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A new learning series with Rav Shlomo Katz on the sefer יין ישן by Rav Nissan.
Rav Shlomo returns to the inner foundations of Jewish life through a sefer that brings the world of Chassidus into clear, living language.
These shiurim are about the basics in the deepest sense: Emunah, closeness to Hashem, the Jewish soul, and the foundations that help a person live with more depth, simplicity, and truth.
בוקר טוב, חברה. There's pages for whoever doesn't have a ספר here. We are learning month of חשון, sponsored by Dina Tolbin for the רפואה שלימה of מלכה ליבא בת מזל, by the Finns for רפואה שלימה of יהודית בת שרה, anonymously for a זיווג הגון for אסתר בת רחל, נחמה מרים בת צינא פערל, יעל אביה בת חנה דבורה, גליה בת יהודית. Just before I forget, very important, tomorrow night at Dov's house at 8:30, very special night with a very, very special חברה, a bunch of our חברה from Toronto and זכרון, one of our extensions, one of our, the family, family business extensions, gathering together, and with a very, very special, I call him like a, a בעל בעל תפילה, שיבי קלר, and some of you know him.
שיבי is fire. So hopefully it'll be very, very strong. Okay, so open up please in the, in the ספר, דף ט"ז. We have a new topic today, continuing from last שיעור, but this one is very, very, very healthy.
And they're all healthy. What I mean healthy is that this is going to bring down something that is a very high concept down to a place that we could do something with it. We all have aspirations, especially after learning last week's, sorry, on Monday's שיעור from the רמח"ל, the five different places, the five different ways that עבודת השם is divided into, that משה רבינו, based on the פסוק in דברים: מה ה' אלקיך שואל מעמך. We spoke about five different things that are the pieces of עבודת השם, which is keeping everything, loving השם, being in awe of השם, being all in, and תיקון המידות.
So you can walk out of a learning like that and be like, whoa, okay, I'm going for the stars. Like I'm I'm I'm going for it now. Now I'm ממש going for it. And what happens to a person when they have high aspirations, but they're nervous to, they're nervous to just say it, they're nervous they're nervous to put it out in the world? Like why don't we take on things? God bless you.
Why don't we take on things? What stops us from saying, I have a התעוררות, I have an awakening, and now I want to I want to, I want to go there? So what usually is the thing that stops us from going there? Fear of not falling? Fear of failure, fear fear of fear of failure. There's so many things we don't end up taking on, ממש out of fear of failure, or this fear of commitment, also. Fear of commitment. Half of you in the room that are sitting at a שיעור right now went to שחרית in the morning, you would have never been doing this a a few years ago.
And somehow you you realize that things that have seemed like impossible have become possible in your lives. So what's the ענין? To say, wow, שכוייח? Well, maybe חצי, but the other half of it is saying, wow, let me remember this next time I have an awakening, and the other side, the brother, the סטרא אחרא comes into my mind and says, don't even take it on, cuz I'm not I'm not made out of this.
שטויות. That's a voice we have to call out.
But over here we want to make sure that we do that right. And אהרן, ברוך שכיוונו, cuz he's going to bring a פסוק that you quoted in your beautiful דרשה this שבת to start off the day. Look at this: שאיפות והסתפקות. Aspirations, הסתפקות.
קשה.
הסתפקות means being satisfied, for now. Let's see how we go with that term. So חברה, open up your hearts.
This is a beautiful, beautiful piece. Let's look inside. This is a little bit longer, this piece, than usual. It'll take us a few days.
בעזרת השם, it'll get through us.
כתב בפרי הארץ, one of our favorite ספרים, one of Eli Stone's favorite ספרים, a ספר written by the first עליה, נפש, שלום עליכם, ארי, the first נפש בנפש רבי, ר' מנחם מנדל מוויטבסק.
תלמיד of the מגיד of Mezritch, that we mentioned him a few months ago, he made עליה with his חבר, רבי אברהם of Kalisk, and they were the first ones to settle in ארץ ישראל from the תלמידים of the בעל שם טוב הקדוש.
כותב בפרי הארץ, שודאי מהראוי לומר מתי אגיע למעשה אבותי.
