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Rav Shlomo Katz brings Lag Ba'Omer to life with a soulful compilation of Torah teachings on Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (Rashbi). Through niggunim and Chassidic wisdom, he explores Rashbi’s divine light, the joy of Torah revelation, and Am Yisrael’s unity. This series offers a transformative journey, celebrating Lag Ba'Omer’s bonfires and the eternal flame of Rashbi’s legacy.
אורך ימים אשביעהו ואראהו בישועתי. אורך ימים אשביעהו ואראהו בישועתי.יישר כח for the חבר'ה that waited for us. And it's a humbling, humbling, uh, humbling feeling being here. This, uh, this מקום קדוש is beyond, we don't even, I shouldn't say you, we have no idea beyond our wildest dreams what this thing, what what what it's what it really like to be here.
It's out of this, it's out of this world. I want to dedicate the שיעור for the רפואה שלימה of ניצה רעבע בת פייגא העניא. And, um, to to to connect, for us to connect to where we are right now, I thought the best thing we could do is to do חזרה on a piece we once learned by רבי נחמן in the הקדמה of ליקוטי מוהר"ן. So if everyone can open up to the הקדמה in ליקוטי מוהר"ן.
That would be the best.One second.ברוך השם. He brought my ספר. His name is also for שמאי ישראל which is pretty cool. That's a a שמע ישראל? Yeah.
He lives right here. All right, do you see where it says לכו חזו מפעלות ה'? יגלוש נפלא מסוד, do you see that? Whoever has the ליקוטי מוהר"ן, open up, not on the pages I gave you, on the ספר ליקוטי מוהר"ן. Before, before there's even, right before תורה א'. Do you see that? It starts with לכו, אה? It's, I guess it's before the הקדמה, it starts with לכו חזו מפעלות ה'.
It might be different on on each of them. Right after the הקדמה. Right after the הקדמה. Okay, how many, there aren't a lot of ליקוטי מוהר"ן'ס here, are there? You're here.
We took off all the books and put them in the space.Okay. What a privilege it is to learn these words here. This comes in before ליקוטי מוהר"ן starts. And here in מירון to learn these words is very, very special.
There's many different connections here and to start to talk about the נשמה of רבי נחמן and רבי שמעון בר יוחאי, Breslovers before they could come to when when there was, they did not have the opportunity to come to אומן, where would they go? This was, this was the, this is where ראש השנה was. It was right here and there's many קישור נשמה, connections of the soul between רבי נחמן and the, and רבי שמעון בר יוחאי. If I'm speaking a little bit low here it's because you you have to understand, it's very, I feel very, very bizarre right now. I feel very, very weird, uh, giving a שיעור by, next to רבי שמעון בר יוחאי.
Like, I feel like, I really just want to, like, do קריעה and start beating my chest and doing סליחות right now. It's very, like, if it's not coming out as clear as it usually is, just understand to be in this presence over here in this מקום קדוש is a very, uh, humbling experience. So this, this should be right now about the רבונו של עולם and nothing else. It should always be about that.
It should be about connecting, finding a נקודה to connect to, what, what is the נקודה of רבי שמעון בר יוחאי?So if you see over here, לכו חזו מפעלות ה' יגלוש נפלא מסוד גדולת התנא אלקי רבי שמעון בר יוחאי. This teaching that we're about to teach, learn right now, a tiny little teaching from רבי נחמן was given, it was, חיים קרעמער taught us is that this was given in אייר, the year of, that רבי נחמן passed away. So it comes out to May 8th, 1810. A few days before that, what happened? רבי נחמן's house burns down in Breslov, and he starts making the pilgrimage to start trans, moving to אומן.
All of us that were just, we've been in both places, we have it in very much clear in our minds right now. And רבי נחמן senses that his time of passing is near. How old is רבי נחמן over here? He's 37 or 38? He's, he had just turned 38. His birthday is ראש חודש ניסן, this is in אייר.
It's 38. Correct. Just wanted to know if he was 37 or 38. So he was 38 because his birthday was ראש חודש ניסן, and this is in the month of אייר.So רבי נחמן says like this.
