LM 33.2 — Mi Ha'Ish, Part 2 of 4: Looking Deeper · תורה ל״ג

בעזרת השם, we are up to the second שיעור in תורה ל״ג, we're up to paragraph ג׳, and just to refresh what we had begun to speak about, the opening words of paragraph א׳: הכלל הוא, the the overall picture, the general idea, and then everything builds up to this: שצריך לבקש שלום. And we explained that שלום is not the absence of conflict. There's millions of people, ברוך השם, that I am not fighting with currently. שלום is the idea of שלמות, meaning that when there are different things, even sometimes pulling in opposite directions, they can still find their place in a larger whole.

In terms of relationships, we can have a husband and wife, they're not supposed to be the same person, and a רבי and a תלמיד, in a certain sense משפיע ומקבל have opposite roles. Even within a person, somebody can have very different כוחות, different responsibilities, different parts of life. The question is not the degree to which they're different, it's whether or not they're fragmented or whether or not they are all within one system. So that the the I guess we could say the opposite of fragmented in this context is not simple, but rather integrated. We had used a משל of a puzzle that if you start before you even break the pieces into puzzle pieces, let alone separate them, you're starting really with one picture.

There are no extra pieces, nothing is missing, everything has its own shape because of where it will ultimately belong as part of the picture. And yet, that's top-down so to speak. הקדוש ברוך הוא gives us the gift of being able to put that puzzle together, to be able to recognize the picture on our terms, to be a שותף with הקדוש ברוך הוא in bringing about that גילוי, so that when we encounter the puzzle from bottom up, or sort of like from the end of the process so that we can bring it all back together into ייחוד, we encounter pieces that seem to have either nothing to do with each other, giving separate messaging, some seem to be beautiful, some seem to be ugly, they may or may not seem to be part of the separate picture, and our idea is to bring about a מלכות, again, not that there's only one message, but that there is a unity that everything becomes part of one revelation, one גילוי, which ends up being a much greater revelation.

If there's just one idea, then that does not contradict the idea of separate things. However, if there are millions of contradictions, the scope of so to speak infinite contradictions, and a person would take the entire scope of reality and put it together so that every piece actually is part of that one picture, that is ultimately a much greater statement of ייחוד. This applies to the world at large and to any particular person. A person has many ideas, responsibilities, like we said, as part of their life. There's those aspects of עבודת השם, they're going to דאוון, they're going to learn.

At times, they're going to work. Some people might be in more or less of a environment that is conducive to עבודת השם. Some things might be family responsibilities that might seemingly be mundane. And yet, we we sometimes can think that there's a certain portion of life where we're able to grow and some part of life not only are we not able to grow, but it's sort of outside the system. We leave the בית מדרש and for now we're sort of pushing pause on our ability to get close to הקדוש ברוך הוא. And רבינו tells us that that is not only untrue, it's the exact opposite of the truth, because if a person views part of their life as being sort of on pause, there's no עבודת השם, there's no ability to connect with הקדוש ברוך הוא during the the down part of the ups and downs, that 50% so to speak of his life, then that's sort of the opposite of שלמות.

שלמות is that everything is part of an integrated whole, and this person is actually living fragmentation, even if he's able to connect during part of it, but the idea of living where there are parts of life that a person is sort of outside that system is the opposite of שלמות. And like רבינו said in the beginning, that it's מוכרח, הכלל הוא שצריך לבקש שלום, that's our entire עבודה, it's it's to put it back together. So this really brings us to a question. We know that we have a world of טוב and רע. We're about to start paragraph ג׳: הנה שני ימים, מיני ימים, ימי טוב, ימי רע.

Nobody nobody goes against that. It is not, חס ושלום, it is not אסור and is not against אמונה to have a bad day כביכול, so to speak, and to have a difficult time. The תורה fully acknowledges human perspective. That is, again, that is sort of the opening in which we come to encounter the world, to the point that the הלכה is, there's a גמרא, I think it's in בבא בתרא, it explains that if a person, let's say, finds a treasure and they know that by finding this treasure they won the lottery, they'll feel unbelievable, and yet it's going to trigger certain negative consequences, but at the time they have a good feeling, then they would make ברוך הטוב והמטיב.

And if a person's crops got washed out and they feel terrible about it, even if they know that in the long term the next year's crops will grow much better, they make ברוך דיין האמת, right? Our מצוה is to grow from from within and from our human perspective. And therefore, as we said before, we say גם זו לטובה, not גם זו טובה. We relate to certain things as not טוב yet. Our אמונה is supposed to bridge that gap where we can come bring ourselves along, we can elevate ourselves, elevate our perspective, so that we understand that whatever happens unpack this as we go.

But it really changes the question when when something happens that we'd rather not happen, the question is not, why are you yelling at me? Or why is this here? It's actually, what are you saying, and where does this fit? And the answer sometimes might not be available immediately, and again, that really is where we can use אמונה to bridge this gap. And now we are going to, in paragraph ג, translate this, like I said, into ימים, into distinct times, which we don't see that entire whole. We're looking at different pieces, we're looking at different periods of עבודה, different days, and how we're able to relate to this.

So in paragraph ג he says: והנה יש שני מיני ימים, ימי טוב וימי רע. And we're, again, we're not trying to pretend that this doesn't exist. There are good days, טוב we will say things where the השגחה is clearer. הקדוש ברוך הוא, וירא אלקים כי טוב, that the creation is good, and this is in line with the הקדוש ברוך הוא and הקדוש ברוך הוא's objective towards חק הטוב להיטיב, עולם חסד יבנה, הקדוש ברוך הוא is giving us. And there's ימי רע. There are those days, there are those puzzle pieces that seem to be not in line with that goal, with that priority.

