LM 31.4 — Is Lan Birah, Part 4 of 7 · תורה ל״א

Be'ezrat Hashem we are beginning the fourth shiur of Torah ל״א. In some of the prints it's paragraph י״א, in the standard edition it's page מ״ד ע״ב, the inside column, the paragraph beginning זאת, and we're really beginning now the second portion of the תורה. If you'll notice, right before the word זאת תורה נאמרה על הפסוק, it says עד כאן לשון רבינו ז״ל. So the first part of the Torah was Torah ל״א as was presented by Rabbeinu to Rav Natan, and the second part, Rav Natan heard the remaining sections, Rav Chaim Kramer explains, from Rabbi Nachman even before Rabbeinu had delivered the lesson of Torah ל״א itself.

But there were a lot of ideas that were presented in other contexts, and Rav Natan wrote them down, and he now puts them together and presents them together with Torah ל״א. So a lot of it is going to be a review of what we discussed, and there's going to be different nuances that find their way into the material. To summarize the flow, I guess it's really an overview of the entire Torah, and now these sections, almost an appendix you could say, is going to be digging in to to specific points. But a high-level overview of the material, I might actually mention some of the ideas that we're going to be digging into now, and this is really my understanding of the material.

So the presentation is tracking the Torah, but it might be a little bit a little bit organized to put it together. So we started off, and I'll present it as a question, which is: how does shefa enter into the worlds, and what role does man play in terms of bringing the increasing the input of shefa, and ultimately affecting the delivery mechanism, the pipes, the הנהגה of the world? The first paragraph started off that this is accomplished through tzedakah. That is the beginning of the process by which we are able to affect how bracha, chiyut, shefa, energy, attachment to Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes into the world.

So that tzedakah directs the גלגלים, the system of pipes, the delivery mechanism, and tzedakah therefore is not just an act of kindness, but it's actually participation in a process, which means that we can look at tzedakah really through at two altitudes, if you will, through two lenses. Sort of on the field, we see a rich man, if you will, giving tzedakah to a poor man. So if we want to see who is the recipient of the goodness, we would say, well, in terms of the actual physical act in front of our eyes, the wealthy man is giving and the poor man is receiving.

If we take a step back, we abstract away from that, actually the rich man is receiving far more than the poor man. Why? Because if the act of tzedakah is bringing shefa, it's increasing the top of funnel of of blessing that is coming into the world and defining how Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to relate to the world, so what happened over here? A a wealthy man took out a dollar, $10, $100, whatever it is, and he gave it to another individual. That person received whatever whatever the bill was. But on the other hand, in terms of the cosmic significance of not receiving $100, but creating oneself and the world at large into a keli and triggering the bracha that's going to come in and how it's going to come into that keli, the wealthy man has brought in and received far more than a $100 bill.

So that is the beginning of the process. Now the tzedakah is only going to be triggering something as valuable, as complete, as the tzedakah itself. How is tzedakah performed in the most perfect way? When it is attached to emunah. In the Torah we explained how emunah is represented by Shabbos, and the idea of giving tzedakah for Shabbos. How do these things go together? So I'm going to suggest, it's really based on something I saw in תורה ר״ף from the from the Alter Rebbe, from the Baal HaTanya. If we think about the the השתלשלות, the chain of bringing something down, so if I'm in the middle of the chain, there's my attachment to the source above, and then there's how I deliver it below.

And that's going to create the flow through from top down. Emunah is my attachment to the source. Anything that I deliver downward, anything that I give, what is that act of tzedakah? Is it an act of personal kavod, personal pride? Is it an act because I give you something and I want it to come full circle to me? The act of tzedakah, if you will, it's going to be the חיצוניות, the גילוי, which is going to be riding on the foundation. It's only going to be as strong as its connection to the source. Therefore, as we consider the שלימות of the output, we actually have to first understand the the שלימות, the completion, the התבטלות of the connection at the foundational level.

The vitality of emunah, however, we explained, really comes about through שמירת הברית, which is made up of ברית תתאה and ברית עילאה, two levels of ברית. The way that we that we explained in the shiurim, if we say emunah is essentially my faithfulness, my acknowledgement, my התבטלות... התבטלות, right? אין עוד מלבדו, I'm totally attached to הקדוש ברוך הוא, but how do I implement that? We implement that through שמירת הברית. ברית, in order to have a ברית, there has to be a dynamic between two components, if you will. It's a ברית is two things that have a covenant.

They come together. Emunah is where I, in a certain sense, I cease to exist as an individual. I am totally a flow-through, I am totally attached to הקדוש ברוך הוא. So therefore, we're going to put שמירת הברית and emunah together. ברית is at the lower level איסור והיתר. At the lower level, ברית is where I define my direction. I bring myself consistent with רצון השם. Of course, I still I still exist, and I am trying to adopt a life that is expressive of הקדוש ברוך הוא's רצון. ברית עילאה is once I am going directionally positive, now I have to work on myself.

I climb the mountain. I come ever closer to the אין סופיות. So by way of analogy, and again, this is my understanding of it, if a person thinks of emunah as total alignment, total התבטלות, I am connected to the אין סופיות, this is the peak of the mountain. But life, life itself, is essentially the journey. That's the climb. שמירת הברית would represent getting, pulling myself all together in order to direct all of my energies on the climb towards the peak of the mountain and working towards emunah at every single point in time. I reach one peak, and then I I I climb ever higher.

