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Rav Shlomo Katz explores the teachings of Rav Shlomo Carlebach zt"l on the Parsha with the sefer Even Shlomo
Boker tov, good morning everybody. The month of Teves is sponsored by the Aaron family לעילוי נשמת לוי בן יוסף, by the Silver family לעילוי נשמת בשא פיגא בת ישראל, and the week is sponsored by יהונתן מאיר ואילת אהובה Fine for refuah sheleima v'chizuk of all the petzuim including their son דוד נתנאל בן אילת אהובה. Also I want to dedicate the learning for the refuah sheleima of רשא שאנא יונה בת אילו, Tehila bas Ilana, תינוק בן מיכל דודי, and also for a very very special boy I went to go visit last night, mamash nitzos. A boy, a man, nitzos, real big refuah sheleima Yisrael ben Adina, Yisrael ben Adina.
Please have that name chazak in your hearts. And this is always Vayigash week is always, I don't know what to say, every year it gets deeper and deeper, especially this year the way it comes out is that Shabbos is the yahrtzeit of Ishbitz this Shabbos. So we're going to have to figure out what are we taking care of business? Just two? That's fine, that's fine. So you could pass these around to everybody.
Parshas Vayigash, chevra, in the world of Chassidus bichlal but in Ishbitz bifrat as we've said, as we've learned so many times over the years, is the closest we will ever get to tasting what it's going to be like when Moshiach reveals himself. That's a pretty heavy statement from the Mei Shiloach who says it straight out there, חלק אלף ויגש אליו יהודה. It's the closest we'll ever get between, you know, what's the closest we'll ever taste in this world of what it means, what it's going to feel like the moment that Moshiach reveals himself. There will be this אני יוסף העוד אבי חי happening by everyone.
What that means on a, on the most basic fundamental level as the Ishbitzer says, it'll show us that everything I thought in my life that was a hester panim, everything that looked to me like an enemy, everything that looked to me like it was punishing me, everything that looked to me like it was something that was mamash standing over me with a whip, will suddenly take off a mask and reveal itself and say 'this was all just the way it had to be in this world to squeeze out of you to be a Yehuda dikkop, to squeeze Yehuda out of you, to squeeze Yehuda out of you'. That's a very important concept we have to think about as we're learning in, as we're learning the parsha today. Did everyone get pages more or less? Okay so what I want you, what I want us to also remember is that in the Torah of the Mei Shiloach זכותו יגן עלינו אמן, the whole hachilluk over here between Yehuda and Yosef is always speaking about the Tzaddik and the Ba'al Teshuva, like we've learned again, these are things I'm repeating because it's very important to repeat this every single year. Chevra, there's no one like the Ishbitzer, there's nothing like the Mei Shiloach.
Anything I say won't come close to what the Torah of the Ishbitzer is all about. The Mei Shiloach is the biggest melamed zechus on Yidden. He's the one that is always looking, always showing that in the heart of hearts Yidden are kodesh vinora. Am Yisrael's kodesh vinora.
And the only reason why we ever do anything wrong is because it's only because of this game of hide and go seek. That's the only reason why things have gone wrong. That's the only reason. So what's that do to me if I know that? If I know that the only reason I may have gone off on any level is because hide and go seek, what could it bring out of me? It could say, it could bring out of me this thing of saying to Hashem 'so you're enjoying this? Who's benefiting from this, right? Who's benefiting from this?'.
That's the outside though. On the inside it's this placement of there's a Tzaddik and there's a Ba'al Teshuva. Now, I'm sure I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure most of you would probably identify with me as being more from Yehuda's camp, as saying 'I'm not going to come to you and say I'm Yosef, I'm the Tzaddik', but really obviously all of us are being squeezed and crushed like Yehuda till each of us in our own private lives have a Vayigash Eilav Yehuda moment. Till that happens we have to go through so much, Hashem yeracheim.
You have to go through so much. Here Reb Shlomo is going to be saying 'but what was in the pnimiyus of things, what was this real not battle, and I don't want to say confrontation'. But what or maybe we'll find the right word at the end of shiur, but what is this meeting of Yehuda and Yosef really all about? And today Reb Shlomo is taking it even to the next level of showing us that it's about the Kodesh Kodashim. Just as a little bit of a background.
