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In this series Rav Shlomo Katz explores the inspiring, powerful Torah and Wisdom of Reb Usher Freund zt"l
Okay, good morning חברה. Let's get right to it. We have so much to get to. Month of אלול sponsored by Jeffrey and Daniela Silvian family in memory of בתיה פייגא בת ישראל, the Aaron family in memory of לוי בן יוסף, Mindy Barad for the רפואה of שרה בת רחל פייגא, and Shira and יונתן Weisen for the רפואה of לאה שושנה בת מלכה.
Today, Monday is sponsored by Tal Gilboa and Yaakov Steiner, רפואה שלמה to מיכל גולדה בת אתל. The holy איד לעילוי נשמת who was stabbed in a grocery store in Ottawa for, guess what the crime was? Being a איד. The week is sponsored by the Reinitz family in honor of Michal's birthday. Happy birthday.
On י"ג אלול.Okay. So we're back and we're back with such שמחה that we get to learn, that we get to, we get to spend our time together with תכלית. I'm, I'm feeling very elated this morning. It's been an early, early morning, but it was such a high night last night.
I can't even begin to describe what it was like to be under Rav Lio's חופה. Lio Dee, who got married last night. It was, it was unbelievable. No, the רב of זית רענן, Rabbi Bienstock was the מסדר קידושין and I had the זכות to, I was going to say read the כתובה, but he asked me to, he asked me to sing it.
Yeah. He asked me to sing the כתובה. You guys should check out the Instagram video. I thought, you know, I, I never did it before and I was just like, you know, if, if Lio's asking, you do it.
It didn't, listen, it was so, it was, it was גאולה, it was, it was like a ניצחון. Like, I don't know how to describe it. And the ניצחון שבמלואו with תחיית המתים in the, the final picture, the final picture of ומחה ה' אלקים דמעה מעל כל פנים. But it was really one of those moments where you, like my, my we were trying to figure out, like my wife's going to come with me or not, because it's the first night, first day of school today, with all the kids and, and I was just like, there's, I knew that it was going to be out there, like up there, in there, and there's no way I'd be able to explain it.
Even with videos. And thank God she, she was able to come there with me, but it was just a, it was just so monumental. It was so filled with meaning that I can't even express. And everyone that was, everyone that participated was, was really there.
They were there and they were transported to a, to a, to a much higher place. So I just wanted to also dedicate the שיעור this morning for, for him and Eliza's new ובחרת בחיים, their, their choosing to be alive. נישט פשוט זאך. Not a simple thing, but so, so, so real.So in the ספר that we've been, we began learning a ספר about, I would say a month and a half before this month ended, משהו כזה.
And we learned two letters from רב אשר, רב אשר פרוינד. All we did was two letters before that. Right now we're starting the third letter that we have, which is on דף ז'. There are ספרים in the middle of the table for those that need and if you, and if you want to purchase it, which I highly recommend, that's why we got them, be in touch with Dov Cram to know how much it is.
But you gotta look inside because it's a lot of, ישי, grab one. There's, there's, there's one over there. As we, as we began this journey, I, I told you guys, this is something else. This is a different world of עבודת ה'.
This is a different world. There's a different language here, there's a different rhythm, there's a different sound to this תורה and ממש from all the תורות we've learned, from all the years we've been learning, from all the years we've been learning, ממש from all the years we've been learning. Besides בני מחשבה טובה, this ספר was, has been the one that I get asked most questions about. Not, not just questions.
It's the, these שיעורים from all the חברה that learn with us everywhere, and חסדי ה', there's more and more חברה that are feeling like, that, that you're sitting here. This is drawing out something that's hard to describe. It's, it's, it's evoking something in people that are making them pay attention and, and listen deeply to what their נשמה is saying while they're, while they're basically what we're doing is we're reading letters, but these are, these are letters. הלוואי every letter should be like this.
For the new עם הארץ, for the new עם הארץ sometimes. Yeah. What is the sefer? רב אשר פרוינד. I have a, the first שיעור is all about his life and who he was.
I'll send it to you. He's a צדיק, he's not on this life, he's not in this world anymore. He passed away over 20 years ago and he was a, you can't put him under any label. Like, there's no labels here with, with רב אשר.
זה משהו אחר לגמרי. But I'm definitely, for those that, it's good, נפתלי brought this up, for those that haven't been with us yet or haven't learned with this with us yet, the first שיעור on this was all about his life and who he was. was and we'll send that out as well. All right, so ask for it and if you need to get it.
But today's letter is addressing something that I feel like I want to, I want to ask each of you every single day. Do you believe that it just happens to be in the רוח of תם, right? In the רוח of תם עליו השלום, could you really think that it just has to, it happened to be that we found ourselves living here and we're living here and we'll get, if we're together, we'll we might as well learn תורה. We might as well דאווען together. Or do you, do you begin to taste and understand that if השם chose to make us alive now, and to be here now, and to live with each other now, that the ריבונו של עולם believes in us for something massive.
