LM 30.1 — Meishra d'Sakina, Part 1 of 5 · תורה ל׳

Be'ezrat Hashem, we are beginning Torah למ״ד, so a new Torah, but it is the next in our subset of Torahs which are addressing the discussions between Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya and the סבי דבי אתונא, the Athenian scholars, which are discussions that seem not to be based in reality, and yet as we go deep beneath the surface, we see that what's actually being discussed is the ideas that are the יסודי יסודות of Emunah, hashkafah, hadrachah, avodah. Rav Chaim Kramer brings in his note that this Torah was given during Shalosh Seudot of שבת חנוכה, 5567, or December 1806, in ברסלב, and because שבת חנוכה was one of the set times that the Rabbi would have his chasidim join him, often these these Torahs were longer than than some of the others.

I'm just going to read this in English, but we'll see how it unfolds. The main themes of this lesson are the upper and lower intellect, שכל עליון, שכל תחתון, we'll have to see what these are, a suitable teacher, disdain for the pursuit of money, the שלש רגלים, acts of chesed, accepting rebuke from tzadikim, and boldness versus brazenness, so we'll have to see what this is in the lashon of Rabbeinu. We will go through the מאמר חז״ל, the discussion, and then maybe we'll just briefly frame out or map out a drop where the Torah is going, it's one of the longer Torahs, and then we will begin with paragraph א.

So the Torah begins: מישרא דסכינא במאי קטלי לה? A garden of knives, how does one harvest it? And רש״י says: ערוגה סכינים, a patch of knives, במאי גוזזין וקוצצין אותה, with how does a person clip and prune it? רבי יהושע בן חנניה responds: בקרנא דחמרא, with the horn of a donkey, okay? ומי איכא קרנא לחמרא? So the Athenian scholars say: Does a donkey have a horn? So רבי יהושע says: ומישרא דסכינא מי הוה? Is there any such thing as a garden of knives? It's one discussion. The second question: אייתו ליה תרי ביעי, they brought to him two eggs.

אמרו ליה, they said to him: הי זוגא דחיוורתא והי זוגא דאוכמתא? Which one is from a white pair of birds, and which one is from a black pair? אייתי אינהו תרי גביני, he brought back two cheeses. אמר להו, he said: הי דעיזא חיוורתא והי דעיזא אוכמתא? Which is from a white goat, and which one is from a black goat? Which also is otherwise cheese is indistinguishable. מישרא דסכינא במאי קטלי לה, and now we go into the Torah. Before we begin, because this is one of the longer Torahs and it's going to take some time to unpack and to build its tzurah, I'm going to use one of Rav Chaim Kramer's summary notes, which at a very high level, just to build out an overall map, and then we'll have to we'll have to understand these ideas on their own, so that we can know where we are on the journey as we dig into the as we dig into the Torah, which will take several shiurim.

So Rabbi Chaim Kramer says: Perceptions of Godliness, השגות אלוקות, must be contracted, there have to be צמצומים רבים, we'll see, in order for them to be grasped. Stated very simply, if in order to convey an idea to a person, in order for me to learn something that I didn't know before, so I am learning something new, but I need a כלי קיבול, I need to be able to understand. If you're going to tell me some information that I have no relationship with, then either I won't understand it at all, or there will be a distortion.

Therefore, in order for הקדוש ברוך הוא to give us השגת אלוקות in a way that we can integrate it, grow from it, and have a relationship with it, there has to be צמצומים רבים, which is miraculous in and of itself, the idea of being able to take something that's much removed from us and to we'll use the term distill it in a form that preserves the principle of what הקדוש ברוך הוא is trying to convey to us, and yet gives it in some sort of הלבשה, some sort of a way so that we can receive it.

Paragraph 2: This necessitates a very, very great teacher who is able to explain and transmit the perceptions of Godliness to those who have faith in him, emunah. So we're going to address emunah separately, but broadly speaking, if you have two people, one is brilliant because he understands the information, but he might be a very great scholar, but in order to be a very great teacher, the person has to not only understand the information on its own terms, he has to truly understand what's עיקר, what's טפל, what's cause, what's effect, not only to be able to repeat it, but to understand the depth of it from inside out, and in order to be able not only to speak to somebody at the, you know, the top of the ladder where he is, but to be able to convey accurately to somebody at the beginning of a ladder in a way that they will now, not just dumb it down, but in a way that they will be able to continue to move on to the next step, and he also has to understand where this person who is much more junior than he is, is actually holding.

He has to, you know, empathize, see it from their point of view, understand how it will be received in a in a way to in a way to convey it. So the person who understands understands Godliness himself is very great. The person that can convey it, that can be a Rebbe, is infinitely greater, and therefore a person needs a very, very great teacher to be able to understand these things. Paragraph number three, he does this by drawing the upper intellect, the שכל עליון, through channels, the Torah and mitzvot, so as to enclothe it in the lower intellect.

So, I think simply speaking we could say that there is רצון השם that הקדוש ברוך הוא wants to to convey to us, to give us a relationship with so that we can come to know him. However it works exactly, רצון השם is enclothed within, it's encapsulated by הלכות חושן משפט, by שור שנגח את הפרה, by shaking a lulav. Now, the lulav is a physical thing, we have tefillin. Tefillin are in a physical a physical thing, tefillin are made from the from the hide of a cow, whatever the the הלכות are. Therefore, the Torah and the mitzvot are going to be our relationship with רצון השם where they take on a a form so to speak.

We've addressed earlier a Zohar, I think פרשת בהעלותך talks about the way that people relate to the stories in Torah. Whatever whatever it is that we see is really the tip of the iceberg, but it's the presentation and the access point within the physical world, within something that we can have so that we can attach ourself to רצון השם through the Torah and the mitzvot. And number four, a person cannot attain lower intellect unless he despises monetary gain. So, this system presupposes that there is שכל עליון, there is a medium, the Torah and mitzvot, that we are going to attach ourself to, and this will and and we will have a שכל תחתון so that now we can begin to we can begin to have a bridge towards רצון השם.

