Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Anyone who has learned anything 'pnimi' regarding Yom Kippur understands that the joy this day contains is immeasurable.
Okay, בוקר טוב everyone, thank you for coming. Good morning, ברוך אתה ה' אלוקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו.
אמן. Our learning is for the עילוי נשמה of בתיה פייגא בת ישראל and for the עילוי נשמה of לוי בן יוסף, and for the שמירה, בעזרת ה', על חיילינו הקדושים והצדיקים והטהורים.
And for the return, we're not giving up for one second, for the return of כל החטופים.There's a bunch, we probably need more chairs. she went out to get. In the בית מדרש we could take the non-כתר chairs, the the the the better chairs, whatever you want to call it.We have something very, very, very special and important to be learning today. Very special and important.
Before that, just an observation that I was sharing with someone over שבת. Maybe you share it as well, maybe this happens to you in your life as well. Growing up, ראש השנה was just like a beautiful, nice שמחה. It was like a שמחה.
ראש השנה, happy, שנה טובה, הכל בסדר. And יום כיפור was like פחד ו, פחד עצום, like a, יום כיפור was the day of like ממש fear, fear, fear. Thank you.
יום כיפור was ממש fear.ראש השנה was the שמחה.
שנה טובה, dip the apple in the honey. That was like the soundtrack of of ראש השנה. It was happy, was just like chill, happy, nice. Let's see how good the בעל תוקע is, hopefully good ניגונים in שול, right? And יום כיפור was like this פחד על היום והנורא.
Then, not sure when this happened, it flips.
ראש השנה is פחד איים ונורא.
ראש השנה is like this inner like real, you sense the יום הדין in such an intense, intense, intense way. And then יום כיפור is like this is is the שמחה.
Just שמחה. And it flips over.Obviously, the more that you learn the תורה of the בעל שם טוב, the more you're learning חסידות, the more that what I just said appears, shows up. The more really you learn any any of the ספרים of פנימיות, the more that what we just said right now becomes the מציאות. And therefore, we're we're right now in a place, it's not good to say this before ראש השנה because there was enough דין that we felt, and they're really enough to say guys, שנה טובה, you basically look at people and say, שנה טובה.
אמן.
שנה טובה. And now we could say now, because יום כיפור, where are we heading towards? We're heading towards ממש the most the most wondrous and beautiful day of the whole year. The שאלה we have today that we're going to touch upon is, what is the what really is the שמחה of this day all about? And is it okay to really use the word שמחה for יום כיפור?And in order to do that, we're going to be seeing two short pieces here.
One from the סוכוטשובר רבי, the שם משמואל, and then the most beautiful piece from the רבי, from the לובאוויטשער רבי, נשמתו עדן, that I think will will מכוון us in the most direct, simple way. It's not so complicated today. Direct us in the most simple and מכוון way towards the פנימיות of this day that's coming up right now, which is יום כיפור, which as we wrote in the title over here is it's a יום של אמת. It's a day of truth.
And I find this to be extremely important to speak about it דוקא this year, to speak about this מידה, the שמחה of this day being a יום של אמת, a day, a day of ממש truth. There's no better way to say to say it, because the opposite of truth is really what's reigning in the world right now, seems to be. The exact הפוך, the exact הפך of the מידה of אמת is what's happening everywhere, but we are plugged in, we hopefully are plugged in to the מידה of אמת. A day of אמת.
That's why יום כיפור we're going to see is the day of truth. But as many of us grew up with a certain line in our minds: You can't handle the truth, right? I want to handle the... where's יוני when you need him. I want to handle the truth, right? I think we can handle the truth.
I'm quite certain we can handle the truth. So the שם משמואל בסוכתו של הרבי says you want to know what what appears, what appears on יום כיפור? It's so beautiful, it's so real.
ביום הכיפורים מופיעה מידת האמת, the מידה of אמת. It's one of the י"ג מידות הרחמים, השם השם קל רחום וחנון ארך אפים ורב חסד ואמת.
Interestingly, the י"ג מידות רחמים show up how many times in the תורה, in actual תורה, anyone know? Twice, נכון. The first time is when? The first time is חטא העגל. Second time is חטא המרגלים. But there's one מידה that's not mentioned by the חטא של המרגלים.
By after חטא העגל, השם השם קל רחום וחנון ארך אפים ורב חסד ואמת, נכון? By the מרגלים when they speak about ארץ ישראל, so there was a word missing from the י"ג מידות רחמים.
השם השם קל רחום וחנון ארך אפים ורב חסד.
נוצר חסד לאלפים נושא עוון ופשע וחטאה ונקה. The אמת, אה? Also ביונה.
I said in the תורה, in the תורה, just in the תורה.
ביונה there's no אמת you're saying. Interesting. But ביום כיפור we're דוקא bringing up that this is דוקא the מידה of, the day, the סוכתו של הרבי is מתגלה.
What's revealed is the מידה of אמת, of truth.
ובמידת האמת, and on the level of אמת, ישראל לעולם זכאים. On the מידה of truth, יידן are always זכאי.