Massive. And I'm not talking about just creating a place for the American ambassador to come to for שבת, which is געוואלד, but I'm talking about us. Us, here. And I want to encourage something at the beginning of this זמן that you were really big on Hershie when we, when we, whenever I would say it, you would always do it.
Continue the learning throughout the day on the chat that we have.The chat, the family business chat that we have, the שער הדוד family business chat was meant mainly, although I don't say anything to anybody, but it's really, it was, it was created just to be able to continue the שמועסן, the learnings that we have in the mornings, to continue it throughout the day so it should trickle through our day and it shouldn't be that we went to a שיעור, check. It's that the learning that comes up in these types of שיעורים that we're choosing to learn continues throughout the day and spreads throughout the day to מלווה us throughout the day. Yes. I've seen a lot of the שיעורים complement, I mean there's always a this with תורה but it sort of flows with other שיעורים and so is that okay to like from other שיעורים to include what we're learning here there and bring it all together? It could be just because of British, I didn't, I didn't understand what you were saying, באמת.
Meaning like by many many times there's, there's points that come up in this שיעור that feature in other שיעורים in other places. If if it's really, if if it's if it's really שייך and we feel the need for it, but it's really, it it's it's main, it's main, it's main in the only if it's really שייך, if it's really relevant to it. But the main, but the main point here is to ask is to look at each other, learn what we're learning and then realize there's no way. I I just don't believe that the that the ענין of us coming together is so that we could say we had a געשמאק שיעור for 40 minutes in the morning.
לא יכול להיות. That's what, that's what אגודת חברים is all about, what a חברא is all about and I want us, I want to see who's gonna be the guinea pig today. I'm sure there's gonna be one חכם at like 10:01 this morning is gonna write something. But I'm saying, drop, drop.
He already did. נפתלי set his timer for 10:01. I'm talking about it's 1:30. No, better.
It's four, it's 4:30, the kids just came home from from their first day. אוי, you know, or or געוואלד, or whatever it is. It's not just to קוועטש, but it's to take this learning and bring it down to our lives throughout the week. Trust me, חבר'ה, we could have learned anything.
The תורות that we choose to learn in this בית מדרש are things that have to do with every relationship in our life. And that's what we want to be doing. So open up please on דף ז'.A letter that was written in ניסן תש"ל"א. This is probably May, uh March or April 1971.
The ר' בער is writing to a friend of his, and the reason why I said this whole הקדמה, bless you, is because I I want us to start like thinking like this about why did השם put each other in in in our lives? Like מה זה? What is this? לא סתם. There's a beautiful song by a beautiful Israeli artist named Amir Dadon. Listen to that song, it's called לא סתם. לא סתם, הכל פה מסתובב לא סתם.
It's a beautiful song. Not that he needs a plug-in but but it's a it's a beautiful ניגון. Check it out. לכבוד.
אני מרגיש שהידידות הזאת בינינו תימשך לעד. So first of all, אמן to everyone in this room. I feel that this friendship will last forever, that we will be eternal. ולא תנותק בעזרתו של חי העולמים.
And won't ever be disconnected, God forbid, with the, you know, only with רבון של עולם will never be disconnected. Why? כי רצונו יתברך הוא שניפגש במסילת צרה. Beautiful. The ריבונו של עולם wanted us to meet on a מסילת צרה.
A narrow track. A narrow track. He... This place we've met each other in in life, I don't know, not that I've had like complete exposure to every single thing that everyone has been here, gone through.
Bless me to not have that, but I'm saying, it's it's I know enough to know that each person here can write a מגילה about their own צרות and יסורים that they've gone through and that they're still going through. They could also write nice things. But life is כל העולם כולו גשר צר מאוד.השם's רצון, says that if we met each other and we met each other, he wanted us to meet on this narrow track דוקא now where we're at in life. ועל ידי המפגש הזה שהיה מכוון מאוד על ידי ההשגחה העליונה, and through this meeting that was very מכוון, this was very, this was already planned a long time ago through השגחה, הרי אנו יכולים לקבל את האור האמיתי, we could receive the true light אשר יביאנו ליסוד הנצח, which could bring us to the יסוד, to the foundation of eternity.
ולמלא את חובתינו, and to fulfill our obligation שהוא טל עלינו מלמעלה.This is this is like what Reb Usher's saying over here to a friend, to a friend, is everything over here. Morning. This is an amazing concept. You and I met, we're meeting now in life, we're learning now in life, we're living together now in life, in order to fulfill an obligation that was brought down on us a long, long, long time ago.That's why I'll tell you the truth, when I see חבר'ה that just come to shul Friday night to דאווען and get high and then you don't see them again till the next Friday night, I feel bad for them.
