LM 6.1 — Kra es Yehoshua, Part 1 of 3 · תורה ו׳

Okay. Torah ו', אות א'. So we actually list list The last Torah, ה', we said was recorded by Rosh Hashanah of 1802, we said, which was actually the first Torah that Rav Natan, who ended up being the the תלמיד מובהק of Rabbi Nachman and recorded most of the תורות, some of them are לשון רבנו, but that was the first one that he heard. And over In that one, he was dealing with the problems having kavana in tefila, and also trying to be able to understand and relate to the idea that as he was becoming in the process of becoming closer to Chassidut, understanding certain infighting among people that were otherwise l'shem Shamayim and tzadikim, and trying to understand how to relate to that.

This Torah was actually given very soon after that by שבת שובה פרשת וילך. So it's It's also at the very beginning of Rav Natan's career, and it discusses, as we've been discussing, the ענוה, being able to stay silent when a person is the subject of embarrassment, and also being able to grow and understand how to strengthen oneself both in בימי אהבה, בימי שנאה, in בימי אהבה, בימי שנאה, in terms of when a person's having an aliyah and a person's having a yeridah, and being able to understand how to relate to growth in all phases.

So this one again is לשון רבנו זכרונו לברכה, I think it's the third one we had, which we've spoken about before. Says the pasuk in Parashat Vayelech, which was again, it was Shabbat Shuva at the time, ויאמר ה' אל משה. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu is telling Moshe that he is coming close to dying. קרא את יהושע, and Moshe should call יהושע, וכולי, and he should present they should present themselves by the אהל מועד. But then it says, ואצונו. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to ultimately appoint and command Yehoshua going forward.

And the question is, so what was Moshe what was the the the point of Moshe Rabbeinu being there if he was if ה' was going to be speaking directly to Yehoshua? What was the avodah of being there and almost being left left on the outside? The So So he says yeah, כי, so the first thing we're going to discuss is that there's different types of kavod. There's כבוד מלכים and there's כבוד אלקים. כי צריך כל אדם למעט בכבוד עצמו. Every person has to be mematet in a kavod that's coming to him, and we actually saw earlier at the end in or at some point within Torah ד' that Moshe Rabbeinu at the very end of his life says that that even Moshe Rabbeinu didn't know

where he was buried. He had finally reached a stage of ultimate התבטלות before he was going to go forward, and he he was going to he was going to be niftar. That was the point at which Moshe Rabbeinu reached the ultimate התבטלות and and מול בית פעור. But it's in a person at this So, now we're addressing in the context of משה, צריך כל אדם למעט בכבוד עצמו. Every person has to be mematet in his own kavod. By David HaMelech, when they were bringing the aron to Yerushalayim, so David HaMelech danced in some sort of outlandish way, and there's a there's a story in Navi that Michal had טענות on him, said it's not it's not the koveddik for a king to be, you know,

dancing, I guess his sleeves rolled up or something. He said, "When I'm when I'm going for kavod Hashem', then nothing else matters." ולהרבות בכבוד המקום. And to give kavod to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And the the in in principle, if a person realizes, we've spoken about this before also in the context of malchut. And this Torah I don't know, more than the others, but it's going to be like unbelievable how he's going to take concepts that are otherwise super abstract and out there and bring it bring it home to a point of avodah.

But the the idea is if you if you take a person who or let's say a person is blowing blowing a wind instrument or whatever it is, and the but but the thing is totally battel to the person who's blowing the instrument, and somebody wants to say, you know, it was an unbelievable playing, not just the sound of music, but the way that something happened. So the kavod and a person looks at at the medium, the kavod is really going to the person who's acting. Or let's say a person you know, the a football team wins a game, so you go over to somebody, whether they were involved in the play or maybe they were sitting on the bench, and you say, "You guys played

incredible." עד כמה that a person says that it was me, so then it's taking away from the from the source from where it was coming from. When When a person has kavod, so the idea is that a person is supposed to be מעלה the kavod to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. עד כמה that a person has a role and he has a function within an organization, so he's part of it. The more that he takes the kavod to himself, so then mimela the more that the kavod is coming away from Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

And the more that he says, "I'm just I'm just doing my job, I execute my role to the extent that I can, ultimately the kavod is not coming to me," the more that he shows to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and he has התבטלות. כי מי שרודף אחר הכבוד, the more that a person is רודף אחר הכבוד to try to pull that that recognition, kavod is lashon of heavy, he makes himself substantial, the more that a person is taking the kavod for himself, אינו זוכה לכבוד אלקים. It's a reciprocal relationship.

You're either part of an organization, you either have a role to to the extent that everybody has a role to play in life. The more that a person If you would see that HaKadosh Baruch Hu's notebook before you were born, and you would see you would see These are the kochot I'm giving you. You have a good voice, you're very tall, you have money, you have this, whatever it is, and this is therefore what's expected of you. So now you come down to this world, and you're going to see after life, let's say, everything that you did, and you can see how you measured up against what was expected of you.

The more that you said that, "Oh, I'm such a great guy because I did these things," the less that you understand, yeah, the reason that you did those things is because these were the tools you were given, these are the strengths that you had, this is what was expected of you. The more that you say that it's a hitchayvut, then the less ga'avah that you have, you're just part of a program. So the more that a person is rodef after kavod, the less that they're attributing the source of that kavod and where everything was coming from to הקדוש ברוך הוא, אלא לכבוד של מלכים.

Really, they're treating it as כבוד של מלכים, which is, which is, kavod, this-worldly kavod, but again we've discussed several times already that in the order of the sefirot, so the way that HaKadosh Baruch Hu relates to the world goes down a bunch of middot, the last one is called malchut, and malchut, which we said is almost like the moon, to the extent that that a person is מקבל עול מלכות שמים, to the extent that there's that the שכינה שורה, to the extent that there's malchut, what that means is that it's reflective of HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

When HaKadosh Baruch Hu is relating to the world and what you see in this world is totally reflective of Hashem, when a person steals and they're dishonest in business and they seem to be doing well, it's like the Shechinah is in galut. It's like the it's like it's a lack of malchut. Malchut is when things are totally reflective. So when a person wants to take the kavod of melachim, it means that it's not reflecting totally back to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, but they're trying to steal that kavod for himself.

שנאמר בו: כבוד מלכים חקור דבר. That the greatness of king is the kavod for melachim, it should be investigated, it means that it's quantifiable. When the kavod is coming from something in this world, so that means that it relates to something that's gashmi, relates to something that's physical, it's quantifiable. Ultimately, since this world in its own right is going to become batel, so to speak, in the Olam Haba, right? If on Shabbat, for instance, if let's say I take something out into רשות הרבים, so if I take a cup out, I'm chayav.

If let's say I take food out and the food is פחות מכשיעור, so then I'm going to be patur. What if I take that food that's פחות מכשיעור and I put it into a cup? I'll be patur even on the cup, because when something is batel to something else, it's considered that it doesn't have anything of its own. If you treat The מלכות בעצם is לית לה מגרמיה כלום. The Malchus doesn't have anything on its own. But when a person relates to the Malchus as something, so then he's taking it and instead of being batel to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, to the infinite, it now, all of a sudden, is quantifiable, it can be investigated and it can be measured.

חוקרים אחריו, and now, both people and ultimately HaKadosh Baruch Hu are going to say, "You want that kavod?" So if if if you're b-shtelling צו to HaKadosh Baruch Hu to the infinite, so then you're a soldier in the army. Maybe you're a chief and maybe you're a cook in the kitchen. But as long as you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, you're really coming from Hashem. We can't even address it, I can't quantify the kavod that you deserve. But if all of a sudden you want it for yourself, you think you're such a great guy, you davened for the עמוד, you gave tzedakah, you did something for the shul, so now we could say, "You want kavod for yourself?

Let's see if you really deserve that. You're not coming from Hashem, you're coming from yourself." ושואלין, "מיהו זה ואיזה הוא," like in the מגילה, שחולקין לו כבוד הזה. "This is the kavod you want?" וחולקין עליו, and they're going to oppose him, שאומרים שאינו ראוי לכבוד הזה. And the forces that be, so to speak, and the kavod itself is going to have to sit there and essentially make an evaluation, this kavod that you're taking for yourself, mah heicha teisi, do you deserve it? אבל מי שבורח מן הכבוד, a person who's coming away from kavod, he's running away, שממעט כבוד עצמו, meaning he's running away from the kavod itself, he's not taking from himself anything.

