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Each week, Rav Shlomo Katz opens the parsha through the inner world of Torah, drawing from the deep wells of the Chassidic masters.
With warmth, clarity, and honesty, these teachings weave together Chassidus, Tanach, and lived experience, inviting us to encounter the parsha not only as a text to be studied but as a mirror for the soul.
It really it really feels like the whole world is just chaloshing for Hashem's malchus. So maybe we just don't know it, but that's really that's really what we want so badly. So I want to sing this niggun one more time and bear in mind that Hashem's malchus, Hashem's kingdom should reign.
כי לה' כי לה' המלוכה.
כי לה' כי לה' המלוכה.
כי לה' כי לה' המלוכה. Oy umoshel bagoyim.
כי לה' כי לה' המלוכה.
כי לה' כי לה' המלוכה.
כי לה' כי לה' המלוכה. Oy umoshel bagoyim.
והיה ה' למלך על כל הארץ.
והיה ה' למלך על כל הארץ.
אוי ביום ההוא יהיה ה' אחד יהיה ה' אחד ושמו אחד.
והיה ה' למלך על כל הארץ.
והיה ה' למלך על כל הארץ.
אוי ביום ההוא יהיה ה' אחד יהיה ה' אחד ושמו אחד. Anyone who would like that niggun, the original version, just text me, I'll send you the link to the YouTube of the actual original recording. Ai כי לה המלוכה ומושל בגויים. Ribbono shel olam, you're running the whole world, everything else is just one big illusion.
So we're very very honored that tonight we're doing something a little bit different, zerizim makdimim. Next Shabbos, parshas Vayeitzei, will be the 180th yahrzeit of the Bas Ayin, Rabbi Avraham Dov Ber of Avruch. Last year we gave a whole shiur about his life. I could send that out also, and it was mamash like a biography shiur, and the ikkar ikkar inyan there was that of course this was the tzaddik who couldn't live without Eretz Yisrael.
This is the rebbe, a student of, he was a student I think of Rabbi Menachem of the Chernobler, of the Me'or Einayim I believe. He was also by Reb Levi Yitzchak I think, I don't remember exactly right now, it's important I just don't remember right now. He couldn't live without Eretz Yisrael and he comes to Eretz Yisrael. So the whole story about him and his journey we will send out from last year but there's I don't want to just show up at the yahrzeit next week, boom, tonight's the yahrzeit and let's learn his Torah.
There's certain rebbes I feel today their light needs to be miso'rer, that we have to arouse and awaken their light to the whole world, especially those tzaddikim that pashut were not just breathing the neshama of Eretz Yisrael but they were breathing the air of Eretz Yisrael. So we're going to learn this week, tonight with the Bas Ayin, next week we're going to have two shiurim, one on the Bas Ayin and one go back to the Slonimer, the Birkas Avraham, sorry, Beis Avraham, sorry, can't live without that for too long. Any in any event, I just want to invite you all to go into the parsha right now like as if it's mamash the first... The older we get, the less visualizations we allow ourselves to have.
Isn't that weird? The older we get, the more we're focusing on details, trying to illustrate it without images, but just to illustrate it intellectually. But when you try to illustrate non-intellectually, but mamish just with the temimus of yourself, it's usually images, it's pictures, it's drawings, it can be whole scenes, clips. And one of the things we hope that we're able to do while we're learning is to not just reclaim the original images we had when we heard these stories, but to also create new ones. And therefore it's very important that if we're coming into the parsha with last year in our head, then forget it.
But hopefully we're coming into the parsha right now with absolutely nothing in our head other than a ratzon to connect to the Torah. So what we're going to be learning tonight is a piece that the Bat Ayin, that the holy, holy רבי אברהם דב בער of Avritch gave over on Parshas Toldos, and it's going to be focusing on the concept of Yaakov and Eisav and what they each resemble, but in a way that may, that may have sound familiar over the years. You know, at a certain point, you start seeing that like all the Rebbes basically are all saying the same exact thing. Right? At a certain point, you start seeing that, ah, you know what? They're kind of all saying the same exact thing.
