LM 31.3 — Is Lan Birah, Part 3 of 7 · תורה ל״א

Be'ezrat Hashem we are up to the third שיעור of Torah ל״א, Islan Bira, beginning with paragraph ט׳. We will actually be completing the first portion of the Torah and starting the second. We had spoken out during one of the earlier שיעורים that this Torah, which is very long, is divided into two parts. The first one is לשון רבינו ז״ל, which besides of the fact that the language is a little bit more terse, the concepts in this Torah itself are are are very hard to understand. So, we're going to have a second opportunity to go into the second part of the Torah, where Rabbi Natan is going to flush out and further explore a lot of the ideas that come up in the first part.

Now, bringing us current to paragraph ט׳, we had started off the Torah discussing that HaKadosh Baruch Hu has a system through which he runs the world. Do we we relate to HaKadosh Baruch Hu as the בורא עולם, he's the creator and he's the Ribbono Shel Olam, he runs the world with hashgacha. Generally speaking, the system is teva. This way, there's predictability, there's stability. We have a way of operating within the world. I mean, למשל, imagine if sometimes instead of instead of things falling down, they would fall up. Instead of the sun rising and setting on a certain schedule, we would have no idea when there's day and night.

We wouldn't be able to operate. So, there's a certain system of teva, of מזלות, of גלגלים, of how the world operates. Outside of that system of teva, generally speaking, we would call that nes. Now, the truth is that the real difference between nes and teva, if you will, are things that are predictable, that run along the general rules, the גלגלים that HaKadosh Baruch Hu put into place, and nes is something outside of that. Now, to be sure, that doesn't mean that things outside of the specific system of the מזלות and גלגלים don't have any rules, it just means that it's a broader system.

So, if HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us a way to affect the inputs into the machine, right? In other words, people within the machine are going to be limited by those rules, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu can give another set of rules through tefillah, Torah, mitzvot, that are going to affect the level of shefa and bracha that comes into the world, or sometimes sometimes certain exceptions. And therefore, there's also a system of how we can affect what happens within the גלגלים. So, the Torah had started off and said that tzedakah affects affects the גלגלים, and tzedakah really together with emunah.

The perfect tzedakah, we said, is on Shabbos. Shabbos is representative of emunah. And we said that tzedakah on Shabbos is really the highest level of tzedakah. So, tzedakah and emunah, which we related to emunah of Shabbos the creation of ששת ימי בראשית, and tzedakah, הקדוש ברוך הוא is mashpia to the world. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gives to the world. So, we we had suggested that perhaps these are the two ways of relating to Hakadosh Baruch Hu creating the world: the emunah in in in Borei and the emunah in hashgachah. So, tzedakah together with emunah allows us to attach to the source at the level of what comes into the system and, therefore, bring berachah into the world.

Next, we had said that emunah is really only complete when it is supplemented by the idea of bris. And the idea of bris is twofold, that there's the lower-level bris, the ברית תתאה, and the higher-level bris, the ברית עילאה. The lower-level bris is סור מרע ועשה טוב, a system of איסור והיתר. So, at the most basic bottom-line level, in order for us to fulfill, to engage in the covenant with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we need to know what what actions or direction is moving us towards Hashem and what is moving us away from Hashem, what is moving us away from our obligations and purpose for which we're put here.

Next, however, there's a system of ברית עילאה, which means that everything is within within היתר, if you will, and maybe even within mitzvot. But in order for us to grow, the idea of ברית עילאה is that we're able to get closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we're able to improve. So, the the two ideas of ברית תתאה, the lower-level bris, which we said was represented by Eliezer Eved Avraham, by the מלאך מט״ט. This is איסור והיתר, Torah Shebaal Peh. And then the higher level, represented by Avraham Avinu, was the idea of engaging in extra kedushah, getting closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, even within היתר, but getting ever closer to the Ein Sof.

The ברית עילאה is inclusive of ברית תתאה. If a person is already doing what they're supposed to do and trying to get higher, then they're already directionally positive, they're already moving away from from סור מרע. Now within the Torah, we had explored the idea that when HaKadosh Baruch Hu brings a bracha into the world, he interacts with the world, he does so through the system of the ספירות, which we've seen before. Without getting too involved, but enough that we can understand this Torah, the general system of the ספירות is that there are 10. There's the first set of three, sometimes we refer to them as כתר, חכמה, בינה, sometimes חכמה, בינה, and דעת.

The reason For that is beyond the scope of this particular Torah, so those would be the מוחין or the ג״ר, the ג׳ ראשונות, and then there are the ז׳ תחתונים, the next the next seven, which would be the מדות, and those seven are divided also into two parts: the first six, which sometimes we call זעיר אנפין, and those would be חג״ת נה״י, חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד and יסוד. And if you think of that as a funnel, יסוד is going to be at the bottom of that funnel, which has the quality of ברית, it brings things together.