Why do you feel bad for them? They're flying. Because I always say like, this here is so much more than just that. It's these words: למלא את חובתינו שהוא טל עלינו מלמעלה. It's to fulfill an obligation that was placed upon us from above which is so much bigger than momentary highs.
It's about something that will help us discover how do we get through this narrow track together. This has to be the reason why we're together in life right now.Now he's writing this in a letter, you know, כמעט, how many years ago? כמעט 50, right? More. More, 54 years ago. But these types of חברות is what we're speaking about, is what we're trying to establish and I believe that if if the פיאסצנה רבי would see something like this, he'd be like, ah, this is like, this is really, this is the בני מחשבה טובה of today.
This is this is ממש it. Right? This is ממש it. So there's an obligation. What's the obligation you and I were, what's this thing that was placed upon us from above? What's what's the חובה? What's the obligation?So what do you guys think? Like סתם, don't don't, even if you read ahead it's it's too hard to understand it סתם, but what do you think the obligation is that was placed upon us to to fulfill in our life? What could be some of the things that will come up? I know you're gonna say bring משיח, בסדר, but חוץ מזה? The togetherness.
But I think that first line that he is... ידידות forever. To have eternal friendship. יפה.
What else? As fathers we can be, be the best children we can be. Be the best אבות. נכון. To be the best of all of that.
נכון. What else? Those are big, I'm talking, those are these are all very big concepts. I'm trying to get to something a bit more foundational. What do you think? To be there for each other.
שיחת חברים. שיחת חברים. Just to be there for each other. Okay.Now, all of those things are correct but Reb Usher is open heart surgery and he is taking us directly to the core of what's a חובה in this world on each and every person.
The חובה on every single person in this world is to rip right through the illusion that this בשר ודם, that this body is eternal. Now you're saying, come on, we all know everyone dies. We may know that everyone dies, but we sure don't live like that. We don't live like that.
We live, our day-to-day מציאות is not really connected to that. It's true that sometimes we do have moments that it hits us stronger, but we should never bank on walking home from funerals to have this, oh my God, you know, and that's that that's what happens to us quite often. Yeah. It was like what רב קמחי said on שבת, it's the difference of having and being, right? It's...
Yeah. Yeah, he was very good what he said. It's, are we having or are we being? Are we being? Right? So so look how Reb Usher develops this. מה טיבה של חובה זו? What is this obligation all about? שהטיפת החומר, שלנו שקוראים לו הגוף.
What's what's the wrapping of of us? Like when we say, who are you? So what's the wrapping of of who we are? The wrapping paper? A body. The wrapping paper is the body. עטיפת החומר, the wrapping of materialism is the body. That's that's, and each of us have a different wrapping paper.
Some of us have ribbons. Some of us, you understand? Each each one has a different a different זאך that's the עטיפה, that's the outside. שאף שאינו מניב פירות מעצמו, it's true it doesn't bear fruit bear bear fruit on its own. Nonetheless, הרי ממלא אותו נשימה חיה נשמת חיים.
What fills this wrapping paper that's hiding beneath the wrapping paper? One thing and one thing only. We are here this morning learning because of one reason only. השם, not us. השם decided to give us another good shot on figuring out why we're here.
That's what today is. That's what yesterday was too. The רבונו של עולם gave us another shot in terms of what could what could we make of today? What is what could today really be all about? It's to live with the consciousness and the awareness that the only thing that's keeping me tick right now, the reason why our hearts are beating and why we're breathing is because something is placed beneath the wrapping paper. And what's that? השם's decision that you and I should be alive right now and that you and I should breathe.
ותו לא. There's nothing else.That's a pretty it's a pretty heightened state of awareness. And I know some of you are already thinking, oh God, I I just wanted to have a chill אלול. I don't want to get to, you know, the wrong שיעור.
Wrong חברה, wrong בית מדרש. אין מה לעשות. היום קצר והמלאכה מרובה. There's a lot we got to do.
הרי ממלא אותו נשימה חיה, נשמת חיים, אשר מהותה העצמית היא בבחינת אור הנעלם. The real content, the the powerful, potent content of this feeling of you and I being alive is rooted in the in the אור הנעלם, in the in the hidden light, in the concealed light. ולמעלה מהשגתנו. And now he's saying, I know you're trying to feel this and figure this out.
It's למעלה מהשגתנו. You can't חאפ this. So when you can't חאפ something, what's the word that we use when you don't understand something? חוק. What's the word you use in order to do a חוק? Like what is the what is the item that you use? אמונה.
יפה. Is אמונה a noun or a verb? Okay. Is אמונה a noun or a verb? Verb. It's a verb.
Yes. It's action. Faith is a verb? What? Faith is a verb? Belief is a... Not the same thing.
Whatever you want to call it. אמונה. Let's stick with אמונה. אמונה is a is a noun or a verb? Supposed to be a verb.
It's a muscle. It's supposed to be a be a verb, but what is it? It's a noun. It's a noun. Right.
