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What type of rest do we yearn for on Shabbat? How do we frame our mindset during the week to prepare for Shabbat and how can we transform our Shabbat experience? Using the teachings of Rabbi Yaakov Meir Shechter, a leading Breslov Rabbi, in his sefer Yom Machmadim, we build tools towards enhancing our ability to connect to the day of rest.
Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam. I'm gonna start again and pretend that there are people in the room. Deal? We'll try it again? Yeah? Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai.
Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai. Lai lai dai dai rai dai dai rai dai lai dai lai dai lai lai dai dai dai. Lai dai lai dai lai lai dai dai dai.
Lai dai lai dai lai lai dai dai dai. Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai.
Dai dai dai lai dai lai dai lai dai lai dai lai dai lai lai dai dai dai. Hey, lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai dai lai lai dai lai lai dai dai dai. Hey, lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai dai lai lai dai lai lai dai dai dai. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai dai dai lai lai lai dai lai dai dai dai.
Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam. Lai lai lai. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai.
I am bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai. Hey, bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam.
Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai. Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam. Lai lai lai. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai.
Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai. Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam bam. Lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai lai.
Hey, bam bam bam, oh oh oh, lai lai lai bam bam bam bam bam. I have a cheishek. It's just to teach one of these, one of the new niggunim. Last, I guess in the middle of the night, the...
[Error processing chunk 2] כי עמך מקור חיים, b'orcha nireh or.
כי עמך מקור חיים, b'orcha nireh or. Ufros aleinu sukkat shlomecha. Ufros aleinu sukkat shlomecha.
Wow. You know what it is to sing a song that you sang alone for probably 20 years and then sing it with everybody? Mashu acher. It's unbelievable, zchut, and it should, b'ezrat Hashem, this parsha of u'faratzta. So if there was ever a time to put out something, and u'faratzta, u'faratzta, just to get.
Mazel tov, Shlomie just had a baby boy this week, baruch Hashem. Mazel tov.
שיזכו לקבל פני משיח צדקנו. Amen.
Yashar koach, yashar koach. Yeah, a lot of, it's very, very, very special. Okay, chevra, can you please, can you give out these pages? On the page, on the sefer shin gimmel vav. We're nearing the end of the sefer, and it's very exciting.
ברוך אתה ה' אלוקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Amen. Before I forget, another, another wonderful, a wonderful opportunity we have. Shehecheyanu? Shin gimmel vav.
Sorry, shin nun gimmel. Sorry, sorry, sorry. My head's all for clammed. I was stuck in the tunnels last night during that whole shooting with my wife and my baby daughter.
Meshugas, meshugas. Came out in an hour. It was, yeah. This Wednesday night, we have the zchut of having the Bialer Rebbe come come to our shul.
This is not simple stuff. I don't know what's going on. No, no, I'm just like, like the gates have been opening and the tzaddikim have been coming in. Wednesday night at 8 p.m., it should be a strong, strong kabbalas panim like we did like we did with the Tolna Rebbe and obviously with Rav Weinberger.
But really, chazak, because this is, I've been learning with the women on Thursday mornings, the sefer of his father, the m'vaser tov, about ma'alas tfilas nashim. Nashim, he has a lot of, lot of, lot of sfarim, b'zchut nashim tzidkaniyos. And Bialer is a is a very, very important, you could do do the homework if you want before the Rebbe comes to sit here for like till you figure it out on this on the wall of, this is like the wall of fame over here. You'll find it.
Just kind of check in with the Yid HaKadosh of, you know, from Pshischa and you'll find it. So 8 p.m. this coming Wednesday night is very, very special and I want all the chevra to show up like we did last time and even more.
ברוב עם הדרת מלך. And we should just, we should, we should be roy, we should be zocheh to realize what a zchut we have that these tzaddikim are coming to grace our Beis Medrash.
It's, it's crazy. Lo muvan me'eilav. These things never happened before. Bless you.
