all, you see that Yaakov Avinu went to make these improvements, so you see that it was needed. But he goes on and associates with ideas that are going to come up in the Torah, we'll just see them in line, וזה מטבע תיקן. This is the idea that Yaakov Avinu established a system of currency, of coinage, שתיקן תאוות ממון.

It's interesting, on one hand, we have mamon and we said that that's a bad thing. A person wants coins, a person wants money. On the other hand, establishing a system actually fixes תאוות ממון. When there's no system of currency, then people barter, they trade, it becomes sort of like the Wild West. By setting up a system of currency, it actually allows for valuations and specificity and some sort of checks and balances on the system of business. וכשתיקן תאוות ממון, when Yaakov Avinu fixed the תאוות ממון, נתתקן פגם עבודת אלילים. We associated last time the idea of תאוות ממון with a bechinah of avodah zarah.

So when Yaakov implemented certain changes that were מתקן תאוות ממון, this also removed an element of avodah zarah. וזה, and this is what's addressed by the other Talmudic opinion, וזה מרחצאות תיקן להם, that Yaakov Avinu established bathhouses. This is בתורת to make gerim, to make them convert. What's the best present that you can give anybody? To bring them close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. כמו שכתוב, ותרד בת פרעה לרחוץ. ודרשו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה, חז״ל say on the pasuk by Shemot that it said that בת פרעה went to go wash, לרחוץ לרחוץ מגילולי בית אביה. She went to wash off, to purify herself from this aspect of avodah zarah.

It was It was בתורת גרות. And the note over here points out that Yaakov Avinu was maskim with the etzah of the shevatim to give brit milah to Shechem, meaning to prepare them for milah and tevilah, that they should be גירי אמת. And this is why Yaakov Avinu expressed hakpadah, which comes up later in the berachot as well, when the בני יעקב, when the shevatim, when Shimon and Levi, used the milah as a ruse rather than moving them towards rectification of שמירת הברית and becoming gerim. But rather, they used it as a ruse in order to kill them.

Yaakov Avinu was makpid. וזה, ויחן את פני העיר, פני דייקא. Specifically that Yaakov Avinu gave חן to פני העיר, שהיא פנים דסטרא אחרא. The פנים, we said that פנים דקדושה, the פנים expresses the essence of something. The the most true possible essence would be the truth, and that's the פנים דקדושה of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the the emet. But the פני of anything else that's subscribing to some sort of an alternative an alternate a separate value, that would be פנים דסטרא אחרא, we'll make one comment in a second, שהיא מטבע. Over here, I guess there's two ways to look at it, whether the מטבע is the פנים דסטרא אחרא, the subscription to ממון, or we could say like we like we said before, that when there's תאוות ממון, which represents עבודה זרה, and you you put it in a system of currency, so that now creates very specific values for what things are worth, that creates

a structure, that allows תאוות ממון now to move into a realm to subscribe to emet, so to speak, to subscribe to something that is that's sort of like rigid, that stands on its own, that gives an objective system of values. היינו תאוות ממון כי כל עבודה זרה תחוּבה בממון, because all עבודה זרהs are based on ממון, and therefore the tikkun through פני יעקב, through emet, of אור הפנים of emunah is the opposite of עבודה זרה, which is תאוות ממון, which is which is choshech. The idea that I was going to say just in terms of פנים דסטרא אחרא, we said that if פנים expresses something's essence and the way that you relate to it, so פנים דקדושה, if you will, what's kedushah?

Holiness הקדש, קדשה, the idea of kedushah is something that's separate, separate from this-worldly considerations. Everything in this world is within a גבול, within a world of limitation. When we associate ourselves with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we associate ourselves with the emet, an example that we've used before is a mechanech. Sometimes if if the goal is chinuch, then sometimes that is going to express itself through chesed, sometimes that's going to express itself through gevurah. Sometimes there's going to be discipline, even though those particular behaviors might be at odds with itself, how I've seen you do chesed so many times, there's something contradictory about your behavior if all of a sudden now you turned into a disciplinarian, whereas the response to that is no, I'm not a baal chesed or or a baal gevurah, I am a mechanech, I do what people need, generally speaking it might be this, sometimes it's that, but that's not in conflict at

all. That's when somebody is is rooted at the emet and their goal is to get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So there are various avenues, vehicles, behaviors, attitudes that have to be employed within this world so that we can work with what we have, create keilim to get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but we're not necessarily intrinsically married to any one any one of them. They're a means to an end. When they become an end in and of itself, we relate to a פנים as, no, I always have chesed. What if somebody's doing something that's destructive?

Chesed, acceptance. But it's going to destroy himself and others. You can't ever you can't ever do anything keneged chesed. Or, alternatively, if a person is always just according to the letter of the law, sometimes they need to be flexible, I'm only chesed, I'm only gevurah. That's why I think we mentioned last time, I don't remember, the Midrash, it says that the Torah was presented to other nations, and they said, well, if, tell me some of the mitzvot, if the mitzvot conflict with a particular middah that was expressed by that nation, the Torah was not for them.

Why is the Torah not for them? The Torah has mitzvot. Because their entrance point, their kli, their attitude and perspective towards the entire world was not an emet, and and then it was, you know, in any particular middah subject to emet rather, but that middah was what intrinsically they were tied to, and therefore if you were going to give them mitzvot that were not in line with their middah, it was something that they were incompatible with at their core. That's something that's a פנים דסטרא אחרא. It's something that's not removed from this-worldly considerations, but rather it's these other פנים, these other faces that are אלהים אחרים על פני.

Now it's interesting, why כי כל עבודה זרה אחוז בממון, all avodah zarah is אחוז בממון? I'm going to mention one thought that I had as we were learning Torah י״ג, and then one other idea. First of all, as far as mamon is concerned, it's interesting that it touches every area of life. It's something that every single person needs, every person needs to do hishtadlut, every person needs to work in order to have money or whatever it is that they're going to barter in order to get their needs and sometimes luxuries, whatever it is that they need for life.

So mamon is intrinsically tied, it's something that we do need. Mamon also, if you think about time is money or whatever it is that a person produces is tied to their efforts, whether it's what they initially produce or what they trade for, it's intrinsically seems to be, it gives the appearance of being tied to a person's efforts, hence the challenge of כחי ועצם ידי, and it presents itself as a challenge at in every turn. On one hand a person can work and be successful, and they they say כחי ועצם ידי, and it presents a challenge in terms of how they relate to money: do they relate to Hakadosh Baruch Hu as providing their needs, or do they relate to it as being an outcome of themselves?