On the level of nachala, right? The Beis Hamikdash is in whose portion, which shevet? Binyamin. No. The Beis Hamikdash, Har Habayis is in whose chelek? Yehuda. The Kodesh Kodashim? Binyamin.
That's a that's the chilluk. So the Kodesh, the Har Habayis is in the chelek of Yehuda. Binyamin's chelek is the Kodesh Kodashim. Wait a second.
Wouldn't it make more sense if the Kodesh Kodashim was in the chelek of Efraim or Menashe? Harei they come from the tzadik. They come from the utmost holiness. And it's not. It's in Binyamin's chelek.
You hear my question? Doesn't it make sense? Does it it stimmts? Not even Yosef. Well, Yosef doesn't have a—Yosef's—right, because Efraim Menashe. Yosef's bekhlal a different parsha. But wouldn't it have made more sense if it was even either in the chelek of Efraim or Menashe? It would have made more sense.
But it happens to be in the chelek of Binyamin. How did Binyamin get the Kodesh Kodashim? How come Yosef's not there? Why is Yehuda Har Habayis? Buckle up. That's all I have to say for today. Buckle up.
קודש לעומת קודש קודשים. Holy versus Holy of Holies.
כשפגש יוסף את יהודה השאלה החשובה ביותר הייתה אז מי עתיד להיות המשיח מי יבנה את בית המקדש מי יהיה זה שיבנה את קודש הקודשים. The brothers are finally all together.
Now the shayla is let's go for the goal. Who's building—who's gonna be Moshiach? Who's building Beis Hamikdash and who's building Kodesh Kodashim? When do we know by the way that Moshiach comes from Yehuda from the ksuvim? When do we know at what point in the Torah do we know that Moshiach comes from Yehuda? Yaakov gives the bracha. What does he say there?
יהודה אתה יודוך אחיך. That's the lashon in Parshas Vayechi.
When Yaakov's giving the brochos it's made clear there that it's really going through Yehuda. Here in Parshas Vayigash there's such a meeting here of taking place and Yidden when they think of when they think of high moments where do their minds always go? Beis Hamikdash. Let's wrap it up. Let's just wrap it up.
You know. Like the most painful painful—I was talking about this with my father over Shabbos—the most painful moment in Jewish history was mamash June 6th 1967. What happened on June 5th? Har Habayis. June 5th Har Habayis Beyadeinu and everyone always says that really that wasn't a statement that became a question mark.
Har Habayis Beyadeinu? Har Habayis Beyadeinu? Oof. So when Yidden get together and there's moments of kedusha the shayla is always let's go to the core of things. Beis Hamikdash, Kodesh Kodashim. That's what Reb Shlomo says at this epic meeting.
That's the shayla that that that that came up. Okay, tachlis. How are we getting this done? Who's building the Beis Hamikdash? In whose chelek is it? Who's Kodesh Kodashim? Where's Moshiach? Who's Moshiach? Is it Yosef, is it Yehuda? What's going on over here? What's going to be over here?
יוסף הצדיק טוען לכתר. Yosef Hatzadik says to'en lekeser means how does it say here?
יוסף הצדיק טוען לכתר הוא מעולם לא חטא.
I never sinned. Hu kvar kadosh. I'm already—I'm holy.
ואם עוד קצת עבודה הוא יגיע למדרגה של קודש קודשים.
With a little bit more work, I'll reach the level of Holy of Holies.
אבל ליהודה הייתה טענה אחרת. But Yehuda comes and he comes with a different claim.
וכאן מוכרחים לפתוח את שערי הלב באופן הכי עמוק.
And here you have to open your heart in the deepest deepest way. Listen chaver, this is—this is an amazing thing.
אם אנחנו עם ישראל לא היינו הכי קדושים לא היה לנו סיכוי לשרוד כל כך הרבה זמן. The fact that we still exist is a testament to what? Perseverance? Determination? No.
No. It's that we're so holy. Otherwise there's no way we could have made it. We've already—I don't know if we take it for granted—it doesn't make any logical sense that we still exist.
Zeh lo it doesn't make any sense. We live it as a given. Yeah, that's what it is. Aval does it add up? It doesn't add up at all.
How many people have been around Every year that same Chanukah picture that everyone shows, the menorah on top of all different civilizations, cultures, religions that have been here, gone, done, and Yidden are still here?