זכאי means? Worthy of סליחה, כפרה, the whole גאנצע געשעפט, the whole everything that that השם wants to give us on the מידה of אמת.
כי אמת הוא דבר שהוא בעצם. We're talking about the מידה is a מידה of אמת is something that is קשור to the עצם of something, to the essence. In the essence of who we are, we are people of אמת. We are.
In the מידה of, in the essence of who we are, we're people of אמת. The second line, וכל דבר שהוא במקרה, anything that's happenstance and that happens to be, אין לנו אמת.
שכל דבר שהוא בעצם איננו משתנה. Anything, when we're speaking about source, about root stuff, about essential matters, it never changes.
ואם נראה בו שינוי הוא לשעתו בלבד. If we see some kind of a change from being your עצם, the רבי says it's just temporary. It's just a temporary change. It's not really, זה לא מצביע על שום דבר.
It doesn't mean anything. Because in the עצם of who we are, nothing can, nothing can move us from the מידה of אמת, of truth. So the rest is is not as important as I wanted to to bring out over here that this מידה of אמת shows up on יום הכיפורים. And you can say if that's the truth, then why do I have to be so bothered with a whole month and ten days, with forty days of כביכול working on myself and trying to change things about myself? If at the end of the day, יום כיפור, the מידה of אמת shines, the אמת is that in my essence I'm a געוואלד, then why do I have to work so hard on the forty days beforehand? It's a simple, just a simple חשיבה.
We all know about יום כיפור we have a statement, עיצומו של יום מכפר. What does that mean, עיצומו של יום מכפר? The essence of the day is מכפר, like meaning all these things we're hoping for and דאווענען for, when יום כיפור comes and we have the statement from חז"ל that say hey listen, יום כיפור itself is so, it's such a holy day, you know like רב שטיינזלץ told us last year, just make sure you don't get in the way. The עבודה of יום כיפור, don't get in the way. That's it.
Just don't get in the way. But ראש השנה is much harder. Why? I was talking to some of the חברה after שול first, after יום טוב.
ראש השנה there was so many different things going on in the in the air and many people that I spoke to didn't allow them, not many people, I shouldn't say many people.
but sometimes when I speak to two or three people, I think that's everybody because that's just who I was speaking to, right? Because usually people just don't really come to, it's just whatever, a כלל in life. You hear people's complaints much, much more than anything else that anyone ever tells you, right? It's a כלל like that. You just hear, you hear קוועטשינג after the, whatever, it's an עבודה to not make that the spotlight. So some two or three people were not complaining to me about something that I did or something that someone did, but they were complaining that they got they got lost up here in their mind during תקיעות.
They got lost. It wasn't a שחרור. And therefore, they weren't sure they couldn't, they they they they felt like, okay, maybe maybe עשרת ימי תשובה will be will be strong. I needed it to be strong because ראש השנה, I got lost in my thoughts of wondering what's actually being signed right now.
ראש השנה is not, עצומו של ראש השנה is not מכפר. That's not the עבודה of ראש השנה. That's why we said in the beginning of שיעור, ראש השנה in contrast to the way we grew up, is פחד אימים ונורא. There's such a פחד in the air because we don't have this מידה of אמת that's מתגלה on ראש השנה that I can lean on and say, it's all good.
It's all good. There's an עבודה of ראש השנה mainly focused towards our מחשבות, עולם המחשבה. And we have to keep our head, we have to keep our head, and we still do, because it's still the beginning of the year. We have to keep our heads really clear, really clear from going into bad places, the ראש.
That's the ראש of השנה.
יום כיפור is a completely different זאך. Because יום כיפור you could be, if you learn a few minutes before יום כיפור about what יום כיפור is all about, so it doesn't פטר you. It doesn't exempt you.
But I'm saying, ah, whatever.
יום כיפור. It's fine. It's like imagine you learn that on the first day of עשרת ימי תשובה or on the first day of חודש אלול, it's all a march towards יום כיפור.
On יום כיפור itself, עצומו של יום מכפר, the day itself is מכפר, and therefore it really doesn't matter because the מידה of אמת where I really am is going to shine. And I'll do my best but whatever, יום כיפור is going to just cover and take care of everything. That's not how we act either. Why? Because if you know that the מידה of אמת is going to appear in a few days, shining bright, and the עצומו של יום מכפר, that itself brings you such a תיאבון, an appetite, to not feel like a foreigner to what's going to be happening on יום כיפור.
And therefore it exhilarates this amazing sense of השתוקקות, of longing to already be what's going to be revealed about me on יום כיפור, and not the opposite. You understand? Are you with me? Am I, am I, I'm trying to keep it as, trying to take very, these these concepts, these lofty concepts and bring them down over here.
זאת אומרת, if I'm looking for just a bail me out, then יום כיפור will work. But you know what will happen to you? You're not going to have a revelation.
You won't look in the mirror and see the מידה of אמת. You'll just say whatever it's happening. But wouldn't you want to look in the mirror and just see אמת without any ounce of גאווה? That's the highest thing in the world. To look in the mirror, see the מידה of אמת, and not coming at all from a place of haughtiness.