That's one that so so a איד, a פנימידיקע איד, his whole מהות is to transform אמונה from being a noun into a verb. I don't have faith. Like רב זלמן used to say, I'm faithing. Faithing.
Like that that's, when you plug that into the to the whole סיפור here, you you realize, okay, I'm reading I'm learning really high things over here, but I I don't understand how this works. But I'm faithing. Like, you know, as much as we understand, where does our אמונה begin? It begins from that place that we don't really understand, then it goes up, but then we realize we don't understand anything, and it also trickles down as well.So again, this is למעלה מהשגתנו. We're on about six lines in the second paragraph, ואין אנו מרגישים אותה, but you know when we feel it? Unfortunately? אלא על ידי הכאב העמוק.
We feel this, what we just said. We feel that the only reason why we have life is because השם placed right now breath of air and חיות in us. We generally, like I said before, we feel it when we walk home from funerals, when we're standing there. I told you a few years ago, there was a guy that we were at a funeral together, and it wasn't one of these it wasn't like a פיגוע funeral.
It was a a man, not too elderly, lived in the רימון, a dear friend of ours. And this other person from our community that saw me there called me right after the funeral. And he came over the next day, and he had a whole epiphany about how he doesn't want to be remembered and how he wants to be remembered, and he wanted me to מקבל on myself that at his funeral, I'll also say a few nice things about him because no one's going to say anything nice about him. So, I told him to get out of my house.
I basically said, תעזוב אותי. I said why? He's like, first of all, if you feel this in another three days, then we have something to talk about. But if that's the immediate reaction, it can't be coming fully from the place that your נשמה really wants it to come from. However, we generally, like for instance, when do you feel your teeth? When you have a toothache.
When do you feel, when are you aware of your intestines? When you have a stomachache, right? So this רבש is saying, like when are you aware of the fragility of life? When when when the fragility, what's that? Or or when someone else is, or like when there's someone else is sick, meaning, when you're privy to that, that the fact that this is זמני is all temporary, ah, then you start to feel it, right? And that's why he says, אין אנו מרגישים אותה אלא על ידי הכאב העמוק, אשר מראה לנו שיסוד חיינו הוא היא הוא סיבה מסובבת שאינה מורגשת אלא על ידי אמונה. It's so beautiful. He says, it's only, it's only when the foundation of our life becomes clear to us that this is a something that's happening that's way beyond us. Why did that person get to live? Why did that person, why did that person get to get married at that age? Why did that person have to get child that and that person didn't? You want to give me answers? Get out of here.
How come, why does that person work so hard he can barely make it through the month? And that person's been living like a שנארער from his in-laws since the day he got married, and it works for them. Why? Why? What's, give me any logical reason and I'll debunk it. Why? Because in the עצם of it, the אייבישטער has his ways. אין מה לעשות.
Other than ביטול, חכמה, like we said on שבת, כח מה. That's the real חכמה, to be able to say כח מה. It's bigger than me. The only time I can feel what really makes me tick is through אמונה.
That's when I feel that that that's the point of this letter. The point of this letter to this friend and I can just imagine what this person was going through, but the point of this letter is to give each other כח to remember when in order to feel what really gives me life, what makes me tick is only אמונה and not all the הסברים, all the explanations of why this happens, why this doesn't happen. And he says that אמונה is ההפך הגמור של הבשר ודם. Faith is the total opposite of blood and flesh.
אשר תקוותו עפר רמה ותולעה. Because what ends up happening, this is crazy that we're saying this. We should all live עד מאה ועשרים. You know what all of us are going to be filled with and surrounded with? This thing right now that we take such good care of, hopefully, all of this that we nourish so much.
You know what this is going to be filled with, surrounded by? Maggots and worms. רמה ותולעה. You know what's going to be alive forever? Forever? נשמה. What's going to be alive but I want to say right now, what's going to be alive forever that we could connect to right now? The friendship.
100%. 100%. What's that? I said our אמונה is live forever, but our souls are going to be are live forever. חיים נצחיים.
Why should I wait till I'm 120 to start plugging into that? This is what the פיאסצנא was קוועטשינג about in חובת אברכים, חובת תלמידים, a bunch of different תורות of the פיאסצנא רבי. So he says like this: היסוד הזה, היסוד של אמונה, the foundation of אמונה, ממלא את כל חלל העולם והוא כולו רועש ורוגש על ידו. In essence, what really fills the all the space of the world and it makes the world shake for real is what found is what אמונה is all about and where אמונה comes from. האדם אשר בשבילו נברא העולם, man has to realize the world was created for him, בשבילי נברא העולם, אם אינו חפץ לרמות את עצמו, if you don't want to trick yourself, בוודאי יכיר לדעת שאין לו שום יסוד קיום מעצמו.
