LM 33.1 — Mi Ha'Ish, Part 1 of 4: From Fragmentation to Shleimus · תורה ל״ג

Be'ezrat Hashem we are beginning together the first shiur of תורה ל״ג לשון רבינו זכרונו לברכה. This is actually beginning if you're following in the English ones it's the fifth volume of 10 that are that comprise the first sefer of Likutei Moharan, and then another five of the second sefer, so it's a little bit of a milestone. As far as לשון רבינו ז״ל, Rav Chaim Kramer reminds us that the לשון רבינו ז״ל תורות were copied verbatim from Rabbeinu's manuscripts which Rav Natan had in his possession. The majority of the remaining lessons were transcribed by Rav Natan at Rav Nachman's dictation and the rest of them, excluding a few which were written down by some of the other talmidim, were reconstructed by Rav Natan after he had heard the teaching from Rebbe in public.

In either way, Rav Natan would then prepare a written version and present it to Rabbeinu for approval. Rav Chaim Kramer goes through an analysis about when this Torah was given. It seems that it was sometime between 1800 and 1803, so that puts it in just in terms of where it was in history, the Hebrew years 5562-5563. Among what his analysis that he goes through are a number of the lessons that were given in a particular period that had to do with the mitzvah of tefillin. Rabbi Atia brings in a footnote that this Torah was likely given on Sukkot of the year תקס״ב 5562, so that also that also lines up.

As far as the main themes of this lesson, Rav Chaim Kramer brings peace, shalom, recognizing Hakadosh Baruch Hu in every aspect of life, including both the good days and the bad days, which we'll see what does it mean to have a bad day, the revealed and hidden Torah, tzadikim, and love. Rabbi Nachman also alludes to the kavanot associated with the mitzvah of lulav, as will be seen at the end of this lesson. Now as we as we begin discussing the Torah itself, where we happen to be holding in Elul 5786, 2026, and this Torah, it certainly is appropriate for Elul going into Rosh Hashanah, going into malchut.

And I would like to introduce an idea that I think is worth being mitbonen on. It lines up with with a lot of the discussion that we had in תורה ל״ב. And I think will actually give us a background to discuss this Torah. So I'm I'm actually I kind of wrote it out, so in case it sounds like I'm reading off something, but it helped to organize the thoughts. Also, for what it's worth, I can say that the the idea generally was inspired by a shiur on the Ramchal's Maamar Hachochmah from Rav Aharon Lopianzky, but definitely adapted, so if I changed anything, I take full responsibility.

But it comes asking a question, we start off in davenen, we say יתקדש שמך, we're trying to sanctify HaKadosh Baruch Hu's name in the world. And the world as we experience it, like we said in our introduction, we have good days, we have bad days, but even deeper than that, we seem to have a world that's divided into tov and ra. And this, of course, is one of the biggest philosophical questions that has that has traveled through the ages is that anything comes from a source, then it would have been embedded in the source. If we have ra in the world, then it must be that ra came from the source, but HaKadosh Baruch Hu is kulo tov.

So, where is this ra coming from? And how do we find ourselves in a world of ra? What's our job? Now before we we work towards the end where we're we're trying to bring a tikkun that the tov should be שליט on the ra, that the ra should be subjugated to the tov, the the more the more existential question about ra is where is it that something can independently exist that is not within or not lined up with HaKadosh Baruch Hu's values, and if we start with the premise that it can't, then what actually are we referring to when we call something ra?

Now to begin understanding this, I'm actually going to borrow from an example that we used in the the last shiur, which is let's say I have a an idea, an emotion, something that I would like to express to you, and in order to express it to you, I'm going to do it via a picture. Okay, so I start with a thought, and I am going to put that thought in some visual representation so that you can take it in, and you can appreciate it. Now, let's assume, in order for you to fully appreciate this picture, how it fits together, I would like you to really be able to dig in and understand all the nuances, so I don't want to just show you the picture, I want you to understand it from the inside out.

How am I going to do this? I'm going to take this, my idea, I translate it into a visual that a person could take in at once, in in one instant, but they can't fully appreciate it by just seeing it, that would just be passive. Which means that I am going to now carve it into puzzle pieces, in the first instance, I'm now, just by drawing the lines, I have not yet taken it apart, this picture now has the possibility of separation, the possibility of fragmentation. At that point, I'm going to take this puzzle, I'm going to break up all the pieces, and then when I present you the the pieces in the box, you will first encounter the world in a fragmented state, so that not it wasn't that you had a picture that you're putting back together, but you will see total chaos, and little by little, as you put the picture together, you're going to So we encounter separate people, nations, different middot, competing desires, forces that seem to contradict each other.

We don't see them as actually all being part of one picture, but we sort of see a big mess with a million different kinds of pieces. Now, that's one level where we have an avodah to be able to be a shutaf in מעשה בראשית. We are not only going to be presented with the tov, but we are going to participate in the revelation of tov. The next step is the idea of tov and ra. How are we going to define tov and ra? Tov is something that is aligned with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that expresses HaKadosh Baruch Hu's giluy in the world, and the truth is, skipping to the end, when everything comes together into one picture with no extra pieces and no pieces missing, it comes out that everything actually was part of the tov to begin with.

But as far as we encounter, we see things that seem to be outside that system, meaning that ra is really a function of our perspective until we develop, not of Hashem. Now, I'm going to give a a couple משלים, the משלים are not mine, and these potentially will express the idea of how we encounter ra in a in a snapshot, in a micro way when they're they're in actuality not really ra. One example: a person has a spice in the kitchen. Sugar tastes good. Pepper, למשל, tastes bad, and yet, if you add pepper to a dish, then it could be that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and the dish actually needed that spicy tasting tasting condiment in order to actually bring it out.