Not even worried about that, not even being trapped in that place of, I shouldn't really feel like that about myself.
חביבי, אתה לא בחרת את זה. This is not you, you didn't create the מידה of אמת in you. You didn't create this מידה of אמת in you.
You were born with it. It's like, the closest I could get to is on a personal example of if I ever had גאווה over being a כהן, that's the most ridiculous thing in the world, right? Look in the mirror, I see a כהן. No, you can't, you don't see a כהן, you're on the level. Get out of your head.
You didn't, you did not choose to be a כהן. It is not your choice. You were born as a כהן. But the same thing on a כלל level happens on יום כיפור where the point of it all is to somehow look in the mirror of all mirrors to realize, wow, מידה of אמת is what's in front of me.
Why?
ככה. למה?
ככה. Because השם decided that in my עצם, I'm one with him. That in my עצם, I'm a person of truth.
It is not something I דוקא worked hard on. It is not something that came to me easily. It's not קשור to the necessarily to עבודה. And if I know that that is what's going to be revealed to me on יום כיפור, then the march in עשירי בתשובה בפרט, שבוע שחל בו, these days right now that we're marching towards is a day of preparation for the greatest שמחה in the world.
Why? Because this ענין that eats at us all the time, all the time, about wondering if we're really for real or not. It just takes, it gets the best of us all the time throughout the year. And תשובה, the point of תשובה, the point of of קחו עמכם דברים ושובו אל השם. The point of every עבודה we're busy with right now, from ראש חודש אלול till really הושענא רבה, till really הושענא רבה, is to identify אמת with me, but not from a place of גאוה.
Out of a place of כי ככה הקדוש ברוך הוא קבע. This is what God said, not me. Yeah. You know, הרב, often you're preaching to the choir, but I think in this case anybody who had any kind of religious background, schooling, was taught the opposite.
Look in the mirror and start counting everything that's wrong with you. This is this is very new and and it's hard to grasp because it sounds like there's גאוה in there. Even the handouts that they gave of על חטא and like you know going so specifically into every, it's... I I have nothing to say.
I am true, it's true. It's true. Can you imagine that the על חטא are for a different purpose? I'd like to. Okay, so let's let's try to develop this.
What could be what how could how could going through the על חטא tie into everything we said until now? If we say that on יום כיפור is מתגלה מדת האמת. So I learned from Reb Shlomo the most basic understanding of it. He said when a איד says על חטא on יום כיפור, do you really think the רבונו של עולם on this day of יום כיפור, where where the the תורה that ended up staying with us was given and משה רבינו comes down from the mountain, that the ענין was to that השם is interested in you giving a detailed account of how much you know that you're filthy? There's no way. It's not my תורה, it's not my אידישקייט.
That is not my relationship with God. Now, going back to what you said, Mindy, I forgive the whole אלטער generation. Because to think otherwise after the Holocaust would have been impossible either. We have to לשחרר.
Let them set them free. Set the, we have, you know, I'm sorry, you know we have we have a lot of good stuff we also got from the older generation of חינוך but when it comes to יום כיפור, you just got to set them free and and just realize like everyone tried their best with their limited access that they had to פנימיות. But now, and it's really what I was trying to, one of the נקודות I was trying to emphasize yesterday afternoon, but now, that access to the deepest תורות in the world, to the פנימיות, to the world of פנימיות התורה is on our fingertips, it's in the palms of our hands, it's everywhere we are. Now, there's no excuse to be able to have a different experience of יום כיפור.
So what did Reb Shlomo, how did you finish off saying? So why do I say the על חטא? Why do I say these על חטא? Because when I the מדה of אמת is revealed in front of me, I'm saying, wow, רבונו של עולם, it's crazy. This last year, I did לשון הרע. It's amazing. You're not going to recognize me this coming year.
This last year, I may have fallen into saying טיפשות פה, ערל שפתים, זלזול הורים ומורים, you name it, right? But you're not saying it and being like, רבונו של עולם, look what I did. You're saying, but today the מדה of אמת is shining and this may have happened to me during the year because I forgot about this day. But I'm not going to forget about this day this year and therefore this is something of the past. And when that's the approach, because the מדה of אמת is shining in the world, it's a different experience of יום כיפור.
Someone who else, someone had their hand up. No, I was just gonna say when you do that, it's for you. It frees you from that heaviness so so you can welcome in the מדה of אמת. Yeah.
I mean these these this like this form of like doing like this is something that especially with סליחות, you know, we're doing every single day for a while. Interesting, מנהג חב"ד, they don't, it's a whole world. Who who here grew up ליובאוויטש? Anyone here grew up ליובאוויטש? Or became... if you probably don't remember this, but לובביץ׳ doesn't say סליחות in עשרת ימי תשובה.
It's a very interesting thing. Yeah. There were years before the years of here there was me and all my friends were serious hardcore חב״דniks between ראש השנה and יום כיפור. That was the we all year long we were לובביץ׳.
