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Rav Shlomo Katz explores important perspectives and practical insights into our mental health and well-being, based on the writings and teachings of some of our nation's greatest Tzaddikim.
you finished last time was פרק ח and we were doing אותיות, the saving paragraphs I think 9, 10, 11 and 12, correct? So look inside. Okay, so we were talking about a lot of a we kept on coming back to a person's melancholy, a person's silence, וכולי וכולי. So something interesting happened to me yesterday, a bit different from outside. Yesterday I was on the dentist table.
I was like, oh I'm gonna be a good boy, get a checkup, you know. I don't want to wait till things get really bad, I'm actually gonna go and so I'm sitting there and he's like, okay, let's do an x-ray. It's a great guy, Mitchell Rosner, Albert Rubeck's brother-in-law, he's the he's the dentist there. He's in Rux and Kowalski's office over there in Ramot.
בוקר טוב עלי. So, they were taking x-rays and he's like, oh boy, whoa. He finds, he's like, that's no slouch. I'm like, oh wow, you don't want to hear that on when your dentist looks at an x-ray.
He's like, oh, let's take one next to it. Oh my God. And here I was thinking, look at me, I'm gonna be the healthy guy that goes and makes sure he checks things before they get to it. Anyway I'm sitting there, he starts drilling away.
There's two cavities in the back, two big holes I had to fill in. And, and I'm like, okay wait a second, this kills, right? This ממש kills. So I have to get silent for a second. I wanted to welcome the pain to the silence like trying to do what we're doing.
I was like, wait a minute, this is not, this is not, first of all this is for sure not exactly what Rav Kook was speaking about. And second of all, it triggered an email that I got from one of our friends that learns with us from Los Angeles that wrote to me, what's the point? Basically he was saying silencing without the art of opening your heart is nothing. Like what are you going to sit there and silence? So everybody started speaking about different elements of what the silence is meant for, what the sadness is meant for. But today what we're going to be doing is that we're going to be looking at the the the role of the silence and the welcoming of the pain of the silence through two big משפיעים on Rav Kook, through Rebbe Nachman, his words himself, and through a piece of תניא.
And I think we can get through it. But it'll see, it'll be a tremendous עזר for us, tremendous help to see this inside. A broken heart is not depression. And that's that's got to be very clear to us from the get-go when we're speaking about this, that we're not speaking about getting depressed.
We're speaking about something else. Now we we kept on going back to the word melancholy. That's how I saw it in many, many translations. However, melancholy can also lead a person to sink into depression.
And Rav Kook was saying, I think what we learned last time, he said it's a very thin line. You have to not close your heart, but it can't be too close so that the light of תשובה can't penetrate it. Where's what's that thin line? What is when does it cross over? When does it cross over from being what it's meant to be, breaking your heart, meaning a heart that breaks is a heart that's open, versus sinking into into utmost depression. So based on these pieces in Rebbe Nachman that we're going to be doing this morning from שיחות הר"ן, we're going to see and from the Alter Rebbe we'll see more or less where things are going.
So this is שיחות הר"ן, אות מ"א, Rebbe Nachman says like this: לב נשבר ועצבות אינו עניין אחד כלל. A broken heart and sadness are not one thing at all. כי לב נשבר הוא בלב. A broken heart is referring to something that's taking place in the heart.
אבל עצבות הוא בא מן הטחול. Where does sadness come from? From the טחול. What's טחול? Does anyone know what טחול is? טחול is the spleen. And we've spoken about this previously.
We've spoken about this previously. It's a very big עניין in in Kabbalah. Don't want to go into it right now, but we don't even have to go into it right now because he just explains something very important to us. לב נשבר הוא בלב.
Heartbrokenness has something to do with the heart. Sadness has nothing to do with the heart. That's coming from a place called the טחול, the spleen. Now, he continues and he says like this: ועצבות שהוא מהטחול היא סטרא אחרא.
he סטרא אחרא. And and sadness, which is coming from the spleen, is the other side. So here he's saying something quite revolutionary as far as I as I'm concerned. He's saying over here when you experience sadness, that's not your heart that's speaking.
That's the spleen. Now, I again, I'm trying to avoid getting too deep into this. I just want to differentiate between from it's source, where it's coming from. However, לב נשבר, a broken heart, that has to do with your heart.
והקדוש ברוך הוא שונא אותה. And God hates it. What does God hate? Sadness. God, this is Rebbe Nachman's words.
והקדוש ברוך הוא שונא אותה. God hates it. God hates, we have to figure out what what is what is what is that he's referring to? What type of sadness is he referring to? I think the, it's funny, the אלטער רבי will help us understand Rebbe Nachman. This doesn't always happen like this.
But remember, I want to put this question out, what sadness is Rebbe Nachman referring to that the ריבונו של עולם hates? Crazy. אבל לב נשבר, but a broken heart, היא חביב לפני השם יתברך. This is so liked before the ריבונו של עולם. כי לב נשבר יקר מאוד מאוד בעיניו יתברך.
A broken heart is very, very, very precious in the eyes of the ריבונו של עולם. והיה טוב שיהיה לו לב נשבר כל היום. It'd be great if a person could be heartbroken again, not sad, but heartbroken כל היום. It'd be great if a person could live like this all day long.
אך, אנשים כערככם יכולים לבוא מלב נשבר לעצבות. Yeah, sorry, I'm gonna left out the last word which is very important. But Rebbe Nachman says, people like you, meaning people that we're dealing with today, can very easily, כערככם, people like your value, people like you, can come from a לב נשבר, from heartbrokenness, to sadness very, very easily. So again, he's he's saying there is, it's two separate worlds, but because we, and הלוואי we could be in this place which is so precious to השם all day long, the heartbrokenness.
And remember, God hates the sadness. But Rebbe Nachman says the place where a person can get to so easily through heartbrokenness is sadness, that is what הקדוש ברוך הוא hates. We still don't know exactly what that means, but we know it's two separate entities, and that's important for us right now. ווייטער, אות מ"ב.
עצבות, now he's gonna start talking about what sadness is. עצבות הוא כמו מי שהוא בכעס וברוגז. Someone who is in anger, רוגז is another word for anger I think, right? Aggravation. You ever hear someone tell you, wow, it's מרגיז אותי? Or you hear the word ברוגז, בראגעס? It's a ברוגז.
