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Rav Shlomo Katz explores the teachings of Rav Shlomo Carlebach zt"l on the Parsha with the sefer Even Shlomo
תצלם את זה לבאטמן. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei.
Rachamana liba baei. Try with me, a bit stronger. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei.
Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei.
Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei.
Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei.
Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba baei. Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, אוי רחמנא ליבא בעי, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, אוי רחמנא ליבא בעי, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, אוי רחמנא ליבא בעי, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, אוי רחמנא ליבא בעי, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei, Rachamana liba ba'ei.
Yasher koach everybody and a big, big happy birthday to Yehoshua Amen. Today is his birthday and his wife has dedicated the shiur in honor of him. We're so happy you're here. Baruch Hashem, many happy returns with us together bezrat Hashem coming off a simcha this week, filled with semachot for the whole family.
ברוך אתה ה' אלוהינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Amen. And this is his birthday official. For people that don't understand, it's actually a mamash lo chashuv.
Okay. We're also learning for the refuah sheleimah of אתל שרה בת חני, יעקב שלמה בן בילה, zivug hagun for Esther bat Rachel, לעילוי נשמת בתיה פייגל בת ישראל, לעילוי נשמת רבי אבי ורהפטיג, and also for the refuah sheleimah of the chayalim hakedoshim דוד נתנאל בן איילה חובה, Eliyahu ben Chava, רואי חיים בן מאירה, David ben Ziv, and for אברהם יעקב בן דבורה פייגה. And also in memory of my aunt, who's yahrtzeit was this week, her second yahrtzeit חוה ייתא בת חיים זליג יצחק הכהן. Mashu katzar amok and what I feel is desperately the issue at hand, where we're at today.
I don't know exactly you have it in here. One second. One second. Yeah, you have it in there.
I don't know what page it's on. From the Even Shlomo on Parshat Shelach, Parshat Shelach lekha. Is your bar mitzvah Shelach? It was Shelach. Who else was here? Is yours also Shelach? Because you leined it this week.
Yes. Okay. So just a word of hakdama for today, hopefully very just hopefully mechaven to the point over here. Certain things we think we have down already.
You would think that we have down that which is most important to us. After everything Am Yisrael has ever been through, so you would think that the things that are most like that are most essential, most important, I already have them down. And we see that the thing that is so most essential to us, which is our kesher to Eretz HaKodesh, through Torah as an Am, we see that Hashem is doing like I want us to zoom out from all the things we see in front of us and be like: Okay, what is the bigger picture here? What's the bigger story? You would think that after all these years, the one thing we wouldn't mess up with at all would be Eretz Yisrael. Like you'd understand that for our existence, for our hikasherus to Hashem, you would think that we would get it down by now.
And I'm speaking both regarding those that keilu are here already, that we would figure out and mamash how to be here by now. And I'm also speaking about those that aren't here yet, that you would think you'd be a good enough PR spokesman for Eretz Yisrael to get all the believing Yidden to come back home and live here and not continue to invest in the growth of diaspora Jewry. You would think that, after everything we've been through. And yet Eretz Yisrael remains this thing that we see it doesn't work like that.
It's mashehu acher, Hashem is almost saying you still have to learn something much much deeper than whatever you thought this whole inyan was all about. Obviously comes Parshat Shelach Lekha and unless you're like really into nesachim or you have a fixation with tzitzit, you can't give over the omek of Parshat Shelach without dealing with the obvious, ha'einayim, ha'einayim shelanu, our eyes. It's not stam we say לא תתורו אחרי לבבכם ואחרי עיניכם אשר אתם זונים אחריהם. for consumption.
She didn't stop. It could have just said ותרא האשה כי טוב העץ. Then that next word has been destructive. Lema'achal means she saw something and she immediately tried to figure out what is it good for instead of just saying it's good.
You see the difference between the two? Tikun ha-einayim. Reb Shlomo teaches that on Chanukah is the tikun for this because on Chanukah we say ואין לנו רשות להשתמש בהם אלא לראותם בלבד. That I I'm not I'm not looking at this light for something, like what can I use it for? Farkert, you can't use it for anything. Well you can't use it for anything.