So we're nearing the end of the sefer, shin nun gimmel, sorry about that. And even though over here it's by shalosh seudos, we all know that we start Shabbos with this also, with ידיד נפש אב הרחמן. And the pasuk, the words we're going to be focusing on is ירוץ עבדך כמו איל. How do you say ayal in English? A deer? A type of a gazelle? A gazelle.
ירוץ עבדך כמו איל. Actually, where's Jerome? I should ask him. Your son's name, right?
ירוץ עבדך כמו איל. So this is a very, very important teaching that I could sum the whole thing up with telling you it in one sentence: We are infinitely stronger than we think we are.
That's, that's the whole Torah we're going to learn today. And now we're going to see it inside. So please look inside the bottom of Shin-Nun-Gimmel.
ירוץ עבדך כמו איל.
The pages went out, went, went around? Yeah? Okay. Ita b'Gemara. The Gemara in Brachos says, לעולם ירוץ אדם לדבר הלכה ואפילו בשבת. And we know that actually on Shabbos you're not supposed to be running, right? You're supposed to have a psiah gasa.
But it says, לעולם ירוץ אדם לדבר הלכה, אפילו בשבת, שנאמר אחרי השם ילכו כאריה ישאג. As it says in Hoshea, after Hashem you shall walk like a roaring lion. Now what is the Gemara in Brachos speaking about over there that a person should run to a dvar halacha? So it's a whole sugya. But basically, when we have the opportunity not just to do a mitzvah but to also refrain, chalila, from being over an aveira, a person has to run from it, or run towards the Torah, always.
Now the problem, there's a problem over here. Are you supposed to run or are you supposed to walk? Because the proof the Gemara brings seems to be contradicting itself. Because first it says, לעולם ירוץ אדם. Okay, what's the proof that a person should run? He brings a pasuk that should have said, אחרי השם what? Yarutz? But it says yeilech, right?
אחרי השם ילכו כאריה ישאג.
והתמיה ידוע. This is not a chiddush. Anyone that's learning the sforim, they speak about this all the time. It's a well known kashia.
הרי בפסוק נאמר אחרי השם ילכו ואיך למד מכאן שיש לרוץ לדבר מצוה. The pasuk is speaking about walking. From here we're learning we're supposed to run? Doesn't make so much sense. Ah, Zeide, וביאר הלהבה קודש החידושי הרי"ם זכותו יגן עלינו.
כי הנה ההולך על משענתו מתשות כוחו. If someone is walking with a cane, we're back to a makel, to a mish'enet, right, the leaning.
הרי, וכי הנה ההולך על משענתו מתשות כוחו. Sorry for the little tangent, just because it happened this morning like 7:00 a.m., I get a text from a woman that that video that went around of meechah meechah meechah, she says, I don't know if you know, but my husband wrote that niggun.
I'm like, he's been very sick for a while and I'm going to go tell him that the chevra now it's like been resurrected and because it did, it really, a lot of chevra now started singing that niggun. So this woman contacted me, it was a 718 number I think. I couldn't believe it. This woman, mamash like for her it was like middle of the night, and she says, I want you to know my husband who's been sick for a while, he, it's his niggun.
I said, who's your husband? She told me the name. I'm like, you're not going to believe this, your husband and my father are like best friends for many, many years. If you remember, if you remember him, his name was Martin Davidson. He was a singer.
He is a singer. He was a ba'al shem for in 80s and 90s more. A lot of different niggunim. So you never know who needs to hear what at what, at what time, right? I was just thinking about it because the mish'enet, because that was the whole Torah about shiftcha al mishantecha, right?
מלך ממית ומחיה ומצמיח ישועה.
כי הנה ההולך על משענתו מתשות כוחו, a person that's leaning on the, they need a cane to get by because they're exhausted.
ופתאום יראה אריה לידו, and suddenly you see a lion come next to you, בודאי ינוס משם כמתח לקשת. You'll check out of there in a second. You forget the fact that you've been using a cane.