Yeah, it's a ברוגז. Yeah, it's very good. כמו שמתרעם ומתלונן עליו יתברך חס ושלום. It's like someone who's kvetching and complaining עליו, meaning on, on God.
Now, by the way, it's a השגחה פרטית we're learning this this שבת, this week, because what happens this שבת, the famous חטא המתאוננים. It's basically called the sin of the kvetchers. The sin of the, what are they kvetching for? We want meat. We want everything.
We want meat. אבטיחים, קישואים, they're starting to kvetch about what they don't have now to and what they had back in Egypt, זכרנו, right? על, so here he says, it's someone that's kvetching and complaining על ה' יתברך חס ושלום, second line, על שאינו עושה לו רצונו. That God is not doing what the man wants, what the person wants. אבל לב נשבר.
So he says that's sadness, but what's a לב נשבר? הוא כבן המתחרט לפני אביו. It's like a son who is מתחרט, who is falling and failing before his father. כתינוק שקובל ובוכה לפני אביו על שנתרחק ממנו. It's like a child, it's like a kid, a young baby who is crying before his father for what reason? That he distanced himself from his father.
Or that his father distanced himself from him. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how to read this out, but he's kvetching, he's also crying. But what does he cry, what bothers him in life? What bothers him in life is that he feels distance from הקדוש ברוך הוא.
And that causes him pain. So here we have like this. There's There's a word, it's called pain. We have to welcome pain, but what's the problem with pain? Is a pain that's coming from sadness, הקדוש ברוך הוא hates.
That has nothing to do with your heart. What is it comprised from? What is it made out of? It's made out of saying, how come you're not doing what I want? You're not doing my רצון, רבונו של עולם. I'm קוועטש. This shouldn't, it's not how it's supposed to be.
לב נשבר is I'm also קוועטשינג and saying, אוי ווי, it's not how it's supposed to be, but what's the root of it is that I just, I just feel so far from you.So there's two actually opposite ends of the spectrum because the first one comes because I just distance myself. Yeah, I caused, I distanced myself from God because he's not doing what I want.Right.And the second time I fell, I didn't do what he wanted. He moves back, and I feel sad because I, I messed up and I'm not close. Like the pain is caused by two completely different...The cause is two different things, but you, but the way you just explained, it reminds me of something I once heard from רב מיכל טווערסקי.
A beautiful משל in the name of the בעל שם טוב. Remember רב נחמן says over here, הלוואי that a person should be all day long in a state of heartbrokenness. Now how did we, how did we describe right now לב נשבר? The way Eli beautifully explained to us. How did we explain it right now? This is, this is unbelievable.
So the way it is, is like a kid that feels like his father is far from him. So he cries because he said, I want to be closer to you. So this is beautiful. The בעל שם explained a חסיד once came to him and said, every time I feel like I'm taking a step closer to the רבונו של עולם, I feel like he's taking a step away from me.
It's a famous משל. So the בעל שם טוב says, did you ever see a father teach his son how to walk? Because first he stands him up, and then he starts walking with him. But then in order for him to walk on his own, he goes one step back and the kid can't believe it. He goes, then he goes one step closer to his father.
And each time the kid, the kid, one step forward. One step closer. Every time the father takes a step back, the kid can't believe it, but before he realizes it, the kid's walking on his own. This was just, this was the way that the father taught the son how to walk in this world.So רב נחמן says, הלוואי that you could learn, be busy all day long learning how to walk on your own.
What's the problem? Is that our resistance, our, not our resistance, our, our, our, what's the word? When, when you're able to tolerate a lot. Our, tolerance. Our tolerance for learning like that all day long will lead us to depression, will lead us to the sadness that comes from the spleen. But he says really in theory, הלוואי, רב נחמן says, that all day long it could be like this.
All day long that it's back, another step, השם goes back another step. All day long should be like this because that heartbrokenness is what the רבונו של עולם loves.Now look at the bottom. But, and this leads us to the way we ended with Rav Kook last, last week, uh last time we learned. אחר לב נשבר בשמחה.
But really, what comes after, what's the result, what's the aftermath of a לב נשבר? שמחה. וזה סימן אם היה לו לב נשבר שבא אחר כך לשמחה. You want to know if what you were experiencing was sadness caused in the, and the root cause of it was from that place you said? You want to know if it was גאוה, or you want to know if it was on the other side? Where are you now? What happens to you afterwards? So Rav Kook says, he says, and here it's almost the same thing because Rav Kook says the whole thing about the broken heart is so afterwards it restores man to his natural and constant state of a אידישע נשמה, which is what? שמחה. That's our, our real natural state is שמחה.
We can't, we can't believe that's true. We think our real natural state is depression or anxiety or paranoia. That's, that's not true. That's the סטרא אחרא.
The אמת of a אידישע נשמה is that our natural, true, a true natural state is a state of שמחה, and the whole world of תשובה is to get us back to that place. Aye, so but there's a, but the danger is, how do I know how to work with עצבות versus לב נשבר? Very big stuff. Beautiful, no? How רב נחמן put it together? It's so beautiful and it's beautiful to see how, I don't know, I, I, you know, we've seen, we've been seeing the parallels all the time between Rav Kook and רבי נחמן, but here you almost see like they really are saying the same thing but in very different ways. So, now.
פרק כ"ו in Tanya has a very special פרק. Whoever's learned Tanya inside knows, פרק כ"ו is a very... very special פרק, and you'll see why. This is just the beginning of it.
I think you might have to share, I don't think I have enough. Just going to read now, this is a great פירוש of it. This is from if you know the חית"ת, the תניא is divided every single day. The פריערדיקער רבי was very big, he instituted חית"ת.
So what's חית"ת? חית, תו, תו, which is חומש, תהילים, and תניא, that you learn a portion of it every single day. In fact, I was in a שבעה house yesterday of a I told some of you a very, very close friend of ours passed away on Thursday night from רעננה, a doctor, Dr. Elliot Goldberg, 65, grew up with him, he was my doctor. My my mother worked for him for a few years. One of our family's best friends, ממש best friends.