And the יסוד then delivers all of the שפע to מלכות, which is a כלי, which has the ability to actualize everything was בכח and it actualizes the potential and is able to bring רצון ה׳ into into the into into the world so to speak. And this is the general structure of building blocks really at every level of going from כח אל הפועל, from the רצון into actualization. Now while this presentation is a bit formulaic, this is enough for us to understand in principle that if the ברית is represented by יסוד at the bottom of that funnel, and that funnel is the set of חסד through יסוד, חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד and יסוד, then the חסד would actually be come to a גילוי, it would come to be revealed and expressed with יסוד.

And in fact, we see that Avraham Avinu, representing the higher level ברית, also is the one of the three אבות that represented חסד. Avraham Avinu was also the father of emunah, and we see these ideas coming together: the tzedakah or חסד, אמונה, and ברית all coming together with Avraham Avinu. So if at the level of יסוד that becomes a גילוי of חסד, which is associated with אהבה and desire, and the Torah went on to explain that when a person has a mastery over שמירת הברית, and this brings with it a גילוי of חסד and אהבה and desire in the appropriate way to connect to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, this this desire is representative and brings in נפש and life, by Avraham Avinu also we see that אברהם אבינו את הנפש אשר עשו בחרן, that a person who is a בן חורין with Haran, who is free from their desires in order to be able to engage with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, nothing else is an obstacle to that, through this, Avraham Avinu was bringing in the נפש, and if you think about a נפש and a גוף, a גוף is an empty כלי, the נפש is the life force, depending on the כוונה and the desire and the נפש, that is what dictates how the body if you will is animated, how the גלגלים are animated.

And therefore we see that אמונה and צדקה, חסד, together with ברית are able to bring in the נפש, the שפע, the ברכה into the world. And therefore, going back all the way to the beginning of the Torah, this is how we are able to attach to HaKadosh Baruch Hu and impact how ברכה and שפע comes into the world. So now we are in paragraph ט, and I overlapped a little bit in the introduction in in in what we're going to explore right now, and maybe we'll mention a very nice vort on Shavuos, but let's begin inside and take it slow, see a lot of these ideas come together.

Paragraph ט, מי שהוא במדרגת אברהם, a person is holding at the level of Avraham Avinu, he has perfected himself in שמירת הברית at the level of יסוד, we're talking about ברית עילאה, all of his desires are not just סור מרע ועשה טוב perfected in terms of איסור והיתר, but he has channeled all of his connection towards HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So there is a גילוי of חסד and ahavah and השתוקקות, and this desire will now bring life, bring berachah, connection with Hakadosh Baruch Hu into the world, היינו בבחינת בעל נפש. And in fact, we see that Avraham Avinu was we said את הנפש אשר עשו בחרן, because he was a בן חורין, he was free from his his desire, an obstacle that was holding him back from connecting with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, he was able to create that connection not only with himself, but with others, he created gerim.

אזי בודאי, certainly, כל אכילותיו וסעודותיו בבחינת לחם הפנים. A person like this, all of his achilah, his eating, if we think about shefa and berachah as giving life force to the world, so then a person's achilah, their food, is what gives them life, and the seudah is really what defines the achilah. If you think about different types of parties, you can have a birthday party, you can have a siyum, right, the type of a seudah defines the nature of the eating. All of the way that this person nourishes himself physically will be a bechinah of לחם הפנים.

The לחם הפנים was the bread that was on the shulchan in the היכל, structure in the Beit Hamikdash, but the if we think about our panim, panim, a person's face, their attention relates to hashgachah. So this person who is totally attached to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, all of his lechem, all of his parnasah will be a bechinah of לחם הפנים of coming directly from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, direct hashgachah, bivchin(at) hashgachah. התהלך לפני, the end of the pasuk is והיה תמים. We're going to see this idea represented in a pasuk where Hakadosh Baruch Hu is speaking to Avraham Avinu by the ברית מילה, and he says התהלך לפני, walk in front of me and be tamim, be whole, complete, be a shalem.

התהלך, זה בחינת רגלין בחינת פרנסתו. The idea of התהלך is telling Avraham Avinu something about his how he should relate to parnasa. התהלך is to walk, that's a bechina of legs, of רגלין, and that's related to parnasa, which we see because בבחינת ואת היקום אשר ברגליהם. There's a pasuk in Devarim which associates יקום, something that sustains, establishes a person, with רגליהם. ודרשו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה, זה ממונו של אדם שמעמידו על רגליו. So the Gemara in Sanhedrin tells us that the יקום אשר ברגליהם is really talking about parnasa. So we see that התהלך, which talks about the legs, is a reference to parnasa.

So therefore Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells אברהם, התהלך לפני. With regard to your parnasa, התהלך, your רגלין, you should elevate it לפני. It should be associated, it's not just that we're in the world and we're going to work for our own purposes and our hishtadlut, sort of like we leave shul and then, you know, a person davent to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, their relationship with Hashem, and then they go out into the world. No, all of their parnasa, everything about how they relate to sustenance, that is a function of their relationship with Hashem. שנעשה מהם בחינת פנים.