But each one, each one says it with their chein. And tonight's the opportunity to, to develop a relationship and bring into our heart and souls the chein of the Bat Ayin. So if you look at the, you'll look at the text that's in front of you right now. There may be typos, I just typed it up today, so I'm not sure.
Hopefully no typos. But let's see where we're going. And I'm going to read a chunk, but then we'll, obviously stop and go deep into the, into the heart of this piece because it's absolutely awesome. Regarding the pasuk ואלה תולדות יצחק בן אברהם אברהם הוליד את יצחק.
Remember the famous question: why does it say, "this is the offspring of Isaac, the son of Abraham," and then it says "Abraham begot Isaac"? Aren't you going to start talking about the offsprings of Yitzchak? Why are you going to Avraham Avinu? So everyone has something to say, and like he begins his peirush: הנה כל מפרשי התורה כולם פירשו את הכתוב הזה בטוב טעם. Each pashtan gave a beautiful pshat. Everyone had something beautiful to say. And he's not saying I want to disagree or disprove, he's just saying: וגם אני אניח חלקי לפי עניות דעתי על דרך המוסר.
I'll give my two cents with the anius, in such a humble way he's saying this. Just so that we can learn something out of this.
הנה עשו נקרא גדול ויעקב נקרא קטן. In the Torah, Eisav is referred to as gadol and Yaakov is referred to as katan.
כמאמר הכתוב ותקח רבקה when it says that she took her children, it says she took את עשו בנה הגדול. Her, we usually say her older son, Yaakov bna hakatan. And usually we translate that as Yaakov the younger son. But really in poshut pshat Hebrew, gadol and katan doesn't just mean older and younger, it means the big one and the small one.
And tonight we're going to focus on learning out the, the pasuk like that. The big one and the small one.
וטעם כי עשו הוא מקור הגדלות והגאווה מהקליפות. Eisav, what do we know about Eisav? We spoke about it earlier this week.
If anyone in the world feels that they're worthy of brachas and that they're basically very accomplished and successful and magia lahem, it's Eisav. Eisav is filled with this ga'avah. Where did he get this, where did he get this ga'avah from? How did he become so full of himself? So it says: כמאמר הכתוב ואלה המלכים אשר מלכו בארץ אדום. These are the kings that reigned in the city of, in the land of Edom, שמהם נתהוו הקליפות ודי למבין.
And it's from them that the klipas came into existence. From who? From these, from these kings, it's a, it's... And Kabbalah teaches us that when the Torah says the list of these kings and all their petira, so it's hinting to a spiritual existence which broke. We know this as shviras hakeilim.
And the klipas together with the mida of gaiva were created from this experience of the shviras hakeilim. And Esav comes from Edom. So therefore Esav is considered the source of all the klipas and all the arrogance in the world. And obviously there's so much more to say about this what this exactly means, but right now we're just going to stick so we can get a little bit clearer, we're going to stick with the pshat over here.
Esav was full of gaiva.
וכמו שאמר עשו יש לי רב. That's in Parshas Vayishlach, right? I have rav, I have a lot.
מגודל הגאוה והגדלות שהיה בו בעצמו.
It's like amazing. If you really, Rav Shlomo once said the difference between Yaakov and Esav is that Rivka had to drag and shlep Yaakov to go and prepare the stuff for Yitzchak to receive the berachas. And it wasn't because he was scared of Esav. He wasn't scared of Esav.
He just really did not feel, he knew how powerful those berachas were. And he felt that only someone really deserving is deserving of the berachas from Yitzchak. And he said who am I? I'm worthy of such berachas? Rav Shlomo said you couldn't find someone who felt he was more worthy than Esav himself.
מגודל הגאוה והגדלות שהיה בו בעצמו he says.
