LM 23.7 — Tzivisa Tzedek, Part 7 of 7 (Appendix) · תורה כ״ג

Shalom u'vracha, I hope everyone is having a easy, meaningful ta'anit, everyone had a lichtige Rosh Hashanah, Shabbos Shuvah, looking forward to gemar v'chatimah tovah, for us, for Klal Yisrael. I'm going to record, as it were, the appendix, I guess. There's a few paragraphs over here שייך to אות א', אות ג', a couple to אות ד', and without doing a separate introduction or summary, this is all contained in the earlier shiurim, but I guess you could say it's a little bit of a little bit of clean up, and then we could start fresh with Torah כ״ד.

So in אות א', we had started off כי יש פנים דקדושה, פנים the panim itself could be a a total shiur. But panim, when you look in something's face, you could see whether it's whether it's alive. It itself, you could see the relationship, it's the interface, the warmth, the connection is in the face. And we aligned a lot of concepts in the in the אות א', פנים דקדושה, אנפין נהירין, חיים, we just spoke about the attachment to chayim is the divine energy, the the attachment to Elokim chayim, שמחה, שלימות, and in the last shiur we talked about איזהו עשיר השמח בחלקו, a person who is an ashir, they broke through תאוות ממון, this is a person who's alive, who's attached to the source, as opposed to פנים דסטרא אחרא, the other side, not the source, it's something at a at a lower altitude, it's temporary, if it's not if it's presenting itself as its own

source, it's has its own priorities, it's an alternative, then it's not really alive. Alive, there might be inter-motion, but it's בעצם darkness, could just be a reflection, as it were, it's presenting itself as being meaningful, but this is מרה שחורה, עבודה זרה, אלוהים אחרים, and we went through it, and then we attached how we understood why תאוות ממון is representative of of עבודה זרה and really something that's attached to mavet. Over here, שייך לאות א', I have it in mine as being אות י״א, שם מבואר שהממון הוא בחינת פנים. That money represents panim in you could look at in two different ways, either somebody who's nofel, who falls into תאוות ממון, he's tied to the panim of the סטרא אחרא, or the way that we started off, a person who does משא ומתן באמונה, a person who relates to money in the appropriate way, and we we even said at the end of the last

shiur that it's not just that there's mamon to be used in a good way or in an appropriate way or in a bad way, mamon itself is actually a relationship to the source. HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us shefa, brachah. One of the ways that He gives it to us is through money so that we could spend it. Mamon is בעצם ממון דקדושה, and a person who relates to mamon in the inappropriate way, then that's not even it's money, I guess, but it's not mamon. Another theme, I guess, you could say that we've been discussing is that sometimes a person wants an item, they want food, they have a certain desire, mamon is a heichi timtza to get it, but when a person has תאוות ממון, then they relate to the ממון as an end in and of itself, even though they could be a person who has, you know, mental health issues, they end up

dying with millions of dollars under the mattress, and they never spent it. They die as a pauper with a tremendous amount of perceived wealth, as it were, under the under the proverbial mattress. So so that when we relate to ממון, it's interesting, ממון is all presentation, the ממון is not the desire, the ממון is not the item itself, the ממון is either a connection to the source, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is siphoning off, so to speak, He's giving you from the source, giving you from the reservoir so that you can further direct it where you need it, or the ממון is representing, I guess, power, the the power to spend, the power of בעלות over resources.

Money very much, I think it's it's interesting to say, is that it's a בחינה of פנים, it's not the thing itself, it's really what it represents. ועל כן אמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה, פני הארץ הם העשירים. We'll see if there's a pasuk in Bereishit says והרעב היה על כל פני הארץ, פרק מ״א, פסוק נ״ו, that there was a famine on על כל פני הארץ, on the face of the land, so the פני הארץ הם העשירים. כמו שפירש רש״י על פסוק, Rashi says by it on the pasuk by מצרים, והרעב היה על כל פני הארץ, מי הם פני הארץ?