For sure, a person has to ask, when am I gonna be like טאטי? When am I gonna be like זיידי? When am I gonna reach the when are my actions gonna reach their actions? But how, was it, who whose name did you say that ווארט? The תנא דבי, like, שלי נגיעה, שיגע בזה, the קאצקער רבי, right? What was the ווארט again? Touch. Touch. When will I have the same smell as the מעשים of our אבות? It's such a beautiful beautiful way of of understanding it. Like what, I mean ארי, I gotta tell you, ארי Abramowitz, like, you know, this שבת, these שבתות, learning about אברהם, יצחק, יעקב, especially next week we're learning about יצחק's עבודה with the בארות, it's like מתי יגיעו מעשי למעשי אבותי, our אבות were busy setting their imprints on barren land and creating the infrastructure for future generations to find their way back home, and as hard as it is what you're doing, and it's almost impossible, like we can say you have a you have a נגיעה, it's it's touching.
It's touching מעשי אבות. It is, it's touching it. Very generous. It's it's also, I speak on behalf of everyone here that knows you.
It's the truth. And you have to be reminded about it, because when you're doing something all the time, every day, you forget, naturally, how how special it really is and how much it's נוגע למעשי אבות. So, שכוייח.
כותב בפרי הארץ, שודאי מהראוי לומר מתי אגיע מתי אגיע למעשה אבותי, but the goal, but here the kicker is, ואפילו הכי יהא שמח מאד בעסק עבודתו של עכשיו.
וואו, what a line. Even though I have to have this thing in my mind that tells me, this is so precious, even though I have to have this this this voice in me that's always saying מתי יגיעו מעשי למעשי אבותי, when are my actions gonna touch, when is it gonna have a smell of אברהם, יצחק, יעקב and all the other אבות and אמהות, it's true, I have this ענין that I need to להיות what we call נושק, like kissing, going towards that, but the פנימיות is actually יהא שמח מאד, you have to be very happy, בעסק עבודתו של עכשיו. But I'm not there yet, but how happy I am that I am where I am right now, that I'm even in the פרשה, that I'm even in the פרשה! That has to be a true And this is a game that we have, because we have aspirations, so I have to be driven to keep on going towards a goal, and that's more Western mentality, that's all goal-based, achievement-based, but then the the פנימיות of it is, but am am I am I can I be ecstatic that right now, this moment, I'm in the פרשה? I'm even in the פרשה! That's a big that's a big big עבודה.
לא פשוט בכלל.
And yet it's essential.
ובשמחה של מצוה זו יזכה לגדולה ממנה.
עד כאן דבריו הקדושים. And with the שמחה of the מצוה of right now, whatever moment you find yourself in, that is what actually helps you move forward towards the aspiration and the goal that you set for yourself.
It's amazing. There's two ways of getting going forward: one is to feel the pull from from from what's coming, or there's the push from behind, of where you are right now. And they have to happen at the same time: a pull from what where we're heading towards, that place over there, and from the back of me is pushing me forward. And this is a very deep this is a very deep ענין.
והיינו, third line, שבעבודת השם צריך שני ענינים שנראים כהפכיים. We have these things which seem to be opposite, which seems which seem to be contradicting.
יש לשאוף לגדולות, person has to aspire for big things, ולהשתוקק ולהשתדל תמיד לעלות יותר למעלה, person has to always always try to ascend and go higher and higher, וביחד עם זה, and together with that, להיות לו סיפוק ושמחה, and at the same moment you have to have, משה, זה בסדר עכשיו להגיד satisfaction? Okay, so here it does add up to say, and I have to have a level of satisfaction and happiness עם המדרגה שהוא נמצא בה עתה.
זאת אומרת, what what do I think he means over here? If I'm always, if I'm only aspiring all the time, and every no matter what I do, I'm always saying, but I could do so much better, and I can do so much higher, and that's all I have, that's not so that's not the שלמות העבודה.
And if I'm always content with wow, it's so good that I'm here, then I'm also not really That's also not really it. It has to be both together at every given moment. On the one hand, געוואלד where I could go, and in the same time blowing my mind that I'm even in the פרשה right now, in the moment that we're speaking about right now.
מניין, let's say like this, person takes on really trying to get to מניין.
I'm so proud of so many of the חברה here that have spoken to me about מניינים בכלל not in the cards in their life at a certain point. Not just when they're 13, 14, when they're 31, 35, 40, 45, 70.
אין יאוש. So that's but if you go to שול and you're in a מניין and you're saying, but what good is this, I've only done this three days, like I should only feel good about this when I've like conquered this and for six months I'm going to מניין every day, that's the other side.