All of their parnasa is part of hashgacha. They work for the right reasons, they want to be sustained for the right reasons, and therefore Hakadosh Baruch Hu sustains them directly. וזה זה בחינת לחם חם ביום הלקחו. Therefore their parnasa is not just going to be something that sustains them, but it'll be as a direct function of their relationship with Hashem. In fact, we see that this is represented by the לחם הפנים. The bread that was on the שולחן in the היכל, the the Gemara tells us that around the time of the regalim, around the Shalosh Regalim, they would take out the bread and show everybody that it was piping hot.

This is not just that Hashem leaves some parnasa in the world and leaves us to fend for ourself, but that there was a direct relationship Hakadosh Baruch Hu is with love and attention sustaining us, and therefore we see that there was לחם חם. The לחם הפנים stayed hot from week to week in a supernatural way. היינו לחם הפנים הם לחם חם, that the לחם הפנים, which was associated with parnasah, was called the hot bread. דרגא דאברהם. And this is associated with אברהם, שהוא בחינת כחום היום. So Avraham Avinu by the ברית מילה, it says that he that he sat by the sun, כחום היום, by the שמש, and we see that the parnasah is associated with חם, with heat, and that dictates parnasah.

So we see that this דרגא of staying hot, of שמש, is that the tzedakah We said originally that the שפע that Hakadosh Baruch Hu brings into the world tzedakah associated with emunah. We had a pasuk that שמש מרפא is associated with the שמש. We see that Avraham Avinu by at the point of his perfection of יסוד is also associated with the שמש, so that we see that this perfection of שמירת הברית at the level of יסוד of ברית מילה brings this שפע into the world, not just that Hashem puts the gears into place, but that it's כחום היום with השגחה.

ואז כל העכו״ם וכל הכוכבים ומזלות שהם תחתיהם. So now that we are dictating the amount and how the שפע, the ברכה comes into the world, into the system of מזלות, how that that חיות and parnasah is being pumped into the pipes, so the gears themselves, just the practical way in the world that everything works, כולם הם טורחים בשביל זה האיש בבחינת שב לימיני בבחינת אברהם. We'll explain in a second, בבחינה of sit on my right side. The ימין is associated with chesed, is associated with Avraham. עד אשית אויביך הדום לרגליך, until I subjugate your enemies as a footstool to your רגליך, שהם טורחים בשביל פרנסתך, that they will work for your parnasah.

So again, just taking it inside, the עובדי כוכבים, the ones so to speak who worship the stars, they worship the מזלות. At one level, it seems that the gears, those are really responsible for the שפע. The people that are subservient to the mazalos, we said the people that are within the system, they can't dictate how much bracha gets pumped into the system. But אברהם אבינו and the בני אברהם אבינו, we are attached to the source that the entire system is designed to serve and to facilitate. So l'mashal, if you think about the cloud cycle, right, that you have water that evaporates into the clouds, which goes over the dry land, which now rains, and then grass comes up, the cow will eat the grass, and then the cow will ultimately become meat for mankind.

We see a broad system with a lot of things going on in the world that are ultimately each one serves a purpose. What's at the end of that line? Whatever is attached to the source that's essentially putting this whole system into place, and therefore, when a person attaches himself to the source, attaches himself to the inputs, both again in terms of the amount of shefa and how it's carried out, so then the entire world, and the mazalos, and all of those associated with the mazalos, are ultimately in a structure that serves the purpose that put them into place, and if בני אברהם are the ones who are carrying out that purpose, then the entire structure, and the mazalos, and the בני עובדי כוכבים, all of these people are serving, are ultimately serving Klal Yisrael.

And כדרך רב רבינו, so now he sees another place where this concept reflects itself. All of this is b'bechinat by Yehoshua and Kalev, when they were speaking about the goyim in Eretz Yisrael, they say, "לחמנו הם סר צלם מעליהם." So to give a little bit of context, Rav Chaim Kramer brings that when the spies, the meraglim who were sent by Moshe to Eretz Yisrael, were advising Klal Yisrael against going into Eretz Yisrael, Kalev was trying to convince the people otherwise. Unlike the other meraglim, who considered the people in Eretz Kena'an too powerful to defeat, Kalev insisted that the Kena'anim could be easily conquered.

He was certain that the emunah of the Yidden, the of the Jewish people, and the mitzvah of brit would help them defeat their enemies, and the language that he used is he said that they are bread for us, and they will be subjugated before us because their shade has left them. The shade protecting the Gentiles had been removed because of the revelation of emunah and brit, meaning the level of Avraham. But we see again, all of this is framed in terms of the lechem, which if we if we said that the lechem and the parnassah is really the mazalos, how things are getting carried out, and now that the that the shade has left them, they are our bread, then it can't be that Kena'an is going to be too power- powerful to defeat because the entire system is really for Klal Yisrael who's serving the purpose.