If a person's giving tzedakah, alternatively, right, a person says that 10% of everything I earn is going to go to tzedakah, that means that they're relating even to their כחי, even to the to the efforts that they put into things that results in mamon, that even their efforts don't entirely belong to them. I think Rav Moshe Feinstein discusses, or I've heard quoted at least, that maaser is not just mamon, maaser could also be in terms of a person's time, giving time for gemilut chasadim and to help others. So when a person is successful there's the taavah of mamon, and when a person's not successful there's a taavah of mamon.

I don't have it yet, where am I going to put my efforts? Am I going to give yegiah towards a certain thing? If a person there's the test of wealth, and then there's the test of poverty. Another idea that I mentioned when we learned Torah י״ג is, at least within a particular in a particular way of looking at it, mamon is a very interesting taavah. Other taavot seem to be an end in and of themselves. A person has a taavah for עריות, a person has a taavah for foods that aren't kasher, at least in terms of a temporary pleasure, that thing that they're chasing gives them temporary pleasure, and they unfortunately are sometimes willing to put aside the נצחיות pleasure, or the נצחיות considerations, for something that's temporary.

Money is literally in a league of its own. Interestingly, it's almost like a taavah that takes away from taavah, not even for temporary pleasure. What do I mean by that? A person should be learning, so instead they go out with their friends, they go to the movies, they go chase other types of דברים אסורים. But even if it makes no sense, even if it's going to be at their own expense, they're doing something that at least gives them pleasure. When it comes to money, a person can let's say have $10 million in the bank, they could have enough money that they're never going to need to work again, and yet, what should they be doing?

If they're, you know, halvai they should be sitting and learning in kollel, and if they're not sitting and learning in kollel, even if they're even if they're a rasha or somebody that just is totally focused on physical pleasure, they should spend all day sitting on the beach doing whatever it is that they that that that turns them that turns them on. Over here, you'll have people that literally sacrifice even those physical pleasures in order to just engage in business, engage in making more money, increase it. When it's at the extreme level, it's more money than they could even spend even if they spend all of the amount of money that they want.

They'll say, "I need to pad my bank account for generational wealth." Maybe it's framed as security. It's nothing nothing even on their own terms that they're ever going to get pleasure of, so maybe you could say there's a certain pleasure in like winning the deal or whatever it is, but the idea of chasing mamon, and you can think about this in your own terms, is not even something that pulls somebody away from the true goal, from the true reality, from the true good towards, fill in the blank, towards something temporary, towards something that's a facade.

תאות ממון is something that pulls somebody away not even to anything. It's literally just the pull away without being towards something. It's like taavah for taavah's sake. Definitely, something to be mitbonen on as we go through this Torah. We we've spoken in the past about עריות'דיקע ענינים, שמירת הברית'דיקע ענינים being the רע כולל, but תאות ממון also is in a class of its own. So we said that כל עבודה זרה, עבודה זרה'ס תחובין בממון. If we talk about avodah zarah as like subscription to an other, especially against the backdrop of what we just laid out, not not not even something, you know, towards a particular pleasure, but something that takes on a life of its own in every circumstance, we said that avodah zarah is also rooted, based in this idea of תאות ממון.

ובשביל זה ממון עם אותיות גימטריא מאה וארבעים. Therefore, mamon with the letters is the gematria of 140, meaning that מ מ is 80, נ makes it 130, and then six for the ו is mamon is a gematria 136, plus if you add one more one more to the gematria for each letter because ממון is four letters, that becomes 140. כנגד מאה וארבעים קלין, כנגד the 140 קולות that Chazal point out in סנהדרין שהשכינה צועקת, "קלני מראשי, קלני מזרועי." Rabbi Chaim Kramer points out in the note over here that the Gemara is talking about those who are committed to idolatry, to blasphemy, and even so, the Shechinah bemoans their lot and screams out in anguish over their fate.

Over here, we're talking specifically about the avodah zarah related to greed, related to תאות ממון and those types of inyanim. Why קלני מראשי, קלני מזרועי? He goes on to talk about the idea that the Gemara in Berachot says that the same way that Klal Yisrael wears tefillin, הקדוש ברוך הוא wears tefillin. The pesukim in our tefillin speak about the yichud of Hashem, the pesukim in הקדוש ברוך הוא's tefillin, as it were, speak about the greatness of Klal Yisrael. Klal Yisrael is ושכנתי בתוכם, that we act as a dwelling place of the Shechinah, and when when a person is, as it were, driving הקדוש ברוך הוא's presence from the world, the Shechinah is in galut.

Instead of הקדוש ברוך הוא rejoicing in in a person, in a member of Klal Yisrael, the Shechinah wails and bemoans over him and screams, "Heavy is my head, heavy is my heart," and can no longer attest to man's greatness. So he says, על אלו הנופלים בתאות ממון, this idea of קלני מראשי, קלני מזרועי, a double screaming out, as it were, is specifically on people that fall to תאות ממון, שהם עבודת אלילים כלולים מעבודה זרות של שבעים אומות, that this is avodah zarah that is kolel from 70 אומות. So this matches up to what we said before, that it's as if all avodah zarah's are תחובין בממון.

The way I think it matches well that we that we described תאות ממון is the idea of being driven almost away, not driven towards a particular a particular type of a taavah, but it's just the idea that we're being driven relates this to all Each one of the אומות has some particular characteristic. All of these are rooted in תאות ממון, and therefore the עבודה זרה relates to 70. Now we're going to see 70 * 2, where that comes from. At the first instance, we say, ועל כן הם ק״ם. ק״ם is kam, to stand up or to sustain.

ק״ם is also gematria 140. The note over here brings from a Gemara Pesachim that ממונו של אדם שמעמידו על רגליו, that money stands a person up on his feet. It says, ויקם שדה עפרון לאברהם למקנה, so the word kam is used in relation to money. So it says, על כן הם ק״ם or kam kalin, 140 קולות, שהם שתי פעמים ע״ן. So this is referenced again in the gematria of the word mamon. This is two times 70, כי השכינה צועקת הקלין כפולין, because the Shechinah cries out 70 * 2 בבחינת "קלני מראשי, קלני מזרועי" on behalf of something relating to the rosh and the arm, which I'm leaving that like that for a second, שהוא בחינת קולות כפולין, the amount of cry cries that one would generally cry out, which we're going to see is 70 times two, היינו שני פעמים ע' קולין שצווחת השכינה על הנופלים בתאוות ממון, that the Shechinah is crying out two

times for those that fall to ממון, שהיא עבודה זרה כלולה מכל עבודה זרה של ע' umot, that it's 70 times of a wailing that relate to the 70 umot, but it cries out times two. And over here the author points out, why times two? Because the תאוות ממון and a person that falls to תאוות ממון is in two regards. Number one, it is because he thinks that it's כחי ועצם ידי, it's because of his chochmah, his עצות טובות. כחי relates to etzah, it's something that he thinks was his own chochmah that led to money, which the Gemara by the way says הרוצה שיחכים ידרים, that where that somebody daven's, the Gemara in Bava Batra has a reference to to to yamin and שמאל, ימין being towards the menorah, to חכמה, שמאל being towards the shulchan, and it says that a person that wants to daven for wisdom daven's towards the yamin, and the שמאל דאוונס

towards the and for wealth davens towards the שמאל. And then there's a שיטה over there that brings, no, daven to the ימין, דאוון to the right for חכמה anyway, because a person who has wisdom, so then that'll be a path to עשירות. However, that's only the mechanism, that's only the way to get it, but in terms of the source of wealth, that does not come from one's own wisdom. So first of all, the 70 קולות that relate to the ראש, that relate to the the fact that a person attributes it to his wisdom, that's קלני מראשי.

