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The Legacy of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev with Rav Shlomo Katz is a warm, luminous journey into the teachings and stories of the Berdichever—“Sanegoran shel Yisrael,” the loving defender of the Jewish people. Through accessible shiurim and living Torah, Rav Shlomo opens Kedushas Levi with heart and clarity: why the Torah calls the holiday Chag HaMatzot while we call it Pesach; how our tefillin speak Hashem’s praise and His tefillin speak ours; and how to use our eyes, ears, mouth, hands, and feet for holiness.
Expect soulful tales from the chassidic masters, practical avodah you can live with today, and the Berdichever’s signature lens of radical compassion by finding the chamber of merit in every Jew and every moment.
Okay, good morning everybody. Good morning everyone. I'm very, I'm very, very happy we have a chance to learn right after חג. Sorry about my my voice, I'm still trying to figure out how to maintain talk, it just this whatever השם gave me over here.
So I'll do my best today. Too much שמחה? Never too much שמחה. Too little sleep maybe, never too much שמחה. So, I we are בעזרת השם eventually going to start a certain series on Thursday mornings about women in גאולה.
And that's the plan, women and and the and the concept of redemption. But because today is the יארצייט of Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, the 25th of תשרי, which is a very, very special day, Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev's יארצייט. And because some of us are going to be there in a few days, and because of no reason other than I just love, love, love Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berdichever, I wanted to do something in his honor, for his יארצייט, for just today. Reb Levi Yitzchak stands out as someone...
That's okay. You have it. It's good. Is this for me? Reb Levi Yitzchak stands out as someone different than any, every everybody else on so many different levels.
We've learned a lot about him in the past. In שול we've been learning his תורות every שבת morning at the 8:15 שיעור. But there's never enough to say about Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev. There's never enough to say and I keep on finding new inspiring stories that really, really excite me tremendously.
Just this morning I found something, I didn't print it for everybody, I'm just going to read it for you. This is a story about Reb Levi Yitzchak and the way he celebrated סוכות. So it says he would, he would basically מארח, he would, he would host in his סוכה all the punks of Berditchev. All the punks and all the, all the bums of Berditchev were actually were invited, somehow they made their way to the סוכה of Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev.
So one of the years, the חסידים tried to say to him, listen רבי, maybe, maybe רבי will invite a bit more, you know, distinguished אושפיזין to the סוכה this year. So it's a classic answer of Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev how he answered his חסידים. He said, when I come to the בית דין של מעלה, I'm also going to ask to come and sit in the סוכה with all the צדיקים there. And they're going to stop me before I go inside.
And they're going to say to me, Levi Yitzchak, what do you, you think you're שייך to here? You only know that in, you know that in this place רק צדיקים יבואו בו, right? So I'll tell them, he said, נכון. I'm not worthy to come to this place, which is fit only for צדיקים and not for people like me. But when I had a סוכה, I didn't do a sifting, I didn't differentiate between who's ראוי and who's not ראוי to be here. And I never sent a ייד out of my סוכה.
I received everyone בשמחה. Anyone that came to the doors of my סוכה. So Reb Levi Yitzchak continued his words, turning to his חסידים and said, it's not such a חכמה to just invite Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov to your סוכה. Those are, you know, those are צדיקים that don't bother, they don't demand more כבוד, they don't take up space.
We have to demand, we have to דווקא invite people that do take up space and that it is a טרחה, and that it is not, it's not the most ideal situation in the world. Just so like you and I will have a chance to go into גן עדן as well, and they'll let us in גן עדן. When Reb Levi Yitzchak said these words, he wasn't trying to impress anybody about how low he felt of himself. He ממש felt like this about himself.
And this was just another story. See Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, he's someone that we could all relate to. So, we're probably only going to get to the first piece that we have over here. Can I dedicate the שיעור? Sure.
For anybody? I just found out I have two cousins, my father's sister's two daughters, died within the same month. ברוך דיין האמת. Yeah, one Dona בת Lottie. So what's their names? Dona בת Lottie and Ilsa בת Lottie.
And I just found out the funeral is today for my, and she was a neurobiologist at Yale, and the other one was... Absolutely. For the לעילוי נשמת... head of a Jewish day school in San Francisco.
I was shocked, I found out yesterday. Okay. For the לעילוי נשמה of both of them, בעזרת השם. Dona and Ilsa.
אמן. Okay, so this is a classic piece in פרשת בא. It's a classic תורה from רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשוב. And it'll explain us, explain to us something that I think that we don't think about too often.
But let me just ask you a question outside of the text. Did you ever think that someone might not think so highly of you and then you found out that they said something good about you to somebody else? Or you overheard them talking about an experience they had in your house and you thought they really didn't enjoy it, but you know, then you realized what you overheard them saying, something so beautiful that they actually really enjoyed the experience and that they really like you. Did it ever happen to anybody? What happens when you hear about from someone else that someone said something nice about you? What happens then? Is it more convincing than if they tell you it straight to your face? Yeah. Why is that? Because you didn't even know about it, like they were talking about it like… Very good.
By their experience. Meaning, if if they're, if you heard it ככה בדרך אגב, that's probably much more accurate and authentic than if they came and told you, because if they came and told you, they probably just tried to make you feel good. Maybe, maybe not. But there's room to think that they may be just feel bad for us.