It seems to it seems to be that we're still in this spiral of Chava, meraglim, Chanukah, Tisha B'Av. Because when they came back and reported what they reported in our parsha, it was Tisha B'Av. And you know Reb Shlomo has this line, for me and for you, it's still Yom Kippur. It's Yehuda Yehuda Kohn, you probably know the nussach.
To tell you the truth, to tell you the truth, for me and for you, it's still Yom Kippur, it's still Yom Kippur. Til there be peace in the world, til there be peace in the world, peace in Yerushalayim, it's still Yom Kippur. We that was the context of post-the Yom Kippur war. But we could really say for me and for you, it's still Tisha B'Av, it's still Tisha B'Av.
And azov oti Tisha B'Av, it's Chodesh Sivan. We're not we have time until we have to deal with that whole with that whole darkness. But be'emes until the meraglim get their proper tikun, it's still Tisha B'Av. 100% it is.
Let's attempt today to already begin the tikun towards Tisha B'Av. And it boils down to something much more simple than what we think. Halevai that He should give us koach to go into this Shabbos with tikun ha-einayim and bechlal and not even have to approach the three weeks this year as yemei churban and machlokes and peirud. And I know some of you are starting to cynically say ha-ha, have you been watching the news? Yes, unfortunately, yes.
It is there, it's still there, and yet I have to look deeper than that. Mah la'asos? If I base my being here al pi what the media shows me, אין לי באמת עדיף אוגנדה. 100%. Uganda is much, much better.
Much better. Okay, להיות קשור למקום שאני אמור להיות בו.
אפס כי עז העם הישב בארץ. So let's let's try to understand beneath the surface what the meraglim were saying.
אם משהו בעולם יכול לעצור אותי מלעשות משהו שאני רוצה בו. If there's something in the world that could stop me from doing something that I want to do, סימן שיש כאן פגם בקשר, that means there's a blemish in the connection to that thing that I say I want to do it. Simple. If there's something or anybody in the world that could stop you from being who you want to be and from doing what you want to do, that means there's a blemish in the connection.
אם אני אוהב משהו עד כדי כך שאני מוכן למסור את הנפש עבורו מיליון פעם שום דבר בעולם לא יכול לעצור אותי. But if there's something that I love so much that I'm willing to give my soul for it a million times over, nothing in the world can stop me. And you have to think about this for a second. Obviously, I mean, he's going to bring this example in a second, but think for a second.
What is something in the world that no one could ever stop you from doing? And you don't have to raise your hand and say it out loud, you just think about it to yourself. What's something that you want and that you feel like you need that there's nothing in the world that could stop you from doing from doing it? And everyone has their own interpretation. Everyone has their own hasaga of these things. So Reb Shlomo explains like this: אם אני קופץ לים סוער קרוב לוודאי שאטבע.
If I jump into a stormy ocean, most probably I'll drown.
אבל אם חס ושלום הילד שלי בסכנה אני אקפוץ למים ואציל אותו בלי להיפגע. But if my child is drowning in the water, I'm going to jump in there and nothing will happen to me. I'll jump in, ein she'ela.
Nothing can stop me from nothing can stop me from that because at that moment that's what I want more than anything in the world. without any sfekot, without any doubts. I don't think too much. I see in front of me clear and present danger and nothing stops me.
And when you see clear and present danger and you know your kiyoom, your existence can't continue unless you go and do what needs to be done right now, nothing will stop you. Nothing. When can things start to stop you? When it's not clear to you two things. A, that it's really clear and present danger.
And B, that this is what you want more than anything in the world. But if those two things are eliminated, you go after what you want, nothing in the world can stop you. Now if a person comes to the realization, let's speak about it a little bit differently, if a person comes to the realization that they must get healthy, like must get healthy, on the level of seeing their child run into a stormy ocean, nothing will stop them. If a person sees shmiras habris, they know ein sikui ba'olam.
There's nothing in the world that that I want more than that and to conquer it.
אז לא משנה מה קורה בעולם it'll be for me like seeing chas veshalom my child going into an ocean. Vechu vechu. Obviously the obvious example is if it's clear to me that a Yiddel belongs in Eretz Yisroel.
