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The Legacy of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev with Rav Shlomo Katz is a warm, luminous journey into the teachings and stories of the Berdichever—“Sanegoran shel Yisrael,” the loving defender of the Jewish people. Through accessible shiurim and living Torah, Rav Shlomo opens Kedushas Levi with heart and clarity: why the Torah calls the holiday Chag HaMatzot while we call it Pesach; how our tefillin speak Hashem’s praise and His tefillin speak ours; and how to use our eyes, ears, mouth, hands, and feet for holiness.
Expect soulful tales from the chassidic masters, practical avodah you can live with today, and the Berdichever’s signature lens of radical compassion by finding the chamber of merit in every Jew and every moment.
Good morning everyone. Today we're going to be learning לילוי נשמת my uncle שמואל בן שלמה הכהן. The קבורה was yesterday. His נשמה should have an עלייה and be a מליץ יושר on all of us.
Um, as we'll continue learning for the רפואה שלמה of שלמה דוד בן פנינה. First Steven S. Today is a very holy day on the calendar. It's a very very special day today.
כ״ה תשרי is the יארצייט of רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשוב. It's his יארצייט today. And it's also the יארצייט of the חתם סופר. Rabbi לייכטר.
Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing. So, you can't, I mean כ״ה תשרי, just to pass by this day on the calendar, especially if we have the opportunity to learn together on this auspicious day, I felt it'd be okay to to take a very short short piece, beautiful piece of רבי לוי יצחק to learn in his, learn his תורה. Because רבי לוי יצחק stands completely on his on his own when you when you look at the world of the צדיקים.
רבי לוי יצחק is a whole, a whole world of his own. Those of us that were privileged to be there just, what was it, six weeks ago. Six or seven weeks ago. Know that the power by the by the ברדיטשובער, the קדושת לוי, there's something so powerful there, and the tears come flowing forth.
Now, what is it about the ברדיטשובער and how come there's no such thing as ברדיטשובער חסידים today? So, I have, I hold that the truth is everyone's really, you know, anyone that really wants to fall into the category of loving עם ישראל is a ברדיטשובער חסיד. But who was רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשוב? It's a very long story. It's a beautiful story of how he came to the world. He was born in 1740.
רבי לוי יצחק is the only one of the צדיקים from back then that was מקובל by everyone. He was best friends with רבי נחמן מברסלב. He was very close to the אלתר רבי of חב״ד. He was a student of the מגיד ממזריטש.
But he's really stands on his own as being what? Creating something. What did he what did he create subconsciously? So, there's a saying in חב״ד, the אלתר רבי said that when children say תהלים, they should mention רבי לוי יצחק בן שרה סאשא's name. That's his name. רבי לוי יצחק בן שרה סאשא.
The מסורת, the tradition has it that even saying his name, just saying the name, forget even like anything. The אלהא דרבי לוי יצחק בן שרה סאשא, the God of רבי לוי יצחק בן שרה סאשא, עננו. What did he create? Why is his name so magnetic? What what is it about him? So, like we said, the אלתר רבי said that when children should learn, should say תהלים, they should say רבי לוי יצחק's name with them. Why? Because that helps the תהלים go into a certain chamber.
What's that chamber called? So the צמח צדק was the third Lubavitcher Rebbe explained that the the the chamber which the which רבי לוי יצחק created was called היכל הזכות. The chamber of merit. What was רבי לוי יצחק busy doing his whole life? He was busy מלמד זכות on יידן and on עם ישראל. Showing that whenever he saw that there was some, the famous stories of like a Jew that was with his טלית ותפילין, milking the cows, harnessing the horses, where everyone else would look at him and say, what a disgusting חילול השם, with the טלית ותפילין, this is what he's doing.
And then what רבי לוי יצחק is looking at him and saying, געוואלד, while he's milking the cows and harnessing the horses, he's even thinking about You, השם, right? Completely, you know, flipping over. It's something we all have to work on all the time. All the time. He wasn't scared to love יידן too much.
