Tinyana 73: Tehillim Mesugal L'Teshuva (Elul)

Shalom uveracha, first of all, a huge tremendous Yashar koach to Rabbi Nachman for pushing, leading, inspiring me to open up, to dig in, prepare תורה ע״ג, תהלים מסוגל לתשובה from Likutey Moharan Tinyana, as we find ourselves in the middle of Elul, already a week from מוצאי שבת סליחות, two weeks from יום הדין, and we all have ideas of what we'd like to be doing, where we'd like to be holding. Some of those are internally generated, some of those are externally generated, shiurim that we've heard, sefarim that we've that that we've opened up, and I think that this Torah is mamash סם החיים.

This is a Torah that's necessary for every human being, every human being to go through. I I prepared I prepared some things, a structure to try to to give us a framework of how to go through the Torah, but I'm really going to be speaking דברים שבלב and and learning it together, learning it together with you. I speak first of all for myself that I know that one of the things that I appreciated, and everybody has their own ideas, so some of what I say may resonate and people will relate to it, that when I came to the Torah of Rabbi Nachman, I had my own ideas of what avodah should look like.

There's ימי אהבה, there's ימי שנאה, we're trying to lean in, to reinforce, to maximize our ups, and as far as the downs are concerned, we want to mitigate them, we don't want to lose too much ground, perhaps they're useful, we תענוג תמידי אינו תענוג, we we need the downs in order to have the ups, we need the downs in order to appreciate the ups, but in terms of actual growth, when we're in a down cycle, that's not necessarily something that we relate to, or something that we that that we necessarily don't relate to, it's when we're on the outside, the outside of the circle, so yes, we have an avodah to push our way back in, but there's there's really a tremendous aloneness, a tremendous solitude, a tremendous being removed, and there's different forms of it.

Sometimes a person is has a drive, a taavah, for whatever the reason, קנאה, תאוה, כבוד, and a person is going in the wrong direction. That's difficult, there's different ways of relating to adversity, and one of the things we have to do is learn to redirect whatever emotion that is, and say, "Oh, I'm going after the wrong things, I should be going after the right things." But we're not entirely not removed from the idea of being driven, we're just driven to the wrong things, and there's a redirection that has to take place. But there's something that's that's tremendously more difficult than than pursuing the wrong goals and having the wrong ambitions, whether generally speaking or whether for a certain period of time, and that's when a person finds themself in a state of lethargy or, chas veshalom, even just apathy, a state of despondence, when they're they're not driven towards anything.

And at that point, a person mamash feels in the dark, and you don't even have a foothold, you don't even know what to do. When a person's in that מצב, if you would ask them what they want to be doing, they they might even tell you intellectually that they they want to be learning, they want to be davenen, they want to be involved in the כלל, they they have all of the right aspirations and they there's just like climbing a glass mountain, there's no foothold. And Rabbi Nachman over here is coming to speak to each one of us as we every year, hopefully, perhaps, we come into Elul and we hear the shiurim about how אני לדודי ודודי לי and teshuvah is so accessible, and we feel maybe that there's something wrong with us.

And Rabbi Nachman is going to go through: a person sometimes doesn't have hisorerut for whatever the reason, we're going to see in the Torah, and even if they have hisorerut, every single person is a different individual, and maybe they don't understand what their path is. They're going through all of the motions like a cookie cutter, all the things that they should be doing, and they can't find nothing is resonating with them. And even if they find they make a cheshbon hanefesh, they know what they need to work on לטב ולמוטב, not only to work on their challenges, but even to to lean into their strengths, which is which is equally as important or even more important. If we if we if we aren't able to overcome our challenges, הקדוש ברוך הוא gave us these challenges, but if הקדוש ברוך הוא gave us strengths, are we at least leaning into our strengths?

And we we do all that, we we have the cheshbon hanefesh, and yet the door is closed, we don't feel we we don't feel any different. We're we're going through all the right steps and yet we feel we feel a coldness going into going into this season. Rabbi Nachman is going to be speaking to each one of us that has generally or at some point in our lives we all feel like this, and it's a profoundly different approach when we come to understand that this period is not when we're on the outside, but rather that it's not only a necessary stage in our moving forward, but it's actually a חלק of avodah. בקי ברצוא בקי בשוב, it's not just that we're at different places on the spectrum, but that there is an avodah and there is a relationship with that period.

In fact, when a person is moving up, they feel good, they feel emotionally attached, it's a very fine line between hitbatlut to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and self-serving. I'm feeling good, I'm feeling emotional, I'm singing a song, I'm feeling davenen, I feel an up, I'm doing what I'm enjoying. Baruch Hashem, I'm enjoying the right things. And yet when I feel on the outside and there's nothing to appeal to, so on one hand I just want it to be over. I heard a story one time that somebody, a rav, was visiting a person who unfortunately, rachmana litzlan, ended up in prison for something and the person made a statement, "I just want to open up my eyes and have it be over." And the rav had expressed a sentiment, I don't know if he told the person, didn't tell the person, that if you can do something and get out of the matzav, by all means do something to get out of the matzav, but if you're trapped in the matzav and there's something to be gained from it, then why open up your eyes and waste the opportunity?

We're all imprisoned by something. In fact, if a person ever goes to a סעודת הודאה or they read a book about, let's say, a start-up business that found success, the focus is not usually on the good times. The focus is actually on what built the foundation of the business, what built the success, what built the strength, and it's always not only mentioning, but celebrating the hard times that actually built the chops that made the success. So therefore, ironically, while when we find ourself in the difficult times, we want to just get out of it, the truth is that later on we know that once, im yirtzeh Hashem, be'ezrat Hashem, we're successful and we overcome it, when we look back, these are going to be the things that built us, that inspire us, that we're going to use to inspire others.

And therefore it's ironic that even knowing that later on looking back these will be the times that we appreciated, that we grew the most from, that we just want to get out of it. Emunah, a different discussion, emunah can bridge that gap. Emunah can allow us to get over the limitations of time to understand and know as a fact that it's as if we can be already attached to what's coming and looking backwards and understand that we just find ourself right now as part of the process, but that's because of the timeline that later on will be looking back and this will be where we mamesh built ourselves and built our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

One last point, if a person thinks about growing from stage to stage, at any given point, I think the Baal HaTanya mentions this mashal, at any point on a ladder, the most stable times are when a person has both feet on one rung. The most unstable times are where one foot is on, one foot is off. Those are the times of instability. Those are the times of imbalance. But that's not that's not a mistake. That's not because they're really supposed to be either on the rung below or the rung above. That's because that is the stage of growth. That's exactly where they should be. That is part of the process. And if you think about, let's say, I think Rabbi Tatz brings this idea: a kid is learning to ride a bike and there's training wheels and he feels wonderful.

And now, at that point where the father has confidence in the child, maybe more confidence than the child does himself, otherwise he would never take the training wheels off, and even worse, if a person leaves these training wheels on too long, it'll actually become much harder to ride. And therefore, at that right, exact stage where the kid has the ability and it's the right age for it and he's going to be able to grow into that confidence, the father takes the training wheels off. And at that moment, the kid feels so alone. And then as he's trying to find himself, he recognizes that the father is holding on to the seat right in back of him and he feels good again.

And the kid starts getting used to that, and then out of no place, the father looking behind, and he's running behind the bike in a way paying more attention than he did when the training wheels were on, before he was walking behind looking at his phone and now he's holding on to the seat, but still, let's say, checking text messages, and then right at that moment when the kid starts to build his own momentum, the hand comes off and the kid feels more alone than he's ever felt in his life, every little pebble, every little bump, and he doesn't know, he seems to be going okay. At that moment is when there's no phones, there's no schmoozing, there's no talking, the father is mamesh running behind the kid with his hand one inch under the seat, knowing that at any point in time he's going to step in, he's going to be able to control the process, he's going to be able to give support, nothing is going to happen.

The time when the kid feels the most alone is actually the greatest statement of the relationship and it's what the kid needs for both. The father's paying the most attention to the son and the truth is the son can find the most security in the father so that later on when the kid is doing better, he's going to relate back and say, "This was my father." But at the time, how do we find chizuk when we're actually going through it? Comes Rabbi Nachman, and he's going to say, when we label the emotion, when we find that it's normal, that it's not that we're on the outside, that this is part of that song. And a song that has only the high parts, it's not a good song. Every song needs to have the highs and the lows in order to form the shleimut that makes that song perfect.

This applies in a כללות'דיק way. The Gemara tells us that any fast day that doesn't include the resha'im is not is not a fast day. We know that the resha'im need the tzadikim why do the tzadikim need the resha'im? This applies in a כלליות'דיק way and it applies in a personal way, in the כלל ישראל, among the individuals, and in every individual at every stage of their life. And understanding that this is not only normal, but it's necessary, it's a part of the process, and that we're able to embrace it, understand it, and in a certain way lean into it. That is not trying to light up the darkness from the outside, but it's finding light from within the darkness. It's finding meaning from within it, and it doesn't always mean that it's going to feel positive, but it's going to feel, it'll introduce feeling into that into that state of of apathy, of lethargy, of understanding that this is where it is.

That introduces feeling at all, and then once a person becomes in touch with their feelings, im yirtzeh Hashem, at that point they can embrace they can embrace Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and they feel Hakadosh Baruch Hu's almost more important Hakadosh Baruch Hu's embrace for them. Besides for loving Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we know that Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves us. And then, im yirtzeh Hashem, we move into the more light times where we can take everything that we've gained, everything that we've built, and we can move ever closer towards Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Where do we find this? Everybody wants to wants to be doing the avodah that feels good, the avodah that they want to do. But if you're going to create an army, you're going to create a shleimut, you're going to create every role, what ties all of that together?