And, ממש a מלאך. Everyone even knew, everyone knew it when he was alive. He's not like one of these guys, oh now we're realizing. Everyone knew when he was alive.
On his free time he'd go up to צפת, I think once or twice a week to go and take care of all the children that didn't have health insurance. Like he was one of these נשמות, you know? Die hard Mets fan. דף יומי freak. Yeah I know.
That's why he. That's a freak, die hard Mets fan. Right. Amazing, amazing, amazing יוד.
Anyway, his son, one of his sons is לובביץ', and I asked him, did you ever write into the אגרות? Meaning, did you ever, you know what I mean, the אגרות? This might sound a little out there but it's okay, it's fine, we have to be out there. You know that the לובביץ', it's very big to write letters to the רבי and put it into one of his ספרים that had the letters that he wrote back to people over the years. You just put it in and you receive an answer. I myself have seen absolute direct answers to people's questions, directly.
The רבי's not alive, okay? He's he's not alive. He's buried in Queens but his תורות are, he's more alive than most walking people today. That's very clear. But I just want to make it clear.
So I asked him did you write into the אגרות? Did you write into to to receive? He did, and he showed me and I want to show you what he what he said. And he wrote back. The letter he received, because when his father got sick, he he wrote this letter into the אגרות and the letter he got back was just mind-boggling, telling a person how to, what to do now about life after he received bad news, how you have to listen to the doctors. Listen to everything they say.
And also take upon yourself to like חית"ת, חומש, תהילים, תניא every day. חומש with רש"י, תהילים, and תניא of the day every day. And my friend told me that his father did it every single day from the time that he wrote that letter, the last year of his life. He spent learning חומש, תהילים, תניא every single day.
From where does he get the letter back from? I'm missing, I'm missing that. He got a letter back. Sorry. There's there's tons of volumes called אגרות קודש.
Oh oh, so you put it in and that's the answer you get back. Put it in there, you just put it into somewhere. The the מענה that he gave. Sorry, it's far out stuff.
So here in in in in this is a this the daily תניא, this is the תניא that goes this is already in שבט but because today we're already on the fourth פרק, I mean the fifth פרק of שער היחוד והאמונה which is the next section in תניא. This is from the תניא itself. Now, I just want to read here the explanation they have here to explain to us something how the בעל התניא is going to drill in a a very important concept. And if you never learned תניא before this is a fantastic פתח הבית.
This is a fantastic way to to get a little taste of what the אלטער רבי was all about. In the previous chapters the אלטער רבי explained how it is very near to you. By the way the whole book of תניא is based on that that phrase כי קרוב אליך הדבר מאוד, which we say in נצבים, that to be a יידישע יוד, to be a נפש אלוקית, to be on fire, is actually very close. He says here how it is very easy and accessible to every Jew to serve השם with אהבה ויראה.
He stated that this can be accomplished either by creating a love and fear of God through meditation on God's greatness, or by arousing the hidden love which also comprises the fear of God inherent in every Jew. In the coming chapters, the אלטער רבי will discuss means of overcoming possible obstacles in the path of one's service to השם. In the first instance, he shows how one may overcome the sadness and dullness of heart whereby the heart becomes insensitive to feelings of love and fear of השם. So we already know this is what he's going to be talking about which is ממש exact, כמעט exactly on our avenue of how we've been learning with רב קוק and what what what רבי נחמן just said.
Addressing that depression here is different than how I pictured רב קוק describing it. Well this is this is חב"ד. Right. So you're saying that what? That a different view of depression versus sadness or something? Or I would say pain.
Right. Right. I feel like pain in Rav Kook's world is the pain when you have that feeling of you need to do תשובה, whereas the pain in the Tanya world is of this feeling that you're far from השם. I guess they could, you could, they could intersect somewhere.
It's the same thing. It's the same thing but it's a different, it's a different, it's a different, it's a different, yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Same thing and we're coming about it from different places. I mean, one of the reasons why my my I, my Rebbe Rav Weinberger is for to me, for me just just like the עמוד האמת right now is because he's, he shows us all the time how everyone's saying the same thing.
One שבועות I spent with him, spent four or five hours only him, the whole night, basically showing us how Rav Kook and the Satmar Rebbe came from the same place and ended up in the same place. Can you imagine what a שבועות is? Huh? Not geographically. Not geographically at all. But can you imagine such a שבועות? It's unbelievable.
It was unbelievable. It was unbelievable. Because today what's what you think we need? I told you one time I came back from Uman. I was in the, I was in the airport in Kiev and I'm sitting down next to this another Israeli guy that just came back, and he says to me, we look at each other, he says, אני רוצה להגיד לך משהו.
אני הייתי פה, I don't know how many times he said. This is after, he said, I went, אני הייתי אצל הרבי מלובביץ׳ שלושים וחמש פעם, וזה לא קרוב למה שהרגשתי פעם אחת פה באומן. I was by the Rebbe 35 times, it's not even close to one time what I felt here in Uman. You know how small I feel like he just made Rebbe Nachman or like the whole point of צדיקים? Like what are you, what are you talking about? Who do you think this is about one branch? Are you guys crazy? Are we crazy? Have we lost our mind? הלוואי it could be about one branch on the level of this is my שורש נשמה and I'm so happy that you have your שורש נשמה through that avenue.
Like I believe that was, that was what the בעל שם טוב would have wanted. Not חס וחלילה the other, you know, not חס וחלילה saying it's just this.Okay, so let's look at what the Alter Rebbe says. ברם כגונדא צריך לידע כלל גדול. But this be made known as a cardinal principle.
כי כמו שניצחון לנצח דבר, sorry. That's the way you naturally read תניא. כי כמו שניצחון לנצח דבר גשמי כגון שני אנשים המתאבקים זה עם זה להפיל את זה, it's with the service of God, just as it is, בוקר טוב with the victory over a physical opponent, for instance, two people who wrestle with each other, each striving to fell the other. Okay.
He says that's how just like it is, like that's like a wrestling match. הנה, אם האחד הוא בעצלות וכבדות, ינוצח בקל ויפול. גם אם הוא גיבור יותר מחברו. If one of them is lazy and sluggish, he will easily be defeated and will fall, even if he be stronger than the other.