That's that's עשרת ימי תשובה. Rabbi Percy says in his שיעור תשובה, the דאחר is in plural, so what we're doing it, it may not be just, we're not just clearing ourselves and we're clearing everybody as א עם. Beautiful. Beautiful.
So now, all this was a הכנה to to explain everything we just said right now. Sometimes we need just need the words of the Rebbe. You know the Rebbe looked at you in your eyes, if you were privileged to look at the Rebbe in the eyes, and I, a first thing, whenever I walk, I have this huge picture, and I have pictures of the Rebbe all over the house, and why? Because I just want those eyes. His eyes and Rav Kook's eyes.
I just need those two pairs of eyes to look at me all the time because I feel that those eyes are the are a שפיגל of the of the mirror that we're trying to get to on יום כיפור, of looking at you and saying, not, you know, the מידה of אמת, מה אתה עושה? It's more like, remember the מידה of אמת.
נוח מצא חן. Yeah, in a in a nice way. In a חנעדיקע way, and it's like eyes of like, יש, יש לך את זה.
You have this, you know. Not. The last time that I ever experienced a ראש השנה like I did this ראש השנה, was with the Rebbe in Crown Heights.
ממש.
Wow. Wow. You should you should have said that at the end of the שיעור. I can't it's hard to talk right now.
It's hard to say anything. Just imagining that. Just imagining that. Right, because when you have those eyes, you know, when you have those eyes, you could believe that you could look in the mirror and see the מידה of אמת and it doesn't get to you at all, because that מידה of אמת comes with another thing.
It comes with this. Ah, no. And if you have the מידה of אמת, then what are you doing with it, right?
ובכן, right? That's ובכן. Well, now what are you doing with this מידה of אמת? But on יום כיפור, similar to שבת, because it's called שבת שבתון, it's not about doing anything with it.
There's no עבודה. The כהן has to do something. You're waiting in the עזרה, they hear the כהן say something, we just fall on our faces. But the עבודה, right, there's no עבודה.
It's שבת.
נכון? שבת שבתון. It's שבת. So, these words of the Rebbe touched my heart profoundly, profoundly, profoundly.
Look what the Rebbe says.
ביום הכיפורים נגלה אצל יהודי ההתקשרות העצמית של עצם נשמתו עם הקדוש ברוך הוא. On יום כיפור what's revealed by a Jew is this התקשרות, this connection on an עצמי, עצמי here means both עצם and also עצמי, the most individual, personal, intimate place inside of you gets revealed, the the connection to השם of the נשמה becomes revealed with the ריבונו של עולם.
ובקשר הזה, this connection that becomes revealed to you on יום כיפור, אין עליו כל מדידות והגבלות.
There are no restrictions. There's no, there's no confining. There's no limits, there's no limitation. It's אין סוף.
It's endless. Doesn't start at a certain place and it doesn't end at a certain place. It is אין סוף. It is eternal.
והוא נעלה מכדי שיוכל להתבטא באיזו שהיא תנועה, אף לא בתנועת התשובה. It's so exalted that it's impossible to even be expressed through any motion, through any act, through any עבודה. And now he says the weirdest thing here, he says even, bless you, it can't even be expressed through all the תשובה that you're doing. Do you understand this? I don't.
I'm just saying. I mean, I I understand the words, I'm trying to. What does what's the Rebbe saying over here? What's the Rebbe saying over here? This התקשרות הנפש, this feeling of standing בהיכל המלך, like we were saying yesterday, not just knocking on the door, but this time השם opening the door. and saying, come in, and I come in, and then what's מתגלה in me is my עצם הנשמה.
My עצם הנשמה doesn't just want good, it doesn't just want holiness, doesn't just want גאולה. It is good, it is holy, it is free, it is redeemed in the עצם of my נשמה. That, he says, that feeling, that sensation, that התגלות, that revelation can't be expressed through anything in this world. There's no expression for it.
There's no expression. It can't come out to fruition. It's a שורש, it's something that has to do with the שורש of our נשמות, the source of our souls. It's an I think the closest we could get to it is that imagine you had a chance, you said you want to display for your child how much you really love them.
You want to display for your child how much you really, really love them. And you said, hey, you have a few minutes now, you could choose to do any act that would really display how much you ממש love them. What would you do? Wow. Eye contact.
Exactly. Meaning, and that's not even, that's the closest you'll get, but even that's not the full extent of what you in your עצם want, feel the need to express. But that's the closest.
נכון? You see, יום כיפור, this is where we're going to on יום כיפור.
This is where we're going to on יום כיפור. It's like the closest we could get is have soul contact, eye contact, soul contact. So that's why the רבי says this is what's revealed on יום כיפור.
ובהתקשרות זאת, this connection, second paragraph, לא ניתן לפעלה על ידי פעולות או עבודות.
This connection, you can't activate it through any actions. That's why on יום כיפור you're not doing anything.
מכיוון שכל פעולות האדם בכל ככל שתהיינה נעלות, because all of the acts we do of good acts, as holy as they are, יש להם בכל זאת מדידה והגבלה כלשהי. They're always limited.