אלו העשירים. Why do we relate to the עשירים, the first פני הארץ הם העשירים is coming from Midrash, but why is why is Rashi telling us that the פני הארץ are the עשירים? כי הממון והעשירות הוא בחינת פנים כנ״ל. Therefore, the people, even though we said a person can be, you know, we relate to an עשיר as somebody who has a lot of money, some people who are עשירים could really be paupers, they could be tremendously in debt, so the what we relate to as a borrow term, as it were, somebody who's an עשיר is not really it's not really true עשירות.

איזהו עשיר השמח בחלקו, from the end of the last shiur, but with the when when Rashi says, who are the פני הארץ? The people who have the ממון, because ממון is עשירות, that's a בחינת בחינה of פנים. שם, also in אות א', תאוות ממון הוא בחינת חושך, and when a person relates to תאוות ממון, they're pursuing the end in and of itself, instead of understanding it as a pipe- as a pipeline which is giving us shefa and berachah from the source, which is mamon, so that we can divert it for what we need, but rather they have a ta'avah just for this interim vehicle, this interim mechanism, which is mamon, that's אנפין חשוכין.

They're divorcing themselves from the source. They're turning, not only are they not only are they pursuing not the true source, but another source, but they're pursuing something that's actually only a a medium for something. It's very interesting. In other words, the the the sun could be a source of light, so I could say, instead of wanting the sun, I want an electric light. But if I'm sitting there pursuing an electric wire, there's not even any light coming off of it. So the the fact that we're replacing the source of shefa and berachah with money, which is only meant to be able to spend to be able to get something, is, again, we spent a lot of time talking about it, but it's profound when you really mitbonen on this idea, eiyen sham.

וכן מרומז בזוהר, קץ שם לחושך. HaKadosh Baruch Hu puts an end to the choshech. That's pasuk in Iyov. דא זוהמא דדהבא, this is the dross, as it were, of gold. We said earlier that when a person relates to mamon, there's nisyonot, there's challenges, but it brings also tziruf. There's clarifying, there's elevating birurim. When a person clarifies, then there's dross. When they purify, rather, then there's dross, there's zohama. This זוהמא דזהב, so over here in the note he goes into something from the Zohar that zahav represents gevurah, and the zohama is like the סטרא אחרא that relates to gevurah, but in our terms, what would be the dross of the gold?

The falsehood in the desire for money, as opposed to living in the the the ארץ החיים, as opposed to relating to the true source of life. They're relating to the container, as it were, you could say, right? The wrapper, that would be maybe in our terms, perhaps we can relate to that as as the dross. That that's the part that you throw away, that's the part that you have to clarify. Something is integrated, then you take the fruit, you throw away the peel. Okay, that's piece one. Second piece, שייך לאות ג'. We'll just remind ourselves what what we said in אות ג', quoted a pasuk from the berachot of Moshe Rabbeinu to כלל ישראל: ויגרש מפניך אויב.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu will drive away from your panim your enemies. מפניך דקדושה, ויאמר השמד. Okay, and he goes on. But what we said is that a tzadik is somebody who's attached to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. We associated שמירת הברית with צדיק, צדיק יסוד עולם, כל ישראל נקראים צדיקים, that when a person's attached to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, when they're a tzadik, when they have שמירת הברית, and a person gets into an opposition to a tzadik, so HaKadosh Baruch Hu has to cause them to lose power, He drives them away. What does He do? He causes them to fall into תאוות ממון.

He divorces them from the פנים דקדושה, so that they fall to the פנים דסטרא אחרא. Now, instead of being attached to chayim, to vibrance, to the source, they are now attaching themselves, subscribing to the סטרא אחרא, and now they are going to be destroyed. They're not going to be as they're not going to be as powerful. It's like a little bit of a different point, the Baal HaTanya says an example of two people that are fighting. Even if one of them in a physical sense is more powerful, which person is going to win? The the fighter, the wrestler who has simcha, who has enthusiasm, he's more vibrant.

