LM 29.1 — Hai Gavra, Part 1 of 4 · תורה כ״ט

Be-ezrat Hashem, we are continuing our journey with Torah כט. We are in the middle of the series of Torot that are exploring the deeper meaning of the seemingly mundane discussions, exchanges between Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya and the סבי דבי אתונא, the Athenian scholars, which are going to the heart of some of the foundations of emunah, of hashgachah, of how HaKadosh Baruch Hu relates to the world, of how we relate to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and so on. Just briefly, Rav Chaim Kramer brings that this Torah, this lesson, was given on Shavuos 5566, May 23rd, 1806. Interestingly, he also brings several things that were going on that are all incorporated in the Torah.

It was the first time that Rabbeinu had dressed in white. One of his followers had come along with his epileptic daughter and had also brought wine as a gift. Another of the Chassidim had a difficult case pending before the government officials. And all of these ideas are going to be brought into the Torah, and he goes on into some of the ideas that are addressed in the Torah, which we'll talk about later. One point that I did want to make, which is more of a general point, is that we've already seen many times in the past that Rabbeinu will use a pasuk, a מאמר חזל, as a platform to discuss and unfold the Torah before us, and in that context he will address several different points, including current events, including things that were going on with some of the Chassidim personally.

And on the surface level, it can almost seem either something between cute and a not a sleight of hand exactly, but, you know, is really all of these things contained within the pasuk? And I wanted to express a thought that I think can give us a different perspective into how a lot of these Torot are able to address just a breadth of topics that seem otherwise unrelated. When you have a system that unfolds, if you will, like a pyramid, in other words, something that starts off at a point where the higher up you go or the closer to the source you go in the cause and effect chain, then the more yichud there is early on.

And as it unfolds, you have things that are either seemingly unrelated viewed from the outside or even contradictory. The example we've given in the past is if I want to accomplish a certain task, in order to do that, I might have to have the chesed arm, the expansive arm, and then the gevurah arm, the disciplinary, the structure. Chesed and gevurah might be directionally opposites—one's expansive and one is constricting—and yet both of those things are really contained within the initial idea. It's just that it's necessary to have those two arms in order to accomplish it. So are they opposites?

Well, it depends at what level, at what altitude, what perspective you're taking. Do they have opposite goals, or are they real all aligned? And if you would go earlier on, you would say, "Yes, this is my goal. In order to accomplish it, I'm going to need different arms of the organization, which might not necessarily even have crossover in their day-to-day, in order to in order to lead back to the original vision." Another example, which might even be a better example—I Googled this, I'm just going to read, I can't otherwise validate a lot of the research, but it says: "The DNA in a brain cell is the same as in the toe cell because most cells in the body are originating from the single fertilized egg and therefore contain the same set of genetic instructions." However, we know, right, that the brain and the toe couldn't be more far apart.

However, it says, "These cells are different because they use the DNA differently, a process called gene expression, where the specific genes are turned on and off to create the different proteins and carry out the specialized functions," which is unbelievable נפלאות הבורא, if we think about it, because the body itself needs to have all of these functions in order to create a shleimut. So from from, again, the closer to the source, the top down, looking at the body being able to have the myriad functions that are going in, you know, who is assigning these tasks, that is by design.

But from the point of view of the outside looking in, the toe and the brain are totally different. So what we see here is that if you are able to address a system earlier on from the point of view of design, everything makes sense and it actually all comes together. It's just a question of how you direct your perspective. So when Rabbeinu is looking at the Torah—ישראל, אורייתא, וקודשא בריך הוא חד הוא—we are looking at the blueprint of creation, we're look going all the way back to the source, the underlying structure and penimiyut over which the entire creation and world is layered in order to ultimately create a shleimut and bring out a giluy of רצון השם.

There's no contradiction. The fact that on the outside all of these events seem to be unrelated, they're unrelated like the brain and the toe are unrelated. But if you can address it from the point of view of DNA and the designer of that DNA, now it's just a question of, "Oh, now I can give you a unified vision, and now it's a question of application." So this actually, it's not just a vort, if you will, it's not just a Dvar Torah that Rabbeinu was able, because of his brilliance, to address and work in all of the situations going on.

He was able to see what was at hand, what needed to be addressed, understand, pattern match what, understand the common denominator of what is the idea at the level of penimiyut that now will be able to address top-down all of the issues that needed to be understood, where all of the questions, all of the differences just fall away. Once you see the truth, it's not that truth will triumph over falsehood, it's that the truth will be clear and all of the ambiguity just ceases to exist. So with that, let's let's begin this Torah and see what adventures await us.

The Gemara in Bechoros brings that the סבי דבי אתונא, the Athenian scholars, asked Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya: האי גברא דאזל, a certain man was going, בעי איתתא, he was seeking a wife, ולא יהבו ליה, and they didn't give her to him, his yichus did not measure up to hers. So the man went for the for the next option, he he went to seek a wife after that. מאי חזא, what would he see, דאזל להיכא דמדלי מיניה? And instead of trying to level down, to settle it all, he looked for a wife who had even better yichus.

In response, רבי יהושע בן חנניה: שקל סיכתא, he took a peg, דצה לתתא ולא על, he tried to press it into a wall and it didn't go in, there was no hole in the wall that could receive this peg. דלי דצה לעילא על. So he raised it up, and then it went in. אמר: האי נמי מסרמי ליה בת מזליה. So he said over here also, this person found his בת מזליה, which we'll say the the woman who is destined for him. Let's see the Rashi's and then we'll make one quick comment: דמדלי מיניה, a better one, שמיחסת מראשונה, that the second woman he was looking for had even better yichus than the first.

ושאילו עצה, הלא יש לו ללמוד, הואיל ולא נתנו לו ראשונה כל שכן זו, if they didn't give you the first woman, for sure they won't give you the second. סיכתא, קבילא, which is a peg, a spike. דצה, he pressed it into the bottom of the wall, השפיל ידו במקום שאין חור בכותל ולא על, he tried to put it into the place in the wall where there was no hole to receive the peg. דלי דצה, so he raised it up, הגביה ידו נעצה במקום נקב ועל, and he put it into a where where there was a hole and it went in.