However, that requires a certain level of humility. If a person is going to grow to to understand, to attach themselves to ideas that they don't have yet, that does require humility because I have to I have to acknowledge that I have trust in you, I have trust in the process, and there there are things that I simply I I simply don't know yet. If I try to just take it and then stuff it into a box of something that I relate to, I have some sort of a preexisting bias, so then I'm just going to distort it, I'm going to take it and I'm going to apply my own limitations.

And therefore, he seems to be saying that that that monetary gain, the תאוה for money specifically, is something that will have a bias where it would disqualify somebody from being able to attach themselves to שכל עליון. With this we will begin paragraph א, we will try to keep the flow and double-click on a couple of ideas afterwards, every word is incredibly rich. השגות אלקות, understandings or to be masig is really to grasp, אלקות אי אפשר להשיג. So, for now if we translate Elokus as Godliness and to be masig is to grasp, that means that you are taking something that is kivayachol definitionally ungraspable, it's ein sofiyus, and you are masig, which means that quite literally you wrap your mind around it or you grab it, you wrap your hand around it, you're making it subject to the to the boundaries of your understanding.

So, by definition, whatever your understanding seems to be no longer Elokus, right? If you grab off a hundred units of infinity, so now you're holding onto a hundred units, there's not there's no infinite properties about it. כי אם על ידי צמצומים רבים, other than through a system, whatever this means, of tzimtzumim and many tzimtzumim, filtrations, distillations, again not clear at this point, מעילה לעלול. From ilah and alul is usually cause and effect, but we can translate it as a process. So, there will be a system of עילה לעלול, of transactions which seem to work together with tzimtzumim rabim in order to be able to give access to understanding Elokus.

Now, just to highlight one other problem that what what would be the purpose of עילה לעלול if you're going from infinite into finite, into bli gvul, without boundary, into boundary, so then you're already crossing an infinite gap at that point. Once something is subject to limitation, there's really no difference between infinity minus one and infinity minus a million. So, if Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to give a bridge into some sort of understanding of Elokus, then what is the maalah, what is the benefit of creating a process as well? But this process will be משכל עליון, from some sort of understanding that is beyond us, לשכל תחתון, to something that is within our understanding.

We'll come back to this idea. כמו שאנו רואים בחוש, but suffice it to say that whenever we need to translate something that is in a שכל עליונ'דיק, that is beyond the understanding of the of the student, of the subject, שאי אפשר להשיג שכל גדול כי אם על ידי התלבשות, we have to create some sort of an enclothing if you will, some sort of a mashal, some sort of a medium with which to understand the idea within in שכל תחתון. Kemo, similar, המלמד, a teacher, כאשר רוצה להסביר שכל גדול לתלמיד, if he wants to explain something to his student, הוא צריך להלביש אותו בשכל תחתון וקטן, he needs to be malbish it into something that is katan or tachton.

And what it means is something that is if something is gadol, that means that it is bigger, it surrounds whatever is smaller than it. If something is שכל קטן, then that means that it is within the grasp of whatever is bigger than it. So שכל תחתון וקטן is something that is within the תלמיד's realm of understanding, כדי שיוכל התלמיד להבינו, so that the student can understand it. That's one idea. Okay. Dehaynu, and then he furthers, שהוא מציע לו מתחילה הקדמות ושכליות קטנים שמסבב לה תחילה. The the teacher will create hakdamot, introductions, and שכליות קטנים, and smaller ideas that can be grasped that surround whatever it is he's trying to convey, כדי להבינו על ידי זה המכוון, in order to make understood the object of what he's trying to convey, שהוא שכל עליון גדול, which is really bigger.

So I think that we really said two two ideas, again we'll see how it develops, we're learning this together. One idea is in general is I want to tell you something that you can understand, but in terms that you can understand it. So let's say, for argument's sake, I want to say that a person actually gets stronger through struggle. I might think that if I'm just going extremely fast with the wind behind my back, I'm going to get the farthest when things are going my way, and I say, no, actually you go grow through struggle, through resistance.

How does that work? So maybe I can use a sports analogy, an exercise analogy, and show that really a person develops strength through resistance. The principle is true, and I'm putting it in terms that are accessible. Then he actually takes a step further, and he says that what you're conveying, the idea that you're conveying is not actually even what you're giving over, because the the sechel itself is עליון, it's beyond you. So what do I do? I create different introductions, different smaller points, I guess you could say, of leverage that surround the idea, and then the idea which on its own I couldn't convey will emerge.

So let's say I wanted to explain the idea of happiness or fun, or let's say let's say leisure, something which is not really a physical thing, it's nothing that I can really point to, it's an idea, it's emotional, it's a state of mind. How would I explain relaxation, leisure? I might say, let's say a person goes to read a good book, sit on a couch, go to a music concert, eat good food, the ping-pong table, billiards table, whatever it is that you're into. The idea is larger than any particular one of those examples, but if I paint a picture and I create enough of a צד השוה, then an idea is going to start to emerge, and you'll be able to understand something that its own was not within within what I would be able to explain.

So now, taking a step back just to some of the problems that we highlighted, first of all, we said השגת אלוקות. If אלוקות is godliness, how can one grasp the ungraspable? So it's just interesting to highlight, one of the notes over here speaks also that אלוקות is מלכות. There's different names of Hashem that we use for different things. When we talk about י-ק-ו-ק, that is a name that of הקדוש ברוך הוא that we relate in a way that's אינסופיות, that's כביכול encompassing, it's more towards the עצמות of Hashem. When we're relating to אלוקות, we're relating actually to the idea of the גילוי of הקדוש ברוך הוא in this world.

So למשל, if a person, let's say, had a רצון, he had a desire for something, in the language of the ספירות that might align with כתר. That desire would translate into an idea of חכמה. In order to flesh out that idea, there would be an analytical process, that would be בינה. And then there would be an execution until you got to the final result. Now, each one of those things exists at a different altitude. The idea of a desire does not relate directly to an idea or to a physical action, and yet if the process has integrity, the the מלכות, the עשיה, the result of that entire process should accurately reflect what the רצון was at the beginning of the process.