You know, and we live our lives, we have many moments in our day-to-day lives where we do have Esav moments. Like it's hard thing to admit, but when we're really ready to be real with ourselves, we could admit that there are times where we subconsciously have come to a conclusion and live my life behind this notion of I am really worthy of what I think I'm worthy of. We're totally convinced of it. We can't believe that there could be a metzius and maybe even a preferable one to live a life of feeling not worthy of what you really want, and despite that, ask Hashem to have compassion not through judgment, not through din, but through rachamim.
But so many of us the gaiva comes to play in that we say al pi din according to the judgment ma shemegiah li is what I think megiah li. I don't know where this comes from besides the makor of these klipas, but we have Esav moments in our days. But you know what? We also have Yaakov moments in our days. And Yaakov is the absolute opposite.
Let's look inside of Yaakov.
שהוא מצד הקדושה יש לו תמיד הכנעה וענוה לפני השם יתברך. But Yaakov Avinu is from the side of holiness, he always has this anavah, this place of humility standing before Hashem yisbarach, always. It's not just one time.
This is who he is. He is in a constant state of feeling small like the hakatan, right? That's literally what he generally feels like all the time. And it's not really because of anything else other than that's his truth. He's not trying to be someone that he's not.
He always has this before Hashem.
על כן נקרא קטן. That's why he's called hakatan.
מפני בחינת הקטנות והכנעה שיש בו.
Because of the smallness that's in him.
ולכן אמרו שאסור לשום תלמיד חכם בני יעקב להתיהר ושיהיה בו גאוה וגסות. That's why it says no talmid chacham should ever lehisya'er. That means to be haughty and to have these shvitz ever.
כי אם שמיני שבשמינית. Just an eighth of an eighth, the whole measurement, because at least you need a little bit of something to even give yourself the right to exist. But he says over here ואפילו זה החלק אינו בחינת יעקב. But really even that eighth of an eighth of gaiva that's not Yaakov's zach.
כי אם מעשו לוקחים את זה החלק שמיני שבשמינית כדי להפוך לקדושה. Because we take this very small measurement of haughtiness, it's more just false pride just so that we can get our bearings straight and function on a certain level, but really that's not really who Yaakov is at all. But how do we know this? So before we said by Esav the Kabbalah tells us ואלה המלכים אשר מלכו, right? Esav the shviras hakeilim of these kings, this is what caused it. and giving kavod to your parents and giving kavod to your children at the same time.
Those of us that are privileged to be in that category, this is, it's really for anyone because you can give kavod to your parents even when they're not in this world. And you can give kavod to your children even before they come into this world if you're not married yet or if you're married and don't have kids yet. So kavod to these neshamos. U-shmo meramez le-zeh.
Yaakov Avinu's name alludes to this concept of constantly being in a state of katan in a good way.
רצונו לומר יוד הוא הקטנה שבאותיות. Yud is the smallest of letters.
עקב מרמז לבחינת בנפשי כעפר לכל תהיה הנידוש בעקב.
So Yud resembles the humility by being the smallest letter in the alef beis, in the Hebrew alphabet, that's its way of being small. And Ekev alludes to this place, the heel alludes to this place of בנפשי כעפר לכל תהיה הנידוש בעקב, my soul shall be like dust upon all feet, upon all heels that are stepping on it. Yud Ekev, two levels of, this is two different levels of anavah. In Yaakov Avinu, listen to this, he's going to tell us he had both.
ומרמז לשני בחינות ומדרגות שיש במידת הענווה. So friends, I'm sure this sounds like a broken record, because more or less every single teaching we have, every time we have an opportunity to learn from someone who baruch Hashem is opening our heart, they always bring us to working on the middah of anavah. There's no way out of it. Because that really is the side that's going to beat Eisav.