And a little פירוש. Why? Since his laziness and sluggishness will prevent him from revealing his strength. So look what he says now. This is amazing.
This is the Alter Rebbe, בעל התניא. ככה ממש בניצחון היצר. Similarly with the conquest of one's evil nature. Continue reading in the Hebrew, אי אפשר לנצחו בעצלות וכבדות הנמשכות מעצבות וטימטום הלב כאבן.
It's impossible to conquer the evil nature with laziness and sluggishness which stem from sadness and a stone-like dullness of the heart.So I want to say two things right now. Rebbe Nachman once said that he wanted his חסידים to be known as Breslovers. Why? דווקא Breslov, even though he wasn't from Breslov and didn't die in Breslov, but he did spend the last eight years of his life in Breslov, besides the last six months of his life in Uman, because he says that I want my חסידים to take their לב אבן, their heart of stone, and turn it into לב בשר, a heart of flesh. Breslov, change the letter on ס and ש.
That's what, that's what Rebbe Nachman means. My whole point, my whole point is that my חסידים feel life. Feel. They feel it.
Remember the whole תורה from רב שלמה on this פרשה? When it says that how could it be that עם ישראל started kvetching for meat? Doesn't make any sense. They just came from יציאת מצרים, קריעת ים סוף, קבלת התורה, and these people are saying please give us meat. Doesn't make. any sense.
So remember the אישביצר says a געוואלדיג thing. He says, what were they really crying for? They said we want a לב בשר. We want a heart. It's true, we're flying off miracles all the time.
But what good is all, are all these miracles if I don't feel life? You can keep on doing miracles for me, but I'm just going to be, I can continue living with a heart of stone. And while I can just keep on experiencing miracles, what good is it? I want a לב בשר, the אישביצר says. That's what we really, they were really saying. And they came to משה and they said, this is what we want.
And משה says to God, this is what they want. And what does משה רבינו say? מאין לי בשר. Ah, I wish, I wish, I wish I had a heart of flesh. That's what, that's an אישביצר twist on this, beautiful, beautiful פירוש.
That's what משה said? According to the. According to, according to the, no, the תורה he says מאין לי בשר, yeah. No I'm talking about, but that's what, the אישביצר explains it like this, yeah. It's a long תורה.
We learned it three years ago in the Monday night שיעור. It was one of my favorite pieces actually, to transform the heart of stone to a heart of flesh. Whoever wants it I'll email it to you gladly, this piece. ממש.
ממש, unbelievable, unbelievable תורה. So here he's saying over here, אי אפשר לנצח בעצלות וכבדות. You cannot win the battle of conquering your יצר from what, from a place of laziness or feeling heavy? Where is that drawn from? What's the source of עצלות, of, sorry of עצלות and כבדות? It's drawn from עצבות. Feeling lazy and feeling heavy is rooted in the עצבות.
And I want to say that it's the עצבות how רבי נחמן explains it, which is coming from the spleen, which is coming from the other side, which is coming from what השם, השם hates, not from the heart. How do we know not from the heart? וטימטום הלב כאבן. Here he says a stone like dullness of the heart. You ever tell someone that they're stupid or, did anyone ever in Israel tell you as an עולה that you're stupid? Probably.
Probably every day. Felt stupid, definitely. How do you say stupid in Hebrew? מטומטם. What is it really coming from? You're dull.
טימטום הלב. טימטום הלב כאבן. Stone like dullness of the heart, that's where sadness comes from. כי אם בזריזות, look down in the Hebrew.
כי אם בזריזות הנמשכת משמחה ופסיחות הלב, but rather with, with here he says, what's this word? Alacrity. זריזות means fast. הנמשכת משמחה ופשיטות הלב, which derives from joy and an open responsive heart, וטהרתו מכל נידנוד דאגה ועצב בעולם. A responsive heart that's unblemished by any trace of worry and sadness in this world.
That's how you win. That's how you battle it out. He is not saying here don't be brokenhearted, but he's saying this is what sadness is. עצלות, listen, רבי שלמה once said this, you ever see people, you know if you're sad and if you're depressed you can't jog, you can't run.
You ever notice that? You can't walk fast. You can't do almost anything fast in a state of עצלות. So you can see someone, listen brother, come exercise, or run a little bit, jog. No, I'm, I'm in deep contemplate, you know, I'm going through deep...
then you know it's not, that's not what you're talking about. That, that's not, that's not it. That's not it. So here look what he says here.
ומה שכתוב, but it says, בכל עצב יהיה מותר. In every sadness there will be a profit. פירושו, so if we said you have to stay away from sadness, how could there be a profit? How could there be anything positive about it if we say you have to stay away from it, right? פירושו שיהיה איזה יתרון ומעלה מזה. Which means that some profit and advantage would be derived from it.
What does it mean that there would be an advantage from sadness? We just said we have to stay so far away from it at all costs. So he's saying there's nothing inherently good in sadness, but certain advantage comes from it. What's the difference? Somehow. What you said earlier about what רב נחמן said.
Exactly. Exactly, but, a byproduct. But let's see, the byproduct, but let's see how he gets to the byproduct. It's a little bit different than the way רב נחמן does and that's why what Tovia said was straight on.
They're saying the same thing but they're really coming from two ends and it's beautiful, it's wonderful. הנה אדרבה מלשון זה משמע שהעצב, we're at the bottom over here on the second page. מלשון זה משמע שהעצב מצד עצמו אין בו מעלה. The wording that there will be profit implies that on the contrary, sadness itself has no...
virtue. רק שיגיע ויבוא ממנו איזה יתרון. Except that some profit will ultimately be derived from it. והיינו.
Did you turn the page Avi before? No, okay, fine. והיינו. השמחה האמיתית בשם אלקיו הבא אחר העצב האמיתי, the real שמחה in הקדוש ברוך הוא which comes after true sadness. אחרי העצב האמיתי לעתים מזומנים על עבונותיו במר נפשו ולב נשבר.
He also uses the term לב נשבר. So again, I'm going to read this paragraph in English. This profit is the true joy in Hashem which follows the true, and they added here an important word. You see the word they added over here? Justified.