But when you hear it from a third party, you're like, that person has something nice to say about me? That, that must mean something, something very special. That means that it could be this is a very, it's a very, very special thing and it's a real thing as well.So, רבי לוי יצחק tells us, look, you must pay attention to every word, here you go. You must pay, good morning. You must pay attention to every word the תורה says because the תורה is always using references that השם is referencing about what he thinks about us.
And we need to hear it. We need to be reminded all the time about what the ריבונו של עולם really thinks about us. And how do we do this? By listening to the words of the תורה. So if I would go around the room right now, I'm sure I'd get a lot of different answers if I'd ask you, okay, what do you think השם thinks about עם ישראל? So what would be some of the words, like right now? What would be some of the answers you'd give? What does השם think about עם ישראל? Remember, never say an answer you think I or anyone else in this room wants to hear.
It's what you think and what you feel.So that's my question back. Yeah. Does he think about us or what does he feel about us? Very strong question. Very big difference, too.
Meaning, is he just saying stuff but really in the inside, it could be that's not what's happening? Like I love you and I feel close to you and you know, and then there's also like, I think you're a good person and you wait for your other people. כלל, כלל, like, yeah. The hard it takes, like those are two different… Okay, either. Those are different aspects.
Either. Either. What do you think השם thinks about you? What's that? I think he loves us. You think.
I know. You know. Okay, very big difference. רבי לוי יצחק says also one time a very big story about him and the maid.
And I don't know what he, he went to go learn by the מגיד ממזריטש and his father-in-law sees him after he came back after months and months and months and said to him, what did you learn in מזריטש that you had to go there for so long? He said, I've learned that there's one God. So that's what you went to go learn for for so long? Come here, and he calls the maid. He says, tell me, is there one God in the world? She says, yeah, of course. She says, רבי לוי יצחק says, no, the difference is she thinks she knows that there's one God, I know that there's one God.
That's what the whole thing he learned in מזריטש. It's like בלבבי. Huh? It's like it's ממש בלבבי. It's a ידיעה, different type of ידיעה.
All right. All right, so what else, what else do you think השם thinks about us? Like if you ever heard a conversation with God and another nation or someone else, what would you think you would be hearing? I would hope good stuff. I would. Okay, but what do you, you would hope.
Now let's go deeper. Let's go with conviction. What are you going to hear in that conversation? That he's proud of our the journey. That we should grow closer.
He's proud of us. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Do you realize that this is therapy? I have a little bit of a different, different take on it. I think he thinks we're very confused and feels frustrated with us. He wants us to be closer, he wants us to act good, and he sees all these, you know, the fighting going on and the… and he's very compassionate, I think, extremely, but I think he thinks we're really like… A dysfunctional family. A dysfunctional family.
But I do think he still… I think what he says to somebody else and what he says to us is different. Right. נכון, נכון. נכון מאוד.
So in the תורה, when השם is talking to us in the תורה, who is he talking to? Even if he's talking to another nation, it's very clear… that Hashem knows we're going to be we're going to be reading this every single year for years and years and years. In other words, the way that we know about what Hashem feels about it and thinks about it is right now was already written in the Torah a long, long time ago. That's what we mean when we say believing in נצחיות התורה, the eternity of the Torah. Similar to what we learned in בלבבי, that every single character that's in the Torah has a שייכות to our נפש.
Like what we were doing the last few weeks about, remember the interestingly, the character that we're now dealing with, finding it inside of us? פרעה, an Egyptian ruler, a רשע. Yes, but he's in the Torah. Hashem knows we're going to be reading about it, not the Egyptian nation to learn about their history. We're going to be hearing about it.
So believing the way we know what Hashem thinks about us and feels about us is in is already in the Torah. That's how we understand it today. Today, right now, what Hashem thinks about you and I was already written down a long, long time ago. Because the Torah's words are above they're beyond time and space.
So it's true at moments there's frustration. I mean, how could I say I'm sure? I don't know anything about what Hashem feels or thinks other than the way Hashem talks to us and calls us out in the Torah. רבי לוי יצחק מברדיצ'ב knew that there would be an era of Jews, like you and I today, that are trying so hard, so hard to be close. And for whatever the reasons are, we are so hard on ourselves.
And we're nervous to stop being hard on ourselves because we're scared we're going to stop being start being קמצן. So we don't really know the authenticity game over here, and we're stuck within this maze. Happens all the time. Yeah, I think we are dysfunctional and confused.
Yeah. But Hashem is like thinking all love, all positive, all good things. We're thinking we're like dysfunctional and confused, you know? I think that you have to remember that that's what Hashem thinks in order to get yourself out of your own משוגעת sometimes. That that's נצח, what Chavi is saying.
That's eternal truth. And we learn about Hashem's eternal truth about what he thinks about us, the way that he speaks about us, but you have to really read between the lines sometimes. And it takes רבי לוי יצחק מברדיצ'ב to take out a very simple פסוק and point something out to us. So even though it's not פסח, and even though this might have been a a Torah you might have seen over the years, maybe because I try to do this once a year, it's still one of my favorite teachings in קדושת לוי.
And I wanted to do it today because today is his like we said, today is his יארצייט of a צדיק and this should be to the merit, לעילוי נשמת of רבי לוי יצחק בן שרה סשא, the defender of עם ישראל. The one that's still standing in שמים and saying, I will not let anyone speak evil about Yidden, no matter what. That's a big זכות to learn his Torah on the day that he went back to שמים to do the other work that he's doing up there. So look what it says.