Salt can bring out flavor. Something that on its own has no purpose, that's ra when it's disconnected, and yet when I understand it as part of a greater whole, it not only doesn't contradict anything, but it contributes in an essential way. Another example: the idea of appetite, again not my examples, necessary. Appetite sustains the body. If a person didn't have appetite, they would starve to death, and yet if the appetite starts becoming self-serving and it's not serving the person, but actually he eats in an unhealthy way, more than he needs, then it could contribute to a to negative health, and therefore the same force that can contribute, on its own can become destructive.

So it's not When we talk about ra, it's not necessarily something that has no purpose. What it is, is something that becomes detached from its place within the whole, and presents itself as an independent metziut. The tikkun of this ra, therefore, is when the tov is שולט on the רע, is when the רע is subjugated to the טוב. Meaning, and we've expressed this in different ways before, one way of understanding what does it mean that we see רע and we have a an opportunity to appreciate טוב, I can say, "Listen, me and you are having an argument, what's behind a curtain?

Something is presenting a shadow, and you have reasons for your argument, and I have reasons for mine." And at some point, we look behind the curtain, and now we see the truth, and it comes out not that you're right and I'm wrong, it's that you're right and my argument had no place. You say 2 + 2 = 4, I say 2 + 2 = 5, we bring four apples to the table, you show me in front of me that 2 + 2 = 4, it's not that you were right and I'm wrong, you're right and my argument is shown to be without basis.

That's one way of understanding that רע is really a perspective, we're both competing to try to get to the underlying truth, and at some point, when we have גילוי, we have revelation, it'll come out that there really there was no basis for רע in the first place, it's only a perception that was possible because of a hiddenness. But what we're talking over here, potentially, is even a higher level. What it is is not simply that the רע never existed and it was only potential, the רע was actually part of the טוב. The fact that it was רע, that it was bad, was only in perspective.

Whether or not something is integrated or not is only in how we use it. That puzzle piece, whether or not it's part of the picture or we put it in the wrong place, and it's trying to express something independent in a way that the puzzle will never be able to put together in that way, that's only because of misuse. Everything בעצם is part of the טוב, and it's not that the the idea of רע goes away, but the but that puzzle piece from beforehand doesn't go away, it's actually just part of the טוב. That is the מיתוק.

That is the sweetness of the רע, where really it rejoins, it becomes part of the ultimate picture. This בעצם is the ענין of מלכות. מלכות is not just that I'm telling you what to do. מלכות is what ties together the kingdom, the community, all of the different pieces to join together into one kingdom. To the point that that Reb Aaron mentioned, what's the פסוק by מלכיות? שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד doesn't have the word מלכיות. The idea, though, of אחדות, and אחדות is not one, אחדות is unified, it's oneness, that everything is בעצם part of one system.

It's a framework that when it's concealed has a lot of pieces that appear disconnected, but the and that's שכינתא בגלותא, that is where the שכינה, the מלכות, something that should be שוכן, is not able to express itself when it's in גלות, and yet when we are able to bring down the שכינה It's an aspect of מלכות where everything comes together, which means that a top-down perspective, had we seen things from the point of view of the original picture, the original רצון that was presenting us with the picture, there are no extra pieces, even if you want them to be, because you're starting off with the actual truth, the idea of רע only presents itself when we are introduced bottom-up, we're introduced at the level of fragmentation so that we have the עבודה to create and to reveal the שלמות within the fragmented world itself, until the world becomes an expression of שכינה.

This is going to give us an important entrance into תורה ל״ג, how we take a world that appears divided into טוב and רע, and we're able to create a keli, we're able to create a point of view where we put the where we put everything in the beriah is part of one underlying system, where there is nothing but השם אחד, but for the idea that there is a gift of a perceived independence, a he'elem, a concealment, so that we could appreciate this on our own, and be zocheh to to encounter hakadosh baruch hu, not just in terms of yirah, not just in terms of being reactive, but in terms of ahavah, something that now is generated from our perspective, something where we from within want to get close.

So, with that with that background, to me, this this is was an idea that helped me calibrate myself in order to be able to enter into this Torah. So, we start off Torah ל״ג: לשון רבינו ז״ל, ״מי האיש החפץ חיים״, who is the man who desires life, we'll have to see what type of life we're talking about, ״אוהב ימים״, he loves days, ״לראות טוב״, in order to see good. Just, I'm going to read note two from Rabbi Atiyah, he says, the peshat of the pasuk according to the Metzudot in in the in navi, in Tehillim: ״מי האיש החפץ חיים״, who is the man who desires life, היינו חיי העולם הבא, the true life, the true connection to Elokim Chaim.

הוא ״אוהב ימים״, it is the person that loves his days, רוצה לומר, ״אוהב ימי העולם הזה להרבות במעשים טובים״. The one who desires life is the one who loves the opportunity of his days in this world, he's able to embrace the gift, like we said, he is leveraging the finite, he's able to use his days in order to create value of the infinite, so to speak. He loves the opportunity that's in front of him in order to be able to access the goal of of the ultimate life: כדי לראות לעדן בטוב האמיתי בעולם הבא. So, this world is not a by-product, this world is a life of opportunity.