Justified sadness. Most of our sadness is not justified. He's saying, what's the justification of sadness over here? Over one's sins with bitterness of soul and a broken heart, which must come at specific, suitable times, crossing back to רבי נחמן somewhere else. רבי נחמן said a person should only spend one hour or one set time of the day in this set of mind of sadness and a broken heart.
The rest of the day, absolutely forbidden to go there. Set a time every day. I'll never forget this. When I was learning here in אמיפתא, I found out about an old love in my life that had just gotten engaged.
And I knew like, oh, it's going to be a really shaky time right now. I have to like get through this. It's so great that we're sharing all this in public right now. I'm on it.
It's okay. I don't, I could care less. I could care less. And רב רייך gave me a great עצה.
רב רייך was the head of the כולל in אמיפתא. I don't know if he still is, but the whole ישיבה changed. רב שוקי רייך, you know רב רייך? From the גפן? Huge תלמיד חכם, ראש כולל. He said to me, okay, I'm not going to tell you to ignore this.
Think about it every day. I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, but but set a time, set 15 minutes to actually think about this. And whenever you think about it during the day, say, no, no, I have it. At 1:30 I could think about it.
It was brilliant. It was brilliant. It wasn't even, it was an amazing thing. It would have been much cooler if I would have listened to him.
But when he said it to me, I was like, wow, that makes a lot of sense, right? But of course, I didn't think there's a chance in the world that I could that I could, you know, control my thoughts or be like, no, yeah, you have 15 minutes later to be in חפיפה.So look at, so it continues here. שעל ידי זה נשברה רוח הטומאה והסטרא אחרא. Through this, we'll get what just a second. שעל ידי זה נשברה רוח הטומאה והסטרא אחרא ומחיצה של ברזל המפסקת בינו לאביו שבשמיים.
So he's saying over here, why should this sadness lead the worshipper to joy? For thereby through one's sadness, the spirit of impurity and of the סטרא אחרא is broken. And so too the iron wall that separates him from his father in heaven, כמו שכתוב בזוהר על הפסוק רוח נשברה לב נשבר. Like the זוהר says, a broken spirit, a broken heart you will not despise. The words are רוח נשברה לב נשבר, לא נתקע I think, לא יתכן.
A broken spirit, a broken heart you will not despise. So here he explains, the זוהר interprets the verse as follows, a broken spirit of the סטרא אחרא is accomplished by means of a broken heart. Since sadness over one's sins causes the סטרא אחרא to be broken and the iron wall to vanish, it leads one to rejoice. As the אלתר רבי now goes on to say, ואז יקויים בו רישא דקרא, תשמיעני ששון ושמחה, השיבה לי ששון ישעך ורוח נדיבה.
Then the preceding verses will be fulfilled for him, make me hear joy and gladness, restore to me the joy of your salvation and support me with your generous spirit. This joy is the prophet of sadness, whereas sadness itself is neither profitable nor advantageous. What are you guys feeling about this? Is this, is this, is this שטימינג? Do you hear what, do you hear what the אלתר רבי is saying? What does it mean that there's a profit here from sadness? Obviously before the byproduct. Wasn't he defining sadness as a לב נשבר? He doesn't make the same.
Yeah, I'm having a little trouble with לב נשבר. Not necessarily. He uses it both in the same paragraph before if you saw, which is weird. But he's sadness over one's sins.
Right. So meaning you're going to be sad, which causes heartbrokenness. But are you kvetching when you're sad over your sins saying, God, how could you, how could you let me do this, or how could you make my hearts, my my life so hard? That would be עצבות from the טחול, from the spleen. When you're kvetching, not that it hurts you so much that you did עבירות, but rather what? How could you put me into a world where it's so easy to fall? Which is a very easy, legitimate claim that each of us can have.
That's why we were learning in ספירת העומר, the one of the most important things to get rid of before שבועות is getting rid of all your legitimate claims to why life is so hard, and why it's so hard to be holy. Because it doesn't, you can have all the claims in the world and they might be right, and they might be just, and they might even be holy claims and excuses for not being able to shine. But at the end of the day, they're still excuses, and they're still claims. They might be legitimate, but they're still claims.
I think עצבות is having legitimate and illegitimate claims. I can't break that. I must be missing something because I'm right. It seems crazily enough that רב נחמן is being more precise in his terminology than the רבי is.
He absolutely is. This is one of the rare cases. And you are crazy, but but, you know what I mean, absolutely. No, really, this is one of the clear, it's a very interesting thing.
רב נחמן is went, he said to us straight up. And the Alter Rebbe is kind of, again, what is the Alter Rebbe saying? He's saying in a wrestling match, as smart as one one person and as strong as one side could be, right? If he's caught in a little bit of laziness and heaviness, he's he's going to be taken down. Why? Because laziness and heaviness wears a person down and he makes him do things slowly. And with the יצר, it's the same thing.
That if you're not going to do things with fast and work on the offense fast, you're going to be taken down. What's the source of of of slowness, of of everything being slow? עצבות. I think what he's saying here, you can have a לב נשבר and still do still do things בזריזות. That's what it seems to me.
I think you use that לב נשבר once you get to that point and bounce back off of that. You get down, but make sure you hop right back up. Immediately. You can have those moments.
He says, like you can have Yeah, yeah. specific times. Specific times. But then bounce up, jump up.
נכון. But those specific times wouldn't be, wouldn't be described as עצבות or specifically, על שאינו לשמו ורצונו. I mean, that's that to me is what עצבות is. Exactly.
Even those specific times that you have the times to reflect and go into a bitterness, it's like obviously, it's like, don't use those few, it's not saying, oh, I have 15 minutes to kvetch. Why didn't you do? Don't don't that at the end of the day, that's not what you're going to use those 15 minutes for, or or whatever the suitable time is. What are you using it for? Broken heart. For a broken heart.
Distance from ה'. I'm just far from you. But I could I could say, see what he's saying is, I think what he's saying is when a person really says, ריבונו של עולם, I'm so I'm so far from you, that doesn't weigh you down. That actually gives you, that actually gives you incentive.
Yeah, that's an incentive. You have to ask. It's, this is a little overwhelming in coming all these things together at one time and how to integrate and what does it really mean? There's fine lines here. Like when the זוהר says, like, what's a broken spirit? That we've, it seems that we've moved, we're trying, we're speaking, ה', I need your help.