So let's see this inside, again, בבחינת לחמנו הם, the Kena'anim, they are our bread, סר צלם מעליהם כי מראה חמה עמוקה מן הצל. The Gemara in Bava Batra says that the appearance of the shemesh, of the chom, of the heat, is עמוקה מן הצל, it's it appears deeper than the shade. Sometimes depending on the shading, it could see even something that's flat, part of it will appear deeper than the rest of it. So the appearance of the sun is actually deeper than the shade, חמה בבחינת כחום היום, בבחינת לחם חם. So the the idea of חמה, or שמש, like we said in the beginning of the Torah is associated with emunah, and we also associate with the שמש by Avraham by bris.

So the hashgachah, and the and the nefesh, all of the the consequence of bringing brachah and hashgachah into the world associated with emes and with emunah rather, and bris, is represented by chom. And all of that appears deeper than the shade, than all of the nature, everything in the world. Sometimes we don't see that clarity of hashgachah. אבל כשסר צלם, but when the protection, the צל, the teva is moved aside, whatever it is that the goyim seem to have that they are operating in a world that runs not based on emunah and hashgachah, when that moves to the side, אז נתעלה ונתרומם מראה חמה דרגא דאברהם.

Now we can see the real truth that's actually bringing hashgachah into the world, the emunah and the bris, and that is the שמש, והם נשפלים תחתיו. And at that point, once the shade moves to the side and the the sun comes out, so to speak, then everything be'etzem is going to be subservient to the sun. It's no longer buried and unclear, בבחינת עד אשית אויביך הדום לרגליך, that that the enemies of Klal Yisrael will now become the footstool that is serving the person who is leaning on the footstool. What's getting leaned on the footstool? The regel, the parnasah, again, all of the all of the mazal, the parnasah, everything that a person needs to live, is all subservient to the adam, it's all subservient to Avraham.

וזהו התהלך לפני והיה תמים. This goes back to the pasuk that התהלך לפני, walk walk before Me, raise up your parnasah, associate the everything that you're doing with the source, והיה תמים. The pasuk in the תורה בבחינת תמים תהיה עם ה' אלקיך is a mitzvah that a person should not go to stargazers. If you want to know what's going to happen in the world, then go directly to the source, go directly to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, והיה אם שמוע תשמעו אל מצותי, then ונתתי מטר ארצכם, then if you want to know, is it going to rain, how is the weather pattern going to operate, go to the source that's sending in the beracha, don't go to the chas ve-shalom say, like the god of rain, which in their terms might have been avodah zarah, in our terms maybe it's scientific things, the stock market, understanding how does parnasa work, go to the source, go to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, he's the one who's going to support you.

So, תמים תהיה עם ה' אלקיך, a person should be tamim, totally complete with הקדוש ברוך הוא, שלא תצטרך לדרוש אחר כוכבים ומזלות. Don't go investigate Don't go investigate nature to decide who's going to make money and who's going to be successful, but rather raise up the רגליך, raise up the parnasa to the source, כי תהיה למעלה מהם, because you are above them and you are not subservient to them, but rather the system will be subservient to carry out the purpose, the parnasa, whatever the hashgacha is, for you. Vayter, we're going to finish the we're going to finish the לשון רבינו ז״ל, and then we're going to speak out a nice idea I think, especially like we said, it's right pre-Shavuos.

וזהו ולא יראו את פני השם ריקם, you you will not see the פני השם empty-handed. A person has to bring the עולת ראיה when they go to the Beis HaMikdash for the שלש רגלים. This is ברגלים, שאז נתגלין פני השם, that is with the פני השם, the parnasa, the the hashgacha in parnasa and how HaKadosh Baruch Hu runs the world is revealed בבחינת פנים. ובזה שכל אחד מביא עולת ראיה, every person is going to, in a sense, we could say it's tzedakah, although they're giving up their money, all of their blood, sweat, and tears that they took to earn that money, there's a mesirut nefesh there, a person elevates the parnasa that they earned that should belong to them, and they elevate that to HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

They purchase a korban that they're now going to sacrifice to become karov, right, close to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, מיגיעתו שמתיגע כל השנה, it's from all of the money that they had earned through all of their effort and their toil. על ידי זה נתתקן ונתעלה כל לחמו ופרנסתו. This elevates all of their money, all of their work, everything in teva, they say that no, really that came from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. It's an olah, it gets totally burnt up. They bring it to Hashem, בבחינת לחם הפנים, and now they don't relate to parnasa as being theirs, they relate to it as being the לחם הפנים.

This is what HaKadosh Baruch Hu kept hot all week long. It's really miraculous, the parnasa is not what we produced. It's oh, it's certainly our hishtadlut, but it's actually what Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us with specific Divine Providence. וזהו שהשיב הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה after the עגל. Again, Rabbeinu, unbelievable. In other words, we climb into the idea, we we used a story, we use a מאמר חז״ל, we get to the heart of it, to understand the formula, the zeros and the ones, the programming of it, and once we're able to understand how the world works, now we can weave together everything across Chumash, across Chazal, across Gemaras, and now we see that it's all layered onto the principles of emet.

