LM 8.3 — Menoras Zahav, Part 3 of 4 · תורה ח׳

Good morning, we are in Torah ח, continuing along. In the standard print we are going to be starting by אות ח in, in the eighth Torah Menorat Zahav, which is on י״ד עמוד ב׳ of the standard print of Likutei Moharan. It definitely would have been helpful to have listened to the last two shiurim, or at least the last one, because we have a pretty good sum-up going into it, where we fleshed out a lot of the concepts that we'll be discussing. We will do a little bit of a review, and then finishing off some of the ideas, and then reading in these, the ideas that we discussed into the פנימיות of a reading of another מאמר of Rabbah bar bar Chanah, and then into the

פסוקים from the הפטרה of the שבת חנוכה. So we'll give a little bit of a sum-up, and even though it'll go a little quicker as we start reading through it, and then we'll probably finish the Torah next week, it will be a little quicker as we read, once we have these ideas fleshed out, as we read them in. But we will, you know, אין בית מדרש בלא חידוש, certain things do, נקודות do get fleshed out, so there will be some, some new ideas to consider, or a little bit.

But in any event, to review, I will use the Reb Chaim Kramer notes. He discusses that the Torah starts off that the רוח חיים, the life force of everything, or rather that רוח חיים is the life force of everything, and that when a person does an אנחה, a sigh, where there's a intake of breath, and then, and then a sigh. So the sigh part is the, is the Torah of teshuvah, and getting close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but the intake of breath in that context is where a person breathes in and replaces it.

There's a certain lacking in the heart, and we'll focus a little bit on the לב, and the person, he does an intake of that רוח חיים, connecting himself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and to the source. The רוח חיים is really, so where is the source of the רוח חיים? The צדיק הדור, a talmid chacham, who is really the embodiment, who has התבטלות to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, to Torah, so that is really our connection as a klal, as Klal Yisrael, as a, as a, as a, as a one big organism towards the Torah, towards Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

So that is the conduit, so to speak, when a person is מתקשר himself with the, with a tzadik, so then he is connected via the tzadik, and that allows him to, that the אנחה is coming via the tzadik so that he can be invested with רוח חיים. On the other hand, so if the entire essence of life is coming via the tzadik and via Torah and our connection to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so how is it that we see that רשעים also seem to have vitality, although they're not necessarily, or they're not doing it in a ruchniyut sense, but the essence of all of life is בעצם רוחניות, even though we need it to fulfill, when we look for ruchniyut and gashmiyut.

So where is it that they get the רוח חיים? So we said that they get their רוח from a רוח סערה, and we'll focus a little bit more on that, that it's almost self-contained in a certain sense. While there might be a steady stream of air coming from a source, you could have a very large pool that has a lot of water and you can have a faucet that's on. If the faucet is attached to a never-ending source, so then ultimately there's vitality there that's never-ending. Something can end up being like, you know, in an, in a, in a whirlpool or, you know, something along those lines which is self-contained.

It might be much more powerful in an immediate sense, but ultimately it comes in on itself. It can't continue, it's not attached to any source. They actually, because any energy in the world, anything in the world is זה לעומת זה, so we'll explore that a little bit more today. The רשעים also have a, a, a certain other side, the negative side as it were of the energy that we have from attaching ourselves to the source through Torah, to the יו״ד ק״א וא״ו ק״א, which is manifest to this world in terms of the ארבע יסודות, so they have the other side of that, although since it's not attached to the source, it could be much more powerful when they are in a state of being on

top momentarily, but on the other hand it's going to be short-lived. And because all חיסרון, so we said when we take the intake of breath, we invest ourselves into רוח חיים, so we are trying to replace something that's a חיסרון in our לב. Where does that חיסרון come from? Ultimately we are the כלי, the extent to which we can contain and it can be manifest, this, this ruchniyut and this רוח חיים in us, is to the extent that we develop ourselves into a כלי. And therefore we explain that the צדיק also, we've talked about this in other תורות as well, וידוי by a צדיק, I think it was in Torah ד, that the צדיק has the power to help us atone from sin, to get

a kaparah so that we can also turn ourselves into a כלי, so that we can, that we can hold in this ruchniyut and attach ourselves to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We also explain that there is a מקום, we fleshed that out last time, where there can be a conflict with רשעים, so who who is it that is able to to get into this conflict with רשעים? So we explained that it was only a צדיק גמור, even though other people are getting, well we have a Rosh who said that we are getting a ריוח via צדיק גמור, but it's only really the צדיק גמור in certain places, other people that are attached to the צדיק that can contend with the רשעים.

Why? Because any, even another צדיק that even doesn't have expressed in his thoughts, speech or deed negative things, but even if it's latent, even if it's in the potential, but to the extent that a person still has within him certain sensitivity and certain, you know, they go into a restaurant that has non-kosher food and it smells good, or they hear music and they think back in the day, whatever however you want to define it as relates to us. But when a person touches this רע and there's something inside of him, no matter how dormant, that resonates a little bit, that is not going to be the right person to contend with רשעים, because it's going to ignite, it's going to touch something inside of him,

and the the רשע will be able to be בולע the צדיק. It has to be somebody where, you know, them going into, let's say in my example, a non-kosher restaurant to go do kiruv, to talk to people, it has to be like walking into a pet shop. It's not even food to him, right? It's not that it's food that he can't eat, but it has nothing to do with him. A person, these are somewhat primitive examples, but the person who's going to contend with רשעים has to be that there's nothing within him that resonates.

How is it that a person is able to separate out these these ד׳ יסודות that we all have post חטא הראשון? So ideally we would, or in in principle, we would only be the י-ה-ו-ה, הקדוש ברוך הוא would be investing with us the positive energy. Where is it that there's this admixture of רע that manifests itself in different ways? So this comes from, this is really post חטא הראשון, and we have to clarify it out so that we can separate the רע and purify ourselves so that we can approach this area where we can get the רע out of us, both in the actual and in the potential.

This happens through learning halacha, clarifying halacha, which is, because in Torah shebe'al peh, there's there is issur and there's heter, and there's a matter of clarifying. In a certain sense, there is no רע that's that's actually in Torah, but the energy of Torah is at the highest level. When when a person learns Torah in an unclear way, they can they they can use Torah principles and not do the positive things, and that could be a רע at the highest of levels. We spoke about, I think, ליצנות, the highest degrees of ליצנות, by Korach we talked about, are people that take Torah principles and distort them.

When a person clarifies halacha, which is done through tefillah really, the the tefillah that we daven and then we allows to clarify Torah, we become a כלי to hold the Torah, and that is where we really clarify out and we're able to attach ourself to the to the source, clarifying out the רע and actualizing our potential to get closer to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. Just with that, because we're talking about the לב and then we will jump into the Torah, I do want to mention a beautiful point that I saw, I was giving a shiur on פרשת בא from Rav Yerucham.

This might be one of the only shiurim, I guess, in Likutei Moharan where somebody will mention Rav Yerucham, but in any event, he is coming off a piece of Rav Yaakov Emden, just mention it briefly, because we're discussing the power of the לב and what's what's missing from the לב, replacing it replacing with רוח חיים. He's coming off by Paro, how Paro could have made such bad decisions and it was focused on this this strengthening of the heart, not getting into the issues of of בחירה and things like that, how, you know, how it worked with Paro, but he's talking about this idea of the לב.

And he discusses, and we have mentioned this point as well, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu created the world with a certain structure, and that structure reflects itself and parallels itself down the different layers of creation all the way until until we have it in our world, in the עולם העשיה. And this structure, in part, we we relate to as different elements. So we could talk about עפר, which is earth, מים, water, רוח, air, אש is fire. And these things reflect themselves: דומם is mineral, could be עפר; מים is צומח, relates to vegetable; רוח would be חי, animal; אש would be fire, which would be מדבר, human beings; and they reflect themselves in midot as well.