איך זה יכול להיות? Reb Shlomo says, it's because this kedusha in us, there's such there's such strong holiness, that without that they wouldn't have a chance to still to still be right to still be around. If we weren't so holy, hayinu mityashim mizman and the second line in the third paragraph. We would have given up a long time ago. Aval lamrot hakol nevertheless, אנחנו עדיין מחוברים לירושלים we're still connected to Yerushalayim שהרי אלפיים שנה חזרנו אליה coming back after 2000 years.
Now here's where a lot of people might have a hard time with the next sentence, but not us, I hope.
יכול להיות שאתם עדיין לא שומרים שבת. Could be you don't keep Shabbos properly or at all.
ואולי יום כיפור הוא עדיין יותר מדי עבורכם and maybe maybe maybe some Yidden, Yom Kippur is a little bit too much.
אז נכון אתם עדיין לא קדושים. Maybe you're not holy.
אבל כשאתם בכותל המערבי, אתם מחוברים אל מה שמעבר לזה, l'kodesh hakodashim. And when you're by the Kotel, when you're by the Makom Hamikdash, you're connected to what's beyond that, which is holy of holies and here I have to share with you something very, very, very bizarre and beautiful.
We have without too many names, there's a musician that we use often in the studio. I'm not going to say what instrument he plays because then you may start going online and looking and trying to figure out. What I hate about him the most is that he has no conscience whatsoever. Like it drives me crazy.
And what I hate about him the most is that he's the most lovable zisa yid I think I ever met in my life. And it drives me crazy that he mamash has, it's I've never met a person like this. Like we brought him in on a recent on your project, on your project, on the last project, Naftali's beautiful new album that is fully out now that everyone has to learn ba'al peh, we're going to have a bechina over this P'eir over Shabbos and all the new niggunim. Eibeshter baruch hashem, you see you're holding a little bit.
There's one musician, he tells us how like he loves, he has this inyan where he loves eating shrimp. He loves going to certain places in San Francisco on the dock, on the bay and just powering them and he's like he's not trying to be l'hachis at all. He has nothing bad to say about anybody. He's just a good guy that has zero conscience, nothing.
He's not kashur at all to anything, or so it seems. Why? So the weirdest thing, he's never posted anything that has anything to do with Yiddishkeit at all. This for some inyan, I don't know what it is. He has two or three kids, mashu kaze.
They're not Yiddishe names, the whole thing is so bizarre. I don't I think they're Jewish, yeah I don't even know but I met them though. He posts every night of Chanukah, he posted candle lighting with with his kids with the brachos. Like they're not even, they said shehecheyanu every night, you understand? They don't know they're not holding at all.
And gevald are they holding at what the Ramban says, not Reb Nachman, the Ramban who says that when a Yid is lighting the menorah, he's with the Kohen Gadol in the Kodesh Hakodashim lighting the menorah. Are we, let's face it and Reb Shlomo would say this, I'm not so sure every Yid is kodesh, but I'm sure every Yid is kodesh kodashim. You know that's what made me fall in love with him and his Torah. Like I want to live like that, I want to look at, I want to feel like that.
And it's so true like on a level of kodesh, it's true, we're not so geshmak. On a level of kodesh kodashim, like I mean there was one video that went out on Zos Chanukah that I felt was so meyutar. How do you say meyutar? Redundant, redundant, not needed. What? A rav felt very important to share that the minhag of writing bakashos on Zos Chanukah.
You saw this video? No. But do you know this minhag about writing out bakashos on Zos Chanukah and putting it by the neiros? Anyone do it here? Don't be embarrassed if you do. I'm trying to do a kaf zchus right? I didn't grow up doing it, I didn't know. I started that this year.
Yeah, I didn't grow up doing it, whatever. It doesn't it's irrelevant. And the guy, this rav, rips into this minhag and all the people that are doing it v'chulu. Mai ichpat lach? machpat lach! What do you care? What do you care? What's bothering you in your Yiddishkeit if Yidden feel close to doing such a— machpat lach! What do you care? Yidden are Kodesh Kodashim.
On the level of Kadosh, I don't know if it's so right lo dama. On the level of Kodesh Kodashim a Yid that feels that's an Eis Ratzon by Zos Chanukah before Menorah to put something in there? So this is what we're trying to give over here is that on the level of Kodesh Kodashim Yidden are the highest in the world because we're beyond everything that tells us we're not such good Yidden. We're Kodesh Kodashim. And if anything this last war has brought this out a million times over, much stronger in our hearts.
