Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Each year, on the yahrzeit of Reb Shlomo Carlebach zt”l, Rav Shlomo Katz gathers to sing, learn, and remember the light that Reb Shlomo brought into the world.
This collection brings together teachings and stories shared over the years — reflections on the soul of song, the power of love, and the endless invitation to come closer to Hashem through music and heart.
Revisit the melodies, Torah, and spirit of the man who taught us to believe in the holiness of every Jew, and to never stop singing.
Okay everyone. Thank you so much for for coming today. We have a very special שיעור. We're going to get back to that thing which we began last time of of רב Cook on fear.
We'll get back to that next week because today is the 22nd יאָרצײַט of רב שלמה Carlebach. I wanted to share, I wanted to learn together a piece, a beautiful piece of him teaching רב Cook. Wow. To see, yeah, a magnificent piece.
You know, רב שלמה had said about רב Cook, specifically regarding, we said this in the first שיעור. I think I shared with you that there was once one of the, one of the last שיעורים that he gave in in יקר, which is a center in ירושלים in קטמון area, which I'll be at tonight if you want to come tonight at I think 7:30. Someone had asked רב שלמה, you know, the world is so crazy. This is August, this is August 94.
He said the world is so crazy. You know, and he's saying this in August 94, right? Someone said to him, said, who would you, who would you talk to? Who would you ask what to do in terms of how do you, how to conduct yourselves right now as a Jew and as a Jewish nation? Who would you, who would you go to? So רב שלמה said, look, there's nobody. For today there's absolutely nobody. Now, 45 minutes into the שיעור, he stopped and he said, you know what?
מיכל, that's the person I think that that had asked him.
He said, I told you before that there's nobody that I would go to, that I would seek advice and and take in from his river of wisdom in order to figure out how to do anything today. It's not true. I would, there's one, and it's רב Cook, he said. I would ask רב Cook how to be a איד today, on a personal level and on a כלל and on a Jewish national level.
I would ask him how do you, how does one be Jewish today in the world? His way of learning רב Cook was very extraordinary, very unique, very, very different than all different worlds of thought in the school of of רב Cook's בית מדרש. And we're going to see I think a concept that they both very much acted upon throughout their whole lives, which was, you know if you like even written on his tombstone, I think it says like the deepest of the deep, even on his own tombstone of רב שלמה. But what רב Cook and רב שלמה always pushed אידן and non-Jews as well to go to, is to go beyond what they beyond the shallowness of religious observance, to to seek deeper, to never be satisfied with just being a halachically committed Jew. To always go deeper, to make sure that to ask yourself, am I keeping שבת or can I say that שבת is keeping me? Can I say that? So in this piece, which is based on a, a, a, probably we could say it's based on a lot of different פרשיות, but it's most definitely connected to the פסוק about לא תעשו אלוקים אחרים, לא תעשו לכם אלוקים אחרים.
Don't make for yourself other gods. So we always tend to say that that means השם is one and don't have other gods in the world. But like רב שלמה was talking about the Jew and his own religious observance, never be satisfied with everything, always make sure you're going deeper and never be shallow. So too that פסוק is so much deeper than just make sure you only have one god.
Many of us are sure we only have one god, and yet we're still living very shallow lifestyles with that one god. So what does it mean? What does that פסוק really mean? What does it mean to not be a pagan, basically? So, I don't know how if we're going to be able to to finish this whole piece. It's not too long, but it's מאד deep. So we'll try to see as much as we can and hopefully the words today should be לעילוי נשמת מורנו הרב שלמה בן רב נפתלי ב'פעסיא, זכותו יגן עלינו.
How many of you ever met רב שלמה? You did, Jesse, really? Where? Oh wow. Wow. Interesting. Did everyone get?
חיה, you have? Okay, great.
Wonderful. You were a little bit definite, you saw him, right? More than once. And you also? Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure you were in New York, you were in...
I had the experience of going to his שול, you know had the experience of driving him. He was standing outside West End Avenue and going to the airport and he was waiting for a cab but there were no cabs coming along. So Peter drove, and your אבא drove him to the airport. Oh wow.
I had the experience, had the זכות of being in the car, you know, with him. Wow. Sweet. And he came actually, I remember him coming to City College.
