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Join Rav Shlomo Katz in uncovering מעלת תפילת נשים—the unique spiritual power of a Jewish woman’s tefillah.
Drawing from Chazal, halacha, and pnimiyut, and learning deeply from the Biala Rebbe’s "Zechut Nashim Tzidkaniyot", we explore why women’s hearts, rooted in רגש טהור (innate emotional purity) and holy bitul, move heaven and earth.
Together we’ll clarify classic questions (time-bound mitzvot, obligation vs. essence), learn the siddur through the eyes of our sages, and translate inspiration into avodah that nourishes real life, especially as we enter Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.
This series is both a celebration and a strengthening of the women who daven with fire, carry Am Yisrael with love, and teach us how to speak to Hashem with truth.
Okay, good morning everybody. Thank you for coming. We are learning the whole month of Cheshvan l'ilui nishmas בתיה פייגא בת ישראל, l'ilui nishmas Levi ben Yosef. And anonymously for the refuah shleima of אליזה חנה בת נעמי, שושנה יונה בת אדל, and for Hila bas Ilana.
And this week is sponsored by Yoni and Daniela Berg in honor of their new home. You moved already? You're in. B'sha'ah tovah u'mutzlachat. May it go smoothly and successfully, blessing it to be a house filled with warmth and love and family and friends, Torah and mitzvos for years and years and years and years and years to come b'ezras Hashem with good news in that house and calmness.
Amen. And simcha. And simcha.Okay. We are continuing with the ma'amar from the Bialer Rebbe on tefilas nashim.
Last week we spoke about that we spoke we went into the pnimius of the davenings of Rivka, of Rochel, of b'chlal nashim tzidkaniyos throughout the yetziyas Mitzrayim. And we ended off speaking about tefilas Chana. Today we're going to be speaking about a very, it's something that was a complete chiddush to me. These are things that the Bialer Rebbe is going to bring out now that I mamash not that I I should know everything but this one really is quite, quite fascinating.
Quite fascinating. I think this is a tremendous source of not just chizuk for women but also a very big mussar haskel for men. This is a shiur I'm definitely going to send out to the men's shiur as well because this one is very, very important. As it'll it'll open our eyes to something that we have to make sure we we remember and take into account.
ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו. Amen.dim'as nashim. Chazal say, nashim דמעתן מצויה על לחיה. That for women, tears are found on their cheeks.
Zos omres, naturally, again, the way the Ribbono shel Olam created the DNA of a woman, as opposed to the creation of the DNA of a man. It's not something that anyone worked on, it just is what it is. The ability to, not even the ability, the natural, the natural instinct, yeah, the natural instinct by women to cry is something that's much more natural by women than it is by men. It is what it is.
It's not with all the sarcasm and all everything we can put in here. It's not about being sarcastic or anything of that sort. It's just it is what it is that the d'maos are very much found more by a woman than it is by a man.Although I do have some male friends that maybe even put women to shame when it comes to this regard. I have a friend that one, I think I shared with you many years ago, that one time came to, when I was still living in Los Angeles, and he came to to give the the class, I was giving a I think like a Thursday night class there, it's like the first shiur I I started giving.
Do you remember? In the bottom of Beis Yaakov there. Close like I think Abba's office, was Abba's office, right, that room. So he came to give a shiur and he couldn't get through the shiur without bawling, just crying. And he was talking about ketores.
He was talking about incense actually. And after the shiur, he asked me to give him a bracha to stop crying in front of people. And I said certain brachos I'm happy to give, that that one's not one, it's not one that's going to come so easily because if it makes, I mean I understand you probably want to make it less uncomfortable for people, maybe for yourself. I was telling him but יש פה איזה לימוד.
There is some type of a learning that everyone should meet a person that while they're teaching Torah, they're crying. Once in their life. Once in their life, you know, one time in their life, it's fine. It's okay.
So that's rare. That's not ragil, but by women, dim'asan metzuya. So here, what the Bialer Rebbe is going to be speaking about today is something, I'm telling you, for me this was very, maybe this is no chiddush to any of you. Could be.
And again, this is not a justification shiur for women's rights at all. If anything, it's a tikkun for the pnimius of the Me Too movement, if we're going to say it anything at all, like we said from the beginning. Let's see how he develops this.
והנה מאז ומקדם תפילת נשים היתה ענין נשגב בכלל ישראל.
As we saw before, the concept of women's davening was of greatest importance. importance and of ma'alah by Klal Yisrael.