ואמרתם זבח פסח הוא להשם. We're in פרשת בא, and what we're learning about over here is what we call the holiday of פסח. So what does Hashem call פסח? פסח. What do we call פסח? חג המצות.
Listen, look look look what he does over here with this brilliant piece. והנה יש להבין. שאנו קורין את יום טוב המכונה בתורה בשם חג המצות. The Torah calls it חג המצות.
אנו קורין אותו פסח. Sorry, the other way around. We call it פסח. The question is, היכן רמז זה בתורה לקרוא יום טוב זה בשם פסח? והלא בכל התורה נקרא יום טוב זה בשם חג המצות.
The question is, why do we call פסח פסח, when the Torah calls פסח, meaning when the Torah refers to פסח, what does it call it? חג המצות. We call it פסח. So you know, it's like I'm just going to preface by saying, you know, two people that ממש love each other, they always want to give the other the credit. No, no, you're the one that raised the children.
No, you're the one that raised the children so good. You're the one that did this. No, no, it's because of you, it's because of you, it's because of you, it's because of you. Hold that in the in the front of your of your heart while we learn this piece.
והנה כתוב, it says in שיר השירים, something that we were try we were we're all month of אלול, we were trying to really internalize. אני לדודי ודודי לי. I am to my beloved, and my beloved is to me. I I wish we learned this piece really in.
in ראש חודש אלול or at least at some point during אלול, cuz I think this really this really explains to us the whole אלול energy in a different way. What does it mean that I am to my beloved and my beloved is to me? What does that mean למעשה? The way we learn it out in חודש אלול is that I work so hard to show השם that I love him and then I'm going to receive the love back. אני לדודי, I'm taking upon myself תורה and מצוות. And ודודי לי, and my beloved, and then I realize how much השם really really loves me.
Look what he says over here.אני לדודי ודודי לי, רבי לוי יצחק says, היינו, שאנו מספרים שבחו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, והקדוש ברוך הוא מספר שבח של ישראל. רבי לוי יצחק says, do you know what it means to be to your beloved, and that your beloved is to you? It means one main thing. When you hear, when you hear השם talking about you, you're just saying, you just hear beautiful things. And when you're talking about השם, all you're doing is praising הקדוש ברוך הוא.
So again, היינו, שאנו מספרים שבחו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, והקדוש ברוך הוא מספר שבח של ישראל. That's what it means to be, according to רבי לוי יצחק, in this mutual loving relationship. אני לדודי ודודי לי.So far so good? וכן, הוא שאנו מניחין תפילין. Now he talks about this in the תפילין that we and that men wear.
כתיב בהן שבח של הקדוש ברוך הוא. In our תפילין, in the four פרשיות that we have in men's תפילין, it's all about how much we love, שמע ישראל השם אלוקינו השם אחד ואהבת, it's all about how much we love השם. And the גמרא says also, והקדוש ברוך הוא מניח תפילין, שכתוב בהן שבח ישראל. We also know according to the גמרא in ברכות, that God wears תפילין, כביכול.
And we also know what's written in the תפילין of the רבונו של עולם. What's written in the תפילין of the רבונו של עולם? Does anybody know? One of the things, we talked about on תשעה באב. In the תפילין of השם, it says, ומי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ. Who is like your people, one nation in the world, right?So, we see over here, even in the way like we put on תפילין.
Our תפילין talks about how much we love השם. In השם's תפילין, it talks about how much, it talks about how much הקדוש ברוך הוא loves us. ובזה יובן, by this will be understood, מה שכתוב בתנא דבי אליהו. We'll understand what it says here in תנא דבי אליהו, דמצווה לספר שבחן של ישראל.
It's a מצוה to if you're sitting around and you're bored, and you want to do a מצוה. So we have two approaches. One is the נועם אלימלך. It's a little bit of a more intense one.
Imagine yourself walking into a furnace for God. But if you're not really in on that, you know, in that head space, I don't know if that's what you're feeling on a, you know, you want to just do that cuz the נועם אלימלך has a whole thing about this whole visualization that you are מקבל on yourself עול מלכות שמיים that you would even, you'd even walk into a furnace of fire for למען הקדוש ברוך הוא. He says that's what you should do in your spare time. But if you want to do something else, according to the ברדיטשובר, sit and praise יידן.
It's a מצוה. Sit and say nice things about Jewish people. That's it. That's what it says in תנא דבי אליהו.
ויש להשם יתברך נחת רוח מזה, שמספר בשבחן של ישראל. This, the רבי לוי יצחק says, this gives השם נחת.Why? Now what what's going on over here? נראה הטעם. Let's see the the reason for all this. משום דאסור להסיח דעת מתפילין, ומצוה על כל אדם לעסוק תמיד בתפילין.
We know that when you have תפילין on, first of all, really, originally when תפילין was given, people wear it all day long. You ever see people that wear תפילין all day until שקיעה? Where? Right, זילברמן חבר'ה. You've ever, you've seen that, right? They wear תפילין all day long. Really, initially, it was supposed to be that you have תפילין all day long.
Why? Because what are you doing all day long if not busy דאווענען and learning? So if that's already, גם כן what you're doing, the תפילין should be on you. And you shouldn't have, you're not supposed to have הסח הדעת. That means to be, how do you say הסח הדעת? Sorry? Right. You should have no lapse of concentration, distraction, when you have your תפילין on.