כמו שכתוב, it's pasuk in קהלת, ביום טובה היה בטוב, in a good day we should ride that wave. וביום רעה ראה, and in a bad day, רעה with an ע, ראה you should take a look, take a look deeply. היינו שצריך לאדם להסתכל שם היטב היטב. Perhaps, I'm going to suggest, what is היטב היטב that רבינו says? היטב is first of all you have to look very well, you have to look beneath the surface. The surface-deep perspective seems to be indisputably bad. However, when we look deeper, we can maybe see something more about what actually just happened, and we might be able to see how it fits into the larger picture.

And היטב, excuse me, is perhaps we could say, once you look with the lens, again, not why is this here, but how does this fit, then that will remove your נגיעה, that will remove your bias. Sometimes a person might need a רבי, they might need a חבר, but they might need a mirror, they might need something to be able to remove themselves from their emotion or from their perspective, their historical perspective. But once they look at it with a good perspective, היטב, and they look deeply, so now they can recategorize it as something that's good, even if they're not able to see it immediately, then in that point בוודאי ימצא שם ימי טוב.

They will be able to say that that רע, what they'd encounter as being sort of opposite the picture, something that doesn't fit, that was also part of the picture. היינו תורה. תורה is identified with טוב, which means that we're we're not going to be able to quantify the idea of תורה now, but to the extent that הקדוש ברוך הוא gave us the תורה, this is the the way, the vehicle through which, the articulation, the tip of the iceberg that we can plumb infinitely deep, that we are able to relate to רצון השם in this world.

So all of this is within תורה, within the blueprint of creation. Yes, there's going to be times that there's a ירידה לצורך עליה, a person goes down to go up. You push down on the ladder in order to climb, you have to wind up the ball in order to go forward, but it's really part of part of that picture, part of the blueprint, part of, perhaps we could say, where as we gain that perspective, when we look back, we will totally second the motion, we will agree and understand fully how this was all really towards towards the good, and it could not have happened any other way, so that if it couldn't have happened any other way, then it's מוכרח to say that this was also good, even if a micro view of it did not necessarily show that.

So, so far, we have ימים. ימים are the units within which we live. The individual units sometimes seem good or bad, but we are now saying that as a person abstracts back into the bigger picture, and they they they sort of are able to take that bigger view, they will understand that everything is really part of the טוב, and we are identifying this with תורה. והימים נקראים מידות. So days, we said, are really units, that's what מידות are. We identify sometimes the מידות as ספירות, which literally means countings. The ספרים bring different reasons why the ספירות, the הנהגות through which הקדוש ברוך הוא relates to the world are really מידות, we can't even speak about them, but these are distinct things.

Right, so ימים are really units, and these are also identified as מידות, כמו שכתוב: ומדת ימי, pasuk in תהלים identifying מידות and days, and ימים. והמידות הם התורה. So now we are putting together the idea of ימים, where the units seem to be going in different directions, they're all part of one big blueprint that has the שלמות, the תורה, and each one of those things individually are also identified as מידות. כי אורייתא כולה הם מדותיו של הקדוש ברוך הוא. The תורה כביכול at large are the מידות of הקדוש ברוך הוא. Why? כי התורה מדברת מאהבה ויראה ושאר מידות.

The תורה speaks in terms of the הנהגה of הקדוש ברוך הוא. The example that we've used before is if you have something, למשל, white light that would otherwise be blinding, and you put a prism in front of it so it breaks it into the spectrums of the rainbow, a person would be able to see each one of those colors individually, and if they saw the sum total of the colors, they would see everything that had been within the white light, within the spectrum, except for the fact that this gives a person access. And I mean that's really at one defined point in time.

We've spoken before and we'll continue, as a person grows, they can get to multiple levels. There's one level, the white light starting through the prism, but imagine that there was an infinite number of those of that light breaking up, so that a person who only has the כלים all the way at the end of the process is able to adapt and climb in levels until they're able to appreciate things that are closer and closer to the source. So הקדוש ברוך הוא, כביכול, אין סופיות. אין סופיות not meant to qualify or quantify הקדוש ברוך הוא in any way, but from our perspective, it is beyond any boundary that we can discuss.

And yet הקדוש ברוך הוא created the world and created us in order to have a relationship with Him. So הקדוש ברוך הוא, כביכול, created this system, created this prism whereby הקדוש ברוך הוא was able to present different lights on the spectrum, different מידות, different aspects of הנהגה with the world, things that we can relate to, מה הוא אף אתה, things that in our own human experience we are able to make ourselves similar to הקדוש ברוך הוא, able to develop to become godly, and therefore the תורה speaks in terms of מידות, in terms of הנהגה. Very large conversation about how we understand anthropomorphisms in the תורה, including emotion, right?

But the תורה was presented in such a way that we are able to get closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא from the point of view of the כלי, from our point of view, because the whole תכלית is so that we should grow. ובה ברא הקדוש ברוך הוא עלמין, כמו שכתוב ואהיה אצלו אמון. It's a פסוק in משלי. It says that, talking about תורה, "I was to Him as a nursling," but the דרוש in the גמרא says, אהיה אצלו אמון, an אומן is a craftsman, that the תורה was to הקדוש ברוך הוא the vehicle, the mechanism through which הקדוש ברוך הוא created all of the individual creations, and the עולמות, the systems through which הקדוש ברוך הוא created the world to give us the ability and the idea of process and structure within which and according to which we can grow.

So, למשל, if you had technology, one system would be the idea of code. Another system might be the idea of what's on the screen. A person can play on the screen and never deal with the code, or a person who is a coder can deal only in the code and never really deal with in the screen. They all are interrelated with one another, and yet people will be operating at different altitudes. With the תורה, and really it's as a person grows, in his perspective they are able to grow and operate at something that's closer to the source.