The מלך. דוד דוד מלך, מלך ישראל חי וקים. David Melech Yisrael is מלך המשיח. David Melech Yisrael, who created for us, who gave us a present, we're going to go into it, of Tehillim. And if you reads through some of the Tehillim, you don't even understand, these are the praises of Hakadosh Baruch Hu? Some of them are are are downright depressing. You see Dovid Hamelech did not have an easy life. There are times that he's davenen, there are times that he's thanking, and there are times that he's expressing emotions of just feeling so much on the outside. But the Tehillim, if it was missing those kapitlach, would not be a Sefer Tehillim. As we go through Tehillim, and we find every single emotion that we're feeling, a person go through Tehillim in the English at one stage of life and pick out the five Tehillim that speak to him the most and say, "These are my Tehillims for the rest of my life." And then six months later, he goes through the entire Sefer Tehillim and he picks out an entirely different set of five Tehillims that speak to him for the rest of for the rest of his life, and then he realizes that Tehillim encompasses the entire spectrum of of human emotion.

And there is going to be those Tehillims that he finds exactly when he needs it. And he says, "This is part of Tehillim, also. This is part of the shleimut. I'm now part of the army, I'm part of the malchut. אין מלך בלא עם, and now I'm able to accept the structure upon myself, find myself wherever I am and introduce the light and the warmth into whatever it is I'm feeling from the inside out." This ultimately allows us to move forward and to grow in a meaningful way to the point, not that we're going to be self-responsible for the ultimate result, but that we're going to be self-responsible for our steps towards growth, where Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to to to swoop down and just pick us up.

We'll grow as high as we can, those 49 steps, and after that, seven times seven, and then Hakadosh Baruch Hu reaches down and bridges that gap for us. So I am going to I'm going to read actually relatively quickly through the first the first paragraph or so, a little less than that, in the Torah, ל״ד עמוד ב' in the standard print, and then we're going to we're going to go through it and and and invest some time to break it up. I don't know if we'll we'll finish it in one shiur, maybe in a shiur and a half or so. Let's start. First line, again we're not going to we're not going to break go that deep into it, then we're we're just going to read through and go right back through it.

מי שרוצה לזכות לתשובה, a person that is rotzeh, he wants, we'll figure out between rotzeh and חפץ, different terminology. Lizkot, not to do, but to be zocheh to teshuvah. יהא רגיל באמירת תהלים, he should be רגיל, not just say, but he should incorporate, he should be רגיל באמירת תהלים, כי אמירת תהלים מסוגל לתשובה, it's a סגולה for תשובה. כי יש נ' שערי תשובה, מ״ט שערים יכול אדם לכנוס בהם ולהשיגם, there are 50 gates of תשובה, 49 a person is able to access, אך שער החמישים הוא בחינת התשובה של השם יתברך בעצמו כביכול. The 50th gate, it's not on us.

Sometimes you're in a car, and depending if you've ever been like this in traffic, you're almost not sure if you're moving forward or if the car in front of you is moving backwards. The sometimes there's your part of תשובה and sometimes הקדוש ברוך הוא is moving towards you. Those 49 gates, those are on you. The 50th gate, which we can't access until we do the 49, that's הקדוש ברוך הוא's gate. כי גם אצלו יתברך מצינו בחינת תשובה, we find this idea of תשובה by הקדוש ברוך הוא as well, כמו שכתוב: שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם. ואלו המ״ט שערי תשובה הם בחינת מ״ט אותיות שיש בשמות שנים עשר שבטי ק-ה. It depends exactly how you count the letters, where there sometimes Binyamin has a י, not a י, Yosef, Yehosef, it's written differently, but we're not going to go into that now.

These מ״ט שערי תשובה, they encompass every every gate that relates to Klal Yisrael, all of the letters of the שבטי ק-ה. כי כל שער ושער יש לו אות ממ״ט אותיות השבטים, because every שער has an אות from all of the from all of the שבטים, which, again, Yaakov Avinu is מיטתו שלימה, this is the entirety, the שלימות of Klal Yisrael. והנה הכל חפצים ליראה את שמך. Now, I just point this out before, we said מי שרוצה לזכות לתשובה, everybody who wants to be zocheh to teshuvah, over here it says everybody has a חפץ, a desire, we'll point it out later, ליראה את שמך, which you would think is associated as the same as teshuvah, although teshuvah is anyway funny, regardless of whether I do teshuvah or I engage in the mitzvah of teshuvah, la'asot teshuvah or I'm zocheh to teshuvah, I have an obligation to do תרי״ג mitzvot and to be perfect, so to speak, going forward, so therefore what even is teshuvah?

And if teshuvah is a mitzvah, so I have to do וידוי, חרטה, קבלה על העתיד, so that's la'asot teshuvah. At what point am I responsible for the result? Is it an emotion? Is it a relationship? What's the לזכות בתשובה? We'll see. So again, he says, even though הכל חפצים ליראה את שמך, אף על פי כן לאו כל אדם זוכה לעשות תשובה. So now he says not everybody is going to merit to do תשובה, כי יש אחד שאין לו התעוררות כלל לתשובה. There are some people that we said are uninspired, ואפילו מי שיש לו התעוררות לתשובה, this person at least has his heart in the right direction, he is inspired, he wants to do teshuvah, or he has התעוררות לתשובה, he wants to go forward, he's interested, אינו זוכה להגיע להאות והשער של תשובה השייך לו.

This person is doing cookie-cutter avodah. He's trying, he's listening to somebody else who mamash spoke from the heart, but instead of allowing it to resonate within him so that he can find what he needs, or he doesn't put in the time, there's a certain aspect of laziness, okay, what am I going to do? I'm going to say one extra Mishnah a day, I'm going to put on tzitzit, I'm going to do whatever, and I'm just going to pick something, I'm going to add on, add on, add on. It's a beautiful thing. Is that teshuvah? Am I finding the thing that I need to return? Am I finding the thing that distanced me? ואפילו אם מגיע לשם יכול להיות ששער התשובה סגור. And even if he does find inspiration, and he does find what he needs, and yet he does it and it's still it's still cold, he's still not coming back, he still doesn't feel that דביקות, ומחמת כל זה אין אדם זוכה לתשובה, back to zocheh, not everybody is zocheh for teshuvah.

ועל ידי אמירת תהלים, אפילו מי שאין לו שום התעוררות לתשובה, הוא מתעורר לעשות תשובה. Even if a person doesn't have that hisorerus, it's not self-inspired, but I think that this fits with a little bit of our introduction, this person will be מתעורר לעשות תשובה, וגם זוכה על ידי תהלים להגיע לשער ואות השייך לו ולפתוח השער. נמצא, just to finish off, שזוכה על ידי תהלים לעשות תשובה. So therefore, by the way, this also not only inspires us, but it's also empowering and it also takes away some of our excuses. I heard Rav Shimshon Pinkus zatzal one time gave a mashal, he says that there was a doctor on duty in the night shift, and there was a number of patients, more than any one person would be able to treat if everything went wrong, and the administration gave him a cell phone, a beeper, a number, a bat-phone: if everything goes wrong, this is what you're supposed to do, call the number, you'll have immediate reinforcements.

And sure enough, everything is quiet until there's one code and another code and everything is going wrong, and as the doctor gets called up to be investigated, to be questioned about why, Rachmana litzlan, people didn't fare so well, he tried to defend himself and said, "It's impossible for one person to have treated all these patients, I did the best I could." And the response, "You didn't do the best you could. Your job was not to do everything. Your job was not to heal every person, to treat every person. Your job was to understand that you had to reach out and ask for help. That wasn't extracurricular, so to speak, that was the job." Our job is not going to be that we have to bridge that gap, that we have to bridge that connection.

Our job is to do the things that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is telling us will bring us closer, and we're going to we're going to really start delving into this now. Tehillim is that key. So saying that the door is locked is number one not an excuse, but and it's also empowering. It's giving us an avenue. Once we identify where we're holding, comes Rabbeinu and he's telling us this is going to be the key. This is the most powerful gift that we have, a Sefer Tehillim. Okay, now we're going to start start from the beginning. We're going to we're going to break it up a little bit more, and then we're going to put all of the pieces back together.

So again, starting from the beginning, מי שרוצה, a person has a רצון, לזכות לתשובה, to be zocheh, not to do, but he wants to achieve the result of teshuvah, we'll have to see what teshuvah we're talking about, ירגיל באמירת תהלים, not just to say Tehillim, but he has to be ragil in it. He's going to find himself, like we said in the introduction, Tehillim is not a one-time thing. Tehillim is it's a totally different sefer, it's a totally different kapitel, he will relate to, he will find himself in Tehillim 100% of the time, but not even necessarily in the same place. And therefore, a person that wants to be zocheh and live a life of teshuvah, every day we say השיבנו אבינו לתורתך מוצאי יום כיפור we say this.

A person, we're moving towards the Ein Sof, we can always be closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, a person that wants to be zocheh to live a life of teshuvah, Tehillim is where it's at, and a person has to be ragil. כי אמירת תהלים מסוגל לתשובה. Let's leave aside our rational sentiments for a second. Teshuvah, it's a hard process, I have to make a cheshbon hanefesh, I have to work on myself. Number one is that you're part of the team. If you are alive, that means that the world would be incomplete without you. Step number one is you have to find yourself. We have the gift. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's gonna tell you exactly where we are, we're part of the process, we're shteling tzu to the malchut, to David Melech Yisrael.