That means that while you have your תפילין on, you're always connected to what's written in your תפילין. דהיינו, לספר השבח של ישראל. But what רבי לוי יצחק is saying is like this, when it comes to תפילין, you are supposed to always be connected to what's written in your תפילין. That means that you're supposed to always always be connected to praising השם.
And so to speak, he's giving us a lot of כח now. השם has his תפילין on all day long. And what, השם can't be distracted from the תפילין that's on him either. What is השם's, what does it say in השם's תפילין? What you said, Tamar.
Pride. Pride. You know what our sick, twisted problem is? Is that none of us believe that right now. None of us really believe that הקדוש ברוך הוא all day long is in a state of pride over his people.
And that, Reb Levi Yitzchak says, is evil. That's the biggest problem we have. Evil. You're not evil, God forbid.
It's evil. What's evil? That we hear a טייער like this, oh what a cute חסידישע טייטש. Right? It's not true, but it's a great story. Reb Levi Yitzchak Berdichever is saying, you're alive today, 2018, keeping תורה מצוות, trying your hardest.
You don't think that the ריבונו של עולם is connected to what's written in his תפילין all day long? Saying, look at my people. I have to put such a מכה on them, take away from them one of the greatest heroes that ever lived amongst us, and they're still running to shul saying, הודו להשם כי טוב כי לעולם חסדו. That's, if that's not pride, we're in the wrong, we're in the wrong business. We're in the wrong business.
על פי logic, according to logic, each of us should have checked out five million times over and over again. I don't even want to say not only from religion, I would say from humanity בכלל. Forget religion for a second. From absolute humanity.
The צרות that we have. We have מכות and מכות and מכות and we don't stand in protest saying, why? We דאווען. We scream out to השם. And השם is touching his תפילין, של ראש, תפילין של יד, saying, of course, of course this is what they're doing.
מי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ. Who is like my people? There's no one like my people. There's no one like my people. It's interesting, you know, Reb Nachman was very good friends with Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev.
They were good friends, Reb Nachman and Reb Levi Yitzchak. Same generation? Yeah. So Reb Nachman, who was younger, but Reb Nachman called Reb Levi Yitzchak the פאר הדור, the glory of the דור. The מצוה of תפילין is called פאר.
Also, פאר אורה לישראל. I'm not going to get into it right now. So when Reb Levi Yitzchak died, Reb Nachman told all his חסידים that they should check their תפילין. And even when they would go through the town of Berditchev, he told his חסידים, always check your תפילין.
And I, I think I, I think I understand a little bit deeper now. What does it mean check your תפילין? Meaning, check to see if you're doing what God is doing right now. God is saying your praises. Check to see if you're, if you're connected to what's written in your תפילין, or are they just, you know, parchments that are on your hand and on your arm and on your head.
It's ממש, it touch, this is so deep. Okay, so we're in the middle of this piece. You say where it says תפילין דמארי עלמא. תפילין דמארי עלמא.
In the middle of this paragraph. Fifth line from the bottom. תפילין דמארי עלמא שכתיב בהם שבח של ישראל. In the תפילין of מארי עלמא, of the master of the world, it's written in there the praise of עם ישראל, כדאמרינן בגמרא, like the גמרא says in ברכות, תפילין דמארי עלמא מה כתיב בהו? What's written in the תפילין of השם? מי כעמך ישראל.
או, לספר בשבח של הקדוש ברוך הוא, דהוא תפילין של ישראל. Our תפילין speak about the praise of השם, שכתיב בהם שבח השם יתברך. דהיינו שמע, קדש, והיה כי יביאך, והיה אם שמוע. Those are the פרשיות that are written in our תפילין.
So Reb Levi Yitzchak says, ונמצא תמיד, אנו מספרים שבח השם יתברך, והשם יתברך מספר שבח ישראל. So we see that really, ultimately, or ideally, תפילין should be something that we're engaged in all day long. And that means, doesn't just mean a מצוה of phylacteries, תפילין that you put on, but what's written in the תפילין is what we should ideally be engaged with all day long, just like השם is. What is it again? We're saying the praises of השם, and השם is saying the praises of us.
Now, מה זה קשור to what we're trying to do over here? So that's why we had to go a little bit out there. Now let's bring it back home. And I think this will really help us understand. understand what Hashem really thinks about us, what he's saying about us right now.
Even though these words were written thousands of years ago, we believe in the נצחיות of the Torah, the eternity of the Torah. Even though it was written in the Torah years and years ago, אמונה means this is what's happening right now, right now in our relationship with Hashem. והנה, חג המצות נקרא על שבח ישראל. Remember we said, there's two names for פסח.
One is called פסח, the other is called מצות, חג המצות. Who calls what what? Hashem calls the holiday, and we call it פסח, right? Why? Why? Look what he does here. ונמצא נקרא חג המצות על שם שבח ישראל. Hashem calls the holiday of פסח חג המצות.
Why? Because what has that got to do with our part? What did we do? We made the מצות. We left בחיפזון. We did we did this incredible leap of אמונה. Hashem says, the holiday, אני ודודי לי.
Look what Hashem is saying, אני לדודי, right? Look what you did. The holiday is named after you. שאפו את הבצק עוגות מצות because this is what we did. The way that we the cooked the we we prepared, we baked the מצה.