He wasn't scared to judge people favorably. He wasn't scared to to do the things that we always are nervous to do because of because of feeling threatened. So רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשוב is a story that many many years later after he passed away, obviously, that in the ישיבה of ראדין, the חפץ חיים, רבי ישראל מאיר הכהן, there was a story that certain students had to be, I forget the exact story but it was like אלול time, and certain students didn't make the cut of being able to be amongst the ישיבה students of the year. Or maybe there wasn't enough room.
I forget the story, what exactly, but certain students were supposedly asked to leave the ישיבה and they couldn't stay in ראדין. The חפץ חיים heard about this and he said, you can't, those kids got to stay here. Why? He said, well listen, אלול is now, רחמים, ראש השנה, יום כיפור is coming up. These children, these two boys are great-grandsons of רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשוב.
And when we're going to be דאווענען for רחמים and for the זכות of עם ישראל, קרע רוע גזר דיננו, I want the great-grandchildren of רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשוב here with me. But how did he do this? How did he create this what's called היכל הזכות, chamber of merit? And what is it about רב לוי יצחק ברדיטשבר that people feel such a clinging to him? We don't walk around so much quoting רב לוי יצחק that much. We quote other רביים more. We have a lot of stories about רב לוי יצחק ברדיטשבר.So just because he's he's such a character, we'll see we'll see a תורה inside in a second.
The story is is that there was a great, it was known, there was a his father, רב לוי יצחק's father, was a ייד who carried with him שנאפס and a מזונות wherever he was. And he was very poor. But he always carried שנאפס, מזונות with him to make sure that whenever they would be needed, שנאפס and מזונות for a ייד to say ברכות, and to maybe soften someone's heart, he'd be the one, he'd make it available at every given moment.The story was that the day that רב לוי יצחק ברדיטשבר was born, a great light was revealed to the world, and the בעל שם טוב even told his תלמיד, his תלמיד, the מגיד ממזריטש, a great, great light was born today. He's not going to be one of mine, he'll be one of yours.
Meaning, I'm going to die before I could really get to him. But he's really going to be yours. The בעל שם טוב passes away in 1760 when רב לוי יצחק is 20. The מגיד dies in 1772, when רב לוי יצחק is 32.So what happened was is that the listen to this crazy story.
The בעל שם טוב and the מגיד ממזריטש said, we have to be at this kid's ברית. So they end up traveling, and they dressed up as merchants and they come and they show up by the night before by רב לוי יצחק's father, the night before the ברית. And he gives them מזונות, he gives them שהכל. And he knew there was something very special about them, but he couldn't really figure out who they were.
So they were hanging out the night before the ברית, and then they say, it's time to go, we're merchants, we have we can't stay, we have to leave, we have to go to the marketplace tomorrow. רב לוי יצחק's father said, whatever money you think you're going to make tomorrow, I'll pay for you guys to make sure you stay here. No matter what, you're staying here.So listen to this reply. The בעל שם טוב says, we'll stay as long as we do things our way.
What way? I'm the מוהל and the מגיד is the סנדק. וכך היה. And that's what it was. They were the מוהל and the סנדק at רב לוי יצחק ברדיטשבר's ברית.So he starts off kind of on a good, What do you say now? Not too much pressure, got away from the family.
No no no, they were they were so honored. They were they were so honored. They were so thrilled and honored. Again, this is a חסידישע tale.
How much of the story I just got right is, I don't know. But that's that's how we that's how we, that's what we're learning now. Anyway, there's a lot, a lot to be said about רב לוי יצחק ברדיטשבר. But for in our own lives, to incorporate the the core foundation of what he was about is something that should be מקובל בפי כל הבריות, for it should be accepted בפי כל הבריות, that he really, really was מלמד זכות על יידן.
And it's something that because we're always trying to figure out who we are and define ourselves and label ourselves, is that we always say, that's not good, this is good. That's how we live in, that's how we walk in this world. That's bad, that's good, I have to choose good. We always have to be involved in choosing.