Rabbeinu is giving us the clarity that allows us to to engage with the world and just see the emet bleeding through in every area. וזהו שהשיב הקדוש ברוך הוא למשה, now we see that Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Moshe after the חטא העגל, פני ילכו והנחותי לך, that My face, My hashgachah will go in front of you, והנחותי לך, and it will guide you, כי משה ביקש כפרה. Moshe Rabbeinu was seeking atonement for the חטא העגל. והשיב לו, so Hakadosh Baruch Hu told him, פני ילכו, My face will go in front of you, but the instruction was is that your parnasah, you should elevate the the parnasah to the לחם הפנים.

Your רגלים should be at the level of פנים. And we already saw in the beginning, we we had attached this to שמירת הברית, right? We had said at the beginning of the paragraph that מי שהוא במדרגת אברהם אבינו, אזי בוודאי כל אכילותיו וסעודותיו בבחינת לחם הפנים. A person that's already metaken the the שמירת הברית area, then everything that he does, all of the physical stuff that he does, all the parnasah, we spoke in the beginning of the Torah, I think, the idea of a potential connection between a person that elevates their תאוות in the area of שמירת הברית and how they relate to parnasah in this world.

But a person that's able to be מתקן שמירת הברית, and they're able to elevate their the way that they relate to parnasah to the source, to השגחה פרטית, this will be בבחינת פנים to the source, to the way that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is running the system of parnasah with providence. אזי יתכפר להם. That person or that nation will get a kaparah from the חטא העגל, כי שולחן דומה למזבח שמכפר. Why are we associating כפרה בדווקא with how we relate to parnasah? Because the Gemara tells us in Chagigah that the שולחן of a person is similar to a מזבח.

וזהו, the Gemara explains, פתח במזבח, that the pasuk in Yechezkel says, המזבח עץ שלש אמות, and at the end of the pasuk it relates to the שולחן. The pasuk finishes off, וסיים, זה השולחן אשר לפני השם. So because the pasuk starts with the מזבח and finishes off talking about the שולחן, we learn from that pasuk that the שולחן of a person, the way that they relate to parnasah, everything in this world, if they elevate that to the source, they do that appropriately, that also becomes a kaparah for them. לפני, דייקא, שיהיה דייקא בבחינת פנים, ואז יכפר.

When it says, זה השולחן אשר לפני השם, the שולחן that's able to be מכפר is דייקא the שולחן that gets elevated, associated with the Hakadosh Baruch Hu with with parnasah through emunah, and therefore Hakadosh Baruch Hu also is sends gives a kaparah, and sends the פרנסה בבחינת השגחה פרטית בבחינת פנים. ולעתיד יתקיים ולא יכנף עוד מוריך והיו עיניך רואות את מוריך. And לעתיד לבוא we will be able to be מקיים the pasuk: Your master will not יכנף, will not conceal himself anymore, and your eyes will see your master. שאזי יתגלה בחינת פנים. The idea of אור פנים of השגחה פרטית is going to reveal itself, it will show itself.

Everything we see in nature we'll see that as a function of השגחה פרטית. It's just the gears, it's just the mechanism, but it's not the it's not the source, it's not actually the cause, it's just the interim cause. כי עכשיו פני השם מוסתר בדרך הטבע. Now we don't see that direct that direct השגחה, that direct design, unless we're able to see through the system. It appears to be that there's טבע, בהנהגת המזלות. This is just the gears, this is the system. Sometimes Rachmana litzlan, instead of a scientist, people that study these things, instead of them appreciating the design, the intricacy behind it, that everything works out perfectly, they think that they that that is the source, and scientists we don't find to be the most religious class of people among us.

בבחינת והסתרתי פני מהם והיו לאכול. I shall hide my my my panim from them, my hashgachah, and they will be food chas v'shalom like for their enemies, because we live in a world in a stage of the world of hester panim. ועכשיו מראה החמה עמוקה מן צילם. And at this stage the revelation of the sun seems to be deeper than the shade, teva seems to run things. וזה בחינת צלצל כנפים. This is a bechinah of the shade of the wings or of hiding. This is a pasuk in Yeshayahu, it says that the the the shaded by the wing שכנפיים וההסתרה, the hiddenness שהנהגה זו מוכנף ומוסתר בהם, the hanhagah seems to be hidden beneath the tzal, the shemesh, the direct hanhagah seems to be hidden beneath the shade, וזהו הצל שמסתיר אור החמה, this is the shade that hides the sun, again associated with emunah, associated with or panim, associated with hashgachah, with שמירת הברית.