So, עצלות, lethargy, תאוה, דברים בטלים, גאוה; and it follows in positive expressions of the midot of godliness and and in distorted and negative impressions of the midot as well. And he explains that the same way that in a physical sense there are there are different אברים. There are אברים that that the נשמה is תלוי בו, a person who has a heart, and there's also אברים, the pinky toe, the fingernail, whatever it is. Everything is ultimately getting energy from the heart, but if the heart would stop, Rachmana litzlan, a person would would no longer be able to have life.

But, on the other hand, if one of these other some of these other אברים are not as central. And he says that there are different כחות הנפש as well, different midot, some which might be more or or are more or less central to a person's character, but that all of them factor into the לב as the source. And we see this in terms of, in terms of תאוה, kavod. If a person is driven by a certain ambition, by a certain ta'avah, then it could be that they will be in a certain place, they won't even, they won't even see things, let alone I don't know, they won't feel a paper cut, they won't feel hunger, right?

When a, when a person is driven and they, they're just, it's an all-consuming something coming from the לב, so then other כוחות הנפש recede, recede into the background. And our job is וידעת היום והשבת אל לבבך, which we talk about the difference really between, you know, not knowing something, knowledge and acknowledging it. So he explains, he brings a Gemara in Eruvin where, where several of the אמוראים are looking at generations before them, who, and they, and they have this lashon, I don't have the lashon in front of me, but, but the lashon is אמר רבי יוחנן לבן של ראשונים כפתחו של אולם, ושל אחרונים כפתחו של היכל, ואנו כמלא מחט סידקית, that the ones that came before us had such a bigger לב.

Does that mean that they knew more? It means that they were holding on another level. So he fleshes out the idea that what we have וידעת היום והשבות אל לבבך, and he brings other pesukim as well, that we take things that we know, take things that we're working on, and the idea of a לב is to internalize them, to make them part of us, to make things that we, not just that we know intellectually, things that drive us, things that become part of our character and part of our personality.

And to the idea that one has an expanded לב, so then that gives them a much larger capacity. It's not a matter of what they know, but it's a matter of what they internalize, how godly they can become, their level of התבטלות. And, and this is the idea that we have to work. We talked about using a צדיק and having a כפרה, clearing out the negative parts of our lev. We talked about it in the fifth Torah also when we talked about thunder, that it's not just a matter of working, Hakadosh Baruch Hu will give us sachar for everything we learn, but to the extent that we can clean that, that we make ourselves into a keli for it, that we expand our lev so

that we can internalize the points that we're talking about, that allows us to change who we are, we have an expanded שיעור קומה, an expanded stature, an expanded like מקום מגע, people talk about it in different terms, but where we can reach and who we can become to the extent that we can purify our lev and expand out our lev and become that much more closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And this is, this is what we're working on in terms of bringing the ruach chayim and the essence of life and a renewal of our lev.

And now we will go and hopefully get to where we would like to get to, אות ח. So now that we talked about the fact to be מכניע רשעים, it has to be done only through a, that only through a צדיק גמור, not even a צדיק שאינו גמור who might be doing or thinking, saying all the right things, but he has רע בכח. So now we're going to explain how this is manifested in the mitzvah of tzitzit. I think we recently had tzitzit, we talked about it maybe in the seventh Torah.

וזה בחינת ארבע ציצית. This idea, this בירור of the ארבעה יסודות, where we can clarify so that a person is an expression, not just an expression, but he clarifies out not only so that only the positive elements of his ארבעה יסודות are expressed, but that he, he becomes only in line, relates to the ארבעה יסודות in a positive way. So this is through the mitzvah, the mitzvah of tzitzit. And כי ארבע ציצית הם בחינת הרוח חיים, because the four tzitzit are a בחינה of ruach chayim. Tzitzit, we know, is one of the mitzvot that if you look at the גימטריא of the word tzitzit and the strings and the knots, it's תרי״ג מצות.

Tzitzit is something that where a person, where a person through, via the mitzvah of tzitzit, can really attach himself at the source. We discuss the idea of being מבטל רע and רשע. These are actually two different things. The Gemara in certain places talks about people that would, that were being bothered by certain רשעים, they would daven that the רשעים should die, and the Gemara says no, that it's a more positive thing, not to daven that the, that the people, we're talking about Jews over there, that the רשעים should die, but rather that the רשעות should die, that they should be separated if their, if their source they were being nourished from negative things, let them do teshuvah and let let let them fall away from

the רשעות. So over here also we can talk about the difference between separating the רשעים from their רע, what what one or what they're being nourished from, or separating the רע itself in the בריאה as its source. But in any event over here, tzitzit are כנגד תרי״ג in the gematria, it aligns itself with the Torah. If a person is able to, to have the proper kavanah during the mitzvah of tzitzit, is able and have that המשכה bringing that ruach chaim, it's brought down that a person could do while they're doing this עטיפה, they're they're wrapping themselves in the tzitzit, to take this ruach chaim and have the kavanah that they're attaching themselves to the source.

So these ארבע ציצית הם בחינת רוח חיים that is the essence of life that gives life to the world and that the tzaddikim are able to, to attach themselves with the Torah, which is the source of life, which is אורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא חד הוא, and that ultimately people are able, others who attach themselves to the tzaddikim are able to gain the essence of life through them, kemo shekatuv: כה אמר ה׳ מארבע רוחות בואי הרוח, it's a pasuk in Yechezkel by a situation where, of תחיית המתים over there.

And it says that so said Hakadosh Baruch Hu, from the four רוחות, the four directions, the four winds, בואי הרוח, comes the ruach chaim. Now just to point out, we said earlier and we'll say again that the רוח that we're talking about is the רוח צפונית. In certain ways it's a northern wind. So the mefarshim over here speak out that that really it's coming from the the four רוחות, the entire world that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but as we relate to it, when it comes to it comes to fill in the the חסר לב, so then it manifests as coming from the north side, the רוח צפונית, צפון means hidden, it comes to fill in the lack.

Even though earlier we referred to it as a northern wind, over here we're referring to it as coming from the four רוחות, שעל ידי זה, that through tzitzit, which is רוח חיים, מכניעים רוח סערה. So through the four corners, which is representative of tzitzit, it aligns with tzitzit, it aligns with the four of the יסודות, שם הויה, is the the the four בחינות of that. So through tzitzit, one aligns himself with רוח חיים and they'll be able to be מכניע the רוח סערה, which is the storm wind, that's the negative manifestation of energy, which does not, it's not certainly not expressed, not really existing at the ultimate source, it's only down here when there's a negative distortion of that, which is ultimately where the רשעים

who do not align themselves with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so they end up getting this because they do not attach their חיות and their source of life with the Torah, so they end up having this distorted energy, שהוא רוח שהם נסתגדים, and that's what they live off, החולקים על צדיקים אמיתיים, and therefore, as it comes to them, they're driven by this negative energy and they go against the צדיקים, שממשיכין אריכות הרוח שלהם מערב דקליפה, because they're getting it. Now, their source is not as high as our source, because when we are aligned with the צדיק, with Torah, with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we're going all the way all the way up till we said כתר עליון, to תפילה over here at הקדוש ברוך הוא הוא חוק הטוב

להיטיב. It's only as it gets closer to this world and there's a there's a manifestation of טוב ורע and בחירה, that the people that don't align themselves, so they end up having this distorted energy. But they are getting their energy from ערב דקליפה שהוא בחינת עשו, איש שעיר כנ״ל, that that that ערב דקליפה, that the the way that we look at the source of their negative energy is coming from Esav, which is שעיר. Esav was שעיר, he was hairy, we spoke about like a, yes, so he says that that Esav is coming from רוח סערה and שעיר, same type of a of a sound to it.

ועל כן ציצית, and therefore tzitzit refers, the Gemara says, ואמרו על ציצית, ״ויקחני בציצית ראשי״, that tzitzit is also a לשון of שער, of fringes. So כנגד the Esav, which is שעיר, which is hairy, which is like the רוח סערה, so to counter that, we have the tzitzit, which are like ציצית ראשי, which are like fringes that correspond to that, again, זה לעומת זה. The negative distortions are similar to the, you know, coming off of a distorted version of the positive, and that's how we counteract it.