זאת ידוע מכמה צדיקים קדמונים We know from some of the older, previous tzaddikim, previous generations, she הקפידו לא להתפלל בבית כנסת שאין בו עזרת נשים. I referenced it last week.
I referenced it last week, but here we're seeing it inside. They would not daven in a shul that didn't have a women's section.Now, I know the world that we that pops in Chassidim and before this and that and the other, right? We'll see, he's giving here examples. Right, but kadmon can mean also yesterday. Here he's going to be giving examples from some of the Chasidisha Rebbeim, but I don't I don't know if it's davka Chassidim, misnagdim, lo yodea.
I don't know. Let me see, he says here dvarim yeduim for some, meaning those that know know, and it's a known thing for those that are in the in. Now you're thinking, well that's not really a chiddush. Look at our shuls that we have.
Can you imagine you going to a shul that doesn't have an ezras nashim? Obviously not. However, that's not such a far-fetched thought, it's not such a far-fetched reality.Why does there have to be an ezras nashim in worlds that hold that there's no chiyuv for women to even daven? Or if that's not really the basic, that really wasn't how people were what people were accustomed to. Okay, so Baruch Hashem, the worlds we're living in, sometimes there's more women than men up here, which blows my mind every Shabbos. It's weird though because in the Beis Hamikdash there was.
So it'd be weird that anything beyond that wouldn't. Well, you know, 2,000 years of exile rubs off on you at a certain point. It's true, but of course there's an ezras nashim in the Beis Hamikdash, but a lot of things that were in the Beis Hamikdash aren't. Like, in many shuls like thinking like in the Beis Hamikdash, it was very clear, like the inyan was you thought about God.
Sorry, I'm going to go on a tangent now and I'm stopping myself right now. Okay.
כעניין שמסופר על הרב הקדוש עשה שלום מבעלז זכר צדיק וקדוש לברכה לחיי העולם הבא The Sar Shalom, just to say his name. The Sar Shalom of Belz, the Rebbe, this is one of the biggest heavyweight tzaddikim that ever existed, the Belzer Rebbe.
כי בזמן בנין בית מדרשו המפורסם the famous, you know, today. Have any of you ever been to the Belz beis, I'm not going to say Beis Hamikdash, but you know what I mean, that amazing, monstrous in a holy way, monstrous building. So this was all a replica of what it once was, right, in Belz. The massive, massive shul that they built there, טרח ויגע בממונו וידיו בבנין היכל בית המדרש הקדוש בתחילה רחימו עם תלמידיו הקדושים.
He himself, they didn't just hire a contractor, they didn't just hire workers to do it. The whole inyan was is that he put himself and his talmidim into the binyan of the shul, whatever that meant. It's a very beautiful thing. I learned this from, who told me to do this? It was an amazing thing.
I don't remember, but I still have in my house. I want to, now that there's a lot of things you'll see over Shabbos, it's a very, the shul looks much, much more mechubad right now. If you'll go upstairs, you know what I'm talking about and even down here and vechulu. But I think like probably about where you're sitting, Ariella, I remember pachos o yoser is where I stood with my two older daughters with shovels when we had the groundbreaking over here.
And I bought about five or six little shovels for children and I gave them out to the children and they put the first dig into the ground. And I saved all those shovels. It's in a bag in my house and I wanted to put it, I want once things are more kavua here I'm going to like frame it, and I think it's an amazing thing and maybe find pictures of which kids actually held it and said this was held by so-and-so, this was held by so-and-so. So it's ke'ilu that's like a taima, that's like a little taste of that ke'ilu, we did it.
We put our, we got our fingers dirty, we got our hands dirty. So he was very involved in the actual building of that big shul, him and his students, the Belzer Rebbe.
וזכה לגילוי אליהו הנביא And he merited to have a gilui Eliyahu. Eliyahu Hanavi revealed himself to him, שבא ללמדו את עניני בנין בית הכנסת וזהר וסודותיה.
What does it mean that he had a revelation of Eliyahu Hanavi? That Eliyahu Hanavi came to teach the Belzer Rebbe and his students, or the Belzer Rebbe, all the matters regarding building the shul and its secrets. It's not just, you don't just build a building when it comes to a shul. It's filled with secrets. No, it's talking about the one, but right, but the reason the one here looks like the way it did is because of the way that it was back in the Alter Heim.
Okay. u'bishnas Taf Reish Tarav. Tarav would be 1842 or 18... it's 1842, 1850...
