LM 24.5 — Emtzausa d'Alma, Part 5 of 5 · תורה כ״ד

Be-ezrat Hashem yitbarach, we're going to be learning together Torah כ״ד, we're in the fifth shiur, and we're going to be beginning in the text, towards the end really, where it says וזה ששאלו סבי דבי אתונא, where we are going to plug in the concepts that we discussed at length, and even that was really only a drop in the bucket, which is which makes it all the more challenging to discuss these unbelievably broad concepts and make them meaningful, and yet maintain the integrity of the of of the ideas, so that we can reach on our own level Rabbeinu's message through this Torah.

We're going to plug the concepts that we've been discussing back into the discussion between Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya and the Athenian scholars, and before we begin we'll try to give a little bit of a lead in to these ideas, I'm going to use also to help the Kitzur Likutei Moharan. But just to sum up, and again we we discussed so much, Baruch Hashem, but I guess we can say as a as a jumping off point, and I I don't want to go back into the entire discussion because we employed so much so many analogies and and and trying to almost dance around the topic, which was so inarticulable and so beyond us, so that we could start fleshing out a sentiment of these ideas.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu k'vayachol, we can't even discuss HaKadosh Baruch Hu himself, as it were, the the אין סוף or the אור אין סוף we can we can discuss. HaKadosh Baruch Hu wanted to create a world where there should be a גילוי יחודו יתברך, there should be a דירה בתחתונים from within the world. Before, so to speak, creation, we we can't even understand what it means, there was only אור אין סוף, there was no there there was nothing else, which also ke-ilu, it's hard again, creates a dynamic where if I'm going to be mashpia, if I'm going to give, then there has to be a recipient.

If there's a recipient, then that means that before receiving it did not yet have whatever it is going to receive, okay? It sounds a little bit circular, but this means that before creation, if there was only going to be אור אין סוף, then if there was no mekabel, if there was nothing to receive this אור אין סוף, then there wasn't going to be a gilui. In order to have light, then there has to be dark, if it's going to be a contrast, and then there's going to be a hakara and an appreciation and an elevation, where you can take something that was previously distant and fill that gap, create that connection, create that deveikut, and it can go infinitely great, infinitely closer to the to the אין סוף, because anything that's going to be a nivra is going to be distant.

Now again, without talking about how is it even possible for there to be room if HaKadosh Baruch Hu is infinitely כביכול אור אין סוף, how is there room for anything else to even exist? But let's leave it for now. In order to be mashpia the ultimate good, HaKadosh Baruch Hu created a system where there could be such a thing as a keli and a כלי קיבול, and where there could be such a thing as a nivra, which would have this opportunity to connect. Okay, so now, and again we're not fleshing out this these ideas in their entirety, but just to get to the point where we're going to move forward in our Torah.

So what this means as it were, that if the natural state of affairs is that everything is כל כולו אור, and there is a almost a temporary a situation of choshech, of the absence of that or being propped up so that the light can come back in, so then for what purpose, or at least for as relates to our particular nekudah of this conversation, for what purpose would this situation exist if there was light before and now there's going to be light again? Because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is giving us the tachlit of the בריאה, אדם, an opportunity to bring that light in, to understand from within the system that the the whole, not just a particular situation of ra, but that the idea of ra, that the idea of choshech, by definition doesn't really exist.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu made a miracle, made a nes, or however you'd like to frame it, HaKadosh Baruch Hu created a a a a beriah in order that there should be a giluy, in order that there should be a revelation giving us the opportunity to bring about that revelation, and therefore be connecting ourself with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, elevating ourself in the world around us. Now, ironically, the way that we're presenting this, what that means, and I say this trying to say this very carefully, is Hakadosh Baruch Hu created choshech, and what we're what we're creating, or what we're being mechadesh back into the beriah, is that we're bringing about the light.

I'll say that again, beforehand there was כל כולו אור, there was not actually a giluy of the or, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu created choshech so that when the choshech came in, there could be that light shining on the or, realizing that the choshech never really existed, and there was only the נצחיות of or, that the idea of sheker is only temporary, it doesn't exist. Therefore, Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a system where there could be no or and bring the or in. And again, obviously, everything has Godliness in it, but in perception that there was something lacking, and to bring the light back in.

Our job from within the system is to be mechadesh, to kivayachol create the or, or at least connect the the the beriah with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, to bring the or back into the system. Now I'm going to say something I was thinking about. It's a little bit abstract, but it's a it's a tremendous thing to be mitbonen. The the ideas in this Torah are just out of this world, literally out of this world. I'm going to I'm I'm going to suggest that there's two points of potential for breakdown, confusion, misalignment of priorities, of ideas in the system of avodah that we've been discussing, and either one of these things can undermine a a person attaching themself to to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, because הקדוש ברוך הוא, חותמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא אמת, we're trying to bring the light of truth into our lives, into the world, we're trying to elevate.