And with all my holy excuses and all of my Rebbe's holy excuses, everyone wherever you're holding, nothing in the world will stop me. Nothing. Maybe that's why tafsik is osios safek. To stop and to doubt is the same letters.
Brazil for the Friday morning plunge. Here we go. It's the same gematria as a mother. Oh here we go.
Yes of course. The Persian connection has to come in. Again אם אני קופץ לים סוער קרוב לוודאי שאטבע אבל אם חס ושלום הילד שלי בסכנה אני אקפוץ למים להציל אותו בלי להיפגע יש לכך המון דוגמאות. So many examples of these things.
I remember as a kid in LA, I think I told you once, I saw a car flip over and with a mother, you know one of those old Rebbe wagons, the station wagons, remember those? It was like a Volvo I think. Whatever it was, I remember. You remember those? Different types. Right.
But the one I remember in LA clearly, it was a beige Rebbe wagon. One of those mamash I see it clearly and it flipped over right on La Brea. I remember where it was. I mamash remember.
And I'm sitting there and I'm like, oh my God, the mother I saw the mother see that her baby is in the back seat. Now what did the mother do after, pre-cell phone days, but screaming for help and someone there was a payphone on the corner there and someone called 911. What did the mother start doing? She started lifting the car. Now an ambulance came very fast she so they came and took care of it but she went right away into the zone of she's gonna lift this car over.
Now if the ambulance didn't come would she have succeeded in lifting the car? Obviously but we'll never know. You hear stories like this that it actually does happen. But at that moment when it was clear to her what needs to be done, there was no tafsik, there was no safek, there was nothing to do. Okay.
Those are extremes. Those are extremes. But in our lives the shaila is what is it that we want without a shadow of doubt and how are we going for it? What are we doing about it? And what does it tell me that I haven't gotten there yet? This is what the Meraglim is much more than just a Zionist parsha, you understand? It's much more than that. It's something much deeper.
Every person in here and any person that learns with us online has to ask themselves is there something that I want without any shadow of doubt? And if there is, how come I haven't gotten there yet? How come it hasn't happened to me yet? Eich ze yitachen? Second paragraph, end of the second line. How could it be that I can that like I'll run into a stormy ocean and save my child מפני שאני כל כך קשור שאני נעשה רב אמן. I'm so connected that I become Rav Aman. I remember I don't remember what it said in the English original but Rav Aman basically means master, like a master of trades.
Like I master whatever it is in front of me at that moment. I master it. Lo meshane ma. And we have a lot of examples of the chatufim in the tunnels that became Rav Amanim over things that they never were Rav Amanim of before they became chatufim.
But bacharta bachayim. Our tzaddikim and tzidkoniyos in those tunnels. Is this just talking about the totza'ah that you jump in the water and you save the person or on the ratzon and the effort you put to try to do it? That you saved them. In your mind, you'll always succeed.
In your—see, it's amazing. Look how fast—zeh bidyuk hanekudah. Why you even asking that question? You already brought Amalek to the shiur right now. Atah mevin? Even asking that question, be'emet, even asking, even asking that question right now is—plants the doubt.
Plants the doubt. Yeah. No, I'm just thinking every day you hear about fathers that jump in the water try to save their kids and they don't—and they don't survive. God forbid.
You saw your child, you wouldn't be doing that cheshbon. You'd be jumping in. So that's what I'm saying. That's on the effort as opposed to the totza'ah.
Then you make the effort. Aval lamah afillu, but you understand how dangerous it is? Even entertaining these things can justifiably legitimize not going for what you want to do. Atah mevin? Even even going there, even going there in the mind is already—and what do they say in Lubavitch? L'chat'chila Ariber, meaning I'm already going into something, not saying not I'm going in, it's going over.
אני לא נכנס בדרך הרגילה.