So just parenthetically, a side point of an idea that just jumps off the page is, as we live in society, there is going to be from our perspective some sort of an objective framework for for success, for value, whether a better yeshiva, a better job, a better shidduch, as much as we have a linear framework to place a value on things, when it comes to individual considerations and pursuing success in a way that's right for me, that I can self-develop, it doesn't necessarily translate into the better yeshiva being better. We're looking for something that is the right fit, and that applies to parnassah, that applies to jobs, and really this is, again, this is clear, he says, if this woman wouldn't marry you because of your yichus, what makes you think you can pursue the woman of higher yichus?

Well, there is a complexity, there is a variety of factors, there are a lot of variables. That woman might be the right fit for a variety of variables and things that might not even be apparent to you, and this woman is the perfect fit to bring out the best in this man, and this man is the perfect fit to bring out the best in this woman, so that they can build a בית נאמן בישראל, and we shouldn't be so quick to apply the objective measure, the objective framework to an individual situation. Certainly, it's a starting point, but every person has their unique role in life and their unique needs and unique contributions that need to be taken into consideration.

Now, as we go into paragraph א, I'm just before we build this Torah piece by piece, I'm going to pull from Rabbi Attiyah's introduction to this paragraph, where he actually foreshadows the כוונה בפנימיות of the ענין that we are going to be addressing. It'll sound a little bit abstract, and I I just want to say this idea, and then we're going to to start off. The way that he explains it, he says: כיון שכל עונות פוגם בשכינה, our aveiros cause a pegam in the Shechinah. The Shechinah, we know, is associated with Malchut. In Hakadosh Baruch Hu's interaction with the world, it goes through a system of the sefiros, which we've we're already familiar with as חב״ד, חג״ת, נהי״ם, and Malchut.

Chachmah, binah, daat, chesed, gevurah, tiferet, netzach, hod, yesod, and Malchut. So when Hakadosh Baruch Hu brings shefa into the system, there is an evolution, there's hishtalshelut, the same as we have. We have a ratzon first, actually, and then we have an idea, the idea gets fleshed out, it's executed upon until it comes to a result. Now, the results or the consequence, the keli, the Malchut, that is not really בתורת המשפיע, that is בתורת a מקבל. That's a כלי קיבול, that is reflecting on what came from above, as it were. Now, in a perfect system, that Malchut, that result, that כלי קיבול, should be perfectly reflective and expressive of the initial ratzon and the initial idea.

If it's misaligned, then perhaps we can use the language of the Shechinah being in galut, whereby our avodah is to rectify that Shechinah. It's to make that the giluy, the revelation, matches the initial ratzon. So he says over here that when we do aveirot, we are expressing something practically, our thought, speech, and action, but that means that what's going on in the world, as it were, haKadosh Baruch Hu allows, is not expressive of רצון השם. So that, as it were, is causing a blemish in the Shechinah. How do we rectify what's going on in the world?

Well, we're going to need an influx of shefa from haKadosh Baruch Hu from outside the system in, to feed it in, right? When there's already a disease, there's already a blemish in the keli, it needs to be fixed from without, otherwise you're working with with blemished kelim as it were. Now, the system whereby haKadosh Baruch Hu brings shefa into the world, we refer to as a zivug or a yichud, and we have a we have a representation of that in the world, the system of משפיע מקבל, when the giver and the not taker, but rather recipient are fully aligned, we call that איש and אשה, those get together, they make a shlemut, and that yichud or that zivug is going to bring children, it's going to bring perot, it's going to bring a new expression, a giluy into the world.

Our job is to line up those pipes so that the Shechinah is fully being מקבל from the משפיע, the כלי קיבול, the recipient is fully being משפיע. So he asks a question, in order to facilitate shefa coming into the world, you need a zivug. In order to have a zivug, you need that the איש and אשה, משפיע מקבל are fully aligned. The problem is that the אשה, the Shechinah, the מלכות, which is the which is the כלי קיבול, is the recipient, we have now caused a blemish in that, which is going to make it turn away from the mashpia.

It's not going to be able to facilitate this zivug, and we're going to relate it in the Torah to this idea of of דם נדה, right? That is a separation between איש and אשה. So if we need that the איש and אשה, משפיע מקבל are going to get together to bring new shefa into the world, and yet we caused a separation between איש and אשה, how are we going to effect the tikkun? Paragraph א is going to start off talking about speech, through the הלבשה, through the mashal of dibbur, he explains that dibbur is a mashal for an אשה, and a dibbur that's not מתקבל, speech, communication, there's a speaker and a recipient, but he says that dibbur that is not received is similar למי שבקש אשה ולא נתנו לו, he is seeking an אשה, and it wasn't given to him, which ties into the original question of the Savi d'Bei Atuna.

So let's start off paragraph א: האי גברא דאזל בעא איתתא ולא יהבו ליה, this person that is seeking a woman and it wasn't given to him, כי לא כל דיבור נקרא דיבור. Not all speech is called dibbur. Dibbur is a term of art. There is a construct in the בריאה called a dibbur, and not all speech is actually fulfilling this construct of what a, quote unquote, dibbur is. כי דיבור שאינו נשמע ונתקבל, okay, he's using two separate words here, but if it is not heard, a person could be standing there and there will be a sound, and without focusing on it, a person has to receive, they have to focus in order to be שומע something, we'll propose that for now, if it's not נשמע and נתקבל, and accepted, there's a קיום, there's a connection there, אינו נקרא דיבור, then it is not called dibbur.

בבחינת אין אומר ואין דברים בלי נשמע קולם. If if words are not heard, then they are not going to be called דברים. Now, interestingly, the pasuk that he quotes is אין אומר ואין דברים, generally speaking, I would suggest that אמירה, a person can, even in the Chumash is the לשון of a person can say to themself. אמירה are words, but דיבור, speech has to have a speaker and a recipient. So speech is דיבור, which we'll focus more on, is the idea of a communication, not just the expression of words. So the first thing he says is, in order for something to be called a דיבור, there has to also be not just words that go out into the open, but they have to be received.

ועיקר מה שנתקבל הדיבור, now, how is it that the words are received? הוא מחמת הטוב שיש בו, it has to be that the דיבור contains טוב. כי טוב הכל חפצים, because טוב is desired. I'm going to come back to these two points, the idea of טוב and the idea of חפצים. Okay, but so far we have, in order for something to be called דיבור, it has to be נשמע, and in order to be נשמע, it has to be that the the דיבור contains טוב, because the recipient desires טוב. ועל כן כשיש טוב בהדיבור, when the דיבור contains טוב, אזי הדיבור נשמע ונתקבל, then the דיבור will be heard, and it will be received, and it'll be קיום.