So with the תורה, הקדוש ברוך הוא created the עולמות, the systems through which הקדוש ברוך הוא created all of this הדרגה, all of these sort of this structured, like a ladder, each level of abstraction, again, all related and interrelated, so that we can wherever we enter into it, we can have an ability to grow and to develop and, ultimately, to grow in levels and come closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא. אל תקרי אמון אלא אומן, that the תורה describes that הקדוש ברוך הוא used the תורה as an אומן, as a craftsman. ואותיות התורה, now the תורה is there's 613 מצות.

There are, we've discussed before, I think, based on a זוהר in בהעלותך, the idea of the stories, but how is the תורה conveyed to us? Through אותיות, it's through letters. Those letters are really the building blocks. הם המחיין את כל דבר ודבר. Those letters essentially are the vehicle through which energy is given. So in the example we used a second ago for the code, it's very obvious that the letters or the code essentially is going to define and to give to lead to the expression that comes out as a product of whatever that code was.

Over here the letters are really invested with energy, and we've spoken at great length about the the אלף בית themselves. But if you think if I have a רצון, I have a will that I would like to accomplish my רצון and therefore I have a general idea of how I would go about it, and now I have to make that idea practical. So I would like to have a place to live. My חכמה says if I want a place to live, to relax, I need a house. What should that house look like? My בינה would now break that up and it would say, "Well, okay, here's how the house has to be structured in order to accomplish that," right?

And as you go down the line, you're going to end up with some sort of a mode of expression, ultimately, that should if it is accurate, it should ultimately lead back to be synonymous with the רצון, to bring that רצון to life. The אותיות of the תורה are defined letters. The אלף is not the בית, and the בית is not the אלף. They are defined letters that provide a communication, an expression, something that is in our world that we can look at, that will ultimately express רצון השם. Now the letters themselves בעצם are raw energy.

We could say that there's the תורה is infinite and yet there are 26 letters. The בעל התניא, I believe in the last couple of פרקים, especially of שער היחוד והאמונה, discusses it. But if you think letters themselves have potential, but it really depends it really depends how you express them, the same with words and sentences. So for instance, one example that gets brought is עונג and נגע, opposite. עונג is pleasure, נגע is affliction. In English, you can have united and untied. What's the difference between those two things? Perspective, how I choose to put them together.

The world is a שלימות and everything does fit together, however הקדוש ברוך הוא gives us the opportunity to see that and to bring that about. If you want to talk about sentences, punctuation, and certainly the order of the letters can make a difference. Funny example, "Let's eat, grandma" or "Let's eat grandma." Obviously those are two entirely those are two entirely different statements that would bring things out. By the way, parenthetically, this is one way of understanding, if anybody has heard the term, אלו ואלו דברי אלוקים חיים. How could it be that two people have opposite opinions that both express the רצון of השם?

Because it could be, if there was different slack in the system, if you have a puzzle and there are actually two different ways of solving the same puzzle, two different ways of putting that together that might actually come out to be a different picture. If you put it together wrong, then there will be extra pieces and jagged edges and they won't fit, but to the extent that הקדוש ברוך הוא would have given different ways of, again, within our perspective coming to understand the שלימות, that would make it that you could have two different expressions that actually both achieve שלימות, because הקדוש ברוך הוא's רצון is בעצם infinite.

It could be that there's different reflections of that light based on how הקדוש ברוך הוא allows us to relate to it. So the אותיות התורה הם המחיין את כל דבר ודבר, right? We said טוב and רע. How about live, L-I-V-E, and evil, same letters. Something that is expressive of רצון השם, טוב, life, אלוקים חיים. Something that is against that, that is expressing something different, it's still the energy in the world, the same energy, because there is nothing in the world other than godliness, other than הקדוש ברוך הוא. But הקדוש ברוך הוא shields it from us, that perspective.

He allows us to see something that would not fit, that would be the evil, that would be the רע. אלא כל מה שהמדריגה היא למטה, שם הם אותיות התורה בצמצום יותר ממה שהיו במדריגה יותר עליונה. So now he introduces sort of something else, not only is their perspective different, I can look at something with a true perspective or with a not-true perspective. הקדוש ברוך הוא, כביכול, if you were to encounter the truth, then there really would be no room to be able to see anything else, right? למשל, we've given examples before, if I would like you to I want to see your analytical skills, so what do I do?

I hide something behind a curtain and I give it to two people. I would like them to look at the shadows and I would like them to figure it out. It's going to be extremely analytical, right? Except that what happens if one of them I show what I put behind the curtain before the game starts? Well, that person is not going to be able to see anything else. They actually already understand the truth. Or another example, imagine a puzzle book where I give you various clues, and the clues build on each other, so you're not just going to look at it and see the answer, but if you see these clues, it'll lead you to x, to y, to z, very complex, and as you build up and the the picture starts to come together, all of it, if it fits, will lead you to the answer.

But if I started you with the answer, you might have some sort of an appreciation of, "Oh wow, look top-down, the brilliance of how these clues were put together so that each one would only reveal a piece of the puzzle," but you wouldn't be able to un-see that. For you, it would not actually be different levels, it would only everything would automatically be one. So הקדוש ברוך הוא wants to give us the opportunity for growth, the opportunity to develop level by level. All of this has to be shielded. So what does הקדוש ברוך הוא do?

למשל, imagine you have a picture and as you sort of hone into the picture, you zoom in, then it becomes different pixels. And as you zoom in a lot, then it becomes blurry. Now as you zoom out, it could be that actually it's the perfect resolution to express the picture, it shouldn't have been any different. And yet when you zoom all the way in, it doesn't even look like it's part of a picture, everything just looks like a blurry mess, you wouldn't even be able to see how it fits that picture. So as we we go in more בצמצום, we have more of a shielded vision, ואינם מאירים כל כך כמו למעלה במדריגה עליונה.