And then there's a second set of of of wailing, of moaning, of קלני מזרועי that comes that a person thinks כחי ועצם ידי, that it's from his it's come it's from his physical efforts. וזה שאמרו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה, קשין מזונותיו כפליים כיולדה. So in some way, Chazal relate the challenges, the difficulty in bringing out mezonot twice like birth, so that the in some regard, bringing about parnasa is is twice as as hard, we'll see, to bring about as a לידה, כי היולדת רומזת ע' קלין קודם הלידה. A woman who's in labor is going to scream out 70 קולות, like it brings in the Zohar in Pinchas.

והכא, we've mentioned this before also, והכא, when it comes to מזונות, יש ק״מ קלין. There's 140 קולות associated with it, שהם שני פעמים ע', which is 70 times two. Now clearly, what we're talking about over here seems to be very lofty concepts. There are a few ideas, I don't want to get lost in it. The the notes have a lot to say about it. I'm going to mention more just by point of reference some of the things going on over here, that what's a לידה? A לידה is bringing a person into the world, and אדם is really defined by his דעת.

Torah is an aspect of דעת. It says over here that דעת is incorporated incorporates 10 times יוד קי ואו קי. So דעת would be יוד קי ואו קי is 26, יוד קי ואו קי times 10 would be 260. עין is עין יוד נון. עין עין נון, 70 and 50 is 120, with the יוד it's 130, which means that 260, דעת incorporates two eyes. So since אורך ימים בימינה, that's going to be the דעת, שבעים פנים לתורה is is is represented by the ימין, and therefore, in order to bring about a לידה, to bring about a דעת into the world, that's 70 cries.

So it so it says over here, so why do we have to cry A person has to cry out to bring this דעת into the world, to to bring it past all of the negative forces and so forth. So first of all, when it comes to מזונות, the a person has to do it at the level of the intellect, that he shouldn't fall into intellectual issues like we said, in terms of thinking that it came from from his own source, from his own hands. And then second of all, after the מזונות comes to the world, he shouldn't look back and then think that it came from from his own efforts.

We we already explored earlier that the תאוות ממון represents itself, the challenge represents itself both before a person works, after a person works, how a person relates to it. So over there, when a person brings the דעת into the world, that that's going to be on the right, bringing it down the דעת, bringing the לידה, that's the going to be the 70 on the right. Over here there's a differ- additional 70 קולות that relate to to to guarding a person against the negative challenges associated with with how he relates to the actual action of it once once it's brought into the world.

Another idea based over here from Likutey Halachos in Hilchos Geneivah, it says that we should daven that the parnasah should come from a מקום גבוה of כוליה ימינה, and therefore there's really two בחינות of the שפע associated with parnasah coming down. One is from the ימין עליון אל השמאל, and then the one is from the שמאל אלינו, so it should come down with the right כוונות, and then it comes down into the practical world. It's not the Torah, חכמה and דעת, but rather we need a we need שפע, we need parnasah, wealth practically speaking. So again, this is it's certainly beyond me.

I hope that I didn't misinterpret or misquote anything. A lot of it is just very, or not just, but a lot of it is formulaic in terms of representing kabbalistic ideas. Suffice it to say that the two elements we discussed are number one, when a person falls to תאוות ממון, there's two separate elements of wailing, of bemoaning over it that each are rep- represented by שבעים, by 70 screaming out, and also seemingly on the front end or as a protection of breaking past the negative forces to assure that it's positive, there's a לידה, the לידה is associated with דעת, with bringing an אדם into the world, with bringing Torah into the world.

אורך ימים בימינה, that's one element of ע, but over here when it comes to bringing wealth into the world and that פרנסה, שפע, מזונות into the world, it would actually be an added element, and it would be two aspects of this crying out, which would be 70 times two. וזהו אל תהי רשע בפני עצמך, a person should be or should not be a רשע בפני עצמך. So we're going to see what this means. Some of the פשטים in the Mishnayot brought by the Bartenura is either a person shouldn't do actions that are going to be מרשיע themselves, a person shouldn't view themselves as a רשע because then they're going to end up following their opinion, their view of themselves and acting badly, or a person shouldn't be a רשע in terms of being פורש מן הציבור and standing, so to speak, on their own separate from the community.

But over here Rabbeinu learns it בפני זהו פנים דסטרא אחרא הבא מחמת תאוות ממון. A person should not be a רשע in how they relate, instead of פנים דקדושה, פנים דסטרא אחרא, עבודה זרה, פנים חשוכות, darkness, especially as relates specifically תאוות ממון, שאינו מאמין בהקדוש ברוך הוא שהוא הזן ומפרנס, like we said, both on the front end and on the back end. We gave the, in the last shiur, five different ways that this comes up: either not conducting business b'emunah, or putting in more yegiah, more effort than would otherwise be appropriate, because they don't really believe that the source is Hashem, but rather it's attributed to their own efforts, the way that they understand it of כוחי ועוצם ידי, generally speaking, philosophically, a person who is not sameach b'chelko, a person who is not who is not giving, he's not giving tzedakah.

We went through all of these in the last shiur. So a person who's not ma'amin that that the source of mezonot, of parnasah, is coming from haKadosh Baruch Hu, they're they're as if they're nizon, they're associating themselves from the פנים דסטרא אחרא that comes from תאוות ממון, והוא חושב: כוחי ועוצם ידי עשה לי את החיל הזה, that what does atzmecha mean? לשון עוצם ידי. So the way that we relate to this Mishnah in אבות is אל תהי רשע, a person shouldn't be rodef after mamon, a person shouldn't take action which is a bechinah of בפני, אל תהי רשע בפני, the פנים דסטרא אחרא, specifically as relates to תאוות ממון, and it shouldn't be a רשע בפני עצמך through relating to money as though it's כוחי ועוצם ידי, associated with his עוצם ידי, which is his strength, but rather understanding that everything comes from haKadosh Baruch Hu.