So, on one hand, we could say that a desire, a will for something is ungraspable, it's an idea, and on the other hand, something that was performed, an עשיה, something that's a physical action is something that you can relate to. So the first thing that we'll say is אלוקות is actually relating to גילוי, it's relating to מלכות, and therefore, that is something that will be in this world that we would be able to relate to. But another point that I wanted to say is, so השגת אלוקות, understanding Hashem, what is it that we are trying to accomplish?

So I'm just going to quote a couple of ideas from Likutei Halachos, at least to begin the conversation. Likutei Halachos, in our תורה, הלכות השכמת הבוקר, he says, שיזכה לבחינת השגת אלוקות, להכיר אותו יתברך, to come to recognize הקדוש ברוך הוא, אשר לכך נוצרנו, this is what we are created created for, כי כל אדם מוכרח שיבוא לזה. Everybody, if this is what we're created for, then it's מוכרח, it's essential that we come towards this, כי רק בשביל זה בא לעולם, וכל העולמות נבראו רק בשביל זה בגין דישתמודעון ליה. And everything that was created, all of the עולמות and so on, are created so that we should come to know Hashem.

Another piece from Likutei Halachos: השגת אלוקות אי אפשר להשיג כי אם על ידי צמצומים רבים מעילה לעלול ומשכל עליון לשכל תחתון, so that's coming directly from our תורה, כי לית מחשבה תפיסא ביה כלל, ועל כן העיקר הוא האמונה. So, on one hand, we just read that the entire point of the בריאה is to come to understand הקדוש ברוך הוא. Now we say that that it's impossible to come to know הקדוש ברוך הוא, and therefore the עיקר is אמונה, וכל ההשגות וכל הצמצומים כולם הם בחינת אמונה. Everything that we come to know is really a bechinah of emunah, which sometimes we might think is outside of the realm of understanding, it's just sort of giving over the reins, שהיא יסוד כל התורה כולה.

And then Rav Nosson goes on to explain in in Yoreh Deah in Hilchos Giluch, he says, כי האמונה היא ההתחלה והפתח והשער להיכנס בעבודת השם ובהשגת אלוקות. Emunah is our entry point to avodah and and to understanding אלוקות, והיא הסוף והתכלית של כל הידיעות וההשגות. And in fact, this is the object. So emunah is our entrance way to any point of understanding, and all of the understanding is to lead us back to אמונה, בבחינת תכלית הידיעה אשר לא נדע, זהו בחינת אמונה, that the object of our yedi'ah is to understand that we don't understand. In that case, perhaps we could say why not just dispense with the understanding, just have emunah?

So what we see over here though is השגת אלוקות, number one, the entire reason that we're created is to come to know Hakadosh Baruch Hu, which is essentially a function of emunah, and it's to lead us towards emunah, and the idea of understanding is to understand אשר לא ידע that we don't understand things. It's obviously extremely difficult to to not think that we're that we're speaking in circles. So I'd like to give a couple of examples that we've actually discussed before, but hopefully these are things that are in our toolbox and they will help us understand the material that we're discussing now, as well as other ideas that come up.

First of all, with regard to emunah, as much as a person is giving over the reins, we shouldn't think about it as a total abandonment of da'at, it's a it's a suspension of understanding, but really in the appropriate way. I like to use the example of doctors in the medical field, because this is where a person, מעשה בכל יום, will encounter life decisions, life-and-death decisions, that they are not equipped to make and they're going to be trusting another person. So let's say somebody has to make an important decision, life-and-death, again whether to engage in treatment, an operation, take a particular medication, and they literally flip a coin.

I think that most of us would would would understand that that's not a valid a valid avenue for emunah, that's really just tipshut. So what does a person do? So if a person just has no kelim to make the decision, then they would trust somebody who they believe to have the kelim to make that decision, that would be, perhaps we could say, in the realm of emunat chachamim, but they would they would use the tools that they have to understand who can make the decision. But how is this decision going to be made? A person is going to understand a particular doctor's education, their skills, their experience, their specialty, perhaps their track record, maybe if there is a personal relationship, experiences that they've had in the past where this person has helped them out, expressed that they have their best interests at heart, and they're going to understand all of the tools that they need that are within their realm in order to make the decision of whether or not to trust this person.

If they come to the extent where they can now give over the reins, that is actually perfectly rational. If at that point they go over to the doctor who is, you know, 50 years more senior than them, has all of the tools to make this this decision, and that doctor says, "Well, there's an emergency, you need to take this pill, you need to take this treatment," and the person stops and says, "Well, I don't understand why," that would be someplace between stupidity and reeking of arrogance, right? I am in no position to make this decision.

The most rational, appropriate thing for me to do is use the tools at my disposal to understand at what point I have to cross that gap with emunah to be able to give over those reins. So what this means, as it were, is if you take, for argument's sake, a 10-year-old that has to decide, you know, which camp nurse or whatever it is to go to, and on the other end of the spectrum, you take somebody who is working in a particular specialty, and they have an extreme amount of education and experience, and something comes up that really only comes up, you know, like once or twice a year, one in a billion around the country, and they're not sure how to handle it, and they do the research to understand who is the individual who they would be able to rely on, the nature of understanding of coming to that point of emunah and the nature of the emunah that they have is going to be extremely different.

They're both giving over the reins to that decision-making, that decision-making point, but yet their point of departure and the nature of of the decision to give over those reins is fundamentally different. You're dealing with a different level of emunah, so emunah itself now is an avodah. For the world's expert to give over the reins at the initial threshold of the decision point the same way a ten-year-old would, just to say, you know, this person is, you know, working in the camp and they seem to be okay, let me put my trust in them, that actually would not be an exercise of emunah, that would be an exercise in tipshut.