But ולזה בתורה נקרא יום טוב זה בשם החג המצות. כביכול, השם יתברך מספר שבח של ישראל. because the Berdichever is saying, what happened to us in פסח was the beginning of our establishment of as a real עם. And Hashem wanted us always to remember, זכרתי לך חסד נעורייך.
I remember exactly how we began. I didn't forget for one second, no matter how long this relationship and how old this relationship has been. I remember how it started. You might have a different version of how things started, but I remember how it started.
You guys did what you did, and you ran, and you baked it and you did it fast. 18 minutes, boom, done, you ran out of there. That's whenever, so the Berdichever is saying, whenever we hear in the Torah חג המצות, what does it what does it really saying to us? It's really Hashem telling our praises. It's Hashem calling out our praises.
ואנו קורין היום טוב, what do we call it? בשם פסח, על שם שבח השם יתברך. We call פסח פסח because we're saying, no, no, no, no, no. Look what you did. בשם פסח על שם שבח השם יתברך, שהוא פסח על הבתים, that Hashem jumped over the houses.
ואמרתם זבח פסח הוא להשם אשר פסח. שהוא שבח השם יתברך על דרך הפסוק אני לדודי ודודי לי. Comes the Berdichever and says like this: You know what real, real love is? Real love is you taking, you deciding what you're naming something after. The שבח that you're speaking about about the person or about עם ישראל.
This simple example that the Berdichever is saying, just look at the Torah. Look at the moment that your love began to really be established in the world. God says, look what you did for me, and we say, look what you did for me. That's אני לדודי ודודי לי.
That's not just a nice ווארט. It's not just a nice חסידישע טייל. It's something we have to remember. Because when you really, really, really live with this teaching, and you remember, רבונו של עולם sees me as the initiator of the beginning of this relationship כביכול.
He sees me as someone that's saying, I'm establishing whatever it is, and he's saying, look what you did for me. That's pride. So like Tamar, I'm happy you said in the beginning, I think, or what'd you say? I hope, I would hope pride. So the Berdichever is coming and saying, you don't have to hope.
It's written in the Torah. This is how Hashem calls the holiday. You want to call it what you call it, great. Shem's saying, I'm calling it what I'm calling it.
Don't change my version of the story. You have you ever been asked, oh, how'd you meet? When you're at a table? No, you've never been at a table with your spouse, oh, how'd you guys meet? And each person has their version. The Rebbetzin and I have like a very cool story. Wasn't looking to have a story, I just wanted to get married, but we do have a very cool story.
And each time one of us says it, there's ממש like a, someone calls it חג הפסח, someone calls it חג המצות. No, no, no, you did this, no, no, you did that. Anyway, that's that's really what it is. Yeah, the the fact that he called it the חג המצות is, it, I think it's also the proof that he's still sitting on her saying that because we continue to see it every year.
Absolutely. Absolutely. That's exactly the ענין. It wasn't just a one-time thing that happened then.
If we stopped doing מצות, meaning if we stopped פסח, that would be about a divorce, meaning it would be about a זיווג ראשון that story. Oh, that's not, that was beautiful but that didn't continue. But it's very good what you're saying. The fact that this is how we continue shows that that's the reenactment of the love is through our reenacting the actual way that we do this this this actual מצוה.
That's that that that that's incredible.Okay. Does anyone have any questions so far? We're okay? Okay, now so let's go further if you have כח, a few more minutes. So in the same פרשה, later on in the פרשה, פרשת בא, it's like a very classic פרשה for רבי לוי יצחק מברדיטשוב, some of his, some of his most passionate תורות are on this piece. רבי יצחק continues and you can see he was ממש on a roll.
And here he goes even deeper, I think, and he says, now let's remember. If השם is telling our praises all day long, what do you think you were given a mouth for? You were given a mouth to do that same thing. That's why you were given what you were given in this world. Look what he says here.
נראה דהנה הבורא ברוך הוא לא בחר רק בישראל. Since השם, it was השם's decision, השם only chose עם ישראל to be his people. לפיכך, אין שום אחד רשאי לומר על ישראל שום דבר רע, רק ללמד זכות על ישראל. What did he say here? What are you basically saying when you speak ill about another איד? What are you kind of doing without realizing it? You're opposing השם.
What are you saying to השם? You're making a mistake. What are you saying? You made a mistake. You made a mistake. It's hard to think about what רבי לוי יצחק's saying, you'll start to laugh when you think about this, but when you start speaking ill about another איד, you are telling הקדוש ברוך הוא I'm not so sure I agree with your decision-making.
We laugh, but that's really how it is.Why just the Jew? God created all man.אשר בחר בנו מכל העמים. Right now, אשר בחר בנו מכל העמים. He's not saying go and talk לשון הרע about גוים, חס ושלום. He's just focusing right now on עם ישראל.
Also, is there a מצוה to love the world? It's a very big question. What does ואהבת לרעך כמוך include? Depends on what school you went to. בית יעקב son. ואהבת לרעך כמוך, who does it include? רעך, your friend.
Who's your friend? Now we're getting very politically incorrect here. I'm not, I'm not talking about הלכתית, how we learn it out. Does anyone know? We should do a whole שיעור on that one time, it's okay. But just to focus on what you're saying, he's saying over here since we have a concept we don't say אשר בחר את כל העולם.