אני לא חושב ככה אפילו. Because the things that are dearest, dearest to me that I that I must do, right, I can—it's not about—and this is very counter to a lot of the conversations I do have with people when they're thinking about coming on Aliyah and they always say, listen, I want to be a responsible spouse and I want to set up myself financially before and make sure that I'm going to take care of my family. So I always tell them in the beginning, it's such a—you sound like such a responsible mature adult, it's so good for you. I said we're all living here and yes, we're working, we're trying, but it's not necessarily based on the cheshbonot that it made sense for us to be here.
It's operating from a different place because when you need to be where—when you need to be somewhere, when something needs to happen, אני לא חושב ככה. I think of it differently. And let's—let's stop for a second and realize and all the other things in life that I cheshboned out that it would be good or bad, it all worked out perfectly? All my cheshbonos of doing things right, all all it all amounted to a healthy—come on. Where you are today? Yeah, but but I'm not going to sit back and say, no, and every time I sat down and calculated and accounted how things are going to work for me, it always worked out like that.
Ma pitom! Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
אבל אנחנו מנסים לחשוב בצורה אחרת פה. Look at how he continues.
אני לא יכול להילחם בחמישים קוזאקים סתם כך.
You know what kozakim are? Kozakim, right. So what would be the equivalent of it today? Fill in the blank. Right? So I'm not going to jump up and start hitting and start fighting fifty kozakim.
הם יורידו אותי במכה אחת.
They'll swipe me, they'll smite me in one, you know, one smite.
אבל אם מישהו בסכנה ואני רוצה להוציא את חייו, אוריד מאה קוזאקים בלי אפילו לחשוב. But if someone's in danger and I want to save their life and it's clear to me that I need to do this, I'll wipe out a hundred of them without even thinking. Le'hachem k'mo aryeh, I'll fight like a lion.
I'll fight like a lion. Avraham Avinu to save Lot. Great example. Didn't make sense al pi cheshbon.
Took a small group with him to go fight a big group.
כשחזרו המרגלים מהמסע לארץ ישראל, הם דיברו על הקשיים של הארץ וכמה יהיה קשה לכבוש אותה. When the meraglim came back, they spoke about how kids go off the derech here. They spoke about—it's true, you don't really pay so much for health insurance and stuff like that, but then you get the sheirut.
You get what you pay for. You get the sheirut. You get the service of not paying health insurance type of health insurance. Meaning they spoke about the hardship and the difficulties of all these things, right? They come to check out Shabbos in Shirat David and they say, no, it is nice, it's nice chevra, but walking up that hill, even—it doesn't matter where you live, unless you're Yehoshua Amon and you roll out of bed into Shul or the Udelmans, it's there's always going to be an up and down, so it's you want to have koach when you get to Shul or when you come home.
So you don't want to be tired one way or the other, right? But if someone's like, what are you talking about? My shoresh neshama—I I have to be there, then they'll be here. It's like this with everything in life. But when the meraglim come back and they're saying—and everyone knows that what were they, were they—we speak about this every year. What do we refer to them as? What what was their aveira that they did? Motzi'ei dibat ha'aretz.
Right? Nothing that they said was a sheker besides a sum—one assumption was a sheker. But the grasshoppers and mefarshim speak about that, but all the other things they spoke about and they even tried to bring physical proof of the eshkol, of the anavim, right? Of showing like when vayasium bamot. Doesn't deter the Yehoshua and Kalev? So he says, they say like this: אם דיברו על קשיים של הארץ וכמה יהיה קשה לכבוש אותה, מה משמעות הדבר?
הייתי שמח לעבור לארץ ישראל, היא נחמדה מאוד, אבל באמת מסוכן ללכת לשם.
יש לי אישה ומשפחה, אני לא רוצה לסכן את חייהם.
So like that means all of us here have decided to endanger our wives and kids by choosing to be here. I don't want to repeat what happened at the Shabbos table in Toronto a few months ago, I already said it in shul and had to deal with a lot of aftermath of that. That whole story there with the person that was really speaking about a lot of beautiful things but it came to Eretz Yisrael and the notion of, oh and it's really safe by you guys, after there was a shooting at the shul around the corner from where I was staying in Toronto, 23 bullets went into the front door of the shul. So then you come and look at Eretz Yisrael and be like, oh but here's dangerous.