I'm chasing the horizon, is an example that we said before. I'm constantly going to the peak of the mountain that I'm on, and then I go on to the next mountain. And emunah never really, I never fully get there. I can improve my emunah at the אין סופיות, because wherever I'm holding, I can come closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא. So therefore, שמירת הברית is representative of the journey, making sure I'm directionally positive and constant mesirut nefesh, constant improvement, constant perfection, constant getting closer, as I work on emunah, and I get to one level of emunah, and I consistently can go ever higher towards the next level of emunah.

So so far, we have צדק, the שלמות of tzedakah, which is in the context of attachment to the source of emunah, and אמונה בעצם encompasses שמירת הברית, which is the two levels which go together with emunah. When a person perfects שמירת הברית, we explained a little bit with the structure of the ספירות, and without going through it 100% for right now, שמירת הברית or יסוד is actually the גילוי. It's a process that starts with חסד, and חסד comes out, it's represented by עטרת יסוד, by the level of שמירת הברית. חסד, or loving-kindness if you will, is represented by ahavah, by כיסופין, by yearning, by desire, right?

ברית is when two things, if I love you, then there's two things: there's me and you. The The The ultimate חסד is going to manifest in the area of of יסוד and שמירת הברית. This idea of yearning and desire, first of all בכח, and ultimately is something that can be actualized, is something that is going to bring life and energy into the world. And this makes sense, because if you have, if if we're defining כיסופין, yearning, השתוקקות, love as something that bring thing brings two things together, well, if you have two things, then they are effectively static.

The only The only thing that makes them dynamic is the relationship. They're either coming together, they're, chas veshalom, moving closer, away, right? But the way that they relate to themself and to each other, that is essentially the movement. That is the life in the world that creates any sort of expression and dynamic. And the way that the Torah brought it out is that these yearnings create נקודות that essentially animate letters, אותיות. If If If a person thinks about the Alef Bet, they think about the letters, no letter actually has a sound without a נקודה. Even if you were to say the letter ב, it's only because you say "buh".

It has to be expressed. Any letter without a נקודה is essentially a receptacle. It stands ready, willing and able to be actualized, but the letter itself is not able to actually express anything until there's some sort of a sound that gets attached to it, and then the letter itself can express itself, and also two letters can be connected. So now you can put two letters or more together, and the נקודות will show how these letters go together. So now you have a letter which has no possibility of sound, you add the נקודות which give the letter itself the possibility of sound and the ability of connection so that two letters can go together and form a word, and and certainly after that, then the words can form a sentence, paragraphs, and a story, and literally something can come alive.

The source of all of this is the נפש, is the life, is the נקודה that gets attached to the letter. This comes into the world through this yearning, through this desire. This is what triggers triggers the movement. Now, first of all, just one point in terms of the type of energy coming into the world, if this is essentially in response to the desire, this will also match up to the desire, so we are shooting for the שלמות of this desire, of this intent that's going to bring appropriate שפע into the world, chas veshalom there could also be a negative desire and intent, and this will bring a negative energy into the world, and this energy now lives in the world.

We're going to see and we saw actually in the in the first part of the Torah how this can there can sometimes be a positive drive even that becomes associated with a רשע, and chas v'shalom there could be a negative drive that somehow comes and attaches itself to a צדיק, צדיק ורע לו, but the way that we are bringing energy into the world is going to be through our desire and through our intent. Now what happens when this inspiration disappears, we have no clarity, how does a person during yeridah, even a צדיק, the way that something I saw in the Kitzur, but even a צדיק can have ups and downs.

So what happens when a person has downs, what do they hold on to, what are they anchored in? So Rabbeinu presented the dynamic of a למדן and a צדיק. A למדן is somebody who learns איסור והתר, this is aligned with ברית תתאה, the lower level ברית. A person has to pashut know what to do. After that, a person also has to become a chasid, they have to become a צדיק, they work on themselves, they have mesirut nefesh, they try to become closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. A person who is bishleimut has to have both components.

If we think about the extremes for a second, neither one of them can live on its own. A person who does all of the right things, but has no kavanah, no emunah, no attachment to the source is essentially a robot. Has he necessarily hasn't necessarily accomplished anything. On the other hand, a person who has emunah, all of the right ideas, but they never extend this, it never has a giluy in איסור והתר, so then there's no expression of it. They have all of the ideas of how they're supposed to connect, create that relationship, all of the levers that they're supposed to push, and but lema'aseh the avodah takes place in the physical world.

This is where HaKadosh Baruch Hu put us in order to effect the avodah, and therefore a person needs both. They need to have emunah, they need to be anchored and rooted in HaKadosh Baruch Hu and have that foundation, and this needs ultimately to find expression in the practical world. You can imagine a person who has a a million dollar lottery ticket, a million dollar business idea, and he never executes, he never cashes in on it, that person is he rich or is he poor? At the end of the day, what's the difference? He's ultimately going to going to starve to death, right?

Or state it differently, let's say a person sits and learns all of the halachot about עונג שבת, right? And when Shabbos comes, he has just a simple meal, not hot, totally cold and dry, has no room for any enjoyment with himself, with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, with his family, and immediately runs to the בית מדרש. But what's he going to learn? It's Shabbos, he wants to learn about Shabbos. So immediately he rushes the meal with zero enjoyment, and then he runs, and he sits with a sefer learning about the halachot of עונג שבת. You would say that something is fundamentally lacking.