A lion's coming, you're not going to be like, let me. No, you drop the cane and you'll run out of there. And what's the reason for this?
כי בשעת הסכנה מתעוררים בו כל הכוחות האדירים הטמונים בו. As this whole country has seen for over the last two years, that at a time of danger, all of the kochos, the immense, amazing, gevuldige kochos that we have, hatmunim bo, that are in us suddenly show up in a time of sakana.
Things you thought you could never accomplish, places in life you thought you could never reach, strength you thought you could never ever access. Not that you couldn't access, you didn't even think you had it. Accessing means I have it, I just don't have access to it. We're talking places you never, b'sha'as sakana.
Now we learned by Rabbi Elimelech this week that really every single moment in life is a sha'as sakana if we really knew what what life was about. Every moment in life is a sha'as sakana. That means that there's the potential to tap into the kochos hadirim the moment that I realize that a life without Kudsha Brich Hu, a life without meaning, a life without longing is a sha'as sakana. And the more that I realize that, the more that I discover everything that I already have inside of me.
And this is what the pasuk is coming to teach us. When a person is coming to do a mitzvah, הרי החלוש יאמר גבור. gibor ani, that suddenly the weak person will say, I'm not weak. I'm not weak.
I'm a gibor. I'm not, I'm not hitting snooze. I'm not talking back to my wife. I'm not letting it out on my children in a way that's going to make me feel disgusted and ashamed and then call my father or mother and blame them.
I'm, I'm, I'm a gibor if I realize what's in front of me. So here he's saying divrei mitzvah. But it's really also works the other way, running away from sakana.
כי מרוב תשוקתו לעשות רצון קונו because from such a passion to do the will of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, יהיה בכוחו אף לרוץ לדבר מצוה, you'll end up running towards a mitzvah.
When? When I, when I just get this consciousness, when I'm plugged into this, what, what the emes is, what שויתי ה' לנגדי תמיד really is. I could start running in places that I thought, are you kidding me? I have no kochos at all.
והדברים אמורים ביותר כאשר מגיע עליו נסיון בעניני יראת שמים. Obviously when it comes to things that have to do with yiras shamayim, the nisyonos of yiras shamayim, שעליו לנוס מן העבירה, that I have to run, flee from the aveira.
Chevra, the word lanus, nu? Where's it from? Yona. Before that. Az Yashir. Yosef.
Yosef. va'yanos va'yetze ha'chutza. Yosef HaTzadik, eishes Potifar. The lashon there is that it ran.
He ran out. Who knows how tired he was? Who knows what was going on with him? That's why by Az Yashir we say, right, when we say by Krias Yam Suf, ha'yam ra'ah va'yanos, the midrash says it was a zechus of the aron of Yosef that came, that Moshe Rabbeinu was carrying the aron of Yosef, right? He didn't carry it but him and Serach bas Asher, the beautiful midrash say, they yanked them out of the waters because the Egyptians knew that the secret of their geulah was dependent on atzmos Yosef because pakod pakadeti eschem, he made the shvua. So the midrash says they, what they do, they put him in a coffin and they tied it with shackles and shackles and shackles and they sunk to the bottom of the sea. Moshe Rabbeinu needed, needed to get Yosef HaTzadik out of there before they could leave Mitzrayim.
Serach bas Asher shows up. She's a very, very amazing, mysterious character in the Torah and in the midrash. Together they call him out and he comes up and in the zechus of that, ha'yam ra'ah va'yanos. So this inyan, so Naftali is right.
It's the same thing about ינוס שמה כל רוצח. The Torah continues to use this lashon of running to a place. Why would the Torah use the lashon of va'yanos for a person that has to find an ir miklat? It's very clear, because after you kill somebody, you know, you know the last thing you have koach to do? Anything. You just want to end life, when you realize, especially if it was a mistake.
