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In this series Rav Shlomo Katz explores the inspiring, powerful Torah and Wisdom of Reb Usher Freund zt"l
We're learning לעילוי נשמת בתיה פיגא בת ישראל, לוי בן יוסף, for the רפואה שלמה of עליזה חנה בת נעמי, שושנה יונה בת אילה. And today a little bit extra תפילות, there's a woman from the community that's starting chemotherapy today and I want us all to daven very strongly for her רפואה שלמה, ממש חזק. And her name is הילה בת אילנה. Please have that that name in mind, הילה בת אילנה.
The week, the week is sponsored by Yoni and Daniela Berg in honor of their new home, בעזרת השם, may it go smoothly and successfully. blessing it to be a home filled with warmth and love, family and friends, תורה and מצוות for years to come.
אמן. Okay חברה, new new letter today by the צדיק.
We're on דף, thank you so much. We're on דף י"ב where the letter is the seventh letter. And this is a, this is written somewhere in 1972, 1971 or 72, doesn't give the month here, so I'm not sure if it was the end of 71 or the beginning of 72. From here, we actually have a very clear picture of what the צדיק was what was was asked, what the letter to him was, which is something we could all identify with, and that is why do bad and disturbing thoughts come to us right when דוקא we set ourselves up to be in a holy place.
מחשבות זרות, foreign thoughts, bad thoughts, disturbing thoughts, confusing thoughts that come to us when we're in a place of darkness is no big חידוש. That's probably, that's just the natural evolution of how we how we operate. But that it should דוקא come to us, you know, these types of thoughts, דוקא when we're in such a place of of refined קדושה, can tear people down. I've told you the story many times about ראש השנה in Melbourne, one of the most challenging ראש השנהs of my life when out of nowhere, all the the worst thoughts in the world, all morning, the first day of ראש השנה.
All morning is the weirdest thing and you're wondering, I don't get it. I came towards You, השם. I I I I've come now to be here, to to to taste holiness, to taste love, and דוקא there, the מחשבות, the thoughts come and trickle. Like maybe perhaps for half of you right now sitting here in a שיעור.
I just said that to see if I can get your attention or not. Right? It could be right now. I don't know. These these things happen all the time.
And they start to like lead very negative they start to like inject within us very negative thoughts about ourselves. We may we may start wondering, wow, how I'm I knew I was a piece of work, I didn't just realize to to what extent. And we start thinking of the worst thoughts about ourselves because we say to ourselves, well, I must be crazy, I must be משוגע. Why? Because I I'm I'm coming here to קדושה and look who I've become.
Look at me.
מה זה? Everyone else, everyone else is has the שכל, everyone else looks like they're פרום, everyone else looks like they're holding, and yet me, I'm I must be the only one that's going through this. So, let's look at the bottom of דף י"ב, on the seventh letter to see how the צדיק, how addresses this. Here, give pages down here for those that need.
ברוך אתה ה' אלוקינו מלך העולם שהכל נהיה בדברו.
אמן. And a big welcome to our brother Dr. Ari Greenwald who's with us this morning, but you're, ברוך השם, it's so rare it's so frequent that it's, it feels just natural. From Toronto, for now.
לכבוד. The צדיק says like this, מכתבכם הגיעני ברגע הנכון. Your time came at the perfect time. Your your letter came at the perfect time.
ותקוותי שהשם יתן לי המחשבות הנכונות והמילים המתאימות לענות לכבודו. And my hope is that השם gives me the proper thoughts and words that were שייך right now to answer your honor.
כדי שיוכל להתגבר על המחשבות הזרות המבלבלים את מוחו, in order to overcome these foreign thoughts that confuse the mind, המתשטשים, you know לטשטש means to, like blur, thank you.
ולוקחים את זמנו בחינם, and they they they they I love that that language over there.
They basically that they're these מחשבות זרות are also גנבים. Living rent-free. Exactly. It's exactly that, living rent-free, right.
Maybe he coined the, I don't know, did he coin the term?
ועל ידי זה, and what happens when you have these rent-free thoughts that come and trigger you and משגע, crazy, right?
ולוקחים את זמנו בחינם, and they take over your all your thoughts, right? and you fall, you fall בפח.