That's the סטרא, that's not that's not אמת talking. And it works the other way as well. Next page.
כי צריך להשתוקק ולהשתדל לעלות יותר למעלה.
It is true, a person must a must aspire to go up, to go higher, כמו שכתב בדגל מחנה אפרים, I want you all to remember these names and these words of ספרים, this is the grandson of the בעל שם טוב, רבי נחמן's uncle, רבי משה חיים אפרים of סדילקוב. That's this week's פרשה. Of course. Of course.
אלא מה.
בשם הבעל שם טוב, זכותו יגן עלינו, שלגבי עבודת השם יתברך, יהא לאדם עין רעה, שלא יספיק לו כל העבודה, רק לילך תמיד ממדרגה למדרגה, להוסיף שלמות בכל יום ויום.
וכל העבודה שעשה מכבר יהיה כלא נחשב אצלו, נגד העבודה שצריך לעבוד הבורא ברוך הוא. Okay, this is a high level.
The צדיקים, how they worked. Where why is it that every single day they're filled with ברען, they're filled with fire, it's like as if they as if they're starting from scratch every single day? It's because by the real ones, they're never תולה, they never they're never banking on whatever they did yesterday. Never. They're never banking on what they did a second before.
That's one level. That's one level, like someone someone that has this חוש, these people are driven, but there's a danger to it. What's the danger? Failure. Huh? Failure.
Let let's say they're not failing. Let's say they're actually just going and they're only focusing on I'm not banking on yesterday, That's never enough. Yeah, but what's what what is the what is the סכנה? What's the danger? Dissatisfaction. The danger is that the moment means nothing.
That the moment to you means actually absolutely nothing because you're constantly thinking about how this is not going to be this is going to be meaningless tomorrow, cause I'm starting from scratch again. So the danger is that the רגע, the moment, starts becoming גארנישט, it's nothing. So on the one hand, you need that, but you need it in a way that's balanced.
כי עבודת השם יתברך הוא מצב של עלייה.
He's not talking here about עלייה, it's not about in נפש בנפש, he's talking about the state, what's יידישקייט.
עבודת השם, serving God, is never status quo. It's never static. No, this is a very hard thing for us to understand.
If, you know, we have the famous statement, if you're not growing, then what are you? Contracting. Falling. Are you, or are you just still?
בדיוק. There is no such thing as still.
That's what he's saying. Even scientifically. Scientifically as well, yeah? Yeah, well, everything's always in movement. Nothing is static, static is death.
So this is the same exact I I believe this is what he's saying. He's saying the מצב עבודת השם, if you if someone asks you, you know, what do you do and you have the sound like a חכם and you say, "I'm an עבד השם," right? Cause you know the right you know how to talk cool already, right? "Oh, what do you do for a living?" "Oh, for a living," meaning to be alive, "Yeah, I'm an עבד השם," right? Then you get the guy involved in a cool conversation and then בסדר, so you you showed off you're cool. But on the on the פנימיות of it, right, what is he saying over here? That means that you're in a constant constant state of עליה. Now רב נחמן would come and say to you, תורה ו', you have to be בקי ברצוא ושוב, you have to learn how the failures are part of the עליה.
Not לכתחילה, don't look for the failures, they're gonna happen anyway, בדיעבד, this is what happens to us. But on the עבודת השם is that it's constantly you're in a state of עליה. Again, כי עבודת השם יתברך הוא מצב של עליה, כמו שכתב במלכות שלמה, חבר'ה, I'm gonna start doing this a lot because I really want these names to get ingrained in you. Who is the מלכות שלמה? His grandfather? His זיידי, very good, רב שלמה טברסקי, the רבי of Reb of our רבי רב נטע דוד דווידוביץ, just so you know, רב נטע, his רבי was רב שלמה טברסקי, ואין להניח על עצמו להישאר על מעמד אחד.
You don't let yourself stay in one place, כמו שכתב בנתיבות שלום. It's like I think I shared this with you many times, that I asked my ראש ישיבה הרב ברוונדר one time, "What's your favorite מסכת?" What's the answer? You remember? The next one. So, ah, so that's געוואלד, so you get that, very good, meaning he said the next one, but what we're trying to say is like, okay, so the real ones, the real real high ones, they're constantly about the next one, right? But the more פשוט'ים have to say, well, the one I'm learning. That's the ultimate, the one I'm learning, and the one I'm the one I'm going to learn, right? Never heard that from someone learning דף יומי.