What does that mean? What does that mean? בוודאי יכיר לדעת, if you don't want to trick yourself, what will you come to know? שאין לו שום יסוד קיום מעצמו. What does it mean you didn't make yourself? There's a creator. Give me more our language. What does it mean that there's a creator, you didn't create yourself? What would, it's not about you, but what, how would that like מתפרש? How would that, אין עוד מלבדו.
There's nothing other than, he's the, נכון. The statement. How does it become, how does it manifest? Our next breath is is coming from השם. What would that change about my day? What does השם want me to do? What does השם want me to do now? If I'm given this now, what does השם want me to do with this now? If השם gave us this friendship, if השם gave us this opportunity to be alive in ארץ ישראל and to live with each other now, for what did השם create this? That's what I would live with.
And when I'm thinking like that, it's a completely different קיום. Not what could I get from this moment now. Ask not what you're, right? Not that, right? But what am I doing with it right now? What am I doing with it right now?And the real צדיקים are walking around all day and all night with those שאלות. Right? And and and they and they have mostly clear answers to that question.
What am I, what am I supposed to do with this next moment right now? Right? That's this is the, he's going to speak about this a little bit later in the letter. When he says לא תעמוד... אל תלך רכיל בעמך לא תעמוד על דם רעך. אני השם.
Mhm. Okay? Everyone knows that אני השם. So he's saying is that I can't be everywhere everywhere. I am everywhere everywhere, but I need you to be everywhere everywhere.
I need you to say, אני השם. Okay? Because you're going to be God. If if you decide to step into those shoes, then at that moment, you're going to make a decision what you should do. But I want you to make a decision based on the fact that אני השם.
You know, so in essence, it's a little bit of a play, but we're not God, but God says, I'm I'm giving you the סמיכה to be God in that moment. You have to ask that question. Meaning to be decisive. But but to be decisive not from my perspective.
Okay? אל תלך רכיל בעמך, אני השם. Be it from my perspective. הלוואי. That's what that's how a צדיק lives.So but that's almost even a higher...
אחי, always louder. I I ממש my my, no monitors have blown my ears, I just can't hear. I feel bad for Eli Stone. Before he starts talking, I I go like this, right? I'm saying that's almost even a higher level, but even even almost on a lower level, if if we really believe that השם is sustaining us.
If someone has a boss or an important customer or whatever, someone that they depend on, you want to keep them happy just even even selfishly, even without altruistic reasons. If if if if I really live believing that my next breath, my next dollar, my next thing is coming from השם, even if I even if I didn't want to be strict with that, even if I just wanted to make sure I kept the boss happy, Right. I would I would be I would be thinking about what do I have to do to keep him happy. But why are you saying that's a lower level? That's a very high level.
The higher level is is not על מנת לקבל פרס, not not just to make him happy for the sake of making him happy. That would be that would be a much higher level. Right. But in חסידות, we learn that you make the ריבונו של עולם happy by not ignoring your soul and by learning how to listen to yourself and what your רצון is.
So I make השם happy by listening to my, to the tune of my נשמה and living the greatest version of me. That's how I make השם happy. As opposed to a boss could care less, I think. I don't know, are there bosses in the room here? Tell me if there's a boss here, tell me if I'm wrong.
A boss could care less about, listen, I really want you to do what makes you happy. Right? What brings you fulfillment and this and that. Like a real אמת'דיק פנימיות'דיק boss may make create the circumstances, there are actually some CEOs that I know, they're thriving businesses are based on their ability to to tune into the innate traits of each person and maximize each person's traits in the context of the greater picture of the corporation. And some of these businesses thrive based on the חכמה of the boss to do...
but generally speaking, on the lower level that you're speaking about, it's not על מנת לקבל פרס, but the real פרס, the real way of making השם happy is by us thriving over our נפש האלוקית and what makes us tick and being in being in tune with it.It's hard to מקבל that because השם is as much as we all say, I don't view השם as that old man with a beard in שמיים, I call that to be garbage. Most of us still do, especially in אלול. I still do. I hate when I do it, but it's still there.
Right? And I know I'm not the only one. We have and and... The שמחה of our נשמות will be to ממש one day just לפרוץ את זה, to go past that and to believe that the רבונו של עולם שמחה is when I am so plugged in through this of of realizing how I live my life. And that's that's the healthiest boss, in my opinion, and the healthiest corporations and companies when they're able to do that.
I know you were like that as well.Okay. So the bottom line over here, בודאי יקל לדעת שאין לו שום ישום, שום יסוד קיום מעצמו, רק האמונה יסוד קיומו ויסוד חייו. And all of us are sitting here saying, oh, I wish I believed that, I wish I lived like that. But we're gonna get there.
Where are we gonna get? We're gonna get to a place that really makes us understand that any dollar we ever made, ever, any שקל we ever made was only because of one reason. That the רבונו של עולם didn't just give it to us, even if we worked hard. It is the רבונו של עולם that gave us the כוחות to develop that trait that then draws in money. Money is just the easiest example that we could give to things that like would definitely not necessarily like drive us to a world of אמונה.