He's saying, he's not saying go, it's okay to talk ill about other people, חס ושלום. But he's saying דוקא with אידן, there must be a sense of extra sensitivity and extra carefulness. Why? Because השם chose us, והייתם לי סגולה מכל העמים. That was not our choice, that was השם's choice.
So if you're if you're basically, I would say, if you're dissing השם's choosing, right? That's not a good thing. It's not something you would do because really you might be able to come to the conclusion and say, you know what, when it comes to me too, that might have been a bad choice as well. We've been there. We've been there before too.But everything is, my point is everything's השם's choice.
Everything that happens, however, however we see it.Yeah, but we could go we can go to the extreme example right now. Obviously we could always go to ימח שמו, the the the chancellor, the the the führer, right? So we can always go to him and say, so if that's part of השם, how can I say that he's evil? We have a concept called עמלק in this world where the same השם that created everything said, this thing that I created too, you need to wipe this out. How could I? It's your creation. I said so, השם says.There's no evil in Jewish people.ועמך כולם צדיקים, לעולם יירשו ארץ.
כל ישראל, I'm trying to figure out what you're getting to. I don't know, from the side? People have the ability to make bad choices, but you still we still can't judge them. Of course not. And and the ברסלבר at the table will tell you better than anyone else what our זמר says.
Right? But I'm meaning, so I can't say that about Hitler? He made a bad choice? That's what I'm saying. Yeah, you can't say that about him. And there's no Jew like that. Well, it's not the way we're told to speak about אידן.
So you can think it? אידן. We're look, we're looking for some serious היתרים today. Some serious energy out there. We're still תשרי, remember everybody.
It's not, the ספערדימ are hoping 'til חנוכה, we we hope. Do do you need, do you want to? I mean you have to decide what's bad and what's good and sometimes you have to use other people as an example. Say, okay, you're thinking that looks bad. That's how I know not to do that.
I mean, I know you're supposed to get everything from the תורה, but we learn from people around us. Absolutely. But there's a big, big difference between being able to see around you, which we all have to have, a חכם עיניו בראשו. Eyes have to be open.
You have to see what השם places in front of you to know what to do right and what to do wrong, but to feel ill and talk ill about people that are doing wrong. You see, you can go through the the whole book of of הלכות לשון הרע of the חפץ חיים, and if your goal is to figure out when you're allowed to talk לשון הרע about people, by the way, you could, you could come to them. But then there's times? Not only are you allowed to, you have a חוב to. You know where? But then it can't be two two, two two specific situations.
But I don't know if that's what we're talking about. One is about a שידוך, right? And then if it's a business deal, משא ומתן, and you know the person, I got a crazy call a few months ago. Someone called me and told me that she she found out that her husband's company is doing something seriously illegal, but she knows that if she shares this information with higher authority, her husband might be arrested. I mean, something like that.
It was so out there. Yeah. Thank God I have a רב. I mean, thank God I don't know.
I threw it to him right away. The רב's number is so-and-so. I didn't deal with it. So we have, okay, so let's go back to this.
So we have a situation. בסדר. Those are two situations where we know it's an ענין of saving someone, וכולי וכולי. Let's first figure out everything else before we could figure out when we can, you know, when we can say those things in times of need to help save someone.
הרב ליפשיץ is not talking about that. He's talking about in general all those other times that we might choose to say something bad about another Jew. It happens sometimes, no? Right? Other than like to avoid a bad שידוך or a bad business deal? There are other occasions where we speak ill about אידן or we think ill about אידן? הרב ליפשיץ says, yeah, don't. Don't.
What's that? So you can't think it either? You shouldn't. Yeah. This kind of reminds me of of what we learned about jealousy, about how you, it's in a way saying השם you messed up. You made a mistake, yeah.
You made a mistake. So what you can do, I mean you can try, is to turn it into a conversation, into a dialogue, into התבודדות of, you know, if you're feeling that way, it doesn't mean your feeling's wrong or or if someone's done something, it doesn't mean it's wrong, but it can just be channeled into a conversation of like, this hurts, or I want that, or I think that one of the main reasons רב נחמן said to do התבודדות is because when you put those things in the conversation with השם, not in terms of I want to talk ill about the person, but I want to discuss this with you, the need to say bad things about other people goes away. Because it's it's already out of you, but it's out of you in a in a productive way, almost in a healthy way and in a non-destructive manner. And you're saying he did something wrong.
If you're jealous, you're saying, well you did something wrong. Why didn't you give me that? In that case, yeah. In that case. Or if someone actually did something wrong to you, and you feel bad about it, and you're thinking bad about it because they hurt you.
I mean, I think there's But that's I think on a different end of the spectrum where You bring that to, you bring that before השם as well. Right. Bring that before השם as well. Also, I don't know that you'd walk around saying bad things to about that person just because you want to say bad things about them.
I mean... I don't walk around talking bad about people. I'm just saying like, really like I'm just I don't know. I don't know how we got on this.
But don't we all look differently? I mean, here, we look differently at people who hurt us or do bad things when we love them. So when we've come from a certain place of embracing a person, so it's not that we don't see that people are doing bad things or making bad choices or doing evil, it's where we come from. נכון. It's where we come from in terms of embracing them or loving them, that's the difference.
And that's how it's a huge difference though. Right. That that's basically the that's the game changer. נכון.