Tarav, no, 1842.
לאחרי ארבע עשרה שנות עמל, after 14 years of working on it. Wow, that makes me feel so much better because that we've been working on it for three and a half years, and so he says for 14 years, היה היכל התפילה מוכן ועומד על תילו, the shul was ready. The shul was ready to go.
בכל קהל חסידיו בידעם היטב את קדושה עצומה שהכדיר רבי הקדוש בכל קורה ולבנה שהניח בבניין בית המדרש. Every yid there, every one of the chasidim knew well, thoroughly, thoroughly knew how much awesomeness and kdusha the Rebbe infused and put into every single beam and brick.
שמחו על השלמת הבנייה, they were so happy for the completion of the building, וציפו שהרבי יחנוך במרה את בית הכנסת המיוחד והמקוה, והייתה המתנה המתמשכת קשה בעיניהם. And they, they were waiting for him.
It's like, my God, it's ready to come, you're gonna do chanukas habayis, open the mikvah in the shul, which we're still hoping to also finish. And people were waiting and they were trying to understand, why is this taking so long? How come he's not coming? What's going on? It's finally ready. It's finally ready. How come he's not coming in?אך בשעה שנכנסו גדולי המקורבים אל הקודש פנימה וביקשו לעשות חנוכת הבית לכבודו של בית המקדש מעט.
So at the moment that the big, the big top ones of the chasidim wanted to come in and want to do a chanukas habayis, תמה רבי לומתן והתפלא. And he's, the Rebbe was like wondering. He's like, why are you so, why do you think it's ready? What's, there's something, why, why are you so certain this is ready?
הלא כל עוד קומת עזרת נשים טרם הושלמה עדיין לא הסתיימה המלאכה. Everything was ready besides the chelka of the ezras nashim.
And the Rebbe was wondering, why are you all, why do you all think that we're ready to start doing a chanukas habayis here? The area where the women daven was not ready yet.And he tried to explain, this was a shock to them. This was a shock to them. Now I want to say based on the way we're learning it, is that Eliyahu Hanavi must have taught him all the secrets of the building of a shul.I get a lot of nachas from a piece like this because, and we'll see he'll explain it for a second, but I I mentioned this quite often, but some of you were active in this as we, before we moved into the shul. There was, I don't know how long it was, maybe a month? A month.
Where the women came every single night to the shul, there was no chashmal here. It was freezing. It was like March, February, March. We came in right before Pesach.
It was freezing, freezing here. There was no chashmal, there was no heating, and the women scrubbed, because of all the dust and everything, the women scrubbed all the floors and cleaned everything, every night. And then in dark, pulled out their phones to give flash, to give light, and they did, and they finished Sefer Tehillim. Tehillim mecholak every night.
That I believe with all my heart, with all my heart, is that if we have the zchus of doing anything really strong in the world, it came from those 30 nights. I have no doubt. I have no doubt. This is not an empowering moment.
I don't, you don't need to be empowered. That's what the world thinks. You don't need to be empowered. I'm sharing with you what I feel very strongly.
It was mesmerizing. My wife would come home, my daughters, my two older daughters would go sometimes. That's when I was so nervous. Can you imagine the shpilkes I I was on, like many of us were, but I was so nervous going into the shul.
And then that completely removed all nerves and brought such a calmness in the heart, that when we were ready to go in, it was only after 30 days, 30 nights of what was going on upstairs. And I still feel whenever we're in shul and it's, you know, we kind of, let's face it, we we know how to really daven chazak, you know. It's what's the kli that's holding that place. That's what he's speaking about.Now he's going to explain, he explained to them why would he say such a thing? For those chasidim, that was a complete chiddush.
You're going to tell me the shul's not finished, so the ezras nashim is finished, really? Are we putting like, are we putting a bima for a shliach tzibbur or laining kriyas haTorah, why, ma pitom, why are you saying that it's, it has to wait for that? So he says like this, וביאר לפניהם את טעמו ונימוקו. So he explained what he was speaking about. sheharei amru chachamim, the Gemara says in Bava Metzia, אף על פי ששערי תפילה ננעלו. And you all know this Gemara, I'm sure, that even though the gates of davening have been locked and have been closed in the galus, שערי דמעה לא ננעלו, the gates of tears, the gates of tears, dema'os, sha'arei dimah.
lo nin'alu. Those gates were never locked. v'im ken, בזמן הזה שננעלו שערי התפילה, in times that we're in right now that perhaps the gates of davening have been locked and have been closed, הרי עלינו להתאמץ שיהיו התפילות ספוגות בדמעות. We have to make an extra effort to make sure that the prayers that we are saying are safug, are soaked.