We'll see we'll see soon the the idea of bringing unity within the multiplicity, and we'll we'll speak about that more. And I'll address them, I guess, like this. One potential problem is those things that are beyond oneself. So if I have a stage of avodah, and I am using my seichel, my understanding, my experiences, the world as I perceive it, in order to develop an approach and to try to elevate myself, my physical self, my spiritual self, I am going to be limited by the parameters of my understanding. In the way that we've been discussing it, we would say the mochin.

A person has his seichel, his intellect, that intellect will end up flowing down through the middot. The way that the Baal HaTanya addresses it is to really have true middot, true emotions, things that are integrated into oneself, it has to start with the seichel, right? I think I'm I'm sure I've used this expression in one of the earlier shiurim. A person who is happy at a at a sad event or they're sad at a happy event, we would say that there's a misalignment of emotions or they're emotionally unstable. A person is happy at a funeral and crying at a wedding out of sadness, then those emotions are really only surface-deep.

True emotions are really an extension of understanding. So a person can generate, and maybe for various reasons they might they might want to do this, a person can generate some sort of surface-deep emotion through various external external means, but to have true middot, it has to it has to be an extension of something that's rooted in understanding. The true expression of understanding, objective truth, is Torah. So the תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם, but that's that's another conversation. Therefore, what happens when a person wants to elevate their understanding? Just to use one example to articulate the problem, if I have a certain amount of knowledge, and I want to introduce more knowledge, or more understanding, or a certain perspective on life into a system, well that's going to be very strongly influenced by which sefer, which textbook, I pull off the shelf, which which teacher, or which source of information I go to, and then that's going

to that that's going to form a new baseline for how I approach things. But the problem is that if I'm going outside of my seichel, I don't necessarily have a basis to understand how to get to the next level. So the example that we use to address this problem is understanding one's limitations. Let's say you have a piece of paper and you draw a circle, and you are at the center of the circle, so our basis of avodah of understanding is inside the circle. If you stay towards the center, then you're safe. The problem is you're also never going to expand.

The other thing that the circle does besides keeping certain things inside is it draws the boundaries and the limitations of what's outside. So as a person wants to expand, if תכלית הידיעה שלא נדע, I I I understand what it is that I don't understand, why I don't understand it, and then I can solve for what's at the boundary. So for argument's sake, if let's say I had ways of validating a particular source, well then I might not be able to understand information in its own because it's outside of my capacity, but if I have used my seichel to validate that source, then I might not have information directly, but I can solve for exactly that area of departure, that area of what I don't know, why I don't know it, and I could solve for it.

So for instance, we've talked about a national the idea of a national revelation at הר סיני. Now what what would be the problem with that? That I mean the the sefarim tell us that everybody was הר סיני, but let's just say פשוט פשט, I wasn't, or at least I don't remember being at הר סיני. Had I been there, then I would have a lot of my questions being answered. answered, and I wouldn't have certain doubts that I have. How do I solve for that? I'm admitting and understanding that the national revelation at הר סיני would tell me everything I need to know, the problem is that I wasn't there.

Well, I would be able to solve if there was a accurate transmission. If I could solve for the integrity of the transmission from son from father to son or grandfather to grandson, and I could confirm the accuracy of that transmission, well, then I could solve for the fact that I wasn't there. And now, I would be able to be mevatel myself, I would be able to defer to whatever that revelation was. Or, for instance, if you had nevuah, well, I didn't receive the nevuah, but if I could confirm the integrity of that navi, so then whatever the navi says, I'm able to solve for my problem.

So, we've discussed this before in the dynamic in this in our shiurim also in terms of emet and emunah. If I have emunah in something that I'm not using emet for, well, then I'm really just putting my faith into A or B. What's the difference? How do I know that A is more right than B? There's a very subtle distinction between emunah or emunah peshutah and פתי יאמין לכל דבר. Somebody who's a fool is willing to believe anything. On the other hand, if I'm only willing to pursue something that I understand as emet, I'm going to be limited by things within my understanding.

What I use as emet, I use my understanding, things that are validated, due diligence, which doctor, which expert, and I understand that this is the place I can validate. And my rational approach to pursue is going to be giving over the reins into a towards a particular source of information, of whatever it is. And this really is the opening chapters of Sha'ar HaBitachon, Chovot HaLevavot, where he outlines seven things that if you would have, any any person, although he's going to say that only HaKadosh Baruch Hu, only the Ribbono shel Olam has all seven of these things, if these seven things would be in place, very formulaic, then it would be appropriate to have bitachon in this object of bitachon.