אבל כשאין טוב בהדיבור, אינו נתקבל, if the דיבור does not have טוב, then it will not be נתקבל, and he doesn't mention over here, although it's built in, because in order to be נתקבל, in order for it to be received, it has to be that it is desired. Believe that that's an important point. And finishing off this this thought, ואיך עושין הטוב בהדיבור, how what what is the טוב that's going to be contained in הדיבור, הוא על ידי שהולכין הדיבור מהדעת, אזי יש בו טוב. What is it? So when the דיבור is flowing through from דעת, again, we have חכמה, בינה, and דעת.

If you would imagine a triangle, you would put an upside down triangle, you would put חכמה on the right, בינה on the left. חכמה is an idea, בינה is analytical, מבין דבר מתוך דבר, it takes that kernel of an idea and it makes it into a practical idea, it fleshes it out, and then דעת is going to be the tip of the triangle, again the upside down triangle, that's going to deliver it to the מדות to begin towards the emotions, towards the execution. So דעת is really the integrated wisdom. It's taking something that's purely intellectual, and it is delivering it.

And there's some quality about דעת that is that contains the טוב. אבל כשהדיבור בלא דעת, when the dibbur does not have דעת, אזי אין בו טוב, then there won't be tov, which means again, it will not be desired, if it's not desired, it won't be received, in which case these words will not be deemed speech. בבחינת גם בלא דעת נפש לא טוב, he quotes a pasuk in Mishlei: without daat, nefesh is not tov. And we're going to associate nefesh with dibbur. נפש הוא הדיבור, כמו שכתוב: ויהי האדם לנפש חיה. There's a pasuk in בראשית, ותרגומו לרוח ממללא, and Onkelos explains that nefesh is associated with speech.

So if nefesh is associated with speech, so now we can use this pasuk in Mishlei to say that without daat, nefesh, or רוח ממללא, דיבור is לא טוב, and without tov it won't be received, in which case it's not going to be dibbur at all. The point that I wanted to come back to, I really should have grabbed the chumash, is that tov in in if you look in the Bereishit, we're coming up, Baruch Hashem, to Rosh Hashanah, if you go into the pesukim by Bereishit it says: וירא אלקים כי טוב, וירא אלקים כי טוב.

It discusses that Hakadosh Baruch Hu saw that it was tov, and there is a Ramban that talks about tov as having kiyum, so that הקדוש ברוך הוא כביכול saw that this is something that should be in the briyah and lasting, and it was something that now is created during ששת ימי בראשית, and now it's going to perpetuate itself. Now we have bechirah. As far as we're concerned, we have be'reirah, we have the bechirah, the ability to choose between tov and between ra. Everything, if you look in the pesukim, the first time that the word tov is used not by Hashem, it's when the pesukim say that Chava decided before the chet, it says that she saw what was tov.

Meaning that when the נחש told her: If on the day that you eat from the tree, you'll be יודעי, like יודעי אלקים טוב ורע, I think the lashon is. We had bechirah, we had a job in the world, and we were able to have total authority, autonomy over everything in the beriah other than how do you define tov and ra. It was our choice whether or not to subscribe to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, to do רצון השם. The thing that we did not have access to was to have the daat to decide what is tov. We cannot establish what is tov and ra.

So if we take this derech, that means that tov is something that בעצם has קיום, that בעצם is associated with רצון השם. That comes through the יודעי טוב ורע, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, as He introduces שפע into this world, and it comes through chachmah, through binah, and through דעת, דעת is that defining factor that establishes what is going to be tov. When if something has tov, therefore it links all the way back to Hashem, and if it doesn't have tov, then it dead ends. It's only temporary, it falls away. It's not actually anchored in אלקים אמת, it's not actually anchored in truth.

Truth has קיום, שקר doesn't. So that was one point that I wanted to make. In terms of dibbur, in saying that something has קיום, only something that has tov can truly connect in a real way. Otherwise, something can connect in a temporary way, but to really have קיום in this world, it has to be associated with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and it has to have tov involved. Now we said that therefore there has to be there has to be a חפץ for it, there has to be a desire for it. And just to complete that point, if for something to have קיום, for something to be established, it needs to be that it is filling a gap, it's filling some sort of a a חסרון.

If I put one block on another, then it might fall off, it might not stick. When will it stick? If there's if there's some sort of a groove that it fits into. Even if you're going to glue two things together, I think you would probably sand one of the beams down so that there's some there's a מקום תפיסה for the glue. You can't just have two smooth things, otherwise at some point it's going to get knocked off. Or in other terms, if if a person is thirsty, then there's something they need something to quench that thirst with water, and only water will work.

And if they're not thirsty, then the truth is that the water won't even taste good. It comes up in הלכות ברכות, if a person is taking water and they're not thirsty for it, whether or not they would even have to make a bracha. So we see that in order for there to be kiyum, there has to be a חסרון, there has to be a desire. And factoring this back into our piece, since true tov is only coming from הקדוש ברוך הוא, יודעי טוב ורע... And since we are נבראים, we are created beings, our bechira has to be to make the right choice, but the reality is is that we all desire tov, we all desire that kiyum, we all desire that perpetuation, that connection to reality, which is really בעצם existence itself.

And that's really, I think, the depth behind this just these few short sentences: everybody desires tov because tov is our link to HaKadosh Baruch Hu Himself. To the extent that everything has a desire for existence, for kiyum, that is a desire for tov, and therefore any dibbur that's coming through דעת, which is a connection to Hashem, that will match up with the equivalent desire, and therefore there will be a connection between the משפיע and מקבל through dibbur. As we go into paragraph ב, I'm going to borrow again from Rabbi Attiyah's introduction, which in this Torah I think it's very helpful, to bring together the mashal and the nimshal, so we we understand where we're going.

So I'm going to read these lines. He says: ולאחר שהמשיל את מי שמבקש ולא נתנו לו, לדיבור לא מסוכן, we drew a parallel between one who is seeking an אשה and she wasn't given to him, לדיבור לא מסוכן, to speech which is also not received. ואמר שהעצה לדיבור מסוכן, we said: what is the עצה? What is the strategy, the advice, for דיבור that is not received? לקחת את הדיבור מהדעת, the דיבור has to actually be aligned, it has to come from דעת. וזה נעשה על ידי שמרומם את הדעת. So I think what he's what he's getting at is the reason that the דעת is not drawing this connection is because it's not attached to the source, it's cut off from that higher altitude, it's not attached to טוב.