ועל ידי זה נופל ברשתם, and you fall in the רשת, you fall in the net.
כמו שאמר דוד המלך עליו השלום, הוציאה ממסגר נפשי.
הוציאה ממסגר, thoughts.
הוציאה ממסגר נפשי. What is מסגר, חבר'ה? A welder. A frame. It's enclosed.
An enclosure, here in this context it's an enclosure, meaning it's a frame, but it's also something that is considered to be a trap. So דוד המלך he says, הוציאה ממסגר נפשי. There are thoughts, there are things that are causing me to feel that I'm being trapped.
ממש thoughts that make me feel like once I'm in them, I realize, my God, I'm like a fish in the water, I'm like a… Hamster wheel.
What's that? A hamster wheel, right? Yeah. That's even, that's very good, actually, yeah, yeah. Totally. And דוד המלך is saying, הוציא, I, I know, I call you out on this, this is part of the game, השם.
הוציאה ממסגר נפשי. And I want to figure out a way to get out of the, let's go with what you just said right now, to go out of the hamster wheel, to to figure out a way that it doesn't have to be like that. Because it seems that naturally, that's how I'm, that's the מהלך. That's the, that's like the natural evolution of how I how I conduct myself.So רבי ישעיה is saying, what was דוד המלך really דאווענען for over here? This is a beautiful פירוש on these three words from תהילים, הוציאה ממסגר נפשי.
שיתפלל שיוכל לבוא לדרגה כזאת. That he was דאווענען that he should be able to reach such a level, להבין מהות החיים. Like we've learned so many times from רבי ישעיה, to understand the essence of what life is all about, כדי לבוא לשלמות מציאות הקדושה. In order to come to a reality that's basically the completion of a realistic life of the reality of קדושה in life, which we'll we'll explain in a minute what that means.
כי רק על ידי מציאות הביטול, only through ביטול, the מציאות of ביטול, שאדם יכול לבטל את עצמו להיות נכנע. That a person can מבטל themselves to become נכנע. What would be a good word here for נכנע, for today? Submitted? Submissive? That's true. Those are all true words, but what does it, what does it mean?
ביטול that brings you to a place of נכנע.
Surrender. Surrendering. Even though I know that, unfortunately, that term was hijacked by a different religion, right, surrender. But it's time to reclaim it.
And that's a very, it's a very powerful imagery when you have this person that he's saying that I realize that the only way I could really do anything in this world is through the מציאות of ביטול, that I can מבטל myself to surrender. Now in this, in this case, what does this mean? Fighting evil thoughts. How do I surrender when it comes to evil thoughts? What does my nature tell me when I catch myself having evil, dark, confusing thoughts? Fight it. Fighting back.
How do I fight back? Acknowledge it's not who you are, it's… No, no, you're talking about the good way. I'm talking about how do we, how do we do it in a way that's really detrimental? What's that? Trying to think good. Try to think good thoughts. What else? Repress it.
Or just think like it's really holy to say, I must be a, I must be a בהמה, you know. Notice it. Just let the thought be, you just acknowledge it and... No, you're talking about the whole, you're talking about in a good way, you're right.
I'm talking about how do we do it, how do we normally do it that's not productive, that's not good? Like what's our natural reaction to them? Just get down on yourself. This must be the true me. Huh? This must be the true me. Andrew's saying the same thing.
And then this brings me to get down on myself. I guess this is the real me. I guess I wasn't, I wasn't made, I wasn't made for it to be with the guys that just is able to have pure thoughts. And then it's amazing that when we have pure thoughts, none of us really say, well, this must be the real me.
We always look, how long is this going to last? When it comes to the bad thoughts, it's like, yeah, this is, this is home, home, you know, home territory, right?Now, he's going to explain this. What type of ביטול is רבי ישעיה saying here, something that we would normally say. But, you know, what differentiates, think, think about this for a second, what differentiates us from animals? The speech. Speech is the way that the תרגום understands ויהי אדם לנפש חיה, לרוח ממללא.
בחירה. Sorry? We're not on pure instinct. Like we don't have to be on pure instinct. We can actually like take a step back.
Yeah.
דעת. So basically דעת, right? Or the potential for דעת, I would say. The potential for דעת, right? So look what he says here.