And now we're going to go into paragraph ב. Just one, one line of of cleanup that I had mentioned before: We had talked about two aspects of the cries associated to bring wealth into the world. One of them we talked about as associated with leidah, of bringing chochmah into the world, and not attributing my wealth to chochmah, my wisdom, my know-how. And then there was a second aspect, that was that's why it was leidah times two, as also not attributing wealth towards כוחי ועוצם ידי, towards my actions. And when we talked about ע as relating to da'at, we mentioned on one hand that da'at represented 260, which is two times ע, and we said that ע is 130, as spell out ayin would be 130, but then ע, the letter, also represents 70 as the gematria of the letter of ע itself.

Okay, we're going to go now into paragraph ב, and we're now going to explain how tikkun habrit also saves one from תאוות ממון, from the פנים דסטרא אחרא through from from from חושך, from תאוות ממון עבודה זרה. ודע שעל ידי תיקון ברית קודש הוא ניצל מפנים דסטרא אחרא. Through the tikkun of ברית קודש, שמירת הברית, rectifying sexual matters, a person is also saved from the פנים דסטרא אחרא, from this תאוות ממון, which we associated with avodah zarah, because the way that a person relates to parnasah in his life through the shefa coming down from shamayim, from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, or whether whether to what degree he puts in too much yegiah, whether he relates to כוחי ועוצם ידי, so the way that a person relates to ממון is very much tied to emunah, the the the opposite of avodah zarah.

We also had said that תאוות ממון, the tie-in that we're going to see in a minute, associates to a tumah, which we said was like the the tumah of נידה, which we associated with avodah zarah. So he says, על ידי דם ברית נתתקן דם נידה. We could think about this broadly, that the דם נידה is, the tumah associated with דם נידה, but it's associated with the menstrual cycle, with the reproductive process, and the דם ברית, the שמירת ברית קודש, also associated with with with reproduction. Over here, he mentions that the the דם נידה is a חלק from the יצירה of the ולד.

So when the when the baby has a brit, so that דם ברית is נתתקן ומזדכך, it purifies the baby from this tumah that would otherwise be associated with דם נידה. But איך שיהיה, על ידי דם ברית נתתקן דם נידה, תאוות ממון, we we had mentioned before the tie-in from תאוות ממון based on a pasuk in navi with the טומאת נידה, so this becomes the tie-in that דם ברית purifies from דם נידה, from the tumah associated with נידה, and we explain that תאוות ממון, the way that people related to their gold and silver and then they rejected it, that was also associated with the טומאה, with the טומאה of נדה, כמו שכתוב גם דם בריתך that על ידי ברית, through the דם of the ברית, שלחתי אסיריך מבור, that the prisoners were freed from the בור.

What's a בור? בור דא טחול, a בור is associated with the טחול, with the spleen. We mentioned before the four humors and the מרה שחורה and being associated also reflecting himself in physiological terms. Just one interesting point: there's the note over here quotes a Tikkunei HaZohar, Zohar which says that שבתאי, Saturn איהו טחול, Saturn is associated with the טחול. There's a Gemara in Shabbos on דף קנ״ו עמוד א, it says that a person that's born under Saturn in terms of the the astrological signs, האי מאן דבשבתאי יהי גבר מחשבותיה מחשבותיה בטל, that his thoughts, his plans will become frustrated.

So it's just interesting that the tying to the טחול, to מרה שחורה, to depression, to עצבות, to lethargy, for whatever this is worth, the Gemara in Shabbos has an interesting tie-in that somebody who is born under the astrological sign that would otherwise align with the spleen would be almost like doomed to frustration in terms of his plans working out. So however that is, the טחול is associated, the spleen with מרה שחורה, with עצבות, and that ties into the בור. The Tikkunei Zohar also mentions הבור ריק אין בו מים, but what was there? There was נחשים ועקרבים.

And perhaps we could say, what's mayim? Mayim is Torah, Torah is emet, it's attachment to הקדוש ברוך הוא, right? ישראל ואורייתא והקדוש ברוך הוא חד הוא. So if the בור does not have mayim, mayim also causes growth. And what is there? There's this נחשים ועקרבים, which is the Tikkunei Zohar says רעב וצמאון, קינה, הספד, חשיכה, ערפל. So this darkness, everything that we associate with the פנים דסטרא אחרא is represented by what was in the empty בור. And therefore, בעצבון תאכלנה, that means that what a person ultimately eats, the way that they have פרנסה, it'll be b'atzvon.

It'll be in this in this mode of פנים דסטרא אחרא, of darkness, of not being associated with the אנפין נהירין, the lit up face, the emet, the relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu and hashgachah pratit, and understanding that we have a chiyuv, we have an obligation as it were to engage in hishtadlut. But if anything, it could be sometimes a big berachah when a person puts in hishtadlut and then things work out not associated with that hishtadlut. Actually, the way that a person becomes supported, they get the parnasah from Hakadosh Baruch Hu when when when it's in response that a person says הנני מוכן ומזומן to go out to work and then they and then things work out out of left field, it comes out that the parnasah is mamash is is mamash reinforces hashgachah pratit.

But where a person distances himself, they engage in parnasah activities whether or not they're doing well, and that actually distances themselves from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that has on a lot of levels בעצבון תאכלנה. I guess on one hand it could make a person very weary and they give up, like we said, relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, relationship with their family, they're always chasing parnasah. But even if they end up doing well, they're also b'atzvon, they're in the darkness if they are distanced from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Now so we said that תיקון הברית saves from דם נדה, which we associate with תאוות ממון, that שמירת הברית saves one from תאוות ממון.

Why? כי ברית הוא בחינת מלח. The idea of brit, the pesukim talk about the brit in the context of melach by קרבנות, הממתיק מרירות ועצבון הפרנסה, כמו בזהר, we're going to bring a re'ayah from this from the זהר, אלמלא מלחא לא הוי עלמא יכיל למסבל מרירותא. Then the world, olam can mean le'olam, it can mean נצח, עולם also means world, but if it wasn't for salt, then the olam would not be able to bear the merirut, I guess both of these meanings both these meanings say that the world, that the netzchiyut, things would become temporary, the the world would not be able to endure.

Now salt, just in terms of the physical characteristics, does a lot of things. Number one, it prevents spoilage. If you have basar, you have something that's vibrant, flesh, life, if when you have a piece of meat, if it wasn't for salt, then the meat would spoil, it would move to mitah, to to death as it were. Otherwise, meat invigorates, people eat, a person can get a lot of vitality from meat. Second of all, salt preserves taste. A pasuk in Iyov, he brings from Sefer Shaarei Tzedek le-Rabbi Yosef Catalia, I'm probably mispronouncing the name, where he says it says היאכל תפל מבלי מלח in Job.