So a responsible mature adult says, listen, vechai bahem, I have to take care, I've signed a kesubah to take care of my wife and kids and mitzad zeh, when it comes to the things that you want the most, the most, the most, the most, you're not looking to see if you're being responsible. You're not. Because that type of machshavah machlish otcha. It does, it weakens you.
And this is counter to the way that kimat all of us were raised in this room. Because the values that we grew up with were always like responsibility and then ratzon. But first responsibility, then ratzon. Then what do you want to do? That's the meraglim.
Responsibility.
בני ענקים ראינו שם, מה זה? Ratzon. No, no, no. It's the other way around.
אין עומד בפני הרצון. Mah zeh?
אין דבר עומד בפני הרצון. This is the Pirkei Avos. Now he gives an example of something that he read once and he's mentioned this a few times.
רב גדול אחד כתב לבתו מכתב באלה המילים, a famous rabbi wrote a letter to his daughter after the Six Day War.
זה יפה מאוד שאחרי מלחמת ששת הימים קיבלנו בחזרה את הכותל, אבל שלא תעיזי ללכת לכותל, זה הכל תעמולה ציונית. It's all Zionist propaganda. Do not dare go to the Kotel.
לא הייתה להם זכות לסכן חיים אפילו של נער יהודי אחד כדי להשיג את הכותל. Meaning what is he saying? This based on that, based on what does he say to tell his daughter that the Kotel is keilu a Zionist propaganda? Because he's saying, who had the reshus to lesaken, to endanger one Jewish soldier for this maiseh? I know it's very foreign for us to think like this, but we need to put our heads on a little bit in there just to be able שיבוא לנו שיח עם קולות כאלו, so we could have a conversation with these voices. And that's people say that a lot about what are called the settlers. Who has the reshus? Who gave the zechus for any of us to sit here and endanger our lives and bachayalim that are watching over us? Who gave us the zechus to put people into danger? And I encourage you to always go back to one Yid from Be'eri, Aviad Bachar.
You know who I'm talking about? We've mentioned him here in the shiur a few times. Aviad Bachar lost his wife, a son or a daughter, and a leg. He's the biggest leftist, this guy, like all of them were. And he is the only, if you see him speak, this guy is mesmerizing, mamash, with such clarity.
He said, I'm so thankful that it happened to us in Be'eri and not in Gush Etzion. They said, are you crazy? How could you say such a word? He said, because if it would have happened in Gush Etzion, I would have continued with my train of logic and saying, what did these guys think would happen to them by endangering themselves by living in such a dangerous place? You never, did you see this? Some of you see this? You have to see this guy online. Beshulei hadavar? Ha? Befodcast shel Eliyahu? He just did, nachon, like last week or two weeks ago. Nachon, he just did a podcast with Rav Shmuel Eliyahu.
Aviad Bachar. This guy, but he's been speaking like this from October 8th, from the, I remember following him already the first week of the war. Mamash. And his story is, boy, Hashem yerachem.
So what do you say to the voice that says, how do you guys have the right to endanger young chayalim to come and protect you in these areas and you yourselves and your wives and children? Okay, on the level of responsibility, what's wrong with that statement? It assumes that you have some kind of control. You think you're going to be okay staying in Toronto? You think you're going to be okay staying in the Five Towns? No, but I'm even speaking about other places in Eretz Yisrael. Like he was speaking about Be'eri, about Otef Gaza. Nachon.
Something that Hashem commanded. I mean the response would be, do you think it would be responsible to allow our neighbors to just conquer all the land and then make the area where Jews can live be fully surrounded? Nachon. So the people, so the people that are basically, what are we trying to say? Someone who knows בכל לבו ובכל נפשו that for Am Yisrael at this shlav in history, for Am Yisrael to keep on going, to have a chance to make it right, to go the whole way, it can't happen with another galus. It can't happen with another galus again.
We, it can't happen with another round of galus of us being banished out of here. Lo yachol lihyot. So if you know that, and you also know that Avraham Avinu was told lech lecha, and you read the Torah, and you learn Torah and you see how essential מצוות ישוב ארץ ישראל is for the kiyum of the shleimus of the Torah, together obviously with other mitzvos, but this one being the bariach hatichon, which means, how do you say that in English, the bariach hatichon, the center beam? Is that what it's called? It's like a bolt. Bolt.