Another person, even if he's stronger, if he's atzvut, like we said over here in מרה מרה שחורה, the person who's atzvut is going to lose. So therefore, if two people are in opposition, the one who's a צדיק יסוד עולם, the one who has chayim, the one who has simcha, that's going to be the person who ultimately has more energy, that he's going to persevere, it's more deeply rooted, as opposed to the one who's attached to atzvut. And therefore, Hakadosh Baruch Hu will cause the enemy to fall into תאוות ממון so that he will ultimately he will ultimately not persevere against the tzadik.

So let's see inside: שייך לאות ג', ויגרש מפניך אויב, He will drive the enemy away from your פנים, ויאמר השמד, and say, "Destroy!" כי כל ישראל נקראים צדיקים על שם הברית, because all of כלל ישראל through the מצוה of ברית מילה, through מסירות נפש over ברית מילה, but through the מצוה of ברית מילה, צדיק יסוד עולם, they are have an attachment to the פנים דקדושה, עיין שם. ועל כן, and therefore, יוכל כל אחד שהוא שומר הברית יותר מחבירו, when a person is does שמירת הברית more than their opponent, they're more attached to שמירת הברית, they're more attached to the פנים דקדושה, to chayim, to vibrance, to life itself, to הקדוש ברוך הוא, להפיל את חבירו, then the the that will cause the other person.

What's the mechanism whereby one person is going to be successful over the other? Where they're more attached to life, so what's going to happen is the other person is going to be more receptive, and more susceptible rather, to the the the forces that are at a lower altitude, and therefore they'll fall into תאוות ממון when they go up to fight against somebody who's a צדיק יסוד עולם. כי הוא בחינת צדיק, פנים דקדושה, because the person who has שמירת הברית, he's a בחינה of tzadik and פנים דקדושה לגבי חבירו, as opposed to the other one. So everything is in ערכין, and therefore, when somebody is coming in opposition to the tzadik, in opposition to the to somebody who is in line with the פנים דקדושה, they will end up being receptive, aligning themselves with the פנים דסטרא אחרא, which is תאוות ממון, and once they subscribe to תאוות ממון, that's avodah zarah, they're basically cutting themselves

off from the source, they won't be successful in this fight. ועליו נאמר גם כן: ״ויגרש מפניך אויב״, and it says that he will drive, Hakadosh Baruch Hu will drive from פניך your enemies, that they'll fall to ta'avot mamon. על כן, צריך לזהר כשיש מחלוקת על אדם, if a person is going up against somebody, שלא יפול לתוך תשוקת הממון. What is the mechanism where somebody is going to lose in this battle through fighting ta'avot mamon? And therefore, if a person has to be very careful if they're going up against another person, tzadik, we don't know where a person is truly holding, and they find that they're falling into ta'avot mamon, they should be sensitive spiritually to what's going on.

כי אולי חבירו פנים דקדושה, נגדו, they might have the best of intentions, but if you're having an opposition, has nothing to do with money, and now you find that that you are becoming more shakua in ta'avot mamon, then a person should stop short and say first of all, is this a fight that I should be having? Is this a fight that Maybe my intentions are not pure, maybe this person is more is more of a tzadik than I am. A person should understand the spiritual physics of what's going on. ויש לו כח להפילו, so which means that this person is going to send me into into the pit, into the pit of ta'avot mamon because that's how Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to drive away from him his enemies.

והנפילה הוא שמפילו לתאוות ממון כנ״ל, and the nefilah is that the opponent who's less worthy, who's less of a tzadik, is going to fall to ta'avot mamon. על כן, צריך לזהר מזה, therefore we have to be alert, we have to be on lookout for this. Therefore, also if a person does find that he's going to end up in opposition, whether he, I guess, is on the offensive or maybe he didn't even do anything, maybe he's on the defensive as it were, and somebody is coming to oppose him, but even with the best of intentions, a person, first of all, if you're ever going into this type of thing, be extra careful in שמירת הברית, and second of all, if they find that they're being they're falling to ta'avot mamon, a person should be very careful, understand what's going on.