This is how he chooses to start. All the world of Breslov knows, this is how רבי נחמן starts everything. All the תורות of Breslov, Breslov, what's the, what's the origins of it? רבי שמעון בר יוחאי הבטיח. The תנא אלקי, רבי שמעון promised שלא תשכח תורה מישראל על ידו.
כמו דאמר בדיבור רבי סימון זכרונו לברכה. This is a whole, there's the whole story in the גמרא in שבת where חז"ל, when החכמים after the חורבן came together, שנכנסו רבותינו לכרם ביבנה, when when, this is not referring to the ישיבה כרם ביבנה, but the area of the vineyard in יבנה where they gathered together. אמרו, עתידה תורה שתשכח מישראל. חז"ל said, the rest of the rabbis said, Torah won't last.
We're not going to remember it, it's not going to last. It won't last in עם ישראל. Torah won't last in עם ישראל. ואמר רבי שמעון בר יוחאי שלא תשכח.
רבי שמעון says, not true. Torah is eternal. The Torah will never be forgotten. Now just to put things into perspective, who's saying that the Torah will be forgotten? All the other rabbis, חכמים.
It's not, it's not, they're not trying to be pessimistic. They're just looking at the world, they're looking at a world without the holy temple and they're saying, how, if this lasts for too long, there's no way that it that there can be what's called נצחיות, eternity, continuity. So חז"ל's saying it's gonna be forgotten. רבי שמעון says, not at all.
שנאמר, because he quotes the פסוק, כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו. רבי שמעון who said is from דברים, it will not be forgotten from its, its children, the Torah will not be forgotten. לא תשכח מפי זרעו. כמוה בזוהר, and like the זוהר, it's written in the זוהר, and this is a very famous statement regarding anyone that's learning זוהר.
בהאי חיבורא דהוא זוהר יפקון ביה מן גלותא. With this composition, which is the זוהר, they will come out of exile. Not only will the Torah not be forgotten, but with the, with what רבי שמעון compiled, the זוהר הקדוש, עם ישראל will also come out of גלות. There's a lot of different interpretations as to what that means.
The main one today is obviously that the more learning of זוהר that is taking place in the world and the more that we are closer to the גאולה. Back in the day no one ever opened up a ספר זוהר. Now I'm not saying that that means that everyone should now go and just start buying זוהר's and open them up. In fact, when one of the בעלי קבלה came to the ליובאוויטשער רבי and asked the ליובאוויטשער רבי to promote the learning of זוהר, which is something that they don't do in חב"ד, but he explained that the pieces of זוהר that we need to learn were all brought down through the אלתר רבי, the תניא quotes the זוהר all over the place.
Whenever you open up an אישביצער, we've been talking a lot about the אישביצער. You open up the אישביצער, he's quoting כדאיתא בזוהר הקדוש. Like it says in the זוהר הקדוש. So חסידות learned from that that we take parts from the זוהר that the צדיקים עליונים chose to derive their lessons on to it and by that, we're יוצא מן לימוד הזוהר.
There are other schools of thought that say that's not, that's not where we're holding. You need to פשוט take זוהר and start reading it. That's not what, we're not here to decide what the שיטה is. We're here to learn what רבי שמעון בר יוחאי said.ואתה בא וראה והבן.
So רבי נחמן says after we saw that רבי שמעון promised the Torah will not be forgotten, let's come and try to understand something. נפלאות נסתרות של תורתינו הקדושה. How deep and how wondrous, how hidden is our holy Torah. כי על כן, really what happened, סמך רבי שמעון בן יוחאי עצמו על זה הפסוק.
רבי שמעון בר יוחאי, he based himself on this פסוק. How? כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו that will not, the Torah will not be forgotten from its offspring. כי באמת בזה הפסוק בעצמו, because really in this פסוק itself, מרומז ונסתר סוד הזה. In this very first, this mystery is hinted at and, and is very much concealed within it at the same time.