That's where I was in college, and he would come to the Hillel house, and he would kiss everybody along the way, you know, it was that was his thing. And but even before that, he came where I used to live in Long Island City, years and years before, to the high school there, to just give a concert, and that was like late 60s or, you know. Yeah. And late 60s.
You were four years old then. Yeah. My mother first heard.
חי וקיים.
That was the most. That was the beginning. I'm just going to open if it gets too cold, let me know, okay? I just remember him on the west side. Okay.
Okay, so let's look inside this text. Now, even though this is all Reb Shlomo's language, it's all based on Rav Kook's words. And I still haven't been able to place exactly where he's what what Hebrew text he got this from, but this the the feeling is it's it's most definitely אורות הקודש, but I'm not sure exactly where where it is. So look at this.
Reb Shlomo says like this, Before the great day, before the Messiah's coming, all the gates of heaven are opening. All the gates of learning and all the secrets of the world are opening up to us as well. But what does this actually mean? Meaning, everyone always says that term עקבתא דמשיחא. We're on the עקבות, the heels of משיח.
It's right around the corner. It's almost going to happen, and things are changing, and a lot of access that we have today to worlds of תורה, we never had before. Look how many people are learning תורה. Look how many people are learning חסידות.
Look how many people are learning the works of the זוהר today. Look how many people are understanding השם in a different light. Like we have to realize that as much as we think that we have it much worse spiritually because we're so messed up from devices and media, whatever it is, we have access today on the world level of תורה much much deeper, not deeper, but much more than we ever had before. There are more people learning תורה today than ever before.
But further, there are more people that actually think that something really big is happening in the world than ever before. A hundred years ago, I don't think most people really felt that we're on the brink of redemption. I don't even think people thought in those terms. Yes, they said אני מאמין.
That was definitely something that they definitely said, and but that's not really the way like we've actually think that something's about to happen. I mean, as we're as we're talking right now, we you could hear the drilling on on on on the דגן. Like we don't just think something's going to happen. We're witnessing that something is happening.
Gates are opening. Gates of wisdom are opening as well. But תכלס למעשה, what does that mean in our lives? What does that mean, you know, in your and in our personal lives? What what השפעה, what influence does that have in the way that I manage my day and that I carry myself in this world? Just to say we're living in a beautiful time, okay, what does that mean exactly? Well תכלס, what does that mean? So, look at this next paragraph. I want you to open your hearts.
We always say that one must have אהבה and one must have יראה when it comes to serving God. There's such a thing as loving God and there is such a thing as fearing God. Okay, pause for a second. Don't look ahead in the text.
I want to see what you feel on your own, okay? Can anyone here say that they connect more to loving השם than fearing השם? Can anyone here say they connect more to יראה, having fear of השם, than loving השם? In different parts of my life. But as a whole, can you say? That the love is, going back to election, love trumps. What are they, what are they saying? Love trumps hate? There is a meditation that I do based on רבי אלימלך where you see yourself at the pit of a fire and you jump into the fire, right? And that's to overcome everything because there's always fear, but if you get past the fear, so yeah. Okay, that's very good.
There's always fear, but is there always love? Only if you get past the fear. What do you think, Jess? I don't think there's always. There isn't always love. Sometimes when there's fear, there isn't, there's an absence of love.
And sometimes when there's love, there's an absence.
נכון. Right. But in order to get to the love, you have to get past the fear.
When when there is fear, there's no love. And so that's why I do this meditation because it's to overcome anything that's blocking. The basic, underneath every fear there's the fear of death, right, which is the the basic fear. And when you approach it and you accept it, so then you get past it and that's where the love is.
Right. That's for you. That's based on רבי מלך מליז'נסק. The meditation is.
That that idea of that love and fear don't work together. Okay, let's look back inside. Third line in the second paragraph. Loving God is not simple, but it's easier to understand.
We have trouble knowing what it means to fear God. Now, I guess this does connect a little bit to last week's, not last week, last time we learned because fear doesn't necessarily mean being being scared. That we could probably connect to more. But having יראת השם is not as easy to understand what that really means, to be in awe of God.
Like if I ask you right now, what does it mean to be in awe of God? What would you what would what be the first thing you'd say? See, there is no first thing because it's it's a very it's a very intimidating concept. What does it mean to have יראת השם? If I told you what it means to have אהבת השם, loving God, you'd probably say gratitude, being thankful. That expresses the the love that's in my heart much more than other things. However, יראת השם, what expresses the fact that I'm in awe of God? It's not doing things.