Huh? Drenched? Yeah, like filled with with tears, כדי שיעלו ויתקבלו לפני כיסא הכבוד, so that they elevate, they go up and are received before the Kisei HaKavod.
ותפילת נשים פותחת שערי שמיים, it's the davening of women that open up the gates of heaven, כיוון שדמעתן מצויה בטבען, like we said in the beginning of the shiur, because their tears are naturally found. They're naturally, it's what naturally comes out.
והינן שופכות לב כמים בתפילתן לאביהם שבשמיים, and they pour out their heart like like mamash water before Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
וכיצד אם כן נוכל לגשת לתפילה בבית הכנסת בטרם נשלמה עזרת הנשים? So what are we doing building this whole shul? It's like the Belzer Rebbe, I'm gonna darshan a little bit. What is he saying here? You build a whole shul, you build it so strong, be beautiful, pe'er v'chavod, malchus, most glorious thing in the world. But if it doesn't have the ability to have the place where tears can be part of the tfilos, then what good was building this whole shul?This short story and the limud that he gave here at the end really addresses the beginning shiur we had, where we were trying to figure out what makes this shiur about tfilat nashim different than than other shiurim. And maybe it's not different than all other shiurim.
Perhaps there are many others like this. But it's that the point that in the Yiddishkeit that we're living in, the world that we're living in, to really be kashur to the pnimiyus ha'inyan. What's the deeper meaning behind the role of a woman, the the the light, the or that comes out from such a place? And on a pnimiyus shel dvarim, the man has to understand that davening without tears is basically ke'ilu throwing up things that are standing before a gate that's locked. For sure? Huh? It's like for show, it's not… Well, you wouldn't, they don't, you it's not consciously, you wouldn't say that, but it's ke'ilu if you think about it, and I think it's based on the gilui Eliyahu that the Belzer Rebbe had, it comes out to be like, okay, I hope you feel good about yourself.
You feel good, right? You had a good davening. But is that what a davening's about, to just go home and feel good about ourselves? Or is it to knock, not just knock on heaven's door, but crack open heaven's door. That can only be when it's really meluveh b'dema'ot. And dema'ot, the makor of dema'ot really comes from nashim.
Now another thing is very important. Our shul is Shirat David. David HaMelech, David Malka Meshicha, who may have written Tehillim in this mamash in the same place you're sitting right now. Could very well be, it's not a far-fetched thought at all.
It mamash could be David Malka Meshicha stood right here. Well, a little bit higher because this was a mountain, but let's say like whatever, in this airspace, okay? And he said, and he davened. Do you know how David HaMelech's name is written in all the sfarim? All the sfarim, it's all always roshei teivos. What's his name? How do you, how do they write it? Dalet Hey.
Dalet Mem Ayin Hey.
דוד מלך עליו השלום. It's written like this in all the sfarim. Dalet Mem Ayin Hey.
All the all the sfarim, that's how they write David HaMelech's name.
דוד מלך עליו השלום, roshei teivos, dima'a. He, he, he, he whenever it's, it's amazing. For the first few years that I saw this, I always thought it was like a shgias k'tiv or something, like he's quoting Tehillim, why does he write v'chen amar dema? It wasn't dema, it was דוד מלך עליו השלום.
The makor of David HaMelech is also for the same place of dema'ot, of tears. Tears doesn't just mean that you're in pain. Tears, I'm sure you've tasted this as well, when you have an experience that you can't even explain of hisragshus l'hisragesh, the natural totza'ah of it is a dima'a. I remember when our youngest child was born, Chava, Chavaleh, Chava Geulah.
We had the birth in the house, Baruch Hashem. And and our one one of our daughters who doesn't ever show that many outward emotions and even cringes when things get too mushy in the house. She walks into the room where the baby was born, she sees what's going on, and she's just starting, and she's like, "Oh my God, what's happening to me?" And she started crying. "Oh my God, look at me.
I'm I've never I've crying. What is going on with me? What's happening over here?" She couldn't figure. It was this like, it was an amazing thing. I mean, as high as the whole experience was, then when she walked in and and the d'ma'ot started pouring out just out like this natural feeling, it was just what we're saying over here.