How? שעל ידי זרעו של יוחאי, שהוא רבי שמעון בן יוחאי, through the offspring of שמעון בר יוחאי, על ידו, through him, לא תשכח התורה מישראל. Torah will not be forgotten from עם ישראל. And how does רבי נחמן prove this? כי סופי תיבות של זה הפסוק. The last letter of the פסוק that רבי שמעון quoted to prove that the Torah will never be forgotten, סופי תיבות, we usually go by ראשי תיבות, right? But here he's going by סופי תיבות.
The last letter of each of those words that form the פסוק that the Torah won't be forgotten, כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו, הם אותיות יוחאי. You hear? The סופי תיבות of the פסוק כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו spell out the word יוחאי. So רבי נחמן says, רבי שמעון was hinting to himself. רבי שמעון was absolutely talking to himself, saying that through me, I'm taking it on me.
Basically, that that's really what he was saying. So I want to turn this off so no one bothers.רבי שמעון was saying it's on me. כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו, Torah will not be forgotten through the offspring. סופי תיבות יוחאי.
וזה שמרומז ומגלה הפסוק. This is what the פסוק is hinting to us, כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו. מפי זרעו דייקא. דייקא from the seed from the person who quoted this פסוק.
היינו מפי זרעו של זה בעצמו, שהוא מרומז ונסתר בזה הפסוק, שהוא התנא יוחאי. כי על ידי זרעו של יוחאי שמרומז בזה הפסוק בסופי תיבות כנ"ל, through the seed, through the offspring of יוחאי, who is hinted and alluded to through the סופי תיבות in this פסוק, שהוא רבי שמעון בן יוחאי, על ידו לא תשכח התורה. Through him, Torah will not be forgotten. Now we don't live in an era like, we can't, it's very hard for us to understand, especially as I'm looking at this wall and this wall is packed with ספרים and ספרים and ספרים and like the פיסצנה told us the other day, today there's ספרים everywhere and there's יודן learning everywhere.
But there were a few times in history, and this was a specific time after the חורבן on the ביתס, that people really, the צדיקים really didn't know are people going to continue learning תורה. Will, will, will there be a continuity? ממשי. Like many people during the Holocaust were looking at their family getting shipped, saying will there, will there be a זכר of my seed? Will there even be a memory of me? And it wasn't like a pessimistic, far-fetched wondering. It was something ממש למעשה, will there be something left of me? Like it's very important for us to kind of like go into that question for a second and think about that for one second.
If חס ושלום tables would turn on on some level, God forbid, you ask yourself that question, what it might feel like? To think that for one second there won't be a, I'm done, it ends by me, and it's, that's it. Especially when I know that the first מצוה in the תורה is to make sure that it doesn't end by you. Right? So this is what חז"ל, this is what חכמים, this is what looked at and be like, this, this is probably it. It's probably done.So רבי שמעון is the one who back then comes and says, I'm making a promise.
We're here forever and the Torah is here forever. This is רבי שמעון. It's on his shoulders. That's one of the reasons why דייקא on ל"ג בעומר, there's no greater Jewish gathering in the world than here on ל"ג בעומר, in the world.
Nothing comes remotely close to what happens here. Why? Here? The promise was made by the man that's buried by the צדיק who was buried here that there will always be continuity. The Torah will always exist. So רבי נחמן says that was סופי תיבות, meaning because we're looking at the end of time, that we'll be here forever.
So we look at the end of the פסוק. But now he goes to a ראשי תיבות. ודע שסוד רבי שמעון בעצמו, but רבי שמעון, the name שמעון, right? is מרומז בפסוק אחר. He brings another פסוק to show רבי שמעון, כי דע כי התנא הקדוש רבי שמעון הוא בחינס, what is he the aspect of? עיר וקדיש מן שמיא נחית.
Which means a holy angel came down and descended from heaven. That's from ספר דניאל. What's the ראשי תיבות of עיר וקדיש מן שמיא נחית? שמעון. So רבי נחמן shows how רבי שמעון's name and by יוחאי, that whole thing is completely connected to each other.