That is the side that's going to beat Eisav. When the Baal HaTanya begins to go into the whole story of the nefesh Elokis and nefesh habahamis, he right away goes to these psukim in our parsha about the two ולאום מלאום יאמץ ורב יעבד צעיר, the Alter Rebbe brings down, what do you think the godly soul and the animalistic soul is all about? It's the war of Yaakov and Eisav, it's the war of me me me versus you you you. Yaakov Avinu is the only you Ribbono Shel Olam, and Eisav is could there be anyone more deserving than me? So these two levels though by Yaakov Avinu of anavah that we have to understand. Because the concept of Yud standing on its own is one concept of anavah, and Ekev standing on its own, the heel, is another concept of a kavana of anavah.
ומרמז לשני בחינות ומדרגות שיש במידת הענווה. What are these two levels? And I want you to think of certain people, I'm not going to tell you who, but as we're learning this, think of certain people that you know in your life.
ומרמז כי יש מי שהוא ענו אבל מרגיש בעצמו שיש בו בחינת ענווה. There are humble people that are aware of their humility.
ואם כי גם זהו מידה טובה. This is also a good middah.
אבל יש מדרגה למעלה ממנה. But there's a higher level than this.
והוא שהוא ענו וגם אינו מרגיש בעצמו שהוא ענו. There are people that are humble that are completely not under the impression or the understanding or the awareness of their humility. That he says is the highest. That's like Ekev I think, beneath the soul of the foot, right? The heel, be-nafshi ke-afar, my soul shall be like dust upon which the ekev stands on, steps on, tramples on.
Again two levels. One, someone that baruch Hashem he's worked on himself and he really has, he's a humble person, but he knows that he's humble. So what middah may be lacking a person like that? I've been thinking about this so deep, I want you to open your hearts. Which middah do you think a person that is humble but is aware of his humility is lacking? I have no idea if I'm right, but I want to say based on the rest of this piece that the concept and the middah of temimus is what's lacking in a person like that.
Temimus. Whatever temimus means, which we're going to give another opportunity to dissect in the next few minutes. If I'm humble But I have no idea that I'm humble? It's just I can't imagine living any other way so I'm not aware of living any other way. Then what am I basically in a state of? I'm tam.
I'm a simple, holy, pure, clean vessel. But if I have anavah and I'm aware I have anavah, so I'm not so tamim. I've seen the world, I've had to work on the anavah and become humble. You're probably lacking temimus.
Now you, Baruch Hashem, these are halevai the lowest level in life we reach is being people that are aware of our humility, being humble people that are aware of their humility. So I'm not chas veshalom downplaying these middos. But he explains over here that this is exactly what Moshe Rabbeinu and Yaakov Avinu were all about.
בספר אורח חיים על הפסוק והאיש משה עניו מאוד when the Torah writes or Moshe Rabbeinu writes anav, ayin nun vav, right? He's missing one letter.
Which one? Yud. Why? Because if Moshe Rabbeinu, Hashem tells him he has to write about himself that he's humble, so at least the letter yud he's going to take out. That letter of humility, at least that he's going to take out of writing that in the Torah, right? But that means he was aware of his humility, no? Maybe not.
כמבין בדעתו שלפי ערך קטנותו ושפלותו ופחיתות ערכו עדיין הוא נקרא מתגאה נגד גדולתו יתברך.
ובמילת יעקב מרומז שני בחינות אלו, but in the name Yaakov with the yud, both aspects of anavah are very much chai vekayam. So we asked where did Esav become haughty? And we asked where did Yaakov become an anav? But where did Yaakov really get this from? We didn't answer. Esav we said, the sheviras hakeilim. Ze habechina, next paragraph, ירש יעקב מיצחק אביו שהיה בו שני הבחינות האלו.
Yaakov inherited this middah of both levels of anavah from his father. What did his father do? And this is very much downplayed for some reason. I think because the parshas go so fast that we don't have time to breathe them in. He says what did Yitzchak do?
מסר את נפשו להשם.
He gave his life for Hashem.
פשט את צוארו להשחט לעולה להשם. Yitzchak Avinu agreed to lie and be tied to an altar to be shechted as a korban for Hashem. After you do something like that and you're saved, can you really stay completely clean and humble? You gotta think a little high of yourself, no? Just a little.