I've never heard that from someone who's stuck in דף יומי, "What's your favorite מסכת? The one I'm learning," I've never heard, or "the one that I'm going to," I've never heard that. I wonder why. Sorry.
וכמו שכתב בנתיבות שלום, like it says in נתיבות שלום, בשם הרב הקדוש רב משה מקוברין זכותו יגן עלינו.
Okay, רב משה מקוברין, the קוברינער in when you learn סלונים you'll see his name come up a lot. He's one of the אבני יסוד, רב משה קוברינער, he's one of the pillars of the foundations of of this of the סלונים חסידות. He was around the same time of like the מי השילוח, the קאצקער רבי, רב דוב בער פינצון, you know who he is? Of course, Rabbi Pin... Of course.
You also the the גימטריאות are also of course? Always. This whole thing on vibrations what you said before. Of course. There's no such thing as no movement.
Someone said a געוואלד תורה about the קאצקער רבי, I think it was the קאצקער רבי came to be מנחם אבל by the רב משה קוברינר when he died and the children he was מנחם the children and he said, "Tell us one thing about your father." It's amazing cause it's so connected to this. He said, "My father, the greatest thing we could say about him, רב משה of קוברין is that whenever he was with a person, everyone in that room knew that nothing else in the world mattered than that person in that moment of being alive." He בכלל wasn't, and yet he was constantly in a state of עליה, but he was not the עליה did not detract from the preciousness of the עכשיו. That's the ultimate. That's the ultimate, ממש, that's the ultimate.
This keeps on making me feel like it's it's it's it's similar to parenting in the sense that like children at different ages have different challenges, and also positive things at the same time, so it's like you always want to totally enjoy wherever your kid is at, but also to be at the next stage. It's like...
נכון. נכון.
Now we're here we're going to learn a ווארט that's connecting us more to the first שלב we're learning, בשם הרב הקדוש רב משה מקוברין שאין גרוע יותר מזה שיהודי משלים עצמו עם מצבו ברוחניות ואינו משתוקק לעלות ממנו. Wow. He's saying the lowest place to be in is when you're שלם with where you're at. Now he's even talking about someone, let let's say, he's waking up at five, he's טובל'ינג, he's going to טובל, he does שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום and דף יומי before דאווענען, he takes all his kids to school, prepares everything, shows up to מנין, good You understand? He's saying it doesn't matter where you're at on the chart, but if you're in that place of the wording is content, right? If you're in that state of of being content, he says there's nothing lower than that.
And on the other hand, I'm supposed to be also בשמחה with the moment. It's like it's amazing. Yeah. You know how they say, could be that והסר השטן מלפנינו ומאחורינו, you know? And also you said בכל יום יהיו בעיניך כחדשים, it's like it's not about yesterday where you were, it's not about...
נכון. It's interesting, it's like almost like he's saying the danger in in the present is... is סיפוק, and the danger in the future is ספק. And it's it's the it's literally the same אותיות.
Of course. Yeah, obviously. I'm kidding.
וכתב בחובת התלמידים, look at this, look who he gave us so far: the רב מענדל וויטעבסקער, the בעל שם, דגל מחנה אפרים, מלכות שלמה, רב משה מקוברין, and now, נתיבות שלום, and now the פיאסעצנער.
וכתב בחובת התלמידים פרק ג, שממחלת הנפש, one of the illnesses of of the soul, הוא מה שאין בני אדם דורשים מעצמם גדלות, where we don't demand of ourselves to be big. We don't demand it from ourselves. There's no, רב קוק speaks about this all the time, התביעה הפנימית של הנפש. He speaks about this all the time.
התביעה הפנימית. There's like an inner demand. It's interesting, cuz in Hebrew תביעה also means to sue someone. No, no, no, not with a ט, with a ת, it's לתבוע מישהו, it's like to sue someone.
It's like I'm demanding. With a ט, it's to it's to sink. With a ת, it's to to demand, to prosecute almost, almost, something like that. He's saying this is מחלת הנפש, that people don't דורש מעצמם גדלות.
They don't demand of themselves to be big people. We're fine with just the hang. The hang is holy, that's what's important.
ודומה להם, and they think, שרק הצדיקים הגדולים צריכים לעבוד ולתקן את עצמם.