If it were elevated, if it were attached to the source, then as it flows through, the דיבור would be accepted. וכהמבואר במעשה שהלך לבקש דווקא אשה מיוחסת יותר, this matches up to the point in the original discussion when somebody had was seeking a wife, and there was no connection over there, there was דיבור that was not received, what did he do? He went higher up on the wall, היינו לדבר דיבור גבוה יותר של שבח צדיקים. Instead of having a regular communication, he said: okay, well this communication is not being received because it's it's too low, as it were, in the system, I need to have speech at a higher level.

How do I elevate the speech? Through שבח צדיקים. שאז יסוכן הדיבור שלו בטוב, then there will be a תיקון, it will inject the טוב into the speech, ויקבלו כל דיבוריו. And again, if you would if you would line up the three triangles with חכמה on the right, בינה on the left, דעת in the middle; חסד, גבורה, תפארת—חסד on the right, גבורה on the left, תפארת in the middle; נצח on the right, הוד on the left, יסוד in the middle, then the יסוד lines up with דעת. It's all coming down, so to speak, through the funnel.

And then there's מלכות, which we're associating with speech, at the bottom of that funnel after יסוד. So one of the ways to build up speech through this connection through דעת is also going to be associated with יסוד. Paragraph ב: להקים ולרומם את הדעת, how are we going to elevate דעת, as it were? הוא על ידי שבח צדיקים. If one has דעת and there's no טוב in the דעת, then it's not it's not true דעת. It's not truly associated with the true מוחין, with the true intelligence, with the true חכמה ובינה. It has the outer shell, it appears to be דעת, but it's not actually something that top-down it's not true דעת.

Just another example: if you would take somebody who is a truly intelligent person and he says something that's a very complex idea—let's say it's math, and he uses a math trick to try to prove that 2 = 3. It might be intelligent, but the reality is is that it's false. If a person uses scientific knowledge, a very sophisticated, very academic paper, and it's, God forbid, an atheist type of a publication, then it's not representing truth. So if instead of saying that דעת means intelligence, if we say that דעת is representative of intelligence which is a form and expression of truth from top down, if something is not representing actual truth, actual טוב, actual Godliness, then it's not true דעת.

So how is it that we that we rectify that? By associating with truth. From our point of view, what can we do? Praise, give the true כבוד, give the true value to the צדיקים that are walking, talking, living, embodied רצון השם, ספרי תורה. When we give שבח to the צדיקים, that is going to, with our words, that is going to elevate this intelligence to true Torah ideals, true רצון השם, בבחינת כנשר יעיר קנו. It's a pasuk in Devarim, and we're going to associate נשר with a צדיק, and יעיר, to arouse, קנו, the מוחין. So through the צדיק, we're going to be able to arouse the קנו, we're going to be able to arouse the מוחין to have a zivug to bring shefa into the world.

נשרא דא רוחא, brings from a Zohar that נשרא, which we translate as a eagle, as it were, that's associated with ruach, an eagle flies, it has its wings. דא בחינת צדיק, this and ruach is a בחינה of צדיק, בבחינת איש אשר רוח בו. So the word נשר is associated with ruach, and ruach is associated with tzaddik. יעיר קינו, arouse, hovers over the קינו, over its nest, שמעורר המוחין מתרדימותן, that it arouses the מוחין, it arouses the חכמה, בינה, דעת, we're talking about elevating the דעת, from its sleep, as it were, where it's not manifest, מבחינת מוחין דקטנות מבחינת שינה.

There is דעת in the בריאה, but it's not finding expression. The tzaddik is able to arouse this דעת in the world. קינו, דא קני חכמה קני בינה שהם המוחין. קינו, which in the actual pasuk it's talking about an eagle's nest, but the word קינו is associated with קני חכמה, קני בינה, which we recently discussed as well, and that is representative of the מוחין, which in this case is the דעת, the חכמה, בינה coming through the דעת, and therefore the tzaddik is able to elevate the דעת through which, once the דעת is elevated, it's associated with טוב, which will come through the דיבור, and then the דיבור will be able to be accepted.

Further, he brings a re'iyah that through שבח צדיקים, through using our words, איש כפי מהללו, a person is who they praise is, right? A person is, we're climbing the ladder, but if you want to know who I am, you look through what I praise, what I respect, and that also by the way gives more koach to the tzaddikim in the world. Now there's more influence of the tzaddikim, once the people are praising the tzaddikim, and that is what makes speech into דיבור. Va'afilu malachim, and even the angels, but for our purposes we could say that malachim are the agents, the mechanisms, the vehicles through which Hakadosh Baruch Hu brings shefa into the world.

כשרוצים לעשות דיבור שיהא נשמע ונתקבל אצלם, when they're going to use this, we'll use dibur as a term of art, this communication where there's a משפיע, מקבל that brings shefa into the world, בבחינת עושי דברו, they make dibur, they make דברו, לשמוע, in order to be received, בקול דברו, with the sound of that דיבור, אזי הם משבחים ומפארים את השם יתברך תחילה, שהוא צדיקו של עולם. The way that dibur is made, is effected in the world, at our level, when we talk about physical speech, but even at the level of the malachim, in the structure of the world, to bring about this connection between משפיע, מקבל, and bring shefa into the world, that first requires establishing a connection with above, with where the shefa is coming in.

That is established through the shevach of the tzadikim, through the praise, which in the context of the malachim is going to be the shevach of the צדיקו של עולם, which is a reference to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, בבחינת צדיק השם בכל דרכיו. We see this pasuk that associates Hakadosh Baruch Hu with the term tzadik. So we can say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the צדיקו של עולם. ועל ידי זה נעשה הדיבור בבחינת לשמוע בקול דברו, the pasuk finishes. Through the shevach of the tzadikim, through this praise which establishes the connection from lower-higher, just parenthetically, if there's a concept, a pasuk that gets quoted, איש כפי מהללו, people are engaged in a lot of different עבודות, a lot of different areas.

If you want to know what drives a person, you have to see what they respect, what they praise, right? Even, we're in the season of Rosh Hashanah, even as a person climbs a ladder, what is their immediate עבודה, whatever step they're on at that particular time. But if you want to know what they're engaged in, you will say they're climbing a ladder towards X. You look at what they praise, you look at where a person is going, in order to know what that first step is a function of. Okay, this is just a little bit of an aside, but as we make קבלות on Rosh Hashanah, if you see two people driving, one of them is driving around the block, one of them is driving across the country, and you stop them after one block, and you say, where are you going?