But when it comes to ביטול, there's something to really learn from the animal.
כמו הבהמה שרגילה עם בעל הבית שלו, היא משועבדת בלי שום נטיה לאחרים.
רק לבעליה. I was staying on a מושב recently and the, it's a, it's a beautiful מושב, I was staying there overnight.
And it was so peaceful during the day. It was amazing. At night I had to go out and do an errand. And in this peaceful, amazing place, suddenly I must have driven into a שטח of that is just that that's שייך to private property.
Even though I'm not seeing anything, there's no lights or anything. And this cute dog that we saw during the day came like a viciously attacking. And it's amazing. The dog, what was it doing? What was it trained to do? Trespassing, protection, right? It knows, it has no בלבול who its בעל הבית is and what its שטח is.
And an animal is trained to do this. He's saying over here, אותו דבר צריך האדם לעבוד בעצמו The same thing a person has to work on himself, שיגיע, שירגיש שמציאותו מבוטלת לגמרי. Like an animal has complete ביטול to its owner, so too a person has to work on himself so much, and I know this is a high level, חבר'ה, but we're here for the big leagues, that a person has to feel that his מציאות is completely מבוטל to its owner. Who's owner? To the רבונו של עולם.
וכל שאיפת חייו צריכה להיות The whole aspiration of my life has to be, גם עם המחשבות הזרות הן במקומות הקדושים, ששם מכין את עצמו להתפלל.
והן בכל מקומות עבודתו כדי להכין מחייתו, צריך לחיות עם אותם המחשבות הזרות כדי שיכיר את ערכו, ערך האין שלו. We're gonna go over all this in a second.
דווקא על ידי המחשבות הזרות שהאדם הוא המציאות שלהם.
אז דייקא יכול למצוא את מציאות הקדושה ההופכת את המחשבות הזרות. Okay? This is big. This is this is very big, and it's an amazing thing. The מחשבה זרה, I'm going to I'm I'm just like paraphrasing now and I'm not even sure that I'm, so I'm מדייק, it's what I get from this.
The מחשבות זרות are gifts. They're they're amazing gifts. How could you say they're gifts? There's מחשבות זרות. Why how could they be a gift? Because the מחשבה זרה, if you if you remember a תורה like this and you have a מחשבה זרה, so what how does it how does it unfold as a gift in life? What do you guys think? I want to hear also this there's a lot of action here, also the end of the room too.
I want to wake up the end of the room. To take action and push it out. Sorry? You have the opportunity to get a מצוה by pushing it out, taking action against the מחשבה זרה. That's that's a lower level.
Let's go a little bit higher level of action, like or view it as a gift. What how could it be a gift? Like the רמח"ל says, like what you struggle with the most is actually what your purpose is here to do. So you're actually, it's actually revealing to you what you need to actually work on.
נכון.
So, we're going to get to that a little bit later in this letter, based it's he doesn't quote the רמח"ל, but it's a it's a it's a known it's a known מהלך by רבי משה חיים לוצאטו.
נכון. Ari? The challenges that you face help bring out a strength within you that you don't you can't find otherwise. How do I remember that דווקא בשעת מעשה? It's true what you're saying.
The חאפ is, how do I remember that when it's happening to me, live? Right? That's the whole game here. The whole game here is that this is going to happen to you. This is going to happen, this is going to be your מציאות. You're going to go through this, that what? That you're you thought you're holding and then דווקא in that place, it's דווקא going to come to you right there.
And what's Reb Moshe saying about this right now? He's saying, how else are you truly going to discover מצד your בחירה that your real value, מצד עצמך, is אין? How else are you going to realize that? other than to the core like this? Ellie, your hand's not up. I put it up. Oh, I didn't see it. I'm sorry.
Yeah. No. He he says, he he says אין is just this huge piece of all of Reb Moshe's thought. And the way you get to it is is not by thinking through this intellectually.
He says צריך לחיות עם אותם המחשבות. You gotta live with. With them. With.
עם המחשבות. They're your neighbors. They're not going away. They're not leaving.
They're living rent free. And you can't kick them out. And you don't want to actually. They came for a reason.