So the Torah uses that lashon also over there. All these vorts aren't vorts, all this mahalach is to remind us that inside of us, as tired as we think we are, or as non-inspired as we think we are, be'sha'as sakana va'yanos. We have it in us. Like I'm sure you've heard of all the different stories about, nebach, rachmana litzlan.
I saw this one time in my life as a little kid in Los Angeles when a car flipped over. If a car flips over, you ever see someone trying to actually, especially if their kids are in the car? I mamish saw this and I'll never forget where this was. La Brea and, and, and Third, I think it was, in Los Angeles. I saw this in carpool coming home, that a, a, a Yiddishe mama with, with a Rebbe Volkswagen.
You know, you remember those? The Volvo, what was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mamish, that, that, that was exactly that thing. It flipped over in front of me. The mother had three kids in the back seat.
Suddenly she has this koach to come and start. And she wasn't matzliach, but to even think that you have the koach, on a normal day would you tell someone, hey, try to flip that over? Ma p'tom, you're crazy. I'll get a backache, I'm going to injure myself. There's no, there's no point to it.
sha'as sakana, we, we tuned into these, into these kochos. We should never chalila have to go to those extreme examples. Aval, they're real. They're real.
So just for the chevra that have the seforim, there's just one more line on the next page, וכדאיתא במשנה הוי בורח מן העבירה. That's what it means in the mishna in Avos says, to run away, to run, lanus, min ha'aveira. Now, chevra, the shiur really starts now, okay? It starts now, because we have a Rav Biderman footnote that's going to change our lives. Look inside mem aleph.
The footnote mem aleph on shin nun daled. This is unbelievable.
סיפר הגאון החשוב רב גידל איזנר, we've spoken about him many times.
שקודם המלחמה הכיר זקן אחד שהיה בן שישים.
No, don't freak out. chevra, but back then that was considered zaken, 'cause he says over here באותם הימים היה הדבר נחשב לזקנה של ממש. Back then you made it to 60. Before the war, you were doing really good.
שהיה יושב ולומד בבית המדרש. He was sitting and learning in shul, in Beis Midrash, ומידי פעם היה פונה לאחד מהעוברים ושבים ומבקש מאימו שיכין לו כוס תה. He was already zikna. He would ask people that were passing back and forth, make me a cup of tea, כי היה מרגיש בעצמו כי עקב זקנותו ותשותו אין די כח במתניו להכין לעצמו כוס משקה.
He felt old. He's out of koach for this. I'm going to ask people passersby to come and give me a cup of tea. And this would happen all the time.
וכבר היה מעשה שביקש מבחור עז פנים שיכין לו כוס תה. You know what an az panim means? He chose the wrong guy. Chutzpah. A mechutzaf, to prepare for him a cup of tea.
ואותו בחור השיב לו. So the bachur answers back, וכי למה יטריח מעלת כבודו בכל יום ובכל שעה לפעולים והעולנים שיכינו המשקה. Why are you bothering people every day that are passing back and forth to make you a cup of tea?
יקום נא מר ויקיים בעצמו מצות שימוש תלמידי חכמים, שהרי מצוה בו יותר מבשלוחו. What a mechutzaf dekkekopf.
What is he saying? You want to really meshamish talmidei chachamim? There's a mitzva that it's more on you than than your shaliach. Whatever, it's it's not for now, but those that are holding understand this. I should be holding. But you know what I mean? Like מצוה בו יותר מבשלוחו.
You get, it's more of a mitzvah when you do something instead of sending a shaliach. That's regarding a lot of different things, but this is what he's telling the guy himself. Yakum, right?
ואותו יהודי נאנח אנחה כבדה ואמר לו צדקו דבריך. Oh, you're right.
אך מה אעשה ואין כוח במותני. But what can I do? I don't have any koach. This is before the war.
המשיך רבי גדל וסיפר.