What When I We're saying like as you go up, but let's say as you zoom out, or as you go up and you see the bigger picture, as you see the entire thing, everything fits together perfectly, but as you're super close to it, then it really doesn't have that expression, and it doesn't even look like it's part of anything, כדי שלא להשפיע אור וחיות יתר מן הראוי. Why does הקדוש ברוך הוא do this? So I think what he's saying is, the more clarity you have, the less of the ability that you have to arrive at those conclusions yourself, to develop and hone in on your analytical ability.

It's like the person that has the riddle and they want the answer right away. Well, maybe isn't that the point, to just get to the answer as fast as possible? But then you're not going to be able to hone your skills, you're not going to be able to develop. This is a contemporary discussion with technology, with AI, right, different things about people learning through the research process, through taking time to come to the conclusion, through picking up various pieces and pattern matching to be able to arrive at the conclusion or perfect the query. And when somebody comes to it immediately, in a certain sense you can do more quicker, but you don't you don't develop as much, and if the entire תכלית of the world is ultimately to develop, then getting things handed on a silver platter is not necessarily better.

נמצא, אפילו במדור הקליפות, even if we were in the מדור הקליפות, the chamber of the קליפות, היינו בימי רע, this is the area in which a person finds themselves in the universe within the system where things do not seem to be expressing the רצון השם, שהם מידות רעות ולשונות עכו״ם. In our in our example before, we had used untied and united, or live and evil, right? Things which really the pieces are all there. The question is not the is not really what the pieces are. It's the order, it's the integration, it's how it fits together into רצון השם.

The idea of a קליפה, the idea of a shell, shells are not bad. If you have that orange shell that's actually on the fruit, it's orange, it's vibrant, it's live, it's moist, you need it. If it wasn't for the it wasn't for the shell, then the fruit would dry up and it wouldn't be protected. And yet, if you, instead of viewing the peel, the קליפה, the shell, as subservient to the fruit and ultimately part of the fruit, if you view it as being separate and distinct, then it shrivels up, it dies, it actually doesn't have a purpose.

The peel on its own isn't serving anything and really perhaps it's just taking up space. So when a person is in the קליפות, which means that we're in that area, that level, that altitude of the world where we see things as קליפה, we don't see that integration, that is the לשונות עכו״ם. The letters are there, the expressions are there, but it's expressing different cultures, different different nations that are not in line with רצון השם. Beauty is זה קלי ואנוהו. מצוות should be beautiful. And when a person takes beauty, surface-deep beauty on its own, it can be incredibly not צניעות, it could be something that is man-woman relationships that are just for personal pleasure, rather than introducing a family dynamic of giving and bringing children בעזרת השם into the world, and forming a unit to be able to get closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא, building a בית.

So when we're in that מדור הקליפות, that לשונות עכו״ם, שם יכולים למצוא אותיות התורה as well. Over there, all of the letters are the same. Unpack the words, and those letters really are the very same letters as would express רצון השם if we would develop our ability to see it, if we would build our כלי. אבל מחמת ריבוי הלבושים, because of the the filters, like we said, because you're you're zoned in too much, you do not have the perspective yet. It's our job to build our כלי until we can gain that perspective and then go out more and more until we can get closer and closer to the source that we initially don't have the כלים to understand.

But because there are these לבושים, these presentations at whatever level we're at, וגודל הצמצום, and the distort the the seeming distortion, as it were, or just sort of the filtration where we don't have that level of clarity, right? We're behind the sheet, we see the shadow, we don't see what's behind, and therefore it's up to us to be able to see through that. אינם נראים אותיות התורה היינו ימי טוב, they do not appear, they don't present themselves as the ימי טוב, as the units of good aligned with הקדוש ברוך הוא, those letters of the תורה.

Everything really is part of the תורה because everything has to be part of the blueprint, otherwise there's nothing there. על ידי ימי רע והחושך השורה עליהם, because of the clouding, the רע, the presentation of being not in line with הקדוש ברוך הוא that is resting on them. אבל, מי שכופה יצרו הרע, the person that comes to the conclusion, he works through that math problem which could be different ways, he goes through that maze and it could lead a lot of different ways, and he is מכניע the יצר הרע, he subjugates the יצר הרע, he develops the true perspective.

And when I say true, it's not right versus wrong, it's true meaning the only actual presentation that would reach שלמות and everything else he understands as a mirage, היינו הימי רע היינו המידות הרעות, which again, ימי רע we said are those periods that seem to be not in line with רצון השם, not in line with getting closer. As a person looks היטב היטב, they might say, not only is this not bad, it couldn't have been any other way, which defines it actually as טוב. והיינו מידות רעות. If a person has a physical תאוה, an attraction for something, there's a גמרא that says that there was a certain period of time when the אנשי כנסת הגדולה, I believe, דאוונד, I think it's a גמרא in יומא, that there shouldn't be any more physical תאוה, and the world entered into a stage where eggs, the chickens didn't even lay eggs.

Meaning that this מידה is extremely positive for the world, it's because we have the wrong priority and the wrong perspective, and this leads us to misapply those מידות, that energy. But if we would understand the גדלות of what הקדוש ברוך הוא gave us in order to use it towards getting close to הקדוש ברוך הוא, because that is not a way, but that is the way, אזי הרע נתבלבל לגמרי נגד הימי טוב שבהם. There's actually two גירסאות, I would like to suggest. It says that the רע will be נתבלבל, it will be absorbed or mixed in, there will be תיקון, or נתבטל.

Perhaps we can say that נתבטל means that it doesn't find expression, but it's still there. There's certain הלכות where the גמרא discusses when something becomes בטל. So if something that's let's say not כשר falls in something else, that you'll be able to eat it because it becomes בטל. Now let's say the שיעור for ביטול, the amount for ביטול is 1/60th, and something is only 1%, it's 1/100th, it's very little. So now that falls in and that meets the criteria, so now it's going to become בטל, you can eat the entire pot of food. Now 10 minutes later, something else that's 1 in 100 falls in.