And he goes through them. We're not going to go through them now. But, it's just a very rational approach to bitachon, to the point that the idea of blind faith is really a misnomer. I'm not really making a chiluk between emunah and bitachon for right now, but let's leave it. So, there's no such thing as blind faith. It's rational hitbatlut. Everybody is relying on something. We're relying on our eyes. We're relying on our ears. We're relying on certain on certain people. We're relying on certain rules of of the beriah, which theoretically could change, right? There are eclipses.

There are certain other phenomena that become exceptions. But, we we are able to rely on certain things as institutions. The way that we express this idea so far in our Torah is that there's a system. That system is going to be called an olam. Within the olam, there's going to be a particular relationships, and those are going to be expressed by the sefirot. As a person works within a particular system, they want to expand, bring in higher levels of truth, higher levels of or, berachah, shefa. And therefore, practically speaking, the highest level within a person's avodah is going to be chochmah, binah, veda'at.

It's going to be these mochin, the seichel, their their understanding. As a person tries to expand the mochin, the seichel, there's going to be a koach which we defined as the meyashev, the mesader, Keter, crowning, putting boundaries from from without to keep it to keep the system intact. And therefore, there's going to be this betishah, there's going to be this let's say friction, but this bumping up. And as part of this process, there's going to be a keli called the תשע היכלין, we can call it a function of emunah, of תכלית הידיעה שלא נדע, of understanding the the the limitations, but that's going to be a a vehicle, it's going to serve as a conduit to be able to bring in an influx from the next world.

This is actually going to cause a domino effect, so this can go all the way up the עולמות until b'ezrat Hashem we reach the point at which HaKadosh Baruch Hu is the entire world, the lowest world is becoming elevated and expanded, and then it's going to open up like the top of the funnel, as it were, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to put more shefa, more berachah, more Godliness, as it were, into the system. As a as as a footnote, if you were to ask, so why do we need all of these all of these systems to begin with, if HaKadosh Baruch Hu just wants to bring light in, so then just shine the light in, the entire world will be lit up.

We already discussed earlier why we need the worlds to begin with. And in in a very overbroad way, while the higher עולמות, as it were, might in certain ways be closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, if if the Ribbono shel Olam, if HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants that there should be a גילוי יחודו יתברך, that giluy of yichud is actually takes place at the farthest extremities. That's where the actual דירה בתחתונים takes place. So, by way of analogy, let's say you had a let's say you had a puzzle, and as you're looking at the pieces, there are pieces that clearly seem to be part of the picture that you're trying to build, and there are pieces that just don't seem to fit in.

The greatest expression of a total שלימות of a complete unity is when you realize that each piece is necessary, the puzzle the puzzle needs each piece, and the entire puzzle is not complete without those other pieces, even though when you looked at them when they were just scattered all over the floor you weren't sure how they connected, now you realize that every single piece is necessary on its own as each piece of the puzzle. That expression of yichud, that expression of unity, of everything fitting in, takes place bedavka when things seem to be so far apart, so far away, and it all and it all comes together.

In order to create the היכל התמורה that there should be this level of confusion, there has to be successive levers levels rather of of of sort of a micro view in order not to see the ultimate truth, to be able to have this system where things seem to be disparate, seems there seems to be a multiplicity, things don't seem to make sense. So for instance, if you've ever seen like one of those pictures where you could see the picture only when you totally stand back at a distance, or maybe one of those, not panoramas, they call them photomosaics or something, where like if you look very close, you know, there's a lot of little individual pictures, and then as you stand back, a lot of the individual pictures form a bigger picture.

Now imagine that in in keeping on going, and as you stood back, you see everything is part of a bigger picture. The the the appreciation happens when at the most at at the most distant levels, or in in my example, when you're standing the closest and you have the least perspective, and then as you see things come together, so then and imagine that you can go infinitely far and see everything in the world that seems to be conflicting, but the farther back you go, the more that you see everything be part of one picture. As you create a שלימות within each system, that's when our avodah allows us to step back and bring more light into the world, appreciate the achdut, appreciate the unity more and more and more, so with each avodah you're you're graduating.

A person is going from, you know, up until eighth grade, then they start in ninth grade at the bottom again, then they complete that part of the puzzle till they get to they finish high school, and then they take a step back and then they have to build up the next the next level, then they're in first-year בית מדרש or college, and so on. So this leads into the next question. I mentioned that there was two potential ports parts for confusion. One of them was when you're trying to expand outside the system. The second part is really what we're going to be leading in in the text with the סבי דבי אתונא.