So, so really, our emunah is a function of da'at. It's really that line where da'at dictates that it's the time to hand over the reins. So it's not a blind faith leap, it's a a calculated jump if you will. Where is that line of emunah? תכלית הידיעה אשר לא ידע. The line of da'at is not only what you know, it's where what you know stops, meaning if you draw a circle on a piece of paper, one thing it does is it defines what's in the circle, but the other thing that it does is it actually defines what's outside the circle.

For a person on a lower level, so then their einsofiyut if you will, their אשר לא ידע is going to be at one level. For a person who understands a lot more, so then their תכלית הידיעה אשר לא ידע, that point where what they understand ends, and them appreciating what it is that they don't understand and which avenue to engage emunah is going to be exponentially higher. The the tachlit or the end, the goal of where emunah is, is אשר לא ידע to push up against that ceiling and then use emunah to break through that ceiling towards towards the אינסופיות.

This is, by the way, one idea that we had touched on of how to look at עילה ועלול, the idea that there's a system not only that Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates a world within which we can exist, but that this process is a a אינסופיות amount of transactions where we continuously have the opportunity to understand ourselves, our limits, our boundaries, and continuously break past, continually have התבטלות, so that no matter where we are, we are always going to be reaching to a point where we could be מבטל ourselves to the אינסופיות, we could break a boundary, we could build that emunah muscle, because every single time that we hit up to that place where אשר לא ידע, that is where the תכלית הידיעה is that it applies, that it is channeled into emunah, and towards towards the Ribono Shel Olam.

And this this this avodah exists indefinitely, like we we spoke about I think in Torah כ״ד maybe, that it's it's chasing the horizon. We're constantly reaching out and past where we are and and attaining new השגה and new השגות אלקות, because at every level, we're entering into the אינסופיות from where we previously were. And just to finish the point, and to the extent that we now expand our circle, we create a larger כלי, so now once we have a larger כלי, then there's room for more גילויים. Like we said, we bring additional השגות אלקות into the world, because now it has a we create a new avenue for expression where we can relate to to these ideas that we now bring into our world.

Paragraph paragraph ב׳. וצריך כל אחד לבקש מאד מלמד הגון כזה. So a person has to seek very much through tefillah, through hishtadlut, in other words, that it is an avodah now to work towards השגות אלקות, and if part of this is going to be finding the right rebbe, the right teacher, the right conduit for us to relate to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so then that is part of our avodah, finding the right the right teacher, a מלמד הגון כזה, a person who is appropriate, right? Not every teacher, even, you know, a bigger talmid chacham or smaller talmid chacham, is going to be appropriate for every talmid.

So it's not a linear process. We have to find the right teacher for us, שיוכל, that who is able, להסביר ולהבין, we said that havanah, understanding, understanding the depth of something, so much so, but to the point that he's able to explain it and in a way that the recipient can understand. So להסביר ולהבינו שכל עליון וגדול כזה, the שכל that's all the way past whatever I can perceive, it's שכל עליון certainly as compared to where I am, because it's אינסופיות, it's past my the limitations of my circle, דהיינו השגת אלקות, כי צריך לזה רבי גדול מאד מאד, a double מאד, somebody who is they themselves are holding at the at the heights where they can understand this השגת אלקות, and they have the ability to bring it all the way down, which is which is a גדלות in and of itself, like we explained all the way at the beginning of the shiur.

שיוכל להסביר שכל גדול כזה על ידי שכל התחתון כנ״ל. He's able to understand, and over here, he's focusing on the idea of explaining this שכל גדול through the שכל תחתון, understanding the right משלים, understanding how to convey it, the right התלבשות, where he'll be able to package it up in a way that can be conveyed without sacrificing the truth and the integrity of the principle כדי שיוכלו הקטנים להבינו, and in a way that the קטנים, and any particular קטנים, different people are going to have different ways of of learning methodology, sensitivities, whatever it is from the part of the student.

וכל מה שהוא קטן ביותר, the smaller, as it were, somebody's circle is, right? The further the the further distant he is, ומרוחק ביותר, he's more distant, so to speak, from the אין סופיות, and he's more קטן, he's going to need a different presentation to bring it within his realm of understanding. So the more קטן and מרוחק he is מהשם יתברך, הוא צריך רבי גדול ביותר, he needs somebody even greater. Now, this is actually a chiddush, we're going to speak about it soon. Why? I would think, listen, if I don't know alef bet, I don't need the biggest Rebbe in the world, all I need is somebody who is plus one away from me.

The truth is the opposite. The farther away that you are, then the bigger of a Rebbe potentially that you need. Why? Because the more distant I am, the more of a danger there is and the more difficult it is to truly get to the depth of any of these אין סופיותדיק ideas and understand where I'm holding, and package it up, and convey it in a way that's going to bring me along, understand what I need to climb that ladder. כמו שמצינו בעת שהיו ישראל במדריגה קטנה מאד, כלל ישראל, when were they at the farthest down מדריגה?

דהיינו במצרים, the 49th level of טומאה, שהיו משוקעים במ״ט שערי טומאה, היו צריכים רבי גדול ומלמד גדול ונורא מאד, דהיינו משה רבינו עליו השלום. The greatest leader that we ever had was in order to bring us up from the farthest distance we ever were. כי כל מה שהוא קטן ומרוחק ביותר, צריך מלמד גדול ביותר. The more קטן and the further we are from אין סופיות, we need a greater, again, not necessarily a greater צדיק, a greater תלמיד חכם, but a greater מלמד, a greater teacher. That on its own is its own גדלות, שהוא אומן כזה, it's an אומנות, it's a profession, so to speak.

שיוכל להלביש שכל עליון כזה, the one who is able to provide the appropriate הלבשה of this שכל עליון, דהיינו השגת השם יתברך שמו, which is a השגה of הקדוש ברוך הוא, השגה אלוקות, an השגה of אין סופיות כלפי where I am, לקטן ומרוחק כמוהו, כי כל מה שהחולה נחלה ביותר, if we think in medical terms, again, the person who is the sickest, צריך רופא גדול ביותר, is the one who's going to need the greatest doctor. I want to just give a couple lines of Likkutei Halachot, which I found unbelievable, but first let me just finish the paragraph.