Everything matches up together. So tzitzit is a לשון of שער, כמו שכתוב: ״ויקחני בציצית ראשי״, כי על ידם, through the ציצית, which are similar to the שער, like hair, like fringes, נכנע עשו איש שעיר, we could put down Esav, who's an איש שעיר, who's a hairy person, בחינת רוח סערה כנ״ל, that's also coming off of a רוח סערה like a storm wind, not attached to the source, albeit very powerful in its time. Interestingly, the Gemara in Menachot, when it describes the ציצית, says, צריך לפרדן כצוציתא דארמאי, that they should they should be like put together like the fringes of ארמאי, of of a goyish person.

It refers to over there that it was braided at the top and hanging loose, but it's a it's a comparison where we see also this this corresponding thing to to Esav, to this ארמאי, that the ציצית counteract that. And therefore, we see again that that שעיר, like by Esav, is a lashon of hair, or a lashon of רוח סערה, and the mitzvah of ציצית comes to comes to counteract that. And the way that we're able to counteract that is because when we attach ourselves through this, our we are rooted in a much deeper, more primal connection with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, because once we're aligned with the true source of energy in the world, that goes all the way up to to to the Torah, to

עד to tefillah, to something that that we have no concept of. But the רע in the chain of creation starts much lower down much lower down the chain and it's not rooted in the source. And we spoke about earlier also that this process is manifest in the י״ג מדות, I think it was in the last shiur. So now we're going to read this also into the י״ג מדות. וזה, that we explained that through ציצית, that a person can have this essence of life and through this he can be מכניע and put down the רשעים, the negative forces in the world, בחינת טלית לבן שנתעטף הקדוש ברוך הוא בסדר שלש עשרה עשרה מדות.

This is a בחינה of טלית לבן. Maybe this is why Sephardim have the the the white the white tallit also with the white stripes, but but where it says that HaKadosh Baruch Hu, as it were, wrapped himself in a tallit, נתעטף הקדוש ברוך הוא like a שליח צבור, and showed Moshe how to daven the the י״ג מדות. There are a bunch of Rishonim. The Rabbeinu Bachaye says that אמר נתעטף פירש בטלית לבנה, which is a סימן of סליחה וכפרה. The Maharsha brings also. So this idea is representative of a טלית לבן, of wrapping into of wrapping oneself in a טלית לבן, being clothed in that, and then engaging the י״ג מדות, which we explained how that is discusses this process of of the צדיק גמור

putting down the רע, the the רשעות in the world. כי השלש עשרה מדות הן בחינת הרוח חיים דקדושה כנ״ל, because as we said in אות ד' that the שלש עשרה מדות are representative of the idea of רוח קדושה. וזה בחינת טלית, and as we said, as the word that הקדוש ברוך הוא wrapped himself in a טלית like a שליח צבור to give these over to משה, שהוא ארבע כנפות, that this is the רוח חיים. This is coming from the from the four רוחות, בחינת הרוח מארבע רוחות כנ״ל, like we saw by Yechezkel.

והיינו טלית לבן היפך בחינת רוח דקליפה. So where do we have the י״ג מדות that allow us to engage in this process of the צדיקים גמורים engaging at the source and being or attached to the source, and us being able to engage them to contend with the רשעים and to through through אנחה and through bring in רוח חיים? This is aligned with the טלית לבן, which is a בחינה of רוח חיים, and that is the opposite of where the רשעים get their their source of life, which keeps them going from.

So they also have some sort of a טלית, some sort of a רוח חיים of them, the רוח סערה, the storm wind, but that's not represented by a טלית לבן, but rather that's represented by the טלית a red טלית, a טלית אדום, that's היפך בחינת רוח והיינו טלית לבן היפך בחינת רוח דקליפה, בחינת עשו שהוא אדמוני כולו כאדרת שער. Again, the שער, the hair is So tzitzit is like fringes. So we have our tzitzit, and they also have their form of it, which would be אדום. ופירש Rashi: כטלית כטלית כטלית דייקא, that when Rashi says כאדרת שער, that Rashi says that it's full of fringes, כטלית, כטלית דייקא, דווקא we're making this reference to a טלית.

It's not just like a random example, בחינת טלית דקליפה, because the טלית is representative of this essence, this source of energy, שהוא בחינת טלית אדום. They have like a pseudo טלית, it's not a it's not attaching oneself to the true רוח החיים, but it's what gives them their energy, שמשם נמשך הרוח של רשעים, which is opposite, it corresponds in a negative way to the טלית לבן. ועל ידי טלית דקדושה, שהוא בחינת טלית לבן, מכניעין אותו, and therefore the way that we could put down, we can make their their טלית go away, that's through us engaging with the טלית לבן.

In fact, R'' Chaim Kramer brings a Yerushalmi that says that Esav will wrap himself in a טלית and attempt to join the צדיקים in גן עדן, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu will drag him out. He will think that the טלית can make him worthy, and even the Rav, yeah like the רב דקליפה, and that he will be able to partake also of the גן, which we said is Torah, and עדן, which is prayer, and attach himself to Hakadosh Baruch Hu at the end of days. But the Yerushalmi says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu himself will remove Esav because he will not be worthy, and he will be wearing the red טלית which is coming from the other side.

So over here that we we but we can contend with that by wearing the טלית לבן, כי משם נמשך הרוח חיים דקדושה. That is where we attach ourselves to the source, שהוא בחינת שלש עשרה מדות של רחמים כנ״ל. And that's through the טלית לבן just as Hakadosh Baruch Hu, as it were, wrapped himself in a טלית, so we also wrap ourselves in a טלית, we attach ourselves to the רוח, we bring it into ourself, and therefore we are able to contend with the רשעים. על כן נתעטף הקדוש ברוך הוא בטלית לבן דייקא, and that's why Hakadosh Baruch Hu, as it were, wrapped himself in a white טלית, וסדר לפני משה שלש עשרה מדות של רחמים, and he gave Moshe, and he established before him, he

set before him this this type of a תפלה of the שלש עשרה מדות רחמים, this process, which we went through last time, shows us this process that we're discussing, היינו כנ״ל, like we said earlier, כי על ידי טלית דקדושה, שהוא בחינת מקיף. We'll, for our purposes, we'll define a makif as something that's that's surrounding you, it's a shemirah, but it's also something that's outside of you, it's outside of where you are and you're trying to engage it. As you engage to one level, so then the next level above that becomes the makif also, but now we're talking about the ruach that we're trying to engage, to bring inside of us what we lack as a makif, shehu bechinat haruach chaim.

That is the ruach chaim that we're trying to draw in, בחינת סובב סובב הולך הרוח. It's as if the ruach is sovev, it's surrounding us. It's the makif, that's the ruach chaim that protects us, and as one engages the ruach chaim, they'll be protected from the reshaim. נכנע טלית דקליפה, and therefore To, to be machnia, to subdue the tallit, the negative, this the negative corresponding source of energy, בחינת הרוח דקליפה. Vezehu, and how does this relate to every every person, not just in the in this general sense, but how how does this relate bifrat to every person?

וזהו לאחוז בכנפות הארץ וינערו רשעים ממנה, that as we grab, it's a pasuk in איוב, לאחוז בכנפות הארץ, and to shake out the רשעים על ידי ארבע כנפות, by through the ציצית, שהם בחינת הרוח חיים דקדושה, שהם בחינת ארבע ראשין הנ״ל, that that the tzitzit are representative of the ruach chaim of kedushah and the ארבע ראשין. This is a reference, we talked about in נ״ז briefly, I think, that the the nahar that comes out of eden, eden is tefillah, it's something that's above us, something that we can't even think about, but we have a bridge between Torah, between tefillah and Torah.