The סבי דבי אתונא are not necessarily, or necessarily not, exposed and tied into the system of emunah. They are the gentiles, they're the philosophers, they are the scientists, they are operating only within a particular system. So within their question, they're going to say, "Well, you want to expand outside of what you know." The entire thing that I just described, we Baruch Hashem, as being מאמינים בני מאמינים, so we have access to keter, because we're able to rely on HaMakom. We know that wherever we're standing, we only have our own subjective position. Once we plug ourselves into a system of objective universal truth of HaMakom, so then we can we can ultimately expand outwards, and we can have his hitbatlut to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

We realize that we're not the center of gravity, but actually the entire avodah is centered around HaKadosh Baruch Hu, around the Ribbono shel Olam. What we said earlier is that we're at the center of our avodah, because we have each one of our we have each one of us has our piece of avodah, and therefore our avodah is centered on what our job is. Every piece of the puzzle needs to only be concerned with it fulfilling its role, and then it's able to and then it's able to be part of a greater שלימות. The סבי דבי אתונא don't have this.

So what their question is is, "Well, within any particular system," let's say going back to my photomosaic example, "as you're looking at a bunch of at a bunch of pictures, there's a thousand pictures, then what we said is as you step back, they seem to form one bigger one. But at that lowest altitude, which the the total bottom of the system, where you have zero perspective, all you see are things that seem to be conflicting." Think about politics today. If you didn't have who to rely on and say what are the correct appropriate values that I should have, you have it's almost like sports, you have different teams that are competing.

How do you really know who's right? They're both just as, theoretically, idealistic and altruistic, and they both want what's better for society. At that point, how do you have a basis to decide? It's only because we have the light of objective truth to say this is light and that's dark. It seems so obvious when we discuss it, but when you're just down in it, you're at that level of conflicting priorities, of competing considerations, which by the way is the gift of bechirah, and we we exercise our bechirah by getting in touch with our חלק אלוק ממעל and getting in touch with that objective truth, and reaching reaching onto a higher a higher source to be able to light it up for us.

But when you're down where things seem to be confused, they're switching, that light of truth descends into what we're going to refer to as the היכל תמורות, where where things switch, there really is no basis How are you ever able to elevate anything from within? So this presents already a totally separate problem. One is, I know what the truth is, the problem is how am I going to expand, because once I expand, I'm going to be outside of my שכל, and if I can't use my שכל, then it's not rational, and where do I go from there?

Over here, I have a different problem, that if I want to elevate from within the system, which is really necessary for the first part of the equation as well, in order to want to expand, to drive up all the way through the מוחין, to want to be able to reach access of higher truth, then you have to, you're elevating from the system from the bottom up. How am I ever able to do that when at the lowest level, there's really no way to tell which way is up or which way is down? This is going to be the question of the סבי דבי אתונא.

This is what we've been discussing in terms of making בירורים, in terms of the, we discussed the avodah of ketoret, we talked about simcha heavily, about מצוות בשמחה, about being a בן עולם הבא, about being able to live as a בן עולם הבא, not that I'm going to go to the next world, but that I'm actually living as a בן עולם הבא, like a ben Torah. I'm living as, I'm in the world, but I'm not of the world. When a person is able to relate to the situation that they're in, but they already have, they're a בן עולם הבא, part of them is already at that higher altitude where they're able to make these בירורים, to see אמת and שקר.

To choose the right thing not because I have a choice between right and wrong, but because one is life and one is death. One is an expression of reality, and the other one is just a facade, and it's a mirage, and it doesn't really exist. One of them is rooted in higher reality, in a higher נצחיות, and the other things just fall away. That is an expression of simcha. Once I do that, I no longer get confused by the, because there's no real competition. At that point, as much as I am operating in the עולם העשיה, I'm operating in that world where there is so much חושך, once I'm able to be a בן עולם הבא, once I'm able to operate within that light of truth, I'm able to elevate the mundane, as it were.

So the things that seem to have a physical לבוש, so to speak, are really an expression of kedusha, a gift-wrapped package from Hashem, and even at the highest level, because He gave me the opportunity to clarify that. At that point, there is no חושך. The darkest situations that I would rather not have, those are also coming from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's like the famous story with Rabbi Yaakov Weinberg, without quoting the entire story now, a person was saved from a difficult situation and he says, "Hashem loved me," and Rabbi Noach Weinberg said, "Well, who do you think put you into that situation in the first place?

Are you going to gain nothing from the experience?" And therefore, we go into the text. וזה ששאלו סבי דבי אתונא, this that the Athenian scholars asked רבי יהושע בן חנניה, אמצעותא דעלמא היכא? Where is the center of the world? זקפה לאצבעיה, רבי יהושע בן חנניה held up his finger and he said the center of the world is here, אמר הכא. We've been explaining it as a function of avodah. Wherever I am is the center of the world, this is what I need to be focused on. Again, if there's 10 different things around a center point, each one of those 10 things is focused on where it is in order to preserve the integrity of the entire structure, which is ultimately centered around the Ribono Shel Olam.