One person says, "I'm I'm the flute, I'm the wind instrument and I'm a ברוך השם הקדוש ברוך הוא gave me the kochos that HaKadosh Baruch Hu could play through me. I'm fulfilling a task. If I wouldn't be doing my task and I'd be doing something else, if anything, it would be a demerit for me." So ומרבה בכבוד המקום, and the more that I just say whatever I have is בעצם is בעצם כבוד הקדוש ברוך הוא, and he's מעלה even the kavod that he gets back to הקדוש ברוך הוא, אזי הוא זוכה לכבוד אלוקים, then he's going to be zocheh, he's going to have התבטלות of himself and he's going to be zocheh to כבוד אלוקים, which we're going to see relates to the sefirah of

Keter and kavod and we're going to talk about the פנימיות of that. ואז אין בני אדם חוקרין על כבודו, so at this point, people are not going to be able to approach him. His kavod is going to be beyond reproach because now, all of a sudden, you're wearing the uniform of the king. Anybody who asks about my kavod isn't asking about something I did, they're asking about what I represent. I'm not talking in my capacity as Baruch or Moshe or whatever it is, I'm talking in my capacity as a as a soldier of the king.

You want to ask about my kavod? Talk to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. But you can't do that because HaKadosh Baruch Hu is infinite, he's beyond anything. אם הוא ראוי אם לאו, and nobody can say whether yes or no. ועליו נאמר: כבוד אלוקים הסתר דבר. Once you're talking about כבוד אלוקים, so then you can't approach it because it's not quantifiable, you can't even address it. Who are you to address the nature of כבוד השם? כי אסור לחקור על כבוד הזה, because once you start talking about HaKadosh Baruch Hu at all, you come to הגשמה.

Who are you to even to even address? As far as we're concerned, anything related to HaKadosh Baruch Hu is ein sof. is there's nothing you could talk about. The only thing that we talk about is Hashem's התחברות with the world, HaKadosh Baruch Hu relates to the world in a way to allow us to try to be godlike, and to be able to accomplish whatever His purpose was in making the world. But to talk about כבוד השם, that we can't talk about. So now the question is how is a person ממעט in his kavod?

How should he go about this? How does he align himself and bring this מדה of כתר into the world? ואי אפשר לזכות לכבוד הזה, how does a person approach and reach and align himself with כבוד אלוקים to have התבטלות, אלא על ידי תשובה. What we said earlier is that in the in the alignment with, again, the ספירות or the מדות, as we as we talk about them, are the way, it's like if you take white light which can't be like, you know, held, and therefore you put it through a prism, so it it becomes ways that HaKadosh Baruch Hu is able to relate to the world.

The the top one is called כתר, which is almost like רצון השם. It aligns through through everything, and then as it goes through the rest of them, חכמה, בינה, and חסד, גבורה, תפארת, and it ends at מלכות. Ultimately when I my original רצון is I want to, I need a place to live. Ultimately, after I'm able to take, I need a place to live, where's it supposed to be? What's the house supposed to look like? I go to the architect, I go to the engineer, I go to the contractor.

Finally the house is ready, I'm ready to walk inside, the מלכות, the practical what you have really is totally reflective of what that רצון is. So the perfect house, the perfect מלכות, is something that really truly 100% aligns with what the רצון is. That רצון is representative with within the name of כתר. So he says if a person wants to align himself with כבוד השם, with what HaKadosh Baruch Hu's initial רצון was, it happens through teshuvah, and we're going to see what we mean by teshuvah, which ועיקר התשובה, what's the עיקר תשובה?

כשישמע בזיונו ידום וישתוק. The Tomer Devorah talks about this also. The ultimate teshuvah is when you can see that a person, if you want by the way you should be gabbai for a couple of weeks, it's very good for this. When a person sees that he's embarrassed and he keeps his mouth shut and he doesn't respond because the more that you do this, you don't have any skin in the game. It's not me personally, I'm here for a role. Hakadosh Baruch Hu put me here for a certain reason and this is how I relate to Hashem.

All of a sudden Yene'em wants to come and put me down, it totally it doesn't bother me any more than if, let's say, let's say you could understand, you know, ants talking and there's an anthill or whatever, ant farm, and you hear that they're making fun of you, you wouldn't even stop to be גורס. It totally doesn't make a difference that people are going to put me down and they're going to reproach me and I'm not going to respond. When I when I don't respond, I'm essentially separating myself from my gashmi and I'm aligning myself with kavod Hashem.

The note over here brings from wherever it is, ליקוטים, so, well, he's going to talk more in a second, but how could it be, how could it be that teshuvah is dependent on others? That means that I'm not able to do teshuvah if if somebody else doesn't embarrass me, and also we don't see that the עיקר תשובה is brought down as as this, usually in the Rambam the עיקר תשובה is vidui. So he talks about when whenever you admit to something, most of the time you tend to rationalize it, or you tend to say, "I did something, but it wasn't that bad," or "It was that bad, but here are the reasons I did it, there's some way out." So he incorporates this into vidui,

when you seriously sit there and articulate, "This is what I did wrong, I had no excuse, I totally wasn't thinking about Hashem. Here are all the things that I have hakarat hatov for, notwithstanding that every single thing that I have is from Hashem, I took it, I blocked Hashem out of my mind, and I just totally did the wrong thing with zero excuses." So you can, that's essentially a bechinah of of of having this embarrassment. So again, so now we have the why, so we have the the the what a person has to do in this world is align himself with kavod אלוקים.

How does he do that? By being ממעט his own kavod. The the way that the way that he's able to do that is essentially through teshuvah and through staying silent when he's embarrassed. Why does this work? כי לית כבוד בלא כ״ף. Kavod, every every word or every concept somehow aligns with the alef bet, like the Gemara in Shabbos, the alef bet is the building blocks of the world. כי לית כבוד בלא כ״ף. כ״ף is a כף כפופה, the כ״ף is is is bent over, it shows the שפלות האדם, true kavod is a hitbatlut of self.

The idea of kavod relates to the letter כ״ף. והכ״ף הוא כתר. So כ״ף is going to be this common nexus between kavod and between כתר, which okay, כ״ף is also it's 20, עשרים is גימטריא כתר, and it talks there's other things he mentions how this works, why this works, but the bottom line is is that there's something that aligns between kavod and כתר, which is this middah of how הקדוש ברוך הוא relates to the world. בחינת אהיה. If you ever look in one of these סידורים, the Moscowitz Siddur or something, you'll see that different names of הקדוש ברוך הוא, either different נקודות under the יו״ד ק״ה וא״ו ק״ה, there's all these different names of הקדוש ברוך הוא, but we're going to try to bring this

one home for our purposes, for avodah. So he says that כתר and kavod are concepts that align, and they're also בחינה of the name אהיה, which is the name אהיה is in the future tense, and it's I will be. What do we see? בחינת תשובה. So how are we going to align these four concepts: כתר and כבוד, אהיה and teshuvah? אהיה דאנא זמין למהוי. When a person says אהיה, in just in the grammar it means, "I will be." What that what it means is is that I am prepared I I will be, but I'm not yet.

I'm in a state of not having been manifested, just like ratzon. I need I need a place to live, however it's it didn't yet come to the practical, it didn't yet come to fruition. The idea of כתר, the idea that it's רצון השם, until it's able to go through the התחברות with the world and manifest and ultimately reflect what the original ratzon is, it's in a status of of not there yet. It hasn't yet it hasn't yet come to any sort of a reflection or actualization. היינו קודם התשובה עדיין אין לו הוויה.

Before teshuvah, a person is created to do רצון השם. If a person is using his life not to do רצון השם, so then he really hasn't even earned his existence. If you have something, you have a machine, and that machine is malfunctioning, somehow it's instead of being there as a conduit for something else, the whole is, you know, you have a hose that's supposed to let the water totally through, and instead the hose has a blockage, so the hose itself becomes a כלי. Instead of acting as a pipe to put the water from point A to point B, it's holding the water in itself.