I mean, I'm really confused. That seems to break the power, the כח, he's saying, of the סטרא אחרא. Right. It's although comes from that we need to turn over, I believe, to ה'.
I don't know how to do this. Right. All the things that we're trying to break through in order to get this closeness, that we can't be so hard on ourself. Twenty years ago, you could say I was in a relationship or a business deal and I did this and now I realize that it wasn't totally right.
I hurt somebody in the end. Right. You could feel terrible. You can get a little bit of depression over that because now, I mean, look, I'm not, how can I have done that? But I want to correct you.
You can't, you can't הלכתית, spiritually, get depressed over that. Right. No, I'm saying though. And the time designed for reflection over your life is not to get depressed over those things.
Okay, I, I, I see that, but it's difficult once you're working, you open up your heart to work on this. That's the whole point of this. Right. No, I understand.
That's why he also says that only do it an hour a day. You're saying, you're saying, you're gonna, you're gonna become crazy emotional. You're gonna go. It's exactly it.
You're right on. You're right on. And you could become immobilized by it. Right.
It's very, you know, okay, this is my hour. It's, it can't, I don't know if it could, you know, maybe he is saying it's a specific time. Or maybe he's saying, you know, reflect on this when you can, whatever time, because, you know. You have to make time.
You have to make time. Can't dominate your thought process all day long. It has to be. No, no, I realize that but you also sometimes can't turn it on.
Or it seems that way. How can you turn it on? So sometimes if it feels like you can turn it on, maybe you got to go with it and turn it on for that short period of time. I don't care if it's ten minutes, twenty minutes, half an hour. It's a lot of work.
It's not, it's not, this is not a, it's not a switch. This is ממש עבודת השם. Right. But, but, the difference is.
Yeah, the product is, the finished product is amazing. But the process, in the process towards that finished product is, is, is, are you doing, do you do things very slowly and heavily or do you do even the hard things which, which is the, like procrastinating. Yeah. You know, the מסילת ישרים, what is it, מסילת ישרים or דרך השם, they speak so much about עצלות, about, about laziness being as evil as like, you know, we don't really look at laziness as being an evil, we'd be like, ah whatever, it's a מעלה that I'm not so good at.
Laziness? Laziness is destructive. Is laziness independent from anything else, can we say that? What do you mean? Meaning, what's the source of laziness? Is it, is it sad? He said depression. The אלתר רבי stated clear, was it the אלתר רבי or am I getting confused? The אלתר רבי says clearly, depression. So depression launches one חס ושלום into laziness.
Laziness, are we saying it's not an independent trait that doesn't come from any other source except from itself or no, right here we're saying, the אלתר רבי is saying no. Seems to me he's saying depression directly puts someone into laziness. It seems to me, it seem, again, this is just my opinion, but I would love to hear what you think, seems to me that the אלתר רבי is directly linking it to the sadness that's stemming from. Somebody's born in a religious position of being lazy? So that's the whole, no, no, that's the question of, you know, do you believe that people are, are, are manic depressive, meaning and it's come and it's from and it's a, it's a genetic disease from birth.
Then you can have a big טענה on השם saying, but then you can have a טענה on השם how could you, how could you have created people with cancer cells, you know? It doesn't, it doesn't end over there with that question. You can have a טענה on השם with everything. But again, the טענות of, the טענות on השם are also coming from the place of, of, of the depression. Again, the טענות on השם where רב נחמן said if you spend your, your, your fifteen minutes or an hour saying how could you have created me like this? Legitimate claim.
Legitimate claim. But it's still just a claim. It won't, and maybe once in your life you have to voice it up, but that's not going to get you anywhere. I heard an alarming statistic of the amount of people on antidepressants in America.
I mean, it's a, it's a very high number. How could that be? You know, like so much good and so much everything. If Lazer Brody is vehemently against. He ever, he ever mentioned it to you? He said it in Chicago.
He said it in Chicago, and he said it loud. Yeah, it's a hard thing to say because I know, I know people that, you know, I understand Reb Lazer. Exactly. I understand Reb Lazer very much and I, and I, and I also understand people that, you know, their נפש, their, their souls aren't on fire enough to be acting on, on, on fire of רבונו של עולם through the accessibility that we have.
I go into the deep depression also if we didn't have these things to learn. I mean to get through this world, how do you? To get through this world? Yeah. If you have to try to do it all by yourself, I don't know. Very, very fine lines over here.
But that's already a little bit sidetracked. And I mean the truth is we could, we could go on and on. Let's just see if we can finish this. וזהו הטעם הפשוט.
On the bottom of this page. וזהו הטעם הפשוט לתיקון האריז"ל, לומר מזמור זה אחר, you see on the bottom over here? לומר מזמור זה אחר תיקון חצות קודם הלימוד. So this is the אריז"ל, this is the simple reason, apart from the deeper mystical ones. This is a simple.
a poor האריז"ל, right? No, apart from the deeper mystical reasons, yeah. For the practice instituted by the האריז"ל of reciting this, this פרק תהילים containing the verses we quoted above, when, right after תיקון חצות before resuming one's Torah study. Which we're all very much. Of course, yeah.
No, I know, yeah. Why? So this, but look what he says here. And this we could even, even if, I thought you… we stop by but we do this. We all, we all do that you know.
After the מקוה. Even if we, even if we don't do that literally yet, you could still understand a very deep concept right now. Why? כדי ללמוד בשמחה אמיתית בהשם הבא אחר העצב. In order that one should study with true joy in Hashem that succeeds the remorse of תיקון חצות, which, by the way is like, yeah? So here he's really mixing the two, right? Because תיקון חצות is what what Nachman would call שבירת הלב, right? שבירת הלב.
Right, but he puts it in the category of עצב. עצב, yeah. That's why. The Alter Rebbe's category of עצב, Rebbe Nachman said עצב פסול, שבירת הלב כשר.
The Alter Rebbe is not defining עצבות like Rebbe Nachman did. Rebbe Nachman said עצבות is depression. Here I would say that the Alter Rebbe is saying עצב can lead to שבירת הלב, to the place we want to get to. A little bit different.