You know, when we do something really, really good and we want to be really, really holy about it, so we only tell like fifty percent of the people we want to tell. We keep that a secret, right? But that's for people that are aware that they did something big. He's going to say over here something amazing about Yitzchak Avinu. Look at this, the second line: Ve'im kol ze, and with all this holiness that he must have accumulated by becoming a korban, לא החזיק טובה לעצמו לומר שעמד בניסיון.
He didn't say, look what I did, I passed a test. We even until today attribute that test to Avraham and not to Yitzchak. You know why?
מרוב קדושתו וענוותנותו והכנעתו ושפלותו וביטולו במציאות נגד הבורא ברוך הוא. He didn't put, because of all of his kedusha and anavah, but he always looked at himself in light of being in the reality that Hashem created, כי אם תלה הכל שזה מעמד בניסיון שהשם היה בעזרו במתנת חינם.
If you ask Yitzchak, tell me, what did it feel like when you took that amazing leap of faith and courage and you allowed yourself to be on the mizbeach and be shechted? He'd say, I don't know what you're talking about, God just gave me a gift and he enabled me to do that, it's nothing to do with me. He gave me an unearned gift, matnas chinam. Uve'avur Avraham Aviv, and he said, and it's the zechus of my father, שזכה שיהיה בנו עומד בניסיון. It's nothing to do with what I did, Yitzchak says, it had nothing to do with me.
My father is so holy he merited having a son... But it has nothing to do with me.
אבל לא תלה יצחק בכוח עצמו. Yitzchak did not say that any of the things that he was able to accomplish were because of him.
Therefore, he is called, he is referred to in Chazal, לזה נקרא עולה תמימה. That's what Yitzchak is called after the Akeidas Yitzchak, a complete olah, על שם תמים תהיה עם השם אלוקיך, tmima. A korban where it has to be tamim, it has to be complete, there can't be any pegamim, there can't be any blemishes, there can't be limbs missing. It has to be tmima, meaning shalem.
But he's saying no no no no. Olah tmima. He was a sacrifice that wasn't even aware that he was a sacrifice. He was an anav shebe-anav that wasn't even aware of his own humility.
This is who Yaakov learned from. So now this is an Eretz Yisrael-dikke piece, וזה שפירש רש"י על הפסוק אל תרד מצרימה. Rashi on the posuk where there's a famine in the land, Yitzchak's not sure what to do. So Hashem tells him, listen, not like your Abba who went down to Egypt, you're not going down to Egypt.
Al tared Mitzraima. Rashi says why: כי חוץ לארץ אינה כדאי לבחינה זו. It's not worthy wasting your or it's not... Chutz La'aretz is not your inyan.
Chutz La'aretz is just not your inyan. It would be so chaval and so not kedai for someone like you and your kedusha to have anything to do on any level with Chutz La'aretz.
שהוא נקרא עולה תמימה. You're an olah tmima, Yitzchak.
You're a different zach. You're a completely pure, unaware anav. That's Eretz Yisrael. That's Eretz Kna'an, the Eretz that puts you in hachna'ah.
פירש כי בחינת הכנעה כזו אינה כדאי להיות בחוץ לארץ רק בארץ ישראל מקום קדושה. This level of humility, it's only kedai for that to be in Eretz Yisrael. My dear friends, I thought by now, nine, ten months into this insanity, I thought by now at least certain things about communal awareness. And some things, baruch Hashem, I must say that I'm so humbled to live amongst so many people that really have tuned into whatever it is.
It's not defined exactly yet but a heightened level of awareness of not what's going on in the world but what's going on inside our neshamos. But I feel very unsettled regarding the communal Klal Yisrael hearing of Lech Lecha, of come home. Yeah, I know that Nefesh B'Nefesh had all these applications ve-chulei and it's amazing. But I just feel like us, those that are privileged to be shluchei Eretz Yisrael, we have to take this Torah so deep inside of us, 'cause that will be the magnet that will defy all logic, all the rational reasons.