על כן אין לאדם לומר: די לי אם אהיה מקורב אצל איש נכבד וירא השם אף שאינו מופלג במעלה. I can use as a teacher anybody who's past where I'm holding. He is a he's ירא שמים, he's not necessarily at the highest realm, but neither am I. Why should I deserve a high רבי? Let me just take upon myself anybody. כי הלוואי שאהיה מקוים כמוהו, הלוואי that I should be like him. אל יאמר כן, כי אדרבא, כפי מה שיודע אינש בנפשיה, and as much as a person really be'etzem knows himself best, גודל פחיתותו וגודל ריחוקו, his lowliness and how distant he is from the אין סופיות, from where he from where he can be, from really he wants to be, שנתרחק מאד מהשם יתברך, he's extremely far, כל אחד ואחד כפי מה שיודע בנפשו, each as far as he is and each in his own way.

Now, not to put off איזהו חכם הלומד מכל אדם, a person's קנה לך חבר, we're able to learn from many people and in many different ways. But the idea that a person should sell himself short because he's not that great anyway is actually the opposite. We've had a few תורות already, maybe Torah ו', a few תורות where we've discussed the greatest Kiddush Hashem, the greatest אור goes into the is when there's אור in the depth of the darkness. We've spoken about in the context of Yisro, of גרים, right? The greatest Kiddush Hashem is when something is able to reach into the the depth of the darkness.

That's one of the ideas, by the way, in עקבתא דמשיחא, now that we're all the way at the end of the tunnel, be'ezrat Hashem, we're getting close to the final geulah, that as much as we feel that we're so far away, this is actually the opportunity to bring light into the world in the most profound way. All the way at the the the greatest strength and the greatest light is expressed because it goes to the darkest of places. וכמו כן, כל מה שיודע בעצמו שהוא מרוחק ביותר, as much as a person knows he's very far, צריך לבקש לנפשו, he has to seek for himself, and not just for himself like לנפשו, but I think it's for himself in his own particular way.

We each all have our different flavor of distance, our flavor of darkness, our own challenge, our opportunities for growth, רופא גדול מאד מאד, again, somebody who is at the highest heights and he's able to have that אומנות, to be a מלמד, to bring it to the to the deepest depths, הגדול במעלה ביותר, דהיינו שיעתיר ויבקש תמיד לזכות להתקרב, that we should be zocheh, and we should be able to come close לרבי גדול מאד מאד כנ״ל. Perhaps this is, you know, especially in in the world that we're living in where we do have so many challenges, perhaps this is one of the benefits that the Ribbono Shel Olam gave us about, one of the positives about technology, that we have access to to so many different Rebbeim, so many different people to be able to present things in a way that everyone can find their own resonance.

Again, it's not always easy necessarily to get close to people, but there's, you know, email, text, you know, different ways where every single person has the opportunity if they're looking for it to find somebody that speaks to them. כי כל מה שהוא קטן ביותר צריך מלמד גדול ביותר כנ״ל, the further distant it is, the more a person needs a great Rebbe, a great רופא. I'm just going to quote a couple lines, a little bit out of context, but from Likutey Halachot Tefillin ה ט, says כי אף על פי שנדמה לו שמירידה כזאת, a person might think that they're holding in such a low place, אי אפשר לעלות חס ושלום, it's impossible to climb up from there.

אף על פי כן מי יודע גדולת חסדי השם כי יש חסד כזה אצלו יתברך שגם משם יכולין לעלות. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not just the biggest בעל חסד, right? People have a lot of chesed, they have a lot of rachamim, and Hashem has more. That would just be that you're limited in your chesed, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is limited in His chesed chas veshalom. It's just that He has greater, you know, higher limitations than anything else in the world, chas veshalom. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's chesed is unlimited. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's רחמים is is unlimited, it's אין סופיות.

The same way that there's no limit going upwards so to speak to where Hakadosh Baruch Hu's חסד and רחמים could be could be grasped and attained and reached, there's no end in the lowest point where Hakadosh Baruch Hu's חסד and רחמים can reach. Right? I mean this is a profound point, which I heard Rav Shimshon Pinkus זכר צדיק וקדוש לברכה talking about this. So what this means is that to the extent that we can be infinitely distant from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we are infinitely close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Hashem is all-encompassing. We are always only ever one step away from the אין סופיות, which is only breaking past the ceiling wherever it is that we find ourselves.

Who is the one who realizes this? Who is the one who realizes that no matter how far away we are from Hashem, we're very, very close? The one who has the השגת אלוקות, the one who realizes that Hakadosh Baruch Hu can be found anywhere, that there's that there's nothing removed from Hashem in the direction upwards, is the same is the same one, the same רבי who's going to be able to understand that we're infinitely close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu also also downwards. So now we're going to begin paragraph ג, now that we've explained the idea that wherever a person is holding, we have our limitations and therefore there's going to be things that seem to be אין סופיות, which we're defining as outside of my boundaries.

There might be things that I think are a so to speak, an infinite נפילה, which is down past where I think can anymore be attached to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but now that we see that a רבי גדול he is able to understand שכל עליון all the way past my limitations and bring it all the way down past limitations in the other way and help connect the שכל עליון and שכל תחתון and be the appropriate teacher, we're now going to explain the סוד of שערות, hairs, which will be the הלבשה of the חכמה עילאה and the חכמה תתאה.

Now for those who are familiar with some of the other ספרים that discuss kabbalistic ענינים, there's a tremendous amount of implications from the שערות. We're going to try to speak about it relatively high level as relates to the ideas that we're talking about in this Torah. וזה בחינת שערות, שהארת המוחין יוצאין בשערות. This idea of hairs, there's a discussion in the notes over here of which hairs, from the פאות, from the beard, but this this idea of hairs that are the הארת המוחין which are יוצאין בשערות, there is the מוחין himself, and then there is the הארה, there is the עצמיות of a particular אור, and then there's what emanates, similar to the sun.