The way that we explained it, I believe, is that tefillah is this area, this eden, this כתר עליון, this attachment to הקדוש ברוך הוא that we can't even relate to, and the Torah is when we attach ourselves to Torah, we make ourselves the Torah is an expression, but how do we actualize, how does something go after we daven, so it's in the potential, how do we actualize that potential? How do we make it that the that the ruach, that the tefillah is going to be blowing through David Hamelech's harp, as it were, so to speak, and making it resonate, and bring out the Torah, and that that's the gan through which the נשמות of Yisrael grow, we develop, we manifest this the the רצון השם,

and align ourselves with הקדוש ברוך הוא? That's through clarifying, we said, you daven for it, and then you're able to clarify the ד׳ אמות of halacha, the the איסור והיתר, all of that. So, we said over here that these are בחינת the ארבע ראשין, that the נהר that goes from עדן, so after as it comes to this world, it manifests itself in the four יסודות, in these four primary, foundational elements, and and therefore, we are able to engage through that. We clarify, we have to be מברר out the רע of those four elements, so that as we relate to Torah, and we we make ourselves into an expression, and relating only to the positive parts of that, על ידם, וינערו רשעים, and through this clarification

process, through this רוח חיים that we're able to draw into ourselves, we shake out the רשעים, בחינת משפיל רשעים עדי ארץ, that we lower the רשעים to the ground, ראשי תיבות מ ר ע א, right? Which is the four elements: מים, רוח, עפר, and אש. ראשי תיבות אש, רוח, מים, עפר, כנ״ל, and this is this is how we are able to do this process. And now, so we saw, just one second, right, so we saw that this process where we are able to attach ourselves through this הנחה to draw in the רוח חיים which is around us by by attaching ourselves to the tzadik who is the human expression, the the expression in our world of התבטלות to הקדוש ברוך הוא, of a living ספר

תורה, we're able to take the the the the the עדן, we're able to take this the the the tefillah which is above us and bring it down to us through a clarification from the through the four יסודות, which are representative actually tzitzit itself helps us relate to that. And as we clarify the four elements both within us, we can reach ourselves also a state of attachment to this idea of being a צדיק גמור, to also rid the world of this רשעות, and and attach ourselves to הקדוש ברוך הוא and the source of life.

Now we will see these points expressed through the מימרא, the מימרא of of Rabbah bar bar Chana, and then hopefully Menorat HaZahav, which is much shorter. וזה פירוש, and this is what the Gemara says: אמר רבה בר בר חנה, אמר לי ההוא טייעא, a certain Arab merchant, a טייעא is an Arab merchant, a סוחר ישמעאלי is is brought down as, and that's going to be important in a second, we've used that as well before. So, a certain Arab merchant, a סוחר ישמעאלי, told me, תא ואחוי לך מתי מדבר, come and I will show you the מתי מדבר, those who died in the מדבר before entering ארץ ישראל because they moved away from the רב דקדושה, right?

They had a, excuse me, a problem with their emunah in משה רבינו, and through the עגל, which has a sniff of עבודה זרה, the Rashbam relate to the עגל, but the the wrong leadership, the they went towards the רב דקליפה, they disattached themselves to the source, and they end up being מתי מדבר. Both of those terms will be important. אזלי וחזיתינהו, so we went and saw them, ודמו כמאן דמבסמי, and they looked as though ones who were intoxicated. Their faces had a shine, a redness, like we talked about by by Edom, right?

Their their faces had a redness. וגנו אפרקיד, and their faces were up, והוה זקיפא ברכיה דחד מינייהו, and one of their one of them their legs were, if you imagine a person sitting in a chair, but lying on their back, so the the leg the knee is up and then the leg sticks out, right? So, one of them was lying on his back and his knee was in the air, and then his leg his the rest of his calf was horizontal to the to the floor. ועייל טייעא תותי ברכיה, not clear from the Rashbam, we're reading mostly the Rashbam into the text, that either another Arab merchant or maybe the same, whatever it was, went underneath that כי רכיב גמלא וזקיפא רומחיה, he was riding

a גמלא, which is a camel, but oh, we'll see that every word has is just so rich when we read it like this. It'll be representative of גומל, of like גומל חסד to give over, but we'll see. And he was holding a רומח, a spear, ולא נגע בי, but the spear did not touch the the the leg of this מת מדבר. פסקיה לחדא כנפא דתכלתא. So תכלתא is like תכלת, it's tzitzit. So says רבה בר בר חנה, I cut off one of the corners of the ציצית דחד מנייהו, he was going to bring it back to the to the chachamim to show them because there's a machloket in how many in how many chuliyot that there needs to be in the tzitzit based on בית

שמאי בית הלל. ואף ולא הוי מסתגי לן, but then he couldn't leave there once he took the tzitzit. אמר לי דילמא שקלת, so the סוחר ישמעאלי told him, maybe you took מידי מנייהו something from one of these מתי מדבר? דגמירי, because we have a מסורה, דכל דשקיל מידי מנייהו, whoever takes something from them, לא מסתגי ליה, he cannot depart. אזלי אהדרתיה, so I went and I returned back what I had from them. והדר מסתגי לן, and then I was able to leave. Now, תא אחוי לך, you can't learn Gemara like straightforward again after you see this.

You you realize that you're only scraping the surface. I mean, chas v'shalom, we learn on our level, we relate to it at every level, but you see the the the richness of what's going on. You say how can a person sit and learn Torah, learn the same piece of Gemara over and over and חזר and חזר and the rest of their life? A person can learn Gemara on one level when they're 15, 20, 25, 35. And you look at the way that Rabbi Nachman or Rabbi Natan gave over a piece of Gemara, so that the depth underneath the surface is פשט, רמז, דרוש, and סוד.

תא אחוי לך מתי מדבר. Come and I'm going to show you the מתי מדבר. Because the Torah is the עץ חיים, רשעים who are not attached to the Etz Chaim, so they have this רוח סערה, like a chicken running around without a head, right? Like a lizard tail moving, they might be moving and seem to be going with this רוח סערה, might even be wild, but it's not attached to the source of life because רשעים are even considered מת in their in their life. So again, we have these מתי מדבר that detached themselves from their Rav, from Moshe Rabbeinu, and they went by the by the עגל, but they went after another another source, so to speak.

היינו שהראה לו הרשעים שאינם דבוקים בצדיקים, that they were not attaching to themselves to the tzadikim and they were not attaching themselves to רוח חיים, והם נקראים מתי מדבר. Now why are we referring to them as the מתי מדבר? Because כי מדבר לא הייתה רוח צפונית מנשבת בו. So we explained that our attachment point to the רוח חיים as we draw it in, we relate to even though we said it does come from four רוחות, but we relate to it as the רוח צפונית as the northern wind.

And the Chazal tell us that all of the years that they were in the מדבר, didn't get brit milah because it wasn't they didn't have the wind to be able to heal them. But in any event, it says the Gemara says in Menachot, מדוע לא מלו ישראל במדבר במשך ארבעים שנה? ואיבעית אימא משום דלא נשבה להו רוח צפונית, דתניא כל אותן ארבעים שנה שהיו ישראל במדבר לא נשבה להם רוח צפונית. מאי טעמא? And then it goes into, okay, because they were נזופין, but there was no רוח צפונית in the מדבר.

So we said that how does a person attach himself to life through this רוח חיים? Because through רוח חיים we relate to as the רוח צפונית. היינו בחינת הרוח חיים דקדושה שהיא בחינת רוח צפונית that it fills the lack, the hidden, that's צפון in a person, שמנשבת בכינור של דוד כנ״ל, which we actually explained earlier in, what was it, אות ב that that the רוח צפונית blew through the כינור of David which was representative of the חמישה חומשי תורה. And as it blew, so then the strings the strings resonated and the רוח מרחפת על פני המים.