Say Tehillim, you will find yourself, you can identify that negative emotion, or wherever you're holding, good, bad, ugly, say Tehillim. כי יש נ' שערי תשובה, there are 50 gates of תשובה, ומ״ט שערים יכול כל אדם ליכנס בהם ולהשיגם. There are 49 out of the 50, which represents the complete spectrum of emotion, right? In the, if, if you want to talk in terms of קבלה, there's the, the ספירות, Hakadosh Baruch Hu relates to the world through the ספירות.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the אין סוף, if you will, למשל, the white light, it's too much, there's no attachment point between Hakadosh Baruch Hu and the world. Hakadosh Baruch Hu shines the light through a prism. That prism is the ספירות, so that Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates a heichi timtzi, that the אין סוף, the אין סוף is also a בריאה, that the אין סוף that's בלי גבול can relate to גבול. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu shines this light, as it were, through vehicles of the ספירות. There's the מוחין, there's חכמה, בינה, דעת, or כתר, חכמה, בינה, and then there's the מדות. The מדות we say by ספירה are חג״ת נה״י, חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד.

Hakadosh Baruch Hu has a relationship with us through these מדות, and every one of the מדות is made up of every one of the seven. So as we build up through ספירה, which we'll talk about later, חסד also has חסד שבחסד, גבורה שבחסד, תפארת שבחסד, and we go through. We are able to understand and relate to every aspect and detail of the מדות, of things that are within the realm of גבול, the way that Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave us a vehicle to relate to Him. A שער החמשים, after you have the seven times seven, which represents the universe of these מדות, the שער החמשים is inaccessible to us, it's outside that system.

How, if, if the teshuvah is the 50th gate, how can you tell me that the gate that we ultimately have to go through is outside that system? Says the שער החמשים הוא בחינת התשובה של השם יתברך בעצמו כביכול. This is where Hakadosh Baruch Hu, where we don't have to move forward, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so to speak, comes down to, to reach out to us. You jump as high as you can, you have to get to level a million, you have to get to level infinity, something that's outside that system. How do you access it? Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells us how to access it. If you climb to the 49th level, I'll take you to level a million, a billion, a trillion, it doesn't make a difference. You, you worry about what your avodah is, and again, we're gonna, we're gonna unpack this, and I think it's gonna come out very nice.

כי גם אצלו יתברך מצינו בחינת תשובה, if you need a ראיה that there's an inyan for teshuvah to הקדוש ברוך הוא, כמו שכתוב, says a pasuk in מלאכי, שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם. Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells us, you come to Me and I will come to you, you return to Me and I will return to you. So there's teshuvah by Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Gonna stop for a second, gonna quote from Likutey Halachot, קריאת שמע, ה' י', but very, very powerful, again, starting to reframe, starting to understand the context of how we can relate to teshuvah. Says the Likutey Halachot, עיקר, bear with me, I'll read it out loud.

עיקר התשובה שנזכה אנחנו לשוב אליו יתברך על ידי התעוררות שלנו. There has to be a התעוררות מלמטה, there has to be a מ״ן, there has to be a מסירות נפש. If we want to do teshuvah, what kind of teshuvah is that if I just come and pick you up? Teshuvah can't be inspired from outside. Teshuvah is the avodah that you are returning. The teshuvah has to start with התעוררות from us. כי זה הויכוח בין השם יתברך ובין ישראל. This is the conversation, the Torat Natan brings it also, שהשם יתברך צועק אלינו, הקדוש ברוך הוא, as it were, is screaming to us, you can, like the raw emotion, שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם.

Just take a step, come towards Me. I'm dawening, I'm pleading, if you could just do anything. It's like sometimes a kid does something wrong and you want so much, the kid was gonna be deserving a reward, he was gonna, you were gonna take him out for dinner, and the kid has a tantrum, whatever it is, and he's just, he's doing the wrong direction, and it would just be inappropriate, you can't give him whatever you were going to if he continues to act in a certain way, and you say just do anything, just say "I'm sorry", if you could just take one little step, then we'll go out, we'll figure it out later. Just show me that you're not going to be running in the wrong direction.

Make a stop, take one step forward, and we'll work it all out later. שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם, שאנחנו נשוב תחילה. Please, we have to take the first step, Hakadosh Baruch Hu says. וישראל אומרים, what does Klal Yisrael say? השיבנו השם אליך ונשובה. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, You return to us, and then we'll return to You. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, You take the first step. Hashem is saying, "Just take a step," and we say, "You first." So almost reminiscent of the Gemara by Chizkiyahu in Berachot. So he says, "השיבנו השם אליך ונשובה, שהוא ישיבנו אליו." Hakadosh Baruch Hu should come to us. וכמובא בספרים, quotes a Midrash in איכה, על ידי תהלים שכולל כל מ״ט שערי תשובה.

Tehillim represents, again, the universe of relationship between us and Hakadosh Baruch Hu at the level of the מידות, that Tehillim represents the מ״ט שערי תשובה, us connecting to הקדוש ברוך הוא, שהם בחינת מ״ט אותיות השבטים, the universe of of human characteristics of every single letter within the שבטים, there was 49 letters that encompassed all the שבטים, מיטה שלימה, all of Klal Yisrael. מ״ט ימי ספירה, after Mitzrayim, we're going to talk more about that afterwards by Pharaoh, that that we work step by step to go through, not just the seven, but the seven times seven until the 50th day, until until Shavuot.

Shavuot in Torah doesn't even have a date, it's the 50th day. מ״ט אותיות, 49 letters שבשמע וברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד, of מקבל like we said עול מלכות שמים, were stilling to the מלכות, David Melech Yisrael. על ידי זה נתתקן הכל, this is how we could find a tikkun. כי תהלים נאמר על ידי דוד מלך ישראל, שהוא בחינת משיח, שיזכה להשיג שער החמישים כולל הכל. If we want to be able to be zocheh to reach the 50th level that's כולל הכל, we saw already in תורה ב׳, every single person was responsible for for their piece of the Mishkan, and then Moshe Mashiach, the Melech HaMashiach is the one who's going to put it together to cause the השראת השכינה.

But first we have each be responsible for our piece, we're responsible for the 49. שהוא שכל נפלא, this is a שכל that's that's fla'odik, it's wonderous. שזוכים על ידי זה להכניס בלב ישראל שיצעקו תמיד להשם יתברך שישיבנו אליו, that this 50th gate, a person who's zocheh, it's going to enter into the hearts of Klal Yisrael that we should scream back towards HaKadosh Baruch Hu תמיד, constantly, that that HaKadosh Baruch Hu should return to us. ועל ידי זה בעצמו יחשב להתעוררות שלנו כאילו אנו שבנו אליו מעצמנו. If you take a little baby in a crib, and you say, "Come to me," the mother says, "Come, and I'll pick you up," but the baby can't walk, so what does the baby do?

The baby cries, the baby screams. He understands that he's only screaming for the mother, right? The kid is having a tantrum, sometimes the kid is scared, he he's upset by something even the parents did, but what does he want? He screams out for the parent to come back. He's screaming out for the relationship. And the parent would say, "Just take a step." The kid can't take a step, we're talking about a little kid. What does the kid do? He cries. The crying is the step. This is, I mean appreciate, you could be mitbonen, we could speak for 10 hours. כי באמת כל צעקתו יתברך שצועק אלינו שובו אלי, what is HaKadosh Baruch Hu screaming to us, that we should return to Him? כוונתו זה בעצמו, הקדוש ברוך הוא's כוונה, שאנחנו נצעק אליו תמיד.

When HaKadosh Baruch Hu says we should return, we don't have any independent capabilities, everything that we have is only the divine energy that's coming to us, a neshamah is a חלק אלוק ממעל, everything about us is from HaKadosh Baruch Hu. So what can we even do, what can we accomplish? We can cry, we can scream. That is what we can do. We don't daven in order that we can run to work and do our hishtadlut, our davening is the hishtadlut, and everything else is a heichi timtza. Says הקדוש ברוך הוא, "I want you to take the first step," and what do we do? We say, "No, הקדוש ברוך הוא, השיבנו השם אליך, You come to us." כוונתו זה, but this is this is the kavanah, it's actually the same thing.

What when הקדוש ברוך הוא says that you should return to Me and we seem to be arguing with הקדוש ברוך הוא that Hashem should take the first step, what הקדוש ברוך הוא's kavanah is השיבנו השם אליך, that we should scream to הקדוש ברוך הוא תמיד, "השיבנו השם אליך." הקדוש ברוך הוא is not asking us to be self-responsible to accomplish something, הקדוש ברוך הוא is asking us to scream out. And if we scream out, that actually is what הקדוש ברוך הוא is asking us to do. This isn't a vikuach with people on opposite sides of the table, this is a discussion with people on the same side of the table.

When we say, "השיבנו השם אליך," this is not הקדוש ברוך הוא says that you should take the first step, and we say, "No, Hashem, you should take the first step." הקדוש ברוך הוא says, "You cry out, and I'm running to pick you up," and we say, "השיבנו השם אליך," that is it. נמצא שבאמת לאמיתו אין מחלוקת כלל בין כנסת ישראל ובין השם יתברך, רק שאין כל אחד מבין כוונתו הקדושה, just that we don't always un- Understand. We're not crying out in despair, we're crying out, that is the connection. There's a Gemara, I don't have it at my fingertips, it says, it's describing whether something is a land animal or a sea animal, and it says that the sea animal, a particular one, a sea animal it says, no, that's considered a land animal.

Why? Because when it's in danger, it comes onto the land. When a person is in danger, he's in trouble, and he screams out to הקדוש ברוך הוא, that shows where he's at. When we scream out because we've reached ye'ush, right? Mashiach comes from היסח הדעת, which is a whole nother discussion. When we scream out, there's nothing else to do but scream, there's nothing else to do but scream to הקדוש ברוך הוא, that's not despair, that's not despondence, that's where we finally peeled out everything else. אנא השם הושיעה נא. By the ניסוך המים was the happiest time of the year, that's where Yonah HaNavi, I believe that's where Yonah got נבואה, that's actually where it's at. These are the circumstances that brought us to connect.