One person is going to say, I'm driving around the block, the other one is going to say, I'm driving across the country, even though they're at that first step. So the ultimate what you're looking towards establishes what you're doing now. As we go into getting judged, as we go into ימים נוראים, when a person takes on a קבלה, besides for just the תיקון, besides for just fixing, takes on something that's mission-driven, that allows you to establish where you are now on the way towards there. So in any event, in our paragraph, in order to have true dibur, a communication, an attachment between משפיע and מקבל, that means that there's going to be a קיום, a קבלה in what is being given over.

In order to have a true קיום, there has to be a desire, there has to be a כלי קיבול, there has to be a recipient, which means that there has to be a desire for what's coming. Since the desire is for tov, it has to be that this דיבור is really flowing down from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, from the true tov, from the true emet. That is established, how do we get the tov into the דיבור? Through שבח צדיקים. We brought a ראיה from the malachim who also in the בריאה, this is not even people, this is malachim, just a function of how the בריאה works.

In order to bring shefa to the system through the malachim, the מלאכים also effect this through a shevach of the tzadik, which in this case is Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and he brings a פסוק, וזה ברכו השם מלאכיו, that the malachim are going to give berachah to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. What is the berachah in this case? By the way, ברכה, ברך is לשון of a knee, of subjugation, of being מכניע oneself, בריכה is לשון of a spring, and ברכה is לשון of shevach. היינו השבח שמשבח בתחילה לשם יתברך, to give praise in line with those other definitions, to subjugate oneself, to bring in shefa from the בריכה, from the spring, we give shevach to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the מלאכים, שהוא צדיקו של עולם, ואחר כך על ידי זה, through this, עושי דברו לשמוע בקול דברו.

Through this attachment to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that will allow דיבור to be created and to function, שעושין הדיבור, that make the true דיבור, שהוא נשמע ונתקבל, which will be heard and will be מקבל, will have a קיום. As we go into paragraph 3, one idea that we see developing is that while our actions, our interactions, our communications, all take place in this world, which is at the end of the chain, so to speak, it's the farthest along in the system of shefa of life being pumped in from top down. But nevertheless, this all is really part of one big structure.

Perhaps as an oversimplified mashal, I can say that everyone has a sink in their home. When you open the sink, the water comes out. But this is really water that's coming from a source. It's coming from a reservoir that's dependent on a system of pipes and so on until it comes to the individual person's home. And we could say, at least for now, that there's really three parts to this process. One of them is the attachment to the source. One of them is the כלי קיבול, the idea that by the faucet there's going to be something to open the water, to receive the water, which actually is what triggers the water coming in from the source.

And there's going to be a system of pipes which has to be attached in order that nothing is lost in the process and that both the water that is being given over into the system will end up in the person's home, but also that when the person turns on the sink and he triggers it bottom up, he triggers that there should be water coming into his sink, coming into his כלי, if there's a breakage, then his his triggering action all the way in his home is not necessarily going to be pulling water in from the source.

So what comes out is very interesting. When we look at the person opening the sink in his home, is that the end of the process, or is that the beginning of the process? And the the answer is that it's both. From the point of view of the source, the the תכלית, the end of the process is when the water goes to its destination. From the point of view of the person, that's also the תכלית, but it's also the triggering action. In a certain sense, it's also the cause. A person opens up the faucet, if you will, an action happens bottom up, it causes a certain it opens up a receptacle in order that the source should pump more water into the system, and he's able to receive it.

On the other hand, if there is some sort of a פגם that affects the כלי or the delivery of שפע into the כלי, in the ספירות we would say that this is the attachment, the זיווג between יסוד and מלכות, the יסוד is bringing the שפע into the מלכות, which is going to be the כלי, then this is going to be a breakdown in the entire system of משפיע מקבל. One other point, which is getting really a little bit ahead of ourselves and I don't want to misstate anything, is so to the extent that the that that a כלי, that a receptacle is serving 100% fully in its capacity as receiving whatever the אור is, whatever the contents is, then at that point there really is no difference between the contents and the כלי, it becomes one package.

However, if there is any sort of a breakdown between what is supposed to go into the כלי and the כלי itself, then part of the כלי is, you could say, left empty. It's available to be filled up with something else. Now, the כלי is all the way at the end of the chain, and therefore, since it's the farthest away, as it were, from the קדושה, this is where the outside forces, the חיצוניים, the the the סטרא אחרא, if you will, is going to try to attach itself, it's going to try to take control. I'm going to read one short paragraph from Likutei Halachot, and then we'll go into paragraph ג.

In tzitzit, he says at the beginning, וזה בחינת ציצית, this is the בחינה of ציצית, כי הכלל שצריך לשמור מאוד, a person has to be very careful to guard, את הבגדים שלא יתאחזו בהם החיצוניים. The the negative forces should not have access to be able to attach themselves to the בגדים, to the מלכות, to the to the interface, to the outer trappings, if you will, כי דרכם להאחז בבגדים. This is where the outer forces are going to attach, כמו שאמרו זכרונם לברכה, הני מאני דרבנן דבלו מינייהו. It's a Gemara in Berachot, actually, נגלא, right? It's a בפירוש בבלי, it says that the clothing of the רבנן, why do they wear out if the רבנן are not engaged in physical labor?

It is actually from the מזיקים. It's from the it's from these forces. כי הם מדריגה תחתונה וחיצונית של הקדושה. Because the בגדים are farthest away, like we said in the system, if the outer negative forces are going to try to attach themselves to something, it's going to be to the בגדים. ושם דרכן לאחוז. ועל כן נכרים ונרשמים בהם כל הפגמים של כל העוונות חס ושלום. This is where we're going to see reflected in the בגדים an imprint from a person's shortcomings, from their aveirot. וכן ההיפך, כל המצוות הם נרשמים גם כן בבגדים. A person, they will wear it so to speak on their sleeve, right?

A mitzvot will also be reflected in a person's בגדים. So whether a person has בגדים לבנים, a white clothing, or whether they're soiled, is really going to be a reflection of what is so to speak behind those בגדים. כי על ידי המצוות נעשים הם חלוקא דרבנן. Through mitzvot, they they come to be the חלוקא דרבנן is is the the shirt, the clothing of the Rabbanan. This is what the the the the Rabbanan, the tzadikim are wearing, their mitzvot. שהם לבושים וכיסויים להנשמה שלא יאחזו בה. The mitzvot will come to be a shemira to a person's spirituality.