שם, further in אות ג', כי כל ישראל נקראים צדיקים על שם הברית, all of Klal Yisrael is called tzadikim because of a brit. שמעתי אז מפי קדשו בפירוש, רבי נתן says, I heard from רבינו, שאמר שכל ישראל על ידי שהם נימולים, all of Klal Yisrael through their ברית מילה, על כן כולם נקראים צדיקים, therefore they are all called tzadikim. There's actually a very powerful note over here from Rav Chaim Kramer in the English Likutei Moharan, note 151. He says, "Any mitzvah that the Jewish people willingly sacrificed their lives to fulfill, such as brit milah, such as denial of idolatry, they continued to steadfastly observe to this day." So that's a Gemara in Shabbos.

When a person has mesirat nefesh, that makes something that makes this mitzvah very well-founded. And he continues on, "Our Sages said this following an especially dark period of Jewish history known as the generation of שמד" - which that that language of שמד comes up in אות ג' - "of forced conversion, which followed on the heels of the destruction of the second Beit Hamikdash, when the Jews willingly endangered their lives to fulfill the commandments of circumcision and denial of idolatry." Now here here we have a question: you just told me that mesirat nefesh in ברית מילה is going to attach one to the source, so how did they end up in a period of שמד?

How did they end up in a period of where they faced destruction? And he continues over here, he says, "The Roman conquerors of the Holy Land, infamous for their immorality and greed, employed every possible means to divorce the Jews from Torah and mitzvot into idolatry," right, but it didn't work. Says, "The Jews resisted with the sort of self-sacrifice that repeatedly decorates our history: the ultimate offering of life itself." So it seems that all the pieces were in place for כלל ישראל to beat the Romans. How did they end up in destruction? "Seen in the context of our lesson, we can explain that the Jews of that generation were ready to sacrifice their very lives in order to be attached to the אור הפנים.

Toward that end, they did their utmost to carry out the mitzvah of ברית מילה, שמירת הברית, through which a person attains אור הפנים." So again, this seems to be that the כלל ישראל should have been able to overcome their enemies. "With this they hoped to subdue the Roman idolaters, as in 'He shall drive the enemy...'" from your countenance, the countenance of holiness which comes through the covenant, and proclaim השמד. And then he goes on to say they were always also מוסר נפש in the in the realm of עבודה זרה. So למעשה, how did they fall?

With the שמירת הברית, with the mesirut nefesh, there was שנאת חנם, there was לשון הרע, and instead of fighting their common enemy, the Jews fought each other. I mean, this is a it's an unbelievably powerful point, especially today as well, when we think about the amount of people in the world, and we think about the amount of Jews in the world, and the amount of Jews that even know they're Jewish, people many many people barely know they're Jewish or they're intermarried, the people that are Yidden and they live as Yidden, and they live within the ד' אמות of הלכה, they identify as Orthodox, and people that have an attachment, they daven three times a day, and the people that are learning, and the people that are working on themselves, working on מדות, where we end up any any Yid can do teshuvah and any Yid can be unbelievably pure and they're all all are Hashem's

children. But when we think about people that are sitting and they're in the עולם הישיבות, they could be Litvish, they could be chassidish, they could be different types of חסידות, whatever it is, the amount of people that are bringing Hakadosh Baruch Hu into the world is such a small percentage. I I I was thinking to myself, you know, some of us, Baruch Hashem, are spoiled. We live in very frum communities, and to us, that becomes our entire perspective, and we're spoiled by it, and then we develop our own competitions and our own טענות on other people who might not be like us, they have different ways of doing things.

If we would look at ourself as being the drop in the bucket, numbers-wise, that we were, we see, רחמנא לצלן, in certain times of adversity in ארץ ישראל the amount of אחדות that comes out. What changes? Nothing really changes. I mean, sometimes unfortunately there's a there's a tremendously negative event. What changes is just the perspective. We open up our eyes and instead of looking in our ד' אמות and seeing a thousand people around us, 10,000 people, 100,000 people around us, we realize that there's billions of people against us, and we're just a a small amount of people.

At a certain point, why are we fighting amongst ourself on our side of the table? We're all we're all on the same side of the table. And he says over here that because instead of fighting a common enemy they were focused on fighting each other, each one was able to defeat his enemy by causing him to succumb to the idolatrous desire for money. And once the Jews were guilty of idolatry, the Second Temple was destroyed. So there you have שנאת חנם, we say שנאת חנם is לשון הרע, and we say that in the second בית המקדש the שנאת חנם is like גלוי עריות, עבודה זרה, שפיכות דמים.