ואין זה ואין זה אלא מחמת שאור החמה אינו מאיר בשלימות. The reason that we're able to be fooled by teva to to think that that's the ceiling, that's the source, we look up and I heard one time just somebody gave a mashal, he said, you know, you look at the shower head and you think that that's the source of where the water is coming from, you don't understand that that's just the pipes, that's the delivery mechanism from the source of the water. So because the אור החמה is not being מאיר בשלימות, ואין זה אלא מראה החמה, it's only the vision, we see the rays coming off the sun, but we're not looking at the source, מראה דייקא, specifically it's only the rays, it's a step removed what we're seeing, we don't really see the source, and we don't associate with the source.

אבל לעתיד שאז יתקיים וזרחה לכם שמש, but לעתיד לבוא for the ones who fear Hashem that the sun will shine, שהחמה בתוקפה יתגלה, that the sun in its strength, in its clarity, it's no longer hidden by the shade, by teva, and it will be revealed, revealed what was really there all along, בבחינת עתיד הקדוש ברוך הוא להוציא חמה מנרתיקה. Hakadosh Baruch Hu will take the sun out of its sheath as it were, אזי יתקיים ומרפא בכנפיה, the healing in its wings. The the covering itself will have refuah. Now we will have seen everything, I perhaps we could say in hindsight.

Every The the wings will have a healing because now we will actually see everything in the proper context. We're going to see everything again for the first time. היינו שלא יכנף עוד מורך כנ״ל, and the way that it says it is that it will no longer be covered by the wings, but I'm suggesting not only will they step aside, but actually by re- re-examining them and re-understanding them the way that they always were, so then the covering is no longer a covering, right? In other words, the the peel on an orange, if you think it's covering up the orange, then it's a covering.

If you understand that it's actually serving the orange, it keeps it fresh, it keeps it protected, it's part of it, so it's no longer a covering, it's actually a revelation of the chachmah of the orange, as it were, to begin with, period. So before we we go through paragraph י over here, I'm just going to say a brief idea, but I think it really jibes very well with what we've been learning. By Shavuos, say בקיצור נמרץ, as נמרץ as I can, by Shavuos, so we we we celebrate מתן תורה, we celebrate that we received the Torah, and the question that gets asked, and I'm sure that there's different approaches, is if we think about the Gemara tells us that the first luchot, the לוחות ראשונות, they had different capacity as it were, in some way, the Torah that we received maybe wouldn't have forgotten, we never would have been able to leave ארץ ישראל, the Torah that we got with the לוחות ראשונות in a certain sense is not the Torah that we learn, that we keep today, so to speak, it's the לוחות שניות, that's the Torah that we received on Yom Kippur, and in fact, if you want to think how to celebrate מתן תורה, this is what we do on Yom Kippur.

We go through all the Torah, we go through our own lives, we see where we measure up, excuse me, and we see how we have to be better. This is the way that we would think that the the day of קבלת התורה how we have to how we have to celebrate it. So what do we do on Shavuos? We're celebrating the original the original time that we received the לוחות, and how do we celebrate it? We stay up all night learning, which our learning is probably not ideal, it's not the best learning we could possibly do.

We end up probably learning less in the four, five hours max, a lot of times it's less than that during the night, than if we would have a a nice morning seder on Shavuos morning, we'd wake up ותיקין, we would learn fresh, and we would learn stark. In the end, a person is half-fried. So what happens? We have we have Shavuos, it's a day without any mitzvos, it's עצרת, there's no actual mitzvos associated with Shavuos specifically. We stay up all night learning, not the best learning that we would have, and then we learn probably a lot learn a lot less the rest of the day, and the Gemara tells us, חז״ל tell us that Shavuos is חצי לה׳ וחצי לכם, not even 51-49, that the way that we celebrate Shavuos is half for Hashem and half for us.

What's the half for Hashem? Learning, but again, no mitzvos. So, I would like to suggest, it's not based on myself, but these ideas that come from other places, so perhaps we could say, what are we really doing on Shavuos if we're not celebrating the specific mitzvos, and Shavuos doesn't have specific mitzvos? What we're doing is we are leaning in and creating or recreating our relationship with the Torah itself, how we understand our own lives through the lens of Torah. We are elevating the the גלגלים, if you will, the טבע back to the source. And the the example that I heard used was, I don't remember if it was in this context, there's different kinds of laws.

We have traffic laws, right? These are laws that you should keep, they will be safer for you, but they're really subject to change. Different states, different countries can have different traffic laws, and if a person doesn't keep them, then there's nothing really wrong inherently. They'll pay the fine, or whatever it is, they'll be responsible. But it's external. And then there are other kinds of laws, like the law of gravity. The law of gravity is not something that you can decide to violate. It really is is something that is built into the system, and necessarily so.

This just defines the universe, the reality within which we live. Imagine if from one day to the next you wouldn't know if something would fall down or up, you wouldn't be able to function. The law of gravity forms the context within which you live. How do we relate to the Torah? Forget these specific פרטים. Do we relate to the Torah as a list of do's and don'ts, a list of obligations, perhaps chas veshalom to say burdens? Or do we understand the Torah as the blueprint of the world, meaning this is the context in which we live and understand?