Again, it's it's hard to understand, but we're reading the words. כי כשהלבושים נקיים, הם שמירה גדולה. If the clothing are clean from sin, then this will be a tremendous shemira for a person not to be subject to other outside forces, כמבואר במקום אחר. ועל כן צריך לשמור מאוד את הבגדים כנ״ל. A person has to be extremely careful for his outer self, the the the part that is interacting with the world, I guess you could say, with his בגדים. ועל כן ציותה התורה על ציצית שהם תלויים בבגדים. The tzitzit are hanging off of the בגדים, כי ציצית הם שמירה לבגדים שלא יאחזו בהם החיצונים.

And now that a person is going and interacting with the world, they have their בגדים, the בגדים are לבנים, they are clean, they do not want to be impacted and and susceptible to the outside forces, the tzitzit act as a shemira on those בגדים. ועל ידי זה נשמר כל התורה כולה, הן מצוות עשה, הן מצוות לא תעשה. And through this, a a person will guard and be and protect that that they can keep the entire Torah. כי בו נרשם הכל. Because on the clothing is what will end up being imprinted. וזה שכתוב וראיתם אותו וזכרתם את כל מצוות השם.

A person will look at his tzitzit and will remember all the מצוות השם. So really again, it's multi-directional: on one hand, the בגדים represent what's on the inside; on the other hand, if a person does have sins and it's reflected on the בגדים, then the בגדים will be the area where the outside forces are able to attach themselves and attack, and that could end up impacting their their spirituality as well. So now let's go into paragraph ג: וזה, this tikkun in the system, this tikkun in dibbur, this attaching oneself to the tov and to daat to bring ruchniyut, to bring shefa into the world, is also bechinah of בגדים לבנים, which similar to dibbur represents Malchut.

היינו תיקון הדיבור, שהוא בחינת מלכות, פה, הוא בחינת בגדים לבנים. So perhaps in our mashal of the faucet, we had said that bottom-up, when a person rectifies the dibbur with the the praising tzaddikim, and when a person guards their clothing, this is going to create the keli in order for shefa to come in, additional shefa to come in into the system, which will elevate the entire system. כי צריך לשמור מאוד את הבגדים. A person has to guard very much his בגדים, his clothing. We'll comment in a minute, something that occurs to me. שלא יבזס את הבגדים, in order not to disgrace his בגדים, רק לשמרן כראוי, to guard them as appropriate, שלא יבוא עליהם שום כתם או רבב, so that there shouldn't be any stain or רבב, could be a grease stain.

There is actually a difference in גירסא, where it could be רובד, which would refer specifically to קרי, to זרע, which would which would, in our way of learning, that would refer specifically to sins associated with kedushah. But again, the way that I'm learning it, this idea of guarding the בגדים is really twofold, whether we go to my example earlier about the water coming through the pipes, or even machshavah and dibbur, that we said dibbur is like מלכות, בגדים are like Malchut. On one hand, a person's speech is going to be a reflection and articulation of their thoughts.

On the other hand, thoughts can really follow their speech, and if a person speaks in an inappropriate way, that will also cause a breakdown between whatever lofty thoughts they might have been speaking, and ultimately it will also drag the thoughts down. So when it comes to the בגדים, how do we guard those? On one hand, a person has to have the inner commitment to Torah and to mitzvot, and then their interface, their reflection within this world will be clean. But on the other hand, a person person also has to be careful about the way that they relate to the world, expressed by the בגדים.

וכל מי שהוא גדול יותר, whoever is greater, צריך לשמור את הבגדים יותר, has an even greater obligation to guard their בגדים. Now, without that's a topic in and of itself, but on one hand, one could say, "Well, wait a second, that's not fair. If somebody is holding on a higher level, maybe they should get more of a pass." On the other hand, we could suggest really the obligation to guard one's בגדים is really just proportionate to where they're holding. So a person who is a plumber will have one appropriate obligation to guard their בגדים, and a person who is a wearing a doctor's coat, or a person who is a king, will have also a corresponding appropriate obligation for their station in life, for their role, and the way that they interact with others to guard their בגדים.

And therefore, a person who is a bigger talmid chacham, a person who's more of a גדול, he is the representation of הקדוש ברוך הוא in the world, of the ruchniyut in the world, of the truth, and he will have a correspondingly greater obligation to have that clean interface, if you will. ועל כן תלמיד חכם שנמצא רבב על בגדיו חייב מיתה. And therefore, a talmid chacham who has a stain on his clothing is חייב מיתה, which seems harsh, but in in the פנימיות, perhaps we could suggest that חיים is that attachment, that flow of energy, that flow of שפע from אלוקים חיים, when a person has stains on their clothing, when the כלי is misaligned with the pipe, so then it is causing a disruption in the flow of חיים, that is an aspect of מיתה, כי עמו מדקדקין יותר, because it is more specific, we'll say, more nuanced, it's more subtle.

Every single thing matters. If one's actions are reflective of truth, then a misalignment will be much more significant than if a person has more mundane actions and interactions and thoughts, where not every single action is expected and reflecting, and reflecting to the world outside that truth. כי הבגדים בעצמם הם דנין אותו. בגדים, which we are associating with מלכות, this is the reflection what comes from above. It is not the משפיע, but it's the מקבל. It's the reflection. It doesn't have anything that it's giving over. That's an aspect of גבורות. That's an aspect of דין. Which is not At its core, דין is not bad.

It is just a specific law. It's a judgment. If a person does good, then they get the corresponding good. If a person, chas v'shalom, does not good, then they'll have that appropriate amount of דין. So if מלכות is reflecting what comes from above it, then מלכות is going to be associated with דין. כי הבגדים הם בחינת מלכות. We see that בגדים is an aspect of מלכות, כי רבי יוחנן קרא למאני מכבדותא. Rabbi Yochanan, in the Gemara, referred to his clothing as מכבדותא, the honor. שזהו בחינת מלכות, בחינת מלך הכבוד. If כבוד is associated with מלכות, and בגדים are associated with כבוד, then that would by extension, בגדים would be associated with מלכות.