He is ohev yamim, not a necessary evil, but he loves his days in order to gain access to the true chayim. But kedarko bakodesh, Rabbeinu is going to explain this pasuk in penimiyut: What is the kavanah? כיצד ניתן להמשיך את ימי הטוב של העולם הבא כבר בעולם הזה? Not not a matter of getting through this world, which seems to be the prozdor, seems to be the tunnel because this is the way to the ultimate life which is actually in עולם הבא. But no, who is the one who desires life, the one who's ohev yamim, the one who is actually able to pull that עולם הבא into this world.

We had a previous maybe it was Torah ד׳, the one who is able to attach to hakadosh baruch hu, attach to Elokim Chaim. Actually, already in this world we can live like that now, yes, in a different staging, in a different framing, but we can live with that attachment to hakadosh baruch hu in this world. Paragraph א: הכלל הוא, the klal, the framework, the universe within which we live, the context in how we are going to understand this, שצריך לבקש שלום, we have to pursue peace. Which, as we explained in the introduction, shalom is not where you have a lot of things going in one direction, that could be parallel lines.

Shalom or peace, a shleimut, is where you have things that might be going in different directions, but they complement each other so that there is actually a completeness. A bunch of things pieces that are doing exactly the same thing does not indicate a shleimut to the בריאה, it just means that you're not in particular conflict with anything. Just to to give one parenthetical, which, it's interesting, it happened to come up this week, I was talking to a friend of mine whose son recently got got married, and we were talking about the difference between what people oftentimes think they're looking for in a relationship, and, you know, how it evolves, either in terms of what they're looking for or the relationship itself.

And, you know, people have might have different takes, but I think that the point is true. I said, you know, when a person is looking for a chavruta, they're looking for a friend, a companion, you know, as a as a single person, generally a person has their avodah, they have the way that they are trying to succeed in life, and they're looking for people of a similar mindset: a chavruta that has a similar style of learning, a roommate that has similar similar habits, who knows, wake up at the same time, go to sleep at the same time, similarly neat or who knows, similarly messy.

When a person is looking for an אשת חיל to build a בית נאמן בישראל, that ultimately they are looking for איש ואישה get together so that they complement each other, that it becomes a שלימות, really, potentially, it's the first time that actually the relationship that they're looking for is not something that's consistent, it's something that's complementary so that they can build a בית. And a lot of the considerations, how is a person, you know, who has less life experience, really supposed to understand and embrace this when it's not actually something that's that's in the realm of their experience at that time, that first of all, they're looking to grow and be part of something greater, and they're also looking to contribute to something greater.

So, the כלל שצריך לבקש שלום. We have to seek that. That is actually our avodah. And צריך, it's מוכרח, it's a necessary part of the process, because we are ultimately trying to develop this idea of שלימות, where everything is טוב, where we understand and we relate to אחדות השם, to יחוד השם, and looking for that גילוי. שיהיה שלום בין ישראל, ושיהיה שלום לכל אדם במידותיו. It's interesting, the order that he puts it, but I would suggest, I guess, that what what is שלום בין ישראל? The the ultimate expression of things going in different directions, besides for events in the world, is really בחירה, because if we all have בחירה, that a person can individually do good or bad, that means that there's room for a person to be going in a direction opposite of the טוב.

And if a person finds themselves with other people in a community, that means that, listen, I understand that everything coming from Hashem should be for the good, but at the end of the day, we have the gift of בחירה, which means individual people could be doing I know that I'm not perfect, which means everybody around me is not perfect. So how come that the entire world is governed within a system of טוב, but if there are people that can make negative decisions, by definition, people could be doing things in a state of רע. So how am I able to reconcile myself and say everything is for the good?

Doesn't that contradict the idea of בחירה? So that on its own is a topic. But having said that, if we enter into the world of כל העולם נברא בשבילי, I, however it works out with this this seeming contradiction that we just articulated, I am going to find myself in a world, כל העולם נברא בשבילי, that הקדוש ברוך הוא is going to give me a perfect situation at every single second that I encounter the world, in order to bring out my growth, in order to relate to myself, the people around me, to הקדוש ברוך הוא. I will be in a perfectly imperfect world in order to develop, which means that no matter what happens, I I might understand that things are not the way that I would have liked them, but I don't have any ta'anot, I don't have ta'anot on individual people.

The whatever delivery mechanism הקדוש ברוך הוא gave it to me, that's actually what I needed. So I can be בשלום with with any individual people, and I'm going to work on my avodah separately. And any one of these points is is is rich, especially in the first paragraphs of every Torah, where we really frame out the entire idea. ושיהיה שלום לכל אדם במידותיו, and a person should have שלימות internally. Now, what does that mean that his מידות should be בשלום? For now we'll just read through the words and I'm sure this will all be fleshed out as we go through the Torah.

היינו שלא יהיה מחולק, that there shouldn't be separation, במידותיו ובמאורעותיו, with his מידות, his character, and מאורעותיו, the things that happened to him. For this, I'm going to borrow from Rav Chaim Kramer's note. He says, note 5, page 2 in the in the new volume, the English volume 5, says, "Being conflicted within himself, middos, refers to inner doubts and confusion that well up inside a person as a result of disharmony between different elements or attributes that form his personality." So we all have inner conflict, and when we have to look inward in order to understand how to address the things around us, well, I inwardly, I seem to have competing priorities, competing emotions.