Should we eat something tasteless without מלח? And he associates תפל with the לשון of tefillah, which is represented by מלכות, אמונה, relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And he says that salt is אש and מים coming together. When you boil the water, you're left with salt. So if אש is גבורה and and water is is חסד, and the ממוצע between them when they come together, that makes רחמים, so רחמים aligns with יסוד, יסוד causes shalom bayit, and therefore, when there's salt, when there's יסוד, and we we said before also תפארת תפארת is רחמים, all of those line up in the middle.

Again, I'm just mentioning this because you just have נגלה and נסתר, all of it coming together, it's hard to keep track of all of it, but just watching that the framework, that the פנימיות, that the entire world, every aspect of what we're talking about is built on this. When you have יסוד which is רחמים, which salt is associated with that, now that מלכות, the tefillah, the אור, the אמת, the אמונה, the relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu can be can be achieved, and therefore the world, the the the מלכות, the גילוי שכינה in this world is going to be לעולם, it's going to be lasting and the world can be preserved.

So again, כי ברית הוא בבחינת מלח, ברית is associated with מלח. Hakadosh Baruch Hu also made a ברית, a deal with the lower waters, as it were. They were upset, the מדרש says, when they couldn't be closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu when the upper and lower waters were separated. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu said that the salt will come from the lower waters, that that will be brought with every single קרבן, which is a קרבן which gets closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. מלח הממתיק מרירות ועיצבון פרנסה. מלח is able to be ממתיק, it's able to sweeten up the עצבות that would otherwise be associated with בעצבון תאכלנה, כמו שבזוהר אלמלא מלחא לא הוי עלמא יכלי למיסבל מרירותא, that if it wasn't for salt, then the world wouldn't be able to be סובל the מרירות, and we see now that שמירת הברית is associated with is associated with salt.

וזהו ברית מלח עולם הוא. This is what it says that the bris, which is שמירת הברית, but associated with מלח, עולם הוא, it's going to be נצחיות, it's going to allow a קיום of the world. וזהו ולא תשבית מלח ברית אלוקיך. The end the the end of the פסוק over there says מעל מנחתך, you you can't not have salt. There has to be salt associated with the korbanot. The מלח ברית אלוקיך, על כל קרבנך תקריב מלח, that's the end of the פסוק, that you need salt with every one of your korbanot. So you see that מלח, תיקון הברית, will make one זוכה to אלוקיך דייקא, כי על ידי זה נתקשר באלוקות ונתפרש מעבודת אלילים.

When we talk about עבודה זרה, a lot of times we say אלהים אחרים, that a person attributes the power and they attribute that power as the source of what's happening from something downline from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but really Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the Elokei Elokim. So when a person has the bris, we said that is the ברית מלח, we said שמירת הברית, that that brings the korbanot, it brings one closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, a person is has התבטלות, they're מבטל, everything in the world is an expression of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. They see they see the truth, they see the אור פניך, they see that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the true source of all sources, that everything else is downline from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but no, there's there's Hakadosh Baruch Hu not only created the world, He's מחדש עולם בכל יום תמיד מעשה בראשית at every single instant, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is aware and running

and governing and there's השגחה פרטית, that is where that's Elokecha. And not only is there Elokei Elokim that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the ultimate source of sources, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is Elokecha, He's our God. We have a personal relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. יסוד, שמירת הברית, מלח makes it that there that is associated with the korbanot, that there's אלוקיך, and we we explained also that this certainly relates to how הקדוש ברוך הוא is giving, as it were, fuel, supporting the world and supporting us through parnassah. This becomes a very direct relationship. This causes a hitkashrut with Elokut and it separates us from עבודת אלילים.

כמו שכתוב: מבשרי, from בשרי, from the שמירת הברית, אחזה אלוקה, that's where there's going to be a gilui of Elokut. כי על ידי תיקון הברית, מאיר לעצמו אור פני מלך חיים, that's the אור פנים that we started off the Torah with, that through the תיקון הברית a person has the light, they have the direct relationship, the truth, they see the chokhmah of הקדוש ברוך הוא in everything. וזה, and that's what the Gemara says, מלח ממון, the the the the symbol of of תיקון הברית, which is melach, but the preservative of ממון is חסר, is tzedakah.

I'll say something about that in a second. כי על ידי מלח, through melach which is תיקון הברית, נתמעט אצלו תאוות ממון, then a person is not going to have תאוות ממון, and there that's what חסר is, this person is going to give tzedakah. You know, one of the interesting things, you know, sometimes when a person has a bechirah, they say, "I'm choosing between A and B." But another way of looking at it is it's not so much that we're choosing between A and B. Should I be selfish or should I give tzedakah? Should I a person have ta'avah or תיקון הברית?

I'll start off mentioning one idea that I just saw quickly from from Rav Moshe Shapira, the shiurim that was printed this week for פרשת בלק. He mentions just just a new way of looking at at evil, at רע. הקדוש ברוך הוא, obviously, everything comes from הקדוש ברוך הוא. Part of the paradox of creation is that if everything, if A creates B, then that means that B was within A. So if there's evil in the world, then that means that הקדוש ברוך הוא created the the evil, because everything in the world comes from הקדוש ברוך הוא.

But if הקדוש ברוך הוא is כולו טוב, so then how did create evil, which is responsible for a lot of עבודה זרה'דיק ideology, that that would seem to mean that there's a source of good and a source of evil. But Rav Moshe Shapiro framed it beautifully, said Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't create ra, what Hakadosh Baruch Hu created was the potential for ra. Why? Because the ultimate good, the ultimate choice of malchus, you could have a dictator, if if I force you to do something, that's just indicative of my strength. אין אין מלך בלא עם. The ultimate statement of being מקבל עול מלכות שמים is when, what we've said before, a person looks at the world and they perceive the truth.

It's as if I I choose to see that that two plus two is four. Does that mean that I'm giving up my choice because I can't choose to operate my business or my, you know, build a building and use math where two plus two is five? No, I'm recognizing the truth. I've now made a bechirah, as it were. The greatest possible bechirah is to subscribe, to give up my bechirah. The best the ultimate statement of hitbatlut is saying, like we said emes leads to emunah, I've I've acknowledged that there only is one truth in the world, and therefore, I want to be mevatel myself to the truth.

I am making that bechirah. In order to have a person be able to make a bechirah, to be מקבל עול מלכות שמים, the truest גילוי שכינה in the world, right? The truest גילוי שכינה is when you have somebody who has a choice between tov and ra, and they recognize that two plus two is four, not because somebody said it, not because somebody is forcing me, but because as I look at it, there's only one truth. There's infinite amounts of falsehood, but a person recognizes that this is true because it has to be true. That's that's the great, the rejection of ra in favor and understanding that it's actually totally illusory, that it doesn't even exist as a choice is the greatest statement of tov.