Right. And he'll go through different ways of dealing with them, but the first thing you have to do is they're there. And the and when you acknowledge it, that's when you have a chance to taste ביטול actually. Correct.
I I just want to go over the last few lines here.
דייקא. You see, you see the last four lines?
דייקא על ידי המחשבות, מחשבות זרות, שהאדם הוא המציאות שלהם, אז דייקא יכול למצוא את מציאות הקדושה ההופכת את המחשבות הזרות. It's almost like, I think what he's saying here is like, don't look for this מלכתחילה but they will happen anyway.
Yes, it'll be there. You don't start the day saying, "Bad thoughts," because this will bring me to ביטול. You could start the day off with an hour of התבודדות and and bringing coffee to your wife and doing everything perfect then, and then, boom, and you're standing there like, "Are you kidding me?" So the thought is coming to say to you, "Listen, you thought you were such a גשמאק. You thought you were holding.
You know, you thought you were really, you have this down, you know?" So I'm just coming here to remind you for a second, how did you have the כח to do anything you did this morning? How did you have the כח to do anything you did for the first three hours of the day that seemed to be so beautiful and blissful? Where did that כח come from?
מאין יבוא עזרי? From אין is the really only place that your help came from. Anything good we've been privileged to do in our lives, anything today that we've been able to do that's good, that's good, if we forget that the מקור of the כח and the מקור of the ברכה is just because השם gave us, gave it to us, we'll get a זעץ that'll wake us up and be like, "How could that be?" Well, you you really credited the whole, the whole געשעפט to you. So I'm just here to remind you, מחשבה זרה, that you're able to like just like that be plucked out of it for a second once you forget who even gave you the ability to do all of this. you know, מאין יבוא עזרי.
From אין comes your עזר. And it's like Ellie said, this concept of the value of אין is a theme throughout this whole ספר. And it's his big leagues, it's very hard. You know, not all people really, I would say, would feel that this approach should be the way that we learn about עבודת הנפש, and maybe some of them are right for themselves.
And maybe even in this room, it's not all of all of us could really find ourselves in a teaching like this. But I know that everyone in this room would do anything in the world to stop hating ourselves. Everyone in this room would do anything that they could to stop self-persecuting themselves. And if this opens up a gateway for me to stop hating myself and to stop adding additional damage to my נשמה, not to my נשמה but to my self-value and all all that it includes in it, we would we would give it we would give it a good shot, נכון? Okay, so now let's see how he continues.
How does a person, he says, he says it without saying it here, it's very interesting. How does a person control his thoughts? You can't. So how could you control them? So he says like this.
ובזה, through this, שהוא שולט על מחשבותיו.
This is actually how you שולט on your מחשבות.
והוא מכיר את ערכו. Recognizing your true value adds up to what?
שליטה על המחשבה. Control over the thoughts.
Okay, so what does, let's let's unpack this חבר'ה. What does recognizing my own value have to do with controlling my thoughts? You said you can't control the thoughts. It's true. You can't control the thoughts, but what could you control? How I respond.
How I respond to them. The thoughts are going to be there anyway. The question is, what do I do with it once it comes on? That is, and for that, it is possible to control them. You hear the difference? The אני, the בעל גאווה says, "I'm gonna be so holy that I'm gonna control these thoughts from stopping to appear." הצלחה רבה.
Good luck. It ain't gonna happen. It ain't gonna happen. But what could I do? I could continuously remind myself why these thoughts are coming in the first place and what their real goal and purpose are so that I understand that when I get attacked again by a שטף מחשבות זרות, a flood of foreign and evil and disturbing and confusing thoughts and blurry thoughts that blurry my, blur my vision, that at least then I have a בחירה, "Well wait a second.
I'm not, I I remember. I remember why you're here. I recognize your value." Then you become a שולט on what the מחשבות do to you. How are we doing so far?
שבח.
Not so convincing. I was told I was not to talk on this. No, no. Go go go out for 10 minutes and come back in.
That has not happened to me for 30 years. That's because That's because they said, "Go out." They didn't say, "Come back in 10 minutes."Yeah, Eli. Just going to throw out something that maybe people have experienced in this עניין, like when you go see a צדיק, that's usually like also a time where the craziest thoughts...Oh, flashbacks, Eli, don't do this to me. I have so many examples.The צדיק, he he's not you know he can see it, but he's not interested in it because he's interested in the נשמה.Right.And he's interested in your good, and that's what he באמת sees because he's a צדיק.Right.