But that doesn't mean that they can't all serve a common purpose. So first of all, a person has to understand that he is internally the perfect make-up in order to engage with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, to engage with avodah, and to be b'shleimus in himself. Whereas over what happens to him, says Rav Chaim Kramer, "What is מאורעותיו? Refers to conflicts that come to a person from outside: home, work, in the synagogue, and so on, as a result of disharmony between the different elements or attributes that form his world." So the the statement reads, first of all, there should be שלום בין ישראל, which one point is the point that I made a few a few minutes ago, and I'll I'll actually introduce a second point.

Besides for shalom with individuals in terms of just getting along with them the way that they're acting, which would also overlap with מאורעותיו, I would suggest also that when we look at כלל ישראל, we're looking at a כלל. So the same way that a person has a head, two arms, two legs, a person forms a shleimus, and if some aspect of that shleimus is missing, the head might fulfill, in a certain sense, a very different function than the leg, such that if the head is cut off, the person dies, and if the leg is, God forbid, messed up, then the person can go ahead and live, but the shleimus of a person involves each piece of that puzzle fulfilling its potential.

A person wouldn't be able to have two right legs, they wouldn't be able to walk. The same way that everything has its place, when we look at כלל ישראל, also every member of כלל ישראל has its place. Certainly there needs to be one melech, there needs to be one CEO, and at the end of the you know at the end of that chain, for purposes of example, there might be a janitor. The same way that the melech, the CEO of the world, is going to be judged לטב ולמוטב, when he messes up it's a big mess up, when he succeeds it's a big success, and he has that capacity, and he will be judged in the way that he fulfilled his potential at that level, so too the janitor is given a certain task, and when he has his review, when he is judged, he will be judged in how he filled his potential on a percentage, and therefore we're all b'shleimus.

Nobody is out of balance. Nobody is better or worse than anybody. The way that we understand looking at other Jews, they are equally as internally important with their strengths and weaknesses as we are going to be held to our standard with our strengths and weaknesses, and we all complement each other. A a king, or for argument's sake an educator, who's very smart but he has no talmidim, he has no class, is not an educator, he's just a talmid chacham. The reality is is that אין מלך בלא עם. To the educator, it's just as important for him to have talmidim as it is for the talmidim to have their rebbi, otherwise none of them will find their their עצמות, their their their definition and their value, I guess we could say.

So already, I mean, just mind-blowing concepts, two ideas in how we can approach שלום בין ישראל as I relate to it around me, and as I relate to things internally. I have to resolve my internal conflict, both as bubbles up from the inside out, and as I relate to events that are not necessarily in terms of כלל ישראל, but just the things that I encounter. היינו, oh right, שלא יחלק במדותיו ומאורעותיו, שלא יהיה לו חלק בין בטיבו בין בעקו, it's Aramaic, טיבו, עקו is for good or for or for bad, or for or בצערה. תמיד ימצא בו השם יתברך.

In all circumstances we encounter only Hashem. An example that we used in the in the last shiur, if a person is familiar at all with technology, they would know that despite what we see on a screen, different pictures, a game, a program, a spreadsheet, a movie, whatever it is, at at the at the highest levels of programming, everything is really only zeros and ones. Everything is either on or off, depending on how they're put together, the series, it will become different in data points, that data will build into information that at the end of the line will present itself differently on the screen, whether it's a game, a spreadsheet, a video, whatever it is.

But everything at its core, if you go down to the DNA inward inward before you even get to the presentation, there is only zeros and ones, and a level above that would be the you know one being that decides which switches, I guess you could say, to turn on and off. There is only yichud. So everything in life for our purposes is only zeros and ones. The fabric of any matter in this world and any happening in this world is all Godly energy that is put together into different presentations solely in order that we can develop as a keli and find God in that.

As we've quoted Rabbi Avigdor Miller zt"l, if there would only be green apples, then we would say that chas v'shalom say that God is a green apple machine. When you have a infinite number of things that happen in the world, and at some point you realize that everything is actually b'shleimus, it builds one picture, that's a statement of achdus, not if there's only one thing. When you have the multiplicity of everything that happens in the world and you can learn to see God in everything, then that becomes a giluy of אחדותו יתברך. And further, just even as we relate to good and bad, I mean just think about a person that has an injury and they need to strengthen themselves, they go to physical therapy.

That seems to be very bad. That seems to cause a lot of pain. And yet, because Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows that a person has latent potential, it's something that has to be developed, there are times that we need to go through resistance training in order to bring out the very koach that's going to that's going to define our gedulah. If we have time I'll mention a a piece of Rav Tzadok I saw actually that discusses this idea in Elul, how we understand our ta'avot, our our challenges versus our strengths. But in any event, a person needs to find shalom, to understand that בין כלל ישראל, in terms of himself, in terms of the things in the world, everything is really part of a complementary שלמות, so that when he starts relating to the שלמות and then works his way back, instead of finding fragmentation and things going in different directions, it comes out that everything is part of a picture, and that picture is אחדותו יתברך, so that really there is he can relate to Hashem just as much in the way up as on the way down, because that is actually what is necessary to form the bigger picture.

היינו: בה׳ אהלל דבר, באלקים אהלל דבר. I'm able to praise davar, we'll see what that means, both in terms of Hashem, when there's rachamim, as well as when there's b'Elokim, when there is din. ועל ידי מה ימצא השם יתברך בין בטיבו בין בעקו? How How is a person supposed to start this avodah? It seems so simple when you start top-down, but when we encounter both good and something that's painful, how are we supposed to get to this? The answer is that we have to anchor ourselves deeper than the surface-level truths, certainly at the level of the fact that I understand it to be true even if I don't always understand how it's true, right?