Right, but that's that's a very hard thing to feel close to. And that's what he's going to get to over here. To fear God doesn't mean to be afraid like the way you're afraid under gunfire. The בעל שם טוב says fearing God means, I'm afraid I will lose his light.
I'm afraid I'll do something wrong which will create distance. This is a very important sentence.
יראת השם is not I'm scared of a punishment. I'm not scared of being punished.
Forget that for a second. Go before that. I'm scared that I could do something which would cause a מרחק, which will cause distance, and God forbid, that would lose, you know, it'll lose the light. Like, God forbid.
You ever say something to your child and right afterwards realize this might have put up a big wall right now? No. Sorry. Imagine that. Like you ever say something to your spouse and realize, oh my God, what I said right now is just put up a huge מחיצה that that is is up to the up to the sky, right? What are you scared of? Are you scared of then afterwards like חס ושלום being punished or silent treatment? That's not what it is.
What what what scares you is what? That the light that we once had will begin to diminish. That's what's scary. That's what really makes us very fearful. So I live on, I don't want to say I live on שפילקעס, but I have what he's saying over here is יראה means that I'm in constant awe of the fact that the light exists and I could God forbid do something for that and to cause that light to God forbid diminish and begin to fade away.
All right? Are we good until now? I want to read that last line again. The בעל שם טוב says fearing God means I'm afraid I'll lose his light, and I'm afraid I'll do something wrong which will create distance. So let's go deeper. Now he asks a question that we have to ask all the time.
How much do we know about God? The truth is we know very little. We know he created the world. We know he spoke to us at Mount Sinai. We know a lot of things.
But if someone were to ask me what I really know about God, what could I say? Pause. Outside the text. You answer. Putting everyone on the spot today.
Right? What could you say? What do you know about השם? How do you even approach a question like that? If I would ask each and every one of you, it says דע את אלקי אביך ועבדהו, you have to know the God of your fathers and serve him. If I'd ask you, what do you even know about השם? What would you say? And and don't try to be politically, I would say a PFC, right? Politically פרום correct, meaning what's the what would you say? What do you know because what's PFC answer? He's a רחמן, he loves us, he does good, עשה חסד. Okay. That's good.
I heard that in שחרית. Now I'm asking you. What I know is what I know in my gut that it's nothing like proof. Not asking you to prove anything.
No, no. What do I know about God? I know that I love him. I know that... That's not about God.
That's about you. What do you know about God? Oh, what do I know about God? God? He's the source of all energy. The source of everything. How do you know that? Because I feel it.
How do you okay, what so feeling comes from the it translates, I would say, substitute the word feeling to close. I'm close enough to know that that's true. Okay. And that's the word for today.
Okay. Yes, and certainly I would be afraid of not having that closeness. And I'd be petrified. That now I understand.
Okay, we're getting it now? And I'd be petrified of losing that closeness. Why? Because then I wouldn't know anything about, then I probably couldn't trust any of my feelings and my emotions. I wouldn't be sure where they're coming from. No, I feel blah.
Sorry? I feel blah. Right.
גורנישט. You'd feel complete yeah, you'd feel, you'd feel empty, you'd feel gross, but you'd feel not connected.
You feel lost. The absence of God would be horrible. The absence of God in your, in your life would be horrific. Right.Now, how many people live religious lives and to them talking about closeness or distance is a completely foreign concept? I tend not to be friendly with those people.
But it exists. No, but it exists. You you realize that. You could have someone that barely knows what שבת is.
You could have someone that has no idea that there's a בבא or a קמא or a מציעא or a מסכת ברכות. He doesn't even know that there's a חומש שמות. He knows בראשית exists. But what about him is so precious and so beautiful is that he knows that God is one.
Why? Based on what? Closeness. He he feels there's a sense of closeness in the world. And no one can deny your senses of closeness. Can't deny that, right? What what would a person like that be petrified of if God forbid, he didn't know about בראשית, just about בראשית.
Then what would happen to him? Who knows? But the less that he knows over here, the less he would feel connected. The less he would feel close.
דוד המלך says this best, ואני קרבת אלקים לי טוב. I know what's good for me.