So now he continues and he says like this: מדוע נחרב בית המקדש כי היתה בינינו שנאת חינם. Aval madua?
הרי לשנוא את הזולת זה זה חטא כמו לאכול לא כשר או לא להניח תפילין. So he says here Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of sinas chinam. But the question is why? Sinas chinam he says is an aveira just like what? Not putting on tfillin or not eating kosher.
So how come we don't say, I'm sure there were Yidden that weren't eating kosher back then too or other things. So why davka this inyan of sinas chinam? So look what he says here: במדרגה של קודש זהו רק עוד חטא ואולי לא החמור שבהם. On the level of just Kodesh, okay, it's true, it's another bad thing, it's not a good thing, you don't want it on your resume. Maybe not the worst thing but it's not good on the level of Kodesh.
Let's think about it, tachlis. Don't raise your hands, I'm begging you, okay? How many people that you know or in your life, don't even look at each other right now. Maybe I shouldn't even ask this question. Close your eyes and your ears, I'm talking to myself right now.
You've missed a day of tfillin. Could be that it's happened once to some of us, okay? Somehow, one time chas veshalom, right? And how do you feel when you miss a day of tfillin? It's one of the worst feelings in the world. It's the worst, especially once you've mamash taken it on. And let's say you were born, you're a bar mitzvah and you're mamash 13, 14, 15, you're going strong, 16, but you discover other inyanim and then it happens that you just have this bad relationship with the tfillin, you stop.
It feels horrible. Sinas chinam. You hated someone. How come it doesn't do the same thing to you? Why doesn't it make you feel disgusted like if chas veshalom let's say you ate treif by accident, mamash by accident.
Like if someone wakes you up in the middle of your sleep on a plane and they put food and you're under the assumption, you look like a frum Yid, that the meal they gave you is kosher and it wasn't El Al. It was Delta or United. And you wake up and you're like, man, you're like oh I have a food, okay, you start eating. And you're like, wow, this tastes really good.
This is the best airplane food I ever had in my life. Shrimp is good. And you're taking another piece and then you're like, something's not right here, right? And then you check and you look at the chasid next to you, right here, he has the thing wrapped four times over. And then the guy with the kippah serugah sitting next to you, he has just a regular meal but it doesn't look like yours and it doesn't smell as good as yours either.
How disgusting do you feel when you realize you just took a chunk of treif food? How come we don't have that same feeling when we have this moment of realizing that we hate other people? Why doesn't it do it? Because on the level of Kodesh it's just another aveira. On the level of Kodesh Kodashim that burns inside of us worse than any aveira we could have ever committed. Sinas chinam. And that's why the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because of sinas chinam because on the level of Kodesh Kodashim there's nothing worse than that.
You understand the difference? On the level of Kodesh it's another aveira. On the level of Kodesh Kodashim it's the worst thing in the world. And that's what brings about the churban habayis. I'll just tell you obviously that story happened to me three years ago on a Delta flight I was going to shecht, shecht the stewardess.
I could not believe it. It was the worst, it was the most disgusting feeling I ever had. I was so tired it was five concerts in two days I finally got onto the plane I just want to run home I fell asleep before it should happen to all of us falling asleep before you even take off on the runway, right? And I wake up an hour and a half later I'm so disheveled everything and I'm like whatever, take some water, pretend no one's looking, put it— And then I realized, and then I called the stewardess, and I said, let me ask you a question. Why is this food here? And she says to me, she says, no, your name wasn't on the kosher list.
I said, let me ask you, look, look around this whole plane, right? Do I look like someone that would eat this just because my name wasn't on the kosher list? Sir, the protocol's protocol. And I'm, and I'm mamesh one, and I said, call the supervisor right now, I made a whole tumult, right? But really, what's the emes? It's my fault. I should have had more consciousness and awareness that, yeah, but I felt and I also immediately thought about Ishay Fleisher, for those that know his story that he shared with us once on Rosh Hashanah about chowing away on the plane. Was anyone here when he did that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Not a story to be repeated unless he's in the room. So on the level of kodesh, ugh, ugh, but on the level of Kodesh Kodashim, I really didn't know. I wasn't aware of it. Sinat chinam you can't say, I wasn't aware that I hated someone so much.