He has all of the right השגות, he has all of the right ideas, but there's something that is not connecting in terms of a giluy of bringing that out. So therefore, there are these two components. There is the למדן and there is the צדיק. There's the there or the other direction, there's the emunah, there's the being anchored, the the the correct attachment to the source, but then there has to be the giluy. Let's say a person, though, is not holding by it, things are broken, we all find ourselves broken. What anchors a person? Well, it's going to have to be the emunah, right?

And a person could have a sevara both ways. Maybe a person could say, when I'm not really feeling it, let me at least carry through with the mechanics, at least that way when I restore the emunah, the mechanics will be intact. On the other hand, if a person has the גילוי, but the the the chain is broken, they're no longer attached to the source, then that גילוי could end up being a גילוי for other things, because the chain is broken. A person could, chas v'shalom, be קוצץ בנטיעות, say the the plant is there and they're detached already at the root.

All of a sudden, my acts of kindness are really acts of self-servingness, right? Because I'm not really attached to the kavanah, and therefore, what carries me through? Kavod, being self-serving, I redefine the act and I'm now cut off from Hakadosh Baruch Hu chas v'shalom. If I anchor myself in emunah, so then it doesn't the it's not coming אסוקי שמעתא אליבא דהלכתא, it's not finding the expression, but at least the foundation is intact, and then I can get myself together and then ultimately I can find ways of expression and ways for this emunah to land. So the shleimut of everything, ultimately the anchor is going to be is going to be emunah.

So again, for the last time, bringing this together, the act of bringing shefa, bracha, chiyut, attachment to Hashem from the source into the world and effecting הנהגה is a process of tzedakah, but tzedakah that is anchored in emunah together with brit, the brit taking on two forms of ברית עילאה, ברית תתאה, and the the perfection in the area of שמירת הברית essentially brings out chesed, which is a desire, an ahavah, השתוקקות, a thirst. That thirst, that vacuum if you will, is going to bring in shefa and חיות, נפש, which is what animates the empty כלים, which would otherwise be a גולם, there would be nothing there, it would be a like a letter that's not yet animated.

So everything in the world is ultimately animated and brought alive by this life that is brought down by שמירת הברית, and again emunah, tzedakah, attaching ourselves to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and the source of life. Paragraph י״א or מ״ד עמוד ב' inside margin comes Rabbi Natan, ענין מעלת הכסופין דקדושה, the idea of these holy yearnings, drive, desire, הנזכר לעיל בתוך התורה הזאת, that we brought in אות ו' of the תורה, שמעתי מפיו הקדוש תחילה בביאור יותר. Even before Torah ל״א was given over, says Rabbi Natan, I heard it with additional explanation, עם עוד כמה חידושים שלא נזכרו כאן כלל, with other ideas that were not mentioned in the context of Torah ל״א, but were associated with this idea.

וכן בענין האמונה ושאר הבחינות שנזכרו כאן, as well as as relates to emunah and other ideas that were discussed in the תורה, שמעתי גם כן מפיו הקדוש תחילה פסקה פסקה בסגנון אחר קצת. I heard each piece individually discussed in other contexts. על כן העתיקם הנה, and therefore I will print them here as follows. וזהו: זיווגן והצטרפותן של אותיות, and every word I'm sure we could parse out. Perhaps somebody who's a linguist or with an incredible amount of background can distinguish the subtlety of all these words, but my understanding perhaps we could say is a zivug is משפיע מקבל, that two things get together.

People are mezaveg in order to bring about shefa, איש ואשה, and then they bring out children. So there's זיווגן, then there's הצטרפותן, which could be like partners. So the idea of things getting together at all, and getting together as part of a process to produce של אותיות, of letters, הוא על ידי הנקודות. כי הנקודות הם החיות והתנועה של אותיות. The nekudot allow the letters to come alive. They are vibrant. Perhaps, and again I'm just suggesting, that we said a letter ב', ג', it's dead. You can't even say b-, g- without the uh sound. That's what really allows the letter to come alive as a letter.

And תנועה is movement, it goes beyond itself. It's able to attach to another letter. Perhaps that's the that that's what he means over here. But the letters have חיות and תנועה של אותיות, ובלי נקודות, without any vowels over there, האותיות הם כגולם. They are like an empty shell. גולמי כלים in הלכות טומאה is a כלי that was not yet finished. It doesn't yet present itself to to the world as in its final usable form. ואין בהם שום תנועה. And without the letter without the vowels, then it's not going to have any movement at all. Again, as a letter or in attachment with other letters.

ועל כן הנקודות הם בחינת נפש. Therefore, the nekudot themselves introduce life to something that's otherwise a receptacle, something otherwise is unable to be animated. כי כמו שהנפש הוא חיות האדם, the same way a person it could be intact, but chas v'shalom they could be a corpse. What what animates a person, enables him to be alive? Nothing different physically, but the nefesh that's introduced. וכל תנועה שהאדם מתנועע, any movement that a person has in order to get up and be animated himself or interact with others, הכל הוא על ידי הנפש. ובלתי הנפש הוא כגולם. Without the nefesh, this person is a corpse.

כן הנקודות הם החיות והנפש של האותיות. So too, the nekudot are the חיות, the attachment to life, and the nefesh in this context of the אותיות. ובלי הנקודות הם כגולם. And without this nefesh, then the letter's just an empty vessel. It's something that's not alive, it's not interacting. ואין להם שום תנועה וחיות. See over here before we said חיות and תנועה, now he reverses it. Perhaps he's focusing on different aspects of of the both of the letters being alive and the ability to interact. And again a word, and then once you have communication, that could go on to the next stage, that's a zivug.