King David says this better than anybody. I know what's good for me. What's good for me is feeling close to השם. That's what's good for me.
Now, what does that mean and how is that interpreted? Go and live the rest of your life in עולם הזה to figure that out. But you have to come to the conclusion at a certain point in your life that you know what's good for you, right? Some people say, I know what's good for me, I gotta be I'm being very cautious with the word secular because that's not what I mean over here. But what's the word I'm looking for? I want to have a life of I actually don't want השם to look so much into my life. It's too petrifying.
It's too intimidating. It's too heavy. So I actually want the distance. But no one ever feels good like that.
No one ever feels like that because once you come to the recognition that השם does exist, you it feels so good that you would do anything in the world to not lose that closeness, that sense of being close. Now, same thing is with your spouse. Once you know what it feels like to be close, we hate ourselves and we have such a hard time with ourselves when we do things that we see cause distance to be created. We can't stand that place.Now let's go further.
We're in the middle of this paragraph, the third paragraph. In order to love, you see this this the last, it's the last word on the third sentence. In order to love, we don't have to know so much. But in order to have this fear, to have this awareness and ממש knowing he is there, you need to be so much closer.
Okay, in order to love, that's interesting. In order to love, right, in order to love, what do you have to do? Do you have to be close? Not necessarily he's saying over here, but in order to have fear, which means awareness of what's in front of me, and God forbid what could be taken from me, then what do you have to do? You got to be close. So יראה really comes really comes from the concept of being close. By the way, ירושלים comes from the word יראה שלמה, right?
יראה שלם.
That means what? It's the closest, it's the place where you feel closest to השם, where the presence of השם is shining greater than anywhere else in the world, which causes you to have what?
יראה שלמה. Not דווקא, it could have been called אהבה שלים. But it's not, it's called ירושלים. It's not סתם, right, that it's called ירושלים.
Because that's the place where, you know, when I'm standing by by the wall or when I go up to הר הבית, when I'm taking a walk in ירושלים, doesn't matter what it is. And I taste that and I and I sense how precious it is to have this in my life, right? What would I do, what wouldn't I do to keep that feeling? I'd do anything in the world. I'd do anything in the world because ירושלים brings out that יראה שלמה out of me. That's what I would do.
Now, as an example, I can live in America and love someone who's in Australia. That's אהבה. I can love God even if he's far away, but יראה is something else.
יראה means to know he is right here.
Okay, that's יראה. So why is it that before משיח is coming all the walls between man and man, between man and God are breaking down? Simple. The world is becoming more and more aware that God is really here. What do you think about that last statement? You think that's true? The world is becoming more and more aware that God is really here? Well, I want to I want to share with you, I'll share with you something cute.
This past שבת I had to give a דרשה in this big שול, beautiful שול in Toronto. And obviously, everyone is talking about the elections. It's always and I knew that I had in order, I really had to, you know, bring it up somehow in in in the words. That's just where where where where things are at, people are at.
And so I had mentioned that everyone's wondering, are we getting any closer? Is the world looking good? How do you, you know, how do you know if the world is going better to a more refined place, to a more beautiful place? So I brought an example from where I tend to bring a lot of examples from. And that's as you know by now, that's from the NBA, from the National Basketball Association, right? I'm a sports freak. I always I get a lot of משלים from there. So right before שבת, I saw a piece on NBA on TNT on the highlights where one of the commentators there's a guy named Ernie Johnson, not a יוד, a Christian.
I've never heard one spiritual word come out of his mouth ever. And I've listened to him plenty over the years, right? So he said like this, he took the, he stopped the show and he said, I just want to share something that I've never done before. And he's saying, I'm a Christian and I know that my teacher, and you know, he quoted Jay, said that you know, you have to you have to pray for your neighbors, pray for your friends, pray for the world. He said, I don't know what's going on in the world right now.
It's very, very, very scary. I couldn't vote for anybody, he said. But I know that one thing I want to do right now, and one thing I'm deciding to do, I'm going to pray for Donald Trump. I'm going to pray for the people of America.
I'm going to pray for the world. So, if the result of this election is that people start praying more, it doesn't matter who's sitting up on the top of the מלכות over there, because it's the people right at the bottom that are that it brings about, it brings about תפילה from them. Who knows, right? So if, again, are the this last statement over here, the world is becoming more and more aware that God is really here. You really got to believe in God right now, you know, to really to really go through the world.