D'ma'ot doesn't just mean I'm in pain, I'm going to cry. A dim'ah comes from a place of lehitragesh. Yesterday, no, yesterday or Tuesday morning. When was Lev Atorah here? Tuesday morning.
Right. Tuesday morning, Lev Atorah was here. There was a Yeshiva that came for like a morning of a seminar. They had a few sessions, and I had a session with them, a short session, half hour.
They were running late, I had to keep it very short. So I only learned with them three lines from the Piaseczna Rebbe. Perek Daled, hachsharas ha'avreichim. The fourth chapter in the Rebbe's works of hachsharas ha'avreichim of perek of of Reb Klonimus Kalmanish, Piaseczna, from Piaseczna.
Hashem yikom damo, is what you're going to learn from him, is that he said over there that the kavana that each Yid that really wants to be an eved Hashem, and bifrat someone that wants to find himself somewhere in this map that you have in front of you of your shailos to the world of the בעל שם טוב הקדוש. There's one goal. And that goal, you could call it dveikus, you could call all these things whatever you want to call it, but the פנימיותם של הדברים is, you want to lehitragesh. You want to be moved by the choices you make in Yiddishkeit.
You want to become an anashim she'mitragshim. That's the whole story of the Baal Shem Tov. Are you moved? So I told the boys, I said, let me ask you a shaila. I looks, I'm not counting.
I'm not like checking to see like some rebbeim when their student comes to shul or whatever and they're davening, you have rebbeim that always pat them on the back and then they start feeling the back because they're checking to see if they're wearing tzitzis. It's a classic inyan in in a lot of yeshivas. Kids are traumatized, right? And triggered for years by people that pat them on their back because they have memory of a rebbe that's trying to see if they're wearing tzitzis or not. Yeah, heavy stuff.
You don't know about these things, baruch Hashem. So, you know about other things, but not not not not not not this. So, I looked at them, I said, chevra, I look, I'm looking at all of all of you right now, I see you all wearing tzitzis. I know you're you're 18, 19 year old boys coming from modern America.
The fact that you're all wearing tzitzis, do you know what kind of, I said to them, ani mitragesh. Ani mitragesh mizeh. I'm I'm moved by this. And I said to them, what I would want you for you more than anything is that one day, one morning, you when you during the day, you look down, you notice you're wearing tzitzis, v'pashut lehitragesh mizeh.
Titragshu mizeh. Lehitragesh. Lehitragesh from the shul that you choose to daven in. Titragshu mizeh.
The woman has the ability lehitragesh harbeh yoter from things that they do than the man does. It's a klal thing, it's a known thing. And therefore, they have the ability to be much more tuned into koach had'ma'ot, l'havdil. That's the way it is.
That's just the way it is. Okay, so look at the next page. And the real tzaddikim do this. Someone mind putting on the air? Not to be cold, just to get a flow.
Is that okay? I don't want any, I know winter is mamish knocking on the door, but thank you. And if it gets too much, just tell me. Just, this room gets pretty stuffed fast. Okay.
וכן נהג אחריו נכדו. His grandson, האדמו"ר הקדוש רבי אהרן מבעלזא, זכר צדיק קדוש לברכה לחיי עולם הבא, בזמן השואה האיומה כשברח מגטו בוכניה. It was one of these ghettos in Poland, that lasted for I think about 14 months, mashu kazeh. And he's running away from the ghetto.
ושמרו השם יתברך בהשגחה נפלאה מיוחדת. It's the whole story about Reb Aharon Belzer's escape from there. Hashem was watching over him in a very mysterious, amazing, miraculous way.
שהשם יתברך נותן את עינו ולבו בצדיקים הדבוקים בו תמיד, וניצל בניסי ניסים מציפורני הנאצים שחיפשו אחריו בכל מקום.
Miraculously saved, not getting too much into it.
ובדרכי נדודיו בבריחתו מן התופת היה נע ונד. While he was running away from the tofet, from the Hashem Yisbarach, from the things we should, we thought we would never see again. Unfortunately, we saw a taste of it.
היה נע ונד. He was running. He was na vanad is the loshen we find by Kayin.
נע ונד תהיה בארץ, right?
ונאלץ להתפלל בבתי כנסת שונים.
And he had to keep on wandering from shul to shul that were still around.