And the more that you understand it, the more alive that you actually are! We can give a thousand examples, but when when we see everything happen in the world, it's not a matter of trying to piece it together and compare and contrast and see if it's consistent with our reality. We're actually understanding the fabric of the universe itself, very similar to what we said Rav Nachman really בעצם is doing. He's climbing into the formula of the world and then understanding everything in Torah, everything in life through this lens, so that it it doesn't become baggage, it's not something you have to carry with you, it's understanding the truth that we live in.

I probably am not explaining this well, but a person should be מתבונן in this. And therefore, once we do this, why is it that Shavuos is חצי לה׳ וחצי לכם? Why is it that there's no mitzvot? Because the the mitzvot in a sense can risk losing the forest for the trees. When we stay up all night, it's an act of mesirat nefesh, it's not so much about the specifics of learning Torah, it's a matter of subjugating ourself to that higher altitude. It's a matter of elevating the רגלין, elevating the מזלות, elevating the source, understanding the positioning of it, and once you have that, the חצי לה׳ and חצי לכם are actually כולו לה׳, because there's no difference.

Once you've elevated the the רגלין, the חצי לכם to to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that actually is the greatest statement of an attachment to Torah as the blueprint of creation, as the blueprint of the world, much more so than afterwards we go back and we go back through each one of the individual mitzvot and we have to understand what our obligations are. Again, obligations not like laws of traffic, but obligations that we have to conform to the laws of reality, otherwise we're just crazy. We just have a lack of understanding. A person that wants to rebel and they say, "Well, I'm going to figure out a way that I don't have to go along the laws of reality." If HaKadosh Baruch Hu tells you that here's how you can make the money that's designed for for you and if you cheat, you're not going to get ahead.

And a person tries to get ahead, they become dishonest. Okay, so you figured out a way that you could throw something up, how long will it stay in the air for? You you can't go against the laws that are actually the fabric fabric of reality. Okay, I think that that's I think I said it as well as I could, but I think that this is really just the same message as the Torah that we're learning right now from Rebeinu. If a person wants to effect hashgacha and bracha and parnasa and how the the world that they live in, it's not up to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, כביכול, I mean it is, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us the reins, He gives us the faucet, He tells us to develop the emunah, to give the tzedakah, to develop שמירת הברית, ברית תתאה and ברית עילאה, and if we attach our we build up our כלים and then we attach the pipes where they need to go, so then we will be able to flow bracha into those pipes that we build up.

Very simple, so to speak, right? After after an entire journey through the Torah, I think that this, to me, is the message that we are our takeaway. Now tying this back into the מאמר חז״ל from the beginning of the Torah: ״וזהו מה ששאלו סבי דבי אתונא״, this was the question that the Athenian scholars had asked Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananya: ״אית לן בירא בדברא״, we have a well, or בירא could be I guess say, בירא is like a palace, but בירא, בירא is a באר, is a well in the desert, ״איילי ליה למתא״, bring it to town.

״בירא זה בחינת בר ומזון״, we have parnasa. The בר can mean grain, so it means מזון, but בר also can mean חוץ, it can mean outside. Our parnasa is outside this level of hashgacha. Just parenthetically, this is why baraitot are called baraita. When Rabbeinu Hakadosh, Rabbi put together the Mishnah, the baraitot were the tannaitic statements that were left מילבר, they were left outside. So the Athenian scholars say that we have the טבע that we relate to, the parnasah that we relate to, and it is outside, it is the מזון is בחוץ. בר is מזון, בר is חוץ, is dissociated with kedushah, ״שהוא בחוץ ולאחורי הקדושה, בבחינת: ׳והסתרתי פני מהם׳״.

It is not subject to the hashgachah, it is hiddenness. And how do we reassociate it, how do we attach it to the הארת פנים, to the hashgachah? ״איילי ליה למתא״, bring it to the city, meaning bring it לפנים, ״שיהיה בבחינת לחם הפנים כנ״ל״. ״אייתי פורי ושדי להו״, so Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chanania brought bran and he threw it in front of them, ״ואמר להון: ׳אפשילו לי חבלי׳״, you should make me ropes from this bran. ״פורי זה שבת, אמונה״. The lashon of פורי, which is which is like bran, but פאר is a lashon of beauty, but פאר is a reference to Shabbos and emunah, ״כפירוש רש״י: ׳את ה׳ האמרת וה׳ האמירך׳״.

You give praises to Hashem and Hashem gives praises to you. ״לשון פארי ושבח״, פאר, beauty or שבח, ״שאנו מפארים את הקדוש ברוך הוא ואנו מאמינים בו, ואומרים: ׳ה׳ אחד׳״. The greatest possible praise of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is אחדות, is ייחוד ה׳, without going into what what the what the total unity, the total ייחוד of Hashem is right now. But that is ״ה׳ אחד״, ״ה׳ הוא האלקים״ is the greatest קבלת עול מלכות שמים. ״ושדי להו״, so he took this idea and he threw it at them. Lashon of שדי, ״זה בחינת ברית, בחינת ש-ד-י כנ״ל״. The שם ה׳ of ש-ד-י, ש-ד-י, the same letters as שדי, to throw, is associated with שמירת הברית, we said this earlier.