Comes רב לוי יצחק ברדיטשבר saying if you really love השם, if you ממש love השם, then that means everything is good and it's up to you to determine that.You could walk here on the streets in צפת, comes on a Friday night, and you could say השם יתברך, אוי ואבוי. Look at the youth, look what they're doing here on Friday night. Or you could say, wow, רבונו של עולם, these are such big נשמות here, Jewish children walking the streets of ארץ ישראל 2,000 years after גלות, and they're searching for something so big, they're not going to compromise on anything shallow. It's it's all a matter of how you decide, how you determine to view that which is in front of you.So it should be a big זכות for us to be able to take on ברדיטשבר eyes.
I think it's I think it'd be an incredible thing if we could take on the ברדיטשבר eyes. It should be a big זכות for עם ישראל to feel that people are looking at them with love. Can you imagine if all these all the youth here knew people walked around them and looked at them, wow, see what people are looking at me? They they think I'm so holy. They love me.
ברדיטשבר eyes.Okay, so look in the piece you have in front of you, ראש צדיק ג'. Very short piece. It's a it's a a little bit of a טעם of who the ברדיטשעווער, how he how he viewed the whole concept of אמונה and אהבת השם. You see the piece, it starts מאת השם.
Yeah? מאת השם היתה זאת, היא נפלאת בעינינו, זה היום עשה השם. Famous פסוק we have from הלל. דוד המלך says, מאת השם היתה זאת, היא נפלאת בעינינו. Now what is that referring to, that פסוק? The פסוק before that.
What's the פסוק before that? אבן מאסו הבונים היתה לראש פינה. The stones, Bob Marley, להבדיל, has a great song using these words. The stones that the builders refused will always be the head cornerstone. That's means אבן מאסו הבונים היתה לראש פינה.
What's that story? When they were when they were building the בית המקדש, there was one stone, there was one rock, you guys know this מדרש? You know this? It's a beautiful story. When they were building the בית המקדש, so there was one rock that they couldn't, it was misplaced. They could not figure out how to implement, how to make that part of the construction. It wasn't going anywhere.
They didn't know what to do. So they put it on the side and they forgot about it. Then, when they were just about to finish the בנין בית המקדש, there was one space left open. Ah, what did they do? They remembered, wait a second, there was one אבן that we מאסו.
מאסו comes from the word נמאס. right? נמאס means like cast it out. Yeah. מאסו, disgusted with it.
They they said, wait a second, we we had there was one piece of rock that we were, we kind of chucked. Huh? We took, you get it? אבן מאסו הבונים, they they take that, then they realize, wait a second, and it fit, it fit right in. It fit, it was the head cornerstone. That which they initially chucked out.
אבן מאסו הבונים היתה לראש פינה. It became the head cornerstone. So then they then they said מאת השם היתה זאת. This is from, ממש from השם.
היא נפלאת בעינינו. This is so wondrous from us. We would have never thought of this on our own. It was that השם made it this way that we would throw out something that seemed to us not שייך and then put it back on top.
זה היום עשה השם נגילה ונשמחה בו. And then you see, so that that's that's like, in הלל, when you have this. We sing הלל, all of us together, for an entire year and we sing הלל for the past thirty, forty years, fifty years, sixty years. And we've never known what that meant.
That's wild. Yeah, it's weird that Bob Marley actually helped me. No, really. One day I was listening to 'The stones that the builders refused will always be the head cornerstone.' I'm like, wait a second, this sounds familiar.
This sounds so... I had to put on repeat because he's Jamaican, I could not make out his words. Then when I realized he's saying, אבן מאסו הבונים היתה לראש פינה. Year of the Iron Lion Zion.
Lion of Judah. Lion of Judah. Yeah, full force.So anyway, so he's he's he's going here, מאת השם היתה זאת, היא נפלאת בעינינו, זה היום עשה השם. א כלל.
כשהשם יתברך עושה ניסים ונפלאות, when God does miracles and wonders, הן לכלל ישראל, הן לאדם אחד, whether God does it to the כלל of עם ישראל, or whether miracles happen to the individual, אל יהיה עיקר השמחה מהנס עצמו ומהטובה הגשמית. The עיקר שמחה, the happiness which is derived from the miracle which took place, should not be from the miracle itself or from the materialistic good which came from it. For instance, if a miracle, if in the middle of a summer, okay, there's been a drought for three years, right? חס ושלום. Rain starts pouring down, right? So רבי לוי יצחק's saying, the שמחה should not be that now you have rain.