We're not screaming out because we have nothing left, we have nothing which brought us to scream out so that now we have everything. Like יש לי רב, יש לי כל. When we understand that there's nothing left and we say השיבנו השם אליך, that is, that is the teshuvah. But we don't understand this, and therefore we feel so alone, we feel so in the dark when we're actually the most connected. We finally came to where we were supposed to be. And like we said, sometimes it's the opposite where we're getting sifuk from everything else, Baruch Hashem we get sifuk from the good things, but are we are we connected to הקדוש ברוך הוא or are we connected to ourself? וכל זה מחמת שלא נתגלה עדיין שער החמישים.

Why? Because we're still in our own avodah, we're still in our own head space, that's where we don't understand it. It's only when when finally we get to that 50th gate, which we're going to have to see now how to reach, that's where we actually close the gap, or הקדוש ברוך הוא closes the gap. אבל על ידי התהילים נמשך הארה שער החמישים שכולל הכל, מתתא לעילא ומעילא לתתא. Tehillim is what ultimately is able to close this gap. עד שנתגלה לצעוק אליו תמיד איך שיהיה, ועל ידי זה יתתקן הכל. So we're we're starting to plant the seeds, if you will, of where this Torah is going to bring us. See, that the the we we want to be zocheh to teshuvah, we want to be zocheh to this connection.

This connection comes from closing the gap between us and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, which is really coming from a ratzon to connect. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not asking us to physically build the bridge, He's asking us to scream out to Him. What do we have to do? We have to do our part. Our part is going to be the first 49 levels, and then Hakadosh Baruch Hu will totally close the gap. Us just reaching out, having the desire to connect, that is where we come towards teshuvah, but we're not yet zocheh to teshuvah. What is our job? We said there's 49 letters, 49 letters in the שבטים, 49 49 gates that we have to that we have to go through before we get to the 50th gate.

שמע ישראל and ברוך שם are 49 letters, ומקבל עול מלכות שמים, to find ourself within the מלכות, then that those are the steps that we could take so that we could reach the 50th gate where that gap becomes closed, okay? ואלו המ״ט, back in the text, ואלו המ״ט שערי תשובה. This 49 gates that is on us, these are the gates that we can access, הם בחינת מ״ט אותיות שיש בשמות שנים עשר שבטי קה, these are the the the 49 letters that are in the שבטי קה. Everybody has their own job, everybody has to become a shalem to fulfill their potential, to find where they stand.

Yissachar is not supposed to be Zevulun, Zevulun is not Yissachar, none of them are Levi, right? When when we the perfect the the perfect expression of Klal Yisrael doesn't mean that everybody is a מלך or that everybody is a כהן, everybody finds what they need, their emotion, their avodah, that is the perfection. And like we said, in terms of our spectrum of human emotion emotion and avodah, sometimes part of that shleimus is going to be directionally up and some of it is going to be able to find the lowness where we can create a דירה בתחתונים and bring God into that stage using these tools. כי כל שער ושער יש ליה אות ממ״ט אותיות השבטים.

Understanding that every single one of these gates, every single member of Klal Yisrael, every single part of avodah, every single part of emotion, all of that is within the universe of the מלכות, and when we can relate to our part of that puzzle, at that point, we can be zocheh to find ourself within that shleimus because Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to close the gap. We've used in the past a mashal of an arch rather than a building. A building, you can build 99 floors, you feel accomplished, you see that there's 99 floors, there's there's the the big bricks and the small bricks, and the big ones are able to build it up higher. When you have an arch, the paradox of the arch, how do they put up the arch?

The the in what they do is they build it around the frame and then they pull out the frame, but the the paradox of the arch is that even if the one smallest little piece is missing, then there's zero shleimus. The the only the shleimus is defined by every single piece being exactly in the position and in the size and the shape that it's supposed to be, so that the weight is distributed evenly and it has the maximum amount of strength. Next next sentence: והנה הכל חפצים ליראה את שמך. So now we're ready we can start to parse out the words.

Ratzon is in the machshavah. Ratzon is inspired, maybe there's multiple ways or one way that I can fulfill my ratzon. Ratzon is in the koach and I want to take my ratzon and find a way to bring it mikoach el hapoal. Chefetz is desire, but for now we're not going to go super deep. The Malbim, by the way, has a discussion of this also in Vayikra פרק א׳ פסוק ג׳. But a chefetz is a desire towards a cheftza, it's toward something, it's something that's accessible, this is what I'm suggesting. And therefore, הכל חפצים ליראה את שמך, everybody has a desire of something that's accessible to yirah.

We're going to to clarify this more in a second, so bear with me for a few minutes. So what we're doing now is we're saying that yirat shamayim is within the 49. The yirat shamayim is not the gap, the yirat shamayim is not the gift, the yirah is something that we are responsible for. So as far as the לזכות לתשובה, that's something that we're not going to access, now already we're starting to uncover a little bit the answer. The teshuvah we can do the mitzvah of teshuvah, what we started off talking about is לזכות לתשובה, we want to get that part of the process where we're already attached to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that gap actually doesn't get closed until HaKadosh Baruch Hu closes the gap.

But the question is what do what do we do in order to affect that and what is our responsibility? והנה הכל חפצים ליראה את שמך. We have access, we have a chefetz, we have a relationship, we have a desire for the cheftza and an ability to achieve yirat shamayim, that is going to be within the first 49. ואף על פי כן לאו כל אדם זוכה לעשות תשובה, okay? Over here he says זוכה לעשות, we're not going to merit to do teshuvah. Now לזכות לתשובה is like almost to the final result. If we all have a chefetz for yirah, we all are able to go towards the 49, so then why are we not zocheh to do our part towards teshuvah where HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to ultimately close that gap?

It's because we can go through the motions, but it doesn't always hit home. We're not able to internalize it, we're not able to fully do our part towards embracing and integrating our part towards the screaming out of השיבנו ה׳ אליך, which is really what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants by שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם. Why? Says the Rebbe, I mean leaving aside any of the the kabbalistic implications where we discuss in earlier תורות also, in terms of gates, in terms of nusach, Yaakov Avinu, finding the right nusach for tefillah, but just the words themself, says why are we not זוכה לעשות תשובה?

Number one, כי יש אחד שאין לו התעוררות כלל לתשובה. Now it's important to note, I was actually talking to Rabbi Fingerer about this on Shabbos, it's important to note, you know, often times we think of teshuvah as undoing what I did. If I made a mistake, I have to clean it up. There are some aveirot where Chazal tell us מעוות אשר לא יוכל לתקון. It's twisted and it can't be untwisted, but other than that, we're trying to untwist something that got twisted up. If I did it, then I'm responsible for cleaning it up. That's, I think, a very simplistic way of looking at it. Why? Again, this is my own thought, my own הרגשה.

Take a person that's on the straight and narrow, they're doing everything they're supposed to be doing before they do the aveirah. How does the yetzer hara get this person to sin? Most of the time it's relatively subtle. Sometimes the yetzer hara, like we saw in תורה א׳, even presents itself like a white tip, like a yetzer tov, maybe he says you should be learning more, you should be doing better until the person burns out and then they give it all up. The Chafetz Chaim discusses this also. Try to be perfect and then תפסת מרובה לא תפסת. Sometimes the yetzer hara says, okay, it's not the end of the world, go hang out with the friends, if you hang out, then you'll be able to have a positive a positive influence.

And sometimes we don't even know what's the yetzer hara and what's the yetzer tov. So let's say, for argument's sake, for purposes of mashal, on a level of one to 10, this yetzer hara is sneaking in at a three. What would you need in order to combat that yetzer hara? You would need a 3.1, okay? So the yetzer hara is directionally I'm on the straight and narrow, the yetzer hara, whether or not aveirot we could say are rooted in a lack of emunah or not, but over here the yetzer hara is presenting maybe ta'avah, the yetzer hara is presenting itself as it won't be so bad, you won't go off the deep end. There's a certain every single person can understand in their own way when a yetzer when they're doing a certain particular mitzvah right or they're holding good in a certain place and the beginning of the slide and the yetzer hara that gets them to break that open.

Now, the person does the wrong thing, they do it, they do it two times, they do it three times, already נעשה לו כהיתר, they're in the wrong direction. At that point, if you imagine a kid, at that point they're no longer wearing a hat and jacket, they have a different haircut, they maybe got kicked out of school, the rabbeim don't relate to them the same way, their parents don't relate to them maybe the same way, the community, the shul, they're they're already on a different path. Now the kid looks back two, three years later, they used to be a a beautiful 13, 14-year-old kid, now they're a beautiful also neshamah 16, 17, 18-year-old kid, they have different friends, they have different peer pressures, totally holding in a different place.

The motion of climbing out of that pit, the motion of now going against the momentum to raise a person up, that is a totally different motion than not sliding. Doing teshuvah is not just the opposite of whatever the aveirah is. There could be a person that maybe had it within him to not have done the aveirah, and yet they just don't have the internal strength to climb out of the pit. Teshuvah is very difficult, and especially when it's going against the momentum that might have a lot of other external pressures and different people.

Some people have more internal strength, more self-confidence, some people have less confidence. There's a million reasons why a person might either not be inspired to do teshuvah at all, or practically speaking, not be inspired. And I actually saw the Likutei Halachot Rosh Chodesh ה ז brings this also, לזכות לתשובה לאו כל אדם זוכה מריבוי המניעות שיש על זה. These meni'ot are not the same, meni'ot is like the the walls, the preventatives, these meni'ot are not the same thing that got the person to sin in the first place, it's an entire new set of challenges, כי לשוב בתשובה קשה מאוד, כי בתחילה קודם החטא, it's not the same motion as was needed to prevent him from sinning to begin with, שעדיין לא נמשך אחר יצרו הרע, אז גבר עליו יצרו הרע עד שהחטיאו, מכל שכן עתה שכבר נמשך אחריו ונתפש במצודתו, איך אפשר לשוב?