Emunah, emunah peshutah פשוטה. But a person has to anchor themselves in הקדוש ברוך הוא's wisdom and attach themselves to that even before their own wisdom has developed. How does a person anchor themselves there? על ידי התורה הנקראת שלום, through Torah, the divine wisdom, the chochmah of Hashem, takes a while until we can learn כל התורה כולה, but if I am able to anchor myself in the in the chochmah of השם יתברך, then that will be one anchor, כמו דאת אמר וכל נתיבותיה שלום. So the Torah forms a שלימות, the chochmah of Hashem is שלם, and therefore, if I attach myself to the Torah, then I can be anchored deeper than the way that I perceive these surface-level truths.

ועל ידי צדיקים שנקראו גם כן ברית שלום. We know that צדיקים, צדיק יסוד עולם, that the tzadikim also are an aspect of shalom. We spoke in the last shiur about ברית מילה, ברית תתאה, and so on, but even just בפשטות we could say, what is a tzadik? A tzadik is a living, walking, breathing ספר תורה. The tzadikim are the people that have incorporated all of the ideas that we're discussing in our world, the people that we can relate to, that we can interact with. When I attach myself to a tzadik, whether you're saying vidui in front of the tzadik, you're learning from the tzadik, they become the channel through which in this world you can relate to that from knowledge, from the mesorah, interpersonally, when I attach myself to the tzaddik, and in many ways we're not discussing right now, that also is an attachment to shalom, the person that is embodying the shleimut.

ומחמת זה יוכל לאהוב את השלום בכל מקום, הן בטיבו הן בעקו. Once I am anchored in this idea of shalom, whether Torah, whether tzaddikim, but in principle that it's over the surface-deep presentation of fragmentation, but I am rooted in the picture before it got broken up and before before it got carved into pieces and before those pieces started presenting themselves in a fragmented way, therefore I'm starting off anchored in שלום, ויוכל להיות שלום, again, בין ישראל, ולאהוב זה את זה. And now, again, the ahavah is something internal. Yirah is in a certain sense reactive. Ahavah is self-driven.

I want to get close. When I can internally be anchored in this shalom, then the way that I relate to other people, it's not just that I have to talk myself into it, I am engaging with others in a way of love. I love everything that is part of this shleimut. I love everything that's part of this process, even though, yes, that process might be to give me resistance, it might be give me tza'ar, it might be yissurim where I need yissurim, and it might be presenting me with ways that and challenges in order to bring out my greatness so that I can grow.

But I love that. I love being part of the shleimut. I love the process. I love the hard work. Hard is not bad, it's just hard, and it's harder, because if I didn't have it, then I wouldn't grow, and I wouldn't be able to make progress, and therefore, I'm able to embrace the entire process as I abstract away from the individual ups and downs, and I realize that the that I don't grow despite the downs, but the the the resistance and the downs are actually part and parcel of the process of growth, and ultimately part of one picture of shleimut.

So that is as far as paragraph א is concerned, and now we're going to dig into it piece by piece. וצריך לדעת, we have to know, and not just know intellectually, not just know as a piece of information as chachmah, not just binah, being מדמה מילתא למילתא, בדעת, we have to have this in a real, integrated knowledge translating from our intellect into our emotion, into our being. Da'at, we know, is the memutza between chachmah uvinah and the rest of our מידות, שמלא כל הארץ כבודו, that the entire world is filled with Hakadosh Baruch Hu's kavod.

For our limited purposes, we can suggest that kavod is really when you have two things, which one defers to the other from from a value point of view. If you were had two physical substances, you might say one is harder than the other. If you have a diamond and glass, you would say the diamond is harder than glass, because when they come into contact, the diamond pushes through and the glass scratches. If you had weight, one would be kaved, one would be heavier, it would sink to the bottom through the other substance. Kavod is from a point of view of of a value system, which one defers to the other.

Now it's interesting, because in this physical world we have it seems to be a gashmiyusdik world, it's a physical world, ruchniyus can express itself in the world, but it's it's a little bit abstract, and yet we say that with all of the worldly values, they all actually come to express, in a shlamdik way, when you take everything together, it's actually deferential to the true value system. So maybe מלא כל הארץ כבודו, this world be'etzem is full, taken in completion, it's deferential to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. ולית אתר פנוי מיניה, and there is no extra pieces that would take, when you look at the world in its complete form, there is no room for any other values, everything contributes to a picture of shleimut, it's all expressive of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's kavod.

ואיהו ממלא כל עלמין וסובב כל עלמין. These, these expressions have particular connotations, but there is different ways, stated simply, of how we could look at things. If you look at Hakadosh Baruch Hu, kivayachol, as the the ein sofiut and the or ein sofiut, הקדוש ברוך הוא had to k'vayachol put a tzimtzum, a limited perception such that there could even be a physical world, so that there could be a notion of tov and ra, and ultimately of bechira. But if we can get past this, HaKadosh Baruch Hu k'vayachol surrounds the world, He is סובב כל עלמין.

On the other hand, the truth is, is that despite that limited perception, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is ממלא כל עלמין, it's the entire world, we can't see it, we're not sensitive to it, is saturated with Godliness, there is no other thing. So whichever perspective you're looking from, there is no place that does not have Godliness inherent in it, whether you look at the world as a vacuum as we know it, and therefore HaKadosh Baruch Hu is סובב כל עלמין, or you're understanding that the entire world b'etzem is those zeroes and ones like we said, it's saturated with Godliness, and there is only Godliness, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is מלא כל הארץ כבודו.