You have the ball of the sun itself, and as the light leaves the sun, that becomes the rays that is emanating from the source and then goes it's delivered to whatever is going to be מקבל it. So in this system where you have the מוחין, you have the חכמה, and now that shefa is going to be delivered through the system all the way down through the מלכות. כן השכל העליון שהוא השגת אלוקות הוא מתלבש בשכל תחתון. This is also representative of the שכל עליון all the way at the top of the מוחין that's going to be delivered through the channels through the הלבשה all the way down to the שכל תחתון.

Now, as we go into the next paragraph, it's just just to note that the Zohar lines up the discussion with Yisro speaking to Moshe about the characteristics of who to choose as judges. The pasuk says, ואתה תחזה מכל העם אנשי חיל יראי אלוקים אנשי אמת ושונאי בצע. Different character traits. We're going to be focused on שונאי בצע, which the four character traits the Zohar lines up as representing different ways of how Hakadosh Baruch Hu relates to us through the ספירות, so respectively it would be חכמה, בינה, and then זעיר אנפין, which is חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד, and then מלכות.

So, שונאי בצע would reflect מלכות. The Zohar also says that these are represented by different colors and textures of hair. Again, we're going to reflect on מלכות, which is going to be black, curly hair, as it were, or hair that goes around, and and lines up with מלכות. Just parenthetically, there is an idea of מבשרי אחזה אלוקה. We said We had said before that the shefa, the relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, exists at various various altitudes, if you will, so you could say almost like a parallel universe. We had talked about if there's a will, there's a רצון, and then there's a חכמה, all the way down to the physical act, all of those things in a system that has integrity will line up and match up to one another.

But the world in which physical action exists is at a different idea than the world of ideas that exist. So, everything will parallel itself. And therefore, when we talk about shefa and spiritual matters and how Hakadosh Baruch Hu relates to the world, we might not understand how it all lines up, but it will represent itself by different things in this world. And in this case, it's going to to to speak to different different character traits, even or physical character traits, even insofar as hair is concerned. You know, this perhaps, I don't know anything about it, is how people can, let's say, I don't know, read palms or faces, things like that.

They are aware of this, you know, so to speak, spiritual scientific study that would be able to line up things in the spiritual world and the way that they represent themselves in the physical world. So, for our purposes, זה בחינת שערה בעיגולא. This is the idea of almost like spirals, we could say like curly hair, the idea of hair going around, בחינת סיבובים, the idea of making circles, of surrounding. דהיינו ההקדמות המסבבין עד שיבואו אל המכוון כנ״ל. This is the idea when there's something in the מוחין, there's an idea, and we had said, for various reasons, the ideas cannot be conveyed directly to the recipient.

Perhaps it's to discuss an emotion or a color, right? If a person doesn't have the כלים directly to understand what does the word "happy" mean or I think the example that we had used was "leisure", right, what would you do? You would sort of dance around the topic until what you were trying to convey emerged. Other reasons, by the way, why you might not be able to convey information, with the the Chumash or Rashi already talks about by Yaakov Avinu when they were coming to say that that Yosef was alive, maybe there would be a shock, right, so the information was beyond what a person could handle.

There's various reasons why something would not be able to be conveyed directly. And what would you do? You would have מסבבין, you would sort of dance around the topic until until you were able to achieve the purpose. והעיקר הוא המכוון. Really, what you're trying to convey is the thing that is specifically with intent. However, the mode that you're going to have to take is to do this through מסבבין, through things that are surrounding it. כמו שמצינו בדברי רבותינו זכרונם לברכה, there's a Gemara in יבמות, שסיבבו בהלכות עד שהגיעו לצרת הבת. There's a There's a Gemara over there where רבי רבי דוסא בן הרכינס, it seems that the חכמים thought that he pasak'd'd like בית שמאי and they wanted to confront him to see what his pesak was in a particular הלכה that has to do with צרת הבת.

In the In the Gemara in יבמות, it it's dealing with the the co-wife of a daughter, but suffice it to say, they did not want to present him directly and asked him what his pesak was in in this in this area. And therefore, they entered into the conversation with through מסבבין, through sort of surrounding the topic in order to ultimately achieve what they actually wanted to ask him, עד שהגיעו לצרת הבת, until they got to the topic of צרת הבת. נמצא שכל ההלכות שדיברו מקודם לא היו עיקר המכוון. They were discussing other things, but those were really geared towards achieving what they actually wanted to discuss with him.

רק שהיו סיבובים והקדמות כדי להגיע לצרת הבת, שהוא המכוון. But what they were asking was not really the primary intent and the focus of their conversation. It was ultimately to It was ultimately to bring them to what they wanted to discuss. Now, he brings over here that you know, every every example even that Rabbeinu gives is directly on point. צרת הבת could also be described The בת, the daughter, but the the בת could also be a reference to the שכינה. צר means narrow. So, if צר is like to narrow, צמצומים like the שערות, the idea of צרת הבת would be able to narrow things from above to create a channel from above until you're able to get to the שכינה, to מלכות.

So, every example is literally representative and enclothes, it's הלבשה of what it is that we're discussing. וזה בחינת שערה אוכמא. אוכמא is black. But again, we lined up מלכות with the black curly hairs. So, this is what the תיקוני זהר aligns with black hair. This represents the שכינה or מלכות. בחינת שחורה אני, that I am black. This is the lower level, the lower שכל, the מלכות. ונאוה, but it's beautiful. It encompasses or reflects back on the שכל עליון. נאוה is is is beautiful, expansive. כי השחרות, blackness, הוא מקבץ את הראות ומצמצמו כדי לראות היטב, the black of the eye.

A person could look at a a large mountain, right, or whatever it is that they are that they're looking at, and really how big is the eye? Some number of millimeters, and yet in order to convey the idea to the person and to the brain, the eye, the small blackness of the eye, is able to be מצמצם something that's that's that's that much greater and to bring it in and put it into a context to convey to the person what's going on outside of them. כי השכל התחתון הוא בחינת שחרות, the שכל תחתון is in the vein of the blackness, like the בת עין, שמצמצם בו נאוה ויופי שבשכל עליון, that it's able to take in and distill the שכל עליון.