It's not doing what it's supposed to do. So when a person is created for a certain function, and they have not yet done teshuvah, so then they haven't yet earned their existence. Their entire existence is for a purpose. They're עדיין אין לו הוויה. They're essentially, for for all intents and purposes, they're a בהמה that that that has not yet become like an אדם. כאילו עדיין לא נתהווה בעולם. That it's as if they they don't yet they're not in the world. And then we're going to see, it says כי טוב לו שלא נברא משנברא.

There's a מחלוקת in Eruvin, I think, between בית שמאי and בית הלל, where that בית שמאי and בית הלל argued, and they said whether it's good whether whether it's נוח לאדם שנברא או שלא נברא, was it, however there's pshat in the Gemara, it was good for a man yes or not to be created, but now that a person is created, they should be מפשפש or ממשמש במעשיו. Now, once a person does what he's supposed to be doing, then it's good that he was created, but beforehand, so then his creation if anything is a demerit for him.

Think about that little neshamele, comes here comes to this world in order so that it can have nisyonot and bechira and get closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, until it earns its existence and it's in line with what it's supposed to be doing, then halavai it shouldn't have come down here in the first place. And something that's he he brings over here that it's a concept in Gemara that something that's עומד לישרף, it's כשרוף דמי. Something that's עומד for something, something that's in a certain status, even though it hasn't gotten there yet, it's as if it's there.

So he aligns, he says that if a person is טוב לו שלא נברא, if a person hasn't done teshuva yet, he's it's like almost like we say by בן סורר ומורה. He's going on a certain path, for all intents and purposes, until he rectifies that path and he goes in a different direction, then for all intents and purposes it's just the the the timeline just hasn't unfolded yet. As far as he's concerned, it's as if he's there, that's the direction he's going. So he says, if a person is is is טוב לו שלא נברא, it's as if he's essentially not created yet.

If he's not created, he's in bechina of אהיה. He has He has not yet earned his existence. So כי טוב לו שלא נברא משנברא, וכשבא לטהר את עצמו ולעשות תשובה, but when a person comes to do תשובה, אז הוא בחינת אהיה. That's when he comes, now he's in a bechina of "I will be." All of a sudden, you haven't done teshuva yet. You've only We just had a Gemara in Ta'anit about this, I don't know if you're up to date, that that it said that it was talking about the famine, that I think it was Rabbi Zeira.

He said, "So let's take upon ourself now to fast, and even though there's a gezeira of the מלכות that says that we're not allowed to fast yet, but we'll have this רושם of the fast, and then when we get a chance, we'll be mekayem that." But this רושם of being mekabel the fast, even though we didn't do it yet, is going to come on us now. So it says that when a person's mekabel to do teshuva, that's why you see that people make kabalot on Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur.

A lot of times it gets very hard, they're not holding by it anymore. But if you could bring yourself where you're holding and you take on that kabala on yourself, that puts you בחינת אהיה, it's a bechina of כתר, the highest level of of aligning yourself with רצון השם, that's teshuva. You're being ממעט in your own כבוד, and with that you're literally aligning yourself with כבוד אלוקים, it's a tremendous thing. היינו שיהיה לו הוויה בעולם, you earn existence. היינו אנא זמין למהוי, which is which is what the Zohar brings of of by by אהיה.

I that that it's something that I I'm not there yet, but I will be there. So we see that through teshuva, which aligns yourself, it's מאיר, brings into the world the שם of אהיה, which is a בחינה of כתר, and that by that a person's bringing מלכות is bringing כבוד השם into the world, because whatever they end up doing מלכות will reflect back a רצון השם. And all that is as a person is able to ממעט his own כבוד, which you do when you're essentially embarrassed, whether it comes from others or whether it comes from yourself.

And the more that you're able to take yourself out of the game and exist only as a function of הקדוש ברוך הוא, that's the degree to which you bring מלכות השם into the world. וזה, and this שם of אהיה, which is תשובה בחינת כתר, כי כתר לשון המתנה. Now he goes back and he says כתר is a לשון, like we said of אהיה is "I will be", it's a לשון of waiting, so to speak. It's לשון of patience, of being סובל, בחינת תשובה, כמו שאמרו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה, הבא לטהר מסייעין אותו, which is amazing.

Even teshuva isn't, can't be on your own terms. You think, you know what, I'm going to be, I'm going to be frum, I'll be frum on my own terms. I'm going to do teshuva, I'll do teshuva the way that I have to do teshuva. Even teshuva you're relying on הקדוש ברוך הוא for. Even teshuva, a person says, "This is what I want to do," you have to rely on הקדוש ברוך הוא that He's going to help you, that you're going to be able to maintain your enthusiasm, that you're going to be able to stay with the program, and that maybe you'll have challenges that aren't going to get you there.

A person needs siyata dishmaya to do teshuva as well. And he brings over here from, wherever he brings for, from the, but the, the, the reason is that if a person would have total siyata dishmaya and he wouldn't have to wait, all of a sudden he does teshuva and he'll just be holding there, so then so then it's not going to be with, it's not going to be with bechira. The the whole point of teshuva, of having התעוררות, we discussed it in one of the other תורות, we said that that I think also דוד, רצוא ושוב, that a person has התבטלות, but you're not supposed to be a מלאך.

What what what what happens is a person has התעוררות תשובה, and we do, and you're not holding on the level, but you're not supposed to be holding on the level. The real work of teshuva happens in the teshuvah process. You go to a Yom Kippur, you go to an inspiring Shabbos, you go to Eretz Yisrael for a week, and you have a tremendous hisorerus, but what you, the job is, is that the rabbi spoke about this on Friday night in the context of emotions, that if you don't take that and you bring it back and it makes some sort of an impression, and you take steps towards it, so then like Esav cried by Yaakov and then all of a sudden he just went back

to שעיר. The the the whole point of teshuvah ultimately is the teshuvah process where you bring it back home and you ultimately work on yourself. Teshuvah is a process of hamtanah. It doesn't, it by definition doesn't happen in a second. משל לאחד שבא לקנות אפרסמון, when a person comes to buy some balsam oil, which has a good smell, אומרים לו: "המתן." So you tell him, "Wait." And if anything, Rabbi Chaim Shmuelevitz has a whole piece also that a lot of times when a person does an aveirah, the worst time to make a decision is when a person is bivhalah, when a person is in a state of confusion.

He talks about by the Egel, how did the aveirah come? Because a person had a trigger finger, because a person, a person was was too quick was was too quick. When a person does teshuvah, all of a sudden it means taking a step back. That's the worst time to make some sort of a some sort of a rash move. Rashness is a negative thing. וזה בחינת כתר. And this this idea of waiting, of savlanut, of patience, of hamtanah is a בחינה of כתר, כמו שכתוב: "כתר לי זעיר ואחוך," it's a pasuk in Iyov where where he's talking to one of the one of the people over there, and and the the one tells Iyov, forget which one, says that you should wait, "Wait a little

bit, כתר לי זעיר, wait for me a little bit, ואחוך, and I'm going to tell you that," but but again, that just shows כתר is a לשון of wait. In other words, that the way that it plugs in over there into the pasuk, you see that כתר is a לשון of hamtanah. That's why you're bringing it, because the purification is a process. It's not just a question of making a decision during a during during a period of hisorerus and all of a sudden being there. By definition, by definition, as it relates to us, it's a לשון of having to unfold, and we see that even in the מדות of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, as He relates to us, the כתר, כתר, the כתר is the רצון,

but until it unfolds as part of the process into the actualization takes, not as we relate to it, its time, but it's a, it's it's otherwise a process. אבל קודם התשובה, אזי בחינת אהיה, but before the teshuvah, he's still in the לשון of "I will be," it hasn't gotten there yet, בהסתרת פנים ממנו, in that we are not, we we don't have this this הארת פנים. We have not yet gotten there כי עדיין לא הכין את עצמו מהויה בעולם, because he's still in a state, until he does teshuvah, of not yet having earned his own existence.