״וחבלי זה בחינת אהבת חסד שמתגלה בפומא דאמה כנ״ל״. The lashon of ropes is a reference to אהבת חסד, which we said that שמירת הברית, which is יסוד in the ספירות, is actually where the גילוי of חסד happens. And therefore, כמו שכתוב: ״בחבלי אדם אמשכם, בעבותות אהבה״, פסוק in Hoshea, referencing when הקדוש ברוך הוא took the Yidden out of Egypt, He drew them close to Him with ropes of man and with strings of love. So we see that חבלי, ropes, is a reference to אהבה and חסד. ״היינו על ידי שבת וברית נתגלה אהבה כנ״ל״. If you want to attach your מזון, you want to attach your actual life, your reality to the אור הפנים, what do you do?

Through שמירת הברית, through יסוד, that brings a גילוי of the חסד. You draw the חבלי, the the חסד down through How do you do that? Through פאר. So through the אמונה of פאר, שבת, ה׳ אחד, which is the ultimate expression of צדקה as well, we saw in the beginning, and as put together with ברית, therefore through שדי, through שקי, through שמירת הברית and פאר, אמונה, the way that we relate to הקדוש ברוך הוא, that is how we can draw down the חבלי, the ropes, the חסד, which will allow us to become a בעל נפש, and bring life into the system.

So again, היינו על ידי שבת וברית נתגלה אהבה כנ״ל, ועל ידי האהבה, through this אהבה, through the כיסופים, that is how we become a בעל נפש, באים לבחינת לחם הפנים כנ״ל, that is how we now associate the אור הפנים, the השגחה with the לחם, with the parnasa, through all of these ideas, all represented by the לחם הפנים. The חום is the bris, the חום is, שמש is emunah, the לחם on the שולחן is parnasa, and the לחם חום is also representative of the direct השגחה. When we elevate the parnasa, we elevate from below and we associate ourself with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, then midah k'neged midah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives us the השגחה and He gives us the לחם חום, the miraculous parnasa, the berachah into our life, עד כאן לשונו רבינו.

Just for completion or to see if I missed anything, I guess, I'm going to read from ר' Chaim Kramer's note. He puts together all of the story in line with the Torah. He says the wise men of Athens said to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah, "We have a well in the desert," meaning what happens to someone who believes that his food and livelihood come through natural occurrences, "bring it to town. Can this person ever attain the level of livelihood directly governed by Divine Providence," meaning eating from the לחם הפנים? So Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananyah brought פאר and שדי to them.

Rabbi Yehoshua answered them, "When someone observes Shabbos," meaning that he has emunah, "and he also guards the שמירת הברית," and emunah goes together with the tzedakah that we started off with, "he can guide and rule over the natural forces, because now he is able to, to again have say into the input." He said to them, "Twist ropes out of the bran for me and I will bring it." One who guards the covenant, he has שמירת הברית and he has emunah, causes that the loving kindness is revealed. This in turn creates the נפש, it creates life, it brings chayut into the world for the letters.

He brings, he brings great longing and yearning for the Torah teachings, we said we related to this in part of the paragraphs. By verbalizing these longings, a person merits a livelihood and it is miraculous in the aspect of לחם הפנים. So then ר' Chaim Kramer actually brings from the מפרשים, this part's not in the Torah, but Rashi says in that original Gemara, he says, ואם אין אתם עושים שאלתי, אף אני לא אעשה שאלתכם. If you don't do what I am requesting of you, then I will not do what you're requesting of me. And he says over here that the, the tzadik is able to bring revelations to his talmidim, he's able to reveal the truth, but, as the expression goes, you could bring a horse to water and you can't force it to drink, at the end of the day, we have to build our own connections and therefore we have Rabbeinu and we have the tzadikim, we have Chazal, we have the Torah, who, like the Mesilat Yesharim says, is standing on top of the garden maze and telling us exactly where to go, but if we are not willing to attach ourself through the tzadikim and to embrace this truth, then אם אין אני לי מי לי, who is going to do it for me?

If you are not going to attach yourself to the truth that I am revealing to you, then I will not be able to do it for you. Now, Rabbi' Natan actually continues that זאת התורה נאמרה על פסוק ויאסף אלקים, and so on, then finishing off the first section of this Torah saying that there were certain things that Rabbeinu did not say as part of this Torah and goes on to supplement it, but I think that we'll just read this part with the next time. In the standard print of Likutei Moharan it is on דף מ״ד עמוד ב׳, on the inner column where it says זאת התורה נאמרה על הפסוק, and in some of the others it actually becomes or is close to paragraph י״א, but we will save that for the next time, be'ezrat Hashem.