There's another גירסא here that says that he held up 10 fingers, which we're going to see that we're talking about bringing beracha into the system, and the fingers, the hands of the kohanim are associated with beracha, those are the ידים, we discussed it earlier on. But for now, אמר הכא, he says here is the center. אמרו ליה: מי יימר? So they responded, "מי יימר? Who says?" We'll talk more about that לשון soon. אמר להו, he said back to them, אייתו אשלי ומשחו, bring ropes and measure it. Now if you measure around, if you take a ball and you put a rope around the ball, any point is the center, but we're going to see more in the פנימיות of the idea of bringing a rope to measure.

In פנימיות, שאלו, so they asked Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya: איך משיגין אור אין סוף? How are you going to grasp the אור אין סוף? For our purpose, אין סוף means without boundaries, without גבול. It's anything outside of the system. You want to speak to a higher truth, how are you ever going to reach that true אמצע, אמצעותא דעלמא, that this is what ultimately is the vibrancy, the energy of the world, this is the center of the world. The entire universe is meant to bring out and to express and attach to what we're saying is a higher reality.

The note over here addresses a technical problem, I'm just going to reference it so that I don't ignore it, but I'm not going to go into it. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a heichi timtzi, a place, so to speak, I wouldn't say a vacuum of Godliness, but at least a lesser גילוי, a lesser percent space to have a בריאה is, so therefore the center of the אור אין סוף, כביכול, I mean, just if you by way of mashal, by way of analogy, is going to be the vacuum of space. So what do we mean that the אור אין סוף is at the center?

Actually, if the אור אין סוף is expanding infinitely in every direction other than a particular place, that place is at the center, the אור אין סוף is actually outside the system. And briefly, these things are hard to are hard to say because you don't want to say the wrong thing, even within that empty space, but if our entire avodah is to bring Godliness back into the system, so then there's going to be a a a קו, a channel, a thread from outside to bring that shefa back in. And that's going to be that's going to be the אור אין סוף that's being let back in for which is the center.

That's for which the entire the the entire world, the entire בריאה, this entire this entire world that Hakadosh Baruch Hu brought into being, this כלי, this darkness, was so that we can have the opportunity to bring the or back in like we described before. So they asked him, how are you able to access this אור אין סוף, which is at the middle of the world, שממנו הכל שואבין חיות ושפע, that from there, you're able to have an influx of bracha of Godliness in order to elevate the world. Just to mention, the note over here makes the point that Yerushalayim, Eretz Yisrael, Yerushalayim, Beis Hamikdash, the היכל, we use the language of the תשע היכלין, that the Beis Hamikdash was at the center of the world, and this is really where the point as far as we're concerned that the shefa, the bracha entered the world.

The the Gemara says in Berachos that our tefilot go towards the מקום המקדש in order to get elevated. It says that if the גוים would have known how much bracha the Beis Hamikdash brought to the world, they never would have destroyed it. So this if if this center point of the world is where the bracha comes in, this is the center of our relationship with Hashem, of גילוי, that really is represented by the Beis Hamikdash. אגב אגב, the the Sefarim say that had HaKadosh Baruch Hu not destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, so then k'vayachol, I think it's in the Kinot, that if HaKadosh Baruch Hu wouldn't have, so to speak, taken out his anger, which doesn't chas v'shalom chas v'shalom to say that HaKadosh Baruch Hu has anger, it's anthropomorphism, HaKadosh Baruch Hu doesn't have emotions, but had HaKadosh Baruch Hu not destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, he then he would have destroyed Klal Yisrael.

So he destroyed the Beit HaMikdash, Klal Yisrael went into galut. This makes sense according to what we're saying. If a person if there's going to be divine energy into the world, then there has to be a kli. If the Beit HaMikdash was the center of the world, that's the center in so far as Klal Yisrael is treating it as the focal point of avodah. If chas v'shalom it's as if Klal Yisrael was was doing aveirot, and then they were using almost as an excuse, they can do an aveirah, but don't worry, they have a korban and that would wipe it clean, so then instead of the Beit HaMikdash, instead of avodah being the center point of their life, really chas v'shalom it was the opposite.

It was as if a person was making their own priorities the center of their life. Well then, where is the room for God? There's no room for both. If there's going to be a Beit HaMikdash and we understand the Beit HaMikdash as being the center of our reality, then HaKadosh Baruch Hu could pour in, so to speak, the divine revelation, and we make ourself into a kli for it. If we are turning aside and we're shifting that center of gravity, we're each as individuals, instead of an achdut of Klal Yisrael being focused around HaKadosh Baruch Hu, if each one of us as individuals, as our own separate, fractured communities, is making ourself the center, so then there's no room for the Beit HaMikdash anymore.