מים, the Torah is compared to מים, and that's where the the the רוח came and it was able to to to make the harp strings play and it filled in the lack, the the חיסרון of the לב. Like it says, ויתן לך משאלות לבך. ימלא ה׳ כל משאלותיך, that a person was able to fill in whatever חיסרון was in the לב. So over here also it it says that גם הרשעים הללו שאינם דבוקים בצדיקים and the resha'im that are not דבוק to the tzadikim, so that they can't properly draw in the רוח צפונית because that comes from an attachment to the tzadik, so then they are not attached to the essence of life, ואין להם הרוח דקדושה.

And they can't get this רוח קדושה. בחייהם קרויים מתים. והראה לו מהיכן מגיע להם שלימות החיסרון, so where is it that the they have any source of energy? How are they How do they get up in the morning and how do they do things, and sometimes they even seem to be on top? וזהו שהראה לו דהוו דמו כמאן דבסמי, they looked as though they were intoxicated. They had a reddish appearance, a glow. פירש רבנו שמואל, the Rashbam says, כשתויי יין, that their faces were red בבחינת עשו אדמוני, because we said that the the הקדוש ברוך הוא invests energy into the world, divine energy, and when we attach, it's like a flow.

One example that I've used in the past, I don't know if you'll know what I'm talking about, but they have certain glass kettles. It's not the perfect example, but it's an example. There's certain glass kettles that have a black or whatever color it is plastic cover, it's a whistler, and as the water boils, so then the the it boils up the steam, and the steam goes through this hole in the plastic cap in the glass kettle, and it whistles through, and then you know that that the hot water is ready.

So, one time I was in a place where they did not want the water to boil away, so they didn't want it to whistle all the time, just to keep the water hot. So, what they did is they took out, instead of snapping the black cap into the glass kettle, they kind of balanced the plastic cap a little bit out, you know, a little bit off of center, a little bit off of center on the kettle. And what happened was, they came back a couple hours later, it was completely melted.

Why? Because when something is in place, when there's no additional friction, like any like anything else, when something fits, if you're putting something together and it fits, and and it go it goes in easy, that's when things are aligned at the source. However, when something is a little bit off center, when it's off-kilter, you're trying to put something in and it doesn't fit exactly, it caused extra the the airflow was impeded, and the heat built up, and it came out in a distorted way, and it was destructive.

So, over here also, if you're not aligned with the source, with the flow, like we always talk about with the hose that's plugged in, it's off center, so all of a sudden, even though it could allow for a lot of water to come out of that hose when the channels are are totally aligned, but when it's off center, so then if the same amount of water comes out, it comes out in distorted ways, it bends things, it comes out in different directions, and it breaks things how it's not supposed to go.

So, the בחינת עשו אדמוני, so Esav, where do they they they end up because they're not aligning themselves with the רוח חיים, so this divine energy comes out, they take it, and they it comes out in a distorted way through them, שהוא חרב חרב דקליפה, that this is the their source is the the the the source of like we said the shell, or we always use the term of קליפה. It's like an orange shell, when it's on the orange, it's doing its purpose, it's vibrant, it's orange, it's fresh.

Once it comes off, and it's not aligned, it's not protecting the orange, it's not on there, it becomes like autonomous, it becomes its own thing, it will shrivel up, it'll become dull, it dries out, ultimately it becomes nothing. אשר משם מקבלין הרשעים הרוח חיים שלהם להשלים החסרון, and that's where they get that they were aligned with this reddishness, which is Esav and the חרב דקליפה, that's where they get their energy. וזהו, וגנו אפרקיד, but their faces were up, because like the Rashbam says, פניהם למעלה, that their רוח was on top, פניהם זה בחינת הרוח כנ״ל, because it says הכרת פניהם וכולי, that we say that the way to recognize a person is through their חוטם, through their nose, even in the second Torah already we

talked about חוטם as ruach, as tefillah. So, it says their faces were up, the face is like the חוטם, is like the nose, the nose is like ruach, we say that their ruach was on top. So, at the time, even though it might have been short-lived, they were not attached to the true ruach, but their ruach was on top, like we say, ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים, their חוטם, והיינו למעלה, and that's what it means that it was up, כי הרוח שלהם, their רוח סערה, their storm wind, that was like from עשו איש שעיר, it was גדול לפי שעה, even though it's temporary, but it's גדול while it's temporary, אשר עולה לחוטמו למעלה כנ״ל, that it was that it was looking upwards, בחינת כל צורריו יפיח

בהם כנ״ל, so that at the time when they're on top, they're they can snort and blow at their enemies, they will be successful, and that's why we have to we're going to see we have to be very careful who contends with them. והוה גבה ברכיה דחד מינייהו, and one of their knees was up, זה מורה על גודל הצלחת הרשעים, a knee being up is talks about someone being in a state of success, כי העדר הצלחה נקרא ברכים כושלות, if a person's not able to stand on their own two feet, their knees buckle, וגבה ברכיה, so when their knees are high, היינו רום הצלחה, that's the ability to stand on one's own two feet.

Interestingly, we talked about ברך, so in when we talk about blessing, so one of the terms that gets used for berachah is בריכה, as a spring, like a a never-ending source, a live spring, but a ברך, when a person bows, they bend at the knee, so what's our what's our connection to the true source? Our התבטלות, when we bend at the knee, we don't stand ourselves as being independent. ועייל טייעא תותי ברכיה, and an Arab merchant, a סוחר ישמעאלי, went underneath the leg, היינו הצדיק, why is a סוחר ישמעאלי a tzadik?

שנקרא טייעא, so why is this Arab merchant, we're referring to a tzadik as an Arab merchant, כמו שפירש רשב״ם בכל מקום, סוחר ישמעאלי, והסוחר הוא בחינת רוח. סוחר is a bechinah of רוח, כמו שכתוב, סובב סובב הולך הרוח, like we said, a pasuk in Kohelet, that the ruach, it's a makif, it's something that surrounds. So, סוחר is representative of of ruach, because because it says that that that ruach is a is a מקיף, and the תרגום of the word סובב is סחר סחר, that's the that's the tying of סוחר to סובב, and סובב to רוח.

והיינו הצדיק שמקבל הרוח מהקדושה And וזה סוחרי ישמעאלים על שם כי שמע ה׳ אל עניך, because שמע, ישמעאל, ה׳ should hear, שמע ה׳, that's like that's like tefillah, so therefore since the תרגום of סוחר, סוחר is the תרגום of סובב, and סובב is something that surrounds that's מקיף, that's aligned with רוח, and ישמעאל is representative of שמע ה׳, of like tefillah, so סוחרי ישמעאלים can be a representative of a tzaddik. כי הצדיק שומע קול אנחה של הדבקים בו, because a tzaddik hears those who are who are doing this אנחה, this krech, but aligning themselves with him, and he understands that he is going to end up in a certain sense the leader of a generation, he's the faucet or the source that people attach themselves

to him and get the shefa through him, כי ממנו תוצאות חיים לכל אחד, כי הוא איש אשר רוח בו, כנ״ל, like we said earlier when Moshe Rabbeinu was getting ready to hand over the reins to to Yehoshua, we said זהו נקרא צדיק that the מנהיג הדור is called איש אשר רוח בו. We're quoting from from אות ב׳, שיודע להלוך נגד רוחו של כל אחד ואחד, right? If you listened to earlier shiurim we're talking about chesed, the idea of די מחסורו, of empathy, of not giving what you want to give, but understanding people's needs, what they need for growth, where they're holding, what are their strengths and weaknesses.

When we said that in what, maybe אות ד׳ or I think maybe ו׳, when a person does think the vidui in front of the tzaddik, so that vidui, so we brought the Gemara in Sotah that the that the tzaddik is able to give people direction because they see what you need for growth, what your lack is, what your chesaron, and through the tzadik everybody is not able to just bring themselves to the tzadik, but they're able to align themselves with what they need, their chesaron, their tachlit, and they're able to become a shalem, maybe not they they might not become a tzadik, they can become a shalem in their own right, and get closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

כי רוכב, our job is to be a shalem, right? You can have a smaller circle and a larger circle, not everybody is necessarily going to be the the tzadik hador, but our job is to achieve our shleimus. כי רוכב גמל, he was riding, so this tzadik was riding a gamal. What's a gamal? בבחינת גומל נפשו איש חסד, right? עולם חסד יבנה, we know that what when we talk about Hakadosh Baruch Hu creating the world, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is אין סופיות, it's infinite, infinite is not lacking anything.