It's not until a person sins by the חטא ראשון that that ra becomes actualized at the עולם העשיה, at this altitude, that actually brings ra into the state of actualization for the first time later on. So, kivayachol, it's as if Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the heichi timtzi of ra only in order that there should be a bechirah. Now, when a person makes the choice for tov, so the example we used in the past is two people are arguing about what's behind a curtain, right? There's some sort of a shadow generated behind a behind a white sheet, and two people are arguing.

And one person says, you know, it's A, it's a it's a bunny rabbit, and the other person says, no, it's somebody holding up their fingers to reflect it like that. And then you remove the sheet, or somebody looks behind. So, it's no longer like two people, you know, fighting over directions. You know, both things will get you there, one says this is better, the other one says that's better. Two people want pleasure. One says that ruchniyut is a real pleasure, one says gashmiyut is a real pleasure. But when you have a situation where a person where the the truth is becomes מגלה, the truth is revealed, and the falsehood is is shown that it just never existed.

So now, the truth is actualized, and the ra, that other argument, stays in the potential. It never exists, it never had legs to stand on. Or let's say you have, you know, a certain amount of strength, or you have money, you have $100. You could spend it on A and you could spend it on B, and I have a choice. Once I actually go and spend it on A, then there's B is no longer a choice, the money is spent. So when we look over here and we understand that there's תאות ממון, there's the way that I relate to my sustenance in the world, is Hakadosh Baruch Hu running the world and sustaining the world and sustaining me and it's responsive in והיה אם שמוע תשמעו, is it כוחי ועוצם ידי, is it my chochmah, my action, or is it that my חיוב, but everything goes to Hakadosh Baruch Hu?

And a person says that that's why the in Avos, my understanding, but I believe it's pointed out this way, it says that you're not supposed to estimate maaser. Why? Because if I estimate, you can give maaser and then you can give a lot more tzedakah or whatever you want. But when there's maaser, Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells you, "I just gave you 10, nine belongs to you, one belongs to the poor person, I'm telling you to pass it along." Tzedakah the maaser is an expression that the money doesn't belong to me. If the money belongs to me, I can spend it on kavod.

The kavod might be tzedakah. It feels good to give tzedakah, but that's my decision to make, because it's my money. But when I give tzedakah, so number one, it's a statement of where the money comes from. And number two, a person they put their blood, sweat, and tears into parnasa, people relate to their possessions, their kinyanim, as an extension of self, right? So when a person gives tzedakah and now, it's not even that like let's say they work for 10 hours, 9 hours is mine, 1 hour is for somebody else, 1/10 of every molecule, every atom, every time of work is is now elevated because they give tzedakah.

Every single thing that I do that I bring in is 1/10 of that belongs to tzedakah, it's a statement that everything comes from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And similarly, the שמירת הברית versus versus versus ta'avah, if a person thinks, we said that שמירת הברית כנגד כנגד the דם נדה which comes out in the baby. If you think about what's what's שמירת הברית, what's ta'avah, when a when a man and a and a woman get together, so then that perpetuates the world. That becomes also an extension of self. That's פרו ורבו. When a person relates to this through ta'avah, they're taking the ultimate way of giving over life, of extending humanity in the world, and then they're relating that as a selfish pleasure.

When a person has שמירת הברית and then they channel that into something that's productive, into bringing a neshama down to the world, and they take that very thing, and now they channel it towards towards connecting a שלמות, איש ואשה, נותן ומקבל, it's the highest avodah, it's out of kedushah in the right way, with the right kavanot. So now, they've already taken that so-to-speak hundred dollars and they've spent it on something, they no longer have that that that ta'avah so-to-speak. They already relate to the ma'aseh as an act of avodah, the ta'avah goes away. So in both of these things, perhaps I'm suggesting, that is bringing shefa, bringing parnasa down, and the idea of שמירת הברית, the idea of איש ואשה, these are things that relate to an extension of oneself.

And when a person relates to an extension of self as a chelek of avodah and bringing shefa down and and connecting oneself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and making oneself into a pipe to bring berachah into the world, so then this is going to be a rejection of of of darkness, that's אור פני השכינה as opposed to סטרא אחרא, as opposed to to darkness, as opposed to mitah, as opposed to an end in and of itself, as opposed to making oneself into sort of the end of that pipe where the ta'avah resides, where it's my money, it's my ta'avah, it's my pleasure to be used for me, and instead if a person make oneself into a pipeline, and certainly there could be an amount of you know, a person that carries perfume ends up smelling good, there certainly could be a a pleasure associated with having things, whether in either realm, whether in terms of in

terms of physical ma'aseh or in terms of of of having nice things. But nevertheless, when a person relates to these things as a חלק of serving הקדוש ברוך הוא rather than being self-serving, this is the ultimate attaching oneself to חיים, to the אור פני המלך, to הקדוש ברוך הוא, to אלוקים חיים, being an extension of life and vitality, the the חלק אלוק ממעל, the נשמה within is reverberating with godliness rather than being self-serving to the the בהמה part of him, to the גוף part of him that is not associated with life, with מיתה, with darkness.

And we see therefore that the מלח is the ברית עולם associated again with שמירת הברית, which purifies דם נידה, which we associated with the עבודה זרה in relation to ממון. And אגב also that the the the salt when in the kasher-ing process, when it draws out the דמים, דמים also means money, דם means blood, it draws out the the blood of the meat, which would otherwise the the the meat the excess bile, bile is עצבות, is lethargy, we said associated with the spleen, and מרה שחורה, it draws it out of the meat, leaving the meat fresh and able to provide vitality.

Another another place where we see in the in in the בריאה, just in the physical parts of it, how these how these concepts express themselves, and Rabbi' Chaim Kramer brings the last point in the note. Good, continuing to paragraph ג', we said that a person who is שומר הברית is זוכה to בחינה of מלח, a בחינה of ברית. This is also ממתיק, it brings a sweetening as it were, to the מרירות of תאוות ממון, to the bitterness of תאוות ממון. We mentioned a moment ago that a person who has a choice to utilize energy, to direct energy really, towards kedushah or towards towards tumah, towards aveirot, and they make the they make a choice or the right choice, it's not so much that good at that point we see that there's good and we see that there's bad, and then the person chooses good.

At whatever point a person actualizes towards the good, the bad option is just no longer on the table. They have a hundred dollars, they could spend it on good or bad, and once they spend it on good, the hundred dollars is no longer an avenue. A person relates to the relationship between איש ואשה as a מעשה דקדושה. Once that he's identifying, he relates to that as a מעשה דקדושה, then there's no there's no רע there. That's not how he identifies, no longer has to be גובר that, he is now relating to it in a positive way.