We turned we're the ones who turned aside, וסרתם ועבדתם. Therefore, says HaKadosh Baruch Hu, you want the Beit HaMikdash back, our avodah now is ושכנתי בתוכם. We have the ד' amot shel halacha. If you're learning תרע״ב, we're learning about ד' amot shel halacha in the תנינא. If we make ושכנתי בתוכם and we restore that the center of gravity, that the center of our reality is HaKadosh Baruch Hu, then we can put ourselves back into a situation where we can have Beit HaMikdash. But when we turned aside, הקדוש ברוך הוא said they've they've they've turned away.

There can't be בית המקדש, which is where the influx of גילוי of שפע is going to be, and then there's no כלי for it. And therefore, either the בית המקדש is going to be destroyed because the people have stopped being a כלי for that for that גילוי that's coming to the world, and instead using the קרבנות not as an avodah, but rather as a trap door for the עבירות that they're doing, or there we're no longer going to have access until we on our own are able to restore that relationship with הקדוש ברוך הוא, וממילא then we're going to be zocheh to have the בית המקדש again, so that now the primary avodah is ושכנתי בתוכם, to relate to הקדוש ברוך הוא with ד' אמות של הלכה.

Period. Okay, but this idea of the center being treated as that focal point of where there is the גילוי שכינה coming into the world. זקף אצבעתיה, so Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya held up his finger, he said זה בחינת ברכות כנ״ל, that's why the גירסא said instead of his finger, his ten fingers. When he held up his finger, he said avodah, whatever my avodah is, whatever I am striving towards, wherever my mesirut nefesh is, I'm striving for higher, that is a בחינה of berachot. That's where I attach myself to הקדוש ברוך הוא, that's the בחינה of ידים we said is a בחינה of ברכות, בחינת וישא אהרן את ידיו ויברכם כנ״ל.

So this relating the ידים to berachot, which through the system of the ספירות, not for now, we talked about the ספירות relating to משל אדם, that there's מלכות and that expands up towards נה״י, which is like the legs, and then the חג״ת, חסד גבורה תפארת is going to be the arms, and then those arms bring in the berachah coming down from the חב״ד, which is reaching out and bringing the שפע into the system. היינו שעל ידי הברכות מושכין המוחין בכתר ונעשין היכלין כנ״ל, that through the berachot, through this system, through elevating, through elevating the מלכות up through the system and bringing brachot in, that actually causes this trigger reaction up through the מוחין, which we talked about at length, and brings additional bracha in through the כתר.

ואמרו ליה, so they respond to רבי יהושע בן חנניה, מי יימר? מי הוא זה שיכנוס בהיכלי תמורות למקום הקליפות? So Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya was really going beyond their question, and the notes over here discuss it. He's responding with everything that we talked about, from כתר, from emunah, from attachment to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but their question was more basic because from their perspective they said, "How are you ever going to elevate to any reality beyond yours?" The point of a discussion between Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya and the Athenian scholars didn't really have to do with כתר, this is what he's explaining to us.

Their question was simply, "You're within a system, you're within the היכל התמורות." The Rav Chaim Kramer's note talks about the היכל התמורות, just read a few lines from how he discusses it. The the the קליפות are forces of evil that draw their power from the ability to exchange and invert. תמורות is to make an exchange, good to evil and evil to good, darkness to light and light to darkness. I'm on page 98 in the English one. All lusts and evil desires stem from this power. Evil appears as good and diverts a person from the truth.

Strife and falsehood stem from these chambers of exchanges, the היכלי תמורות, including falsehood which leads to hatred and to anger. He talks about people that seek alien wisdoms, right? "I want the truth, I want philosophy." Well, which philosophy am I pursuing? All those things are are a facade, they are representing other ideals, they are they are aspects of this world that are taking on an element of ikar versus tafel, the קליפה is presenting itself at what should be pursued. And therefore, as we as we explored in the lengthy introduction, they said who is going to be in the היכלי תמורות למקום הקליפות לעלות משם הקדושה בבחינת קטורת?

Once you're knee-deep in this confusion, how is anybody going to make these birurim, these clarifications, understand what's ikar and what's tafel? How are you going to access the higher level of objective truth and objective reality to identify what's real and what just is an echo, what belongs in the shadows? ועל ידי עלייתו יתעלה הברכות כנ״ל, so that you can identify what should be elevated to bring in the brachot into the system, to elevate the entire the entire system, all the worlds. וזה מי יימר לשון תמורה, לשון ימירנו. This is a לשון of תמורה, of it's it's coming from from the language of exchanging.

Interestingly, I'm only going to mention it, we talked about it in one of the earlier Torahs, I can't remember which one right this second, we had talked about this avodah of going into the קליפות to elevate, being an avodah of a tzaddik gamur, and this applies in a broader context, but also each within our own individual avodah, I can make the argument that each one of us is a tzaddik gamur for certain things, right? Dog food is not kosher. Most of us have zero ta'avah for dog food. So if a person was going to go into a store where there was kosher and not kosher, and the kosher food was delicious and the not kosher food was dog food, that would not represent much of a challenge.