And that it's really talking about continuity. Now the weird thing is, and I don't want to spend too much time on that, not the weird thing, but the trippy thing is, is that when רבי נחמן finished teaching this תורה, he closed the ספר and he said, but now there's a נחל נובע מקור חכמה. But now, there's a, how do you say נחל נובע מקור חכמה? There is a, uh, you know the famous, it's a famous saying with נחל נובע מקור חכמה. What's the right word for it? It's an overflowing stream.
Source of wisdom. There's a source of wisdom that's overflowing from itself. A source of wisdom that's overflowing from itself. Now interestingly enough, שמעון בן יוחאי and נחמן בן שמחה is the same exact גמטריא, it's 501.
שמעון בן יוחאי and נחמן בן שמחה. The same their names are the same גמטריא. In Breslov they hold very strong that the שורש נשמה of רבי נחמן was רבי שמעון. It's where he came from, same line.
And we know that רבי שמעון's שורש נשמה is משה רבינו. We're speaking here about ממש a pillar, not just a pillar like a nice piece of עם ישראל. This is essentially upon the this person, the promise of continuity. And that's what I wanted to speak about for a brief.How does the power of continuity manifest itself? How am I, how do I become part of רבי שמעון's promise? Not just, I don't want to just rely on what he said, I want to, I want to make myself part of what רבי שמעון בר יוחאי said the Torah will always exist.
So I wanted to go and learn a little piece that we, that from רבי יעקב מאיר שכטר. The pieces you have, the, the the the תורה you have in front of you is from רבי יעקב מאיר שכטר, the צדיק that we got to see earlier this week. So if you see in the bottom of on the first page, דף נ"ט. And this is the sweetness.
If you could just imagine his face and now this and listen, remember his voice, now go back inside and learn it. This is רבי יעקב מאיר. רבי שמעון בר יוחאי הבטיח. What was his promise? שעם ישראל ישאר לנצח.
עם ישראל will be here forever. והתורה לא תשכח מישראל. And Torah will not be forgotten from עם ישראל. That was רבי שמעון's promise.
והסתמכו על הפסוק, because he relied on the פסוק, כי לא תשכח מפי זרעו. Now in Hebrew, what is the, what does the word מפי mean? From, but literally what does it mean? From the mouth. We've been talking a lot about what not to do with the mouth, which is to make noise, to make sound. We've been spending so much time on השקט, on silence.
Yesterday in the cave we were talking about similar concepts of בירור המחשבה, of clarifying the mind to figure out what is it that I even want to ask השם. What do I even, what do I want from myself? What do I want from the Torah? What what do I want? Those were all modes on more on silent mode. Here we're speaking about something else. רבי שמעון בר יוחאי promised that the Torah will never be forgotten מפי זרעו because of the mouths of his seed, of his father's offspring.So here we're going to be talking about the נקודה of כח הדיבור, obviously, of the power of speech, which as we know, can absolutely destroy, can absolutely bring a total, most חורבנות of the world began because of the power of speech, but how we're absolutely, you know, it says about about פה about the דיבור in קבלה it says מלכות פה.
Kingdom comes from the mouth. Who's someone that's a king? One who can govern over his mouth. That's why it's called תורה שבעל פה. The Torah, the oral Torah is given to someone who could become a master over his mouth.
תורה שבעל פה. Torah is given to those who know how to shut up, but who also know how to use their mouth when they're supposed to use it. תורה שבעל פה. That's tradition.
So רבי יעקב מאיר says like this. יש לומר שכאן מרומז כח הדיבור. Almost been here that רבי שמעון chose this פסוק to show us that there's an there's something alluding here to the power of speech. שאף כשחס ושלום נהדר כח הלב והמוח, that even when God forbid the power, the energy of the heart and the mind are נהדרים, they go MIA, something is still left.
ישאר הדיבור מפי זרעו. What's left, speech is still left. What does this mean? Sometimes a person says, I can't feel, I can't, I can't connect, I can't feel, my heart, עבודת הלב, it's not happening. And then someone can say, listen, my מוח, I can't think, I can't learn right now.
That's fine. What can you always do? Open up to הילים. דאווען. Talk.