You always had to believe in God, right? But today you really have to believe in השם in order to feel that everything is, you know, everything's under control. This has nothing to do with Trump, he's just a pawn, just like all the other leaders. They're nothing, they're just pawns. But maybe once upon a time is that it was enough if I just believed that the תורה is אמת and I should learn תורה.
Today, it's so much more than that. The תורה, of course it's אמת, but that God's personal involvement in each of our lives, that there's a close relationship that each of us can have with השם, that's where things are at. And is that happening more and more in the world? I think it is. I think I think we still have a long way to go, but I think I do think it is.
That people actually believe that they have a personal relationship with השם. Is that happening more than ever before? Absolutely. Again, for the good Jew, for the good PFC Jew 100, 200 years ago, he didn't need to really be certain that he has a personal relationship with God. He knew he had to be a good Jew and maybe bring a פדיון נפש קוויטל to his רבי before יום טוב.
That was enough for him to feel like he's in a good place. Today, are any of us relying on anybody else to get the job done other than ourselves to form a personal relationship with השם? Never before. So on that level, now we understand what Rav Kook and Rav Shlomo are explaining, that there was never before a time like today where people sense that it needs to be we need closeness, that it has to actually be something personal. All right.
The world is becoming more and more aware that God is really here. The great light of this awareness is coming into the world as the great day is coming closer. But the question is, where are these lights? Okay. Now this is a good question.
Where are these lights? Meaning, everything we described right now about closeness, people are sensing the need to feel closer and to be in awe, to not have distance from השם. Who are we talking about? What kind of person are we talking about here? Or I would say, who aren't we talking about over here? You used to be, I had a, I had a very heartbreaking conversation with a very sweet person a few months ago that said to me, and the person, due to different issues in their own lives, said, and this person is not today what you'd call halachically פרום, this person broke my heart because they nipped it in the bud, they ממש said it exactly where things are at. They said, 'You know what the problem today in עם ישראל is? Is that there's no more כלל ישראל. There used to be a concept called כלל ישראל where you felt like כלל ישראל, like we're all in this together despite our differences.
But today there's such a focus on the different realms of practicing your Judaism that there really is so much less of a sense of that there's כלל ישראל, the general of עם ישראל, כלל ישראל. So, it used to be that when there was כלל ישראל and despite our differences we knew we had מנהיגים there, the leaders. So we could say the lights are always going to the leaders of עם ישראל. But if I ask you today, who's the leader in עם ישראל today? Who on earth would you say? It used to be you could say the Lubavitcher Rebbe, רב משה פיינשטיין.
You could say that. Even if you weren't פרום you could say a רב, you know, you could say different, certain leaders, right? Who is, who can anyone say today there's a leader in עם ישראל? You're a good sister. I'm going to tell him that. What would you say? That's pretty wild, right? So that means that the lights of this awareness, you look like you're very scared right now, some of you.
It's a very scary thing that you can't really... Except if I ask from Israel who's the leader. He's a big leader. He's a big leader.
Right. But it's weird because he's such a big leader and yet I would say that maybe half a percent of of Jews have access to him, unfortunately. It's true. But I mean, what I mean leader, I mean, not personally to you, but can you say that there isn't דמות, that there is a figure that you know he ממש has כלל ישראל on his shoulders?
כלל ישראל.
You know, רב שלמה and the רבי passed away five months from each other. In summer of '94, the Lubavitcher Rebbe in July, and רב שלמה passed away in October of that year, of 1994. For many people, friends of mine, it was, it was a year of ממש גיהנום, of for their in their own private lives, feeling like these two people were really for them. They had certain, you know, רב שלמה on a more personal level, meaning of meeting יידן and everything and traveling the world, and the רבי on a very כללי ישראל level.
That there was like this sense of, there was someone, he had everyone, he had us all on his back. So today we don't, we just don't have it. There are rebbes, there are leaders, but we don't, it's not the same thing at all. There are giants.
There really are. There are giants in different, look, you know, say what we want to say, but when I travel and I say I'm from אפרת, do you know what kind of name רב ריסקין has in the world for what he's accomplished? It's tremendous. But again, we're not, meaning we have leaders, like he's, he's, he's huge. He's a tremendous person and a ייד and a רב that has accomplished more than we could ever, much more than we know even, right? But we're not talking about those kind of leaders.