And that means it can lead somewhere else too. So he's, he he is illustrating Rebbe Nachman's point that you're on the edge. Right? When you're עצב, it's really this glimmering back and forth. You have to, you have to be really straight with yourself where you are.
It's not a simple thing. No. So it says, כדי ללמוד בשמחה אמיתית בהשם הבא אחר העצב, שיש לשמחה זו יתרון כיתרון האור הבא מן החושך דווקא. This is a classic phrase in Chabad.
יתרון האור הבא מן החושך. Such joy is of a greater quality than joy which is not preceded by sadness. That's פשוט. Similar to the distinctive quality of light which follows darkness.
I think that's the יתרון, the profit he's speaking of is that like this, like the גמרא says, שרגא בטיהרא מאי מהני? A candle in sunlight, what what good does it do, right? So over here, there's there's just something about it. If right now someone turned on the light, that light over there wouldn't mean anything to us. But if it was nighttime, the lights were closed, and then someone turned on the light, I'd appreciate the light so much more. Why? Because I sat in darkness.
But is it following darkness or in darkness? The translation uses the word follows, you see. It's אחר. It doesn't say אחר. שיש לשמחה זו יתרון כיתרון האור הבא מן החושך.
מן החושך. So what does that even mean? So in literal Hebrew, it would mean from right now. But here he says which follows darkness. Is it different? Huge.
Yeah. Why I think, you know, with this interpretation, then the joy which is not preceded by sadness... Yeah, he's really giving a time frame over here in the translation. כמו like, similar, to the distinctive quality of light, the quality now we're talking about, not just light, which follows darkness.
האור הבא מן החושך דווקא. Such joy is of a greater quality than joy which is not preceded by sadness, similar to the distinctive quality of light which follows darkness. I think he's based on the way they're learning it out, it's a, it's you're not in that state anymore. Because once the light is turned on, once you're running, you're not, once you're running, you're not sad anymore because you're, because you're able to run.
Once you're not being lazy, you're not lazy anymore. You can't be both. You can't be, I'm doing a lazy run this morning. If you're running, you're not, you're not being lazy.
But the truth is the Alter Rebbe's way here really is a little bit different because I think over here that the Alter Rebbe is not, not, he's not as worried as Rebbe Nachman that you're going to fall into depression. Because he somehow has more, I guess, more, what would you say, confidence? Or he's dealing with a, what do you think? He's giving you the, he's telling you to, he's giving you a time limit to getting in there. רבי נחמן doesn't give you that. He doesn't give you.
רבי נחמן doesn't let you. The אלטע רבי is saying you can go there because when you go there, you're going to get up right away. Right. And then you're going to, the joy that's going to cure your experience.
And רבי נחמן says, stay away. I'm not letting you go in there even for one second. You may not come out. You may not come out.
It's too dark. Do you see it like that, Jay? Yeah. In our generation. But the what is this supposed to do? Isn't that a dedicated time? That's broken heart.
For broken. That's not sadness. Okay, so exactly. So התבודדות is, so now we're going back to how Rav Kook says.
So התבודדות, according to the אלטע רבי, what's התבודדות according to the אלטע רבי now? What could it be? זריזות. How but how would you, how would you practice that in a זריזות way? He's saying in the התבודדות, in a person's התבודדות, which really they call it in חב"ד, התבוננות. And in fact, the מהר"ל and others speak about another place, another thing called השתקה. Sorry, the פיסצנא speaks about this.
השתקה, which means an act of, a proactive act of silencing. השתקה, להשתיק, to silence something. So according to the אלטע רבי, this, what you might be able to during his התבודדות, to let yourself feel עצבות. But רבי נחמן says, that's not real עצבות.
It's a different terminology. Look, they're both saying something. They're both, let's just look at the endgame of both of them. How do you know if it was real? Are you בשימחה? They're both saying that.I'm not, see I'm not exactly sure on the way how they both tell you how to, I think really how the way we touched it down now is that רבי נחמן really does say you could taste that place, but there's a great danger that you're going to fall into depression as opposed to enjoying the light that comes after the darkness.
And the אלטע רבי says, what do you mean? You're נפש האלוקית and once you know that, you can do anything in the world. Once you know that, you can go to, you can go anywhere. You could be a שליח anywhere where there's nothing, and don't worry. Right? That that's how I feel.
Like it's a different שיטה and we see it למעשה on the levels of how they act out in חסידות today. A חסיד goes places where there's every reason in the world to be a spiritually depressed person, anywhere. Where are they? They're everywhere, right? But something is triggering him. I don't know what, how we could define that.
That's another level. Like something is giving him such sustenance and such tolerance to be able to not fall into the, I've never seen a depressed שליח in my life. Because the אלטע רבי is telling you you're not going to get depressed, you're not going to get depressed. I think right, they're they're latching on to that.
That's what they live and breathe. If the, if if רבי נחמן's telling you don't go there, you're not going to go anywhere near there if you're a תלמיד of that. But if you're a תלמיד of the אלטע רבי, yeah, anything's possible. Right.
And they're both right. And they're both right. That's the highest. Right.
So each person has to figure out, I think that as a, at the end of the day, it's each person has to figure out where what they're capable of, what's their connection? What what their שרש is? Well, רבי נחמן says, no, I'm not, I'm not giving you that option. רבי נחמן says, I'm not not giving you that option to figure out who you are, meaning which which which. No no no, I'm sorry. רבי נחמן's not, רבי נחמן's saying I'm not giving you the option.
What are you following, the אלטע רבי? רבי נחמן's in the corner. רבי נחמן is saying, I'm not giving you the option to figure out if you're if you're connected more to the אלטע רבי or me in regards to this. Well it's too danger, it's a dangerous like the the אלטע רבי's path is that you're walking on the edge of the cliff. I don't, I see that.
I don't see that. Because he's saying עצבות is really עצבות. You don't have that. This is the source of it.
It's it's the source of it is in עצבות. How would you define עצבות? Yeah but, but that's not walking on a cliff. He's not saying this is dangerous. You need to internalize that.
Of course, and if you don't, then. I I think what you said is important possibly in our, אי אפשר לנצח את העצלות וכבדות שנמשכים מעצבות וטמטום הלב כאבן. It's impossible to conquer the evil nature with laziness and being sluggish, which stem from sadness and a stone like dullness of the heart. He hasn't given us more than just saying that עצבות is corresponding to laziness.