That's a המתקה, if you will, right? In other words, once the מלח in the physical terms draws out the the דם and the bile, and dam again is damim, damim could be money, damim could be blood, but once the once it brings out the negative things of the meat, so then the meat is not the meat is left now giving chayut, the meat is left vibrant, the meat is left giving vitality, and therefore it's it's not so much that it conquers, it's that it's that the a person that's engaging in שמירת הברית is now ממתיק and now he's living with אור פנים, he's living attached to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and now we're going to see that a person who is מקושר to someone who is שומר הברית, a tzadik who is שומר הברית at the highest levels, and a person is associated and מבטל himself and has a relationship and becomes an extension of a

tzadik, he also is going to be זוכה to this בחינה. Paragraph ג', וזהו, and this is in the Berachos in Vezos Haberacha at the very end, I think it's by חתן תורה, when Moshe Rabbeinu is giving a bracha to כלל ישראל, ויגרש מפניך אויב, and he drove out the enemies from in front of you. Actually, we could just go and read the whole pasuk, it's מעונה אלהי קדם ומתחת זרועות עולם, the way that Rashi explains it, Hakadosh Baruch Hu preceded the world, and all of the mighty ones dwell beneath, so to speak, His abode. ויגרש מפניך אויב ויאמר השמד, He drove the enemy away from you, and He said, "Destroy." Rashi learns on these on these last few words, ויגרש מפניך אויב, He drove the enemy away from before you, ויאמר לך, and He said to you, השמד.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the might and strength belong to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, He is at your assistance. That's the pshat on the pasuk. The way Rabbeinu is learning, is approaching the pasuk: ויגרש מפניך אויב, Hakadosh Baruch Hu drove away the אויב from פניך. What's פניך? מפניך is דקדושה. There is a בחינה of אור פנים of kedushah. Hakadosh Baruch Hu drove away from the koach of one who is invigorated, who's attached to אור פניך, to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Hakadosh Baruch Hu drove them away from that פניך. What is that? To תאוות ממון, that which is שמד, which is destruction, and it's עבודה זרה.

ויאמר השמד, and He said to destroy them, לשון שמד, לשון עבודה זרה, היינו תאוות ממון. This is very interesting. Let's go forward, and then we can comment. כי כל ישראל נקראים צדיקים. All of Klal Yisrael is called tzaddikim, the על שם הברית. The pasuk says, ועמך כולם צדיקים. And over here in the note he brings the Zohar. It talks about Klal Yisrael's attachment to bris milah. And in the in the Hebrew translation of the Zohar, it says, אשריהם ישראל שעושים קרבן של רצון להקדוש ברוך הוא, שמקריבים את בניהם לשמונה ימים לקרבן. It relates, as it were, to a person giving their their baby boy a bris on the eighth day.

וכשנימולים נכנסים לחלק הטוב של הקדוש ברוך הוא. They enter into the חלק הטוב של הקדוש ברוך הוא, שכתוב, וצדיק יסוד עולם. וכיון שנכנסו בחלק הזה של הצדיק, הם נקראים צדיקים, ודאי כולם צדיקים. Rav Chaim Kramer addresses this also, but for our purposes, there's a lot going on in this Zohar, it associates שמירת הברית with with tzaddikim. The Rav Chaim Kramer brings the Gemara, it says that any mitzvah which Jewish - brings from the Gemara - any mitzvah which Jewish people accepted with great rejoicing, such as circumcision, they fulfill with joy to this day. Any mitzvah that the Jewish people willingly sacrifice their lives to fulfill, such as circumcision and the denial of idolatry, they continue stead- to steadfastly observe to this day.

And therefore he associates, and and because bris is associated with צדיק יסוד עולם, and this is something that's lasting, the Jews are steadfast in the mitzvah of circumcision even in the most taxing conditions, so this is this is a refer- reference in ועמך כולם צדיקים. So again, in the text it says, Hakadosh Baruch Hu the Klal Yisrael is the is the tzaddik. All of Klal Yisrael is included in the tzaddik, attached to the idea of tzaddik, צדיק יסוד עולם. Hakadosh Baruch Hu drove away the enemies from פניך, from this idea of of אור פנים. ובשביל זה, he says, כשמגרש מפניהם דקדושה את האויב, הוא מפיל אותם אויבים בפנים דסטרא אחרא, היינו השמד.

There's a system, there's the same way that there's a system of physical of physics in this world, there's a system of spiritual physics. This is in line with how the Kitzur Likutei Moharan brings out the point, I think. I'm adding a little bit, but I think that there's emet here, and and I think it's in line with what he means. A tzadik is a a tzadik is מבטל himself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. A tzadik is in this world a walking, talking representation of רצון השם. A tzadik who is דומה ל- מה הוא אף אתה. A tzadik who thinks in lines, the the way that he personally relates, his likes, his dislikes, his priorities, the way that he thinks is he has adopted and utilized and incorporated full integration with the principles of Torah in how he views the world.

A tzadik is an embodiment of רצון השם. That means that a tzadik is, like we said before, that there's there's אור אין סוף, there's פנים, there's אור הפנים, there's the the light waves that are coming off of the source of light. A person who becomes a pipeline for רצון השם, that person is attached to the אור, he's attached to the emet through emunah, but a person is attached to the light, attached to the emet, he's attached to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So if you have something that's attached to the light source, and then something else comes close to it, right, it would be like if you had a 1000-watt light bulb and then something that's 800-watt light bulb, that's just, it could be that in on in its own, if it was in a dark room it would provide light, but if anything, if you put something and you you clear out a corner and you

say that's only 800 watts, that's more dark than the thing that's more light. If you have a tzadik that's attached to light and it comes into conflict with something else, the the there's an enemy, there's a opposition to the tzadik, vis-a-vis the tzadik, that's going to be darkness, that's going to be מיתה. Now the words of the Kitzur Likutei Moharan say says that כל מי ששומר ברית יותר מחבירו יוכל להפיל את חבירו לתאוות ממון. Why? Because if two people come into conflict and one of them is representative of the אור פני השכינה, of the emet, of attachment to the ultimate truth, to being, to existence, to היה הוה ויהיה itself, and something else has its other priorities, as far as it's concerned, it's darkness.

And now when they come into conflict, darkness we say is associated with מיתה, but it's associated also with with תאוה, with תאוות ממון. And now he says, כי כל ישראל נקראים צדיקים על ידי שהם נימולים, ועיקרו צדיק האמת השומר בריתו בתכלית השלמות, ועל כן המקורבים לצדיק זה יוכלו להפיל את חבריהם ממדרגתם, ואפילו שיפלו לתאוות ממון. So the tzadik himself is essentially a conduit for this אור פני השכינה, for this light. All of Klal Yisrael is עמך כולם צדיקים. Now there's going to be levels, so that means there's a difference between quality and quantity, if you will, right?