As holy as the acts are, it's still limited, meaning, and going back to the, you know it is a Sunday morning, so the עניין של חינוך is obviously in the air. But what I feel the רבי is saying, if we take this to the משל to the child, you go to the child and you say, as much as you want to go and tell your child, right, the deepest, deepest things in the world, you know that there's a גבול. There's a גבול to how much you could really express through any action, through any word. And sometimes that's what when you say your children break your heart, not because they're doing anything wrong, because when you get rid of all the שמוץ and you just have quiet, and you say to yourself, what would I love to give my child, you realize that if there's enough quiet in the world, you realize there's never enough I could ever want to give my child.
During the year that could break us, that could make us feel weak, we'd have no עניין of that. But on יום כיפור when I hear that that's really what I want to give my child, more than I could ever give them, that makes me happy that that's what I feel, instead of depressing me and putting me in a bad place and feeling constricted. You know, I have to, I want to be clear, when I share the following things, I hope it's clear by now, it's not to name-drop. But השם blessed me to be around some of the biggest נשמות באמת of what I feel of our דור.
And really one of the נשמות that has blown me away, and I I just can't believe it. And he's not perfect at all, okay? At all. And I don't care. I'm perfect.
He's not perfect at all, right? Is חנן. I'll explain, I'll explain what I'm talking about. Sometime he's shared so many things over the years that I realized why this חברותא has been such a such a wild ride, a mind-blowing experience with him. This is the singer חנן בן ארי.
He said to me a few months ago, he wrote me something, he said he had a teacher. I met him. His name was Itamar. Itamar Perlman.
He lived in פרדס חנה. If any of you ever went to the to דאווען by the אוהל in פרדס חנה, Itamar is a very, very, very special, special יהודי who died about a year and a half, actually closer to closer to two years ago. Itamar Perlman, a teacher, a מורה דרך, a soul doctor.
ממש a soul doctor.
And he told me that חיים told me that he would spend a lot of time with him, and one of the times that affected him the most was when they looked in each other's eyes. I don't know how many minutes it was for, but not like 30 seconds, a few minutes, to just look in each other's eyes. And then his teacher told him, when they were done, he said, עכשיו, כמה שאתה עכשיו מרגיש שאני אוהב אותך, השם אוהב אותך פי מאה מיליון ממה שאתה מרגיש עכשיו. And he said that was one of the most defining moments of his life, of having a קשר with השם.Mindy, that's definitely not the יידישקייט that you were taught growing up.
And guess what? I don't think it was the יידישקייט that most of us were taught while we're still growing up. But who in the world says that that can't be the יידישקייט that our children will get?So, a chance to be able to transmit this to our children for real, and no matter what age your child's at, is if you allow yourself to tap into the פנימיות of יום כיפור. Because that's what happens on יום כיפור. Because it's a day of אמת.
And in the world of אמת, you don't come to השם with, "Well, if you love me so much, then why did this happen to me?" זה, זה לא מופיע שם. In a מידה של אמת, זה לא מופיע שמה. Of course, we carry it with us throughout the year because the מידה של אמת doesn't shine the way it does all year long. It can't.
When משיח comes it will, but it can't now. But on יום כיפור there's this one day where, where what we just said right now becomes, it's it's called the התגלות of the עצמי, the revelation of עצמי.So again, second paragraph, ובהתקשרות זו לא ניתן לפעלה על ידי פעולות ועבודות, מכיוון שכל פעולות האדם ככל שתהיינה נעלות, יש להם בכל זאת מדידה והגבלה כלשהי, אלא שעניין זה נמצא אצל כל יהודי בטבע מצד עצם נשמתו, שהיא חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש. So the Rebbe quotes here how the אלטער רבי bases the whole תניא about the נפש אלוקית. When we say that we have something naturally, what do we mean when a Jew says that they have something על פי טבע? In accordance with their nature.
What's our nature, חבר'ה? It's not nature the way the world speaks about nature, natural human emotional, intellectual feelings.
בכלל בכלל. What's the most natural thing about ourselves?
חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש. That is the most natural thing about us.I know this doesn't sound like a חידוש to many of you, but when you stop and think about it, that is awesome.
It is an awesome feeling that becomes alive again on יום כיפור, that the most natural thing about me is not my pet peeves and it's not the things that I associate myself with if you'd say, "Hey, tell me something about you." שטויות, לא כזה. The most natural ענין about me is my חלק אלוקה ממעל. That's the most natural thing. And what becomes revealed to us on יום כיפור? Our טבע.
Our our nature. The fact that, השם, in me is you.
השם says, "I know. I've been trying to tell you that through the whole year.
Like I always, that's what I'm always trying to tell you." In me is you.
השם says, "I know. I know." That's the most natural thing. So then if you have moments like this during the year, you start קוועטשן and saying, "So why don't you make it clearer?" And there's a lot of אמת to that.
And we have to scream that all year long. Then make it clearer. Don't make it so confusing. Don't make it that I keep on, I keep on identifying myself with this other צד in me that I think is my nature.