So maybe we could say that the the two letters getting together is able to bring out something greater than the letter itself. Now it's communicating, that's like the zivug, I don't know. רק על ידי הנקודות הם מתנועעים, through the nekudot they are able to move. ועל ידי הנקודות נזדווגים ונצטרפים האותיות, they're able to have a they're able to have partnership, two things get together, and create a zivug. If we can hold it together, besides for just the additional nuances, I'm sure you can write volumes on this Torah, but Be'ezrat Hashem we'll take out what we can.

ועיקר התהוות הנפש, the the the the the primary coming into existence of the nefesh, which goes beyond just life itself, we could say that a piece of grass has in a certain sense plants are alive, animals are alive, people are alive, but they might not be spiritually alive and aware and connected. So if nefesh represents then there could be different levels of nefesh. At a very baseline there's a very baseline attachment to some sort of vibrance, vitality and life, but the ikar coming in of the nefesh and all of the levels of nefesh, I'm saying this based on the note of of Rabbi Eliyahu Attiya, הוא על ידי ההשתוקקות והכיסופין, we'll come to these words in a second, של איש ישראלי אחר השם יתברך, through the yearning, desire and so on for הקדוש ברוך הוא, כל אחד לפי מדרגתו, every person according to where they are holding, this on its own by the way probably deserves an entire shiur, every avodah, if a person is going to reach the top of a ladder then by definition they need to grow one step, one rung at a time.

It is entirely inappropriate for a tzaddik to try to define his avodah by five-year-old avodah. A person who is a huge talmid chacham should not be learning on a five-year-old level. Similarly, a person who is a five-year-old should not be trying to replicate and emulate somebody who is you know, 100 years ahead of them. In order to develop appropriately and become the person that you want to be, by definition you have to improve one step at a time and speak to improvement that resonates, okay? We'll leave it at that, and תן לחכם ויחכם עוד. So, כל אחד לפי מדרגתו, every person according to where he's holding, שהוא נכסף, משתוקק ומתגעגע, again these three leshonot of yearning, להגיע למדרגה למעלה ממנה.

A person always has to move upwards, but again למעלה ממנה, not 100 steps above. Every person, as you grow, should be trying to go to the מקיפין, to one concentric circle away from where they are, and as you grow, then you will always be able to go plus one, indefinitely, towards the אין סופיות. I tried to look around, I don't know if this is 100%, but my understanding is that געגועין, comes up actually in the Gemara in Shabbos, it's like a a language of separation, of homesickness, of missing somebody. The Gemara says that a child who has געגועין על אביו, then they could put something on the wrist and that will make them a string or whatever, that will make them feel better.

So געגועין is the pain of separation. כיסופין is like a a yearning upward, a spiritual aspiration, an energy towards something. And השתוקקות is it's more burning than געגועין, but השתוקקות, again, my understanding it's like it's a it's a thirst. If געגועין is a pain of separation, then when somebody is thirsty, it's not just that they're separated from the water, they they they it's more of a burning thing, they need to have it. So if you put these three aspects together, the degree to which we have a a spiritual aspiration and a yearning upward beyond ourselves, and towards Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that we feel distant from Hashem, and that that is not an option, that we need to fulfill this burning work with this burning desire, and this energy toward until we're able to be not separated, until we're able to be together, and mamash fulfill you know, quench this thirst, otherwise we are incomplete, על ידי הכיסופין אלו נעשה נפש.

Through the כיסופין, which is the spiritual energy, the aspiration, that's what's driving us, that's what brings the nefesh. כמו שכתוב: נכספה וגם כלתה נפשי. Again the לשון of yearning or pining. Through the נכספה וגם כלתה, that's what brings in the nafshi. היינו מה שאני נכסף וכלה אחר השם יתברך, this which I have a desire, and again כלה is like a pining, maybe it's a לשון of כלה to be destroyed almost. In other words, I I need it so much that I almost cease to exist, I'm driving myself forward, מזה עצמו נעשה נפשי, through this we make the נפשי.

That's how I actually come into being. So again, point one is Rabbi Natan comes and he fills in some of these ideas that we discussed about the yearning and the כיסופין and so on, bringing bringing in the life and the נפש and the attachment to Hashem. So he's filling this in, we spoke some of this idea out in the introduction, וזה שאמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה: וינפש. By Shabbos we know that we get a neshama yeterah, an extra dose of life, and this is: ביום השביעי שבת וינפש, כיון ששבת ווי אבדה נפש. The Gemara says, he's quoting from a Gemara in Beitzah, that when Shabbos comes, a person gets a neshama yeterah, why?

Because when Shabbos comes, he realizes that he's going to get the neshama yeterah, and then after Shabbos, it's going to leave. That feeling of what he's going to be lacking, is actually what brings it in the first place. היינו שבתחילת השבת שצריך לקבל נפש יתירה, when in the start of Shabbos, a person needs to bring the נפש יתירה in, אנו זוכרים מאבידת הנפש בחול. How do we come into Shabbos? וינפש, meaning ווי אבדה נפש, it's a reference to oh no, at some point there's going to be a vacuum, I'm going to lose that נפש. ואומרים וינפש ווי אבדה נפש ומזה מתחילים להתגעגע אחריה, and he starts the process of געגועין after this neshama yeterah that he hasn't yet even received, and recognizing that he's going to lose it makes him long and pine for it, which is what brings it down to begin with.