No, that's an activated thing inside your heart. You're holding something against somebody. That's sinat chinam, that's Kodesh Kodashim, that's the worst thing that you could do.
התשובה היא שבמדריגה של קודש הקודשים on the level of holy of holies, השנאה היא לא רק עבירה נוספת מבין רבות.
Sinat chinam is not just another aveira.
שנאה פשוט לא יכולה לקרות. Hatred can't happen. It just can't be when you're in the holy of holies.
It just can't be. Ein mah la'asot, ואין לה שום מקום. There's no room for it.
אם אתה שונא מישהו, if you hate somebody, אינך יכול להיכנס למדריגה של קודש הקודשים.
You can't go on the level of the holy of holies. You just can't. Ein mah la'asot, there's nothing you could do about it.
יוסף רצה כל כך למחול לאחיו.
Now look what happens over here. Look how the pnimius of Reb Shlomo's Izhbitzer brain over here, an Izhbitzer brain and a Breslev heart. Look at this.
יוסף רצה כל כך למחול לאחיו.
He wanted to forgive them so badly. Hem higi'u eilav, they finally showed up. He knows it's them.
אבל הוא עדיין לא מחל להם.
Oh, Parshat Miketz, for the moment they get there, he doesn't forgive them.
כך אמר יהודה ליוסף. So then Yehuda comes before Yosef and he says, vayigash eilav Yehuda means יוסף אתה צריך אותי. Vayigash eilav Yehuda, he says, means Yehuda comes to Yosef with all his azdus de'kdusha and he says, Yosef HaTzadik, because al pi pnimius, he knew who he was.
They knew who he was. Al pi sod, everyone knew what was going on here. They just had to figure things out and what the tikkun was. He's basically saying you need me, I'm Mashiach, כדי לתקן את קודש הקודשים שלך, to fix your Kodesh HaKodashim, because if you're still not able to forgive us, then something's wrong here.
You're still on the level of kodesh but not Kodesh HaKodashim. You understand what he just did over here, this twist he did over here? And not so much. If Yosef is the tzadik, which we all know he is, then he hasn't forgiven his brothers yet. Yet.
So in that yet, in that moment of him still not forgiving his brothers, he's still not righteous in that way. Exactly. So who brought about for Yosef to do what he did and be able to forgive his brothers? The Ba'al Teshuva. The Ba'al Teshuva, the one that's fallen five million times, hated, loved, hated, loved, whatever, he comes to the tzadik and says, you may be the holiest in the world, but Kodesh HaKodashim would mean that right now you forgive us for what we did to you.
That's what Yehuda, that's what the light of Mashiach brings out into the world. This isn't even sinat chinam. I mean, they sold him into slavery. Sinat chinam is when you just hate someone be-lo siba.
That's, that's a machlokes. That's a machlokes. Because what, if you hate someone with a reason, that's okay? At least it's not chinam. It's not chinam.
In the shoresh, everything is chinam. In the shoresh of things, every sina is chinam until you reach that place of understanding that it's chinam. Al pnei hashetach, on the surface, it's true. But if you dig deep into any machlokes between people and any sina, and you work through the whole thing, everything is always, like Pesach said, sprouting forth from a misunderstanding.
שמחוברים לזולת במדרגה של קודש הקודשים muchrachim lo muchrachim limchol. When you're connected to people on the level of kodesh kodashim you have to forgive. Why?
מוכרחים לאהבו כל כך עד שכל מה שקרה ביניכם יאבד מחשיבותו. To the point that anything that ever happened between transpired between the two of you and it held such a deep space ye'abed michashivuto.
How is it written in English? The end? Nothing else matters. Right before that. What, when you're connected to somebody on the level of holy of holies you have to forgive them. You love that person so much that nothing else matters.
I must have been thinking about Metallica when I was writing that. No I was gonna say that. But it means over here because in the Hebrew the Hebrew is deeper actually. The Hebrew is deeper.
The mean yeah did you this is a very deep thing test we could test ourselves. Did you ever have a machlokes with someone and it was painful and it was really it was harsh and then there was a moment of mechila there was a reconciliation and there was mechila that took place right but then did you did that whole thing just dissolve? Doesn't go away. Fade to black. Oh no no no no no oh that's gevald that was gishmak.