Getting out of a net that a person is tangled up in is not the same motion as not falling for the trap in the first place. So therefore, a lot of times a person is not going to move forward to teshuvah because he's not able to get started, okay? Just another few words from Likutei Halachot Kriat Shema, again, and now we're just breaking it up a little bit, but really just fleshing out each idea, every single aspect that's that's holding us back from from from moving forward, and then we're going to, I think, again, put it all together. Likutei Halachot says, I'll read it slow in case you don't have it in front of you, כלל הדברים, שעיקר התרחקות מהתשובה הוא מחמת שצריכין אנו התעוררות לשוב אליו.

The ikar thing that prevents us is that we don't have the inspiration to move forward, again, whether whether in principle we're just not inspired, or if we're talking about somebody reading the Torah and how to move forward to say teshuvah, whatever it is, we're talking about somebody who seemingly in the abstract is interested, but they practically speaking, they don't have that hit'orerut. והתעוררות כראוי קשה מאוד, it's very, very difficult. ובפרט מי שכבר נתרחק ועשה מה שעשה, especially the person that actually exercised on these desires, these ta'avot, whatever it is, and now he's he's fighting back not from not doing an aveirah, he's fighting back from somebody who's already, let's say, seen bad things, now he has these images imprinted on his brain.

Before he wanted he had a desire to try something, and now he's already he's already tried that food and he liked it, or now it's impacted his neshamah, okay? So as bad as he feels, he's holding in a different place, it's a totally different motion. ואף על פי כן הכל חפצים לירא שמו יתברך, we all, again, want to access these 49, that is on a lower level, it's within the thing, it's within the the realm of what we can relate to, so we have a at this altitude, we have a cheftza that we want to have יראת שמים, אך קשה וכבד להם להתעורר, but it's very difficult to internalize and to inspire and to have this hisorerus to move forward, וכולם רוצים שהשם יתברך יעורר אותם ויחזירם למוטב.

So what do we say? Listen, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, I can do the right thing, I want to do the right thing, I want to be a yerei Shamayim, from today forward I want to do all the right stuff, but it's not internalized. The the the idea of mamash feeling it, of wanting to get close to You, I feel a coldness. It would be nice to move forward and do all the right stuff, but to to have this hisorerus for actual teshuvah, for yirat Shamayim, to go forward to do the right stuff, I wish I was on the train now where I could do it, but to to mamash turn myself inside out from where I am, I need You to take that first step. אבל כשיודעים ומאמינים באמת שהשם יתברך בוחר בזה בעצמו שיהא רצונינו וחפצינו תמיד להתקרב אליו, but if we have emunah that this is what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants, forget about being perfect, this is a big, big mistake.

Reb' Itche Meir points this out also, he says that the most difficult thing about teshuvah is saying that What am I supposed to do, תרי״ג mitzvot? I'm supposed to be perfect. So the entire, and since nobody's perfect, the entire process is how much do I stink? How imperfect am I? That's just not that inspiring. Am I a million minus minus 900,000, am I a million minus 950,000, am I a million minus 10? Either way, I'm not perfect, and if if if I'm just a mess-up anyway, then okay, I may as well get the better bang for the buck, or why should I try so hard if I know that I'm just never going to reach the goal? So if we have emunah though, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not asking us to be perfect.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not even asking us to to to be climbing at at a tremendous altitude. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is asking us to say השיבנו השם אליך. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is asking us to just directionally be moving in the right direction. Right? השיבנו אבינו לתורתך וקרבנו מלכנו לעבודתך. Before even קרבנו, before moving in the right direction, השיבנו השם אליך is just to turn around. Okay? So therefore, all we want to do is be facing HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that's all HaKadosh Baruch Hu we said wants us to say. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is not saying קרבנו, HaKadosh Baruch Hu is saying השיבנו.

If we just turn the right direction and we look toward, we don't have to be moving toward, we look toward, that's what that's easy. If we don't want to use the word easy, that's totally accessible. It's something that we can all do. That is a step. A person shouldn't feel like, oh, all I can do is reach Go, reach out, close your eyes for one second. At that point, it's not a question of if, it's a question of how much. If, did you, yes or no, binary. Can you close your eyes alone when you're not with your friends, when you're not with the when you don't have the peer pressure, when you don't have external things or you don't have certain momentum? You take a walk, a little bit of hitbodedut, and you just say השיבנו השם אליך, that is what HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants.

And the Likutei Halachot goes on, he says he says קחו עמכם דברים. What's קחו? It doesn't mean to create, it means to take. It's actually a vort by by by Terumah. It's easier to have, let's say, a maaser account. If I have because somebody comes they want a lot of money, so now I have to take that money out of my pocket. If I already set it aside and it's in the maaser account, all I have to do is it's a question of how big of a check I want to write. It's already taken, it's already set aside. קחו דייקא, says ליקוטי הלכות, היינו שהדברים כבר מוכנים מאיתו יתברך, והשם יתברך מבקש שנקח אותם עמנו לשוב אליו על ידי זה. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to give us the inspiration. Hashem is giving us everything that we need.

All we have to do is tap into it. All we have to do is uncover it. I I I've quoted before, I read a story, I heard about a study, I don't remember, that they gave a bunch of kids a test, and one of the one one group of kids, they started at zero and they got a point for every question right, and the other kids started off with a hundred and they lost a point for every one that they got wrong. And across the study, the kids who started off with a hundred did better because they had it already, it was theirs. Another example, there are people would nobody in their right mind would ever put their life at risk for a hundred dollars, and yet a person can be holding on to a wallet that has a hundred dollars in it and they'll do the stupidest things to not lose what's already theirs.

We have it in our account. All Hakadosh Baruch Hu says is קחו. I don't want that much, all I want is דברים, all I want is words, all I want is השיבנו. The קרבנו we'll figure out afterwards. The השיבנו itself is not on the outside in the beginning of teshuvah, it's the first steps towards teshuvah. It's what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants. And not only that, I'll give you the words. All you have to do is קחו, all you have to do is take them. They're yours already. You already have an attachment. You have to do so little. It's already part of you. When a when it's part of a person, it's it's much more accessible, like in like in our examples. A person just has to fight not to lose it, like by Yosef Hatzadik, right?

It says Yosef Hatzadik was holding by, depending on the Midrash, almost by doing the aveirah, and what did he have? He had a vision that if he does this aveirah, he's not going to end up on the חושן משפט. Not end up on the חושן משפט? I heard Rabbi Aharon Lopian talking about this: he's holding by potentially doing an aveirah, and what he's worried about is the חושן משפט? It's because he thought that that that who am I? What can I create? What can I make of myself? I'm over here, I'm on the outskirts, I'm like like chas v'shalom you could say, like Esav, like Yishmael over here. All of the every at every generation, there was somebody who was left out. All of the brothers had gotten together and they had excluded him, he was on the outs.

And he found out, no, I'm already on the חושן משפט, all I have to do is not lose it. I'm I'm Yosef Hatzadik. And this inspiration can pull a person through anything. Back in the text says again, every person wants to be doing the right thing, yirat Shamayim, but in order to tap in, how are we going to tap in? We don't see this, we don't have hisorerus. So we we just spoke about hisorerus, how how can a person find the desire either in principle or practically to take that first step? And then, אפילו מי שיש לו התעוררות לתשובה, fine, I want to do the right thing, what am I going to do? Let me pull out a vidui, one of these viduyim that have 8,000 different aveirot, and I'm going to see all the things that I'm doing like one thing right, Or I'm going to pull out a standard sefer off the shelf with all of the good things, and I'm going to pick something to work on, and the truth is I could work on it, maybe I'll even be successful working on it, but is that going to change me?

Is that going to change the things that I've messed up? People have different personalities. Even when it comes to learning, there are people that have studious personalities, right? They could sit and do a crossword puzzle for 10 hours. There's a person who's jumpy. When it comes to, let's say, not getting angry, there are people besides for besides for avodat Hashem, there are people that are very volatile, there are people that are much more cool. People have totally different avodot and there could be a yetzer hara to work on something that you don't really have to work on. There are definitely certain aveirot that are more מסוגל, and they're that are more you have to have a רבי to tell you. Sometimes, they can look at the world, they can look at what's going wrong, and they can say that there's a פגמיות in a certain area, whether on a communal level, on a personal level, and this is what to work on.

But absent this idea, to just say, "Oh, I'm going Something went wrong, I'm going to work on X." And it could be that you have no problem with X. Maybe you're taking on something else in a בין אדם למקום realm, and maybe your problem is בין אדם לחבירו. Maybe a person says, "I'm going to give more tzedakah." Maybe his problem is honesty in business. A person needs to be able to find what they need in order to get closer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's their piece of the puzzle. Working on somebody else's piece, right, like the like the Kotzker, I think, said, "If I am I, and you are you, then I am I, and you are you. But if I'm trying to be you, and you're trying to be me," I forget the lashon, probably better in Yiddish anyway, "then I can't I'm not going to accomplish I'm not going to I'm going to end up sacrificing my own gadlus, and I'm definitely not going to do your job better than you, and I'm going to lose everything." So even a person who has hit'orerus for teshuvah, maybe he's not going to be zoche to come to השער של תשובה ששייך לו.

He's not going to come to his gate. And even though we said that there's 49 gates, he works through, but the access point, the first gate, ואפילו אם מגיע לשם, יכול להיות שהשער של תשובה סגור, this gate might be closed. ומחמת זה, כל זה, אין האדם זוכה לתשובה, and because of these things, a person, again, not chas v'shalom, a person is not going to be זוכה לתשובה. He could he can go through a lot of the motions, but this teshuvah, this actual connection, this return, this relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, which we which we said is and and this is where we're going, I I believe.