We're we're speaking about, like we spoke about the Lubavitcher Rebbe, the רב, רב סולובייצ'יק, who passed away a year before the רבי. So, where are the lights that we spoke about right now about feeling close? Where are they? Where are they going? So look over here. The second to bottom paragraph.
רב קוק says the absolute deepest depths.
Now this will explain why רב קוק fought for such close ties and relationships to many of the non-religious קיבוצים and settlements that were in Israel at at his time. Remember, when are we speaking?
רב קוק passes away in 1935, right?
תרצ"ה. רב קוק passed away 1935. In the 20s and 30s, רב קוק is forging amazing close ties and relationships to people that that other רבנים looked at Rav Kook and said, how could you connect yourself with with אוכלי טריפות ונבילות, people that would eat טרף and don't keep שבת.
Rav Kook saw in them something amazing happening. He never, and again, not to be confused, he never justified on the level of action their non-observance, but he saw that something completely different not just was happening through them, but had to happen דוקא through them. Look what he says.Rav Kook says, to the absolute, to the deepest depths. How did being in exile affect us mostly? Like what what what השפעה did גלות have on us, right? In the root of it all, exile caused us to stop believing in ourselves.
Okay? That's what he said. You want to know what 2,000 years of exile did to עם ישראל? It was 2,000 years of יודן believing less and less in theirselves. Most of us simply don't believe that we are worthy of great light, worthy of newness, and worthy of godly revelations. Like we don't think we're on the level.
We don't think I could I could be close to God. You're speaking again, 80 years ago. Why is this? Why do we have so much trouble believing that the gates of heaven are open and that we are actually capable of knowing the deepest secrets of the world?Rav Kook says that since we don't believe in ourselves anymore, we prefer to live in darkness than to see the great light. You hear that last statement? I'm going to read it again.
Rav Kook says that since we don't believe in ourselves anymore, we prefer to live in darkness than to see the great light. Why is that? Why would you say such a thing? I'm going to say this sentence one more time, but I want you all to really open your hearts and and look at it inside.Since we don't believe in ourselves anymore, we prefer to live in darkness than to see the great light. What does that mean? Because we don't feel worthy of seeing it. So why would I be why would I rather live in darkness than in light? Because we don't want to be confronted with that feeling of being unworthy.
We ah, why what would that cause? It would just be it would cause depression, I think. Sadness and that we're or or we would make us feel like we're fake. Who am I to look at this, that's not that's not the real me. Who am I? I'm not worthy of such great lights in the world.
Who do I think I am that I could hear the secrets of So what do I prefer to do? I prefer to live a life that had that that's surrounded by חושך. I heard Reb Shlomo quote the בית יעקב as well, the Vyshbitz, who said the world's not a they're not they're not scared of darkness. We're scared of light. We're scared of shining bright.
Why is that? Why do you think that is? It's an awesome responsibility. Sorry? It's an awesome responsibility. What would that mean though? If I if I live in a in a world of light, then what would that mean למעשה for my life? You have to face your fears. You have to face your fears, and you have to face all that which causes you to feel distant.
The other side of fears, the bad type of fears, not the fear of God. Right, fear. No, no, no, not not not יראת השם, the the פחד stuff, like we spoke about last time. I'm sorry, I misquoted Rabbi Elimelech.
It's It's okay. The no, it's he would imagine himself standing on a pit of fire and jumping into the fire על קידוש השם. Right. Right.
So that that's Right, right. Okay, okay, no problem, no problem.So this is a concept that's very real. We would rather not deal with our fears, live a life that's not filled with a lot of light, and what? Then what? Then actually own up to who we can be. But Reb Shlomo says in the name of Rav Kook, that's what גלות did to us.
That's what exile did to us. Almost to say like in the time of שלמה המלך, maybe even in the time of the Second Temple as well, that a Jew wasn't scared of shining because he felt it's not that he felt worthy enough, he felt so close to השם that for השם's sake, for God's sake, he had enough inner guts to go up and approach the רבונו של עולם and what? And be close and shine, and he wasn't scared. He wasn't scared of it. So we'd rather live in darkness than live in light.