וגם בשעות קשות אלו, while he's running away from the Germans and he's running and hiding and going from here to here, imagine he had a kapeda. He still had a kapeda. You know you have stories about tzaddikim that even in they haven't, they didn't eat a thing for God knows how long and even in the in the in the in the machanot hashmada, in the in the camps, they still had these hakpadot of what they would put in their mouth and what they wouldn't, even though al pi din, halachically, in terms of pikuach nefesh, everything would have been permissible, kima'at, right? No.
And we and honestly, we don't have to go back 75, 80 years. We can go back a few months and have these stories of biblical figures that appeared in our lives right now in the tunnels of Gaza. They would say the same things about them as well. Al pi din, did any of these people have to keep kosher down there? Fast on Yom Kipper? Daven? And yet they, it was a kapeda.
They had different kapedas without getting into each story because if we started this wouldn't stop. It's unbelievable. Unreal. We still haven't even grasped the mesirus nefesh of these people.
We still haven't really internalized it because things are moving so fast we can't even take anything in. The ketzev is so fast. We spoke about this in shul two weeks ago. The rhythm, the pace of what's going on is פשוט לא היו דברים כאלו in our, ever.
The how much things are happening fast. Reb Ahron of Belz is running running away from the Germans. Na vanad. He could say, he could say there's all different chumras he took upon himself, v'chulei.
What was the thing he took upon himself that Reb Ahron is like, I'm sorry I can't.
וגם בשעות קשות אלו לא עבר להתפלל בבית כנסת שלא היתה בו עזרת נשים.
על פי הקבלה שביד המסכן לא עניו. He's running away from the Germans and he finds shuls to daven for a few minutes to pour out his heart, to find refuge for his soul.
But if the shul didn't have an ezrat nashim, it's not a shul he would daven in. So you would say, Reb Ahron Belzer, come on, let go of that chumrah. I mean, let go of that kapeda. It's 1942, 1943, 1946, 1944.
I mean, it's a little bit of a different metzius than your Zeidy, Reb Shalom at the Sar Shalom of Belz. By him, it wasn't like that. Now, why do you have to be so makpid? Because once you know something to be emes l'amito, you just can't ignore it. And in Belz, the kabbalah was, it's simply you cannot daven in a shul that doesn't have a women's section.
Whether the women are there or not. Whether the women are there, we're not speaking about he made sure there were women in the shul with them. We will see though, a little bit, that there are those that were like that. But by him, it simply couldn't be.
Now again, you can't, our kavanah in our shul in here is not to say, you see, so therefore, now fill in the blank. So therefore... I don't want him to fill in the blank. Very good.
Let's just keep the therefore in three, in three dots. When it's pnimiyusam shel hadvarim, when you're looking at these deep from the inside, all these things that come out on the outside, both by men and by women, don't seem to be the ikar nekudah of what it's all about. You know what, Mindy? I'm following your lead. We'll continue that, not to fill in that blank.
V'lamadnu mikan. So we learned from here.
שאפילו צדיקים קדושי עליון בדורות קדומים נצרכו לתפילות נשים, כדי להעלות את תפילותיהן הנעלות. If this was like this back in the day, that big tzaddikim needed the davening, the davening space, and the davening of women, in order for tfilos to be makia shchakim, crack open the heavens, מכל שכן וקל וחומר בדורותינו אנו, all the more so, in our generations that we're living in, זקוקים אנו מאוד לכח תפילות נשים כדי שיתקבלו תפילות ישראל ברחמים וברצון לפני אדון כל.
I want you to visualize what the person that said these words looked like. This was not someone that looked like me or someone that looked much more modern. This was the big chassidishe rebbe. The Biala Rebbe, zecher tzaddik l'vracha, is saying these words.
That for us, this might not be that great of a chiddush, but remember the crowd that these words would probably reach first. This is deep into the chassidishe world, where these things were forgotten and neglected. big time. So all the more so we can take this in and be like this is an amazing, amazing and important hachvana of how we understand this whole, the whole point of this shiur.
Now he continues and he says like this, this is the mechaber himself, uminhago shel avi, my father's minhag, האדמו"ר זכר צדיק וקדוש לברכה לחיי העולם הבא, the Baal Chelkas Yehoshua. That's the name of the sefer of the previous Biale Rebbe. What's that? The pre… I thought it was a siddur, I’m confused. No, you're not confused because they have their own siddur and it's called the Chelkas Yehoshua.
So it's, that was a nice what you thought was a mistake, it's not. It's actually, that is that. I think I have it.
שהיה נכנס לעזרת נשים בליל יום הכיפורים לפני תפילת כל נדרי.