לארח זמן מועט כבשו הרשעים הארורים את פולין. So a little time later, yemach shemam, they conquered Poland, ואני הוגליתי בשבר אחר שבר למחנות העבודה יחד עם אותו זקן. And I was going from camp to camp with that same old man that was in shul.
ושם ראיתיו יגע ועמל חמש עשרה שעות מדי יום ביומו.
I saw him breaking his back 15 hours a day with hard labor that they put him through.
והיה נושא על גבו משאות כבדים מנשוא. They made him, he had to schlep on his back very heavy pekelach.
ושמא תשאלו, היאך עשה כדבר הזה? How could he have done it? This is the same guy that was asking people to make him a cup of tea.
כי ידע שאם יתעצל אפילו במעט מיד תפח נפשו על ידי אחד מהצוררים. Because he knew that the moment that he showed any weakness and he'd show and display any laziness, the German that's standing right there would pop a bullet in his head. Umisham lamadeti, Rav Gadel says like this. From there I learned כמה כוחות עצומים טמונים באדם.
Tamun b'adam doesn't mean it was invented, that these kochos are invented. Tamun b'adam means it exists within us.
ואין עליו כי אם להוציא את כל אלו הכוחות מן הכוח אל הפועל, ויכול לעשות ולפעול גדולות ונצורות. When you act like this and you don't wait for shas hasakana and you tap into it before by inviting an awareness of sakana, wow, what koach you, what koach you're living with.
What koach atzum you're dealing with.
אף משמו של הרב הקדוש אבני נזר זיע"א ומבני בנוי הרב הקדוש שם משמואל. So the Sochatchover Rebbe brought in the name of his father, שבכל אדם טמונים כוחות אדירים שאינו מגלה אותם כי אם בשעת סכנה. All of us have seen this.
Last night in the tunnel, you know what happened. Couldn't believe this. If you would tell me that I'd have to figure out how to deal with this, I would tell you I would have lost my mind. We're going in the tunnel.
As we go in the tunnel, suddenly there's a loud azaka. Partza sreifa.
לא להתפנות מן המנהרה מיד. Was anyone else in the tunnel last night? You were there? You were in it? Did you hear it? That that that azaka.
Partza sreifa. I have my wife and my daughter in the backseat, right?
נא להתפנות מהמנהרה מיד. So I'm thinking, a fire broke, get out of the tunnel immediately. What's the problem? you can't get out because it was jammed in there.
My first thought is backdraft. Is that what it was called? That right away I'm going to see, chalila, this. massive like fireball, and I don't know from what way it's coming. I also don't know how deep in the tunnel I am.
I couldn't figure it out. I didn't know what was closer. Was it a long tunnel? Which end? The long one. I didn't know which, I couldn't figure it out.
So, and all the cars are stopped and I'm thinking, oh my God, Ribono Shel Olam, what am I going to do? And of course, everyone stops, and of course, a bunch of chevra go out of the car, and I'm thinking, where is it safer, vechulu. I go out of the car, I say to Bina, I'm just gonna go and smell to see what what direction. I go out and I smell, I'm like, there's nothing going on, but I see tons of magavnikim and hatzalah, and everyone's running towards towards then I figured it out, okay, so something happened towards that direction. But for 20 minutes, we couldn't figure out what was going on.
So if you if maybe before two years ago, these things would have been seen would seem more triggering and traumatic because we've been through so much. But at that moment, it was almost like like with with my cup that I used during the week, I'm done because how do you function like this? Is it a fire? Is it not a fire? Are there mechablim that are running into the tunnel right now? Why is everyone, why are they going with their guns right now? What what what's going on over here? But then you realize it's a shaas sakana, you have to play it cool. And you can't show your wife or your kid your phone, especially when Duvi sent a message right then and there on the shtem, you know, what people thought it was in the beginning. It's really is a totsa'ah of terror, the fact that it even happened because we were trying to make sure that these neveilos stop coming in illegally, as if there's something that's called legally, which is also a tipshus sakana that we're, עם ישראל שתהיה רפואה שלמה immediately from that.