How could that be? Perhaps we could say, so when Jews are fighting, this causes that one of the sides is going to fall into תאוות ממון. תאוות ממון is like עבודה זרה. Perhaps we could say that the fight itself brings שפיכות דמים, certainly embarrassing another Yid, but in whatever realm there's שפיכות דמים over there, and גלוי עריות, we said that that that the one who's going to win is the one who's more careful in שמירת הברית. So we see these ענינים of גלוי עריות, שפיכות דמים, and עבודה זרה associated with with opposition between Jews with שנאת חנם.

Maybe. Maybe we could say like that. Okay, vayter. The next piece is שייך לאות ד'. אות ד', we said that the mitzvah of mezuzah helps a person attain faith, joy, and life, because mezuzah corresponds to שמירת הברית, from Chaim Kramer's note. Let's see let's see what he has to say over here. וזה בחינת מזוזה, that a mezuzah is a בחינה of שמירת הברית, again go back to the other piece, and through the mitzvah of mezuzah, therefore through aligning with שמירת הברית, through the אור פנים, through צדיק יסוד עולם, that the person is going to be זוכה to break the תאוות ממון.

We just saw in the last piece that if there's an opponent, that that opponent will fall into תאוות ממון, because תאוות ממון is what throws a person off course, and that acts as a separation from the Source. וזהו "והיה שדי בצריך", and this is the meaning of Shaddai, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, will be your treasure, "וכסף תועפות לך", and money will fly to you. So we all want parnassah, we're davening for parnassah, it's Yamim Noraim, we're davening for parnassah, what could a person do? Mezuzah. כי שדי הוא בחינת ברית, because Shaddai corresponds to בחינה of ברית, we quoted a pasuk before "אני אל שדי פרה ורבה", and this was a bechinah of mezuzah because mezuzah was associated with Shaddai, and Shaddai is associated with פרו ורבו, עין שם.

וזה בחינת, this Chazal said Masechet Chagigah, "שדי, שאמר לעולמו די". What's Shaddai? It stands that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, as were the world was unfolding out, and at some point Hakadosh Baruch Hu is creating the world and He says, "Enough." The world is a world of gevul. It's a physical world, it's finite. So k'vayachol Hakadosh Baruch Hu was sameach, we could even say, with this chelek, with this chelko. This perfectly suited Hakadosh Baruch Hu's needs. This was where the world was supposed to be, Shaddai that He said, this is where the world, this chelek, this is this what that the world is, it could have continued to expand, this is is the shleimut of the world and Hakadosh Baruch Hu's purpose, דהיינו ששמח בחלקו ואומר די למה שיש לו.

This is where Hakadosh Baruch Hu defined that the world itself should stop expanding when it can fulfill its purpose, and this is the way that we can achieve shleimut when we understand that the chelek that we have is perfect, doesn't need to expand, it's exactly where we need to be to fulfill our purpose, and our purpose is part of God's ultimate plan. ואינו מתאווה יותר, we don't desire anymore. Too much is the same as too little, maybe it's even worse. If a person doesn't have enough, then they they have something to they this is what I need in order to fulfill my purpose, they can daven for it, they can work for it, they can pursue it.

When a person already has that and they're pursuing more, then that means that they're by definition they're already off course. And if they get it, then that's just going to throw them further off course because either it's just going to be extra and it's going to, who knows what, sit in the bank, it's not going to be used, or they're going to use it, but if they're using it it was unnecessary, then they're using it for the wrong goal. שזהו בחינת שבירת תאוות ממון שזוכין על ידי שמירת הברית כנ״ל, this idea of sameach b'chelko, of saying dai, that it's enough, is is שבירת תאוות ממון.