ועל כן, ואפילו מי שעוסק במשא ומתן בעכו״ם, and therefore, even a person who is, and this is the ultimate expression, he's doing business, which seems to be mundane, he's not at the time actively engaged in in Torah mitzvot, and he is engaged with a עכו״ם, so it's not even two people that are both fulfilling the mitzvah of of Choshen Mishpat as they as they engage, they say okay, we're going to work at business in a way that is within the Torah perspective. And there's a halacha of דינא דמלכותא דינא, right? So both from a practical perspective, from a legal perspective, the person seems to be a step to the left of being engaged with any sort of Godliness.

לא יוכל להנצל ולומר, that person doesn't have an excuse and say listen, HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants me to make a parnasa, so I'm not doing anything outside of what Hashem wants, but tachlit, I'm engaged in something which is practically mundane in a way that's legally mundane. I right now I had to leave the beit midrash and support my family, I'm engaged with mundane tasks with goyim. אי אפשר לעבוד את השם יתברך מחמת עביות וגשמיות שנפל תמיד עליו. His excuse is that right now, I am not able to be engaged in avodah. Different connotations, עביות is like thickness, right, instead of דקות, instead of subtlety, spiritual values.

I'm engaged in something that's very seemingly shielded from those, it's it's thick, and גשמיות, I'm not engaged in ruchniyut. Right now, my task is to be engaged in גשמיות, and it's תמיד עליו. Tamid could be consistent, or it could be constant. Right now, I'm not I'm not in that world, and I can't be in that world, it's tamid on me. Why? מחמת שהעסק, שעוסק תמיד עמהם. Right now, I am not able to function in a world of ruchniyut, this is not what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants, and I have to be right now at work in a secular environment.

So a person can't say that. If you have the perspective of shlemut, no extra pieces, מלא כל הארץ כבודו, then not only don't I have to answer how can I be be engaged with HaKadosh Baruch Hu when I am outside of ruchniyut, I'm outside of the beit midrash, I don't have to answer that question because that question never is There's no makom for that question to raise itself. בין בטיבו, בין בעקו, all all just different expressions of HaKadosh Baruch Hu which are בעצם designed for me to get close, right? It's a good question, how do I get close through that, but the question can never can never even raise itself.

Now parenthetically we can say, based on other statements of Rabbi Nachman as well, in terms of where the greatest כבוד, where the greatest גילוי שכינה is, I think it was in Torah Vav' maybe, talked about gerim and baalei teshuvah, Yisro. The truth is, is what is a greater statement of these ideas that we're talking about? When I do a mitzvah and say, I'm engaged with HaKadosh Baruch Hu instead of being engaged with the mundane world, or when I actually am engaged with the mundane world in a way that I understand that there is nothing else, so something that seemingly is separate, and I'm able to take, even with mitzvot by the way, I could take a palm branch, and this becomes a lulav, I take wheat, and this becomes matzah, right?

I can't eat matzah before or after Pesach and get a mitzvah, but right now I'm changing the world. I can't blow the shofar, ram's horn, before or after Rosh Hashanah with any effect, and right now I'm accomplishing things at the greatest heights, I'm elevating, I'm understanding how these pieces are part of that puzzle, in certain ways that might be even a greater גילוי, but Even without that, there is nothing that is not a way that I can get close to הקדוש ברוך הוא, כי כבר גילו לנו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה שבכל דברים גשמיים ובכל לשונות העכו״ם, either in anything גשמיותדיק, either in anything mundane, or even in לשונות העכו״ם, יכול and really it's מוכרח, but a person is certainly able, למצוא בהם אלוקות.

What is the significance of לשון העכו״ם? I would say that there, what is really a language? A language essentially has cultural sensitivities built in. Famously, people will say that the Eskimos have, you know, 50 different languages for snow and ice or however many it is, whereas other cultures will not have that much because it's relevant to them. Is it, you know, like we have, sleet, is it something that has more water, less water, it's more or less fluffy? Now, once you have the affordance, once you have different languages to deal with something, that will also affect the way that you think about it because now that it's relevant, I have to make that decision in how I'm going to express myself.

Very often, in fact, Rashi will will use לע״ז. It was not because Rashi did not understand Hebrew, if anything, Rashi, the Rambam are the most focused on actual language in לשון הקודש, and yet there was a certain nuance that Rashi wanted to particularly focus on, and he used the the לע״ז word, the French word. So when we talked about לשון of an עכו״ם, what that means is that there's things in the בריאה that focus on different aspects of of the בריאה. Now, from the point of view like we started with מלכות, that actually brings everything together like a gyroscope, it takes all of the different things in the world and they come into a balance where everything, whether it's beauty, whether it's warfare, whether it's any character in the world, everything is essentially in perfect balance to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

That means that there's no extra pieces. In fact, לעתיד לבוא, the Gemara in, I think it's Sukkah, tells us that it will be revealed to the גוים that even in this world, when they had their own priorities and they were leaning into their own cultures and their own prerogatives, actually they didn't see it, it was all בהעלם, everything that they did in the world actually was to serve הקדוש to serve HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but sorry, to to to serve the Jewish people, so that when they built their marketplaces, they thought they were doing it for their to build up their own גדלות, really be'etzem it was to build up a world because the Jews needed a world with marketplaces in it so that they could serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu's purpose.

So really it's perspective. Every nation is moving in its own way. From the point of view of Malchus, it's all actually creating one big balance to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But the leshonos of the goyim from their perspective are focused not on beauty to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but on empty beauty, beauty for the sake of beauty, which is ra. So when a person, but when a person from a Yiddishe perspective, they're able to have the true perspective, they can see that everything that's mundane actually is there to be elevated and to come close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu through that.