That big, deep work of עבודת הנפש, of תיקון המידות, now who's that left for? No, that's the צדיקים. Us, let me just be happy that I didn't Honestly, let me let me just be happy wasn't מוציא זרע today. Let me just be happy about that. Let me just be happy that I didn't do an עבירה of of ניבול פה, that I didn't curse today.
Saying that's a that's a מחלה of the נפש.
תתבע מעצמך גדלות, demand big things. Listen, the רב קוק's words that ביני לנדאו sang, it's already like a long time ago, it's become a big a big song: בן אדם, עלה למעלה עלה. Why?
כי כח עז בך, יש לך כנפי רוח, כנפי נשרים אבירים, אל תכחש בם.
Don't be in denial of the tremendous כח that you have inside, why?
פן יכחשו לך. If you'd start denying the כוחות that you have inside of you, then those same כוחות are going to start to be like I don't belong here.
דרוש אותם, it's the same words, דרוש אותם, demand them, דרוש בן אדם, and then when you demand it, and then that רב קוק ends there, וימצאו לך מיד. I think that's the end of the song, right?
דרוש אותם דרוש בן אדם וימצאו לך מיד, meaning they'll be found right away.
I want to say like this: when a person demands greatness from themselves, even if they don't understand what to do with that or what that looks like, but they demand it, it doesn't mean you're now going to be the greatest ראש ישיבה today, tomorrow. It doesn't mean you're going to be the greatest teacher, you're going to be the greatest למדן, you're going to be the cleanest, greatest צדיק in the world, but the כח to reach greatness in your life appears. The only problem is the פיאסעצנער says, אנחנו בסדר עם ה-hang. We're okay to just get by, or not do that עבירה today.
No, צריכים לתבוע גדלות. In גלות it was enough Honestly, in גלות it was enough to act like this and not demand greatness, right?
ארץ ישראל, תורת ארץ ישראל is, רב קוק, תביעה, demanding greatness of ourselves.
וכל, so again, I'm going to say the the the the the the תורה again from the פיאסעצנער.
כתב בחובת התלמידים שממחלת הנפש הוא מה שאין בני אדם דורשים מעצמם גדלות, ודומה להם שרק הצדיקים הגדולים צריכים לעבוד ולתקן את עצמם, וכל שאר איש ישראל כפי שהוא, ובאיזה אופן שהוא, די לו.
It's enough the way I am.
וטעות גדולה טועה איש כזה. This is a tremendous, tremendous mistake. Who are you really really really ripping off when you act like that? You're ripping off השם.
You're ripping off God. You're basically saying this בריאה that You created, thank You, אבער, I mean, this is all, this is all I can do. You're ripping off השם. So yeah, it sounds scary to talk like this, but when you don't demand greatness of yourself, you're ripping off השם from what could have been a greater presence of His light in this world.
And when a person thinks like that, they start to realize, wait a second, it's time to demand greatness.
הגיע הזמן לתבוע גדלות. And that light, that's the light of ארץ הקודש. You know why I think it's like this? In גלות, it's very easy to think that you תבעת גדלות, that you demanded and asked for great things from yourself, but quite often those great things are very much חוץ, חיצוניות things: status, promotions, like those kind of things.
The תביעה פנימית coming from the נפש in ארץ ישראל is real גדלות, real deep inner work, deep inner cleansing of all the things we've been speaking about until now. I heard something yesterday that I think goes well with this, but if not, it's still worth saying, is a wife was trying to convince her husband, honestly, to to make עלייה. And he was telling her like, you know, I have like we're just setting up, and I have friends, I have my, I have the the שול and everything like that. And she goes, "I don't think it's fair that we're choosing your עולם הזה over my עולם הבא." And they moved.
Oh, they did? Oh, wow.
כי שמע בקולה. And then what happened to his עולם הזה? Well, now he's working on his עולם הבא, too. No, he's doing amazing here.
He says there was there's a a blindfold on you like in America, and you just don't get it.
נכון, so where's the blindfold here? The blindfold here is that we've made it. You think you got it. You made it.
You made it. Check, עלייה. Right. That's basically like if there's one common theme throughout all the שיעורים we've had all the years, it's exactly this point.