כוחי ועוצם ידי kind of energy, right? That's just the easiest thing to to go to. So he continues here and he says like this. My, he addresses his friend. אני מלא תקווה.
I'm filled with hope. ששנינו יחד נאבק על קיום יסוד הוויתינו. This is so intense. So intense.
I'm certain רב ברוך is saying, you and I are not gonna abuse our relationship. Now, there's abuse and there's abuse. I'm not talking about abusing meaning using each other. Abusing our relationship could mean...
בד חבר'ה. Wasting the chance. בדיוק. בדיוק, wasting the chance.
We're not gonna, I'm sure, I'm certain we're not gonna abuse it. Why? Because we're gonna להיאבק. להיאבק means to to struggle, to wrestle. We're gonna wrestle over the קיום of the יסוד of our הוויה, which means we're gonna get down to the bottom of it together.
Together with שיחת חברים, דיבוק חברים, דאווענען, learning, all the whole געשעפט to get down to the bottom of what really keeps us alive and makes us alive. יסוד קיום הוויתינו. ולעולם לא ניפרד אחד מהשני בעזרתו יתברך שמו, אשר זאת שואל מאיתנו. And we will never depart one from another through השם's help, and this is what he's asking of us.
שבכל המצבים הקשים והניסיונות המרים העוברים עלינו, that through all the difficult trials and tribulations and the bitter things that we have to go through, בשעת המאבק האיתנים בין הטבע והאמונה. There's a constant war between טבע and אמונה, between nature, what seems to be perceived as nature and faith, תהיה יד האמונה על העליונה. This is very similar to the beginning of the תניא when the אלתר רבי speaks about the wrestling match that's constantly taking place between יעקב and עשיו, between the נפש אלוקית and the נפש בהמית. And they're constantly going at each other with blows, always, constantly.
רב ברוך is saying, I'm certain that if we don't abuse the relationship and the שטיקל אלוקות that's in you meets the שטיקל אלוקות that's in me, and that's how we relate to each other, and that's how we converse with each other, and that's how we're ממש מעורבים זה בזה, רב ברוך is saying, I'm certain. You know what's gonna be the outcome? He says, תהיה יד האמונה על העליונה. I'm certain. I'm certain the hand of faith will be, will be above it, will be on top.
והאדם ינצח את טבע עצמו. Which means that man will be victorious over his own nature, המתנודד תמיד בין הגאווה והייאוש. השוברו קליל מעצם היותו קרוץ מחומר עכור ועצם יסודו. He says that man will beat his own nature, which is constantly going back and forth between גאווה and ייאוש, between unholy pride and despair.
You meet people like this, in the morning they think they're דוד המלך, at night they think they're דוד המלך's son who tried to kill him. Like, חנן, חנן סער. ארי says, שבת I feel like בעל שם טוב, מוצאי שבת I feel like שפלות עצמי. בול.
That's why I love the guy. The guy is a, he's giving you, he's giving you a song that's basically saying, it's not just me that feels that. I know, I know you feel that too. He was shuckling on שבת, amazing.
You were certain that there's no way you're going back to any of the שטות מוצאי שבת. And before you know it, before you know it, שבת is out 7:43, right? 7:42, you're, no, I'm kidding. 7:40, 7:50. No, you came, you went to מעריב.
At מעריב you're still a צדיק. הבדלה. 8:15. Was there שבת? That's why it's so important to do סעודת דוד מלכא משיחא.
You know I learned this from רב שמחה חכם. He's never, ever, ever misses a סעודת מלוה מלכה. And when I say that, that means even he like, it's not that he goes to concerts every מוצאי שבת, but that the consciousness of like מוצאי שבת is a very rough run. רב קוק writes an amazing piece in אורות on this, on what happens to the נשמה on מוצאי שבת.
Why it's hard to sleep. You know, it's nothing to do with the שלופס that we get or don't get on שבת. But דוד מלכא משיחא, the warrior that was always battling between גאוה and יאוש. This was דוד המלך, right? This was his story.
And he had a best friend. And we know about his best friend, right? And that's why you do a סעודה, you make a מוציא, you have that consciousness of like, the party is only getting started now. You know, it's only getting started now, because we're always dancing between גאוה and יאוש.You used the word ויאבק, and you mentioned יעקב and עשיו, but when יעקב fought with the מלאך, it says ויאבק איש עמו. Who was the מלאך? What does רש"י say? שרו של עשיו.
This is same team. Same team. ויאבק איש עמו. You know, there's a there's a ירושלמי on that פסוק that helps us for this very much.
What is it עד עלות השחר? ויאבק איש עמו עד עלות השחר. What's עלות השחר? משיח. עד עלות השחר, until the great day, until the great morning comes. And until משיח is going to come, ויאבק איש עמו עד עלות השחר.