Halavai, you know, it's nice to look at others and judge yourself by where other people are holding. The truth is, is that different people have different strengths. It's wonderful, you know, if, whether it comes to maaser, you know, you say, one guy has $100, one guy has a $100 million, so you say, "Well, I gave a lot of," well, maaser for you is different than maaser for him. Whatever the case is, a person is judging himself by where where they're holding. As far as he's concerned, if he's not where he's holding, he hasn't gotten there yet, and therefore, he has not yet earned his existence כפי what his chiyuvim in the world are.

והסתרת פני אהיה גימטריא דם. Now, this the whole idea of פנים ואח, just for our purposes, just the way that Rabbi Chaim Kramer frames it in the note without going too much into the whole idea, generally speaking, he says, when you talk about the פנים of something, the פנים of something, you're talking about its essence in a state of being מתוקן. It's in a way of being where it's supposed to be, and there's different לשונות of bringing yourself being פנים בפנים and פנים באח. But he says when you're talking about the פנים of something, the face of it, it's face-to-face, it's it's the essence of something, and and it's a state of being מתוקן, and the אחוריים of it, the אח is, it's like, let's

say I was singing a good song. If I'm looking at you, how would just, if I'm looking at you and I'm singing you a love song, then not only are you relating to to it in a state of how beautiful it is, but we have that connection. Let's say you're standing behind me, on the on the on the outside of it you can benefit from the music, but it's not in the state of being מסוכן, it's not in a state of פנים בפנים. So he says הסתרת פני אהיה, if we relate to this midah of chesed, this midah of אהיה of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's the פנים.

But everything the כח is there, even if it's not in a state of being מסוכן, the the the כח of it is there. What's the What's the אח, what's the what's the backside of אהיה, is גימטריא דם. We'll see why. פירוש, כי אחורי שם אהיה הוא בגימטריא דם כמובא. When we talk about the certain כוחות of things, so there's a way in פנימיות that we talk about how do we relate to the to the backside of that כח? What's the negative of that כח? Every כח could be used positive or negative.

What's the אחוריים of that? So he says that when you write it out, it's as if you write let let's say you have four-letter letters, so you say א, א-ה, א-ה-י, א-ה-י-ה, then it's a as you write each letter it turns back. So the gematria of א is one, א-ה is six, א-ה-י is 16, א-ה-י-ה is 21. If you put that together, it's gematria 44, which is gematria dam. So that's the way in gematria that we won't spend too much time on it, but again, it's he has a way of weaving together things that are totally beyond us, and then kind of coming back and explaining to us a nekudah of avodah.

היינו כשכותבין השם באחוריים, דהיינו א, א-ה, א-ה-י, א-ה-י-ה, שחוזרים בכל פעם לאחור, each time it's like it's going back, הוא בגימטריא דם, וזהו בחינת החזרת והסתרת פני אהיה שעולה דם, היינו שפיכות דמים ובזיונות. So when that when a person is not in line with כבוד אלוקים, he's in line with himself, so he's essentially really our what כי הדם הוא הנפש, our life is supposed to be reflective of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So if we're reflective of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so then we're living a life of Hashem, we're being ממעט in our own כבוד, and we're totally in line with with Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

But when we live our own life and we're coming away from Hashem, then what do we have? What's what's our dam worth? It's essentially we're making ourself ripe for שפיכות דמים and בזיונות and scorn. על שם ובוזי so that's one reason that it's dam, and we're going to give two more kind of reasons and say how the teshuvah process is going to address this. על שם ובוזי יקלו, we'll deal with this pasuk more, it says כי מכבדי אכבד, הקדוש ברוך הוא gives כבוד to those who flow the honor back to him, and those who disgrace Hashem will be disgraced, meaning that the way that they disgrace Hashem is if they're not if they're not they're going rogue.

They're a soldier in the army and they're doing their own thing, so then essentially they're not acknowledging that everything that they have is from Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's a disgrace to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. כי עדיין הדם שבחלל השמאלי שבלב, and the third thing is that as much as a person has the We talk about it as if, like, you know, the the the the נפש אלוקית is on the right, and the נפש בהמית or the yetzer hara is on the left. But he says, and left of heart where there's דם, ששם מדור היצר הרע, it's as if the yetzer hara is on the left side of the heart, כמו שכתוב: ולב כסיל לשמאלו.

So you see that there's an area of the heart that's for the for the yetzer hara. עדיין הוא בתוקף ועוז, since it's still in its strength with its עבירות, ובשביל זה באים עליו בזיונות ושפיכות דמים. And because of this, a person is going to have בזיונות and שפיכות דמים, because all of a sudden he has this area of the heart that's not in line with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so where is it going to go? Because his heart is boiling, because his dam, his self is is designated, so to speak, is run by the yetzer hara, so now he's going to be subject to that blood being spilt.

If you use that positively and you use it as a point of teshuvah, so then it gets directed positively. Otherwise, he's going to be subject to שפיכות דמים ובזיון, כי זה בחינת הסתרת והסתרת פני אהיה גימטריא דם. And therefore, we see three allusions to the fact that when a person doesn't give kavod Shamayim, then they're subject to דם either because of the אחוריים, the gematria of the name itself, or a pasuk of כי מכבדי אכבד ובוזי יקלו, or because of the way that it's structured in the heart.

והתיקון לזה, so what's the tikkun? How does a person come close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, how is he metaken this דם, this idea that he all of a sudden he's living for himself? שיהפוך דם לדום. Now, you could take, like we said, everything has a koach, so now you could take this koach, it's there, it's operating with דם, and you could take it and you can redirect it to silence. שומע חרפתו, a person hears his ridicule, his disgrace, ואינו משיב, and he doesn't respond, whether from others or from his own וידוי, ולא ידקדק על בזיון כבודו, and he has no skin in the game, he's not עומד on his own בזיונות, וכשמקיים דום לה', and now he takes that דם, he takes that koach that

was the אח of אהיה, that was that was the negative manifestation of of of being in line with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and he uses it as silence, he converts it to a positive. אז הקדוש ברוך הוא מפיל חללים, הקדוש ברוך הוא, so to speak, will line up the corpses of of his enemies, in our case the יצר הרע, כמו שכתוב: דום לה' והתחולל לו והוא יפיל לך חללים. So we've addressed already the out of the three, we addressed two of them. Number one, how how how does staying quiet help?

Number one, the דם converts to דום when you do it. The דם now converts to silence, and you can align yourself with אהיה, and the other thing is that when a person, it says דום לה' in it says, "Be quiet while you're awaiting Hashem's salvation, והתחולל לו, and hope to Hashem longingly." But it means in the penimiyut, it means when you're דום לה', when you keep your mouth shut when you're supposed to, והתחולל לו, הקדוש ברוך הוא is going to is going to kill the other side, or kill your enemies, he'll kill the יצר הרע, היינו היינו וליבי חלל בקרבי.

It's like the pasuk in Tehillim that that it was David Hamelech was addressing as if he had killed his yetzer hara, at least in a certain element, היינו, על ידי נתמעט דם שבחלל שמאלי, once you're able to put that negative side of you down and you're able to squash it, and and ultimately convert it, וזה בחינת זביחת היצר הרע, ועל ידי זה, and through this, zocheh l'kavod Eloki, because we said כי מכבדי אכבד ובוזי יקלו, כמו שכתוב: זובח תודה יכבדנני, whoever brings a sacrifice honors Me. But over here we're going to say whoever slaughters, not just a sacrifice, but slaughters the yetzer hara, it's a כבוד השם.

דרשו חז״ל, means זכרונם לברכה, זביחת היצר הרע. So, we we saw over here that now again, we have the minimize kavod, your own kavod, to maximize Hakadosh Baruch Hu's kavod. The way that you do that is through the teshuvah process, which happens through through staying silent in the face of disgrace. We said that the reason that that happens is because in the פנימיות of it, the kavod and כתר align with the with the name of Ehyeh. When a person is being instead of instead of having anavah and his bitul and doing teshuvah, he's on the negative, the negative side of Ehyeh is a lashon of דם, so which we said is happens in three ways, because that's the negative side of Ehyeh, and also it's

because it is the יצר הרע ובוזי יקלו, so then when a person now is דום לה', he keeps his mouth shut, that's able to rectify this negative side of Ehyeh. וצריך... So so now we're going to see that regular teshuvah though is not just enough. Teshuvah is a process. Even a tzaddik says, "השיבנו אבינו לתורתך וקרבנו מלכנו לעבודתך." What's really the teshuvah process? And now it's it's a new way of looking at teshuvah, the idea of getting close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu not just for saying sorry for aveirot, but there's we're going to see that there's three types of teshuvah, because the פסוק, three levels of teshuvah, because the פסוק actually says אהיה אשר אהיה, and then it comes back and it says אהיה שלחני

אליכם. It says: ויאמר אלקים אל משה אהיה אשר אהיה ויאמר כה תאמר לבני ישראל אהיה שלחני אליכם. It says Ehyeh three times, and that is represented of three stages of teshuvah. וצריך לאחוז תמיד במידת התשובה. A person has to hold on to the middah of teshuvah, which we said is כתר. And it's not enough just to do teshuvah once. It's a it's a lifelong process. Getting close to the infinite never stops. כי מי יאמר זכיתי ליבי טהרתי מחטאתי? Who is able to really say that I'm totally tahor from where I'm from from my chet?