Next piece is also שייך לאות ד, מבואר שם שעל ידי מצוות מזוזה נתבטל חמדת ממון, through the mitzvah mezuzah a person's תאוות ממון becomes batel, or it is חמדת ממון, ועל כן וכתבתם על מזוזות, and therefore you should write on the mezuzah, on the doorpost, parallels, it's כנגד לא תחמוד כנ״ל עיין שם, it parallels the of the from the עשרת הדיברות of לא תחמוד, עיין שם. So we spoke about this also in the Torah, in the body of the the main part of the Torah. אתה בוא וראה נפלאות השם, come see the wonders of הקדוש ברוך הוא, כי מבואר בירושלמי פאה, it says in the Yerushalmi: ארטבון שלח לרבי חד מרגליסא טבא.

Rav Chaim Kramer points out that Artaban was the king of Persia whose philosophy in life is money is all and can buy anything, even in happiness. Brings it from a from the Yafeh Toar in Bereishit Rabbah, okay? So Artaban sent Rabbi a pearl, a treasure. שלח ליה רבי חדא מזוזה, רבי sent him back a mezuzah. ולכאורה הוא פלא, מדוע שלח ליה מזוזה דייקא? ולא מצווה אחרת? So we can say that Rabbi is saying you're focused on the physical treasure in the עולם הזה, I'm focused on עולם הבא, on true treasure, on נצחיות treasure. But why דייקא a mezuzah?

He could have sent him any mitzvah. And if you're going to say that a mezuzah is a we're going to see is a שמירה, ציצית is also a shemirah. There's a whole halachic question about sending a mezuzah to a גוי and what exactly was gone on going on over there. אך על פי מה שגילה רבינו ז״ל בתורה זאת, with our תורה, מבואר העניין היטב כי מזוזה דייקא מבטל חמדת ממון. To understand this I want to just read a little bit from the from the Gemara. Says Artaban, who is the king of Persia, שלח לרבינו הקדוש, to רבי יהודה הנשיא, חד מרגלי טבא אטמיטון.

He sent him a particularly precious jewel, pearl. ואמר ליה שלח לי מילי דטבא כוותיה, send me something in exchange that has a similar value. שלח ליה, רבי sent back, chad mezuzah, a mezuzah. אמר ליה, so Artaban said back, אנא שלחית לך מילי דלית לה טימי, I sent you something that doesn't have a value, I sent you something priceless, ואת שלחת לי מילי דטבא חד פילר, and you send me something back, something that's for a coin. אמר ליה חפציך וחפצי לא ישוו בה, so Rabbi responded that all of my wealth and your wealth לא ישוו בה doesn't equal the value of this mezuzah.

ולא עוד אלא דאת שלחת לי מילי דאנא מנטר ליה, you send me something that I have to guard, ואנא שלחית לך מילי דאת דמך, I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right, דמך לך והיא מנטרא לך, and I'm sending you back something that you can go to sleep and it's going to guard you, דכתיב בהתהלכך תנחה אותך בשכבך תשמור עליך. Very similar to the to the Gemara by אונקלוס הגר. So now back to our Gemara. This ארטבון had a tremendous value for money. He sends to רבי something that he perceives as being valuable. Now remember we defined ממון as not just being, well this is more valuable, this is the money worth pursuing, ממון by definition is ממון דקדושה, ממון by definition is attachment to the source, is attachment to הקדוש ברוך הוא.

So Rabbi sends him back, you're sending me something that you're saying is ממון, that's not ממון. This is ממון, and therefore I'm going to give you something that's going to break the חמדת ממון that you have, which is actually giving you a appreciation, a value for something that's Sitra Achra, that's not even ממון at all. ועל כן שלח לו מזוזה דייקא, דווקא מזוזה, not just something that was another שמירה, tzitzit could be a שמירה, כי ארטבן שלח לו מרגליתא טבא, היינו עשירות וממון, something that's עשירות וממון or at least he perceived to be עשירות וממון, כי היה שווה ממון הרבה, it was worth a lot of money.