It's מבריח מן הקצה אל הקצה. It's spoken about in the Mishkan, but the bariach hatichon, the Alter Rebbe says it's the midah of Yaakov. The bariach hatichon מבריח מן הקצה אל הקצה. There's nothing else, if that's clear to you, then ein sheila.
Then responsibility is ratzon, you understand? It's what I told you, I went on Chat GPT and I said, what percentage of the Torah speaks about Israel? And Chat GPT said, it's so involved in everything I can't give you a number. Well, and if Chat GPT says, just saying, if the brain of all brains says that, then yesh po mashehu, nachon? It's like the Rambam not putting yishuv ha'aretz as a mitzvah because it's all encompassing. Right. Nachon.
I like that you refer to it as bariach hatichon because it's, I find it like the biggest pela in all of Torah because it's a bolt that goes around all four sides. It's not something that be'ofen d'hekif bichlal. It's like an engineering, so in the level of like of what this rav wrote to his daughter about how you cannot go to the Kotel because who gave the right, then there's something in the, in the comprehension of, of his bariach hatichon, there's something missing. And Reb Shlomo, I was being nice, look what he says.
אני בטוח שהנשמה שלו נמוכה מדי בשביל להיות אחד מנשמות המרגלים. I'm sure his soul isn't high enough to be one of the souls of the meraglim. Aval hu meragel. But he's a spy.
Ma chaser lo?
הוא איננו יודע עד כמה אנחנו קשורים לירושלים. He just doesn't get how infinitely deeply we're connected to Yerushalayim, because if you knew that, if you know that, who cares Zionist, not Zionist. That's why I never get into this sugya because I don't even understand how, how our kesher to Eretz Yisrael is a Zionist thing or not. I don't mavin it mamash.
Maybe I'm just, I'm misunderstanding the whole thing. I never, people so often do you label yourself in the Zionist camp? I don't even understand these, but I don't know, I say, if saying ותחזינה עינינו בשובך לציון ברחמים is putting me in the, in the Zionist camp, then I would love to see the Satmar Rebbe's Siddur. Zion is Yerushalayim. Ma zeh? Ma zeh? I don't understand it, chaver.
I'm just saying like, the more you realize that your kiyum is, is dependent on something, who cares what camp you put, I don't, I don't get it, be'emes, I don't get it, I don't connect to it. It's Yerushalayim. It's my air. Ma zeh meshaneh? Everything else doesn't matter, that my oxygen is dependent on my connection to Yerushalayim.
And when the am realizes that their oxygen is dependent not on the Kotel but on that place that's on the other side, then it'll be ours as well. And then we'll build the Beis HaMikdash as well. It'll happen. Only when you realize that it's mamash like oxygen.
It's like seeing your kid drown in, in the ocean. But as long as you see the situation of Har HaBayis and even though it's so much better than what it was, but until it becomes a thing that for you doesn't look like your child drowning in the ocean, you won't go up there and save your child. It'll just be like that. Just it'll continue to be the same thing that got us into such a crazy diplomatic mess which is the two words called status quo.
Hebrew words, status quo. Hashem yirachem aleinu. See I always feel like Parshat Shlach is the parsha of—it's the Shabbos of davening to Hashem to reveal to me that which I'm a little bit hiding from knowing that my life depends on. And Yerushalayim is the source of all the things in my life that my life depends on, the relationship that my life—the relationships that my life depends on, the pieces of Torah that my kiyum in this world depends on.
It's amazing right now, maybe a lot of people if I told you there's a certain piece of Torah that you haven't learned yet that your life depends on, you'd be like not that I'm aware of. And then when you learn it, you look back and realize how was I alive? How was I alive without learning this Torah before? How באמת תסבירו לי את הקיום שלי? Explain to me my existence. That's how I felt bemet. There's so many times in life I felt like this with hearing a niggun.