Every single culture, every single other ideal that seems to be separate, that actually is part of the big process to come close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu as well, כי בלא אלוקות אין להם שום חיות וקיום כלל. Nothing would be able to even exist, let alone find its expression, if it wasn't for the fact that it was part of the puzzle, and therefore Hakadosh Baruch Hu is giving it energy, a chiyus, in order to have a kiyum, and therefore if it exists, even if it doesn't know it yet, it is part of that puzzle to form that greater expression, כמו שכתוב ואתה מחיה את כולם.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu is giving existence, chiyus, energy to everything, לבד שהחיות ואלוקות הזה שם בצמצום גדול במאד. At this particular time, we don't see. Our job is to see through it, to put it together. Even if we don't see that it's לטובה now, we understand that actually gam zu letovah. At some point we will see that greater expression, right? So at this point, though it is בצמצום גדול ובמאד, it's not clear how it fits, רק כדי חיונו להחיותו ולא יותר. At this point Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates and sustains it in an ongoing way, and even if we don't yet see it, but that means that there is an opportunity to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu through it, כי הקדוש ברוך הוא צמצם את אלוקותו בצמצומים רבים ושונים.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world in a way to give energy to a physical world, and there is he'elem, there it is shielded through a number of through a number of lenses and a number of different lenses, so things seem to again not just have not Godly priorities, but different priorities, מראשית המחשבה, and all of this is all coming as part of the initial plan. It's not how it developed, it's not that it went off the rails. All of this is so that we have the perfect world. All this is by design from top down so that we can get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the most meaningful way from bottom up, עד נקודה עד נקודת המרכז של עולם הגשמי ששם מדור הקליפות.

Everything is perfectly distant, so to speak, from the perspective of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, even if you imagine a ball, so once you get past the center, it's already close to the other end. All the way until the center or the central factor, what the most expresses physicality and other perspectives, that is not too far and it's just far enough. That is exactly where our avodah lies, all the way to the thing that seems to have anti-Hakadosh Baruch Hu priorities, so to speak, the מדור הקליפות, it's an outer shell, it's but at the end of the day, the klipah is ultimately there to serve, it's like a shomer of a פרי, it's like a peel of a of a fruit, of an orange, the ultimate expression of the klipah also is actually part of the פרי.

But only when you understand that in context, if it stands on its own, then it separates and it actually has zero purpose, all the way until the מדור הקליפות is be'etzem part of the original design. ובכל מה שמשתלשל יותר ומשתמצם יותר למטה, the farther away something seems to go from expressing and having a giluy of אלוקות, אלוקותו מלובש שם במלבושים רבים יותר, that is because there are there's more of a halbashah. You have something that's wearing a very thin clothing, then you could see the form of what it is. The more clothing, so to speak, one puts on, if you understand those clothing as an expression of who it is, what were these clothing are actually express- an expression of Malchus, right?

When you have a when you have a Melech, then the the malchut itself is essentially his power in the world, his authority in the malchut and so on, but what is that related to? Is that a physical power, is that a mental acuity? It's a role, right? In in history there has been times that kings were if they were very sick, you know, or whatever it is, but they were still the melech. So what is it about the melech that actually expresses this this role, this power of malchut? It's not the physical person, it's not the the clothing, the fact that he's holding a scepter, but it's our it's our interface.

The more clothing that a person is wearing, on one hand it's hidden, on the other hand it can be an expression. And this is I think really the same way that we're talking about this world, about finding a gilui in everything. The more halbashah there is on Godliness, the more that we could say that it's hidden, it seems like it's something physical, and then depending on our perspective, if we look in a limited way or in a whole way, in a holistic way, do we see things as not representing Godliness, it's something physical, it's other leshonot, it's other expressions, it's other גויים, or no, do we say that malei kol ha'aretz kevodo when taken as a whole, this is actually an expression of Godliness through a halbashah.

But the more that there of halbashah is, the more there is room to have competing perspectives. וזה שגילו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה, פתחו לנו פתח, שמשכיל ידע ויבין שכל הדברים גשמיים יש אלוקותו וחיותו, this that Chazal gave us an opening, they gave us a window to understand, to know, and to and to understand, yada ve-yavin, we see the pieces, but we also have to understand how to put them together, we have to have that perspective to understand that everything is actually an expression, even the gashmiyut, and perhaps we said the greatest gilui can come from finding hakadosh baruch hu in the גשמיות, כמו שאמרו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה: טט בכתפי שתים, פת באפריקי שתים.

The Gemara asks what the lashon of totafot by tefillin are. Tefillin really are the parashiyot where we literally are wearing tefillin that express the oneness of hakadosh baruch hu, and davka over there Chazal tell us what is the lashon of tefillin? It's something that has four compartments. The four compartments are two plus two. So we have a language of two in one the word that means two in one language, the word that means two in another language. So in something that means two in two separate languages, languages that are not לשון הקודש, that's davka what refers to tefillin, which means oneness.

Lehodia, why are Chazal telling us this? What does it mean? שכל לשונות העכו״ם יש שם אלוקותו המחיה אותו. Don't think that, yes, we have I have my religion, but let's say I would have been born into another religion, that's an alternate path. No, every other thing, the the very concept of two somehow is also embedded in hakadosh baruch hu's oneness, although through tzimtzumim it seems that there's multiplicity. Other languages, other expressions, are also incorporated into God's oneness, except as refracted through the prism, it seems that there's other languages. So using language of two in two separate languages and other languages of other than לשון הקודש, that is davka where Chazal tell us what does totafot, the word totafot mean, expressing tefillin, where we where we have parashiyot that literally express the love between hakadosh baruch hu and Klal Yisrael God's oneness, that's where Chazal tell us, oh, that's a reference to these other ideas.