So Hakadosh Baruch Hu, when he created the world there was no other even to give to, there's nothing else. Hakadosh Baruch Hu creating the world was a total bechinah of עולם חסד יבנה. Hashem gets nothing out of the world, a simplistic statement, but we're not going to go into that. The bottom line is is that one who gives, one who is a gomel, is this is a godlike quality, מה הוא אף אתה. So this idea of giving chesed is nermaz, it is hidden within the word gamal, that the manhig hador, that he was riding a gamla, is to give shefa to all of those, וזה בבחינת רב חסד כנ״ל.

And now, we will explain that even this tzadik who is in the in a position of being close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, of growth, of trying to attach himself to the source of life, and others can benefit from him, however he is still going to be in a sakanah, in a danger, כלפי רשעות, כלפי a rasha, who could still swallow him because if the person if this person, as good as he is, still has ra that is dormant within him that resonates when he comes into contact with rishus, then he cannot completely overpower it, and then the ra will awaken something inside of him, he won't be the one to be able to put that down.

וזקף רומחא, so he raised a spear. What is a רומח? What is a spear? רומח הוא בבחינת רוח מ׳, because what's מ׳? The four directions, like we said is where the רוח חיים comes from, ורוח מרחפת על פני המים, the Torah was given in forty days. So when you take the רוח, which we said is tefillah, really it draws in רוח חיים, and it blows through the harp, it attaches itself to the מ׳, to the Torah, that's where that's where we're able to have this actualization of potential, getting closer to הקדוש ברוך הוא from himself into into a כלי.

So he took this רומח which is רוח מ׳, בבחינת ורוח אלקים מרחפת על פני המים, היינו התורה, there's אין מים אלא תורה, שניתנה לארבעים יום, ששם הרוח חיים, in the four directions כנ״ל. So he took this idea, this רוח connected to Torah in order to be able to contend with the רשעים, כנ״ל. כלומר שהצדיק היה לו בחינת הרוח שמקבל מהתורה כנ״ל, he had this element of רוח that he drew in, this anacha, he was attaching himself to the source of life, but still it was not at the ultimate level.

ועם כל זה נחת תחות ברכיה, even so he found that he was not able to overcome the רשע, he was going underneath, we said that the knee, the ברכים is representative of being of standing up, and this רשע was at a stage of being in a mode of success, and this צדיק, this person that was going through, was still going under the knee of the רשע, תחת הצלחת הרשע, בבחינת כבלע רשע צדיק ממנו, because the רשע was in a state of success and he had the רוח סערה, he was at a stage where even a צדיק שאינו גמור cannot contend with him, because the צדיק in this case, it was a צדיק שאינו גמור, and a צדיק שאינו גמור cannot contend with a רשע who

is on top because they still have a dormant רע, they have not completely purified from their four elements so that they've they've they've separated it out and been מברר the רע and gotten rid of it so that so that they are totally a צדיק גמור. And like we said earlier, you know, walking into a non-kosher restaurant is not that, oh, it smells good, or you know, they contend with any רשעות and there's anything that resonates, but rather rather coming into contact with any sort of this would be the same as walking to a pet store, walking into a zoo.

It's something that these these are things that do not even relate to us at all. It doesn't resonate. That's the type of person where it's not it wouldn't be enticing to them at all. It wouldn't waken up anything in their personality. That's one part of the מעשה. The second part now is going to be, even though in the earlier part we were talking about the סחרא ישמעאלי in the context of the story, and now we're going to be talking about Rabbah bar bar Chana, but it's in the in the same vein.

So, first we talked about that a so some only certain people can contend with רשעים, or that the רשעים in their state of רוח סערה, גדול בשעתו, will be successful. Now we're going to talk about what which part of our ideas are representative of Rabbah bar bar Chana taking off the tzitzit string. וקפס קיטעא דתכלתא דחד מנייהו, היינו, what does this mean that Rabbah bar bar Chana took the tzitzit? Heinah, that we're talking about this idea of a צדיק שאינו גמור at this time, שפסק ושבר המידה רעה מארבע יסודות, because we said that tzitzit is representative of the four ruach.

In the in the optimal level, the four ruach are just the positive expressions of the four מידות that come after we clarify the negative manifestations of those four מידות. However, over here, what happened was is that he broke off one of the מידות רעות. He wanted to take there was something from the רשע that was within him that he was going to take with him, שהגביר והמשיך הרשע על עצמו, that these four יסודות were the the four יסודות they were the tzitzit that were on the רשע, on the מתי מדבר that he was going to take, שהוא הצינור שלו, because this is like the pipe or the channel through which the the We said tzitzit is like סחור סחור, סביב סביב, that's the רוח חיים.

This was the צינור, this was the ruach of the of the רשע כנ״ל. וזהו וקפס קיטעא דתכלתא, היינו שפסק אחת מן הציצית שלהם. So, the צדיק went to go break off one of the tzitzit of them. By the way, how is it that the that the צדיק is able to break the to to to break the רע at its source to contend with the רשע? When a צדיק breaks Everything that we do, we spoke about at the end of one of the Torot that when a person does teshuvah, a person does something positive, it could affect somebody, a רשע on the other end of the world that they have nothing to do with.

When a צדיק breaks his or a person, but when a צדיק breaks his own מידות, he's גובר over a certain תאוה, כבוד, whatever it is, that lessens at the source the מידה that even even the רשעים won't necessarily have as much access to it. So, when a צדיק breaks off one of these tzitzit at the source, then it it it it's able to break some of the צינור that the רשע has access to. וזה בחינת מה שפסק ושבר המידה רעה שלהם, שהוא הצינור שלהם, and the צדיק went to go contend with the רשעים, to go break off one of these one of these middot, one of these core elements at its source.

כי כל המידות רעות נמשכין מארבע יסודות, because the negative middot are coming from the four יסודות, the four fundamentals, ששרשם ארבע ציצית כנ״ל, that their shoresh of the negative middot are, again, negative expressions of the the four elements as they reach us in the world which which, ideally, are הקדוש ברוך הוא gives the four principled elements. They can be used for positive or negative. A person who We We've said before when you see the truth, when you're in line with the with with the with the the primal source, so then there won't be any room over there for anything negative to hitch you.

But, you know, if you see 2 + 2 = 4 with your eyes, there's no room I don't know if that's a good example. There's no room to say, "Well, 2 + 2 might be 5." But let's say there's something that you're not 100% clear about, you're 99 You think you're 100% clear. It's 99.9. You know the directions to your to your house like, and somebody says, "Oh, that became a one-way street." You say, "I was there this morning. What are you talking about?" You know, there's room where something is not that you're not totally, totally, totally attached, identifying, internalized with the אמת.

And then at that point, as much as you know it, and it's not like that, there's room for רע to sneak in to move you the other way. And therefore over here, once this צדיק שאינו גמור contended, and he thought that we he was the right person, maybe, but he contended with the רשע at his source, he went to He went to battle over there. ולא מסתגי ליה, but now that he took this tzitzit off the רשע, he contended with him, he tried to engage at the source of the of where the רשע gets his negative qualities from, he couldn't move.

כלומר, שאף על פי כן לא עלתה לו להשפיל הרשע ולצאת מתחת ברכו, he was stuck under the knee of the רשע. אף על פי שפסק ושבר עמידת רשע, even though he tried to break and he was seemed to be successful, he seemed to overcome his own תאוה and כבוד, he seemed to overcome this negative element שנמשך מארבע יסודות and he's he's a צדיק, a צדיק שאינו גמור, but he's a צדיק and he was he did overcome it. ששרשם בארבע ציצית this כנ״ל. He he overcame this negative מדה that was coming from one of the יסודות that the רשע was living off.