The Chassidishe Rebbe would walk into the women's section, Leil Yom Kippur, before Kol Nidre.
כשטליתו עוטפת את פניו, his tallis is over his, over his face.
ומדבר אליהן דברי חיזוק שיתפללו. He's going, where does he go Leil Yom Kippur? He goes to the woman's section and he's saying, he's not saying I need you to feel included.
That's not what he's saying. He's not saying, oh I'm sure you feel neglected. I want you to feel like you're part of it. What is he saying when he's saying to them to daven? We need you, we need your prayers.
He's saying, you, whatever you think we're doing on that side, it, it, it's it's, mamash, שימלא השם יתברך רחמים על כנסת ישראל. so that rachmanus should come down to Klal Yisrael. The Chelkas Yehoshua, the Biale Rebbe would go there first, Leil Yom Kippur and say to them, I say I don't have to do anything like this because you all know this. That's an amazing thing.
But in certain places they needed to hear such words, you know. Even today they need to hear such words in many, many different places. And it has nothing to do where the chelkas nashim is in the shul, by the way. Front, side, back, זה לא משנה בכלל.
It's the metzius of it. It's the reality of it. It's the existence of it.
וכן נודע מנהג על רב הקדוש רבי ישעיהו מבאלז.
Another, one of the tzaddikim from Belz.
זכר צדיק וקדוש לברכה, bayomim hanoraim, on Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, what would he do?
שלא היה ניגש להתפלל לפני התיבה, he wouldn't go up to start davening for the amud עד שנשמעה כל בכייתן של הנשים הצדקניות ותחינותיהן החרשיות מעזרת נשים. Do you understand what I just said over here? He wouldn't start, the rebbe wouldn't start davening until he heard the women crying. Because basically he's saying for what? Le'shem ma? What, what is this, what is this going to do? You have to understand how how revolutionary this is to hear such words, because this is not what they told you when you were younger.
And it's not what they're telling the chassidim these days either. I wish they would. It would be beautiful. But the way we tell over these stories I feel have to be with a hachvana for like what we're saying all these shiurim that it's the the, like we say like the Baal Shem Tov said right before Mashiach is coming, Chava is going to find her place in the world again.
Like since Chet Eitz HaDaas, you know Chava hasn't really had a place in the world. So that's why we see such an outburst with like feminism and the Me Too movement, where is it, where is it rooted in? It's rooted in an attempt bemet to find the place again. But everything that has, everything needs beirurim and tikunim. Everything that's, you always have to sift through things and and find them properly.
And and you may say, well you know, a man shouldn't be telling us this stuff. I I'm asking mechila for it. But I, I'm feeling that I, I just haven't seen women's teaching it like this, and also I have an, I feel an achrayus in the in this tzibbur to give it over like this very, because to me this is like an ikkar yesod of the binyan of everything that we're trying to do here. So imagine the, I would never, I mean I'm thinking like, would I walk into the women's section Leil Yom Kippur and talk to all the women and say, you know you got, no, ma pitom, I would look insane, right? Or would I actually wait to go up for Hineni on Musaf of Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur and wait till the women are crying to start davening? No, why, it doesn't look frum, you know.
But they looked much frummer than me and this is what they were doing, you know. Where is he from? Belz? No. Oh, the Biale? This rebbe was from Switzerland, from Lugano. And then he made aliyah and then he came to Eretz Yisrael.
But Belz. And he's considered Biale? Yeah, well okay, so Biale has, this Rebbi, for from his dor, from his side of Biala, it's a very clear line, but then his brother or his uncle's side had a bunch of sons and there's a lot of different Biala rebbes. The first rebbe that I was ever close to was his nephew. You remember? His nephew.
One of his nephews is the Biala rebbe from Givat Shaul. Rechov Najara, if you know where that is in Givat Shaul, the Biala rebbe. He used to come to Los Angeles, and I was zocheh to be a little bit of his translator during different sessions. And it was the first time I mamish sat by a rebbe.
He was, he must have been very young, like 35 or something. And he always asked me for a certain niggun to start singing during the tish. He always wanted to hear: אני מאמין אני מאמין באמונה שלמה. I'd repeat it over and over again.
And like the rebbes, the real rebbes always have a towel next to them, and you think it's to wipe off sweat. It's not. They go like this because they want to cover their mouths and their face while they're in moments of dveikus and they're saying tchinos and bakashos. I've seen that by many others, but this was the first time I saw it was by him, the Biala Rebbe.And all my different friends would come to him and I'll tell you a funny story.