ועשה עיקר החשיבות מזה, and he made this חשיבות, right? What's something that's valuable? Something that's worth money. But what's money? Something that could buy something valuable. No, money is something that's a pipeline to the source of shefa. So he sent, Rabbi, Artavan sent him something that's worth money, and Rabbi said back, "Yes, but you're relating to money as an end in and of itself. If you want ממון, if you want to really understand the true value of what not just money, but what ממון is, so I'm going to send you a mezuzah which would break the חמדת ממון." על כן שלח לו רבי כנגד זה מזוזה דייקא, כי מזוזה מבטל חמדת העשירות כנ״ל, because mezuzah is מבטל the desire for money.

And Rabbi Chaim Kramer brings down other Gemarot about Rabbeinu HaKadosh that he was tremendously careful in the issues of שמירת הברית, and that Rabbeinu, even though he was he had a lot of wealth, he was the נשיא, at the end of his life he raised his ten fingers towards שמים and said, "רבונו של עולם," that he never derived pleasure from this world. So Rabbeinu HaKadosh was also associated in the Gemara specifically with שמירת הברית and also and also with achieving success in the realm of of חמדת ממון, that he didn't benefit from this from this world.

Okay, the last one, which is שייך to אות ו, it says that the Athenian scholars, the זקני אתונא asked ר׳ יהושע בן חנניה, מילחא כי סריא, salt when it spoils, how is it preserved? זה שנפל לסירחון תאוות ממון. This person that falls to the spoilage of תאוות ממון, what's his tikun? We addressed this at length in the in the main shiurim. ועל כן הפכו בלשון, therefore the expression, כי סריא הוא לשון הנאמר בעכו״ם. They use the lashon of sarya, of spoilage, but this is a term that's used in connection with עבודה זרה, כמו שכתוב סרו מהר, in the פסוק, סרו מהר מן הדרך אשר צויתם, עשו להם עגל מסכה.

That this lashon of סרו, of turning, but of סריא makes the connection, is a lashon that's used with avodah zarah. Why? Because כי המשוקע בממון עובד כל העכו״ם כנ״ל. We associated תאוות ממון as the universal avodah zarah, the universal attributing something that's not a true source into a source of power, of shefa. This is what we're pursuing. ועל כן על כל מטבע חקוקה עבודה זרה של עכו״ם. This is why the goyim put on their money In God We Trust, they inscribe with avodah zarah. They do this in an attempt, Rabbi Chaim Kramer Rabbi Chaim Kramer says, to assure that their gods will favor them with additional profits, so to speak.

We already explained what profit, true profit is. However, this is a falsehood because it never lasts. The note over here goes on and he he also explains, very interesting, that what are some of the ideas we associate with תאוות ממון? Lending on interest, perhaps borrowing, putting oneself in debt where where it's inappropriate. The the idea that a person is not willing to wait for Hakadosh Baruch Hu to give them money in the right time. Either they're charging additional money, they they lent a fellow Jew money, but they're charging money for the for the time that it takes to pay back because they now they don't have money for a certain period of time, maybe they're going to need it let's say, or or the idea that a person is not willing to wait for parnasah to come, they need it faster, they they need to borrow.

And very interesting, I think this is the point that he's trying to make: What's time? Time be'etzem is process at its core. If we think about the most basic physical limitations of this world, space and time. When a person injects time into how they relate to money, so then they are subjecting money within the world, within the process. Money is not a direct connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, who is above time. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not limited. Hakadosh Baruch Hu will give you the money exactly when you need, how much you need, where you need, however it is.

When a when a person is failing or they're they're they have challenges to money and it's specifically due to time, they're not willing to wait for it or they're charging Jews interest for the time and waiting, they're now putting money within the realm of this world. And that's really, be'etzem, avodah zarah. They're they're taking that source of shefa berachah that's attached to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and they're saying that it's subject to the to the natural system, to the natural limitations. Well, perhaps that's one idea. It's the way that I that I understand this idea. על פי הדברים האלה יבין המשכיל, for all of these things, now the the discerning person can understand לפרש כולה סוגיא, the other sugyot that come up in Shas.