ועל ידי זה בעצמו שאנו מתגעגעים אחר הנפש, מזה בעצמו נתהווה הנפש היתרה. Very interesting. So what brings the נפש יתירה down? The fact that we're sad that we're going to lose it. But I think that it's more than that. It's a separation from something that now became part of us, so that this is expressive, and this is bringing out the point that he said: What brings in the נפש? The feeling of "I've now lost" - ווי of the נפש. "I've now lost part of myself. I'm incomplete without it. There's a vacuum here." Much more so than me wanting something that's external to myself is me being separated from something that was together.

It's a much stronger longing and, therefore, the sense of ווי of the נפש is what allows me to bring this neshama yeterah into myself in a in a much stronger way. So this is what creates the נפש, the life, the געגועין, the כיסופין. The longing is what brings life into the world, what brings in the נפש יתירה. Next piece. In the volume that I'm using, the Rav Atiyah version, it's actually paragraph י״ב: וזה בחינת נקודות הכסף. It's a pasuk that we mentioned in the main body of the Torah, pasuk in Shir HaShirim. היינו, that's the נקודות of silver, the points of silver.

We're saying that the נקודות are actually what introduces life, and the נקודות of כסף is talking about the points of silver, but in if we're learning it in the way that we're learning the the the Torah, it's the points of life developed by כיסופין. היינו, שעל ידי הכיסופין, through this yearning, נעשה נקודות. This brings in the נקודות, which are the element of life which animates the the otherwise empty כלי, the otherwise empty גולם, שהם בחינת נפש, that the נקודות are a בחינה of life. היינו שעל ידי מה שהוא נכסף ומשתוקק לדבר, through the כיסופין, through the כסף, and through the השתוקקות.

The the way that we learned is that the כסף is like the energy that drives the yearning, and the השתוקקות is the feeling of separation, even more than more so than געגועין. אם לטוב או לרע חס ושלום, whatever this desire and this yearning is for, that's what actually brings in the energy. But that goes according to us. So it really starts with what our desire is for. אזי לפי הכיסופין, in accordance with the כיסופין, נעשו נקודות. The נקודות or the nefesh or what's going to animate, the life force that's going to come into the world to be able to animate things that are physical things inside the world, that energy is according to the כיסופין that we have.

ונצטיירו האותיות שבתוך הדבר שהוא נכסף, and that will animate the thing that we are yearning for. כי כל דבר יש לו אותיות. Everything in the world is made up of, if you're into technology you could think zeros and ones, if you science you could think about, I guess, atoms or whatever it is, energy at its base, but when we look at anything, it's really made up of certain building blocks that come out differently. In the way that we're going to say it, it's all אותיות. The HaKadosh Baruch Hu used the Torah as the blueprint for the world.

The way that אותיות get together and through the נקודות, you can have the same letters, which are either different נקודות, חלב and חלב, one is milk and one is fat, or עונג and נגע, the same letters rearranged differently. So the building blocks of the world are the אותיות, and how the energy applies to the אותיות will literally build your building blocks of what gets of what gets presented. It's the spiritual science of the world. אך שהאותיות בעצמן הן כגולם. The letters themself are just an empty sort of it's a data point. Information is how you put the data together.

The letters themself are data. ואין להם שום ציור בלא נקודות. The letters themself don't have any animation without form, without the נקודות. ולפי הכיסופין והשתוקקות של אדם, according to this yearning, this desire of what what the person brings in, the nefesh into the letters, כך נצטיירו האותיות על ידי נקודות, in accordance with that, these building blocks, this data will get put together into different information, and that's going to bring different energy into the world, שהם בחינת נפש שמקבלים על ידי כיסופין, because this is the nefesh, the life, that it's mekabel through these desires. היינו, אם הוא נכסף לדבר טוב, נעשה מהכיסופין נפש קדושה, ונעשו נקודות בחינת נקודות הכסף.

If the person has good desires for something that's tov, so then there's going to be kisufin for something that's kadosh, and that will bring in kadosh life force. ואזי נצטיירו האותיות שהיו כגולם, ונעשה כלי לקבל טוב, and now it's going to apply to this letter, which is a golem, which is a kli, and now the letter will be part of something that is tov, it'll be channeled for the good. וכן להפך חס ושלום, חס ושלום if it's the the opposite. אם נכסף לרע חס ושלום, נעשה מכיסופין נפשות, then these negative desires will bring in a negative energy, שהם בחינת נקודות, also a nefesh, also bechinah of movement, of putting the letters together in a different way, ונצטיירו אותיות ונעשה כלי לקבל רע, חס ושלום.

And there's going the letters will get put together in a negative way, chas veshalom. כי מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us the otiyot, our avodah is to bring the nefesh. We are partners with Hashem in creation. Our job, our avodah, the world is perfectly imperfect. Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us the ability to bring perfection into the world and to line it line it up in order to be a giluy of the tov. Hakadosh Baruch Hu did not give us טוב ורע, He gave us the raw material. Through through a system of tzimtzumim and so on, what we've addressed in the past, there is a perception of separateness so that we now have the the ability and the opportunity to put it back together in the right way.

So, he's quoting over here a pasuk in איכה, מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטובות. We have just the opportunity, רק כל אחד לפי מה שהוא מצייר ועושה כלי, it's up to us to construct it into a כלי לקבל טוב או רע, חס ושלום. It's all up to us how we are going to connect. There is the letters, in the example that I gave before, oneg and nega, here we there's the raw material, there are three individual letters. According to what we desire and develop a desire for, where we channel that energy, that will put together the letters, so that now it's going to communicate and bring something into the world.