That you can never say, oh I can't open up my mouth. It's not, no, no, no. השם. השם gave us mouths, השם gave us the power of דיבור, of expression, of of letting things out.
That רבי יעקב מאיר says is what רבי שמעון really meant. There will come a time when Jews won't be able to think anymore. There'll come a time when Jews won't be able to feel anymore. But there'll never, ever be a time where a Jew can't שפכי כמים לבך נכח פני ה'.
There'll never be a time where a Jew can say, now I can't talk. Now I can't use my mouth.We think I should only say what I understand, but רבי יעקב מאיר and all the צדיקים say, even when you can't understand and even when you can't feel, there is a tremendous, tremendous מעלה to saying תהילים, to sing, learning words of זוהר, even if you can't necessarily understand what you're saying. That's the כח of דיבור. And we know that that's what differentiates us from animals.
As it says, that when ויברא אלקים את האדם בצלמו. The אונקלוס there helps us out. It says when man was created in God's image, so the תרגום says there, what does mean, what is the רוח? What is the בצלמו? ויהי האדם לנפש חיה. That man was a, was created as a life spirit.
So the אונקלוס says that, the תרגום says that means לרוח ממללא, to a spirit that speaks. That's what differentiates us from the animals. That we can express verbally. It's, that's our gift, that we can talk.Now he says like this.
בלקוטי מוהר"ן תורה י"ט, in the 19th teaching in רבי נחמן, מאריך רבינו הקדוש בביאור המעלה והכח שיש בדיבור. רבי נחמן speaks there extensively, very much, in great length as to the the depth of, how exalted the power of speech is. אכן אצל אנשי שלומינו, and רבי יעקב מאיר says, דייקא by our חבר'ה, by our חסידים, by Breslovers, תפסה תורה זו מקום חשוב. This, by Breslov, this 19th teaching in ליקוטי מוהר"ן is a very powerful piece in Breslov, the power of what, how to use your speech.
שהיא יסוד לעבודת הדיבור הקדוש, it's a foundation for the עבודה of holy speech. What does it mean? להרבות בדיבורי תורה ותפילה. Think of today, your quota. Okay? Everyone has a quota, right? My mom calls me sometimes and she sees like after a few minutes like my head's already in another place or it's, the kids are crying, she's like, okay I can sense that I used up my quota of the week or quota of the day, right? I thought it was guilt, like trying to guilt me, but really it's it's just what she felt from the way I was responding or non-responding to her, right? So רבי נחמן says, רבי יעקב מאיר is saying stop for a second.
It's what time is it, 12:30? One? What time is it right now? 1:35. We've been up for 6, 7 hours, משהו כזה. Okay, so now think for a second. How much of the power of speech that you came out of you today was used for holiness?Now, I hope that you, בעזרת השם, by now we understand that sitting on a bus and pouring out your heart to your friend is included into that.
Absolutely. That's part of it as well. So he says over here, how do we use our mouth? And again, how do we continue רבי שמעון בר יוחאי's promise? The Torah won't be forgotten מפי זרעו. להרבות בדיבורי תורה ותפילה.
How much Torah and תפילה are you saying? להרבות בדיבורי אמונה, בדיבורי קדושה. Speak a lot of words of אמונה. Just talking אמונה. Talking אמונה.
I feel like it's a term that Jerry, you really infused within us, just talk in אמונה, talk about it. Don't just say I believe, like talk about אמונה, talk about faith. Speak about it. Let that be the consciousness in the air.לומר ולשנן תורה ותפילה.
To learn and to repeat learning Torah and תפילה. ודיבורים, now this is very important. This should be a big זכות for us. ודיבורים של קדושה, speaking words of holiness, מביאים לידי שמירת הברית.
This, if we started going into this one now, we'll be here till שבועות. חזי? For the rest of us. Making sure that I put a דגש, an emphasis on guarding my mouth not just from לשון הרע. That's the point here.