שבבחינת ובקפסקי כד נפסקת חד מנייהו כנ״ל, that he ripped off one of the strings, אף על פי כן לא היה יכול להשפילו ולצאת מתחת ברכיו, he still could not overcome the רשע, he was stuck under the רשע's knee, the רשע standing is on his own two feet, the רשע at the height of his success, בבחינת לא מסתגי לן, that's why he couldn't leave, שפירושו שלא יכל לצאת משם, היינו כנ״ל, that he couldn't leave from there. Why? Because the רשע was still able until until the צדיק is holding at a level of truth and אמת and Torah, not just what he does and thinks and says, the positive things, but that the רשעות doesn't exist at all, he's מברר, he clarifies, he removes any sort of

a negative quality from the four יסודות as he attaches to it, so even if it's dormant, it's within him, it's still there. And therefore, as long as it's not totally cut off from the source, because it's still dormant within the רשע, so the רשע still has the ability to have his own כח, and he still is attached at a certain source to his own רוח חיים at that time, and this צדיק will not be able to totally cut him off at the source. אמר לי, דלמא שקלת מידי מנייהו?

So, says this merchant to Rabba bar bar Chana, did you take anything from them? Do you have anything from them with you? Is there any trace of the רע, dormant as it may be, within you? היינו שמא יש לך אחד מארבע יסודות שלא תיקנת בשלימות? Maybe you have, our job is to separate out the good from the bad, maybe you have something, some admixture, some slight taint, some hint of something within you that you have not been מתקן that בשלימות להפריד ממנו הרע לגמרי, right? When it comes to שלימות, so somebody who's 99% there is much more there than a 1% 1%.

However, when it comes to 100% שלימות, it is either it is בשלימות, it is complete or it's not complete, right? ועל כן לא מסתגי לן, something cannot be 99% true, right? So it says, ועל כן לא מסתגי לן. Therefore, we could not we could not go from there to be מכניע the רשע, put them down, we were stuck under the knee, כמבואר שכל זמן שנשאר בו איזה אחיזה בעלמא, that as long as there is any grasp of the רע within the צדיק, there's a foothold over there, מהרע של איזה מדה, אינו יכול להכניע את הרשע, we could not be מכניע the רשע.

וזהו דלמא שקלת מידי מנייהו, maybe you took something from them, that's what the Arab merchant asked him, שמא לקחת קצת מהם, you took something from theirs, meaning the the the element of רע, the element of רשעות, the negative quality, היינו שמא יש לך עדיין איזה אחיזה מאיזה מדת רשע ורשעם, maybe you still have something that is a מדה from the רשעים, שלקחת לעצמך. See, truth is truth whether anybody knows it or not. If something, so if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, you know, did it did it make a noise?

If If there's רשעות, and there's no רשעים to engage it, so then it doesn't exist. 2 + 2 = 4 whether or not anybody knows that piece of information. Until I come and I try to convince you that 2 + 2 = 5, it doesn't exist as an idea in the world, right? So, רשעות is much less, it it doesn't actual כעשן תכלה once once הלוואי soon משיח should be coming, but once once once רשעות the ideas start to lose credibility and there there's no integrity there, you can't invest in them and you can't adopt them as any sort of a fact, so at some point it just falls away, it has a zero substance.

It's only once there's an אחיזה in the רע that that that that the רשעות manifests in this world. And he says, maybe you still have within you, I mean, I think that that's personally, it's part of the עמקות of what we're talking about, while even no matter how dormant it is, while there's some sort of a quality like that, that gives the רשעות substance and that's why it can't be overcome. When a person this, I think, really speaks to the core of it, when a person eliminates any sort of רשעות or רע, it's not just סתם that it exists and you have to be מתגבר, it stops existing.

שלקחת לעצמך איזה מדה ותאוה שלהם. But over here he says maybe you took from them something, there's something inside of you, ועל כן לא מסתגי לן, that's why you can't run away. ועל כן אין אנו יכולין לצאת מהם כנ״ל, that's why you can't get out of them. דגמירי דמאן דשקל מידי מנייהו לא מסתגי לן, that we understand that a person that has anything from the rishus inside of them, they're not going to be able to go out from under the knee of the רשעים, היינו כנ״ל שיש לנו קבלה, we have a מסורה, שכל מי שלוקח לעצמו איזה דבר תאוה ומדת רע של רשעים, anybody who has any sort of a negative middah from the רשעים, היינו שיש בו עדיין איזה אחיזה ממידת רשעות שלהם, there's

still a foothold, there's still some sort of not even an expression in actualized form, it was in them, אינו יכול לצאת מהם ולהכניעם כנ״ל, that the they will not be able to be misgaber on top of the resha'im. אזלי אהדרתיה, so I returned it, I took that piece and I got it out of me, I got rid of it. היינו שהסרתי מה שהיה אצלי איזה מעט אחיזת הרע ממידות רשע שלהם, I rid myself of what I had from the רשעים, החזרתי והפרשתי ממני. Why? Was the mefaresh, I separated it out for me and I gave it back.

So over here, so to speak, it's yours, you can keep it. And this, he turned himself towards being a צדיק גמור, והדר מסתגי לי, and then he was able to get out from under the knees of the רשעים, שאז עלתה בידינו לצאת מתחת ברכיו, I got out from under the knee of the רשעים, ולהכניעו ולהשפילו, and I was able to subdue him. כמבואר לעיל, שהצדיק גמור שמפריש מעצמו כל אחיזת הרע שלהם לגמרי, that a צדיק גמור that rids himself of this negative elements from within him no matter how dormant, הוא יכול לצאת מהם ולהכניעם ולהשפילם, he's able to put down the רשעים בבחינת משפיל רשעים עדי ארץ.

And we saw this, we mentioned last time that Sarah was in the house of Par'oh, Avimelech, Esther was in the house of Achashverosh, Yosef was behind enemy lines, and there's there's a makom for this. And now I will just do the last piece because I think it's I want to get through it. Also, this expression of some of this idea in the haftarah when this was given by Shabbos Chanukah, and just to give a drop of background, just to give a drop of background to this haftarah, so this is coming from Zechariah.

Hold on, I'm just flipping so that I have a little bit of a help over here. This is from Zechariah when that after the first year of the of the מלכות of Koresh, we know some of these names if you're doing דף היומי of Maseches Megillah. So, Koresh had given reshus to the Jews to go build the Beis Hamikdash, and Zerubavel went with a חלק from Klal Yisrael to start to build the Beis Hamikdash, and certain enemies, certain opposition came, and they sent letters to Koresh, and they ultimately they got the the גזירה this this reshus to allow the Jews to build the to continue building the Beis Hamikdash, second Beis Hamikdash, to be בטל.

And after another 18 years at the time of the מלכות of Daryavesh, so now this nevuah came to Zechariah, and the the the peshat shot that came in the form of a mashal was: ראיתי והנה מנורת זהב כולה, there was a menorah, a golden מנורה, וגולה על ראשה, and there was some ראשה, and there was some sort of a bowl, a reservoir, as it were, on top of the מנורה, ושבעה נרותיה עליה, and then there were seven cups, there were seven containers. And between the reservoir and the seven containers, שבעה ושבעה מוצקות לנרות אשר על ראשה, we'll go like Rashi that there were seven little channels going, so a total of 49.

There was the reservoir which would be number 50, למעלה, right? In other words, by sefirah, 7 x 7, and Shavuos is 50, so that would have been the 50th, but there were 7 x 7 little channels going from the reservoir, from the bowl, from the מעין, right? Well, we've already discussed this, the נהר that's going from a נהר that's going from Eden to to the גן, right, from from above, and then it channels through we said through חכמה, through clarification into the גן where there's Torah, that the נשמות ישראל can grow, right?