But it's but it's like this with shaas sakana. The point is, is that, and Rav Noson speaks about this in Likutei Halachos, the ultimate ideal way of serving the Ribono Shel Olam is with the awareness of what the sakana brings you without the sakana. To take it even further. You said it again? I'm gonna say it differently now.
Reb Shlomo taught this based on the Izhbitzer and Mei Hashiloach and Beis Yaakov in Parshas Mikeitz Vayigash. The difference between Yosef and Yehuda, we always say tzaddik and baal teshuva, right? But the baal teshuva, he feels something the tzaddik, baruch Hashem, never had to feel, but wait, במקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים אין צדיקים גמורים יכולים לעמוד. So the Kotzker Rebbe's vort is harsh. Why can't the tzaddik stand where the baal teshuva is? He says because it stinks there.
So that's why we don't like that. I mean it's a heavy vort, but now try to go to the pnimius of it. Reb Shlomo said like this. Yosef haTzaddik was able to taste how much a Yiddishe heart breaks when it's mechallel Shabbos without mechalleling Shabbos.
You hear how deep that is? Without actually mechalleling Shabbos, he feels the pain that a Yid goes through when he ends up mechalleling Shabbos. So the baal teshuva feels it by action, or he did before. The tzaddik, yesod olam, can feel that exact pain without being over on the lav, right? Or not doing the aseh. Back to Reb Noson.
He doesn't say the tzaddik, but he says about Yiddishkeit that the person has to aim towards reaching a place that they wake up and feel the immediate danger without literally going through the danger. Right? And because that's access to the כוחות הטמונים בנו. So here we have examples and we have ein sof examples in our mesorah to people that had to go through it like this, but the point of this is, what's the, Akiva has a famous song with these words. Yesh becha, what are the words there? Who's Akiva, where's he get niggunim from? Cool.
No? Come on, you guys are embarrassed. There's got to be some Akiva chasidim in the room. No, what's the words? Yesh becha, what are the words there? He has lyrics there that also speak about this, that you have, in you, you have, oh, it's a little bit different, כל עוד לא הפסקת לחלום, אתה מנצח. ve'iter? Okay, you'll go home and listen to it.
But it speaks about this, it speaks about this inyan. Now one more, the end of this footnote over here. Just want to go to the bottom over here. This is an amazing thing.
Because this is the, this is the Klausenberger. Actually, sorry, sorry, let's finish, let's finish this paragraph. Again, אף משמיה של רב הקדוש אבני נזר, מביא בנו הרב הקדוש שם משמואל, שבכל אדם טמונים כוחות אדירים שאינו מגלה אותם כי אם b'eit sakana. V'haya omer, and the Sochatchover would say like this, כי כך היא המציאות.
שבעת שפורצת שריפה בביתו של אדם, הרי הוא מגלה כוחות אדירים, ובעוז ובעוצמות להזיז ממקומם חפצים וארונות כבדים מנשוא כדי להציל את בנו הקטן. Chalila, your little boy is stuck behind a dresser, behind a fridge somehow. lo yodea ma. But things that normally you wouldn't go and approach and say, I could probably move this.
You don't think, you just move it when it's b'shaas sakana of a fire breaks out, and this is what you need to do, this is what you need to do.
ואל תאמר, but he says like this, but don't say, שרק בעת סכנה קיבל כוחות אלו. Don't say, oh, now that it's a danger, I'm in a danger, Hashem gave me the kochos now. That's he's almost saying that's kfira.
You didn't have it, and now, magically, Hashem gave you these supernatural kochos. Don't say it.
כי באמת הינם חבויים בקרבו. that b'emes chavui, it's it's hidden, it's there.
It's tucked in away. It's in you.
ואינם כי אם נגלים באלו המצבים, but the truth is they just be revealed in these situations.