If it's still in the air listen chaver this is very important if it's still in the air after there was mechila it was a mechila on the level of kodesh. Bediyuk of kodesh. If it just really dissolves that means it was an experience of kodesh kodashim. This is we're talking about ultimate levels here and in fact if right now if we're in a machlokes with someone and we're like chaver no let's lift it up now if we're in a machlokes with someone right now in our lives there's someone that's we know we know that it's eating us up alive there's it's like ra'al it's poison inside of us and all we want is there for there to be mechila can you imagine if there would be mechila of kodesh kodashim taking place in in your own private lives with this person that you have a huge machlokes with? This is this is what it's this is mashiach this is what mashiach is all about that it would actually dissolve.
Yes Yosef. Could there be a mechila of kodesh kodashim but also not wanting to do anything not having to do anything with that person? No. That's mechila of kodesh. Because why wouldn't you want to have anything do with that person? Because anytime you interact with that person...
That means that it's kodesh. That's kodesh it's not kodesh kodashim. That's let me ask you a question why in the world would Yosef HaTzaddik want to have anything to do with his brothers ever again? Why? You forgive them why would he want to have to do anything with them? So Yosef but but Yosef doesn't forgive them yet til Vayigash eilav Yehuda. It's him the one that's tasted what it's like to be like on the other side the one that has seen that I've done every aveira in the book.
I got my daughter-in-law pregnant. I'm the one that basically brought my father utmost pain I messed everything up. I promised him I was areiv for Binyamin look what happened look what I did. I did everything wrong.
And if I still feel like there's a chance that I'm holding somewhere it's only because I'm connected to kodesh kodashim not to kodesh. On the level of kodesh I'm done Yehuda is saying. On the level of kodesh kodashim this is what's bringing me to come before you. Vayigash eilav Yehuda.
This is the baal teshuvah and this is what Yosef needs to receive from the baal teshuvah in order to be mochel his brothers on the level of kodesh kodashim and on the level of kodesh kodashim it dissolves and I don't think like what you just said that I don't want to have anything to do with them anymore. Why? Because it doesn't exist anymore. That thing that drove us crazy it doesn't exist. So in case of the word that someone's toxic and you just you don't want them in your life? Yes.
That's kodesh. Like we should strive for... I'm I'm just saying what what kodesh kodashim is until we reach that level that no you have to you have to go through the world of Tzaddik to reach the level that he's speaking about over here. You definitely this is not this is not...
No, obviously not. But when the meeting between the Tzadik and the Baal Teshuva takes place for real, Kodesh Kodashim is possible. Tzadik can't stand, Tzadik can't stand where Baal Teshuva is. Yeah.
That's the Gemara. Yeah. Why can't he stand where the Baal Teshuva is? Because he needs the Baal Teshuva. Because without Yehuda he can't get that place.
He can't stand it because it's like I've worked so hard my whole life to stay holy and stay pure and not fall and be that right person, the yes man, the good person, and here you are with all your aveiras coming here and you're looking and looking at you and you actually feel like you're mamash connected to Hashem. It ticks me off. It's that video you mentioned earlier. Mamash that video.
It drives me crazy. But that's Chanukah. That's what Chanukah is. He gets to it at the end over here about Chanukah.
Nachon. It seems like it's a similar Torah to us needing the geirim to come back to Am Yisrael and to come back with all the knowledge that was from the nations of the world that was lost and we're just raising them up. Nachon. This is also the tikkun of Yosef's dream because the original iteration of his dream, the expression was he was using his brothers in that context, using them in the dream, but now his dreams have all come true, so it went from him using his brothers in the dream to his dreams came true and it was through his brothers.
He went from using to utilize them, they became what they did ultimately became the conduit for the expression of his dream but not in a using way or an exploiting way but they became the way he got there. So the dream has hit full circle, it's reached its goal. Chazak. Yeah.
That's very, very good. Nachon. They were the vehicle. Nachon.
Yeah.
ואף על פי כן, last paragraph, שאמר יוסף לאחיו שהוא מוחל להם למרות שמכרו אותו, זה עדיין במדרגה של קודש. Nonetheless, even when Yosef told his brothers he forgives them, even though they sold him, it's still on the level of Kodesh. Why? Why is it still Kodesh when he forgave them? Because what does he bring up when he speaks about the mechila? Sheyesh sham mechira.