על ידי הכיסופין והתשוקה שלו, על ידי זה נעשה הנפש בחינת נקודות. Through our desires and our thirst, we are going to bring the life in the form of nekudot, which will animate the raw material in this world. ועל ידי הנקודות מתנענעים האותיות, and through the nekudot, the letters will become animated, they will move, they will each letter in itself and also to connect together with other letters, ונצטיירו לטוב או להיפך, חס ושלום. So there's a lot here, a lot by way of information and a lot by way of of ideas to be מתבונן on, the the idea that we have an opportunity, a zechut, and really a responsibility to bring a giluy of ratzon Hashem, and for that we get reward and punishment, not as sort of a abstract reward and punishment, but really a direct consequence of our fulfillment of this responsibility.

And if we are able to make ourself and the world into a Mishkan, to be able to line up the pipes so that there is a direct residing, so to speak, there's a the Shechinah is שוכן in the world, we're able to see a reflection of מלכות of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the world, then we will be the direct recipients of the טוב that we bring into the world. And if chas v'shalom we direct our כיסופין to make it that the world has the appearance and the perception of being separated, chas v'shalom, there's a הסתר פנים, so that the Shechinah is in גלות, it's not, so to speak, residing, manifesting, and expressing itself in the world, then, first of all, the the Shechinah is sadder than we are.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu had an intent, instead of doing it Himself He gave us the opportunity to do that, and we, so to speak, כביכול held it back. We we did not allow that to happen and we directed the energy elsewhere. So then we affect the הנהגה of the world and הסתר פנים, unfortunately, differently on our own terms. There's a little bit of a question of גירסאות here, אך על ידי הכיסופין הנ״ל עדיין הנפש בכח. So going forward, at this stage of the process, the Tzedakah, emunah, brit manifesting כיסופין, we still have not yet brought it into koach, into בפועל.

We still have not actualized it. What we've done is we're at the point in the process where we're creating this vacuum that we could bring life into the world, but it's not yet animated in the world. כדי שתצא הנפש מכח אל הפועל, so how does it now come to actualize itself in the world, all of this life force that we're bringing down? צריך לדבר בפה הכיסופין וההשתוקקות. The רצון, I have something in my mind, and now it develops into an idea, and it needs to be expressed: thought, speech, action is also actualizing. Over here we're focused on the idea of speech, incredibly important, the idea of tefillah, tefillah is based around this, and tefillah not just in terms of the formal formal prayer, but in terms of having raw emotions and then expressing it in our own language, right?

Much more of a connection, actually, of an actualization of raw emotion is there's an idea of plugging it into the magic of the words of the Anshei Knesset Hagedolah, and there's an idea of just actualizing it on our own terms. The idea of speaking things out with with our words, of hitbodedut, of speaking to Hakadosh Baruch Hu directly, that comes out to actualize our desires, it brings it out. שהוא נכסף ומשתוקק and what we were previously desiring for, that now comes out in words, כמו שכתוב נפשי יצאה בדברו, the nefesh comes out with the words.

שעל ידי הדיבור through the words, and the difference again, potentially, between דיבור and amirah. Amirah is I express something, דיבור is a communication. It builds a bridge, right? So a person can say something to themselves, but if I speak to you, which means I draw this connection, now something is going to come out of this communication. It's going to be a זיווג there, it's going to bring down something, that would be דיבור. שעל ידי הדיבור יוצאת הנפש מכח אל הפועל, this is now going to actualize to bring out this desire. כי על ידי ההשתוקקות נתהווה הנפש בכח, through the השתוקקות, through this desire, which together with the כיסופין, again, the way we explained it, there is the spiritual energy and yearning for me to go past myself, and there's the השתוקקות with what that's attached to, a energetic געגועין to to to get to to be together with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, to fill that vacuum with godliness.

Through this, that creates the desire b'koach. Now there's this loose life energy, but how do I bring that to become actualized? Through words, through expression. ועל ידי הדיבור שמדבר בפיו ההשתוקקות, נגמר הנפש ויוצא מכח אל הפועל. So this is bringing out the next step in the process. Again, we were talking about a shleimut in the two areas of brit. Again, in the context really of shmirat habrit and emunah going together, but that shmirat habrit brings out the chesed as a yearning, as a desire, and these kisufin are what bring are what bring in the chayut into the world, first b'koach, and then they have to become actualized.

Next, וזה שאמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה, this is what Chazal said, a Gemara in מועד קטן, אם הרב דומה למלאך ה׳ צבאות, תורה יבקשו מפיהו. If a person's teacher is like a מלאך ה׳ צבאות, we'll have to explain this, we spoke about it in the Torah as well, then seek Torah from his mouth, כי אותיות התורה because the letters of the תורה הם פועלים. These are like the workers, they are actualizing. כי הם החיות של כל דבר, they are what is ultimately the life, they're at the source of everything in the world, כמו שכתוב, like the pasuk says, ובטובו in his goodness מחדש בכל יום תמיד, הקדוש ברוך הוא is constantly renewing מעשה בראשית, ואין טוב אלא תורה.

ובטובו is is and with his tov, with his Torah, meaning through the otiot of the Torah, which again are animated by the nekudot and so on, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is being mechadesh the existence of the world, כי הם מנהיגים את כל העולם. They are the ones that are going to be the existence of everything, and in how they're animated, they will be manhig the world. אך האותיות בעצמן, but again, the letters themselves, when it's put together, then the letters will have letters, nekudot, תגין, right? The letter is a full-package deal, but now we're breaking up the, you know, the physics of the letters themselves.