כי בשעה שאדם אומר חטאתי עויתי פשעתי, when a person says chet is shogeg, avon is meizid, pesha is is rebellion, but different when a person comes to say וידוי, אפילו אי אפשר לומר בבר לבב, even that he's not able to say with total purity of heart, בלי פניה, without any Why What's the first step of teshuvah? I don't want to go to Gehinnom. I need to do teshuvah so that I have a good life. I need to do teshuvah because otherwise I'm going to get a patch from Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

Now, by the way, as much as you say, "Oh, so I'll skip this level. I'm just going to be totally for Hashem," the flip side of that is that this is the first step of teshuvah. The first step of teshuvah is where you align yourself and you say, "If I'm going in the wrong direction, I'm I'm I'm I'm going to ultimately be the one to suffer." The first step of teshuvah is where a person says that I'm going to do it for my own for for my own.

There's an unbelievable piece from Rav Pinkus. He talks about by Achav, who was a king. He ended up doing teshuvah at the end of his life, but in the beginning stage of his kingship it was just horrible. He brought avodah zarah and שפיכות דמים, גילוי עריות into the kingdom, and at the there was a certain stage where he was captured and they were literally going to like boil him alive or something like that. And the way that it's brought down is that Achav, say, he davened to every avodah zarah in the world, and then ultimately he told he he said to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, "Either save me..." He did teshuvah, and he said, "Either save me or You're no better than the rest of them."

So the malachim wanted to close the doors. They said like, you know, "What kind of a chutzpah is that? He says to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, 'Either save me or You're just like the rest of the avodah zarah?'" And Hakadosh Baruch Hu accepted his teshuvah. So Rav Pinkus was explaining this. First of all, he said, like, what was the discussion? What what peshat it's a chutzpah. So, he said, because everything has a limitation. Some people have a lot of capacity, some people have a little capacity. Everything has a limit.

So he tells Hakadosh Baruch Hu, "Hakadosh Baruch Hu, You are limitless רחמים. You are infinite mercy. I am doing teshuvah. If there's a limit to Your mercy, if ultimately there's a line at which I've been so bad that You won't accept my teshuvah, then You're just like the rest of the כוחות in the world. They have a limit, and Your limit is much, much, much, much greater. But the same way that other things are limited, You are limited also," as if to say. And this was a good טענה.

But Rav Pinkus finishes off, and he says, "But the ultimate teshuvah..." and Hashem listened to him. And he was freed, and then, you know, he couldn't totally erase what he had done. He said, "Because, you know what the ultimate teshuvah would have been? But he should have said, 'אף על פי כן, if if if your ratzon decides that I'm not zocheh to get out of here alive, I'm not ready to get out of here alive.'" He never took that that that final step. So the first step of teshuvah is acknowledging that there is Hakadosh Baruch Hu, I have to rectify my deeds, but it's still for personal benefit.

That's the first step of teshuvah. And then there's just a little parenthetical almost over here that Rabbi Natan adds it in, because otherwise it's לשון רבינו. "וזהו, מי יאמר זכיתי לבי, טהרתי מחטאתי?" Who could say that I'm totally pure from my teshuvah? "היינו, מי יוכל לומר שלבו זך וטהור בלי פניות," who could say that I'm totally free from any sort of a self-interest, "אפילו בשעה שאומר חטאתי," even when he's saying vidui? "וזהו, מי יאמר טהרתי מחטאתי?" Who could say I'm totally purged of chet? "היינו, שיהיה טהור מן חטאתי, וזהו פשטיה שאמר." It doesn't mean it doesn't mean who could say that I'm totally pure from chet.

It means who could say, the the pasuk, the pasuk says, "מי יאמר זכיתי לבי, טהרתי מחטאתי," it doesn't mean that I'm free from chet, it means I'm free from my chatati. Chatati is the words of teshuvah. Who could say that I'm totally free, that my my teshuvah itself didn't have any self-interest? "שאמר, כי גם אז אינו זך וטהור בלי פניות." Even my teshuvah, my teshuvah was the first step at coming close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but even my teshuvah was self-interest. So since my ultimate goal is to come to hitbatlut, where I recognize that I'm just that I'm just a conduit and I'm just a function of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, even my teshuvah was really a statement of self-interest.

It was in a positive direction. So the first step the first step of teshuvah is really a self-interested teshuvah. Now you could spend your life in teshuvah, which ultimately is where we're trying to go, because we're trying to get to keter and Eheyeh and כבוד כבוד כבוד השם. If you stop after the first level of teshuvah, so even though it's a positive thing, but nevertheless you haven't really aligned yourself totally with כבוד אלוקים, because ultimately even that teshuvah was self-interested. נמצא שצריך לעשות תשובה על התשובה, which means as you continue to grow and purify your motives, all of a sudden one, you know, a person's on a negative way.

So he he has a he has a, you know, an awakening, and he says, "If I continue on this way, I'm going to end up in jail, I'll end up in rehab, my parents are not going to get along with me, I'm not going to have a place in the community." So he he fixes up his deeds because ultimately he wants to have a place. All of a sudden he grows and grows and grows and he says, and then all of a sudden he looks back and he says, "What was I Forget about the fact that I would have been in jail and worse off.

What was I even thinking?" It took me those I needed those horses to get up the mountain, but once he gets up the mountain he looks back and he says, "If I would have realized what what's up here, I wouldn't have needed the horses to begin with. I would have ran as fast as I could on my own right." So a person looks back now and they do תשובה על התשובה, because they say, "What did I Even my teshuvah, there was something wrong with. How how did I have the how did I have the chutzpah, or or where was I even holding that even my teshuvah was self-interested?

What was I even thinking?" היינו על חטאתי, וזהו פשטיה שאמר, on the vidui itself that he said. כי עליו נאמר, "בשפתיו כבדוני," it says that of course as if he honors Hashem with his lips, כי על ידי תשובה זוכה לכבוד השם, he was on the right path, that's the beginning of the teshuvah process, ולבו רחק ממני, however his heart, the kavanah, really he was going in the other direction. And that's the first two levels of teshuvah, but we said that there's a third. ואפילו אם יודע אדם בעצמו שעשה תשובה שלמה, now a person knows that he taka did a real תשובה, אף על פי כן צריך לעשות תשובה על תשובה הראשונה.

Now the first two are folded into one. First he had the the initial self-interested teshuvah, he's going in the right direction, then he realizes that it's right. But now there's a final, a next step in this process which ultimately repeats. Why? כי מתחילה כשעשה תשובה, עשה לפי השגתו. Every person is ultimately operating within the way that he understands things to be. ואחר כך בוודאי כשעושה תשובה, בוודאי הוא מכיר ומשיג יותר את השם יתברך. You have to imagine, let's say let's say you meet somebody, right, and you you're you're on the phone with somebody, you're on a call, and you say something and you you all of a sudden you realize afterwards you made a joke, they said something and you were a little disrespectful.

But you know what, you're you're in your forties and you're already successful, and they're like a young schnook, a salesperson, so you do whatever. All of a sudden somebody tells you, and then you say you feel bad, so you apologize, you say, "No, it wasn't appropriate of me." Then all of a sudden you see, "No, the guy's the guy sounded so young, he's got einiklach." So now now all of a sudden you, you know, you feel terrible. Then then all of a sudden you realize that, you know, you have you have an interview, you need an account.