The way that we had discussed it earlier is, let's say a person has to go into the קליפות, he has to go into the gutter to be able to pull out some heilige Yidden. A person has to go into the worst parts of the city, into a place where there's bars, there's not kosher food, there's smells, there's music, people are smoking, drinking, doing whatever they're doing. And you have two two two rabbis that are going to go into that area. One of the rabbis has is a tremendous person, tremendous, unbelievable tzaddik, but he also had his own challenges, a certain misspent youth, let's say, and when he He goes into this bar, he's going to remember some of the songs that he might have listened to when he was a teenager, some of the food that maybe he used to eat, and there are going to be certain back in the day type of vibes

that are going to resonate in that person. Is he the one that should go there in order to pull somebody out, or is it going to be somebody where there's no bridge, somebody who's going to go there and the and the the secular music is going to sound like people banging pots and pans, the non-kosher food smell is going to be like dog food? That's the right person to make these birurim, because the first person is going to say there's right and there's wrong, and I'm going to identify the right and I'm going to separate it from the wrong.

The second person is going to go in and he's going to say, there's not right and wrong, there's right and nothing else. The dog food isn't food. The secular music is not music. That's the person that is not going to have this challenge of being within the היכל התמורות, within the competing priorities, and having to separate between A and B. Rather, he's going to separate between A and nothing else, if that makes sense. And therefore, what the the Athenian scholars were saying, well, it's wonderful that you want to elevate the system, how are you going to do that from within the היכל התמורות?

What did Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya respond? והשיב להם אייתו אשלי ומשכו. What you're going to do is you're going to take ropes and you're going to measure it, היינו, you don't have to go into the היכל התמורות in order to elevate the kedushah. עיקר עליית הקדושה על ידי השמחה. The simcha, the Shechinah that's the shoresh of the simcha of Klal Yisrael, and simcha is chayut, simcha is energy, simcha is life, simcha is reality. Simcha is something that we said is ישוב הדעת, it's מנוחת הנפש. This is where it's at. The kelipot are בעצם עצבות, lethargy, yiush, death, there's nothing there, it's a mirage.

It doesn't represent any reality. And therefore, says Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya, we don't need to be in the היכל התמורות, because when a person can approach מצוות בשמחה, when a person is able to relate to the Shechinah, they're able to look at the world and see the light of הקדוש ברוך הוא, they're able to relate to everything at the most distant corners of the world, and they light that up b'simcha, everything else falls away. לעתיד בצאת ישראל מהגלות בשמחה, this is really talking about the ultimate geulah from galut, but we could take from this and apply it to individual situations, כמו שכתוב כי בשמחה תצאו.

When do we go out of galut? B'simcha. We go with the energy, cuz we're attached to אלוקים חיים, we're attached to the שכינה, ואז יכלו יכלו הקליפות לגמרי. Through the ribui simcha that's the hepech of atzvut, it's the hepech of kelipah, that's where there's birurim. It's not that good triumphs over evil, it's that good is reality and evil just dissipates because it never existed to begin with. It becomes clear הקדוש ברוך הוא created only this היכא תמצי all the way down at our altitude, when we couldn't tell the difference between all the puzzle pieces, in order to give us the opportunity to see to to make those birurim.

But once we have the higher dimension, we have the broader view looking down, we realize exactly what everything was in context, and therefore, there's no more there's no more conflict. The conflict just evaporates. And this is what he tells them, וזה אייתו אשלי, you should bring the חבל, you should bring the rope to measure it. What's measuring? Measuring is when you define the parameters of something. That's when you see the reality. He tells them, you bring the ropes, היינו על ידיכם ועל כורחכם יתבטלו הקליפות, it's going to be through you. We don't need to descend into the היכל התמורות.

The klipah is just going to fall away through your own hands, so to speak, and against your will, כי אתם בעצמכם תביאו את בית ישראל מהגלות. You're going to be the ones that are going to take Klal Yisrael out of galut, because Klal Yisrael is נקראים אשלי, היינו חבל נחלתו, the חבל, the בלשון of rope is a reference to Klal Yisrael, כמו שכתוב והביאו את אחיכם בית ישראל. The pasuk in Yeshayahu says that it's talking about the גוים, it says that they're going to bring כלל ישראל, שכל אחד ואחד מהעכו״ם יביאו בידם את בית ישראל מהגלות, they're going to bring Klal Yisrael, even the ones that were mixed up between the גוים, על ידי ריבוי השמחה שתהיה בעת הזאת.