Uh, but we we have that billboard that we think he's seeing all the other stuff, and that's what he's focusing in on. But it's it's... from experience, it's שטויות. He's only looking at the נשמה.
That's what it is.Yeah.Remember I told you about the story about these girls that were in Rav Ginsburgh had a מדרשה? I think he still does, and and uh they used to have like an American gap year program even for for a few years. And the girls learned that that the צדיקים, especially there, Rav Ginsburgh, the real kabbalists are able to receive everything about you just looking at your forehead. And after a while, like the הנהלה realized that that all the girls somehow whenever they came into the שיעור, they were seeing them like this or figuring out ways or they had hats that were like covering them. But like what Eli's saying, the צדיק's not interested in seeing, of course of course he sees it, but that doesn't...Oh is that why you is that why you...
That's why you wear the hat? He's not interested. Right?In the פנימיות הדברים, the צדיק's not interested in it. The רבונו של עולם, of course, להבדיל אלף הבדלות, there's no עניין to try to make you feel that you're that that that that your inner משוגעת is what's is is the real you. Is the real you.This takes this takes a lot, but this line over here means that you're מכיר your ערך, that you recognize your value.
You, what value? Of אין. Then when these מחשבות come up, you're like, well, I'm nothing anyway. Meaning מצד עצמי, I don't hold from that anyway. So these מחשבות זרות fall into what? Into a bin.
What's it called? It's also the אין bin. If all the good stuff I think about myself and pride myself in also eventually get thrown into there, then all these מחשבות זרות also go in there and you have an opportunity to empty empty the bin. Empty the trash bin, yeah.This still seems to be the question that you asked before, which is, you know, sometimes people do things that are terrible for them because they feel worthless. So the sense of אין doesn't always lead you in the moment to feeling like so I'm gonna give myself over to הקדוש ברוך הוא and he's gonna help me through it.
Sometimes that sense of אין can also lead you to very dark places.Then it's not אין. And that has to be very, I'm very glad you brought that up. Then it's not אין. What is, what would it be?The brother of the...Yeah, it's the other side.
It's the סטרא אחרא. Because then he's he's like, oh wait, this is great טרף. How do you say טרף?Prey.Prey. This is great prey.
The guy's vulnerable. The guy's vulnerable, he doesn't really understand how these things work, so he's gonna go into this place of אין, but I'm gonna...Right. Exactly. And I'm gonna think, I'm gonna let him think that what he's doing is...
so we have to be very clear. If the תוצאה, if the result of this עבודה, brings you to a place of what what you're basically describing...יאוש.It's not אין. It's the other side.It's the סטרא אחרא, yeah.I saw in משיבת נפש that on ערב שבת, in משיבת נפש I think, it's a typical רבי נחמן תורה where it says if the the whole purpose of the סטרא אחרא is to try to pull you down. But if you're being pulled down, it's only because you're holy.
So when you're in that moment, in other words, why is that happening to you? You're trying to be a good Jew. That's why it's happening to you. And like reminding yourself...That's what he's saying, but that's הכרת הערך, the same thing.Really exactly this תורה.It's beautiful.And how do you flip him over? By just acknowledging them, staring it in the face and be like, I I see what you're trying to do to me.Right. I think it's very similar to what he's saying.ובזה שהוא שולט על מחשבותיו הוא מכיר את ערכו, אז יכול לראות שהוא חי עם מציאות הסיבות, מפני שתכלית הבריאה שהאדם יכיר את ערכו שהוא בבחינת בהמה.He's saying it straight out.
But you know, but how come we're not offended that he's saying that the like, explain to me חבר'ה, why aren't we offended that he says that the תכלית of the בריאה is that a person realizes his own value, that מצד עצמו he's just like a בהמה.Because it's true.Because it's true. You're calling us all בהמות. Maybe not a בהמה גסה, meaning it's a בהמה.
בהמה מצד the fact that מצד עצמנו, just us.