We prefer to live in darkness than to see the great light. Bottom of the fourth bottom line over here. The בעל שם טוב says that my own yesterdays, my own wrongdoings are my greatest slave drivers. I'm usually a slave to what I did yesterday, which, look what he says here, is the greatest pagan worship.
we always say pagan worship, what are we referring to? An idol, an עגל, a golden calf. Money. That's today's עגל הזהב, right? The calf of money. But really, what he's saying over here, pagan worship is that yesterday became a מצבה for me.
The the law of yesterday or the fear of yesterday in my life, however much I didn't reach high yesterday, that became a מצבה. You know what מצבה means, actually, it's a monument, meaning it's נצב, it's set in stone, and it dictates to me my today. According to Rav Kook, that's mamash עבודה זרה. That's a עבודה זרה.
I am completely not open to the great light that's coming down today. Why? Because I say, based on who I was yesterday, I'm not worthy of it today. And every day I live my life more and more on based on where I was yesterday. I'm not worthy of it today.
What גלות did to us, what exile does to you is that it does not allow today to be today for you because you're you're sealed closed, you're shut closed from your own self-persecution of yesterday.I'm usually a slave to what I did yesterday, which is the greatest pagan worship. On a certain level, as much as it's as it's holy to sit and cry over my sins, it's still a little bit of slavery. You'll ask a יידעלע, "How come you're not a prophet?" "Me, a prophet? Do you know what I did yesterday?" What do you care? Are you a servant of your yesterday or are you a servant of God? Meaning, when I say, "I'm not on the level," so he's saying over here, that sometimes you think that's actually a holy statement. I'm not on the level.
I'm real. I know I'm not a, I know who I was yesterday. I know how much I could have overcome certain things yesterday. So I'm not going to pretend today that I could get up and shine and receive God's light of today.
So on a certain level, is that holy? Yeah, kind of, maybe when you say that once. But when that becomes your mantra, that's how you begin your days, it's the opposite. There's no קדושה in it at all. But also, if you're holding on to your yesterday, then you're holding on to any fear connected to the yesterday, which is the עבודה זרה.
That's that's what I think that's what he means. Humbly speak, I am never sure. I just, I agree with you. I think that's what he means.
I'm holding on to yesterday's fear. And what's yesterday's fear? Anything that you failed at. Anything that you didn't bring you closer to השם, any things that, or further, anything that caused distance, not just that didn't bring me closer, but anything that caused, which is the fear, which is the fear itself, correct.The strength, now now look what he says over here. The strangest thing is that the people who know there is one God, they don't want to hear of the great lights that are coming down.
This is crazy. How could this be? Rav Kook says that the people who were taught that there is one God, sorry. This is so deep. He says like this, "The people who who were taught that there is one God were taught of God in an exile way." What does that mean? Almost, yeah.
Like the the dot that there is one God exists, yeah, but how are they taught about that השם אחד? They were taught it in exile. They were taught it on the level of you're not really worthy. But this goes against חסידות, no? That the sparks of light coming out of the soil and the broken vessel, which is חסידות, that's what השם does. Correct.
So how does that agree with that? It doesn't. It's it's it's exactly opposing. He's saying that there's a he's not talking about I think בעל שם טוב right now. He's, you know, the world, the Jewish world was so much bigger than just the בעל שם טוב.
He's talking about 2,000 years of exile. So he's saying again, Rav Kook says that the people who were taught that there is one God were taught of God in an exile way. Therefore, the people who might not know there is one God because nobody taught them, they are vessels for this great light coming down into the world. You get this? Do you understand? I want to make sure, like I'm tripping my face off this last sentence, and I want you to as well.
So I I want to say this again until it goes inside. It says like this, the people who might not know that there is one God because nobody taught them, meaning they don't have an exiled concept of השם אחד, but they don't even have the concept of השם אחד at all, right? Does anyone want to say this better than me? Because I think like So they're really They're really innocent, they're really תם. They really are innocent. They're not להכעיס, they're not trying to do anything wrong.
They just they were never even that thing of like, you're going to go to hell if you don't do this, was never shoved down their throat. They have nothing to do with that. He's not talking about rebels. He's not talking about people that ran away from יידישקייט.
He's talking about a whole generation of these חלוצים who lived in Israel. Their parents never took them to שול. It didn't even exist. It wasn't even part of their their wasn't part of their their their life, part of their world.