Well now it's 2 in 100 or 2 in 101. So now, now that it's 2 in 101, well that's a greater שיעור than 1 in 60, right? That becomes basically 2 in 100 is like 1 in 50. Do we say that once the first thing became בטל is no longer extant, it no longer exists הלכתית, or do we say that it was just dormant, but it could be חוזר וניעור? It could become awakened. Now that the new שיעור goes in and it joins with it, now you have a larger שיעור. So perhaps we could say one idea of תיקון could be ביטול.

Another idea perhaps we could say is נתבלבל, it gets mixed up, and I'm going to suggest that what that means is the rearranging of the pieces, like the example we gave before: untied and united. When it now gets mixed up in there, then not so much that it doesn't find its expression, but it's shown to have never really existed in the first place. Maybe, again, I mean the truth is is I'm not sure exactly. I guess you could theoretically argue בלבול is to be mixed in even if it doesn't find expression, but it's still there, and בטל is הלכתית בטל.

But perhaps I'd just say, I could probably make this argument in either way, so I don't know that it's true or not, but perhaps that is the difference in גירסא changes or not. But something to think about. Both of those ideas are certainly true: the idea of subjugating something or the idea of finding that it never existed in the first place, that רע was really only a distorted perception of something that really could have been seen clearly in line with the truth. So once a person is כופה the יצר הרע, so at that point the רע functionally disappears לגמרי נגד הימי טוב שבהם, אזי אותיות בולטות ומתרוממות ומאירות ביותר.

It comes out that we had said that הקדוש ברוך הוא כביכול dims the lights, He dims the perception of truth so that we would have עבודה, so that we would be able to encounter a world where we can come to develop ourselves to achieve that clarity. But once a person has this perspective, so they're still looking at the same thing, but actually they see the גדלות in it, the light actually shines brighter. So in the example I gave before, I think it's a good example, I'm not sure exactly what he means by shines brighter, but I would say that the truth shines brighter.

So that the example we gave before is let's say something has a certain resolution, so the pixels are a certain size, when you focus very close, then you sort of lose the entire picture. But let's say you zoom out, now you know that it's all part of a picture, and you come to realize that the resolution couldn't have been different, it's actually the perfect size, the boxes, the pixels need to be this size in order to express the picture the way it is at the distance that you want. So now it comes out not only is it not רע, but actually the light of truth, so to speak, the light of perfection shines through it because you understand exactly the way it is, exactly the way the system is designed.

And therefore the light of truth shines all the way down to something that previously was dim and had the quality of obscurity. כי מתחילה לא היו מאירים כל כך. Originally what he encountered, it didn't shine that light of truth, כאילו לא קיבלום מלמעלה. It was as if the light, the truth, the שפע, the attachment הקדוש ברוך הוא כביכול dimmed. It wasn't shining through כדי שלא יקבלו הימי רע יותר מכדי חיותו, because הקדוש ברוך הוא wanted כביכול that we have the עבודה. The the the whole idea is that the גילוי should be brought about through us.

The גילוי of הקדוש ברוך הוא could have just showed us the picture. הקדוש ברוך הוא broke it into all the puzzle pieces so that the גילוי of perfection would be when there is the infinite amount of all of the things traveling in different directions and even opposites that they are really all part of one picture, and that we would play that part in bringing that גילוי about, which means that the amount of divine energy, כביכול, the amount of truth shining through is the minimal amount, or the perfect amount, just for it to exist in order that we should have that stage on which to perform our עבודה.

So initially, again inside, he says מתחילה לא היו מאירים כל כך כי לא קיבלו אור מלמעלה. It was did not have that extra measure of truth shining through כדי שלא יקבלו הימי רע יותר מכדי חיותו, it was not supposed to have more than that minimal amount in order to present us the stage at which point the entrance point for our עבודה. ועכשיו שנשבר הרע ונשארו אותיות התורה לבד, now that the רע is בטל, again, רע really is just perspective. It's that perspective of fragmentation versus integration, which is really up to us. And now that the fragmentation is erased, same pieces except for the fact that we now see through it, so that essentially is the אותיות התורה.

What was there? The same letters, the same נגע, the same עונג, the same all of the letters are essentially the same and now we've realized how to put it together, what we're left with is essentially the אותיות התורה, אזי מקבלין אור רב מלמעלה, it is essentially shining that truth through, and I think that it's even אור רב מלמעלה, it's a tremendous amount, a tremendous amount that it wouldn't have existed in the first place, because now the person sees not just so to speak an idea, but he sees the truth. He doesn't just see that הקדוש ברוך הוא was giving a message, but he sees that everything in the בריאה is expressive of that message.

נמצא זה שכופה את יצרו, this person who is able to subjugate his יצר, that יצר הרע is not it's the יצר הרע is the the מלאך, so to speak, that force in the בריאה that is presenting as the fragmentation as against the רצון השם. But again, remember that that is also a מלאך, הקדוש ברוך הוא the יצר הרע is really hoping and rooting so that we will not follow him. This person sees through the יצר הרע, he subjugates that יצר, and he sees it for what it is, היינו שכופה את ימי רע, he subjugates all of the ימי רע, so those individual units that would otherwise seem to express רע no longer exist, they're actually part of a big picture.

And now, going back to what we said before, now this person is not spending all day in the שול, in the בית מדרש, כשהוא מדבר עם עכו״ם, he has to speak to people of other nations, other cultures, he finds himself in other foreign environments. When we say foreign, what does foreign mean? Is that outside the system? Everything is letters of הקדוש ברוך הוא, it's that at this altitude it seems to be expressing something different, או שרואה מידותיהם, he sees their character traits, אזי תכף הרע ששוכן על הטוב, היינו אותיות התורה, נתבטל ונופל, that רע falls away because he sees through it.