וזה שמביא בירושלמי, the Gemara tells us, אם יאמר לך אדם היכן אלוקיך, if somebody tells you, where is your God? תאמר לו, בכרך גדול שברומי. Tell him it's even, and perhaps specifically, as we explained it, in the largest cities which are expressing the godless of Rome, that that something that in this world seems to be the Roman Empire, the total expression of godless of control, that's where you can find godliness. שנאמר, אלי קורא משעיר. Pasuk in Yeshayahu, called to me from Seir, from Rome. נמצא שזה האדם ששאל היכן אלוקיך, comes out that the person who's asking this question, where is your God?

בוודאי שהוא משוקע במדור הקליפות. Why would somebody be even asking this question? It must be that they are coming from a perspective where it's shielded, and it's not just a theoretical question. They're coming from a very lowly, hidden place, the מדור הקליפות, which we said is the center of physicality. They literally can't see past it. כי הוציא את עצמו מן הכלל וכפר בעיקר. They they're literally asking, where do I see God? שנאמר, היכן אלוקיך. Where is your God? Meaning where, meaning it's not here, you can't find it. אלוקיך, your God, not mine. ונדמה לו שבמקומו אין שם אלוקים.

So he's saying that there's no God over here. בכן תאמר לו, therefore you should tell him, afilu, and like we said parenthetically, bedavka is where you can find the greatest גילוי, אפילו במקומך, in your place! The perspective is the issue, not the godliness! שאתה משוקע במדור הקליפות, you are so enveloped in the מדור הקליפות, the center which we said is actually from the original plan in order to have that darkness, that perceived fragmentation, גם כן שם תוכל למצוא אלוקותו, over there is where you can also find godliness. כי הוא מחיה את הכל. Otherwise, it just simply wouldn't exist.

The only energy possibility for energy in the world is Hakadosh Baruch Hu created and maintains and sustains the world with energy, otherwise it would just literally not even die, it would just cease to exist, and therefore, whatever expression you find in something, that that has to be by definition that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, כביכול, is creating, sustaining. That is godliness itself. There is nothing else. כמו שכתוב, ואתה מחיה את כולם. Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the present tense is sustaining everything. ומשם אתה יכול לדבק את עצמך בו יתברך. That means that over there also, you are able to cleave to godliness.

While you're engaged in business with an עכו״ם, in dina de-malchuta dina, you are also a living, breathing Shulchan Aruch. ולשוב אליו בתשובה שלימה, in which case, you can return with a full teshuvah. You don't have to go anywhere. You just literally have to turn toward. It's all perspective from wherever you are. Wherever you are, just open your eyes, shift direction, shift perspectives, and you're you're as close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu as you ever were. It's just a matter of focus, and it's a matter of priorities, and it's a matter of allowing yourself to feel it.

כי לא רחוקה היא ממך. It's not far from you, and it was never far from you. Wherever you happen to find yourself, and wherever you place yourself, אלא שבמקומך שם רבו הלבושים, other than the fact that there are a lot of coverings that gave you the wherewithal to to not see it clearly. וכל מה שאדם הולך ממדריגה למדריגה הוא מתקרב יותר להשם יתברך. And then as a person turns towards, and from the place where not only did, you know, there was somebody who originally saw Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the Beit Midrash and tried to stay outside the outside world, but this person realized that there is no outside world!

Everything is actually part of that picture, and now as he does that, he sees with an incredible amount of depth, and he climbs higher and higher, and he goes to the Beit Midrash, and he's able to come more and more in line with רצון השם, and appreciate רצון השם, and climb to the inside, where now, instead of viewing the world from outside in, he's able to gain that perspective from inside out, יוכל לדעת את השם יתברך בהבנה יתירה. Now, like we said, da'at is not just knowledge, but it's not just understanding, it's an integrated knowledge, it's an integrated understanding.

He sees it as clarity, he sees it as אמת, he looks behind the curtain, and as he goes in more and more inward into this perspective, it's a הבנה יתירה, כי כל מה שהמדריגה יותר עליונה, as he gains that that higher perspective, so to speak, נתמעטו הלבושים, he's climbing to the inside, and the לבושים seem less. He you know, perhaps, you know, he doesn't even understand what the original mistake is. Using our example from before, now that you see what was behind the curtain, what was casting that shadow, you no longer even see the mistake anymore.

You understand exactly how it was put together. ונתמעט הצמצום, so mimela the צמצומים start to go away, ואז הוא מקורב יותר להשם יתברך. ויכול לאהוב את עצמו עם השם יתברך באהבה יתירה, and he appreciates HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and he appreciates himself. You understand exactly who he is, he's a חלק אלוקה ממעל, he understands what his גדלות is, why HaKadosh Baruch Hu put him into every every situation that he had to be in, and he thanks HaKadosh Baruch Hu for it, and he wouldn't have had it any other way. And he comes to appreciate himself as part of the greater system and appreciate HaKadosh Baruch Hu and his relationship with HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Okay, I actually was going to go into paragraph ג', but between the introduction and paragraph א' and ב', I think that we've accomplished a tremendous amount, and we will be'ezrat Hashem stop over here, and and go forward next time.