What's this zechus for teshuvah? This zechus for teshuvah is the 50th gate. How do you achieve the 50th gate? By engaging in the 49. But not only the the חפץ for yirat shamayim, not only the חפץ to be going through the motions, to be doing the right things, but the the idea that a person has to fix the pagam, that idea that a person has to be able to to to return, to make Hakadosh Baruch Hu his priority, which we're going to leave that for now. Not every person is going to be able to be זוכה לתשובה. Hakadosh Baruch Hu will do His part, but we have to do our part. And even if we're חפץ for yirat shamayim, but in order to be able to integrate, to incorporate, to change ourself from inside out, which takes only a true expression and a screaming out and a true desire, השיבנו ה' אליך, that is what Hashem wants.

And we're not saying השיבנו ה' אליך, we could literally be saying the words, Likutei Halachos said, and and and not understanding that that actually is the connection. We could be literally saying the same words. Two people could be saying השיבנו ה' אליך, and one person is saying, "God, it's on You. I don't I I I don't want to have to put in this work." שונא מתנות יחיה, the person is entitled, "You take the first step, and then I'll take another step." Another person is saying השיבנו ה' אליך, he's saying, "I don't know where to start, Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I I want You, and I understand that there's nothing else to life, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu, all I can do is scream out." They're mamash saying the same words, indistinguishable from the outside, and yet, one person is engaged, and the other person is not.

וזה בחינת נאום הגבר הוקם על, it's a pasuk at the end of שמואל, ודרשו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה שהקים עולה של תשובה. The pasuk says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was established on high, but the Chazal in Moed Katan say שהקים עולה של תשובה, that that Dovid Hamelech established the maalah of teshuvah. נעים זמירות ישראל, and the pasuk continues, it talks about zemirot. Why? What's the connection? כי על ידי בחינת נעים זמירות ישראל, through the songs, through the ספר תהילים, דהיינו ספר תהילים שיסד, that David Hamelech established Tehillim, and the pesukim, it's brought down over here in by Likutei Halachot, אחת שאלתי מאת ה' אותה אבקש, this is all I want, this is my entire request, הורני ה' דרכך, השם should teach me the way, למדני לעשות רצונך, and it goes through that all of all of the opposition to David, either he's talking keneged the Sitra Achra, or even his physical enemies that were really coming against Hakadosh Baruch Hu, what David Hamelech represented, David Hamelech was it was was fighting back on behalf of Hashem.

David Hamelech wasn't fighting against individual enemies, like Rav Avigdor Miller says by the Chashmonaim, ריבה ריבנו, דון דיננו. What did it mean, Hakadosh Hakadosh Baruch Hu fought our fight. We fought Hashem's fight! Hakadosh Baruch Hu wasn't fighting on our behalf. No, because when a person becomes total, in a state of totalest bittul to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, they take Hashem personally. That's their only drive. A talmid chacham, a tzaddik, is a an extension of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, until you get to a to a Moshe Mashiach that שכינה מדבר מתוך גרונו, הקדוש ברוך הוא is fighting their fight! That's when a person is aligned with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Yes, we have to also an extension and a tenai of this is to make sure that our actions fit our ratzon.

And how do you know if a person is serious? A person has to come in line, a person has to take steps, and a person's not going to be perfect on day one. We say at the end of, you know, a Shemoneh Esrei, יהי רצון שלא אחטא, because I only have it in my capacity to take one step at a time. I can't be perfect tomorrow, otherwise I'll fall. So I say Hakadosh Baruch Hu, while I'm working on it, יהי רצון שלא אחטא. I'm not going to be perfect tomorrow, but what what are my desires? What are my ambitions? What are my goals? What do I want? I am totally aligned with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. This was David Hamelech. And what was David Hamelech's expression of this? Sefer Tehillim. Let's look at Sefer Tehillim. There's ups and downs, there's light and dark. Having being totally committed, aligned, integrated with Hakadosh Baruch Hu does not mean only ups.

על ידי זה הוקם עולה של תשובה. This was the ma'alah of teshuvah. This is connecting with הקדוש ברוך הוא, כי על ידי תהילים זוכין לתשובה כנ״ל. Through Tehillim, we are zocheh to teshuvah. And and and Tehillim gives us the context. I'll tell you one short vort. We just had we just had Parshat Ki Tavo. It's one of the things that I speak out at my seder every year, that we have להראות that that we left Mitzrayim. Why are we learning the the core of the Haggadah, okay, the חכם, the רשע, all the things about talking telling us how to say the Haggadah. What's the Haggadah? The Haggadah, סיפור יציאת מצרים, the Haggadah is the four pesukim in Ki Tavo.

Why? Why? And then what do we do? We spend the whole time reading Midrash says and going through the individual מכות and all this. So why don't we have pesukim from Vaeira, Bo, Beshalach? Why are we saying four pesukim, four pesukim from from Ki Tavo? Four pesukim from ביכורים? Nobody that gave ביכורים the first time they went to Eretz Yisrael was even in Mitzrayim! All the people had died out in the מדבר, and the people by the time they went to the Beit Hamikdash, they weren't slaves! Why are we taking the pesukim as the platform for starting to talk about יציאת מצרים from from the pesukim from ביכורים? And I I don't think that this is my vort.

I don't remember unfortunately where I heard it, but the the the the general idea is Rav Reuven Leuchter says something similar to this, although I don't remember where he says it on which part of the Haggadah. A sipur is a story. The story is not the facts. Reuven gave Shimon a hundred dollars. Did he lend him money? Did he pay him back money? Was he giving him tzedakah? Was he just giving him money to get him off his back? Was he giving him a hundred dollars out of a request for a thousand? I could come up with a a thousand different stories to define the fact, and they're all different. In fact, the story could be true even without the facts.

The tortoise and the hare: slow and steady wins the race. There doesn't have to be a rabbit and a turtle. It doesn't make a difference. And therefore, ביכורים, hakarat hatov, understanding your relationship with הקדוש ברוך הוא. I just worked for the entire season. Everything that I have came from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I give Hakadosh Baruch Hu the first fruit. Go back and learn up all of bikkurim. But the bikkurim tells the story. Now that I have the story, now I can go back and look at the individual pieces. Sefer Tehillim tells the story. Sefer Tehillim is the is the contact with context in which we can relate to every emotion, every instance, every happening in life.

And sometimes it's a fact in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes the what we're going through is in the middle of the story, but when I understand that it's part of a process, a שטעל צו to the malchut, I understand that there's a shleimut and that shleimut seems to involve some קאפיטלעך that on their own don't seem to make sense. They're in the middle of nowhere. You have David Hamelech who's who's trying to to to run away to not get killed by one of his own sons, and David Hamelech says a mizmor, not a קינה, the the Gemara explains why. That allows us to get close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. וזה שאמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה, לא היה דוד ראוי לאותו מעשה, דוד המלך shouldn't have done the sin with בת שבע.

On his own, he wouldn't have, אלא כדי להורות תשובה ליחיד. But to to show, to guide a yachid towards teshuva, נמצא now, okay, we're not going to go into that entire סוגיא what it means he should have sinned, he shouldn't have sinned. But the but the point that Rabbeinu is bringing from this is to attribute everything to bring a source to what we're saying: נמצא שעיקר הוראת תשובה על ידי דוד המלך, that this entire inyan of teshuva is through David Hamelech, Mashiach, the shleimut. ועיקר התשובה של דוד המלך הוא ספר תהילים, and therefore the entire teshuva process for a yachid is to find themself within Tehillim.

know, understand that, no, they might not be the guitar player, they might not be the lead singer, maybe it's just one part, and maybe that part on its own the the the instrument doesn't even sound that great, right? We talk by the ketoret, that one of the ingredients didn't smell that great, but without it it's not כשר, that's necessary. There are people that win Oscars in the movies for playing a part that doesn't seem the part that everybody wants to play, maybe they were a schlepper, and yet this was their גדלות, right? After, we're going to look back at the story and we're going to see exactly what we needed to play, and that might have been the entire most pivotal part. Again, David Hamelech, go through the נביא, he did not have an easy life, and yet, if we find ourselves in Tehillim, we can understand and embrace this role, and our role in general, and every single aspect of our life, where Hakadosh Baruch Hu is embracing us, and some of it might be more pleasant at the time or less pleasant.

The Gemara says, נוח לו לאדם שלא נברא. It doesn't say good, it says pleasant. The easiest way to not sin, the easiest way to not get into an accident is by not leaving the station. Sometimes for a person to accomplish, chas veshalom, there's going to be ups and downs. But when we accomplish and we look back, this is going to be what we celebrate. The Kuzari makes this point also, right? When when when there's an ultimate success, we look back and we embrace, and we celebrate, and we champion, and we we the what we spend most of our time talking about in the book is the hard times, then we look at it differently afterwards. So we have emunah knowing that we're going to look back at it. Comes Mashiach, comes our own personal geulah, let alone the the the the global geulah.

But finding ourself and knowing that, yes, this is just that part of the process, Tehillim is where we find that. שאמרו בהתעוררות גדול מאוד ברוח הקודש, תהלים was said with התעוררות רוח הקודש, על כל, עד שכל אחד ואחד כפי מה שהוא, every single person, יכול למצוא את עצמו בתוך ספר תהלים, ולזכות לתשובה על ידי אמירת תהלים כנ״ל, and this is how every person can find themselves in Tehillim כנ״ל. I know it's a little late. If you listen to the recording, then maybe just break it up into two separate things, but I'm going to push through and just finish this wonderful, wonderful Torah while while we're inspired, while we're in it.

As we go forward, I'm going to mention it was just Chai Elul, by the way, I'm just going to mention two short thoughts that really I think tie bring this together and tie it into the next piece from the Baal HaTanya. One of them is in Iggeres HaKodesh, the fourth section of Tanya, in letter 18. He says, מה יפית ומה נעמת אהבה בתענוגים. Says there's two types of ahavah. האחת אהבה בתענוגים, דהיינו שמתענג על ה׳ עונג נפלא. This is something that's unbelievable, it's outside the realm of what we can really relate to, בשמחה רבה ועצומה שמחת הנפש וכלותה. This relationship with הקדוש ברוך הוא, בטעמו כי טוב ה׳ ונועם נעימות עריבות עד להפליא.