He sees exactly, oh, this person is not against me, this person is the coach. This thing is not pushing down on my on my chest, this is the barbell that's meant for me to get stronger by pushing it up. This is exactly what I prayed for, this is exactly what I need. ואותיות התורה בולטין, which means that now those letters that previously were dim, based really on our perspective, not on the letters, but those letters of the תורה shine through, אזי הוא יודע התורה שבאותו דבר, he's able to see this piece is part of the תורה, the the אומן, part of the blueprint, part of the expression of רצון השם.

וזה שכתוב בזהר הקדוש, ברכו ה׳ מלאכיו, that the angels, as it were, will bless השם, גבורי כח, the ones who are strong of כח, עושי דברו, who make His דבר, who make His word, אילין אינון דמתגברין על יצריהון, these people, it's talking about those that are מתגבר. What is their strength? The definition of strength is when two things come into conflict, which one triumphs. A diamond is stronger than a piece of glass because if they come into conflict, the diamond will scratch the glass, but everything is really relative when it comes to these types of terms to to what's relevant, right?

We've said before, you can have a large mouse and a small house, or even when it comes to strength, it has to be literally relevant to that context. If you have a a strong pepper or a strong liquor, well that doesn't mean that it's physically or stronger in terms of poundage, right? So over here, what did we said? גבורי כח, אילו אינון דמתגברין על יצריהון. The יצר, הקדוש ברוך הוא creates in order to throw us off. If a person is able to get in touch with רוחניות, to be מתגבר on himself, those are the strong ones, the גבורי כח.

There is no strength more than a person who is able to overcome his own יצר, which, parenthetically, the יצר הרע has a nickname, that יצר הרע's nickname is the word I, right? I think that this is who I really am. I like chocolate cake. I like these negative things, except for the fact that it's the wrong thing to do. Generally speaking, a person doesn't say, "I want to do the right thing, but this external thing wants me to do something bad." Well then what's the, what's the test? It's always that the person thinks that the יצר הרע is "I", okay?

I've seen people bring it down like that, but that's my addition. But it says that's why these are the, the ultimate גבורות, the people that can overcome their יצר, אינון דמיין למלאכין ממש, a מלאך, some, a spiritual being that's divorced from physicality. How are they able to lift themselves out of physicality? It shouldn't exist, it shouldn't be possible, because they are גבורי כח, they are similar to מלאכים. עושי דברו, what does it mean that they make the word literally? דעבדין להאי דבר, that they, they make it into words, they reveal the words. They take that darkness and they show that really those are the letters of רצון השם.

They take the נגע and they show that no, that's not something that's foreign to הקדוש ברוך הוא, those are the letters of עונג, that was you that rearranged the letters, that was just the presentation. Everything is really דבר השם. לשמוע בקול דברו, to be able to hear the sound of הקדוש ברוך הוא's דבר, אינון זכיין למשמע קלין מלעילא, they're זוכה to hear that קול from above, that messaging, that communication, everything was for a benefit. כי התורה נקראת דבר, the תורה is called דבר, כמו שכתוב דבר צוה לאלף דור, פסוק in תהלים where the תורה is referred to as דבר.

וכל מה שאותיות התורה נצטמצמים ונתלבשים בצמצומים ולבושים יתרים, and to the degree to which the תורה, the words of the תורה, like we said, the, the clarity is obscured, so now it presents it's all fuzzy, it doesn't seem to be part of that big picture because of the perspective, התורה הוא בהעלם, it's as if the תורה is hidden באתכסיא יותר with a covering. ומי שמפשיט את אותיות התורה מהלבושים, and that person that sees through it, they understand what's behind the curtain, they understand why the curtain is the way it is, they understand how this expresses it best, and it's for our benefit, and they wouldn't have it any other way, הוא דומה כמי שבונה את התורה, so that is the person that so to speak builds up the תורה.

Now everything is, beforehand we didn't see the תורה, and now we're able to see the תורה, so they built it up. למשל, אותיות התורה שהיו מפוזרים ומפורדים בלשונות העכו״ם, everything in the world בעצם is part of that blueprint, is part of the תורה, and now you have these letters of the תורה that are scattered through the לשונות העכו״ם. We'll use the example that before, which I think is a decent example, right? The idea of beauty, זה א-לי ואנוהו, right? Right now there's הידור, we're in the middle of סוכות, and a person is able to apply that beauty to the, to the wonderful מצוה of the ד' מינים, and yet the idea of beauty, same word, same letter, same idea, the idea of beauty, and it comes to be totally misapplied to be able to go away from רצון השם.

ולא היה שום אדם יודע מהם, and nobody realized it. Everybody saw these ideas, these cultures, these likes and dislikes that would seem to be not in line with רצון השם, מחמת היצר הרע שהחשיך עליהם והלביש אותם, because of the units or the expressions, the micro point of view that seemed to be רע, that seemed to be going away from השם, that seemed to be darkness, that seemed to have its own autonomy, it didn't seem to be part of the greater picture. וכשבא זה האדם שהוא דומה למלאך ה' צבאות, comes this person who has the right glasses, he was able to look היטב היטב, he put on the understanding that it's all good, that it's all היטב, that it's all part of רצון השם, it's all part of this bigger picture, and he's able to look deep through, he was able to see through it, על ידי שכופה יצרו, because he was no longer governed by that "I", he was no longer governed by the יצר, היינו היצר הרע, אזי הרע, היינו לשונות העכו״ם, now the רע, the other cultures, the other expressions, the things that seem to be going away from השם, נכפפין ונתבטלין כנגדו, that is now essentially subjugating, it's מכניע itself to him, it doesn't, it no longer has any power, right?

If a person is trying to endear themselves to you, and now you find, you see on a video that that person, you were taken with the person who was trying to endear themselves to you, and now on the video you see that this person was planning, "Oh, I'm going to become friendly with him in order so that I can plot against him, so that I can get that person's trust so that I can essentially rob them." Well now, all of those endearments, the person will become disgusted by it, he sees through it. It no longer exists.