You say, "Oh, not only does this guy have einiklach, he works for the company that I need an in with." All of a sudden you feel even worse. Then you realize he's actually responsible for the account that you need. Then you realize that he's the head of the company. Then you realize he's actually on all of these like professional boards and he actually has contacts not only with his company, with every other company that you could ever possibly deal with. Every time you have like a whole new hakarah to something, it awakens a whole new hasagah that that you have to that that not just that that at the time כפי your hasagot you got have to, but at the time כפי your hasagot, so

then you did a legitimate teshuvah at the second stage. But the more you do teshuvah, the more you have a a a hasagah. The more you have a hasagah, you realize, "Well, I was saying so..." sorry according to what I understood that to be. Now all of a sudden, like what was I even thinking? How how could I possibly have done that? נמצא לפי השגתו שמה שהשיג עכשיו בוודאי השגה ראשונה, ונמצא שצריך לעשות תשובה על השגה ראשונה על שיש גשמיות מאלקותו, that כפי כפי what I now understand my relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu to be, that was like a התגשמות.

It was almost like I was making a physicality of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Now that I understand this new level of ruchniyut, the way that I was I was relating to the Rosh Yeshiva as being a Rebbe, I was relating to the Rebbe as being a talmid, I was relating to the talmid as being the janitor, and the way that I related to my teshuvah of yesterday was a הגשמה. It was such a lower level, I have to go back and start all over. וזה בחינת עולם הבא שיהא כולו שבת.

This is a bechinah, this coming into a constant renewal of is a bechinah of olam haba, which is שבת, היינו כולו תשובה. Listen, if you came for this today, then you can leave, but it was worth hearing. There's two different types of rest. I've said this vort before, I don't remember exactly the diyuk whether it was a menuchah versus שביתה. There's different types of rest in the world. One type of rest is you're building, you're jogging, you're running, you're tired, and then the problem is that you get tired, so you need to rest.

So what do you do? You rest up for a couple of minutes in order to keep on going. What was the function of the rest? It's in order because you're tired, that you could keep on going. Theoretically, you would never stop running, you would never stop doing whatever you have to be doing, except for the fact that you get too tired, but what you're b'etzem doing is really just keeping on going. There's another type of rest. Let's say you're running a computer program to take out the bugs, or you're building a house in order to have a house.

When the computer program stops running, that's not because it needs to stop so that it can keep on going. What what it is is that the rest is a statement of tachlit, right? So when we do teshuvah, when we get want to get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, when we ultimate It's It's a statement of reaching tachlit, of being in the place where you're supposed to be. It's not a Shabbos, it's not you know, people have the wrong perception. They're going to be in for a in for a rude awakening when they get to יום שכולו שבת.

People think that you work six days and then you take a rest so that you can finish Shabbos, make havdalah, have a cigarette and check your iPhone. Shabbos is b'etzem what the world was created for. Shabbos is a statement of the world the way that it was b'etzem supposed to be, except for the fact that part of the process to get there and relate to Hashem is through the six days. Shabbos is where you're supposed to be. And once a person gets to this statement of Shabbos, so you become desensitized.

So you can get to Olam Haba. So it's great in the beginning, and then what happens? It says, no, it's like it's like there's a difference between being in a warm room and when a person like sits at the beach almost and like the sunlight is it's a constant It's a basking in the sunlight, it's constantly coming at him, and constantly getting as the day gets warmer and warmer and warmer, it's constantly increasing. When a person is in Olam Haba, the avodah doesn't exactly stop, and he he's constantly The You come to a hasagah of Hashem, and then all of a sudden you come to a new hasagah of Hashem, and you have charatah over the last one, and you're becoming infinitely close.

Conceptually we can understand, actually we can't, but this idea of coming ever closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu is a bechinah of Olam Haba, when all of like the fake stuff, the קליפה drops away, and now you're just going to more and more and more somehow, whatever it means, come to an appreciation of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But you can live as a בן עולם הבא now, because if you live your life also coming constantly closer closer, being ממשמש ומפשפש במעשיו, coming closer and reevaluating where you're holding כלפי הקדוש ברוך הוא, so now also you can live in בן עולם הבא.

And that's where you live a life of תשובה, כמו שכתוב ושבת עד ה׳ אלוקיך. ושבת and Shabbos are the same words. כי עיקר עולם הבא הוא השגת אלוקותו. The whole idea of Olam Haba is b'etzem hasagah of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and you can live that now, כמו שכתוב וידעו אותי מקטנם ועד גדולם. He's interpreting the pasuk not just that in Olam Haba they're going to even the small ones and the large ones big ones are going to know me, but he says that no, it's constantly going from lesser to more to more, that it's going to be this constant process of of ascending in knowledge and understanding of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

נמצא בכל עת שישיגו השגה יתירה, that as a person goes and they elevate themselves in having more of an understanding of הקדוש ברוך הוא, אז יעשו תשובה על השגה ראשונה, they're coming ever closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא and they're ever more so looking back and saying, I was doing teshuvah, I thought I was so חשוב because I was doing that. My my my ברך עלינו is asking for for chocolate cake? What am I, out of my mind? I look at The guy has so much kavanah, and this is what I was asking for, and I thought that I was having so much kavanah.

And you keep on looking back, looking at this new world of appreciation. You know, you know a person, somebody tells you, "Oh, he's a great guy." And then you say, "And he knows a masechet cold. And he knows it ba'al peh, and he knows Shas, and and he's Rosh Yeshivah," and and you say like, "And and this is how I related to him yesterday?" וזה שאמרו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה If you listen on this thing, you're at 44. I'm just going to finish up the point. I'm listening.

Yeah. So it says, וזהו שאמרו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה, כל הזובח את יצרו, that every person who שחטs his יצר, היינו בחינת תשובה, בחינת ולבי חלל בקרבי, that he continues to שחט the yetzer hara until it's like a corpse, בחינת דום להשם, which ultimately is is Since where he was is that that that that yetzer hara that he's שחטing is a בחינה of דם in the left side. So now what he's really doing is how did he get over that? It's when he hears his bizyonot, when he's able to be סובל it, and it's a בחינה of דום לה׳, like we said that he converts the דם to דום, which is a בחינה of אהיה, then he comes in line with אהיה, which is a בחינה

of כתר, which is בחינה of כבוד, and as it is כנ״ל, as he as he grows, he literally becomes close to הקדוש ברוך הוא, so the statement in Sanhedrin is, כל הזובח את יצרו ומתוודה עליו כאילו כיבדו להקדוש ברוך הוא בשני עולמות. Yeah. Here it is. So, it says that that anybody who שחטs his יצר, so now we're going to read the פנימיות into this מאמר חז״ל, that it says כל הזובח את יצרו is somebody who's quiet when he gets what when he gets disgraced. And therefore, he he's able to take that דם and turn it into דום.

And it's able to get to to align himself with אהיה and כתר and כבוד אלוקים. Then it says, כל הזובח את יצרו ומתוודה עליו, and he says vidui, it doesn't mean ומתוודה עליו on the aveirah, means ומתוודה עליו on the תשובה ראשונה. So, and כל הזובח את יצרו is the תשובה ראשונה. ומתוודה עליו, and then he does vidui, he does a continuing teshuvah on the first teshuvah. היינו, שמתוודה על זביחת יצרו. He does teshuvah on the זביחת יצרו was the first תשובה, היינו, שעושה תשובה על תשובתו ראשונה.

כאילו כיבדו להקדוש ברוך הוא, this the end this the end of that מאמר חז״ל, it's כאילו is מכבד הקדוש ברוך הוא בשני עולמות. Because it says יכבדנני, so each נו״ן is נו״ן is like a נו״ן is 50, it's like a נו״ן שערי בינה, but it it says that that יכבדנני, בינה is a bechinah of olam haba, okay, now for now, יכבדנני is like two worlds, the two נו״ןs are like the two worlds. One teshuvah is in this world, he slaughters his yetzer hara, and when he does the תשובה על התשובה, that we said is the bechinah of olam haba, like we explained, and it's as if he honors הקדוש ברוך הוא both in an olam hazeh'dik way and in an olam haba'dik way.