It's not just saying, make sure, make sure you don't speak לשון הרע. Saying over here, דיבורים של קדושה, words of holiness that your conversations, what's coming out of your mouth are is connected to Torah and תפילה, it's a כלל there that has a direct effect on your guarding of the covenant. צריך הרבה הרבה הקדמות לזה. הרבה, אי אפשר, זה לא הזמן.
נגיע, חזי, אתה איתנו עוד הרבה הרבה שנים. Don't worry, it doesn't end this week. חזי is gonna bring us to אומן next year, what are you talking about? חזי, אתה יודע מה? I could, let's do הקדמה בקיצור חזי? אין בעיה. What does this have to do with each other? Holy speech, making sure you're speaking words of קדושה, and your sexual energy being in the right place.
What do you think the קשר is between them two? They both bring life, or have the potential to bring life. Or? Or? What else? One thing. What else? What else could it be, the קשר between making sure your דיבורים were דיבורי קדושה and שמירת הברית? You're in a state of mind where you're being pure. You're you're making, you're elevating yourself.
It's like the, we talked about in השקט, you create a vacuum. נכון. You're pulling yourself up to such a level that you're so distant from the. נכון.
אדם נמשך אחר הבל פיו. Man is naturally pulled by what what comes out of his mouth. We think the otherwise, that what comes out of my mouth is basically just what I'm thinking here. So I have to make sure my thoughts are pure, so make sure that my words are coming out that are pure.
Sometimes it doesn't work like that. The more that my speech is pure, and that's what I'm projecting out into the world, putting out into the world, that's what I follow. How you dress, how you act, where, specifically the דיבור though is what goes, is what's משפיע most over here. When I can become a king over my פה, I can become my king over other areas of my body as well.
But it's not a טיפה מן הים, צריך הרבה הרבה הקדמות לזה. ובפרט תורה י"ט בלקוטי מוהר"ן.ושמירת הברית, and when my שמירת הברית is in the right place, מביאה להרגשת חיות בדיבור. Then I feel like there's vitality and livelihood and life force in my speech. So the works both ways.
When I speak, when my, when my לשון is coming out after when that place of שמירת הברית is in check, then there is actual תוקף to my words. My words are heard. Not just to the world, to you. You ever realize, you ever go to שול and דאווען and really דאווען, say the words very clearly, or go to a forest and do התבודדות and then you don't even remember what you said or you don't feel that you heard what you said? Why? Cuz there's חיות that's lacking in the דיבור.
There's vitality, there's livelihood, life force that's lacking in your speech. חיות בדיבור means I heard myself.I heard myself. I feel like צדיקים, because they work on themselves so much and their דיבור so much that with them saying few words, they can create so much in the world. Like, you know, sometimes you you hear these messages that they give that changes people's lives tremendously.
Because there's such חיות in their דיבור, in everywhere. They can start something, they can say something and it's start a movement and this, because their כח of their words is so strong. so powerful. You know, we say, we say that's how God looks.
Someone created the world. and rambling and rambling and try to get their point across and whatever. We say, we say ברוך שאמר, ברוך אומר ועושה. אומר ועושה.
come came out into being. Yeah. That's the כח of the צדיק. That's the חיות in his words.כי קדושה ודיבור תלויים זה בזה.
Because holiness and speech are dependent on each other. כמו שרבנו מעריך בתורה הזאת, like Rabbi Nachman speaks of at great length in that teaching. Look at on the top of the next page. וכמה רבה רבנו, how much did Rabbi Nachman tell us, לזרז ולחזק להרבות בדיבורי קדושה.
How much did Rabbi Nachman emphasize to speak, to use your mouth, speak words of holiness. עד שאמר פעם, until one time he said, שצריכים כל כך להרבות בדיבורים לפני השם יתברך. Rabbi Nachman once said, you must, you must speak so much words before השם יתברך, to constantly be in a mode of talking to God, עד שלא תישאר אצלו אפילו טיפת דם אחת שלא עבד בה את השם יתברך. until there's not even one drop of blood through which that wasn't used for עבודת השם.What do you think he means there? you've cleansed yourself, you've purified yourself entirely.