There's a certain relationship with הקדוש ברוך הוא which is just us tied close, אהבת אהבת ה׳, which is more than we can even imagine, wrap our mind around, access, with no relationship with מעין עולם הבא ממש שנהנין. ועל זה כתיב שמחו צדיקים בה׳. This is where tzaddikim are able to reach, ולא כל אדם זוכה לזה. Okay, so he's talking a little bit in a different context, but he says that there is a certain relationship with הקדוש ברוך הוא that we are not zocheh to. וזו בחינת כלה ברעותא דלבא שבזהר הקודש, ועל זה נאמר עבודת מתנה. So he says there is a certain relationship with הקדוש ברוך הוא even by tzaddikim, not everybody is zocheh to it.

Okay, we see already some reminiscent ideas, but it's a matana. It's something that when a person becomes a tzaddik, a tzaddik isn't born it, we have to we have to work towards being a tzaddik, okay, leaving aside the tzaddik beinoni discussion, but הקדוש ברוך הוא will give this ahavah which we have towards הקדוש ברוך הוא, it's a matana, and not everybody has it, okay? כי אין, they skip a line, כי אין דרך להשיגה על ידי יגיעת בשר כמו היראה, because the derech to reach this stage of a relationship with הקדוש ברוך הוא is not attainable by human efforts like it is with yirah, right?

Like we said, הכל חפצים ליראת השם, ששואלין לא יגעת ביראה? That it's going to be asked, did we were we yagata? Did we labor? Did we work to reach yirah or did we work with yirah? ועמל בשר שנתיגע ביראה, that part is within what we can do. Everybody can work towards yirah, even if we're not zocheh to the higher level. כמו שכתוב ראשית חכמה, וכתיב ביראה אם תבקשנה ככסף מלמד שצריכה יגיעה רבה ועצומה כמחפש אחר אוצרות. אבל אהבה רבה, says the Alter Rebbe, אהבה בתענוגים נופלת לאדם מאליה מלמעלה, that comes a person has no control over that.

HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives him this level of אהבה, בלי שיכין ויכוין לה. A person can't prepare for it directly, a person can't intend for it, אך ורק אחר שנתיגע ביראת הרוממות, Once a person is נתייגע in the yirah that he does have a relationship with, and he'll be held to task for it, הגיע לתכלית מה שיוכל להשיג ממנה לפי בחינת נשמתו, a person finds his place, his gate, a person has to find his place within the 49 gates like we're like we're saying, a person is able to say that he fully engaged and worked towards what's in the realm of what he can work towards, אז ממילא בא אהבה בתענוגים מלמעלה לשכון ולתייחד עם היראה.

Then the אהבה בתענוגים will come from above and will join become united with the יראה כי דרכו של איש לחזר, okay, etc., he goes on. We're going to say one more idea from from the Alter Rebbe and then we're going to see that Rabbeinu is not telling us chiddushim, he's just opening our eyes and leading us to well-founded concepts that that will show us how we can how we can reach out to something that we think is just totally inaccessible. What is it that HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants from us? HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants us to take the first step, and that first step is mamash nothing momentous.

It's just a desire to say השיבנו השם אליך and to mean it, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu will even give us those words, and it's just קחו. Okay, one more from letter 8 in Iggeret HaKodesh. It says הכל תלוי באתערותא דלתתא. HaKadosh Baruch Hu created a structure of the world where we put in a step, and then HaKadosh Baruch Hu responds, right? שובו שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם. כשאדם מתנהג בחסידות להשפיע חיים וחסד, if a person conducts himself to give to open up those doors, people give tzedakah before Rabbeinu talks about this, in several places he mentions about giving tzedakah before Shacharit, so we're about to ask HaKadosh Baruch Hu to give us tzedakah, things that we need, things that we want.

So what do we do? We open up those gates, we start giving from those who have to those who need. We give tzedakah, and therefore those gates are open. We ask HaKadosh Baruch Hu that it should be inspired, poured now through those gates, those gates of tzedakah. כך מעורר למעלה, says the Alter Rebbe, כמו שאמרו רבותינו זכרונם לברכה במידה שאדם מודד בה מודדין לו. We're the ones who open up that faucet, right? השם צלך על יד ימינך, in the midah that we act, HaKadosh Baruch Hu gives to us. But now we have a problem. We just said teshuvah is so easy, but teshuvah is not so easy, might might be so easy to do, and yet we're looking for something that's momentous, we're looking for that 50th gate.

How is that fair? How does that follow the system of אתערותא דלתתא אתערותא דלעילא? How does that follow the system of midah keneged midah? Is that should we be asking for something so disproportionate? That's miraculous, we're not allowed to be somech on a nes, so that seems to be outside the system. So he goes on, skipping a little bit, so he says, the Alter Rebbe says, אלא דהארה זו אינה מן המידה כי אם להשפיע לו חיי עולם הבא לבד כנגד מה שהוא משפיע חיי עולם הזה. It seems to be that this this divine response is not the same measure, it's אינה מן המידה. A person seems to deserve only only עולם הבא granted him that would correspond כנגד what he did in עולם הזה, and yet we seem to be asking for something so much greater than we did.

אבל לא להשפיע לו הארת אור השם ממש שיאיר ויגיה חשכו בעבודה שבלב זו תפילה, this is in our תורה השיבנו השם אליך, that that שובו אלי ואשובה אליכם, that we should get this unbelievable light that's going to relate, that's going to form the connection that of of of עבודה שבלב זו תפילה, שהיא, here it is, בבחינת ומדרגת תשובה עילאה כנודע, שהרי היא למעלה מעלה מכל חיי עולם הבא. The level of תשובה עילאה, which Rabbeinu says also, and the Baal HaTanya says this as well, that the level of teshuvah aligns with the level of בינה.

Again, in the ספירות, you can think about the מוחין, the intellectual ספירות, which are really at the at the at the seat that they lead into the emotions, right? We've we've quoted before, I think Rav Nolobiansky might make this point, a person who's happy at a funeral or sad at a wedding is emotionally unstable. A stable person, the intellect leads through to the emotions. There's חכמה, there's the spark of an idea, there's the בינה that fleshes it out, the דעת is the ממוצע that integrates and incorporates, and then it leads into the into the emotions. The level of תשובה עילאה is at the level in the ספירות, these are Chassidishe, these are the kabbalistic concepts, we'll just bear with it for a second.

The level of teshuvah is at the level of the מוחין, it's at the level of the בינה. How do we connect the בינה, how do we incorporate and integrate that knowledge so that it translates necessarily into an emotion? The דעת is going to lead, is going to connect the חכמה and בינה, the אבא and אימא, the teshuvah which is which is in the בינה, right? The חכמה is the אבא, the אימא is the בינה, and then it's מוליד and there's a זיווג and it brings forward things. What brings forward from the בינה into the מידות? That's going to be the ממוצע, that's going to be דעת. Now let's go back to Rabbeinu and bearing these thoughts in mind let's see what he says.

Keeping in mind that some of these are high concepts, but we're going to see what we can take out of it. עיקר הזדככות שמות שרשי שבטי י-ה, what was the עיקר purification, שהם מ״ט אותיות, where they were able to come to the the true expression of each one as individually part of the Malchut, part of כלל ישראל, שהם בחינת מ״ט שערי תשובה, it's brought in the Zohar, that these מ״ט אותיות, which again are the entirety of the מ״ט אותיות within the the names of the י״ב שבטים, Rav Atiya points out different ways of spelling it, what it's relating to. These relate to the מ״ט שערי תשובה, which we said are accessible, this is within the realm of yirah, הכל חפצים ליראה.

This was b'Mitzrayim, which was the the כור הברזל, the purification, we were able to make בירורים, to get in touch with these to to come back to our source, שבחינת מיצר גרון, that Mitzrayim was like a narrowing of the גרון, which which Rav Atiya points out that this גרון is a bechinah of the sefirah of binah. The Rabbi' Chaim Kramer points out that Mitzrayim represented the forces of impurity capturing holy speech and keeping it from emerging, which we're talking about השיבנו ה' אליך, we're talking about tefillah, that Paroh was trying, the Mesilat Yesharim already said that he kept them busy to get them to not scream out.

Where is the where is the Haggadah, where is the pivotal moment? ונצעק, שבחינת תשובה עילאה, that this where binah is, the sefirah of binah is תשובה עילאה. Paroh was trying to create gevul, Paroh was trying to narrow it so that we couldn't get in touch, he was going to break off this connection to תשובה עילאה, to binah, he was going to narrow the speech, narrow the tefillah to give us this connection, כמובא בכתבי האר״י ז״ל. Without getting into the the full quote from the Pri Etz Chaim, from the Kitvei HaAri, again, at least just in terms of the analogy that we're using, it says that what Paroh did was he was מעכב the טיפה היורדת לחוט השדרה, from like we said, from the mochin, from the brain into the שדרה, ויורד משם להשפיע לז״א הנקרא ישראל.

So again, it's hard to understand this, it's a different language, but the flow would be from חכמה to בינה, right? To אבא to אימא, and then from there it goes through, this is in the מוחין, this is in the brain, and then it goes, like the Ari said, to the חוט השדרה which represents the ז״א, the זעיר אנפין. זעיר אנפין would be the מדות and then the נוק', but it's חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד would be the ז״א. So in the in the Ari z"l's language, he says that Pharaoh was trying to stop the connection, stop the flow from בינה where the 50 gates of תשובה are into the ז״א, into the זעיר אנפין, into the מדות where ישראל is.