ואז נשארו אותיות התורה, what's left? The אותיות התורה. Once everything else is מכניע, all the יצר הרע go away, what's left is the אותיות התורה which are בולט, which stick out, they find expression, they shine brightly. The truth shines through the system. וכשנפשטין מהלבושים הגשמיים, and when we take off these outer גשמי surface deep expressions which seem to be coverings, היינו מלשונות העכו״ם, which we're using the 70 nations, as it were. כלל ישראל is the children of השם, כביכול, כביכול we are the, we have the DNA of השם, we have the חלק אלוק ממעל, we are the emissaries of הקדוש ברוך הוא in the world to bring the expression of השם into the world, and other people, they have those other human elements that they haven't put together.

None of them have a שלימות. Each one of the nations expresses some one individual מידה, but not all of it as part of a שלימות, היינו מידות רעות. Each one of them in isolation, in fragmentation, is not integrated, and therefore it's רע, היינו ממי רע, אז הם מקבלין אלו אותיות התורה הרע יותר ממה שהיו מקבלין מתחילה, like we said, that when something seems to be going against the grain, something seems to be going בדווקא not with the tide, not in line with רצון השם, it's trying to have its own ideas, and now you realize that as much as it was pushing against, actually, like we've mentioned by המן, that everything that המן did ended up really putting מרדכי in a position of power, and it brought the יידן to תשובה, right?

Actually, it was exactly what the doctor ordered, so to speak, including the fear. That was what people needed to get in place. כי מתחילה לא היו מקבלין אלא כדי חיות הראוי לאותו מקום. Originally, there was only very little expression of truth, it was the most limited amount of energy, חיות, in this world in order just to present that there should be attachment to השם so that it should exist, so that we should have that stage on which to do עבודה and the ability to see through it, that we could connect to השם through it. כדי שלא להשפיע יותר מהראוי להם, that it shouldn't be more than would otherwise be ראוי for it at that stage, at that place within the system whose תכלית is that we should be able to benefit and ultimately to grow and get close to הקדוש ברוך הוא.

Now, parenthetically, I will just mention, I believe the תניא in פרק ל״ו talks about it, the idea, or at least this is the way that I remember the idea. This is not a בדיעבד. This is not like we have to grow despite these coverings, despite the גשמיות. If you have a system where you have a reservoir, a source of energy, a source of water, then that will be obviously the closest to the source, the most power. Anything that's attached directly to the source will be incredibly powerful. And yet, that entire system, the reservoir, all of the systems of filtration and so on, all exist only because somebody needs to be able to turn on the faucet in their sink.

So, on one hand, you can say, well, that's the farthest from the source. On the other hand, when you look at the entire system, the most חשוב thing in that system is really the תכלית of that system. So, if the entire system is designed so that we can have עבודה, so that we can get close to הקדוש ברוך הוא, including the obscurity, so that we have our מקום for עבודה, then that that's actually the most חשוב place to be. People are much more חשוב than מלאכים, the ספרים talk about it. כמו שכתוב בכתבי האר״י, עד דלא ידע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי.

On Purim, it says the גמרא in מגילה, חייב איניש לבסומי בפוריא, a person should drink on Purim until he does not know the difference between ארור המן and ברוך מרדכי. We've spoken about this in certain ways, but over here I'm just going to read from רב חיים קראמער's note. Obviously, there's a lot behind this גמרא, and also in terms of what the עבודה שבו is, if a person is עד דלא ידע, how does a person have עבודה if they don't know? But over here, we'll just take the words, so to speak, at face value as expressing this idea in the פנימיות.

I'm going to read the note from רב חיים קראמער. He says the האר״י הקדוש writes, "It is known that in every קליפה there is a spark of holiness which sustains it. Should that spark disappear, the קליפה would cease to exist." So, everything is really the letters of השם, right, we said. "On Purim, when a very great light shines from above, it is desirable that the קליפה also draw sustenance from that light." Purim is the יום טוב that it says will not become בטל לעתיד לבוא. Other ימים טובים have miracles. Miracles are essentially injections of clarity, if you were, into a system, כביכול, so to speak, a natural system, the way that השם generally runs the system, and there's something injected from the outside.

That would be miracle. Purim the מגילה doesn't mention הקדוש ברוך הוא, there is no open miracles, and yet the entire Purim is miracles, because that's where we see through the system. Right? Purim is really where we are able to attach הקדוש ברוך הוא, literally to see through and realize that they're all letters from השם. So, the light on Purim is so great that really everything wants to just have that truth shine through it. And he says over here, "Still, we must take care that the קליפה receive only the barest amount of holiness as sustenance, lest it gain too much strength from this great light," because again, then the system collapses, the matrix collapses, so to speak.

The whole idea of how the world is supposed to exist is only with the most minimal amount of energy going in at any level for it to be that stage of עבודה, so that we can function within it. So, there should not be that level of light shining into it. And he says, "Therefore, what does it mean a person should therefore drink on Purim until he cannot tell the difference? So that if in his drunken state, he says, 'Blessed is המן,' he brings that ברכה into המן, the קליפה receives its sustenance, but since the person is saying it while drunk and without clear intent, the blessing given to המן is greatly diminished, with only the barest amount of sustenance for the קליפה." So, רב חיים קראמער is explaining the האר״י הקדוש as learning this idea that we've been discussing directly into פשט in a גמרא by Purim.