So what else, what else should the שמחה be if not that? Look at the next few words. רק עיקר השמחה יהיה שבעבור הנס נראה אהבת השם יתברך על ישראל או על זה האדם. The שמחה should be that a revelation of love took place, not the actual miracle, but that God's expression of loving יידן actually took place in the world. He's saying, that should be what really arouses your heart to be in awe of the miracle.
It's not the miracle. the miracle itself. Remember, if we say we believe in God right now, then right now, your shirt could change into yellow. Right now, and right now, you could grow a long beard and פאות in the next 10 seconds if that's what השם wanted, because for השם, היפלא מהשם דבר? Is anything too wondrous for God? But those things, Rav Leivitz is saying, don't get אל תתלהב יותר מדי מניסים.
Don't... so let's say that would happen. For a real God-fearing Jew, that's not as great as what? As feeling, as saying, what was what was going on with that? What what what was what was happening through the miracle, right? What was being said to us through the miracle? What was being said to us? I love you. That's what was being said.
That should really blow your mind. Not the miracle itself. זה קטן עלינו. It's not it's not such a big deal.Want to read those words again.
עיקר השמחה מהנס עצמו. עיקר השמחה יהיה שבעבור הנס, the עיקר שמחה should be that because of the miracle, as a result of the miracle, נראה אהבת השם יתברך על ישראל או על זה האדם, that God's love for man or for עם ישראל was shown, was expressed. That should be that which really moves my heart. וזהו שאמר דוד המלך עליו השלום, מאת השם היתה זאת.
What was דוד המלך saying? Wow, this was from God. Not, whoa, it's so cool that the stone fit, isn't that amazing? Isn't that a miracle? He's saying, no, wow. What an expression of love from השם that he gave us something that initially didn't fit at all. We put it aside, and then that became the head cornerstone.
That means that God loves us so much by giving us something which seems misplaced initially. Now, Rav Shlomo took this מדרש and he took it to a בכלל and a whole other place talking about all the misfit stones of the world that have no place. He was screaming this to the hippies in the 60s and 70s, trying to instill within them the faith and the בטחון that they'll all end up being head cornerstones. And that's still our job today.
Take all the misfit stones of the world, all those misfits that don't fit in anywhere and somehow, putting into them, you will be ראש פינה and then you'll feel מאת השם היתה זאת. So Rav Levi Yitzchak is saying, what is דוד המלך saying? מאת השם היתה זאת, this is from God. היא נפלאת בעינינו. This this gift that of this miracle, what happened with the stone, is השם telling you, I love you.
Not, how cool, what a miracle. It's an expression of love.ועיקר השמחה הוא זה היום. Now how do you express שמחה? When you don't wait for it to say, well tomorrow I have to celebrate this, such a great day is there. When right now, you utilize the moment and saying, I'm not waiting to invite everyone to a big געשעפט.
Right now, היום, I'm going to express this שמחה. כי היום מרומז על אהבה. The word היום, today, he says, alludes to love. I want you, kabbalistic scholars, to explain to me, why does the word היום מרומז על אהבה? What do you guys think? It's not so hard.
Why would the word today allude, be a רמז for the concept of love? Day is light as opposed to night thing, as opposed to darkness and fear. Why wait? Could be. If you love something, do it now. Oh yeah, in חשבון הנפש it said that love is about ownership, is about having and appreciating that it's yours.
So if you're doing it today, it's not like yesterday and it's not tomorrow. Right. It's it's it's yours. You can feel it, you tangibly appreciate the value to you right now.
Right. It's not a מעשה about what will happen in the future or what happened to your grandfather. That's true. It's it belongs to you.
You understand it and you appreciate it. That's true. If you're plugged into the, I would say the ownership of what what you have now, and all you have is the time. It's all we have right now is these moments, it's all we have.