Now I have this—God, I have this song stuck. My kids are sick of this. I have a song stuck in my head that I just learned recently because I met this person, this artist, a few months ago and one of his songs just כבש את הלב שלי. And I'm wondering now what was I thinking about life? How did I understand the experience of life before I knew this song? Bemet, it's very rare that it happens to me.
But if you want I'll send it out after shiur. It's the most gorgeous song. What about ונתתי כשמי כך הייתי תם? Oh you're going back to that. Good one, nachon.
When you—when you mamash need it the most, you realize it already happens. Whatever, we're not going to go back into that old thing right now. I'm going to send it after shiur. There's this Israeli artist, his name is Aviv Bahar.
He probably thinks I'm one of these meshuggana stalkers because I just—I just can't get enough of this guy. And if you close your eyes and you just listen to the words, you could—you could see mamash a Breslover with long payos. And then when you open your eyes you see it's a guy that has earrings and dafke where the payos is it's completely shaved off, a little beard, and this guy is spewing words of the geulah of the neshama. Aviv Bahar, it's called Bemet Ahava.
Bemet Ahava. And kedai to go to ulpan just to understand this song. When you know like you should go to ulpan to understand a song, you know the song is precious. It's not such hard Hebrew, it's unbelievable.
Let's—let's finish.
כשאתה מתקשר למישהו בקלות, when you connect to someone easily, זה מפני שהוא קשור למקום שלו בעולם, it's because this person is connected to his place in the world.
ואתה מתחבר למקום הזה. I'm going to repeat this, this is a strong line.
When you connect to someone really easily and it goes smooth, it's because what is it about this person you're connecting to? You've got it figured out. They—they wouldn't say it because that's not for real. Right, but for real, what's going on is that they know what they're doing in this world and they're connected to their place in the world and that's why it's so much easier to connect to them.
אבל אם אתה יוצר קשר עם מישהו שאיננו יודע בעצמו היכן הוא אתה לא פוגש אותו כראוי.
But if you connect to someone that doesn't really know where they're at in this life, you're not really meeting them. Someone told me this fascinating thing yesterday, that if someone asks you what do you do, if you're not able—did you tell me this? No. Someone just told me this yesterday, I don't remember who. If you ask someone what do you do and it takes them more than two words to say what they do, it means they're not really one with what they're doing.
Think about it. Think about it for a second. We're—sometimes we just—we don't want to say like we think oh they'll think it's like we're not so interesting, we're not so important. Usually—and then people sometimes what do you do? Oh so I'm the so-and-so-and-so and I do that and this.
Sometimes you just ask a person well what do you do? Right? And when they know exactly who they are and what they're doing in this world, they'll say it to you in one or two words. Meaning I'm not talking about this Toby story about soul circumcision, cardiac circumcision, I'm speaking k'ilu about like what you're actively doing in this world bemet. Like what—what you end up physically spending your time with. But quite often we're wondering I gotta say it in a certain way so they'll think that I'm impressive or—just say what you're doing.
And the clearer you are as to what you're doing in this world... world, the shorter the description will be. Be one or two words, maybe three. Check yourselves next time you're either asked or you ask someone, okay? It's an interesting thing.
But Reb Shlomo is saying you mamish connect to someone in the deepest depths when you are able to realize this person knows where they're at in life. They know where they're at in life. Maybe not everything's perfect, but they're kashur to their makom in this world, which is a very big beautiful thing.
כשאני קשור למקום כלשהו בעולם, when I'm connected to a specific place in the world, המסלול ביני לבין השם פתוח, the path to me and Hashem is wide open, והמסלול ביני ובין העולם כולו פתוח, and my path to everyone else in the world is wide open.
אם השם מברך אותך, if Hashem blesses you, אתה זוכה לטעום כיצד זה להיות קשור לדבר האחד שאתה מוכרח להיות קשור אליו. You taste, you merit to taste what it's like to be connected to the one thing that you must be connected to.
אם אתה קשור לאותו דבר שכל חייך תלויים בו, now if you're connected to that one thing that your whole life depends on, העולם כולו איננו יכול להזיז אותך, the whole world can't move you.
איש איננו יכול להזיז אותך.