I don't want to, I'm done. On יום כיפור, when this התגלות comes out, there's no, there's no room, there's no רצון to start going like in a dialogue like that with השם. So התגלות of אמת.
אין מקום לזה, אין רצון.
There's no, there's there's nothing that brings you to feel like that's how you have to, that's how you have to start to to to talk and to ask. This is what it means, the התגלות of אמת. Last... Last line here.
וגם אתה בהיותך בגוף, and even this חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, now it's in the body. It's true, it's not just sitting by כיסא הכבוד. And yet he חבוקה ודבוקה בך כחידא ריחודך. It is so connected to you, even though it's down here in what we call גלות for the נשמה in this world.
And our whole עבודה in חסידות is to make this משכן, this body, a גאולה'דיגע place for the נשמה, and not a גלות'דיגע place for the נשמה.That's the whole עבודה of of אלול and תשרי. But it's impossible to say over in words or in actions, something you can do to to express this place we're speaking about.
ומכיוון שהתקשרו זו בזו הנה נעלת מכל מידות וציורים.
הנה כשם שלא ניתן לפעול אותה על ידי עבודה, כמו כן, since you can't activate it by עבודה, you know what else you can't do?
כמו כן לא ניתן להחלישה או לפגום בה על ידי העדר עבודה או על ידי עבירות.
This is amazing. The רבי says, if this is something that you can't express because because it's larger than life, then it also means that this place of meeting on יום כיפור is never ever touched. Now, don't misunderstand this, what I'm going to say in the following sentence. No matter how many עבירות you do, and no matter how much you haven't shown up for real work, this place is untouched.There's two types of עבודה, there's two types of holiness in the world.
There's holiness that gets greater by how much I work on myself and that gets weaker by how much I neglect it. But then there's a whole world of holiness that has nothing to do with how much I work on myself or don't work on myself. This is יום כיפור. It's like the natural love that you're in.
Intrinsic. Yeah. Intrinsic, yes.
נכון.
נכון. Like in the פנימיות הדברים, do you think that there's a מציאות that a child that you could tell to your child, you know, my love for you, this is what we spoke about last week about conditional love and unconditional love. My love for you really is dependent on how much you listen to what I say. Cause and effect.
Right. Opposed to יש מאין.
בדיוק. בדיוק.
But there's access one day a year to what we're talking about. That's on יום כיפור. Like access to it.במדרגה הזאת, second to bottom paragraph, במדרגה הזאת של התקשרות לא מגיעים כל פגמים וחטאים. Blemishes, sins, they don't reach this place of התקשרות.
Even if we identify ourselves with these things, it's a שקר, it's a lie. It doesn't reach the עצם הנשמה of a ייד. Doesn't reach it. This is a place that's far beyond it.
ולכן, עצמו של יום הכיפורים מכפר. That's why the day itself of יום כיפור brings the atonement. Why?
מכיוון שביום הכיפורים מתגלה אצל כל יהודי הקשר של עצם הנשמה עם הקדוש ברוך הוא.
וכאשר מתגלה מדרגה זו, when this level of the התקשרות of the נשמה with השם is revealed, guess what happens, the רבי says?
נופלים במילא כל הפגמים.
All the blemishes fall on their own. All year long I'm working hard to remove them, to scrub off the שמוץ. Scrubbing, scrubbing, because I don't have יום כיפור with me. There's no revelation of יום כיפור.
So I have to do this עבודה of rubbing off the שמוץ of what I think got tainted onto my נשמה, right? But on יום כיפור, when the real me is now what I see in the mirror, what ends up happening? All those things I was trying to rub off, the רבי says, במילא נופלים.And you know what what's going to happen? That's why I always say we have a lot of questions to השם, right? But the questions and the טענות we have on God are one day going to במילא יפול when the מידה of אמת will shine like never before. Why did I have to go through this? Why did they have to go through this? These are real questions. We have them. They're don't pretend you don't have them.
All of us have them. It's heavy. This is a I don't know, I'm sure you feel the same. This is a heavy גלגול.
I don't know about you if you remember like previous גלגולים, I'm sure some of you do. Whatever you remember, no, this is a heavy one. This is like, this is just a heavy, heavy גלגול. So we have these questions to השם.
But on יום כיפור, I don't have those questions. Why? Because when the מידה of אמת is shining so bright in front of me, like your מידה of אמת with השם saying, this is your child, you don't have any שאלות anymore. Why are they like this? Why am I like this with them? It's התקשרות העצמי. This is beyond anything that we could, that's why it can't be expressed even.
And like you said, Leah, the closest is eye contact. But and that's the highest. But even that, like חנן had said with his teacher, is nothing in comparison to what the אמת of אמת is. And יום כיפור is the day of אמת of all אמת.
We don't eat or all those things because we don't want anything to get into the way. So the קאצקער רבי says it's not a שאלה, why can't you eat on יום כיפור? He said, how can you eat on יום כיפור? How can you eat on יום כיפור? You're in the קודש. So he he ends off here and he says, באותן המדרגות בנגיעו פגמו החטאים, צריכים לפעול כפרה. To the places that the חטא that you did actually had an effect on you, you have to do כפרה, but it didn't reach the real you.