If we say that qualitatively we're a tzadik, we're just not as bright as the tzadik, but if a person is מבטל themselves, they'll they'll align themselves and associate with the צדיק, so now since qualitatively we are also associated with this idea of צדיק יסוד עולם, so all of כלל ישראל can be associated with this with this element of pure אמת, pure אור פני השכינה, pure light as it were—I know that it's a that it's an analogy—which means that any opposition, any of the enemies are associated with darkness, which we put to תאוות ממון. Now, הקדוש ברוך הוא doesn't just make the person fall.

What happens is, now that that person is associated with darkness, they're effectively cutting themselves off from הקדוש ברוך הוא, and then they're going to fall. They're going to be less vibrant, there's less attached to the source of life, and then the צדיקים will prevail. נמצא, כל צדיק וצדיק כשהקדוש ברוך הוא רוצה לגרש אויביו של צדיק, when הקדוש ברוך הוא wants to drive away, as it were, the enemies of the צדיק, the opposition of the צדיק, הוא מפיל את האויב בתאוות ממון. הקדוש ברוך הוא causes them to fall into תאוות ממון, כי צדיק הוא ברית עולם, which is interesting, we've said before, just different aspects of it.

We have to try to tie it all together, because צדיק יסוד עולם, because צדיק is careful, more careful in שמירת הברית in ענינים. So, therefore, he's also going to triumph over the the the אויבים who are going to fall in תאוות ממון. I'm just going to read over here from the note. He says these two things are תלוי זה בזה, it brings from Likutei Halachot: מה שהלב בוער לממון, from the fact what for the the heart, a person's תאוות are driven towards, they're burning for ממון, הוא בעצמו בחינת חמימות תאוות המשגל. That is a heat from תאוות המשגל, because תאוות ניאוף and תאוות ממון are both בחינה אחת and one is תלוי זה בזה.

And then he goes on and he says it works the other way also. I'm going to suggest that תאוות, we said interesting things. Number one, as far as תאוות ניאוף is concerned, we've said already that's the רע הכולל, and I think just even in own experience, when it comes to תאוה in עריות'דיק issues, this generates a heat, as it were. Even in colloquial English, I guess they would say maybe the heat of passion or something. But this this clearly makes a person's blood boil, it generates a certain warmth, a person's heart rate heart rate might speed up.

This this generally is an external stimuli that is going to generate heat and a tremendous a tremendous תאוה. When it comes to תאוות ממון, it's not going to be as visceral. On the other hand, we spoke out before, you know, potentially reasons why תאוות ממון, a person who has a hundred dollars, the Gemara says, wants two hundred dollars. A person is never going to be completely satisfied, and it's going to end up being a never-ending תאוה. There's no way, almost even in a temporary way, to satisfy that תאוה, and in fact, the תאוה for money itself, if you're using money as a wherewithal to buy like a good thing, so then what you really want is the good thing.

The money is just a way to get it. But the תאוה for money itself is something that can never be fulfilled. A person always wants more. It's the תאוה to have. There are people that can die with millions of dollars in their mattress or in their bank account, they never spent it, and they gave up years of their life and health chasing the idea of wanting more and more, which is more than they could possibly ever spend in a lifetime. So, it's interesting because, on one hand, we see that the what sparks תאוה the most, probably, and and especially goes to the heart of it, even if a person is not involved in it, something can, you know, pique their senses, the חמימות of תאוות ניאוף.

And that can be once a person is subservient to their ta'avah, that can lead to תאוות ממון. But what, in a certain sense, is a greater pit, what is going to suck a person in into a never-ending into a never-ending chase to just fulfill ta'avah which can never be fulfilled, that's going to be תאוות ממון. And and he goes over here in the Likutei Halachos that either one of them could break the cycle. We we just talked about שמחה, Rav Wolbe in in Sefer Alei Shur, he has vaadim. One of the vaadim is on simcha, when he just in his introduction, there are several vaadim on simcha.

In the introduction over here he says, שמים וארץ, איש ואשה, נשמה וגוף, ניגודים הם, they're opposites. Now when you take opposite things, there's different types of opposites. is, there are things that are fundamentally opposite, and there are things that could be noten and mekabel. The shamayim, the rain comes from the shamayim, and the aretz receives the rain, and it's mekabel and it makes a, it plants things. Ish and ishah have a zivug, and they're able to produce פירות. נשמה and גוף, also they get, they get together. So there are things that are fundamentally opposite, meaning that they can't go along, and then there are things that on their own they're opposite, but they complement each other.

And the way that he says, בכל התקשרות הניגודים יש שמחה, וזה מקומה ומהותה של שמחה בכל מקום שנמצאת התקשרות או אחדות. And he, he goes on, the simcha of mitzvot to be mekasher oneself to the, to one's Creator. Over here we're talking about שמח זבולון with attachment to the tzaddik. And we quoted also from, from Rav Moshe Shapira, a sensation of simcha is breaking out of the limitations that confine a person to one's physical borders. But I think that it's all, that it's all one and the same. If we, if we talk about the idea of simcha as a, a person has a certain set of characteristics.

It could be to be a noten, it could be to be a mekabel. But when, when we take these opposites, but not just opposites, the opposites that are complementary, complementary towards a shleimut, to make a keli to be able to mekabel the or, to attach oneself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so now you're taking your, you're now a piece, you could, you could be the perfect piece of a puzzle, but once you attach yourself to the puzzle, you attach yourself to a greater machine, so now the machine operates, you're able to turn on, you are inherently part of something that's much bigger and broader that, that, that transcends any limitations that you have.

Once, you know, if you can imagine as we're putting pieces of a puzzle together, and then once you put the last piece in, so then, you know, the lines between the pieces let's say, you know, fall away, there's no lines, you can't tell, you can't tell anymore, you make it like a seamless thing. Once the pieces of the puzzle come together so that the things on their own which might have expressed ideas that were, that were on their own opposing and not complementary, and now they complement each other to form a shleimut, and then that's an iterative process, נעשה ונשמע can go, a person can forever grow, and then if you have two things, an ish and ishah that are growing together, building a בית נאמן בישראל, that each one grows and then goes on to complement each other, complement each other and produce פירות and zivugim and בנים, right?

So at that point a person is totally has the simcha of no longer being identified with his own boundaries, but now he's inherently associated with things that are much greater than himself, the sum is greater, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Okay, I think that we're going to stop here, and then we'll try to sum up briefly in the beginning of the next shiur, maybe we'll read quickly just the beginning of paragraph ג so that we can finish paragraph ג and go on.