היינו שימשיך שפע להקליפות כדי חיותו ולא יותר. עיין עץ חיים בכוונות פורים פרק ו׳, מבואר שם שצריכים להמשיך חיות להקדושה הנעלמת בתוך הקליפה. And he explains that we, in the עץ חיים, in the כתבי האר״י, that we need to bring חיות, energy, existence, חיות, אלקים חיים, attachment to הקדוש ברוך הוא, to the קדושה that is hidden within the קליפה, אבל, and again, hidden is not by coverings that are outside of it, the way that we're learning. Hidden really is that perspective, it's hidden by this covering, by this cloud of perception that doesn't allow us to see it clearly, so we need to bring in that light, that attachment to הקדוש ברוך הוא, אבל צריכים להמשיך החיות בצמצום גדול, but the way that that light, that that energy, the attachment to השם comes in is not in a way that's immediately clear, שזהו סוד כוונת השכרות של פורים עיין שם, this is the סוד of שכרות on פורים.

אבל כשנפשטו האותיות מהקליפות, but again, when we remove the קליפות from the אותיות, or we take the אותיות out of the קליפות, now it becomes clear, the Godliness and everything becomes clear, the אזיי מקבלין אור רב מלמעלה, then it is essentially getting that אור, getting that attachment, getting that revelation, the truth is shining through that it is a clear attachment to the source, וזהו עושי דברו לשמוע בקול דברו, those who make the word to hear the sound, the messaging, the voice of the of the word. כשאנו בונים התורה שהיה מתחילה, when we come and we take all of these puzzle pieces and we really build them up into that picture, and if you could imagine, sometimes you have these very big puzzle pieces, you can Google this, like tens of thousands of pieces, and it's not even one big puzzle, it's almost like a lot of mini puzzles, if you will.

So if you think about it, you put together one puzzle, and now you realize that this is a piece in something even larger, and then you have the same problem that everything is in different directions, and then you grow and you see the next level of putting together that puzzle, but now you don't understand how it fits into something even larger, so each time that a person takes the pieces and they realize how the תורה was מתחילה, they put the puzzle together, and they realize this was the picture, and this is what was designed, and how it was designed, and initially it was מפוזר ומפורד בלשונות העכו״ם, initially these these תאוות, these drives, these character elements, these these colors of the rainbow were each expressed on their own in a way that didn't seem to be integrated, it seemed to be fragmented, ובמדות רעות, ובימי רע, and it was it seemed to be only individual units that were not part of a greater picture, which were not expressing the שלמות of the תורה, the שלמות of the רצון השם.

אזיי לשמוע בקול דברו, now that the person is able to put it all back together, he's able to hear the קול of השם, the קול of that דבר shining through. וזוכין למשמע קלין מלעילא, and he merits to hear the sound from above. היינו שהדבר, meaning היינו התורה, מקבלין אור רב מלמעלה, it is getting an increased influx of light, of revelation, of attachment to the source. וזה שמיעת התורה, this is that the תורה itself is now heard, it is now shining through the world, and it is expressing itself, and we see the blueprint of the entire world, the creation, even the pieces that seem at the lower altitude not to fit.

וזה בחינת נעשה, we put it together, we're עושי דברו, ונשמע, and then we're able to see through, we're able to hear the message, we're able to understand the communication, and how everything is presenting itself, and why. שמתחילה אנו בונים אותיות התורה, the first thing a person does is they look at those ימי רע, היטב היטב, they they they have to build up the אותיות התורה, so we understand that everything is really those building blocks. שהאותיות בולטות ומצטרפות, that each individual piece is essentially shining out, ואחר כך נשמע, זוכה למשמע קלין מלעילא, now that we're able to see each individual piece part of a part part of a puzzle, so now they will be able to hear the message from הקדוש ברוך הוא.

היינו שאותיות התורה מקבלין חיות ואור רב יותר ממה שקיבלו מתחילה כשהיו מולבשים בלשונות הגוים בימי רע, that it shines even brighter. And perhaps we could say one example, and again, however it hits people individually, people are going through different things, either looking for שידוכים, and חס ושלום being injured, and unemployment, but you can imagine a person who loses a שידוך, an opportunity for a שידוך, and then they realize, בדווקא because they went through that, that's how they ended up meeting the person who they were supposed to meet, or because they were unemployed, they ended up going into a different conference, or they started their own business, and it ended up being even better.

Again, all of these things are easy to say in hindsight, they're very difficult to understand in foresight, but that person where everything should have been smooth, they had a certain skill, they went to school, everything should have been smooth, they should have had a job and had פרנסה, and then they would have they would have seen something nice, that would have been ימי טוב. They went they were in ישיבה, they wanted to get a שידוך, everything was supposed to be smooth, and then all of a sudden, things seem to take a thousand left turns, but when ultimately it clicks into place, and sometimes it's very hard, again, it is ימי רע, we're not we're not taking anything away from the idea that it's ימי רע, but once they're able to integrate that, to see that integration, hopefully, most that we should be זוכה to see that within our lifetimes, that everything is really part of one symphony, and they wouldn't have had it any other way, because the way that it turned out was better than they ever could have imagined, and it necessitated that it go that way, with all of its hardship, that's where the אור shines even רב יותר than possibly could have shined, could have shined originally.

Okay, so just to sum up, I'm just going to read now the review of the three paragraphs, אלף, בית, and גימל, that we went through so far, from רב חיים Kramer's note. Number one, a person must, must always pursue peace, שלום, שלמות with himself, among the Jewish people, and the means for attaining this peace, this understanding of an integrated whole, right, not fragmentation, are the תורה and צדיקים. Paragraph two, we said a person must know that God's infinite light is everywhere, on every level, in every place, thing, and circumstance, even the languages of the nations.

What's a language? It's expressing. The languages of the nations are the expression of something seemingly else, therefore one who searches can always find God. And paragraph three, which we did today: he accomplishes this by subduing his evil inclination, the bad דעות, attributes, and so on. This removes the concealments, so that the letters of the תורה, which are the life-force giving building blocks of creation, shine on his level. He then knows, so to speak, or hears the תורה, the word of God, in each thing. בעזרת השם, we will continue with paragraph ד.