Yeah. He brings up the reason why he's forgiving over what he's forgiving them. You see? That's the diyuk here. That means who really was zocheh for the title of Moshiach? The one that by him it doesn't even exist anymore.
That's Yehuda. See Yosef HaTzadik, and this is not a Yosef bashing shiur, chas v'shalom. God forbid. But when Yosef does mochel them, he brings up the nekuda of why he did it, what he has to mochel them for.
So when you remind a baal teshuva and I'm so bad at this by calling half of you by your English names and all these things, well with you it's my tikkun Rezyel. Yeah. But whatever. We don't remind people where they're at, where they're from, the stuff they did.
I have to mamash work on that. Because by Yehuda it's done. Yehuda is like, I was there, I was in the low, גמרתי סיימתי עם זה, I'm done with it. He says, because he ends over here כי במדרגה של קודש הקדשים מה יש למחול? In the world of Kodesh Kodashim what is there to forgive b'ichlal?
אני פשוט אוהב אתכם וזה כל מה שיש כמה שזה עמוק.
I just love. I just love you. That's all there is. And this is the deepest thing that there is in the world.
Obviously we're speaking about ultimate, ultimate levels but this is what it's going to take for the revelation of Moshiach to come into the world. Now two more minutes, okay?
הרבי מאיז'ביצה אומר שכל המלחמה בין יהודה ויוסף הייתה על בנימין. The Izhbitza Rebbe says really, the whole war between Yehuda and Yosef was over Binyamin. Because really, Yehuda, what does he do for Binyamin? He's an areiv.
But who's Binyamin's only real full brother? Yosef.
בית המקדש הוא בין נחלת יהודה לנחלת בנימין.
בחלקו של בנימין בנוי קודש הקדשים. And like we said before, the Kodesh Kodashim area is in the chelek of nachlas Binyamin.
Around that and the rest of the har and the rest of the area of the Mikdash is the nachala of Yehuda.
יהודה רצה שבית המקדש יהיה בחלקו ויוסף רצה שבית Levasof Yehuda nitzach והר הבית היה בנחלתו uBinyamin histapeach elav. We hear that word a lot in Israeli media, sipuach. How do you say that in English? Annexation.
Annexation. So Binyamin was annexed to it, and והקודש הקודשים היה בנחלתו.
בנימין היה אחיו של יוסף מצד אימם, but he says here according to this betzeva be'emet הוא היה אחיו של יהודה, because the moment that Yehuda says כי עבדך ערב את הנער, I put my whole life on the line for him. Yehuda is basically saying to him subconsciously, listen, you haven't been in the picture.
He hasn't had a brother all these years. I became his full-on brother. I became an arev for him, which is a gevald thing to when you want to read it like that.
יהודה ערב לחיי בנימין והציל אותו.
והערב הרי הוא במידת מה בעלים של מה שהוא ערב לו. We should all taste this in our lives with kedusha. He says so beautifully here that the guarantor, on a halachic terminology as well, you become the ba'al of that that you're arev for.
גם כשהתפלגה ממלכת ישראל, also when there was the, in the Navi, when there was the pilug, the machlokes in the mamlechet of Am Yisrael between Yisrael and Yehuda.
בנימין היה בממלכת יהודה ולא עם מנשה ואפרים בממלכת ישראל. You ever think about that? When there was the pilug between Yehuda and Yisrael, where does Binyamin go to? Who should he have gone to? Well, wherever Yosef is, which is Menashe and Ephraim. Where did they go to? They were in mamlechet Yisrael. Binyamin stays with Yehuda.
So that's how we see that he really felt shaychus to Yehuda after all these years. So what's happening over here? Yehuda omer l'Yosef, Yehuda says to Yosef, אתה הצדיק אינך צריך כל כך את בית המקדש. You're a Tzaddik. You don't need the Beis HaMikdash.
מי שצריך את בית המקדש באמת הוא הבעל תשובה. Ba'alei Teshuva need the Beis HaMikdash. What do you need the Beis HaMikdash for? You're so holy. You don't sin.
You're not gonna have to bring korbanos. You don't need to hear the Levi'im sing to be m'orer your heart v'teshuva. You're there already. You don't do anything wrong.