כפי שאמרו חכמי המחקר.
כי במשך ימיו של אדם אינו מוציא אל הפועל כי אם שבעה חלקים מתוך מאה מכוחו וגבורתו. That's already I, that's already a high percentage. What did he just say? Who's chachmei hamechkar? 7% of their brain? No, no, no. Who's chachmei, who are the chachmei hamechkar? Philosophers or scientists saying the one that observe man's behavior throughout life, they came to the conclusion that throughout a person's life, they only attach themselves, they're only able to activate 7% of their kayach.
How much you think they they they access of their brain? What are you thinking? I read an article that it's 4%. 7% of their koach, they they activate.
ובשעת צרה וצוקה, but in a time of pain and distress, you mishtamesh b'chol kochosav, you use everything. So anyway the Kloyzenberger Rebbe.
פעם ביקש רבנו הקדוש השפע חיים מאסכאן אחד שיפעל בעניין מסוים. He asked an askan. There's no word for that in English. Okay? An askan.
Na'aneh and he said, I need you to do something. Na'aneh ha'askan, listen to these words, because we say these words often, אעשה ככל שביכלתי לעשות. I'll do whatever I can. I'll do whatever I can? Do you realize what that how false that statement is? I'm gonna do whatever I can? Don't ever say those words.
Look what he says.
אמר לו הרבי, בכי יש לך השגה כמה כוחות ויכולות יש ביד האדם? Do you have any idea what you can do? You don't know what you can do.
שמע למעשה שאספר לך.
אז תדע כמה כוחות ישנם בכל אדם.
Now I'll tell you a story, and now you'll know how much kochos people really have.
בימים שלפני המלחמה, also pre-World War II, כשהייתי יושב על כסא רבנות בעיר קלויזנבורג. I was sitting as a rov in Kloisenburg.
מסרתי שיעורים כסדרן בבית המדרש.
I'm giving shiurim, sitting and learning.
ומאחר שהספרים באותם ימים כבדים היו, back then the sfarim were much heavier, why? b'dapim avim, thicker pages, ובכריכות גדולות וכבדות. and the the binding was, it was much much more heavier. It's gishmak, if any of you have those old, they're gishmak.
They're they're amazing. But today we want to cram in as much as we can into like, you know, koveitz of this big thick one. There, I saw some of them by the rov's house this week, like the old ones, heavy ones.
העמידו לרשותי בחור מיוחד שסייע לי בנשיאת הספרים מהבית למדרש.
So they gave me a guy, a little shamas that would help me shlep the sfarim, the Kloyzenberger says.
שלא היה בכחי לישאם בעצמי. I couldn't carry it by myself.
אך הנה באו ימים הקשים עם עשן המלחמה.
The war comes.
ולפתע גיליתי בעצמי כוחות אדירים. And I I was discovered in myself the most tremendous kochos.
שכן הרשעים ימח שמם הכריחו אותנו לפנות את הריסות בוורשה ועוד מקומות.
So the Germans, what did they make us do?
לפנות את הריסות בוורשה ועוד מקומות. That means clean up the buildings, clean up the room, clean up the, clean up the destructions, right?
ובאותם ימים הייתי נושא אבנים כבדות ופיסי ברזל שמשקלם עלה על משקל גופי. I was carrying metal. I was carrying heavy rocks that were heavier than my own body weight.
וכל זאת נמשך ימים רבים, and it lasted for a long time.
בכל יום במשך י"ב שעות ויותר. The Kloysenberger Rebbe is saying, 12 hours a day and even more.
כשאין אנו ניזונים אלא ממנת לחמם הזאומה.
Each of us would get a stale piece of bread for our daily dose.
ובכל זאת אך בכדי שישאר בין החיים, but in order to stay alive, az lamadeti, שאין גבול לכוחו של אדם, that there's no end to a person's kochos. EG, Segev Kalfon, Evyatar David, Matan Engest, all these, Bar Kuperstein, and, and, and, and, and.