So, we're seeing already a little bit. ושנים זיתים עליה, and then there were two trees. Actually, different ways we're going to have to deal with these trees, two olive trees. אחד מימין הגולה ואחד על שמאלה, one to the right and one to the left. And Zechariah said to the מלאך: So, what is going on over here? And he said: וזה זה דבר ה' אל זרובבל לא בחיל ולא בכח, that these olive trees, so they didn't need processing and pressing to turn into oil, but that the olive trees were able to give off their oil without any effort so to speak, and therefore the message was that it's not going to be with חיל or כח that the בית המקדש will be built, but rather I

am going to give רוח to to to the king, to Darius over there in order to allow him to let you go back and build the בית המקדש because ultimately our success over רשעים is is contingent on us having רוח rather than our rather than any sort of our own effort and processing and so forth. That's where it comes from. זה ראיתי והנה מנורת זהב, היא תורה. Why? Because נחמדים מזהב, that מזהב ומפז רב, that so the זהב is a reference to Torah. So, the menorah and the bowls over there will be aligned to Torah.

So, that the we're going to see that again we said that the נהר goes from Eden, tefillah, and it's משקה the גן, that the Torah is what the tefillah is what allows the expression of Torah that we have so that Klal Yisrael can grow and become nourished and develop through this clarification process. וגולה על ראשה, what is Rashi say that it was this bowl, this reservoir over the מנורה? פירש רש''י: מעין. הוא, so now now what is it going to be, how are we going to relate to this in the פנימיות of it?

הוא המעין היוצא מבית ה', this reservoir, this bowl is something that's coming מבית ה', קודש קדשים, כתר עליון, עדן, הוא התפילה. So, that's that that is represents of tefillah. Tefillah is tential, it's in the כח, didn't come yet, it didn't get into the מנורה yet, it can't become lit. And first it has to go into the גן. ושבעה נרות האלה הם הנשמות, and then the seven lights, these are נשמות, דאתרביו בגן, that they are the ones that grow within the גן, הנחלקים לשבע כיתות. So there's a Midrash brings, we're not going to go into it, that it says that there's seven different types of צדיקים כנגד I think it's כנגד כנגד his own, the the זעיר אנפין and נוק, which is חסד, בינה, sorry, חסד,

גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד, and מלכות. So there's seven different categories of of צדיקים. But for our purposes, שבעה ושבעה מוצקות, and then there were seven different channels going to each one of these things, הם מ״ט אורות שהוא אור הגנוז לעתיד כמו שפירש רש״י שם, that we know that there's a certain אור that was גנוז for the צדיקים. We know that Moshe Rabbeinu reached the forty-ninth level, we're talking about the fiftieth that that the Jews were at the forty-ninth level of טומאה, but corresponding to that would be נ׳ שערי בינה, that Moshe Rabbeinu reached as high as he could go in this world.

So we have the seven levels of צדיקים with time seven, times seven is like forty-nine levels of בינה, but what's above us this level of תפילה, עין לא ראתה, that's already the fiftieth, that would be the reservoir itself, בחינת עדן עין לא ראתה because that reservoir is removed from the world, שהוא בחינת התפילה. ושני זיתים עליה, and there were these two trees, פירש רש״י: שני אילנות, that's not two olives, it's two olive trees, היינו אילנא דחיי ואילנא דמותא, the עץ החיים and the עץ הדעת טוב ורע, we refer to as the עץ המוות because like we said, when good is mixed with evil, so that is inherently bad.

When you take the Torah and there's a confusion over there, issur and heter are mixed up, use it for negative purposes, then as much as we it's our job to be mevarer the טוב and the רע, but at the point that there is some sort of a mixture and a confusion at the at that level, that's בעצם אילנא דמותא, היינו טוב ורע כנ״ל. And וזהו, וזהו he brings over here really like almost two ways to learn it. From the peshat peshat of the pesukim, the the עץ it seems were feeding into the reservoir, like we said.

He brings another another peshat over here that the that the that the עצים were at the side of the reservoir because at that level there is no expression of of the negative expression of the ד׳ יסודות at all, and they were growing in the גן, they were growing in the garden because it's not until after you get to that level that there ends up being this so to speak this admixture and this possibility of negative, and then it's our fault to be mevarer it, and then he brings another way of looking at it, but okay, in any event.

וזהו אחד מימין ואחד משמאל כנ״ל, that there's a one on the right, one on the left, ומשם יפרד because the right is representative of חיים and the left what we said was this lack, this void, this חטא in the לב that we need the רוח חיים to replace. ומשם יפרד and from there it split up, שנפרד הרע מן הטוב, זה לימין וזה לשמאל, so this is how there ends up being this פירוד that's not our job is to put is to put it back together, so again there's different ways exactly to express where this פירוד takes place post certainly post post the the original sin, so then this is not our job is to put it back together, but there is the potential for these

negative expressions and this פירוד and this different way of looking at the there's the the expression of the ד׳ יסודות, and then there's also the it splits into טוב and the possibility of טוב and רע of the negative expression of these ד׳ יסודות until we're able to clarify and put it back together. ואמר אל המלאך מה אלה, so says the נביא to the מלאך: What are these? ויען וכולי: לא בחיל ולא בכח כי אם ברוחי, that you will vanquish your enemies not through physical strength, but through רוח, היינו בחינת הרוח חיים כנ״ל, that only through there you'll be able to be machnia the רוח סערה, right, you'll be able to get rid of the negative expression רוח, בחינת כה אמר ה׳ מארבע רוחות בואי הרוח,

this is by יחזקאל I think the pasuk we said כנ״ל, that that the רמז is again that the ruach is in line with the four directions, with the ציצית, לשון שער, which is corresponding on the other hand to the איש שער, to Esav, the רע of the קליפה, that through the positive ruach, that is where you will be able to put down your enemies. על ידי Torah u'tefillah, through Torah and tefillah, tefillah and really again davenen for the clarity through through separating out the ד׳ יסודות, through clarification, halachah results gets to the גן for the Torah where the Klal Yisrael is nourished.

שעל ידי זה מבררין הטוב מן הרע כנ״ל, שזה בחינת כל מראה המנורה, and this is the this is the idea of the expression, the visibility, the menorah where the Torah and the tzaddikim are able to express themselves, purify themselves to go against the רע. על ידי זה זוכין לרוח חיים ונשלם כל החסרונות כנ״ל, and that's how we will be able to be metaken all of the חסרונות as we have discussed. וזהו: לא בחיל ולא בכח כי אם ברוחי אמר ה׳ צבאות, and this is adding on, I think it's a little addition from Rabbi Natan that not through strength will you be successful, כי אם ברוחי אמר השם צבאות.

מי אתה הר הגדול לפני זרבבל, says if there will be a big mountain in front of Zerubavel went back to build the בית המקדש, למישור, he'll make it into a flat plain, כי זרבבל היה אז הצדיק הדור, because Zerubavel was the צדיק הדור. ועמדו כנגדו כמה שרצו לבטל מעבודתו, so when he had opposition which presented as a mountain, כמבואר בפסוקים רבים. ואז נאמר שם: לא בחיל ולא בכח כי אם ברוחי, how would he go against his opposition? שעל ידי בחינת המשכת הרוח חיים הנל, that through drawing in the רוח חיים, all these ideas that we've been discussing, שממשיך הצדיק גמור from the תורה, על ידי זה יכניע ויפיל כל שונאיו, he'll be able to subdue his enemies, בחינת מי אתה הר הגדול לפני זרבבל למישור,

he will turn the mountains, the opposition that comes against him, into a flat plain, שכל המונעים העומדים לפניו כהר, that all of the the the things that are מונע him, the obstacles in front of him that present as a הר, כולם יתבטלו על ידי בחינת הרוח חיים הנל כנל, that that all of them will be mevatel themselves. So he will engage the Torah and the רוח חיים, and and we see again the ideas that we've been discussed, different elements of it in the maamar of Rabbah bar bar Chana and by Menorat HaZahav, and we'll be'ezrat Hashem finish this next week.

Thank you.