What happened in September 1993? Because that's the beginning of the of this period of downfall in Am Yisrael. What happened in September of 1993? If anyone remembers? Remember the World Trade Center? The World Trade Center was 2001, no? Oh, the original. Oslo? Yeah. Now what was happening, what did we, it's פשוט עדיין לא נתפס.
What were we basically saying on that White House lawn? What did we say? I know it was enclosed in all these words of peace and dreams and positive future, but what were we actually saying? We don't want this land. It's not important to us. That, that's what it was. It's important, but it's not that important to us because we're being responsible.
It was in the name of responsibility. Full-on meraglim talk. In the name of responsibility. And what a bizayon that the Prime Minister actually used Oseh Shalom when he said that.
You know me, I'm crazy with this memory. I remember that speech, it's insane. He mamish said עושה שלום במרומיו הוא יעשה שלום עלינו ועל כל ישראל ואמרו אמן. So at that moment that that was said on that lawn, what really happened over there without realizing it is that we said we want it, and there were two thousand years of longing for it, but, but ratzon comes after responsibility.
And look what has happened since then. Right? Baruch Hashem, there's I believe in this new generation, they're not making the headlines yet because most of them are eleven, thirteen, I don't know, twenty. But this is the shayla, this is if you want a meditation throughout Shabbos is check in with yourself and see what are the things that I know my life depends on and you'll notice that nothing will stop you. And then you'll realize and then you'll start asking, well wait a second, how come I haven't gotten there yet? And then it's a matter of Eifo haratzon shelcha? As Rabbi Nachman writes throughout Likutey Moharan, it comes out over and over and over again.
Ha'ikar taluy baratzon, Ha'ikar taluy baratzon over and over and over and over again. So a person can sit back and say, I guess it's just not in my lot to have that which I'm most connected to because I don't want it that bad. So the Rebbe would say, then start davening for the acceleration of your ratzon. Daven to daven.
Want to want. Daven to have the ratzon. This is what we're busy doing over here. Kalev and Yehoshua basically turning back to the meraglim and saying, we know you want this also.
You just don't want it this much because you, you confused k'ilu accounting, like seichel into this. But don't you want to daven? This is from Rav Chailap. Don't you want to daven in order to want this as much as we do? Wouldn't you daven in order to what stops you from that? What stops you from that? This is what they're telling the meraglim. So every one of us has you know obviously our minds when we learn Torah like this our minds go to Chutz La'aretz and all the friends and family that aren't holding yet and coming and living here.
We must create a critical mass of people who think like this that are here already, that are already here. And everyone keeps on asking what we can do, what we can do, so everyone, this is be'emet not meant to be mussar, but you have to realize that I can't do. alone at all. And even with the whole content staff, we can't do it alone.
So if the content staff asks, chevre, help spread the light. It should be, if we have like on on an average here, baruch Hashem, tons of chevre coming in and learning. And the content staff asks like—and I wasn't even planning on saying this, I just realized it right now, he did not put me up to this and I wasn't thinking this, but I'm thinking lema'aseh it's great—most of us already drank the Kool-Aid, but ke'ilu... spread the Kool-Aid.
Spread the Kool-Aid. Three likes, whatever, I don't even know. I had to teach myself how to do it this week. I didn't even know how to do this stuff, ratings and...
I didn't even write a... I should, but that would be weird. But like, like be'emet, be'emet, lo stam we came together at this time in life. Let's, let's give each, let's give our children nachas and really believe in them as much as Hashem believes in them and be bold enough to, to ask ourselves these very difficult questions and then begin to davven.
Don't freak out when you realize you haven't gone fully for the things that actually do matter to you the most. Davven for what's called hisgavrus haratzon, hisgavrus haratzon, ha'alas haratzon, the ratzon. And, and be a talmid of Yehoshua and Kalev of this Shabbos, like full on. And baruch Hashem we have the privilege of having the talmid of Yehoshua and Kalev in our midst this Shabbos, Rav Simcha Hochbaum, which I'm so excited for.
So halevai that light rub off on us and we should have a yom shekulo Shabbos. Amen.