And now, we are going to tie in the idea of דין, which anyway is not a far step away from certainly one of the aspects of מלכות, והן בחינת צדק, מלכותא קדישא. Now we're going to associate צדק, righteousness, justice, with מלכות, שזה בחינת הבגדים, and we're going to tie בגדים into צדק, בחינת צדק לבשתי. So, in so far as צדק and מלכות are associated, we are now also tying in the idea of בגדים, of לבשתי, one clothed in righteousness, והמבזה אותם, and therefore one who is מבזה their clothing, נמצא שהוא כמורד במלכות, ואז דינא דמלכותא דנה אותו.

It's as if they are מבזה the מלכות, and it's as if they're rebelling against the מלכות, and now they will be judged by it. Now, this sounds like a very difficult idea, but perhaps just to state it simply, at least for now, if we're saying that the clothing, the כלי, the מלכות, the receptacle that comes at the end of the system of pipes, like we said, is going to be expressing and articulating what came before it in the system, well then if there's a stain in the clothing, if there's some sort of a פגם in that receptacle, then that means that either you are not associated sort of earlier in the chain, you're not associated with הקדוש ברוך הוא, you're not associated with אמת, and that's reflecting itself in the clothing, or the other way we said it is that if it's going to be bottom-up, when there is going to be a stain or some sort of a פגם in the receptacle, it's not going to be able to pull down the אמת in the in the proper way.

Now, one thing I just wanted to point out, when we started this paragraph, we said, or in the middle it says, כי צריך לשמור מאוד את הבגדים, שלא יבזה את הבגדים, and one has to guard it. Perhaps we could say that there's a difference between trying to build up the clothing from scratch, or what we were saying perhaps over here is no, a person is a חלק אלוק ממעל. If a person is associated with the truth, which is the starting point, הקדוש ברוך הוא created the world, and by extension we should all be aligned with and associated with truth with הקדוש ברוך הוא, then as long as we are guarding our clothing, as long as we are guarding our mind, our heart, our actions, our relationships, כראוי, then the default should be to express מלכות, and therefore it's stated not in a way of a person has to build up the clothing, a person has to clothe themself in white clothing, as long as we don't mess it up, as long as we don't create a vacuum and allow other things to take hold of that מלכות, other things to take hold of that clothing, as long as we guard it, as long as we're not מבזה it, so then we are really already, our default is to be in a in in a situation of alignment with the אמת, of alignment with Hashem.

And perhaps that's already somewhat inspiring. We're not trying to build it from scratch; all we're trying to do is is preserve who we who we really truly are. ועל ידי זה, and through this, through a stain on one's clothing, which again, we're associating with there being some sort of a פגם in מלכות, which is receiving the שפע above it, there's a breakdown in the system of משפיע מקבל, עביד פירוד בין קודשא בריך הוא ושכינתיה. There is a a breach, as it were, a misalignment with קודשא בריך הוא, with הקדוש ברוך הוא, as it were, with the משפיע, ושכינתיה, which is going to be מלכות, which is going to be associated with the מקבל.

בבחינת נחש משיך לה לגבה ואטיל בה זוהמא, which literally it means that the נחש, which is associated with the negative forces, drew her to himself and put in זוהמא, put in filth. We're going to keep this somewhat high level, because these are they're hard ideas. But we had said that if there's a system of משפיע מקבל, of bestowing and receiving, so when the pipes are lined up, when a person is מקבל and aligned with the truth, הקדוש ברוך הוא, that's being משפיע, so then the system there's a שלמות in the system. But when the the the the system is misaligned, so that the מלכות, the בגדים are dirty, it's not being receiving the truth, there's a misalignment, then it stands ready, willing, and able, unfortunately, to receive from the negative forces.

Just as a as a parenthetical, if we think about, I believe Baal HaTanya even mentions, if I remember correctly, if a person has positive thoughts, they're focusing on something positive, then their mind is going to be full, and they won't be they won't be susceptible to negative thoughts or to שמירת עיניים issues. But if a person is walking down the street and they're not focused on anything, well then, there's an open canvas over there for anything to enter their mind and anything to catch their eye. So over here, where the כלי is not full, it's not receiving from the appropriate משפיע, then it now is open to receiving from negative forces, and that's where the סטרא אחרא is going to attach, בבחינת דם נדה.

And this is going to be like a stain of דם on the בגדים. Over here, if there's a כתם, that is a when there's דם נדה, that is a period where there's a separation between איש and אשה, between the משפיע and the מקבל, as it were, בבחינת מדוע אדום ללבושך, it's a pasuk in Yeshayahu, it says why is there אדום, why is there red on your clothing? וזהו בבחינת הכתם והערבוב שנמצא על בגדיו, this is symbolic, as it were, it's associated with a stain on one's clothing, שעל ידי זה נפרדת בחינת המלכות הנ״ל, שהיא שכינת עוזו מקודשא בריך הוא.

When the clothing are clean, there's the the clothing are white, again, the clothing we associate with tzitzit, with Torah and mitzvot, so then there's alignment between משפיע and מקבל or איש and אשה. When there is a stain on the clothing, there's a separation between the משפיע and מקבל, that's going to separate, as it were, איש and אשה, קודשא בריך הוא and שכינתיה. ואז שאוג ישאג על נוהו, it's, as it were, it's a line from the Zohar, על נוה דיליה. It's as if הקדוש ברוך הוא is roaring, as it were, on the his beauty, but what it means is, again, if the איש and אשה, קודשא בריך הוא, שכינתיה, קודשא בריך הוא representative of the חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, and יסוד, representative of the משפיע, which is supposed to or ideally would be flowing through to the מלכות, to the שכינה, to the receptacle to introduce a שלמות into the system, and the מלכות, the בגדים, as it were, the שכינה becomes separated because there's a misalignment, there's a vacuum which leaves it open to receive זוהמא from the נחש to the סטרא אחרא, so then that is a roaring, kivayachol, I didn't say, but in in it's a word roaring would be like almost a a pain, a frustration certainly a negative feeling about the משפיע not having the appropriate receptacle to be able to receive.

וואס שולטת שפחה בישא, and at that point, there will be a שליטה of the, as it were, not the appropriate שכינה, the appropriate wife, אשה, but it would be like the, the maidservant, the שפחה בישא, the bad שפחה. In the notes over here it associates it with לילית הרשעה, אשת of the ס״ם angel, שהוא מלכות דסטרא אחרא ובבחינת שפחה כי תירש גבירתה. It's as if it's a pasuk in Mishlei when the maidservant takes the place of the of the woman of the household. So, the מלכות is expressing some aspect of rulership, some aspect of of what the governing considerations, we'll say, are in the world.