So, like if that if that's all we have, we love that. If we knew how to utilize time correctly, then we would be so much more in tune with love. We would be so much more in tune with love. Look, I'm obviously in a it's a very heavy place to be in when you I talked to my father right after he buried his brother yesterday in Argentina, and obviously all the thoughts are If only I had right now the opportunity, what would I do? I would tell him that I love him.
If I had היום, what would I use it for? To tell him that I love him. So when a Jew comes to the realization that all he really has is היום, what would he use with that? I love you. I love you. Now, when he realizes that's all that he has with השם, then what will he hear? He'll hear I love you.
He won't just say I love you, he'll hear I love you. אני לדודי ודודי לי. He'll hear it. כי היום מרומז על אהבה.
וזהו הרמז. זה היום עשה השם, נגילה ונשמחה בו. This is the day that השם created. We will we will be happy, we will rejoice in it.
דוב, דוב, can you guys take it to the kitchen? זה היום עשה השם נגילה ונשמחה בו. השמחה הוא מאהבת השם יתברך. The שמחה is from the love of השם יתברך שנראה אהבת השם יתברך על ישראל. You know what the greatest שמחה would be? Is if we felt that we could see that השם loves us.
That would that would be that would create such שמחה in our hearts. But how much of our days are being felt with feeling, not just saying to myself, השם loves me, השם loves me, but feeling that השם loves me. We felt that as a nation a few times. 1948 we definitely felt it.
1967 we definitely felt it. In 1991 we definitely felt it. יום כיפור war, I don't know, it's מחלוקת how what the עם really felt. I don't feel like I'm authority to say anything since I was minus seven when that when that took place.
But who walks around saying, I sense that God, I see that God really loves me? Well, you could if you were tuned in to היום. But he could also be explained maybe, I mean, one of the reasons he has such a positive attitude towards things happening to him because even when if you don't look at the results, you just see that השם cares about you, even when bad things happen to you, השם is caring about you, you just don't understand the results. But at least that's a connection. Absolutely.
Now that's, we say absolutely, that's a very high. That's where we're aiming, that's where we're not aiming to live a life where only good things happen to us. We're aiming to live a life where for us, the experience is this is from השם and I have אמונה that this is that this is good. Right.
Because we can't always see through the results. Very often. Well, well, רבי לוי יצחק is saying there could there know, there could be that all these misfortunes in life are all אבנים שמאסו. They're all really misfit stones that we don't know what to do with right now, but one day, מאת השם, היתה לראש פינה.
מאת השם היתה זאת. So what he's saying I think is that all the moments where I don't really feel like השם's love is expressed to me that I and with something very simple, like when I woke up this morning, did I feel like God loves me? Well, if we were in tune with היום, we'd be very certain that God loves us because if he didn't, he wouldn't wake us up and give us the gift of life. Right? So just the mere fact that we woke up this morning means that there was an expression of God's love for me. But who thinks like that? Well, conscious people think like that.
People that live with awareness and consciousness really do feel like that and live like that and breathe like that. And their daily lives are the ממש composed of these of these moments. So הלוואי we should have a few things. One is that we should have the eyes to be like tell people that are misfit stones and even to ourselves, one day you'll all be cornerstones, you'll be head cornerstones, you're ממש היתה לראש פינה.
מאת השם היתה זאת. Not to get too enthusiastic about miracles taking place, but rather what is the miracle really saying? It's really saying, I love you. And that we should really be be plugged in to all that we have, which is היום. We should all live very long lives.
None of us know when it's our time. It could happen at any given second, right? At any given second. So if you know that, that it can happen at any given second, then won't you take the time to make a היום and feel the love and express the love? Remember, all those moments of people that we don't have anymore, wow, if only I could have one more day with him and what would you tell him? I love you. What about a kid I'd like to tell off? What's that? One or two people you're thinking, I should have given him a hiding before he went.
That's what you feel? Whatever you need to give anybody. But for ourselves also, if you had a chance to stop and look inside and say, You know, I love you also. That would be a very nice thing as well. In the זכות רבי לוי יצחק בן דיצה רבקה there should be a sweetening of judgments and absolute רחמים and אהבת חינם and love and יידן looking at each other with a constant כף זכות.