ישראל we said has a relationship with the מדות, ישראל has a relationship with the with the 7 x 7, with the 49, with יראת השם, but what we need is we need we're trying to bridge that connection where we're going to say we've come to that point and now הקדוש ברוך הוא bridge that gap. Pharaoh is מיצר ים. ים is גימטריא 50. Pharaoh was trying to constrict, he was trying to constrict the דיבור, constrict the תפילה, constrict that connection between us and הקדוש ברוך הוא, like the Baal HaTanya said, up till the point that הקדוש ברוך הוא could bring down from מעלה מעלה this this relationship. ועיין שם והבן היטב.

ועל כן, and therefore, אחר שנזדככו שם במצרים, after we were purified in מצרים and we we we did relate in a positive, purified way of בירור into these 49 letters, these 49 letters of the שבטים, the 49 שערי תשובה, the שער got up to the point of שער of הקדוש ברוך הוא, so to speak, then what happened? זכו לצאת משם, we were able to go out of the מיצר גרון, we opened up, we screamed past it, we drew that connection, then we were out of the מיצר ים. Now it opened up, the constrictions were gone.

ספרו מ״ט ימי הספירה שהם כנגד מ״ט שערי תשובה שהם בחינת מ״ט אותיות הנ״ל. Then we were able to engage with ourself. We were getting back to the 49 letters of the שבטים. We were able to grow because not because we were trying to create something that we're not, all we have to do is get back in touch with ourself. וביום החמישים, אז וירד ה' על הר סיני, זה בחינת ואשובה אליכם. What happens after we're able to get to the extent to fulfill our potential, to find our own entrance point, and to understand that we're part of the process of שלמות כלל ישראל, ישראל ואורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא חד הוא, that we got the Torah, that we had that connection with HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that totally direct connection where where where we all achieved that level of nevuah, and the first two dibrot certainly where we where where it says that Klal Yisrael died, we got we we we were able to anything that was even beyond what a human being could handle, that was the 50th day.

In fact, we know that on the on the second day of Pesach we bring the קרבן עומר. The קרבן עומר is barley, but none of the korbanot in the Beit HaMikdash were chametz except for the 10 out of the 40 loaves of the todah and And the שתי הלחם on Shavuot, right? We started off and we make birur, we divorce ourselves from chametz. Once we reach the level of 50, HaKadosh Baruch Hu comes, then the korban itself is chametz. At that point it's full integration, it's full attachment. On the 50th day when we get to Shavuot, that's a bechinah of תשובה של השם יתברך בעצמו כביכול בחינת שער החמישים כנ״ל. Once our avodah, once we can make the birur, once we can find ourself, we can engage the 49, once we find ourself in Tehillim, then we're zocheh to that sheleimut which is the bechinah of malchut, we're מקבל עול מלכות שמים.

We said that the 49 letters of Shema and Baruch Shem, once we do our piece and we mamash internalize, then we could be zocheh to teshuvah. That teshuvah is not our teshuvah. That teshuvah is the result of HaKadosh Baruch Hu's teshuvah. Going back for just one more second to that to the letter by the Baal HaTanya, yeah, I'll just speak it out outside, he says this is not something that's, I mean, everything is miraculous. This is not something that we don't relate to. Think about a seed. If you think about planting a seed, it's in that it's in that eighth letter, what are we doing over here? We think that it's natural, it's middah k'neged middah.

I planted an apple seed, you planted an orange seed, they both grew out of the same ground. Are you telling me that the full tree, all the wood, the fruits that come out, the other seeds are in this seed? No, open the seed, put it under a microscope, it's not there, right? And what about the seed itself? If you put the seed in the ground and then you'd open up the ground, you'd find the seed decayed, the seed is not even there. The seed is bringing me כח אל הפועל. You have, so to speak, kivyakhol, an unlimited amount of energy in the soil that can that's activated, if you plant an orange seed, then it'll it'll be activated that chelek of the koach in the soil like that.

If you put an orange seed, then it'll activate that chelek. But the same ground you put a seed in, there's nothing in the seed, and the seed decays itself and yet all of a sudden this koach is activated, and we say that that's that's like middah k'neged middah, right? We know exactly what we're doing, there's cause and effect. I plant a seed and something grows. Over here also Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not saying that we are able to achieve the result on our own. Actually, decidedly not. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, all he's asking for is השיבנו השם אליך. How do we do that? How do we develop this hisorerut? Being מקבל עול מלכות שמים, the 49 gates, שמע ישראל, ברוך שם. Where do we find ourselves?

How אין מלך בלא עם, how are we מקבל עול מלכות שמים? Are we all supposed to be a general in the army? Are we all supposed to be in kollel? Are we all supposed to be a Rebbe? Are we all supposed to be the head of Hatzalah? I don't know, whatever it is that you look toward? No, we're all supposed to be us. We're all supposed to find our שער. How does a person do that? Tehillim. וזהו ואלה שמות בני ישראל הבאים מצרימה את יעקב איש וביתו סופי תיבות, if you circle the last letters of that entire פסוק, הם אותיות תהילים ואותיות תשובה. That that's where comes the בני ישראל הבאים מצרימה, יעקב, יעקב איש וביתו, the the the 12 שבטים, the 49 levels of the שבטים, כלל ישראל, how did we achieve our status?

Again, ישראל ואורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא חד הוא, ישראל came to to to to be mekabel the Torah. How do we achieve that that Hakadosh Baruch Hu came down, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it says even that the the that that the the זוהמא from the חטא הראשון left us by by מעמד הר סיני? Through teshuvah, through doing the 49 levels and then Hakadosh Baruch Hu coming down the 50th level, through Tehillim. כי על ידי תהילים זוכין לתשובה שהיא בחינת שמות בני ישראל הבאים מצרימה, כי מ״ט שערי תשובה הם בחינת מ״ט אותיות שיש בשמות בני ישראל הבאים מצרימה. The 49 gates of teshuvah are the 49 letters of the שבטים, להזדכך שם, and that's where we become purified.

There's no overlap, there's no mixture. We identify what our gate is as part of the shlemut, our piece of the puzzle, our brick in the arch. We we recognize that shlemut doesn't involve us being objectively perfect. Shlemut involves us being the perfect us. The perfect us is somebody who is looking in the right direction, who's screaming out, who's asking for it, who's taking the words that Hakadosh Baruch Hu himself provides us, and קחו עמכם דברים. What are these words? We can find them in Tehillim. וזה שאנו רואים שבימי תשובה דהיינו באלול ועשרת ימי תשובה, this is why we find davka during these times which are mesugal for תשובה, כל ישראל עוסקים באמירת תהילים, it's brought down, some people say 10 Tehillim a day during Elul, which is the entire Sefer Tehillim twice and then 15 during עשרת ימי תשובה, different minhagim maybe, כי אמירת תהילים מסוגל לתשובה כנ״ל, ועל כן הוא דבר גדול מאוד לעסוק תמיד באמירת תהילים, and a person should always be engaging in תהילים, כי תהילים הוא התעוררות גדול מאוד מאוד להשם יתברך, אשרי שיאחז בו, fortunate is the person that takes this.

And as we finish, I mean, there's really nothing to add, I'm just going to read just a paragraph that I found particularly inspiring from Rav Itche Meir in the Bayam Darkecha on Elul, he says הקושי שאנשים מתקשים בעבודת ימי חודש אלול, what is the hard part? It's נובע, it flows from the fact that people think that their job is להצליח להגיע לשלמות המעשים. People think that they have to be perfect. אבל באמת, מהות התשובה is לשוב אל השם יתברך, דהיינו לשוב לחיות חיי נשמות, להאמין בו יתברך, לחיות איתו, לדבק בו. A person has to live with Hashem. What what does this mean to live with Hakadosh Baruch Hu?

A person says, and I'm going to quote, you can copy this down, "אבא, אני חוזר אליך בכל לבי." Right? You have a kid, he might have done a thousand wrong things, but this was really he was being rebellious, he didn't care. We'll clean up all of the spilled milk later on. The first thing, that's for Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashanah comes first. What happens? Again, Rosh Hashanah, we've said before, is not the last year day of the year, it's not a din on everything that happened. Yom Kippur is going to be a judgment on the year. Rosh Hashanah, the first Rosh Hashanah, there was no even thing to to to say I'm sorry for. Adam, it was the Adam Harishon's birthday. The very first Rosh Hashanah of the world, necessarily it was not a teshuvah on the past, it was a יום הדין on the future.

We do teshuvah to fix ourself in order that we should be able to stand before Hakadosh Baruch Hu and in a realistic way present ourself for din on the future. What is that teshuvah? "אבא, אני חוזר אליך בכל לבי, ומהיום אני רק שלך." Abba, I'm yours. "מהיום הלב שלי איתך," my heart is with you, "והרצון שלי הוא לחיות איתך." And my הרצון שלי, my my my ratzon is to live with you. My my my, I should be vibrant, I should be alive. My energy, my life force is to live with you. "ואני אשתדל ללכת בדרכיך," I'm going to try, "לפי כוחי," according to where I am.

Yes, the tenai for teshuvah is to work on ma'asim. The question is the direction, the question is השיבנו. והקרבנו comes afterwards. השיבנו השם אליך, are we looking in the right direction? But לפי כוחי, לפי where I am. If I if it's not where I am and I'm just presenting, pretending I'm something I'm not, then it's not the tefillah has no integrity. We have no credibility. I almost necessarily have to acknowledge where I'm holding, and I say, "השיבנו השם אליך." And this is all HaKadosh Baruch Hu wants, קחו עמכם דברים. And then HaKadosh Baruch Hu says, "You're saying השיבנו? That's all I asked, שובו אלי." And then HaKadosh Baruch Hu is going to be אשובה אליכם.

כתיבה