You know who needs the Beis HaMikdash? Us schleppers need the Beis HaMikdash. Us nebachs, us chevra that wake up in the morning and are certain that today I will not fall in that aveira. And then we're certain the next morning that it was just a slip last night. That's the person that needs the Beis HaMikdash.
The Ba'al Teshuva needs the Beis HaMikdash.
מי שצריך את בית המקדש באמת הוא הבעל תשובה מי שנמצא באשפתות, whoever is down in the dumps, הוא זה שזקוק לבית המקדש.
חנוכה חל בחורף כשחשוך וקר דווקא בזמן הזה אנחנו צריכים כל כך את בית המקדש.
חנוכה מגיע כשנגמר לנו הכוח כשאנחנו על סף ייאוש אנחנו בוכים להשם Ribono Shel Olam, אני מתפטר איני יכול עוד.
When does Chanukah come? When I almost reach a place that says, Ein li sikuy, אין לי פשוט סיכוי. It was a nice dance on Elul and Tishrei, but I don't really stand it. Now it's already too much. Ani mitpater.
זו הייתה טענתו של יהודה, and this is where the Ba'al Teshuva, this is Yehuda's claim: Ki avdecha arav. Your servant became a guarantor.
ריבונו של עולם נגמר הכוח נתתי הכל הגעתי לסוף שלי ודווקא משום כך אני צריך כל כך את הנער את בית המקדש שיהיה בחלקי. It's like a plea that's saying, Ribono Shel Olam, davka because I've fallen so many times, davka because I've woken up so sure that today is going to be good and it didn't end up being what I thought it'd be and yet still I showed up to shul, I showed up to minyan, I showed up to shiur.
Davka because of that, who, that's the energy that comes from me, I need the na'ar, I'm an arev on the na'ar, the kid in me. The chelek of the Beis HaMikdash that's most important needs to be in the chelek of the na'ar, of the kid in me that could still believe there's a chance to be holy. Binyamin is referred to as the na'ar, v'hana'ar einenu iti. Whatever, I'm freestyling off of this last line over here, but this is what I think it rings in pnimiyus.
The naar in me, the kid that still believes it's yesh li sikuy and I could still be tamim, that needs to be in the kodesh kodashim. And that's what ended up happening. So who is the one that brought about that Benjamin's chelek is the kodesh kodashim? Yehuda? Based on this, actually Yehuda. Yehuda is metaken everything at the end.
The baal teshuva Mashiach, he's actually the one. And and if you if you look at Shmuel Aleph, Shmuel Bet and you see Dovid HaMelech's life, it's all in this teaching. And what about Yosef? Maybe he's also saving Yosef, he's saying so that that's a million percent right. It's hard for the tzaddik to hear, that's why he hates bamkom he can't stand the baal teshuva because it's like why do you have to bring this up? Why do you have to make me feel like this? It felt so good to just be a tzaddik.
But Yosef set the stage for all this to happen because he needed this tikkun. He just wasn't aware of what he was setting up probably. Yehuda also needed. Yeah, well that's what we learned like two weeks ago how they gave each other brachos before they went out into galus, remember that one? Yeah, it's a whole thing is setting up the stage for each other, 100 percent.
So anyway chevre, I give us a bracha to be-ezrat ha-shem taste moments of tzaddik, why not? It's nice. That'll be gevalt. But when we really have a chance to be mocheil someone, that it should we should be zocheh, that it should really be something that's on the level of kodesh kodashim. Not mocheil and like you're saying Yosef, I have to keep on watching my back.
If the mechilah's really done with this place of אהבה שאינה תלויה בדבר, then I really can transform the experience with that person that I never have to worry about myself again because we just elevated the daylights out of each other. And that's a Mashiachdike... a Mashiachdike chibur. That that's a Mashiachdike mechilah.
So we already got to go through the kodesh before getting to the kodesh kodashim. Have to. There's no other way. You have to.
It doesn't work to just run into the kodesh. Who tried that? Nadav and Avihu tried that. It doesn't work like that. Nakhon? Meaning like you can't just like oh yeah I mocheil this guy le-hitalem mi-mashehu.
No, you have to very good. You have to go through the kodesh to get to the kodesh kodashim. As long as you don't forget what the main goal is. Har HaBayit beyadeinu o Har HaBayit beyadeinu? Ze beyadeinu.
It's in our hands.