כי תשובה ראשונה בחינת כבוד עולם הזה, ואחר התשובה, שזוכה להשגה יתירה, after he does the teshuvah and he continues to have this unbelievable השגה, ומכיר ביותר רוממות אלוקותו, and now he has this unbelievable, this even more precise perception of הקדוש ברוך הוא, of this רוממות ה׳, ועושה תשובה על תשובתו, זוהי תשובה בחינת כבוד עולם הבא. But it's a process. It's not an issue of of skipping steps. The first teshuvah a person says, "If I if I if I put my hand into fire, it's it's hot. I'm going to be worse off.

If I continue in this direction, it's going to get me nowhere fast, and it's going to be very destructive." Then you do it, and you have this השגה. And this is a continuing process at every element of growth. Then you say, "I did that for self-interest, and now that I have this השגה, oh my gosh, what was I even thinking? It's hitbatlut. I I was taking any even to do in a frumkeit way, I was doing it for myself. I do teshuvah on the teshuvah." And then after you do that and you get ever closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and you realize the person that I'm talking to wasn't just the Rebbe who's the Rosh Yeshiva, wasn't just the Rosh Yeshiva, people from all over

are asking she'elot, and I realize more and more and more כפי כפי as if you could say what I'm dealing with כלפי הקדוש ברוך הוא, you're continuing ever doing a teshuvah on the on the teshuvah. וזה שאמרו חכמינו זכרונם לברכה on the pasuk that's said regarding לעתיד לבוא, והיה ביום ההוא לא יהיה אור יקרות וקפאון. So this is it's it's it's almost scary the way it is, the what the pasuk is actually what the pasuk is actually talking about is that Rav Chaim Friedlander brings in the note that the pesukim are talking about the days just before the coming of Mashiach, where there will be a day with no natural light, just a vague light, which will be neither brightness nor darkness.

In other words, no one will know whether salvation or annihilation is near, very scary. Nevertheless, the dawning of the new era will be proof that the light heralds salvation, the revelation of God. But the way that we're going to דרשן this pasuk says אור יקרות וקפאון, there will be a light, לא יהיה אור יקרות, there will not neither be a bright light, וקפאון nor darkness, אור שהוא יקר, אור which is יקר or יקר which is כבוד, בעולם הזה, יהא קפוי וקלי בעולם הבא. That as as we go into Olam Haba, the אור that was that was, excuse me, יקר בעולם הזה will be considered dim, it's neither bright nor dim, it's going to be dim in an עולם הבא'דיק way, because as you get ever

closer and closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you realize that the light that you thought was bright yesterday is no longer bright. נמצא שבעולם הבא כשיזכו להשגה יתירה באלוקותו, in Olam Haba as we get closer and closer until we understand we have this revelation of הקדוש ברוך הוא, בוודאי יתחרטו ויעשו תשובה על השגת עולם הזה. So בוודאי, he's going to have חרטה and do teshuvah on whatever his hasagah was that he that he was operating כפי his hasagah in עולם הזה, כי השגת עולם הזה בבחינת גשם נגד השגת עולם הבא.

It's almost physical כפי what what what his new understanding of ruchniyut is. Is it yes Today my understanding of ruchniyut is that on Shabbat, I'm not going to work, I'm going to take a break, I don't whatever it is. Now that I have a more רוחניות'דיק, so to speak, understanding of Shabbat, I'm going to say that my idea what I thought yesterday was ruchniyut, it's almost like it's as gashmiyut compared to what it is now. וזה כאילו כיבדו להקדוש ברוך הוא בשני עולמות. And now, what the Gemara says, it's as if, right, what's the Gemara in Sanhedrin?

כל הזובח את יצרו, whoever does תשובה ומתוודה עליו and does וידוי on the תשובה כאילו כיבדו להקדוש ברוך הוא בשני עולמות, as he has this continuing teshuvah, as if he's מכבד הקדוש ברוך הוא in both both עולמות, כי זביחת היצר היא תשובה ראשונה, בבחינת כבוד עולם הזה. הוידוי על זביחת היצר, היינו תשובה שנייה is the second stage of תשובה, היא בבחינת כבוד עולם הבא, שהכבוד הראשון נעשה כפוי וקל נגד כבוד השני. So, over here instead of addressing in the three levels, he's addressing it really in two levels.

In other words, the first stage of teshuvah is mamash almost like a selfish teshuvah, and then the second one is is where he's takes that and he elevates it, and then as he does and he continues the process and does teshuvah on the teshuvah, realizing that even the positive teshuvah that wasn't self-interest, getting closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא, but it was כפי השגתו of yesterday, and he does teshuvah moving ever closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא, so this is a בחינה of עולם הבא. וזה שאמר הקדוש ברוך הוא: אלה עשית והחרשתי.

Now we're going to see the פנימיות of the pasuk. I kept silent when you did these things. דמית היות אהיה כמוך, so you imagined Me to be like you? הקדוש ברוך הוא, it's a pasuk in Tehillim, that that that הקדוש ברוך הוא says as it's as if because I kept silent, so then you imagined that I was like you? And the pasuk is אוכיחך, I will rebuke you, rebuke you, ואערכה לנגדך, and I will arrange it before you. So, what does it mean over here? כי האדם, ah this is unbelievable, כי האדם על ידי שמחריש, נעשה בבחינת אהיה.

What did we say? When a person is silent, so then he gets closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא, but a person has to understand, this is moradik, you have to follow this over here, it's it's this Torah is taking concepts that are just so far beyond us and turning it into something that hopefully we can have some sort of handles on and relate to. A person stays silent, so what are they doing? They're understanding that they're a בחינת אהיה, המתנה, getting תשובה, כתר, I'm not there yet, I'm on the backside, I'm דם, and I'm going to do תשובה על תשובה, they're getting closer ultimately to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

But Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not מבטל himself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, right? Hashem' מלך גאות לבש. What's gaavah? I'm the best, so to speak. But there's nothing wrong with Hashem' having gaavah, Hashem' is the best, Hashem' מלך גאות לבש, that's what He's wearing. So, you think that, ah so what happens, Hakadosh Baruch Hu stayed silent and He didn't punish people, He gave them a chance to do teshuvah for whatever the reasons He gave them that they should have their their their ultimate consequence in Olam Haba, Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't take steps.

So, we say, well, since since it's a positive thing to stay silent and not do anything, so we'll say, well, the same way that we're בחינת אהיה of אנא זמין למהוי, I don't exist yet, so we'll say, well Hakadosh Baruch Hu is also, chas veshalom to say, coming into His own, He has not yet come into Himself yet, you can't say that about Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is the infinite, there's nowhere for Him that He nowhere He was, nowhere for Him to go, כנ״ל. So, he says, we're going to read this into the פנימיות of the פסוק, אבל אלה עשית והחרשתי, ה' said, I kept silent when you did these things, דמית היות אהיה כמוך, you thought you you tried to, instead of

trying to look at Hakadosh Baruch Hu's התחברות with the world and understanding how you can apply yourself to that, you took how what the way that you perceived Hakadosh Baruch Hu and you plugged Him into human terms, right? You said you said, well, what's a יד ה'? It's not that I have a way of operating in the world and that's ke'ilu a middah of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you say יד ה', Hashem' got there's the anger of Hashem', so Hashem' is like well, what's it like when a person does it?

Hashem' was, you don't plug Hashem' into human terms. אבל הקדוש ברוך הוא, מה שמחריש לאדם, הקדוש ברוך הוא is waiting for a person to do teshuvah, He's waiting, אין זה בשביל אהיה, is it because Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in a bechinah of not having gotten there yet, חס ושלום, כי זה אין שייכות להקדוש ברוך הוא. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, you can't plug Hakadosh Baruch Hu into human terms. אין זה אלא כדי שיקבל ענשם בעולם הבא. Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a certain bechinah of אהיה, the way that הקדוש ברוך הוא waits, the way that הקדוש ברוך הוא gives people time and He's a סבלן and He's patient, and we have to be God-like.