Through the simcha, and the way that we're defining simcha is internalized, integrated attachment to the Shechinah, to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, where we incorporate that in where it makes us alive, that becomes the חיות, the attachment to HaKadosh Baruch Hu in an emotional, מידות'דיק way, like we said at the very beginning of today's shiur, that for right now, once we understand something, the Chabad, that flows into the emotions. Once you have a level where your emotions are totally lined up with the truth, they're totally lined up with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that's invigorating. That makes you alive.

And we can tap into that not in the כללות'דיק level that we're going to have it at the end of days, but through the light of emunah and through the light of mesorah, through Chazal, through the Torah, through the Neviim, through our Rebbeim, through the tzadikim. If if we have the correct approach to emunah, through emunah peshutah, through where we should give over our reins to, we can bring that light of simcha into our mitzvot, elevating from the farthest levels and sending up through the system to bring additional light into the world until we can re-center gravity around HaKadosh Baruch Hu, because there only is really one truth.

And we could bring in the גילוי שכינה, כמו שכתוב: ״אז יאמרו בגוים הגדיל ה׳ לעשות עם אלה״. But that's when even the klipah will acknowledge it, because at the end of days, once the truth is shining, then there's no question what was what was פרי and what was klipah, what was emet and what was sheker, it becomes universally obvious. היינו היינו שמחים. So then when Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes these divisions, אז יאמרו בגוים הגדיל ה׳, so היינו שמחים, that's when לעתיד לבוא כלל ישראל is going to be בשמחה גדולה ועל ידי שמחה יתבטלו הקליפות. It doesn't say that it's going to triumph over kelipah, it says that the kelipot are going to become batel.

Agav, the Baal HaTanya mentions that the the people that are able to do this avodah in this world, those are the those are the individuals that are going to have that clearer, that more solid relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's not so much of an avodah when a person when the truth when Hashem turns the lights on and then we say, 'Yes, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is right, the Torah is right, this is 100%.' Then we're going to do it back because it's emet, back because we have an understanding. The people that are going to have the benefit of that relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu is where the relationship with Hashem triumphed over truth as we perceive it, because we expanded past truth through through the simchah, through but how did we internalize the simchah outside of what we understood to be as truth?

Because our simchah elevated us to attach ourselves through emunah to something that was in the next system outside of our universe. We were able to draw in shefa, higher levels of truth from higher altitudes. And therefore he says, ״אייתו אשלי משחו״, bring ropes and measure it. Bivchinat this is in the same vein as by a pasuk in Shmuel ב׳, it says, ״וימדדם בחבל השכב אותם ארצה״, and they measured them with the rope making them lie on the ground, ״וזהו משיחה, היינו המדידה לכלות אותם״. This is the measuring to destroy them. What's this talking about? Rav Chaim Kramer brings us some context.

He says the pasuk talks about how King David, David Hamelech, avenged the blood of his family from the Moabites. While fleeing from King Saul, David had entrusted the people of Moab with the lives of his parents and brothers, but they betrayed David and killed the members of his family. When he later conquered the Moabites, he had them measured. Two measures of the people of Moab were put to death, and the remaining measure was forced to pay him an annual tribute. So here, too, the kelipah will be measured with a rope, they will be brought to an accounting by the Jewish people by making them lie on the ground, by eliminating them.

But going back to our our lesson, so again Rav Chaim Kramer sums it up, the סבי דבי אתונא say, 'Where is the center of the universe? How is it possible to grasp the ein sof? How can you grasp the universal truth from within?' And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah pointed up his finger and said to them, 'Here, by by whatever my avodah is, I'm going to be able to draw down blessings,' what we said was the hand related to the Birkat Kohanim, 'because by drawing down blessing, by having by by completing my avodah, I'm going to be able to draw in light from the higher levels.'

And they said, ״מי יימר״, who says so? And the way that we explained it, who's going to be able to enter the היכל תמורות to elevate the sparks of holiness? Because anybody who is trying to operate from within, who's going to be able to start that process? And he answered, 'Bring a rope and measure it.' We don't have to enter into the danger of this תמורות, we don't have to get enter into this confusion. At the bottom of that system, so to speak, the kelipot themselves will elevate the holiness, because if we can attach ourselves to simcha and מצוות בשמחה, we can attach ourselves to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, then we eliminate the confusion, because we'll be able to make these birurim, we'll have the avodah of the ketoret, what we're going to be able to attach ourselves to to the light of emet, to the light of nitzchiyut, to the light of Hakadosh Baruch Hu,

where there will be that level of clarity, and the kelipot themselves will just expire. Those will be the ones which will reflect, which will bring Klal Yisrael out of galut as they they effectively just cease to exist. Okay, Be'ezrat Hashem, I hope that we did a some sort of justice to this unbelievable Torah, and Be'ezrat Hashem we