ואף אתה סיים ואמר לאסקן.
So he ends and he tells this askan, אם הבטחת שתעשה ככל יכולתך, if you said you're going to do whatever you can, da lach, שאחריות כבדה מוטלת עליך כעת. You don't understand what kind of responsibility you have on you right now based on what you've said.
כי ללא ספק ביכולתך לעשות כן, because without a doubt, you can do this.
וכבר אמר הרב הקדוש היסוד העבודה.
The Yesod HaAvodah, one of the zeides of Slonim. Zechuso yagen aleinu. B'pasuk, להודיע לבני האדם גבורותיו. Everyone thinks that means, Hashem's gevuros.
dekai al ha'adam. lehodia livnei ha'adam, tell yourself how much of a gibor you are. Know how strong you are.
שעליו להודיע לעצמו את גבורותיו.
אלו הכוחות עצומים טמונים בו.
וכל עבודתו היא להוציא מהכוח אל הפועל. All you're really here to do in this world is to discover that which you already have and then to bring it into fruition. Where did this all come from?
ירוץ עבדך כמו אייל.
Apparently the way that a gazelle runs is supposed to me'orer us, to awaken in us this notion that when we when we realize what's real in life and when we know what's kedai in life, and when we know what's not kedai, we'll either run from what's not kedai or we'll run towards what's kedai. And especially if I have no koach, and especially if I'm shvach, v'chulu, when the awesome recognition comes down to what life is all about, I'll run from it. I will. So I want to give us a bracha to not wait until we're b'shaas hasakana.
I want to give us a bracha that we don't wait till we're b'shaas hasakana of of timtum hamoach, of the of the of of what happens to our brains with consuming so much shtus that is an absolute sakana to our kiyum. That's on the personal level. To run once you see it and to realize you have the kochos. You could put the pocket computer away for half an hour.
It's possible. It's actually possible to put your phone away for five minutes even right now, even during a shiur. It's an it's an inyan. Like it could be.
If you feel that it's not possible, don't wait for your your son or your daughter to overhear them telling their friends when they're older, "Do you know what it was like growing up? To get my father's face away from the screen?" You want to wait till that's a sakana? Chas v'shalom. You could do it right now. That's l'prat. B'klal, are we going to wait for a much more improved October 7th till we realize what kind of sakana we're we're in here? We're crazy, chevre.
We're nuts. We are insane that we have not done what we're supposed to do. But I'm realizing in a level of individuality that it's dependent on each other. The the avodas hanefesh.
The avodas hanefesh is probably what the Ribbono shel Olam is saying, if you realize who you're what your nefesh is, and the sakanos of your nefesh, then it would be a lo plug. Then you then you'd go and take care of business without a problem. So all this military gevurah and everything, without the kochos of the nefesh of the spiritual warrior, discovering who he is and what it means to carry a nefesh Elokis inside of us, it's time starting to feel like that's really the avodah more than trying to get people to realize that we're surrounded by a bunch of chevre that should not be alive. So, whatever the sakanos are, I just want to give a bracha to Am Yisrael to wake up, that it should start from us.
that we should wake up and we should ירוץ עבדך כמו איל, we should run, run towards the things that we know our lives are dependent on, and if you can't run, then have a friend that you could walk a little bit faster with, get a chavrusa that could help you march towards there a little bit faster. And most importantly, that every ounce that we run towards what really matters in life, please know, it brings the Ribono Shel Olam infinite amount of nachas ruach. Infinite, and all we want to do is bring Hashem nachas. That's all we really want to do.
Don't belittle any step of running towards kedusha. Every step brings an infinite amount of nachas. It should be, in that zechus it should be rachamim and rachmanus on all of Am Yisrael, and bring about the redemption not just bimheira b'yameinu, but like the Rebbe was saying towards the end, teikef u'miyad mamash.