The game only starts once you move here, but the danger is to fall into what the פיאסעצנא is saying once you've moved here: שממחלת הנפש הוא מה שאין בני אדם דורשים מעצמם גדלות. Why don't we demand of ourselves גדלות? What's one of the reasons? Let's be honest, because we think we already reached it. We think we we think we already climbed the Everest by just by by just moving there.
געוואלד, this יידעלע is actually on his way to move here.
He's coming to meet with me later today, he's actually moving here, so it's amazing השגחה. That's that's what I put so much energy into my into my own consciousness all the time is saying, doesn't matter what's happened until now, זה לא משנה. The pulse of the בעל שם, the pulse of the light of פנימיות התורה, the pulse of רב קוק, right?
רב קוק could have had many moments in his life when he could have said, "I think I wrote enough.
אני חושב שכתבתי מספיק, and could use a little bit of a rest, you know?" No, that's not how things work.
That's not how it goes. The real builders of ארץ ישראל were never satisfied, לא הסתפקו במה שהם בנו. You know, we live amongst greats here. Do you think Josh Adler has ever been like felt like, "I did enough for ארץ ישראל, I built enough here?" מה פתאום.
Inside there's always this He retired to the north to keep building up there. Exactly. "I retired from here to keep building another place in ארץ ישראל, ממש." ובפרט לפי מה שכתב בתניא, דכל עבודה שעושה אדם בנקל, anything that a person does that comes easily, שאין לו מלחמה עם יצרו עליו, and he doesn't have any מלחמה with his יצר, לא מקרי עבודה אמיתית. That's not called real work.
Anything that comes to you naturally may be beautiful, and it also may be very holy, but that's not considered עבודת השם.
עבודה is an actual word called work.
ולכן כשהגיע לאיזה מדרגה והרגיל את עצמו אליה עד ששוב נעשה לו כטבע ואין לו מלחמה עליה, and then he's saying something very important here, any עבודת השם that you take on and then you conquered it, it used to be hard for you, but then you conquered it, and then it becomes natural for you, you're not in that פרשה anymore of struggling with it, it's now a טבע that you've conquered, so he says, תו לא הוי עבודה כל כך, then that place now is not considered עבודה anymore. Why? Why isn't that place that you've now conquered not called עבודת השם if you still keep it?
הרגל.
הרגל, because it's a beautiful הרגל. It's געוואלד, but you've leveled up and now it's time to take the concept of עבודה ווייטער, עד שדוחק עצמו לעשות יותר מהרגלו. He's he's not letting us off the hook.
עבודת השם is when you push yourself to do more than what you're currently doing now.
So it doesn't mean serving Hashem or work, it means struggle. Because work work doesn't But why struggle, like yeah. A person can do work, that it's not that it's not challenging. A person can go to his job everyday, and he does work, but it's not it's not a struggle it's not a struggle to Yeah, but that's not We're talking about עבודת השם.
A person can do things that that is serving Hashem that it's not a struggle. You have to balance that where you are right now as well. You have to be content where you are and understand that there's always there's always more you can push. All right, but he's saying that עבודת השם means to push yourself beyond your comfort, meaning so it's not just about serving Hashem.
You could do that within your comfort zone. Listen, this שיעור is called יסודות החסידות. Obviously someone that's not holding the פרשה of the בעל שם would say what you're saying and believe in it, but you don't believe in what you just said. No, I'm saying that's how he's טייטשing up עבודת השם.
It means to נכון. to to push yourself to your to your נכון, because עבודה, and it's let's take the word עבודה. What does עבודה word mean? What does עבודה mean? Work. Work, it means something active.
So if you're not if it if if what you're involved in is not demanding of you anything that makes you feel like you have to be active, that means that it's not what we're talking about. It's essentially the fifth part. This is like working on your מדות. From the יכול להיות.
יכול להיות, יכול להיות, עמנואל.
הרב דסלר teaches this same נקודה and he calls it נקודת הבחירה. And he calls it that you keep moving right, the the battle it's like no man's land in the battlefield. And the more you push on, so now you have a different field.
Instead of עבודה, he calls it בחירה, meaning when I reach a certain point, it's not בחירה anymore. I'm not I'm not Right. struggling with בחירה to eat כשר anymore. So now now I'm on the next level.