How? Through the דיבור? Through the speech. That you're speaking, you become so much one with your word and you put yourself into the דיבור. You put yourself into the words that you're speaking, that all of you, and you know that the blood is your is is our life force, right? So the blood itself, the all of you feels that it was in the דיבור. It's the classic play on the teaching of the בעל שם טוב about תיבות, about בוא אל התיבה.
When Hashem told Noah, go into the תיבה, it's a לימוד on all of us to go. תיבה doesn't just mean ark, it means word. The women were learning this this year in the Tanya שיעור by by שושנה. בוא אל התיבה.
Go into the word. How many of our תפילות do we not go into? We say them, but we never go inside them.I remember it was the first תורה I ever told Joel Atkin when I went to his סוכה the first year we were living there. He thought I was, I think he thought I was out of my mind. I said, wow, the סוכה is like the תיבה, we go into the ark.
You feel like you're inside a word. And and ברוך השם, he's learning with Rav Nosson Maimon in his pace, so you know. What what what do we know? You have to go so much into the דאווענען that to that every ounce of your blood has been used or has experienced עבודת השם. When does a person feel the most? You think it's when it's something that's not spoken, just inside.
The words that you say have the power that you can go in them and all the all of you is in there. And just think about it. How powerful was your שחרית this morning? It's all dependent on how much you were inside the words that you were saying. Ah, the more that I'm inside the words that I'm saying, the more the שמירת הברית has more of a chance to be intact.
Why? Because that's where I'm being led to, to the words that I said. That's what's driving me close. That's where I'm being שלעפט to. Not the other way.וזו הייתה פעולתו הקדושה של הרשב"י.
This is what Rebbe Shimon Bar Yochai tried to do. Not tried to do. This is what he did. חלילה, I shouldn't say tried.
שכוח הדיבור ישאר בישראל לנצח. What is Rav Yaakov Meir saying over here? What was Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai trying to do when he told חז"ל, he told the חכמים, Torah will never be forgotten? He took on himself a promise that a יודל should never, that a יודל should always, always be able to talk to Hashem and to put himself into the דיבור. And that's the way Torah will never be forgotten. Power of his words.
Huh? The power of the רשב"י's words. Exactly. We witnessed the כח of רבי שמעון בר יוחאי today. The fact that you and I are learning Torah today is because of him.
Of course, Hashem gave משה רבינו, but at a certain by רבי שמעון בר יוחאי's time, it could have gone, done, nothing. How does רבי שמעון בר יוחאי keep it for us today? It's because he took that upon himself, שלא תישכח מפי זרעו. That we have the כח within us. We believe that our words mean something, and we believe that we can go into our words.And that, I think, is a beautiful thing to take upon ourselves as a group, but definitely as individuals.
That we're here, we came this week to מתחזק ourselves, to connect ourselves to the תורה of ארץ ישראל. And we all know that the beginning of the downfall was when people came and looked at ארץ ישראל and started speaking ill of the land. The דיבור, the speech about what their eyes saw, is what led to תשעה באב and to the חורבן. And we chose to come to this land this week and not just learn about the land, to see the land, to look at the land, to dance and learn in חברון, to go to יהודה, to go where we went to yesterday, to be here today, to go to רמת בית שמש, to go to the צדיקים in ירושלים.
We chose to come here to start working again on connecting to the land through looking at it and using the words that we using what we see to hopefully be מרבה דיבורים בתפילה. So it should be a big עת רצון over here, דווקא where we're here, where I think it's okay, and I hope you don't you don't chastise me afterwards for saying this, but that we take upon ourselves something here. This is a good place to take upon yourself something. And when you're with a ציבור, when you're with a lot of people, when you take upon yourself something, you have כח דציבורא always אדיפא.
The power when you're with together, with a מנין of חברה together. What do we take upon ourselves? So if I just say לשון, okay, I'm not going to talk לשון הרע anymore, that's a גוואלד. That's a beautiful thing. But I'll tell you the truth, I don't know everyone here, and even those that I know, I know that I barely know.