Ideally, the מלכות should be aligned with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, with אמת, with the principles of of Torah, and when a person is not aligned with that, then what are the ideals that are governing? The סטרא אחרא, the negative forces, and it's as if the maidservant is taking the place of the of the woman of the house. שהיא אשה רעה, שהיא בבחינת עת רעה. This is like a bad אשה, which is associated with עת רעה. We just leined Kohelet, that it goes through different גדרים in time. There's there's 28 times that are expressed, 14 times for the positive and 14 for the negative.

כי יש כ״ח עתים, there's 28 different periods of time designated for different stages, עתים לטובה, עתים לרעה. An עת or a time, and we talk about time, we talk about space, which are the primary two expressions of גדרים, right? One second can't go into a next second. There's there's specific גדרים, there's units of time that stay separate, similarly in place. So, time, which is really inviolable to a certain extent while we're in the world, is representative of boundaries, of גדרים, again of מלכות. For those who find this interesting, familiar with the ספירות, I saw brought down, or maybe I heard brought down, that the the six ספירות leading into מלכות—חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד—are sometimes associated בכלליות with the idea of תפארת.

So, sometimes תפארת is חסד, גבורה, תפארת, it's one of the particular ספירות, but sometimes we refer to תפארת as being all six. תפארת minus the א is תתר״ף. If you spell it out, תפארת is ת פ א ר ת, and if you drop out the א, so then that becomes תתר״ף. If we're familiar with the amount of units of time in an hour, from let's say Rosh Chodesh bentsching, there are 1,080, תתר״ף in גימטריא, units of time—about three, three seconds, and I think a little bit, of time in an hour—which is so it's one level down from תפארת.

As you go from תפארת into מלכות, that's one less, that is going to be 1,080, which is representative of time. Do with that what you will. I'm going to try to push push forward to paragraph ד, and if I have time, I'll make one comment, otherwise try to keep it to an hour at most, otherwise we'll comment next time. So, a little bit quickly. וצריך להכניע שפחה בישא שהיא עת רעה, we must subjugate the שפחה רעה, the handmaid, as it were, which is the wrongful expression of מלכות, which is an עת רעה. Again, עת representative of מלכות.

עת means time literally, but it's it's boundaries. A unit of time exists whether it is expressive of the the שפע that's coming down or whether it is misaligned. So the time that is an עת רעה, so to speak, is representative of מלכות of of מלכות דסטרא אחרא. ובבחינת בכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנים, at every time, during every unit of time, that should be expressive of an עת טוב, it should be expressive of a relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, of Torah u'mitzvot. ובכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנים, if time is מלכות, then every עת should be essentially בגדים לבנים, בכל עת דייקא.

בגדיך לבנים, היינו בלא רבב, that there should be no פגם in the clothing, there should be no פגם in the כלי. היינו בבחינת טהרת השכינה מנדתה, that there should be no stain in the clothing that causes a separation between משפיע and מקבל. ובבחינת דם נעכר ונעשה חלב, that the blood, as it were, is turns into milk. The Gemara says that while a woman is in the stage of nursing, then she she does not have דם נדה, and whatever it is that's produced by the body that would become the דם נדה, that actually converts, that becomes the milk.

I was going to make a comment later, but just make one idea that there's a difference between when you have, we've said before, A and B, and A triumphs over B, and there's a difference between when you are when you convert B into A. So over here, It's not so much that there's good and bad, and that a person is focusing on the good, and the bad is also a כח, it's also viable, it also has its own substance, but a person is גובר, he subjugates. No, if a person gets to the point where you convert, that everything is being utilized for a godly purpose, for the right thing, then actually it's not that there's milk and דם, it's that the דם converts into milk, like we said before, that there's no vacuum that's left over.

Everything, some things are, you know, expressive of more רוחניות, and some things more גשמיות, but everything is utilized as an expression of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. והרשעים בעונותיהם גרמו הפרדת שושנה, and the רשעים and through their עבירות, through their עונות, they cause the separation בין קודשא בריך הוא ושכינתיה, between the משפיע and the מקבל. כי גרמו לה דם נדה, they cause that there should be a stain in the clothing, in the מלכות, in the בגדים. ואז היא נקראת עיר דמים, and therefore the שכינה is called an עיר דמים instead of Yerushalayim, Ir David, the city of מלכות, it's called an עיר דמים.

ועל שם זה הרשעים נקראים אנשי דמים, that they are people that cause דם, they cause red, they cause this separation. כי שס״ה לא תעשה תלויים בשס״ה גידים. These 365 negative commandments are associated with the 365 sinews, ששם תהלוכת הדמים, that, okay, I don't know if it's the sinews scientifically how it works in terms of the arteries, but this is the pathway through which blood travels, in other words, through a violation of the negative commandments, so that it is what facilitates the דם. ולפי בחינת לא תעשה שעוברים, when they violate negative commandments, כן מעוררים דם נדה לשכינה, they are carrying the blood, as it were, toward to the שכינה.

כי כמה מיני דמים, because there are different kinds of דם associated with different kinds of aveirot and how we're talking about it. וכן צריך להמתיק, some girsaot have או ללבן, therefore one needs to sweeten or whiten, right? It's like we say בראתי יצר הרע בראתי תורה תבלין. When you bring המתקה, תבלין, it's not that you are getting rid of it, you're sweetening it. You take something and you use it for the purpose for which it's designed. So now, it'll bring a המתקת הדמים האלו, היינו לתקן הלבן שבגידים להמשיך להם לבנונית, בחינת דם נעכר ונעשה חלב.

So now, these pathways that could otherwise carry דם, it's not that we're going to ignore them, but actually we're going to draw whiteness, as it were, the דם, the red will be converted to white. וזהו בכל עת יהיו בגדיך לבנים. At all times one's clothing should be white. Over here, בגדיך is actually a reference to בגידיך, like all the גידים, what would otherwise carry the the דם, which would cause the separation between the שכינה and the מלכות. But no, the בגדים, or the בגידיך, will be carrying לבנונית, will be carrying white, so that even the דם is converted to white, the גידים are now utilized towards the purpose and the expression of הקדוש ברוך הוא. בגידיך דייקא להמשיך להם לבנונית, to be able to draw down the white. So, we'll stop over here, and we'll try to summarize at the beginning at the beginning of the next shiur. And Be'ezrat Hashem, we are we are now on our journey in Torah כ״ט.