No, like like okay, that that's a very good example. Imagine someone that ממש grew up like בכלל not כשר, then they became בעלי תשובה, whatever for this I'm just saying that phrase for the sake of of just making it a little bit clear right now, but you know what I mean. And one of the things were is that the first few months they kept they started keeping כשר, when they walked next to when they're in let's say when we're in חוץ לארץ, and when they drove by a Burger King, or or, you know, Taco Bell, whatever it was, so in the beginning, you know, it it did do something to them.
בהתחלה, right? And then they see, "Oh, Yanky's Pizza.
Okay, I guess this is what we signed up for." So it's not like doesn't feel so right Whatever it was. I don't know. What the What did you guys have in Detroit? Not so much, huh? Not so much. I'm from LA, so that that's a bad example, right? We had every type of no Anyone that started keeping כשר in LA, it wasn't as hard as like some of these places that there aren't that many there weren't that many places.
There weren't many אפשרויות. Now, let's say that that person is fine with the description of their עבודת השם being that every time for the next 10 years that they pass by a טרף restaurant, they're like, It's amazing. I don't even want to go in there anymore. Brother, you gotta you gotta צריכים לעלות.
I mean, I'm happy for you that you're not eating טרף, but יאללה, צריכים לעלות.
צריכים לעלות, that's the that's the point here, שמואל. Yeah, I mean, I I think a lot of this resonates about, you know, not not resting on your laurels and pushing yourself forward to the next step. Just trying to understand how we reconcile this with the fact that יעקב אבינו at a certain point of his life he just wanted שלוה.
He wanted And he got it at the end. 17 years. Not when not when he wanted it. Not וישב.
Not when he wanted it. But you see him desiring after after יוסף was gone, he he was like he he was he wanted שלוה. So is I'm not sure if that's relevant here, but I'm trying to understand that. Well, the the easy way out of like this question is saying let's let's like get to that שלב of everything else he went through, and then we'll talk, you know.
Like let's fight like finish off עשו's angel, Yeah. and then we could talk about what that means about because you know. Didn't sleep for 14 years. Yeah, but you know but you know what's amazing by יעקב אבינו when he was there, what does it say about after those seven years of work?
ויהיו בעיניו Yeah.
כימים אחדים. Why? Because when you are in action mode towards what you love, time means nothing. It's as if there was no time. The the שאלה, listen, and and maybe the maybe רש״י lets us know, וישב יעקב, ביקש יעקב לישב בשלווה, קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף.
יוסף. Means יוסף kind of got angry at him and said, "You can't chill." Okay, think about this for a second. Who was the one that kind of like got upset at his father that he wanted to chill? What's his name? What does that mean?
יוסף says, "If you want to chill, then my קיום in this world, my name, יוסף, להוסיף, זה לא..." Doesn't work. You brought me to you brought you brought a concept of יוסף into the world.
צריכים להוסיף. Maybe it's just to teach us that, I don't know. I don't know. Let's let's let's finish let's go one more one more one more paragraph in.
וכתב בעמוד האמת Have we finished this one? Yeah.
וכתב בעמוד האמת בשם הרב הקדוש מקוצק. One of the ספרים the קוצקער רבי didn't sit down and write ספרים, you all know this, but they have put it together in a few different compilations. One of them is called עמוד האמת, The Pillar of Truth.
One of them, a big fat volume is called אמת ואמונה, אמת ואמונה, and we have in the compilation the famous one called שיח שרפי קודש, a bunch of the ווארטס and טייערלעך from רבי מענדל of קוצק. So he says like this: וכתב בעמוד האמת בשם הרב הקדוש מקוצק שאמר משל להסביר ענין עבודת השם.
שהנה התקין הקדוש ברוך הוא סולם שדרכו יורדות הנשמות מעולם העליון לעולם הזה. God created a ladder, He placed a ladder, through which the נשמות descend from the higher world into this world.
וכאשר הנשמה דורכת על הקרקע, and the moment the soul touches the ground of this world, מיד נלקח הסולם. The ladder is immediately taken and removed. So you can already see where he's going with this.
ומן השמים קוראים לנשמות לחזור ולעלות, and then from שמים, from heavens, they keep on calling out to these souls, "Come back.
Come back up." But the ladder was taken! So he says like this: יש בני אדם שאינם מנסים לעשות כלום. The many people don't even try to demand גדלות from themselves because they know, באמרם, what did they say?
הרי הסולם נאדר. The ladder was removed. What do you want from me?
כיצד נצליח לעלות? How am I going to get back up? What are you asking me even to to to to to be big? To be big, to take on big? What are you talking about? The ladder was taken!