אך האותיות בעצמן, the letters without the נקודות הם כגולם, they are like an empty kli, again, like an unfinished unfinished kli, it's not ready for for use. It's not fully expressing its design. ואין להם שום תנועה וחיות, it doesn't have any movement, it doesn't have any energy yet, ואין להם שום ציור, and it does not yet have any any form. ועל כן יש לתורה שני כחות, and therefore, the Torah has two different possibilities in terms of how that energy will be directed. The the with the letters, the way that we're relating to them, being מפי עליון לא תצא הרעות והטוב.

This is just the blueprint of the world, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu is, kivayachol, he is leaving it to us to direct this energy. Zacha na'aseh lo sam chayim. If a person is zocheh, he merits it, he directs it in a positive way, then this will be the elixir of life, this is going to be the very attachment to vitality. We are plugging ourself into into the חכמה עליון, into the דעת עליון, into הקדוש ברוך הוא, into רצון ה׳. כי כל אחד לפי מה שהוא נכסף, every person, according to what he yearns for, what he desires, כך הוא מצייר ומפרש אותיות התורה.

That is how he is going to explain the Torah, that's how he's going to animate, and the the letters of the Torah will become an expression of that. כי בהתורה כלול אחיזת טוב ורע. Torah encompasses the entirety of existence. Now, it's it's interesting, I just want to add a parenthetical just on my mind, right? One of the one of the primary sources or or ways that people have had mistakes in the past that chas v'shalom could lead them towards avodah zarah, was this idea of tov and ra. Meaning, if God, הקדוש ברוך הוא, is כולו טוב, then how could there be ra in the world?

Everything is coming from what came before it, right? If there is a a system of cause and effect, that means anything in the fruit, the DNA had to be in the seed. If there's ra in the world, there has to be something that was the source of ra. And if הקדוש ברוך הוא is כולו טוב, then how could there be ra in the world? So, I'm just going to sort of mention it as a footnote as we're learning, so what does it mean that the Torah is the source of ra as well? What we're saying over here is, and it's not a perfect mashal, so don't don't dig too carefully into the mashal, but there is at a at a certain level, right, there's an expression of something that is just true.

There could be a mathematical expression where you write it down on the paper, all of the numbers, all of the symbols, the pluses, the minuses, the times, they're all accounted for, there's no extra pieces. You could have a puzzle that's put together, which is cut to form, and it expresses it expresses a certain picture. Now, let's say I blindfold you. I hide the ultimate רצון that's expressed, and I introduce additional considerations. So, I give you a puzzle. There is a right way to put together the puzzle so that all of the pieces fit, and you decide instead of putting it together to express one picture, you want to try to put it together to express a different picture.

And then all of a sudden you have to jam pieces in, you end up having extra pieces, right? Let's say there's a a perfectly organized library and you say, "Well, you know, everything is organized exactly the way it's supposed to go, so you know exactly where every book is. Everything has its place and it really expresses the organization of the person who owns this library." And I say, "Well, wait a second. You know, but it doesn't look that right. I would like to organize these books based on color or based on size." And then somebody else walks in and they can't find anything, it's just a jumble of nonsense.

Well, what led the person to do this? Because they introduced other considerations, the aesthetics of what it looked like rather than the organization of information. So הקדוש ברוך הוא is חותמו של הקדוש ברוך הוא אמת. It is the perfect desire of שלמות. Because הקדוש ברוך הוא gave us the gift of bechirah, so therefore some of those considerations are hidden from us, we now have the opportunity to work towards tov, which we will define as רצון השם, or to go towards ra, which we will define as going away from רצון השם. We're not in the dark.

We have the Torah, we have נביאים, we have Chazal, we have ways to attach ourselves to רצון השם, and then we have other considerations which can move us farther away. So, when we say that the Torah is כוללת, gives us טוב ורע, perhaps what we're saying is the organization of this library has the possibility to be perfectly organized, and it has the possibility to be organized in a way that is irrational, that makes no sense, based on other considerations. All of those potentialities exist within the information. It's not so much that this is tov and ra, it's that Hashem left us the opportunity in order to relate to the material, which at its source is something that contains the opportunity for שלמות to express Hakadosh Baruch Hu's desire, but it's up to us in order to relate to us to either bring a גילוי and create a a place where there's Shechinah, or to create something that's disconnected and that does not express that.

וצדיקים ילכו בם ופושעים יכשלו בם. The tzadikim will walk in those ways and they will align everything with the desire of the Creator and the מנהיג of the world, the Ribono Shel Olam, and the poshim, the negligent ones, the fools, they will introduce added considerations which are not from the Creator and Runner, the בורא עולם, the Ribono Shel Olam, and that will end up that will end up becoming a stumbling block. היינו כל אחד לפי הכיסופין שלו. Where what's at the root of it? Are we being mevatel ourselves towards ratzon Hashem, which is the ultimate truth, or are we introducing our desires that are based on our own yearnings?

שמהם נעשים נפשות. But wherever we decide to direct our desire, that will bring in the energy that will animate the world. על ידי זה עושה נקודות לאותיות התורה. And we, for better or worse, will bring in the animations of those letters of Torah, of those building blocks of the world. ונסתיירו אותיות, and that will animate the world. ונתפרשו לטוב או להיפך חס ושלום, so that there will be an expression of good, that it will become oneg or it will become נגע. ולפי שנסתיירון כך הם פועלים בעולם, and the way that they take on a form, that is how they will become actualized in the world, which is a tremendous זכות because it allows us to partner, to be creators of the world itself in a very real way.