The premise is that being a בהמה is not a bad thing, right? Well, exactly. Being a, well, being a בהמה that, being a בהמה on the level that of what how we described it in the beginning, where we're saying that the בהמה knows I have complete ביטול just to my owner and no one else can come and stir me away from anything. On that level, yes.
וילדקייט, wildness, that that we're not saying is like, you know, the goal over here of recognition.
But it's this amazing, it's this amazing opportunity to invite a new understanding of ביטול and אין into the program here, and it's very, very important. Because look, we we we go through these things all the time, these מחשבות זרות. These are not, these are דברים של כל יום. We wake up in the morning, כי תצא למלחמה על אויביך.
Sometimes these thoughts get us before even מודה אני. Sometimes even before מודה אני. Usually before מודה. But I'm saying even before.
Sometimes even before. The שיילע is, can you laugh?Part of you says, why are you, you know, why do I have to start the day off like this? Why can't I just wake up in the morning and believe that today could be beautiful and the goal is to of course get there, but these things happen all the time. You know, these מחשבות זרות, a בלבול of מטשטשות happen all day and sometimes throughout the day. Maybe that's why רבינו רבי נחמן says that a person has to מתחדש not just every day, but a few times a day.
A few times a day you have to go through this. Yeah, Eli. You know, דוד המלך said בהמות הייתי עמך. He's coming up to it.
Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, you did. You've learned this a few times already.But he says שהאדם הוא המציאות שלהם, right? This is what it is to be a human being.
Basically what רבי משה does is he makes us כביכול comfortable with being really uncomfortable. You can't, where we want a life, I want it easy, I want to feel like I'm a good guy, I want to feel, right? But it's not the work. It's like it's such a חבל not to do the work. Yeah.
And because I'm human, I'm born in this body, I was born, I was birthed into the world, I'm, this is what's going to happen. But the good news is I'm, I got a lot of people around me. It's all gonna, it's gonna happen to all of us. We're all in the same boat.
It's not just me. It's not just I'm the bad guy and I've got, you know, I'm particularly bad and so that's why it happens to me. This is what it means to be in the world. And when you realize that, okay, I you stop running.
Right. You stop running and you start engaging. Right? Okay, this is what it is. This thought came to me and now how am I gonna deal with it? It's almost like the real, the real game begins once that recognition happens.
Like he's going to show right now.I'm going to read it again. This we're going to just end with this last paragraph.
ובזה שהוא שולט על מחשבותיו והוא מכיר את ערכו, אז יכול לראות שהוא חי עם מציאות הסיבובים, מפני שתכלית הבריאה שהאדם יכיר את ערכו, שהוא בבחינת בהמה, וכל חכמתו היא מאיתו יתברך. Any חכמה I have is not something I came to on my own.
Even if I may have trained myself to pride myself in accomplishments, in its source it's very dangerous to do that unless there's a הכרה גמורה the whole way that it was השם that gave you the opportunity to accumulate whatever wisdom you have.
כמו, and I love how this works because we just learned it in this פרשה.
כמו שאברהם אבינו עליו השלום מצא אותו על ידי עבודתו והביא אותו לשפלותו. You know who felt like this? I'm going to say something that's going to sound so like חס ושלום biblical criticism, not criticism but like, חס ושלום, but it's, but it's actually really, really not the point.
Do you think אברהם אבינו didn't have any מחשבות זרות? Of course he did. He was human. He defeated them. The שיילע is, what did he do with it? So he comes to the the conclusion that, what did he, what conclusion do we know that אברהם אבינו came to himself about himself this last פרשה?
ואנכי עפר ואפר.
לשבת, this past שבת, right? He comes to the, this is the first time we ever have, we have this like הבט, we have this like insight into what did אברהם אבינו think about himself? And he felt ואנכי עפר ואפר. That's what he came to. So he says over here, כמו שאברהם אבינו עליו השלום מצא אותו על ידי עבודתו, והביא אותו לשפלותו, כמו שאמר ואנכי עפר ואפר. You see אברהם אבינו starts, sets out on a journey.
God, is he the פרומסטע יוד in the world? He's not even a יוד, right? Or he actually, by now he is a יוד. But he's like the holiest and everything's so amazing. And then אברהם אבינו on the journey must have felt when he begins to דאווען, the first time he דאווענס for something. And what's the answer? No.