יש בני אדם, then there's others, המנסים להתרומם בקפיצה.
They're like, "Okay, you want me to come up? I'm going to jump really high!" ולאחר שנפלו כמה פעמים, נואשים ממאמציהם. And after they've tried jumping a few times and have fallen flat on their face, they're like, "I'm not going to try this anymore." ויש בני אדם Now this, you could cry over this.
ויש בני אדם האומרים, "הסולם איננו, it's true, the ladder upon which I descended is removed, so I don't have it to go back up, אבל אם בכל זאת קוראים לנו לעלות, סימן שיש לנסות עד בלי סוף." How precious is this? But if they're still calling us from שמים, saying, "Try to come back up," it has to mean that I have to try endlessly, endlessly to keep on going higher.
ואמנם השם יתברך מרחם עליהם, God has compassion on those, לאחר שחזרו וקפצו כמה פעמים, ומעלה אותם אליו, עד כאן דבריו הקדושים.
Meaning God, eventually, to the person that sees the ladder is gone, I've tried to jump, I fall on my face, but if I hear the voice that's saying every day a בת קול יוצאת מחורב ואומרת, שובו בנים שובבים, and I hear a voice that tells me I have to keep on trying, so I don't understand how it's going to work cuz the ladder was removed, but I hear the voice that says, "Come, just do whatever you can," I'm going to try, even though there's no ladder. So what is the קוצקער רבי saying? Basically, the רבונו של עולם at a certain point has רחמנות, and He sees, wow, this is a real בעל בטחון and אמונה, cuz they don't have any ladder, they know there's no ladder, and yet they can't they they do not want to rid themselves of the voice that says, "Come home." So they keep on going, they have and Hashem at a certain point, the רחמנות kicks in, and Hashem says, "Ah, okay, yeah, קפיצת הדרך was was created just for you." עד כאן דבריו הקדושים, that's the משל, and he ends off here saying: ומשל זה יורד ונוקב עד התהום. This goes this משל is the משל in in קאצק language, it's like it's like basically saying show us that you're real. Show us that you're real.
So how would you show yourself that you're real in the בית מדרש of רב מנדל of קאצק, especially based on this, is that every סיוע ועזר, any type of help or aid that to you makes sense, which on a logical level that helps you get out of places that you're in, it's all removed from you, and you're not content with saying, "Listen, there's no ladder, there's no way to get out of here." I'm going to translate it to our terminology: "I don't have money, so how could I be an עובד השם?" or "Daddy issues, what do you expect of me?" All the excuses and all the issues, none of them are too big to clog and to block the נשמה's wanting to hear the like that to respond to the calling and say, "Come up." There's no victim consciousness, ממש we de-קליפה ourselves completely, המבין יבין. There's nothing that we could say is strong enough and big enough to allow me to stay in a state of being content. I shared with some of the חברה that רב יהודה משל was the first one that gave me any He I showed him the manuscript of the ספר that just came out, of the autobiography of רב שלמה, and I I was actually on a שבתון for him, with him, on the grounds of Camp מורשה. I probably could have channeled your energy that שבת, or maybe not, I would have gotten in trouble if I would have channeled your energy, not that version of you.
And it was it was for something else, and I had the beginning of the first chapter, and I showed it to him because I was I couldn't believe what what we started to work on. It was like so amazing. And after שבת, he came to my room, and he said, "I want to be the first one to לתרום," and he gave me $101 for it. Why 101? Why? It's just like every עצה the רבי gave any ייד is ממש in this paragraph of of of more.
Like remember all the videos of people coming, standing on dollars, the שליח so excited to introduce the big גביר that gave that dropped a million, two million on a new חב״ד house in Hawaii or whatever, and what does the רבי tell him, "שכוח"? No. What does the רבי tell him? More.
"נאך a million." Why? Because while we're in this world, even when it seems impossible, the healthiest state a ייד can be in is to constantly be forward, ווייטער. However, this is just one side of the coin, because we also have to master the art of what does it mean to be in the שמחה of the moment.
That we're going to leave for Monday, next Monday, בעזרת השם. So we'll stop here. If you can give me give me back the pages I printed out, and I'll bring it back to you on Monday, בעזרת השם.
רבי חנניא בן עקשיא אומר רצה הקדוש ברוך הוא לזכות את ישראל לפיכך