You have to be, what he's going to say over here, this is always helps to always read three more words. This happens all the time. כמו שכתוב גבי מרדכי היהודי. How do we learn what Rebbe Levi Yitzchak just said? Like what it says about מרדכי היהודי.
What does it say about מרדכי היהודי? דורש טוב לעמו. What does it mean דורש טוב לעמו? Finding the good in them. דורש means seeking. Everyone thinks מרדכי היהודי, he was just able to say good things about יידן.
No. מרדכי היהודי looked at the same יידן that a few weeks ago were sitting and eating by the סעודה of אחשוורוש. And at the end of the מגילה it says דורש טוב לעמו. You know why? He's a יהודי.
What does a יהודי do? He's דורש. He's seeking. He knows it's there. He knows the good is there, even though he can say a lot of bad things about them.
But he knows that if השם gave him a mouth and he gave him eyes and he gave him a heart, it was it was given to him to be used to seek out the good that is in every single ייד. That's the point of this teaching. מרדכי כמנין רב חסד. Now, I didn't do the גימטריא here, but I think it means that מרדכי is the same גימטריא as the words רב חסד, a lot, an abundance of kindness.
דהיינו שהקדוש ברוך הוא נותן רב חסד לישראל. God gives us an abundance of kindness, of an attribute that we could, we're going to see what that means in a second. So he goes to הלכה that we have. והנה, הנוטל, Rebbe Levi Yitzchak says like this, הנוטל ידיו צריך לברך על נטילת ידים.
We know that when you wash your hands, it's interesting. What what's the ברכה? In English, what does the ברכה mean? Does anyone know? ברוך אתה השם אלוקינו מלך העולם אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו על נטילת ידים. What does נטילת ידים mean? Does it mean washing your hands? No. What does, we just did it with לולב.
על נטילת לולב. What does it mean? To lift. Really? Is that what, so why don't we just go to the side and lift up our hands? Did you ever think about this? You have to lift your hands as the water. Forget about the water.
I'm saying the ברכה has nothing to do with water. ברוך אתה השם אלוקינו מלך העולם אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו על נטילת ידים. What does נטילת ידים? Where where is there להשקות ידים in that ברכה? Maybe there's another נוסח. And it's called, it's even called a נטלה.
It's very interesting, no? Did you wash your hands? Did you say על נטילת ידים? You say to your kids all the time, right? What what's going on over there? He's going to point out something that's going to once again make us feel like idiots in the best way. Look at this. כתב הבית יוסף, דהיינו להגביה ידיו. נטילה הוא לשון הגבהה, like we said.
ליטול means to lift. That's what you're supposed to do. Obviously, we do this because it's an act of purification of the hands when you wash your hands preparing for food. זכר to the way we had to do it in the מקדש, right? והכלל הוא כך: האדם נחלק לשלושה חלקים.
Man is divided into three basic parts. הראש עם האיברים של הראש, the head with the limbs of the head and the faculties of the head, והידים עם הגוף, and my arms with this part of the body, והרגלַיִם, and the third part is the legs. So again, one, two, three. It's basic.
והנה, האיברי הראש, what are the limbs of the head? דהיינו עינים והאוזנים, eyes and ears, לא נבראו רק להביט אל השם ולשמוע דברי מוסר ודברי תורה. The reason, Rebbe Levi Yitzchak says, that you were given eyes and ears, they were created in order to be used to look at השם and to listen with your ears to the words of תורה. That's what they were created for. What's a beautiful thing right now is that right now we are doing what our head was created for.
That's why חסידים say if you stop and realize the holiness of the moment that you're in, you would be dancing with joy that right now you're doing, you're using the faculties that you were given for their purpose. That's a great שמחה. It's a tremendous שמחה. Why don't we expound on that? That's a great thing.
That's huge. How often can you say, I am right now doing that for which... for which I was created for. When you're learning תורה, you're doing it.
That's why we say with תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם. So he says, again, eyes and ears over here, we're given so that with your eyes you look to השם and with your ears you listen to דברי תורה. והפה, and the mouth, לא נברא רק לדבר דברי תורה וללמד זכות על ישראל. The mouth was used to just speak words of תורה and to be מלמד זכות על עם ישראל.
And we're learning these words from someone who utilized this to the highest.Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev never, ever spoke לשון הרע, said anything bad about another Jew. He was only protecting ones, and Jenny. Reb Levi Yitzchak would look at a ייד that was doing something wrong, but he would be דורש, he would seek inside to see there must be something else going on in here and then start speaking good about a ייד. Many stories like that.
Like him seeing a guy with a טלית and תפילין while he's he's harnessing his horses. He once saw this by a stable. So another person would walk by and say, חוצפה. While he has a טלית and תפילין on, this is what he's doing? Reb Levi Yitzchak looked at him, looked up at שמים, looked, look at this, רבונו של עולם.
Even when they're busy with such mundane things like taking care of his horses, they're still thinking about you.That's your בחירה חפשית. That's your free will. I was also thinking that, we were talking about מצה, they say you have to make yourself small. That's the symbolism with מצה.
נכון. If you make yourself small, you're able to always see and say. Which is exactly what we heard in the beginning about Reb Levi Yitzchak, how he felt about himself. נכון.
נכון.Now, he says, וזהו אברי הראש. Five lines from the bottom. This is when it comes to the limbs of the faculties of the head. והידיים, what are hands? הם מרמזים על אהבה.