Isn't that amazing? That's an amazing thing. You would think that once the answer was was no, what would a rational person do? Forget it. Yeah, גמרנו. This is done.
This is just, it's not gonna work like this. I left everything. I'm asking to save some רשעים. And you say no, shouldn't be.
But the prelude to this whole story is ואנוכי עפר ואפר. Meaning I have a התעוררות to דאווען over this.
חז"ל tell us, why did this awakening that he had to דאווען over סדום, where did it come from? Because he knew that the soul of משיח was somewhere here. And that's why he דאווען for סדום to be saved.
At the end, לוט was saved and his daughters were saved. That's what the מלאכים also were on the שליחות. But because his מציאות was ואנוכי עפר ואפר, then השם saying no means nothing about who I am.
ואנוכי עפר ואפר, ואז דייקא בשפלותו ראה מציאות שהיא היא הסיבה העוזרת לו על כל שטחי החיים.
This is unbelievable. It is דייקא through this, I would say like this, tell me if you think, this sounds pretty far out, but we'll end with this. When did אברהם אבינו really understand who he was? When when his דאווענען for סדום wasn't answered. Because what does the פסוק tell us, but what does what does he do right after his דאווענען wasn't answered?
ואברהם שב למקומו.
So he goes back to his מקום, he goes back to his place. And he realizes, okay, I'm not leaving. I'm not neglecting everything. I'm not done with this רבונו של עולם, God forbid.
Rather, what? From here, this מקום now, I could start to really, really do עבודה on this world on myself for real. This is a person that was already busy מגייר גירים, she was מגיירת הגיורות. You know, ואת הנפש אשר עשו בחרן. And yet אברהם אבינו realizes that he tastes אין here like never before.
And he's like, now I could do the עבודה. Now, now I could really spring forward. And I would say like this, maybe this is why he was able to actually go through a נסיון like the עקדה. Only from the place of tasting אין after his תפילה to save סדום was declined.
על פני השטח on the surface, at least, that's what it looks like. According to what the רב was saying on שבת is that his תפילות were really answered. He was, he was negotiating future סדום. That's על דרך הדרש, but על דרך הפשט, it wasn't answered.
על דרך הפשט, was it answered? He asked for סדום to be saved, השם said no. Then he goes back to his place. Of course, על דרך הדרש he was able to be מצליח in in the פנימיות of what he was asking.
נכון? But on the דרך הפשט, what we learn פשט is it wasn't answered.
נכון? Yeah, wasn't answered. But that's actually opened all the gates for him to taste אין in a way of real ואנוכי עפר ואפר, and then be able to then proceed with much more difficult tests in life, continuously going with the place of ואנוכי עפר ואפר. A סימן for this is that his body was so עפר ואפר and אין was that when he had to do the עקדה, his body was such a state of אין that the פסוק says, וישלח אברהם את ידו. For דיוק there.
You see Rabbi Shalom has a beautiful מימר on this.
וישלח אברהם את ידו ויקח את המאכלת לשחוט את בנו.
אברהם אבינו, it should have said, ויקח את המאכלת. What's all this? It's like this.
It's like saying like this, I'm going to send a message now to my hand to grab this cup, then to put, I'll send another message to put it in my mouth and then I'll send another message to swallow. It's all automatic, right? On that אין, when it's אין, when it's completely אין, these limbs, this body, this בהמה is nothing on its own. But he has to do a ציווי of the בורא that he doesn't understand. But he's in a state of אין.
So the Torah says he had to send a message from his דעת to his hand.
וישלח אברהם את ידו ויקח את המאכלת לשחוט את בנו. Where did this come from?
ואנוכי עפר ואפר. So we'll continue to see בעזרת השם next week how this beautiful and important letter progresses.
And just like as a, as a little bit of a sneak peek, obviously the כהן גדול on יום כיפור is going to be the greatest example for all of us. That the higher you are and the closer you are to holiness, how do you know you're closer to holiness? The more that there is a סכנה that you could fall. And that's why דייקא in the קדש קדשים, there was a סכנה that the כהן גדול. would die.
This just shows how this how this is built in such a beautiful way. We'll continue that on on Monday. We'll be learning also Wednesday morning.