It reached parts of you. Like the פגמים, the blemishes we did, the עבירות we've done, you need to do an עבודה for that because it's it's part of you, but it's not the real you. And on those places, that's where we work on תשובה. That's why you can't say, whatever, יום כיפור is going to come, the מידה of אמת will be in the world.
Why should I work so hard on anything? You can't say that. You can't bank on that, right?So the רבי says for those עבירות that reached a certain part of our consciousness, or our being, you need כפרה on those things. And that, how do we do that? So there's the only עבודה we know of really is וזאת על ידי השעיר המשתלח. That's by the goat that got chucked to עזאזל.
By the way, interesting. Where did it get chucked to? What are you basically saying by that עבודה? What are you telling that place in you that really prevented you from realizing who you really are? Excuse me for saying this. Go to hell. That's actually, it's a it's a it's a very fascinating thing.
Like that's where that שעיר המשתלח, that's where the goat went to, right?
שלח לעזאזל למדבר. Like the and then in the נפש, you're basically getting a taste of the real you and then you're you're you're looking at those those things that consumed you and you're like, are you kidding me? You're gonna come between me and this? Go to hell. But not go to hell. Like not not like that.
It's not that. It's a simple, it's like a a natural, like you are going to hell. You know, like that. You are going to hell.I'm going back to Rabbi Bruce's book, because that's what I'm reading right now.
And he says that רש"י says לכפר actually means to erase. So because your sins are on you, it's not part of your essence, you can, the כפרה is to erase it, to just wipe it away.אמן.
וזאת על ידי שעיר המשתלח, בצירוף עבודת התשובה.
אבל כפרת יום הכיפורים נפעלת על ידי שמאיר הדרגה שבה מלכתחילה אין כל מקום לפגם.
But understand something. The כפרת יום כיפור is activated through the illumination of a level where עבירות never reached. There is no שמוץ in that place. What יום כיפור is, יום כיפור in its essence isn't even cleaning anything.
It's just shining that which is most true. And what is that? Exactly everything we said until now.So there's a lot, this this this if this is what's if this is what's actually happening on יום כיפור, you could take a very deep breath and be like, I can't wait. Wow. I I can't wait.
I can't wait. Now, that is all true in its עצם. It's everything we said right now is very much the אמת of all אמת. But, not but, and, and, and we'll end with this.
And, We learned something from the כהן גדול who was the holiest person in the world that on the holiest day of the year, he went into the קודש קדשים, the holiest place in the world and he and the שם השם המפורש, God's explicit name, came out of him, right? And that's what, that's what called how you כורעים, משתחווים על פניהם and they said ברוך שם כבוד מלכותו לעולם ועד, יפה.So, did the כהן גדול do anything in the, inside the קודש הקדשים? Like in this place that we're speaking about right now, did the כהן גדול actually do anything in there? So, it says that he, it's an interesting thing, he did. He, he, he said a תפילה, right? He said a תפילה קצרה. Every year I say the same story at least once before יום כיפור. This last year, the last two years, I've said this story maybe 40 times since שמחת תורה.
Because I think that as much as this is so הייליג and the שמחה of it is so amazing, there's no way that we could expect ourselves to forget about the pain and torture that some of our brothers and sisters are still in in עם ישראל, no matter how high you reach over here. No matter how high you reach.
להפך.On the contrary. You know, earlier this year there was a, this שבתון I I shared with you about this weekend that we did, this retreat outside of ירושלים, this thing called Share.
All these different רבנים and מחנכים from all over the world came in and I was with my רבי for שבת, was I'm still, still, uh, still shaking from the experience of being with him and hearing him teach at 3:30 in the afternoon, שבת afternoon, what he said, the stuff he was saying.So deep, so special. Rabbi Manis Friedman was there, Rav Dov Ber Pinson, Rabbi David Aaron. Judah and Michelle, there was David Weinberg, Rabbi Yeshua Gerzi, there was like it was, it was really something else. I couldn't believe, like רב לייבוש, like tons of my best friends were there, you know? It's amazing.And uh, Rabbi YY Jacobson was there.
So on Friday night I told, I told over the following story in front of Rav Weinberg because I heard it from him many years ago. He said this ערב יום כיפור because I felt that it was very important that as much as we were flying high and a lot of חבר'ה were coming from חוץ לארץ that we were in ארץ ישראל and it's a זמן מלחמה, we have to really just plug into this. So I said over the following story and it was amazing. YY Jacobson contacted me last week because he remembered the story that I said on Friday night and he wanted to remember the exact details.
And then I listened to his שיעור the the the following week and he, he shared it and he, he's a master storyteller.So it was a lot of, it was a very special thing. So this is the story that ערב יום כיפור, you've heard me say this before, but it doesn't matter. We have to say the story again.
ערב יום כיפור one year, there was a big צדיק, he was the grandson of the ייד הקדוש.