I don't think that I I don't talk, I don't hear you guys talking a lot of לשון הרע.So what what is Rebbe Shimon bringing us over here to talk to make sure when we say a תיקון with our mouth, how much of the quota of my day of speech, how much דיבורי תורה ותפילה was in it? Even if I don't understand. Even if I can't really feel it and even if I can't connect. You think those Bubbes that are saying תהילים all day long, they understand every word they said? You guys ever hear of Yossi Piamenta? עליו השלום. Yossi, did anyone know Yossi here? Played my wedding.
You played your wedding. You know Yossi? Tuvia, you know, you ever hear of Piamenta? Yeah. Passed away two years ago. Yossi, I love, I loved Yossi very much.
The first album he he was in L.A. for the day. And my buddy Stuie got Yossi to come and play on our first album, and I was sitting with him in the studio, and I mean, I was, as much as I was mesmerized by his fingers and his style, he was an open picker, right? So he's playing, you can't even see how he's doing what he's doing. and you can't hear anything because the amps are.
He was the loudest musician I ever heard. I was on stage with him. Sometimes I felt that someone's pushing me in my back to move forward. It wasn't.
It was coming from the amp behind Yossi's amps were were nuts. Sometimes you can't even tell what he's playing because he's playing fast. He would, yeah, this, you know, the whole, the whole thing. Yossi Piamenta finished all of ספר תהילים every single day.
I saw with my own, I couldn't believe it. We're sitting in the studio. He's playing, he had a cigarette in right here, playing, he'd put it on the front of the guitar when he had to really use his hand, right? Take it out. Another take.
Okay, סבבה, עוד take. Take another take. Go right back to it. He said תהילים, I I was like, wow, what what is he mumbling? He has some kind of like Tourette's issue or something like what's going on with this guy? He finished ספר תהילים every single day.
Every single day. The power, כח הדיבור. What are you using your mouth for? But the way that we מקבל something, us חברה today, is we מקבל it בשמחה. Not, uh oh, what's going to be, what's it going to be like now? Right? Like most of you look like, oh my God, okay, so what am I conversation? Okay, I gotta be No, that's I won't it won't last, guys.
That nothing like that can last. We come here, we stand by the צדיק, we're saying, רבי שמעון, thank you for your promise. We're here to show you your promise is still חי וקיים. And we're going to make your promise even stronger and more firm that מפי, from the mouth, our mouths and the mouths of our children, we're going to listen to what the Rebbe, Rebbe Nachman says, and to be מרבה, take upon ourselves to speak a lot more דיבורים של קדושה ותורה ותפילה.
to make sure, I have much more שיחות נפש, שיחות חברים. Even if I'm a shy dude. Sorry, well, it's my nature. I don't I don't do those things.
That's your problem. Get over your nature. That's what we're here for in this world. Not to be as natural as possible.
That's a non-Jewish completion. A Yid's completion in this world is to go מעל הטבע שלו. It's not to reach his potential. That's a non-Jewish concept.
A Jewish a Jewish concept is to go מעל הטבע, to reach beyond his potential. So even if you're an introvert and inside it's not how you do it, take upon yourself right now, I'm going to find a חבר, Hashem that you sent me with this wonderful חברה, and say this dude is my guy for שיחות חברים. that I can pour out my heart and soul about how much I want to be close to Hashem and how dirty I feel, or how disgusting I feel, or how wrong I feel. And גוואלד is that holy.
גוואלד is that דיבורים של קדושה. That is strengthening our bond here to the תנא אלוקי, רבי שמעון בר יוחאי. And his זכות, the זכות of his son רבי אלעזר who's here, and all the תנאים and אמוראים that are surrounding us up here on these mountains, that what a זכות it is to be with someone like Shimon that feels like he's going to every grave here feels like your father or your uncle or your second cousin. That's a very, very neat thing.
It's very, that's very far out. We should have התקשרות to the צדיקים and believe that they believe in us. Rebbe Shimon believed in us to keep his promise alive. And we should witness the coming of משיח צדקנו במהרה בימינו אמן.
So we're going to daven in here. We'll daven right now, מנחה? And then afterwards we'll go we'll go inside over there. Okay.