Something again, if a person is looking at at a an an unbelievable view or, like we said, a mountain or at the stars, these things are just exponentially profoundly greater than exists in anybody's particular world. And really, how are we taking it in? Through the blackness of our eye, that's a few millimeters, but yet it's being conveyed, we're able to understand what's outside of us. So it's distilling it in such a way that we can understand on our own terms what's there. ואלו השערות, these black hairs that represent the שכינה, הן בחינת שיעורא דאצבען אורייתא.

The word שער and שיעור, same letters. Shiurim is with measure, within exact dimensions. So this idea of Malchut, something that's able to enclose something that's just unbelievably greater than it, is the same is the same bechinah of the black letters of the Torah, which are explaining to us the מצות, כי המצות הם חכמתו של הבורא יתברך. The mitzvot, the letters of the Torah encompass ratzon Hashem, we said, and the mitzvot, the mitzvot ma'asiyot, ultimately are the chochmah of השם יתברך, כי כל מצוה ומצוה יש לה שיעורים אחרים וגבולים. Every mitzvah has very particular parameters of that mitzvah.

Now there is a, I'm just going to mention an idea that I that I've heard, the the the, I'm suggesting, again, I guess there's room for discussion, there's a certain ma'alah of of mitzvot ma'asiyot as we relate to them, even in a certain sense over the idea of learning Torah. Now תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם and there's ma'alot of Torah over over mitzvot ma'asiyot, but if let's say I want to explain to you an idea, at the end of the day, you will relate to that idea as much by by the own limitations of your understanding.

So as as much as you can hear my words, you will only receive them within your particular limitations. But let's say I tell you, "Can you get me a glass of water?" Now, I might have, you know, any number of reasons in my understanding of why I would like you to get me a glass of water, and you I might be speaking to a kid, whatever it is, but however my ideas boil down into this particular action, when you go and execute on that action, you have brought a shleimut to my process with no gap in there.

I mean, even you could say that in terms of my brain just transmitting the information to my arm, it's it's seamless. So my ratzon is actually 100% fulfilled according to what I wanted to happen. So when a when a person does mitzvot ma'asiyot, to the extent that Hakadosh Baruch Hu the ratzon Hashem is enclosed in a particular action, when we now, the same way that the brain is seamlessly communicating to the arm and when the arm goes and does what the brain wanted to do, it's one seamless process in line with my ratzon, when we do mitzvot ma'asiyot and we do it l'shem shamayim, l'shem yichud Kudsha Brich Hu, whatever kavanot or intent that I don't even understand, I am literally enclosing, I am attaching myself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu actually in a seamless, all-encompassing way that is not limited by my intent.

Now, the more that I understand, the more that I will also be able to change as a person, the more that I will expand my chochmah and so on, but the mitzvot ma'asiyot literally make me almost as if an extension of ratzon Hashem. But I might not understand exactly, it's an avodah to understand how the mitzvot ma'asiyot are are performed and so on, but that presumes that I'm doing it according to the actual shiurim of the Torah, the actual shiurim that the mitzvot ma'asiyot take on, otherwise, it's outside the boundaries of ratzon Hashem, I'm just doing the way that I want to do it.

So there has to be a certain hitbatlut there. כגון, מפני מה מצוה זו מצותה בכך? Why is a particular מצוה performed a certain way? מפני שכן חייבה חכמתו יתברך שמו, because this is what the שכל עליון ultimately dictated. וכן מצוה אחרת מצותה בכך לפי שחכמתו יתברך שמו חייב. וכל מצוה ומצוה יש לה אותיות ותיבות וענינים שהם שיעורים וגבולים. And every mitzvah has particular parameters. Relating to these particular parameters could also exist in terms of understanding, incorporating, and subscribing to those halachot. So maybe perhaps we could say that this is, you know, one idea of ונשלמה פרים שפתינו, that they're mitzvot mitzvot that let's say we have no ability to perform, and yet when we when we subscribe to those halachot, we learn those halachot, and we we learn those as נצחיות, and we say this is embodying רצון השם, one aspect of relating to that is within the parameters and understanding the limitations and the צורה of that mitzvah in the Torah through the letters, שמצמצם בהם חכמתו יתברך שמו, that the רצון of Hashem is represented in this צורה, in this structure, within these parameters and boundaries, שזה בחינת התלבשות השכל עליון, that this is a בחינה of enclothing the שכל עליון inside of שכל תחתון, inside of the mitzvah.

So there's you know, it's interesting over here. That means that there's sort of a dance between נצחיות and between something that has has defined parameters. I might say, just going back to my example, that there's an infinite amounts of depth and understanding and different types of כוונות that are inherent in my desire for a glass of water, and yet it translates into a defined action. So when you say that that your רצון is my רצון, and whatever you want, for whatever reason that you want, I am willing to adopt that, and if you want me to get the glass of water, this is the defined act I'm willing to do, I am essentially subscribing to נצחיות, to רוחניות, through the the the levers that I have in this world that are defined actions.

So again, שמצמצם בהם חכמתו יתברך, שזה בחינת התלבשות שכל עליון בשכל תחתון, שעל ידי זה זוכין להשגת אלקות, כנ״ל. Through these mitzvot, through performing the mitzvot, and even through learning about the mitzvot, I am attaching myself to שכל עליון. וזה בחינת and this is the the same idea, the pasuk says, וה׳ ברך את אברהם בכל, הקדוש ברוך הוא blessed אברהם בכל, and the Midrash tells us, I think Rashi tells us, בת היתה לו לאברהם אבינו ובכל שמה. Avraham Avinu had a daughter, and her name was בכל. What is בכל? בת, he had a daughter, זה בחינת בת עין.