With the midda of anavah that we attain and show our children what life's all about, maybe that's the last, that's the missing link. That's the magnet that can bring home the thousands and thousands and thousands.
פירש כי בחינת הכנעה כזו אינה כדאי להיות בחוץ לארץ רק בארץ ישראל. This level of hachna'ah has nothing to do with Chutz La'aretz.
This is a... it's only a thing that's shayach to a mokom of kedusha. To be an olah tmima. Olah tmima.
A pure and complete olah sacrifice to Hashem. So now look, I cut up the Torah a little bit just 'cause I knew we wouldn't have that much time and also because certain pieces are just take us to other beautiful paths, but we had to center in. Later on in the Torah he says like this: ועל זה התפלל גם דוד המלך עליו השלום. This is what Dovid Hamelech was davening for: לזכות לבחינה זאת ואמר ואני תפילתי לך השם עת רצון אלוקים ברוב חסדך ענני באמת ישעך.
פירש זאת תפילתי לך השם. You know what my tefilla is to you Hashem? She'ehye, that I should be in Eis. What's Eis? Roshei Teivos, olah tmima. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that beautiful? Because now we understand when, you know, sometimes when under a chuppah people will say this or we know that Yom Kippur is definitely a time of this ais ratzon.
It's a time of ratzon. But how do you tune in to having ratzon? Ais ola temima. This was the yerusha from Avram that went to Yitzchak that went to Yaakov that went to the twelve tribes and that continues to trickle down for thousands and thousands of years until all of Klall Yisrael, all of Am Yisrael. We're in, in public situations, on national levels, it, it seems that we've, we've done everything in our power to not learn from yesterday.
It's an unbelievable thing. So, אור חדש על ציון תאיר, a new light will shine onto Tzion, a new light that reminds us that what was until now has not worked in terms of getting Am Yisrael together. So it's got to be maybe this ais ratzon, ais, ayin taf. You know Daniel, you've heard of Daniel Gordis, right? Danny Gordis, you, I think he's a journalist or an author, a writer.
So he, he said, like, someone asked him once about the so-called peace process in the mid-90s, he said, it's something very deep, which is true about everything. He said, first of all, when you sit down to, for whatever this, you know, talks with someone else of any level of negotiation, when it comes to bigger things than you, first you humble yourself and say, let's admit that we don't know how to do anything over here. And then you start from that place, you have a chance to reach somewhere in the middle. Don't get me wrong, not chas v'shalom on any negotiations of Eretz Yisrael, not one gargir, not one, not one piece of sand.
But we're speaking bechlal on the level of bein adam l'chaveiro. In our, in our conversations, we always know, we know, when I go into something I have to know.
ואני תפלתי לך עת רצון ה' יתברך, like Dovid Malka Meshicha, he learned the secret of what it's worth to pray for and what it's not worth to pray for.
ואני תפלתי לך ה' ה' עת רצון.
ואני תפלתי לך ה' ה' עת רצון.
אלהים ברב חסדך ענני ענני ענני באמת באמת ישעך. Think about it friends. Why are we deserving of living a life where I'm not necessarily so proactively being hunted down, when I have so many ancestors that spent their whole existence as a Jew in this world being actively persecuted.
What, why am I, why is it different in my dor? Why are my children growing up in Eretz HaKodesh? Magia li? I deserve this? When you stop and think for a second and you put yourself in light of thousands of years, just to get a perspective of things, magia li? I deserve this? What did I do to deserve this? What did I do to deserve to have this awesome awesome privilege of being alive in a time like right now? What did I do? Lo magia li. I don't deserve it. I'm not saying that to be humble, it's because we know that's pashut the temimus of emes. This is what Eretz Yisrael is all about.
May we be zocher to conquer Eretz Yisrael today, tomorrow, the next day, to conquer it inside out. And then maybe we then we could finally hold onto it lenetzach netzachim without any trouble ever again, without any worries, כן יהי רצון ונאמר אמן. Gut Shabbos everyone, Gut Shabbos.