This is not like an abstract philosophical concept. We literally, depending on what the life we bring into the world, we will affect how the what the world looks like, the amount of vitality in the world. ועל כן אותיות התורה מבקשים להסתייר מפי צדיק. The אותיות of the Torah, כביכול, themselves, which understand why they're in the world and they're here with the with the nekudot, with the vowels left blank in order to allow us to fill them in, but they they are there to express ratzon Hashem. It's as if the letters themselves desire for the tzadik to fill in those nekudot appropriately.

Imagine in a, you know, kivayachol, that the letters know that they're trying to express a communication. They're there, they're the vowels are left blank, and they are there to express a certain desire. Comes along a five-year-old and he just willy-nilly fills in a bunch of nekudot in the wrong way, that they can't express themselves. That would be a frustration of purpose. The letters themselves desire the that that they are expressed through the צדיק, שהוא מדבר כיסופין דקדושה שלו, because he is going to express and bring in the desire in the appropriate way, the טוב, the attachment to their source and to רצון השם, שעל ידי זה מקבלין האותיות נקודות ונצטיירין לטוב, that through him the אותיות, the letters will be מקבל the appropriate nekudot, and they will take on the form of טוב, which is, again, טוב we will define as connection to Hashem.

And therefore, just to finish off this this piece for now, we are in the inside paragraph of page מ״ה עמוד א׳, or it's paragraph י״ג in the version that I'm using, וזהו אם הרב דומה למלאך ה׳ צבאות, if a rav, a person's rebbe is דומה to מלאך ה׳ צבאות, and we're going to dig deeper into this. הרב צריך, and I'm going to make a suggestion. This is the way that I'm reading it, but extreme depth, and we're going to have to I think dig into this the next time. But he introduces הרב צריך גם כן שיהיה לו שני כחות שיש לה תורה, סם חיים and the other סם, חס ושלום, באופן שיהיה אפשר להתקרב אליו ולקבל ברצונו, צדיקים ילכו ופושעים יכשלו.

This is on its face this is extremely hard paragraph. Maybe I should see seek a rav that only has the כח הטוב. Why would I need to have a rav that has both כחות? And the way that I understand it, I think the flow is, he says our avodah is not to be a bunch of robots. Our avodah we said is to be the builders of the world. It's to attach ourself and and ourselves and the world and everything around us to רצון השם, to put together the puzzle in the appropriate way, attach ourselves to the source, and bring out a גילוי, emunah and tzedakah.

We explained this in the realm of the אותיות of תורה שבכתב, that's where the אותיות are, right? טעמים נקודות תגין ואותיות. The the letters, the form of the letters are in the תורה שבכתב. תורה שבעל פה doesn't have letters. תורה שבעל פה has a rav to a תלמיד. It's spoken and entered. Now a lot of things are printed, but בעצם the כלי for תורה שבכתב is spoken word. Now, if my entire avodah is to be able to have that choice, so in תורה שבכתב I have the opportunity to relate to it in two ways, and therefore that gives me the zechut, the merit, the opportunity, the responsibility to do it.

What about if I'm just attaching to a rav? If I'm מבטל myself to my Rebbe, I'm going to do everything he says, so where's my מקום for avodah? So I if this is what he means, and we'll we'll we'll dig in deeper, he says, this is why a rav has the capability, also in the realm of איסור והיתר, also in the realm of תורה שבעל פה, that there has to be the capability for the תלמיד to relate in a positive way or the negative way, because every individual, as much as we have התבטלות to the Torah and to the Rebbe and to emunah and הקדוש ברוך הוא, we all have our own avodah, and therefore our attachment leaves us מקום for avodah, which means that what we relate to has gives us the opportunity, this is profound point, gives us the opportunity to relate to it in accordance with our desires.

אם הוא משתוקק לעבודת השם יתברך, יוכל לקבל מהרב דרך ישרה לעבודת השם, ואם לאו, וטינא יש בלבו, oh sorry, וטינא יש בלבו, יוכל גם כן למצוא בהרב דבר שיוכל לקצץ בנטיעות ויכפור בכל, חס ושלום. Every person has the opportunity to attach themselves to הקדוש ברוך הוא, or chas v'shalom to לקצץ בנטיעות, we said it's like cut it off at the source. There was the example that we gave for somebody that that could be focused on let's say the thou-shalt's and not-shalt-not's, and yet they have no chas v'shalom, they have no emunah, they have no attachment to the source to the foundation.

And therefore the nature of the process is necessary, tzarich, it needs to be such that, also the same way that when we learn Torah our interface and our relationship is with the אותיות, תורה שבעל פה, our relationship is with the Rav, and there needs to be room left over that we could attach ourselves and receive from the Rav in either direction because that is where it is our opportunity to attach to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, or chas v'shalom to if we have טינא בלבו, which we'll see, if a person is has a rot on the inside, there's something wrong going on, they can direct the energy in a negative way, and that is where our מקום עבודה is. Okay, we will stop over here, and be'ezrat Hashem next time we will we will go forward. The words move a little bit quicker in Rabbi Natan's words, but be'ezrat Hashem we will go forward in this unbelievably profound and also lengthy lengthy Torah.