So, the way that we relate to that is is is is in a certain הנהגה in order to make ourselves more like הקדוש ברוך הוא, so we're not there yet, and by staying silent when things are going not כפי הרצון, we become more God-like. God doesn't become more God-like. הקדוש ברוך הוא has a certain הנהגה of waiting כדי שיקבל ענשם בעולם הבא, שאז מסדר לו לעיניו עוונותיו. That's the end of the פסוק, אוכיחך, I'll rebuke you and arrange your עוונות in front of you. הקדוש ברוך הוא has a reason why He has a מדה of סבלנות, ויוכיח אותו על פניו, and will end up rebuking them.

וזהו אוכיחך ואערכה לעיניך, and that's where הקדוש ברוך הוא stays silent until ultimately He's going to show people in עולם הבא what the consequences of their actions are. This is almost like a a parenthetical that a person, as much as we see this road and this דרך to being God-like, a person should not chas v'shalom now take that and say, well if this is the הנהגה, to to be careful not to plug הקדוש ברוך הוא into human terms, we're dealing in the loftiest way of how we relate to הקדוש ברוך הוא, and not the way that we should define חס ושלום הקדוש ברוך הוא by that.

And now, unbelievable to finish off, last piece, the so we have teshuvah, teshuvah has many different, getting close to הקדוש ברוך הוא does not mean that you're always traveling on a road and that there's never any left turns and a person never has any setbacks. This is unbelievable, one of the thing what we see in Rabbi Nachman, again, we've said this before, it doesn't mean that everything is all peachy, that a person has to say that everything is good and nothing is bad. What we're holding as part of the process, there are we have ups and we have downs, and a person doesn't find הקדוש ברוך הוא despite the downs, הקדוש ברוך הוא finds הקדוש ברוך הוא from within the downs.

Every stage of life is coming from הקדוש ברוך הוא also, there's an avodah within every stage. וכשרוצה אדם לילך בדרכי התשובה, a person wants to go in דרכי התשובה, צריך להיות בקי בהלכה, this means ד' אמות של הלכה because the Shulchan Aruch is the way that we relate to every situation in life, but over here also means in הליכה, in ways to go, צריך להיות לו שני בקיאות, a person has to understand how to relate in different sides of the coin, היינו בקי ברצוא ובקי בשוב. So we addressed this in one way, I think it was in Torah ד', that we said רצוא is coming closer, it's all coming from פסוק יחזקאל, and שוב is coming back.

Over there we said that a person has this התעוררות, this בטלות, but that's not where the avodah take place, then you bring it back home with you, then you go back. But over here we're going to say בקי ברצוא where there's aliyah and a בקי בשוב where a person has to know how to relate to הקדוש ברוך הוא in yeridah as well. כמו שכתוב זכאה מאן דעייל ונפיק, it's a piece of Zohar that's relating on on a certain מימרא in the Gemara, a certain מימרא חז״ל, about knowing how to go into pardes and come back, knowing how to have a certain perception and ultimately come back out safely, but over here we're saying that אשרי a person is זכאה, whoever comes and goes.

What does it mean? A person who is having an aliyah has to know how to not have gaavah, never settle, go ever higher, do teshuvah al teshuvah, be growing, having this hit'orurut, and yet not not sitting on his laurels and going closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא. And on the other hand, sometimes a person can be on the downside and he'll get depressed. A person has to understand how to never how to never get depressed, and how to never how to never despair, and be able to have an avodah and a growth experience on the downside also.

In a different context, Rav Dessler I believe says that a person should always have two goals, right? Let's say I want to do shnayim mikra v'echad targum, so I should have my shoot-for goal, I'll do Chumash and Rashi every week, and the the the settle-for the the lighter goal is is when I'm having that that that that difficult time, I'm not going to make it, so I'm not going to make it one week, the whole project will be out the garbage, I'll have חומש אונקלוס, so that that way, let's say on the week when I'm having a difficult time, I'm not making it, so the project's not out the garbage because I at least stayed with the program.

I just did it on the lower end of the bar. And every time a person takes himself, they should have their aliyah goals and their ימי ירידה goals so that they can ultimately maintain consistency and growth in the lower level, not just that they, you know, yesterday I got a 90 on the test and tomorrow I got a 60 on the test, but it was good for where I'm holding. A person has to know it's a different how to adapt the avodah itself. There's avodah in days of aliyah, and there's avodot in days of yeridah.

וזה בחינת אם אסק שמים שם אתה, as the pasuk in Tehillim, when I go up to שמים there you are, בחינת עייל, בחינת בקי ברצוא, ברצוא, he knows how to relate to ימי עליה, ואציעה שאול הנך, when I go down to שאול, הנך, there you are also. There's avodah in both, בחינת ונפיק, בחינת בקי בשוב. וזה, and now this is, okay, we'll speak out next time, but this is how it plugs into chodesh Elul. אני לדודי, when I am to הקדוש ברוך הוא, ודודי לי. אני לדודי זה בחינת עייל, ודודי לי זה בחינת נפיק.

Again, the ways of relating to הקדוש ברוך הוא, there are times I relate in one way, and times I relate the other way. וזה סוד כוונת אלול, וזה עיקר כבודו, and this is b'etzem the עיקר כבוד הקדוש ברוך הוא. We said that when when there's when there's keter and it ultimately there's רצון הקדוש ברוך הוא, and it ultimately flows all the way down to to malchut, and we align ourselves with with רצון השם, this is בעצם עיקר כבוד הקדוש ברוך הוא, where there's no place that הקדוש ברוך הוא isn't, not in the world, but not in our avodah.

Every element of avodah has its place, not that we have to ignore it, it didn't come from someplace else and we align ourselves with הקדוש ברוך הוא despite what's going on in life, but we learn to relate to הקדוש ברוך הוא through what's going on in life, through the ימי עליה and through the ימי ירידה. וזה וכבדתו מעשות דרכיך. The pasuk is talking about by Shabbos, that you should honor שבת, תכבד את השבת that you should honor Shabbos in that you don't do chol, but we're going to do in פנימיות וכבדתו, the kavod, the כתר, מעשות דרכיך, from going in your ways, plural, דרכיך, לשון רבים, היינו עייל והיינו ונפיק.

We are מכבד הקדוש ברוך הוא through the different ways, sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left. וכשיש לו אלו שני בקיאות הנ״ל, now where we we have a בקי, we are know how to engage avodah in every way, אזי הוא הולך בדרכי התשובה וזוכה לכבוד השם. You're going to be זוכה to כבוד אלוקים, that because you put down totally anything else, there's no there's no there's no כבוד מלכים. We said that that and how do we get there? Like we said before, we'll just sum up as we do the last couple of words, that a person engages כבוד אלוקים through teshuvah, and which teshuvah is a בחינה of כתר, a בחינה of אהיה, a בחינה I have not yet earned my existence.

And as a person does teshuvah, it's a constant process. It starts off in a self-interested way, and then we as we grow, we say that it doesn't need to be self-interested, we do teshuvah on the first teshuvah, and then even when we're already fully going totally going in the right direction, we continue to do do teshuvah on our השגה, because yesterday's השגה was like a התגשמות כפי today's השגה. And as we are ממעט, and we go through the teshuvah process with המתנה, and we go through the process which is בחינת כתר, that's where we come to כבוד אלוקים, understanding that there is nothing else, and we have avodah in every element of life.

כמו שכתוב: וחיבתו מעשות רחבה, היינו שזוכה לכתר, כי לית כבוד בלא כ״ף, because which is we said that the כתר aligns with כבוד, and it's כבוד אלוקים. ואז ימין ה׳ פשוטה לקבל תשובתיה, and therefore the ימין of Hashem is is is open to be מקבל our teshuvah through the derech We're going to explain the דרך עלייה relates to one name of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, קס״א with the נקודות is 300, I'm just mentioning this because it's in the note, but not because we have to remember, and דרך ירידה is מתקן the שם ס״ג of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, with the נקודות was a 100, and פשוטה, the word פשוטה is gematria 400, and therefore, when we're able to take collectively the avodah in every aspect of life

and and and live כבוד אלוקים in every area, then ימין ה׳ is פשוטה לקבל תשובתו in every way. וזה סוד כוונות אלול, אני לדודי ודודי לי, that like we said in the Zohar, that where was it? That זכאה מאן דעייל ונפיק, a person is a בקי when he's coming and going, אם אסק שמים שם אתה ואציעה שאול הנך, and that we this is the journey that we are on.