דהיינו שמגביה מגביה אהבה למעלה. He's saying, when it comes to hands, hands allude to love. Does anyone know why? It's very kabbalistic what he's saying. But why are ידיים, why why are your ידיים, why why are hands kind of alluding to love? Does anyone want to give a guess? The highest you can reach.
Goes above your head. The higher בדיוק. Remember, ידיים. That's why whoever was in שול on ראש השנה יום כיפור, you know what I'm talking about? Yeah.
I had a guide all of דאווענען this year. הידיים ידי ברנר. We have a guy in שול, sits right in the front. He puts his hand, he goes like this quite often when it's really high, but like in the beginning it was like cute and I thought it was really funny.
Then all of us, you know, all of us thought it was like funny. Cuz it's like, משה רבינו, you know, when he was lifting his hands during the war with עמלק, we were winning, but then like when his hands went down, we were losing. We all felt though during דאווענען more and more, when Brenner goes like this, we're winning. We all.
And now we all started going like this, even last night we were dancing, everyone started putting their hands up like this. There’s also a teaching about that. רב שלמה has a very deep teaching about this. נכון.
And it's a מצוה of of, uh, it has to do with the מצוה of הקהל. It's a very deep teaching, נכון. But basically when you're taking, when you're going like this and you're lifting up, saying השם, this it's an expression of love. He's saying the hands were meant to take all what's in this world and lift it up to הקדוש ברוך הוא.
You can't lift things up with your head. You can't lift things up with your legs either. Your legs don't go that high. But your hands go higher than any other place.
והרַגְלַיִם, he says, הם מרומזים על האמונה. Legs have to do with faith. כי שקר אין לו רגליים. You ever hear that that that term before? How do you say that in English? Does it work in English? A lie has no legs.
A lie has no legs. It has nothing to stand on. But it has nothing to לשען. We're standing, we without אמונה, we don't stand on anything, right? So what did he say over here? This is how I use all the faculties for I use them.
My hands are love, and my legs are אמונה. This is the body of a of a ייד in this world.לפיכך, כשאדם יושב לאכול, when a person sits down to eat, צריך להגביה הניצוצות. You must raise the sparks before you even start eating. You must show השם, this is about, this is gonna be about you.
ברוך אתה השם אלוקינו מלך העולם, אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו על נטילת ידים. And while I'm doing that, I'm using my mouth to praise you for giving me what you're what what what you gave me. דהיינו, sorry, כדי שלא יהיה האכילה רק. להנאת גופו.
So that I don't use the food for just for the enjoyment of my body. לכך כתב הבית יוסף, therefore the בית יוסף wrote, רבי יוסף קארו wrote, כשנוטל ידיו צריך להגביה ידיו. That's why he wrote that when you נוטל ידיים, the way we use it, the way we understand it is washing your hands, really the word נטילה was used there and not just להשקות or, I don't know what other word you'd use, לשטוף ידיים. Can you imagine that? על שטיפת ידיים, על נטילת ידיים.
We remember before every meal, why are we given this food? Ah, we were given this food so because we were given hands. Why are we given hands? We're remembered why we're given what we're given. Each part of our body was given to us for specific reasons. So רבי לוי יצחק מברדיצ'ב goes back to the beginning of this תורה.
He says, go back. Why were you given a mouth? Simple. If I stop and I meditate on the concept of why was I given a mouth, and it becomes clear to me that it was not given to me to be used to slander other יידן, I use my mouth for what it was made for. And my days become filled with so much meaning, such a sense of, I'm aligned.
I'm in the right path. I'm not a צדיק, I'm just I'm using all that השם gave me for the right purposes. I'm using my eyes to look towards you. I'm using my eyes to look towards you when I look at other people and I try to see השם in them.
I use my ears to hear good things, and when I start hearing bad things, I turn my ears away from that. I use my mouth to use it to speak good things about the same people that you're saying good things about all the time. I use this part of the body, my hands, to lift up all that my hands are busy with in this world, to lift them up to you and to show I want to be I want it to be about you, and it all stands on what? My אמונה. That I believe this is the way to live in this world, that I believe this is why you gave me what you gave me.Such a beautiful teaching of רבי לוי יצחק מברדיצ'ב.
Anyway, in the זכות of the צדיק'ס יארצייט which is today, these teachings, these very powerful teachings, both about what does השם think about us. And remember, it's not just what השם thinks about us, it's really what you think about השם too. In your heart of hearts, you love him. You love you love הקדוש ברוך הוא.
Gets clouded a lot. Remember what you said in the תורה too. So, not just that ענין in the first תורה about we call it פסח and השם calls it חג המצות, like two lovers fighting over who to attribute the greatest the greatness of the relationship to. That's how it began.
But this teaching too, if we could remember like right now the שמחה that we have right now, these moments, כ' בתשרי, Thursday morning. What a שמחה, that for a few minutes we used what השם gave us for exactly the right reasons. And then take that, extend it a little bit longer into the day. Or, like we always say, have just more moments of that throughout the day until you're able to connect the dots throughout the whole day, and then have ממש days that are absolutely filled with like, you know, the מן שמו באהבה.
Full days of of meaning. Full days of אמת. Full days of of growth. And I think בעזרת השם we're on the right track.שכויח.
We'll continue Sunday morning with בלבבי.