He's saying they actually, they are vessels for this great light coming down to the world because why should they feel unworthy? They never they don't walk around feeling guilty all the time about yesterday. And when you don't walk around feeling guilty about yesterday, you really let today be today. You're open for today being today, which is not so much the way that many people have lived with an exiled way of understanding השם. Yes.
Do you believe השם exists? Yes. Do you believe the תורה is אמת? Yes. Do you believe God believes in you? Very funny. Do you believe you're worthy of receiving great lights and secrets of the world? Who are you kidding? Do you know what I did yesterday? Yeah.
Is that because exile equals distance? That's exactly it. That's the whole שיעור in what you just said right now.
כל הכבוד. That's exactly it.
That as much as we could learn about השם, you're still not in ארץ ישראל, it's not in ירושלים, it's not יראה שלמה. You're not around a physical place where what? Where the what's it called in English? Self-effacing, I think we once described it. Complete annihilation, meaning there's a complete awareness of ביטול, of closeness. The further you are, the more distance there is, the more fear there is.
So the more that even you're learning holy concepts, the less these holy concepts are coming coming to you in a redemptive language. It's being taught to you, but in an exiled kind of way. Think about it. How many people went to ישיבות and know about תורה and know about שבת and they could care less about it.
Was it their fault? Probably not. It's because it was given to them in a way, in an exiled type of way of ומפני חטאינו גלינו מארצנו. Because of our sins we were kicked out of here, and now we're still suffering. So, we could go back even more with this and say, well that's God's fault in the first place because he kicked us out of ארץ ישראל, right? I don't want to go too far back.
I just want to talk about how הרב קוק saw the potential in these initial pioneers that he was meeting here in ארץ ישראל. The exile, an exiled concept of God was not forced down their throats. It wasn't shoved down them. So he looked at people that were Jews.
Yes, they were empty, but they were also empty of exile. They weren't just empty of תורה and מצוות. They were empty of גלות. They were ארץ ישראל יידן.
He says, ah, that means they might have a chance now that when they learn תורה and they connect to the land, they could hear the secrets of what God is saying now in the world and they could feel that they're worthy because guilt is not their slave driver. Yesterday is not their slave driver. They're completely open to today. Now, we have to end here.
I want you to you can take this home and and continue. You know, there there's one more thing on the next paragraph where he says that עבודה זרה means an עבודה that I serve God, but it's foreign to me. What does that mean?
עבודה זרה means not idols, not statues, but that I do serve השם. I'm Jewish, I'm פרום, but it's foreign to me.
It doesn't feel close. I don't feel at home when I'm learning all day long. I don't feel at home when I'm keeping all the תורה and מצוות, when I'm learning God's word. I'm doing it because I have to.
I was taught that in גלות. But it's still זרה to me. It's still foreign to me. That's what עבודה זרה really means.
In our own lives, I think that this piece sheds just like, it sheds so much light in many different areas in our life, but I think that in every relationship in life, when yesterday becomes the way that I look at you today, I killed you today, and I killed me. I I don't I don't give I don't give either of us a chance. I don't give either either of us a chance. But it's the same רב שלמה always said, the way you think about God is the same way you think about people, and it's the same way you think about yourself.
That when you don't give God a chance to shine upon you new light today, you don't think that anyone in your life could be any new to you today either. And when you look in the mirror, you definitely don't see who you are today. You're only seeing it through the mirrors of yesterday. and yesterday and yesterday and the day before that and all the fears that have mounted up until now.
So being good to ourselves would mean to kind of reeducate ourselves, דאווענען over this to ask השם, please explain to me what it means to learn about you in a non-exiled way of learning. And that's what's called תורת ארץ ישראל. That's the book that Dov Shurin he pulled out. That's the Torah of ארץ ישראל.
The Torah of ארץ ישראל is a new, כי מציון תצא תורה. It's a new kind of Torah. It's a Torah that doesn't make you feel guilty per se, it just makes you feel like, I so don't want to be far. And I'm not scared of the light.
I want to be close and I'm not scared of being close. I'm not scared of owning up. I'm not scared of taking a stand. I דוקא want it more and more and more.
So הלוואי in the זכות of these two נשמות, I think that בעזרת השם, each of us in our own lives will be privileged to feel more and more worthy of all that השם is waiting to give us on a daily basis.