חבר'ה, don't learn רב אשר and say, okay, I'm going to find a חברותא and we're going to win. We're going to, no. We're going to learn how to struggle together. And we're going to learn that while the struggling takes place, we're going to live in a מציאות that יד השם על העליונה.
But don't kid yourself to think that you're שוחט'ing the יצר הרע. Who gets killed every episode in South Park? Kenny. Who's alive every episode in South Park? Kenny. Used to have friends say, how's Kenny doing today? So it's a, it's a, it's the same ענין.
I just love the fact that we're talking about יעקב אבינו and Kenny in the same conversation. Raising the sparks. Raising the sparks.Back inside. I'm sorry that we keep on going back and forth over here, but there's just so much over here that a person's always, אדם ינצח את טבע עצמו מתנודד תמיד בין הגאוה והיאוש.
And this, this wandering between גאוה and יאוש, it wears me down. חבר'ה, I just wanted to go to a שיעור that about like, you know, הלכות כלים or something. Like, what are you, what are you doing to me again? Like with all this soul talk. It wears me down, enough.
I had enough. השוברו כליל, it breaks me down. מעצם היותו קרוץ מחומר עכור ועצם יסודו. When I when I start to look at like what I'm really made out of and what I'm going to be, what this body is going to be returned to, I just, I realize I'm so fragile.
I'm so fragile, I'm so sensitive. אשר מראות שוא ומדוחים מתחלפות תמיד אצלו ואין בהם ממש כלל. I have illusions coming in and out of my mind all day long, and I can't stop them. And these illusions are so convincing, it's unbelievable.
בשעת מעשה, like while they're happening to me, they are so elusive, they are so convincing. And then I feel so high when I go to מעריב. But then I have the visions again. You see, it breaks me.
I just want to breathe. משום שכל מהותו העצמית הוא אין ואפס וכחלום יעוף ואין לו אחיזה רק במחשבה של האכס של כל הנשמות תהלל יה השם. Really, the only thing I really have, the only thing I really, really have that I could say I could hold on to in this world, is that when I'm grabbing on to the מחשבה of the only reason that I'm alive now is because השם wants me to be alive. And therefore I'm asking the question, and what do you want me to do with this moment, השם? And that's how I'm living and that's how I'm alive.
That's the only moment that I have something to hold on to. When I say like יוסף, like you were saying before רב קמחי said between having and giving. Like the only thing I actually have on a real way in this world is the moment of deciding that I'm going to ask the questions that need to be asked and hopefully act upon them. Everything else is like we say in ראש השנה יום כיפור, וכחלום יעוף.
That's the highest moment. אדם יסודו מעפר וסופו לעפר. בנפשו יביא לחמו, משול כחרס הנשבר. And then the words we say, כחציר יבש, כציץ נובל.
Do you also say it in in, it's in ונתנה תוקף. Is it in נוסח ספרד? It's a little bit different. כחציר יבש, כציץ נובל, כצל עובר, like a passing shadow, וכענן כלה, and like a cloud that's here and then and then gone. וכרוח נושבת.
There's a wind. This is my reality. No, the wind's going to pass. כחלום, I have a dream, יעוף.
And then what do we say right after that? Let's see how I'm just good. Right after that? כצל, כצל, ואתה הוא מלך אל חי וקים.After I point out all the things that seem so convincing, and then they go away, and I call it out and then I scream, ואתה הוא מלך אל חי וקים. This is what the צדיק is speaking about. That's the only thing I have in this world.
And you know what's amazing? It's actually the only thing I need in this world to make it through, to make it through this world by being able to tell השם, the only thing I want to tell השם at מאה ועשרים. And I know it's the one thing that each of us want to tell השם when we when we come before כסא הכבוד. What's the one thing we want to tell השם? We want to we want to say it with all of our אמונה, not I was a צדיק. No one wants to say that.
Because you know you're standing before כסא הכבוד. Who could say that? You know, this week is שלום ברודט's, רב שלום ברודט's יארצייט, tomorrow night. Some guy got up at his funeral, it's a good friend of mine, I want to say his name, I don't want to embarrass him, who was there, you were there. Some guy got up and said, I want everyone to know שלום ברודט was not a צדיק.
Like we're bawling our, you know, we're bawling, we're crying, everyone's losing their minds there, הר הזיתים, late מוצאי שבת, crying hysterically. Spade in my people are in shock. He was a figure, a father figure to so many. Check, did you know him? You came right after? He was a father figure to so many.
Manuel, you know him, no? He's a father figure to so many people. And then this guy gets up and he says, I just want everyone here to know, שלום ברודט was not a צדיק. Now anyone that knew שלום knew that he told, he must have told this guy to say this at his at his funeral, which is what happened. He did.
He he told, like I don't know how many years before he passed away, but he told, yeah, he said to him, you know, this is what you have to do.No one wants to go before כסא הכבוד and saying, I think I I think I reached the level of צדיק. But you know what each of us want to go to our קבר and before the כסא הכבוד saying? רבונו של עולם, I think and hope and pray that despite many moments of of of falling, this גלגול, I gave it my best shot. רב אשר is explaining to us what does it mean to give it your best shot. That's what this, that's what these letters are.