I think it's so important though that he says this because you could take this and turn it into, let's say we turn it into a workbook, be aware, recognize that laziness, whatever that means to. I think each of us could identify with it. Yeah, no. I know laziness is like a big evil יצר הרע in my life.
Just I see it all the time. The thing is we waste a lot of time. I look at laziness of wasting a lot of time and kind of not moving on, not in the sense removing yourself from working on how do I get closer to השם and his רצון. But exactly, you could become very lazy within your התבודדות.
In a kosher way you could get lazy. No. No, no, no, no, no. That that's no, I don't think so, no.
Then what do you mean by in your התבודדות? Because the second that the התבודדות becomes lazy, it's it's suckling its energy from the סטרא אחרא. The second that second you start going into your התבודדות and saying, I have to spend more time just working on this. I didn't really do תשובה over this. I really have to go even deeper.
And then you see that you're becoming lazy within התבודדות, within what you're dealing with in התבודדות, it's not really התבודדות you're doing. But look, regardless of that, I got most חזק from the way they both tell us if you want to know what you're doing is on or not. What happens to you after התבודדות? Yeah, but that's already, that's like saying which pill do I take? I just I got to take different ones and then I'll see what the result is. That's kind of a concoction.
It's not a clear path to follow. You don't want to have someone figure out which one is right based on the result.See, I listen, so I would say to you then you have to ממש go through, you have to really live both ways until you look, that's what רב שלמה would say. He'd say you have to, you have to go through both ways right now in your own life. I think רבי נחמן's way is clear.
I'm still having trouble with the other רבי נחמן says clearly, אשה אינה עושה לרצונו. Someone sets up an expectation, it's clear. Right. I am, you know, the אלתר רבי.
Funny, the אלתר רבי is clearer to me than רבי נחמן now. So what is it? What would you say? Because for me, the אלתר רבי is saying, don't kid yourself. You're going to taste sadness in this world. And there's a profit from sadness.
There's nothing good about sadness, there's a profit from sadness. The only שאלה is, does your sadness come about from laziness? Or does your sadness result of deep introspect in into where you're at in life? Right. But that's it's not as clear as רבי נחמן's definition of sadness. Because what, how would you even distinguish between with the אלתר רבי those two ways that you describe sadness? You're right, רבי נחמן is very, is still very easy by saying what is the root of my sadness, is is what I'm saying, is am I קוועטשינג? Am I קוועטשינג, I'm not happy with the dish that I'm served while I'm having a broken heart? That gives you a real insight as to where it's coming from.
Or is it just so painful to be far from you, אבא? But the אלתר רבי also has two very clear tracks, right? What's the source? Either it's either it's זריזות or it's עצלות. Right. To me, the אלתר רבי is clear. I myself don't know what רב קוק would say right now.
What do you think רב קוק would say about these two שיטות? Cuz רב קוק did not say to stay away completely from sadness. It seems to me that רב קוק is actually closer to the אלתר רבי right now. מחילה from. It it seems because רב קוק did not speak like רבי נחמן about this thing.
He embraced the עצבות. When you have to embrace it. And there's not, yeah, embrace it. And he's not saying that לב, and he's not even his definition is לב נשבר, עצבות.
It seems to me that he sounds more like the אלתר רבי, רב קוק, based on what we've been learning the last few weeks. They also say by working on it and recognizing. They all say that. No one's saying not to work.
You'll break the סטרא אחרא, you'll… What are you working on? But wouldn't you say that that רבי נחמן's description of the positive side, the distancing, the distance that you feel, that's really where where a source of תשובה would come from, wouldn't it? Absolutely. But that's also, again, you can the word עצבות is throwing things off for רבי נחמן. I know because because רב קוק and the אלתר רבי aren't scared of using that word. And רבי נחמן sort of like stays away from it like wildfire.
But the אלתר רבי and רב קוק use that word. Right. צריך עיון. But רבי נחמן, he's, I mean, he's saying I'm not going to let you get near this.
Right. I'm going to guard you. I'm going to put this behind a lock, closed door. In one sense, the אלתר רבי is is much more out there than than רבי נחמן.
He's really out there. What we're trying to figure out is what is... is it a רב קוק based on, I think that based on the on the פשוט words of רב קוק, רב קוק does not, he's not so into warning, warning, warning. רב קוק is saying, צריך מאוד להיזהר.
He says you have to be careful. But remember what he said. Just open up very fast, we'll end with this. Open up, please.
Where is it? No, י"ב. י"ב. Look at פרק ח, סעיף י"ב. Maybe this will help us.
מאוד צריכים להיזהר מן העצבות. You have to be very careful from עצבות, but, אבל לא במידה גדולה כזאת שתמנע את אור התשובה מלחדור עד עומק הנשמה, but not to such a great extent, the light of תשובה will be prevented from penetrating into the soul. Who does that sound like? רב קוק. No, who does רב קוק sound like? רב נחמן or the אלתר רבי? That sounds like רב קוק.
No, it doesn't sound like רב קוק. אלתר רבי, yeah. Yeah. But then he sounds like רב נחמן, שאז העצבות מתפשטת היא כמחלה ממארת בכל קצות הגוף והנפש.
He says, but because then the the sadness spreads like a like a cancer, like a cancer, like a poisonous cancer that just spreads around the body. But I but really I it I I take it back. It really does seem again, this seems like the אלתר רבי's שיטה. Yeah.
And you're saying don't let it sit there too long because then it will spread. And רב נחמן says, don't even go there. It's deep stuff. I'm going to I'm going to look into it more, בעזרת השם, but by Thursday we'll we'll we'll go further with with all this, but it was I thought that it was just beautiful to see both, you know.
I love how when we see one צדיק saying something, what are the how are other, how are the other צדיקים dealing with the same issue? But, but if we could always, הלוואי שיהיה זכות, that we always, always see not just that the צדיקים are mean the same thing, but that all the רבנים, if we could bring שלום like that, like at the end of the day, everyone means, hopefully means good and to bring more תלמידי חכמים מרבים שלום בעולם. To bring more peace into the world.