I may have told it before, but it's just because you brought it up, the Bialas. I have, and I'm only, I'm only, I think I said this before, but I'm only saying it because I have full reshus to say this from my dear friend. You know which one I'm going to say? I, one time I showed up there on a kabalas kahal to be a translator. I brought my friend Yehuda Solomon from the moshav, and we were waiting.
It was, it was Parshas Bamidbar, Thursday night Parshas Bamidbar. Bamidbar, I'll never forget this, right before Shavuos. When I get there, I hear a familiar voice inside with him already, and I, and then I hear and I'm like, oh my God, that's my buddy. And then I hear that my friend, who happens to be a rapper, started rapping for him.
So this was very odd. Yeah, I never told you this story? So, I'm waiting there. I'm thinking, am I hearing things? Is this really happening? So he comes out, and I said to him, "Eitan," not my brother, "Eitan." Yeah. I said to him, "What, what in the world were you doing in there?" He said, "Ah, you know, this woman, she said it'd be a good thing to to to meet this, this, this big rabbi." And I said, "Yeah, but you were, that's one thing, but what were you doing in there?" He said, "He asked me what I do." I said, "And what did you, so what did you say?" He said, "Well, I said I'm going to give him a little something something." And he was rapping "Making a motzi" from Shlock Rock.
He's the rapper of Shlock Rock, right? So I said to him, "What did he say?" He said, "Oh, Shloime, he loved it."So I go in and the first thing the, and he sees that I, the rebbe sees that I know the person that just left. And the rebbe says to me, "Hu chaver shelcha?" I said, "כן כן, הוא חבר שלי." He said, "Choileh nefesh." Now to tell you how crazy this story is, Hacholeh, Choileh nefesh, you know, I'm just showing him that. So, so, you know how people have like haskamos in the on their sfarim from different, right? This rabbi said this, this woman, this doctor said this, this, right? He put out an album that year with different haskamos, right? He put on the back of his album, "Choileh nefesh, Biala Rebbe." Oh, Biala, we have to laugh a little bit.So this was my entry into getting to meet this, you know, this tzaddik and this rebbe, and he, he gave me some of the sfarim written by his great grandfather, the the Chelkas Yehoshua. That's how I have that name in in in in the office.So, okay, so the last paragraph over here, maybe we'll just end with this.
ונראה טעם כפי שיבואר בשלהי זה המאמר. When we're going to see later as we get into this ma'amar, בגודל חשיבות תפילת אנשים. This is not just to empower you. This is to empower klal Yisrael, so that our davening as a klal should go up.
שבכוחה להעלות גם את תפילות האנשים שיתקבלו ברצון. So I could take the tfilos of men and bring it up l'ratzon. u'b'he'eder tfilat anashim, and when women's davening isn't there, קשה להעלות את תפילות ישראל למעלה בקודש. It's so beautiful, no? It's unbelievable.
Just beautiful. Now, just stop here, but think about this for a second. The Biron Belzer was wouldn't daven in a shul while he's running away from the Germans if they didn't have, it didn't have an ezrat nashim. But here he's saying over here like at the end over here that it's not just that the shul needs to have an ezrat nashim, but what else does it have to have? Nashim.
It also have to have something that's in there happening as well. So that's why I think that the gilui, I mean, it's all going back to the gilui Eliyahu that the Sar Shalom of Belz had, the Belzer Rebbe had, that it must have been that when he was teaching him the secrets of a of a shul, this inyan must have been given over if we see ledor dorot in that line, they held of it with such chumras, with such kapedas. And I think it's a wonderful and beautiful, and not just wonderful and beautiful, an essential piece to the building of any shul, any kehila, but to learn about it from the pnimius type of way inside.
מממש מתחת לפני השטח, beneath the surface.
And halavai this should give those that need, those that need to hear these words, it should reach them. And when I say those that need to hear these words, I mean both men and women. Because whatever is going on, we need the gates of heaven to just open for us in the most revealed way without being escorted with so much pain and so much sorrow. Amen.
The gates have been opening tremendously. It's really unbelievable what's going on. Again, it's not believable. We can't even believe it because of its pace.
But b'emet, what's waiting for us on the other side of this hastara is a world where you don't have to try so hard to force yourself to believe shegam zu l'tova. Right? Isn't that, wouldn't that be, that would be wonderful. Well, it's on you because apparently, that's how these things work. No pressure.
No pressure, no pressure. Well,