What does it למעשה mean to give it your best shot? And based on what we're seeing here, to give your best shot is to grab hold of the gift השם placed in front of you in the form of a friend, of a חבר, and say, hey, let's let's go for it. Let's go for it. Let's hold each other up. Let's hold each other up, not just give each other courage, but let's push ourselves to live a life of asking the questions that come from an awareness of השם decided that we should be alive today.
And therefore, therefore what? What am I tru, what am I asking, what are my questions, how am I listening to my questions, how do I listen to the answers? That's the type of, that's the type of חבורה. That's the type of חבורה that we're speaking about. Let's just finish this paragraph.אין לנו אחיזה רק במחשבה של הנשימה האחת של כל הנשמה תהלל השם. The only thing we have is this, next breath.
And now you have this breath for what? Ah, to ask the questions. And all this comes ונובע מיסוד האמונה הפשוטה אשר זהו תכלית האמיתית של האדם. The real main purpose of man is שכל יסוד החומר שבו, that all the חומריות, all the materialism that's in you, יתהפך בכל נשימה ונשימה, shall be transformed through every breath, ליסוד הנצח, to the to the foundation of what what's alive forever. Not our bodies, our light, our love, our dreams, our connection, שאינו מורגש, you don't feel it, you don't comprehend it, ובלתי מושג, the only way you do it is רק באמונה.
וזהו הוראת החיים לאדם. This is a הוראת החיים. That means, what does that mean? An instruction for life. An instruction for life for each person, שיבקש תמיד ללא לאות בכל משך ימי שנות חייו, שהעניקו לו מאוצר החיים, to ask these questions every day of his life that were given to him from a place, from a treasure chest called חיים.
כך חיו והתקיימו כל הצדיקים הגדולים לדורותיהם. You want to know again like we mentioned this before. What's a צדיק's life like? It's basically an example, it's like they would, they would say, oh this learning you did right now. Well, they would never say it because they're so humble but basically he's saying this is how צדיקים live.
We we think a צדיק wakes up in the morning and he just knows everything and he knows exactly what he has to do. The צדיק is in constant engagement with the ריבונו של עולם. He doesn't wake up in the morning and knows exactly what he has to do. He knows he has to, he has to be able to ask in the right way.
That another morning of back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. When I say he doesn't know what what he has to do, I'm not talking about he doesn't know הלכות so he has to open the שולחן ערוך. You understand what I'm saying, right? It's not what we're talking about. The צדיק wakes up in the morning and the day is filled with, okay, so you, so you decided I should have another day.
So therefore I'm going to ask you, what do you want me to do right now? And how should I ask that question? And then the צדיק over the years thinks more and more, what surrounding works best for me to live a life that will cause me to ask these questions on a daily basis. Ah. And he goes more and more deeper into that zone of which circles do I want to surround myself that will help me live a life of asking questions like this. And then he goes deeper and deeper with these types of questions, you see.
Until the whole day is just one big, you know, התבודדות question, consciously, subconsciously, happening all day long. ובזכותם אנו חיים וקיימים עד היום הזה ועד ביאת משיח. And in their merit, we're alive and will be alive until משיח comes. Why? Because there are certain people that were asking these types of questions.
In our, in our מסורת, what's the difference between נח and אברהם based on what we just learned right now? Does נח ask any questions? No questions. What's אברהם אבינו all about? All questions. מי בעל הבירה? Who's running the show? אברהם אבינו's questions, these types of questions. נח has some innate צדקות in him.
Like נח is introduced right away, what do we know about him first thing? His name and title. That's what we know. Title, צדיק. It's like we don't know, did נח work on this? It seems like, and you have people like this, they're born with this innate צדקות.
Our thing is ישראל, we struggle. כי שרית עם אנשים ואלוקים ותוכל. We struggle with discovering the place of צדיק in us. And we ask it all the time.
So anyway, I give us a ברכה to to for we'll continue this next week because we're going to be learning something else on Wednesday and on Friday, but next Monday we'll continue this. I give us a ברכה to to find that חברותא and to discuss this and to be to be brave on our chat during the day, but to to live to ask the questions that will help us live with the awareness that it can't be, especially post October 7th, it cannot be that השם placed us to live here, to be with each other, and even the חבר'ה learning with us online, that השם sent us to be with each other in that on those waves just to be able to have a וורט at the שבת table. Because if that's what the, if you can't do the שיעור for that, you're you're toast. You got nothing.
You got nothing. So we're going to go for it. We're going to give, you know what we're going to do this year? We're not going to be, huh? Going to give. We're going to give it our best shot.
Like Lenny Solomon's games, you got to hit me with your best shot. Right. We're gonna go. We're gonna give it our best shot.