Now we can understand נגלה through the eyes of נסתר, דהזהב קונה את הכסף והכסף אינו קונה, הנחושת קונה, it's a sugya in Bava Metzia where it talks about when it comes is, it's a, it's a little bit of a, a technical aspect, land could be acquired with כסף, שטר, חזקה, money, מטלטלין rather, can't be acquired with money. מטלטלין, movables, are acquired with an act of קנין. It could be משיכה, could be הגבהה, has to be a certain act. When I pay you, what that does is it makes you amenable that I should perform a קנין.

Now what happens in an exchange of money? We attribute one of those items as the פרי. You're trying to acquire X with Y, that might be exchanging gold coins for silver coins, but in order to know when the sale is acquired, I acquired the item and in exchange you acquired whatever, whatever you were giving me in exchange for that, so then the question is, is in this transaction what's considered the פרי, what's considered the item, and what's considered the money? The money doesn't- when I take the פרי, when I take the item, so then the transaction is complete, but when you take the money, the transaction is not yet complete.

And he he learns in over here these ideas, what does it mean that money doesn't acquire? Because money is essentially tied to מוות, tied to חושך, tied to temporary things, tied to sitra achra, there's no reality to mamon, and he says if you understand these ideas, now you're going to be able to go back and learn these סוגיות. והכלל מה שהוא מטבע ויוצא חשוב מעות. The thing that's a coin and it's spendable in the שוק, it's more easy to pass. Something that's an item, I can't it's not as easily tradeable for something else. Something that's money is more has more commercial value.

So the thing that's able to be spent in the שוק is חשוב the מטבע, that's what's חשוב the מעות. And once I understand what's the money, so then it has certain halachic ramifications, and if you understand these ideas, then you'll understand those גמרות as well. עיין שם כל הסוגיא, וסוגיא דמעות נקנה בחליפין, I can, there are certain times that I give you a- חליפין literally means handkerchief. One way a kinyan chalipin is I give you a handkerchief and then I acquire whatever in exchange for the handkerchief. Another way is I give you a cow and then I acquire a donkey, one thing in exchange for the other.

וסוגיא דכל הנעשה דמים באחר, also this idea that I exchange two things, one of them's considered the money, I'm giving you X in order for Y, one of them is deemed the money, one of them is deemed the item. So this idea of defining something as מעות in a particular transaction and certain halachic ramifications, he says now that you have these principles, if you go back and you learn up those סוגיות, so then they will they will fall in line. הכל יבאר המשכיל על פי התורה הזאת עם עוד קצת הקדמות, that all of these things with a few additional introductions, you will now be able to understand these halachic סוגיות and על דרך פנימיות as well.

The, if you look in Rabbi Chaim Kramer's note, he brings a מעין זה that reviews this lesson in the light of Chanukah, but just because of the time of the year, I'm going to mention one, one point that he makes. Says when the qualities of truth and faith are intertwined in a person, we spoke about emet and emunah at length, he's willing to spend money for a mitzvah and feels no loss whatsoever of the cost. We're mamash coming up to Sukkot, a time when we spend for for beautiful etrog, that there's hidur mitzvah, a person's supposed to spend up to an extra שליש, when we relate to the mitzvah, we relate to the ארבע פנים, we relate to money as the source coming from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it's a it's a it's a totally different dynamic spending money on mitzvot.

And he goes on, we find that a poor person should even sell his shirt for the oil with which to kindle the Chanukah lights, again tying into our Torah, the Chanukah lights representing ארבע פנים, so that a person would experience no loss in performing the mitzvah. And on he says that the menorah should be placed by the door on the other side of the mezuzah so that a person is is surrounded by the mezuzah and the menorah, which is the, but, but suffice it to say that this Torah, a person can review this Torah, we spoke about mamon also I believe in in Torah י״ג, this will, these Torot are are from the Torot, every Torah is is just an entire universe, and really they say that you can learn the entire Likutei Moharan through any particular Torah, but at our level, so much of our life is tied to parnasah, tied to supporting ourselves,

and these Torot can literally be totally transformative in how we relate to money and how we daven for money, in how we treat people on opposite sides of a transaction, and it's worth it to just go over this Torah until it starts to really to to to really make a roshem, mamash words of the tzadik directly to our heart. Okay, we're now going to move forward, Be'ezrat Hashem, Torah כ״ד.