This is the מלכות, this is what the שכינה, what takes in, the recipient, so to speak, that's able to take in the שכל עליון, דהיינו השחור שבעין, שהוא בחינת השחרות הנ״ל. The idea of a בת is representing the כלי that is able to be at the end of the process of the שכל עליון, שהוא מצמצם ומגביל וכולל בעצמו כל דברים גדולים העומדים לנגדו, the same way that the eye is able to take in and translate and transmit whatever is outside of it into an accurate representation on its own terms, כגון הר גדול שעומד לפני הבת עין, like a big mountain, this is example we use, that is opposite the person's pupil, שהוא שחור שבעין, אז נגבל כל ההר בתוך הבת עין שרואה אותו, the eye is able to encompass the entire mountain in order to transmit that to the person's brain.

כי השחור שבעין הוא מצמצם כל דברים גדולים, the eye is able to distill everything outside of it into messaging, into pictures, ונכללין ונראין בתוכו, and it's נכלל, it contains, ונראין בתוכו, now it relates to, it's seen within it, ועל ידי זה רואין ומשיגין הדבר שרואין, and now a person's able to be משיג, to grasp on his own terms something that's much greater than him. כמו כן זה שכל תחתון מצמצם ומגביל השכל הגדול העליון ונכלל בתוכו, just like an eye is able to take in something that's you know, exponentially bigger than the person and translate it into the person's idea and השגה so that he can understand it, so too, the שכל תחתון is able to do this to the שכל עליון.

ועל ידי זה רואין ומבינים ומשיגים את השכל עליון הגדול הנ״ל, and this is a parallel representative of this process where we are able to perceive something that is השגת אלקות, that is אין סופיות, greater than where we are. וזה בחינת וירא אליו ה׳ בלבת אש. Hakadosh Baruch Hu appeared to Moshe בלבת אש. In Chumash, I think Rashi talks about how what what the ת׳ is doing over there, that really the core is that it's the the לב in the center and the heart of it, but over here, it uses the the word to be like the word בת.

שהשם יתברך רצה להלביש לו השגת אלקות, הקדוש ברוך הוא wanted to present to משה השגת אלקות in a הלבשה that he could relate to, והלביש לו בבחינת בת עין הנ״ל. Further, there's a Gemara in Bava Basra, זה בחינת בת תחלה סימן יפה לבנים. Before we do this, I mean I just I've mentioned this before, it's almost overwhelming. This is where you see that every one of these תורות gives you a a a tunnel directly into the nerve center of the world, so that when you see Gemaros, you a person could look at hair, a person could look at the Pesukim that talk about Yisro and Moshe Rabbeinu, about the burning bush, about a Gemara over here that's going to talk about whether a person has a son or a daughter first, and they're all they're all kernels of truth.

And yet, when you go into the the code that makes up the world, so everything is really layered on top of the of the of the Pnimiyus. And now, through this lens, you're able to climb back out. out, and we see that it's really all representing ייחודים, it's all representing one truth. וזה בחינת בת תחילה, a person has a בת first, a daughter first, סימן יפה לבנים, that will be a good סימן for בנים. What does that mean? There's the there's the the Pshat, right? If a person has a older daughter let's say, she will be able to take care of the children that come after her.

But there's a Pnimiyus to it. Every single thing is aligned at multiple layers. בת תחילה זה בחינת השכל התחתון. We said that בת is like the Shechinah, it's like the בת עין, it's the the blackness, the מלכות, that's the שכל תחתון that's able to take in and reflect the שכל עליון that's otherwise beyond a person, שהוא תחילה והקדמה לשכל עליון. This is the entrance point to the שכל עליון, to the השגת אלוקות. וזה בחינת סימן יפה לבנים, what does that mean? בנים זה בחינת השכל העליון. The idea of a בן represents חכמה, the שכל עליון, that's the in our context that would be the male.

Sometimes we talk about חכמה and בינה as in terms of the פרצופים, or in terms of אבא and אמא. כמאמר זכרונם לברכה, הביאי בני מרחוק, bring בני, bring my sons from far away, ובנותי מקצה הארץ, and the בנות, which in this context would represent a lower level, at the level of ארץ. הביאי בני אלו גליות שבבבל שדעתן מיושבת כבנים. That pasuk references the גלות of Bavel, where they had a more מיושבדיקע דעת. בנותי אלו גליות שבשאר ארצות שדעתן אינם מיושבות כבנות. So it's a lower level שכל. Again, we're not talking about individual men, women, where their שכל resides.

We're talking about the צורה of how, generally speaking, it says that the בנים is representative of a higher level, more מיושבדיקע דעת, and the daughters represent a lower level שכל. נמצא שבנים היא בחינת דעת מיושבת, בחינת שכל עליון וגדול הנ״ל, שמשיגין על ידי הקדמות, that the sons will represent the higher level שכל that will be understood and perceived through entrance points, בחינת שכל תחתון כנ״ל, which will be through שכל תחתון. So in all of the in all of the ways that we discussed it, whether it's a משל giving you access to שכל עליון, whether it's the blackness of the eye giving you access to what's beyond you, all of these are reflected in this system.

וזהו בת תחילה שהוא שכל התחתון, סימן יפה לבנים, this is what it means that the בת is the access point, the תחילה that comes first, that's the symbol of שכל תחתון, which is סימן יפה לבנים, שעל ידו משיגין שכל עליון, שהוא בחינת בנים כנ״ל. The access point of the בן is going to be the בת. The access of שכל עליון is going to be the שכל תחתון כנ״ל. וזהו סימן יפה, that's what it means that it's a good סימן, שבו מסומן ומוגבל השכל העליון, in there is contained, if you will, the שכל עליון, בבחינת שיעורי דת מדאורייתא, which is the exact shiur and specifications of the letters of the Torah, בבחינת שחורה אני, that that is the lower level, the שחורה אני, the smallness, ונאוה, but it's expansive, it contains the שכל עליון כנ״ל. Okay, so Be'ezrat Hashem we saw a lot. We will try to begin tying this a little bit together with the next shiur, and go further.