The ייד הקדוש whose name was רבי יעקב יצחק from from פשיסחה. He's known as the holy Jew, a ייד הקדוש, the יהודי הקדוש. He was the רבי, רבי שמחה בונם of פשיסחה. He was a student of the חוזה מלובלין.
He had a grandson, his name was רב נתן דוד from the town of שעדלאָוויץ. He was already an old, frail רב, this grandson, and a doctor came to check him before יום כיפור. And the checkup was really about fasting, can you fast or not? Right? So the doctor checked him, he said, "You could fast, but there's one thing for sure you can't do. You can't טויבל in the מקווה.
That'll be, that's way too dangerous. Your body will be סכנה, there's no way." So the שעדלאָוויצער says, "Thank you so much," he leaves.And then, the second the doctor leaves, the רבי says to his חסידים, "Okay, who's taking me to the מקווה?" And the חסידים say, "What do you mean? The doctor, you heard what the doctor said.
איך אפשר? How could you say let's go to the מקווה?" He said, "חבר'ה, it's ערב יום כיפור. I'm going to the מקווה.
What do you mean?" And they're realizing this רבי is adamant on going to the מקווה, he's not going to stop, לא משנה. And um, and uh, it was, it was just like פחד because they were so freaked out that he was actually going to do this. Now listen to this, one of the older חסידים in the room is pacing back and forth. He's like, "Ah! I..." I have a ראיה from a משנה in יומא that it's אסור for you to go into the מקוה, רבה.
It's like, wow, this I want to hear. And he says the משנה in יומא says that on יום כיפור, the כהן גדול would go into the קודש קדשים, but he would, he would מתפלל תפילה קצרה. He would say a very short דאווענען, לא להבהית את ישראל, not to freak out עם ישראל. Why? Why would he freak out עם ישראל? Because they were so nervous that he wouldn't come out alive.
That's why he would go in with bells also so they could hear movement. And that's why when he came out, אמת מה נהדר, היה כהן גדול בצאתו, right? The שמחה when he came out, because he came out alive. So, the חסיד said, רבה, if he, if the כהן גדול on יום כיפור went into the קודש קדשים and he barely said anything, he just said a quick תפילה, in, don't, so that יידן shouldn't be scared, you can't go in. It's too much of a פחד.
Huh, check. So the רבה says, I hear, I hear what you're saying, very good. But you know, I actually learned this משנה a little differently from my רבה, the תפארת שלמה, רב שלמה of Radomsk.
רב שלמה הכהן רבינוביץ.
The Radomsker Rebbe. And the Rebbe taught it to me like this. He said, it's true, the משנה says the כהן would go into the קודש קדשים, and the כהן would be מתפלל תפילה קצרה. It's true, he would דאווען a short תפילה.
You know what his short תפילה was? The next words of the משנה.
לא להבהית את ישראל. He went into the קודש קדשים, he said a short תפילה. The short תפילה were the next words of the משנה.
He turned up his eyes to השם when he's in the קודש קדשים, in the holiest moment, and he only had one thing to say to השם when he's in the holiest place in the world, on the holiest day, as the holiest person. And what's the only thing he had to say in the קודש קדשים?
השם, don't scare יידן. Don't scare יידן. That's the only thing the כהן גדול said in the קודש קדשים.So often when I say this story, people that aren't hearing the story are then, they're, so did he go to the מקוה or not? I'm like, oh my God.
That's a way to kill a story. I don't know. I'm sure he did. It doesn't matter.
You see with all this הייליגע שמים what we're saying over here and it's all true. It's all true. It's all true. Everything we said.
The שמחה of the day, וכולי. And ריבונו של עולם, only you know how much to taste this, while there's still so many people that are living with a פחד. Don't you want us to fully have this without any, anything? So, while this is true, each of us go into the קודש קדשים on יום כיפור. Not just the רב, or the שליח ציבור, or the תלמיד חכם, or the בעל תשובה.
Every one of us goes into the קודש קדשים. With all the quiet that hopefully we'll get and the שמחה of discovering that the real me, the most natural me, is חבוקה ודבוקה בך, which means is one with you, השם. And I'm tasting how much my עבירות never reached any place that has to do with the עצם of my נשמה. I know that there's no way you'd expect of me to just dwell in here and sit like this and just be בשאנטי.
Right, just all good. So I want to invite you all to go into that place דוקא when there's a התגלות of עצם הנשמה, and to say the תפילה of the כהן גדול like the פירוש of the Radomsker Rebbe. Not, not don't, but basically saying, ריבונו של עולם, please stop enabling יידן to live in fear. We're working so hard on ourselves to do that on our נפש.
Please, מצד גורמים חיצוניים, לא להבהית את ישראל. And that culmination of both worlds we just spoke about right now should bring about the מידה of אמת to shine much brighter than just on יום כיפור. That the מידה of אמת, which is the opposite of what the מידה, what the world. the מידה of אמת should shine bright and bring a lot, a lot of, lot of truth and אמת and שמחה to the world because we're all longing for it for so long already, בעזרת השם.
אמן.