Bamidbar | The Book of Mistakes

Why did Rav Shlomo Carlebach call Sefer Bamidbar “The Book of Mistakes”?

Join Rav Shlomo Katz as he reflects on the teachings of Even Shlomo, the Torah of Rav Shlomo Carlebach, revealing how Bamidbar is not just a book of wandering, but a book of becoming. From Moshe Rabbeinu’s failure to enter Eretz Yisrael to the downfall of the meraglim (spies), we learn that failure isn’t the end. It’s part of the path.

As Rav Shlomo Carlebach writes, “The higher the goal, the more you’re going to fall on the way.” Rav Shlomo Katz brings these words to life, especially as we prepare for Shavuot, reminding us that Torah was given in the desert because only those who know they’re lost can truly hold on to it.

In this shiur:

Why Bamidbar is the “Book of Mistakes”

The inner Torah of failure, growth, and humility

Why even Moshe Rabbeinu’s failures matter—and how they teach us to keep going

How to spiritually prepare for Matan Torah when you feel unworthy

This teaching is from Even Shlomo on Sefer Bamidbar, the collected Torah of Rav Shlomo Carlebach, with live commentary and reflection by Rav Shlomo Katz.

What is Even Shlomo - Rav Shlomo Carlebach zt"l on the Weekly Parsha?

Rav Shlomo Katz explores the teachings of Rav Shlomo Carlebach zt"l on the Parsha with the sefer Even Shlomo

ברוך השם, it's very, very special.We're learning, uh, the month of סיון. ברוך השם. The month of סיון, לעילוי נשמת בתיה פיגא בת ישראל. לוי בן יוסף, לעילוי נשמת פרידא סימא בת יצחק, and לעילוי נשמת פנחס בן מנחם, פנחס מנחם בן אברהם דוד.

It's, uh, Miriam Sossin's אבא whose יארצייט is this month, sponsored by the Sossins. The week, sponsored by Michael and Cindy Levy, in memory of רב אשר בנימין, דינה בת משה אהרן and גיטל בת עמנואל. And today is sponsored by Mindy Berad in honor of the fifth יארצייט of Mindy's אבא, מאיר יהושע בן אשר אנשיל הכהן. זכותם תגן עלינו בעזרת השם.If you have the ספר, you can open up, we're in אבן שלמה במדבר.

I love this teaching today. I love it. I love it. I love it because it's, it's so true.

It's so real. And only רב שלמה can give over this. You know, yesterday, I was, I should have done this. Yesterday, the איזביצער was here, the great-grandson, great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the איזביצער.

He's getting married in, like, next week, in two weeks. He came to bring a wedding invitation. And I always like, whenever he comes, I'm always like, I have like 20 questions I want to ask him about the different תורות that we see by רב שלמה in the מים שילוח. And I wanted to ask him, how do you, how do you guys learn it by, by you, by איזביץ, you know? But then I'm just so enamored by the fact that I'm looking at the face of someone that probably looks exactly like his עלטער זיידע, and I forget everything.

And we just fly. So, this is definitely one that I would have asked him. I would love to hear, how do you say this? How do you, how do you טייטש this? But basically, you all know, חברה, those of us that have been learning with us in the past, you know that במדבר, רב שלמה had a name for במדבר. And this is a very heavy name, but it's true, when you think about it.

He said, it's called the Book of Mistakes. במדבר is the Book of Mistakes. Remember we learned this? Remember we've mentioned, we've referenced this over the years. במדבר is known as the Book of Mistakes.

And we want to learn the פנימיות of mistakes. I don't know, I, I don't, I think maybe only one of you could relate to like, you know, the Book of Mistakes, right? Maybe two? No? Wrong, wrong crowd. Wrong crowd. Okay.

This is hypothetical, but it's for others that that have to deal with the with the world of like that they've been making certain mistakes. It's learning for the sake of learning. This is לשמה. This is not.

This is just לשמה. It's not really, uh, it's not really anything more than that.Okay. בראשית הוא ספר הבריאה. בראשית is the book of creation.

שמות הוא ספר הגאולה. שמות is the book of redemption. ויקרא הוא ספר עבודת השם. ויקרא is the book of of serving השם.

ובמדבר הוא ספר הכשלונות. As I was looking at this today, I wanted to call the guy that that worked with me on this with the translation and ask him, why didn't we say טעויות? Why did we say כשלונות? But in English, I'm telling you, he said, he used to say mistakes. The Book of Mistakes. רב שלמה says like this, כולנו טועים לפעמים.

All of us, we sometimes make mistakes. כל עוד לא הגעת למדרגה שהתורה נמצאת עמוק בתוכך ממש חלק מהדם שלך אתה מוכרח לטעות שוב ושוב. As long as you haven't reached the level that the תורה is so deep inside of you, literally part of your blood, you have to make mistake after mistake. It's just the way it is.

That's what's going to be. That's what's going to be. So there's no אידעלע that is going to raise his hand and said, I could tell you, I've been there, but now I'm not there. Right? No איד would get up and say, the תורה has become completely part of me, and it's ממש in my blood, but I could still relate and understand about the תורה of mistakes.

No. This is a journey for any person that's still alive. Because if you've mastered it, it gets very boring here very, very fast. Gets very boring very, very, very fast.So רב שלמה asks like this, מדוע באמת כל כך קשה להיות יהודי? Why is it so hard to be a איד? מפני שאתה מוכרח להכשל המון עד שהדברים נכנסים לתוכך.

Because you have to, you have to fail so many times and make so many many mistakes until things actually get inside of you. לא רק כדי להיות יהודי. It's not just like this in order to be a איד. אתה מוכרח לטעות המון כדי להפוך לסנדלר.

Like you want to become a, uh, shoemaker. Shoemaker, you got to make a million mistakes till you fix, till till you have the, till you mastered that art. ואתה צריך לטעות עוד יותר כדי להיות רופא. And you'll probably make even more mistakes in life if you're practicing, if you want to practice medicine.

Why? מפני ש, this is a very, very חזק line. מפני שככל שהיעד גבוה יותר, the higher the destination is, כך מוכרחים להכשל יותר בדרך אליו. The more mistakes you got to make on the way.Now, let's put context here. What's another word for ספר במדבר? The Book of Preparing to Enter ארץ ישראל.

ספר דברים is 35 days long. That's how long ספר דברים is, נכון? ספר דברים is 35 days long. It begins ראש חודש שבט and it ends ז' אדר. ספר במדבר, how long is ספר במדבר? 30 years? It's, it's like 39 years.

חוקת is 38 years. It's about 39 years. It's תכלס, it's 30, 39 years. Right? The the the ארבעים שנה מכות בדרך is is happening.

This is, this is, this is, this is ממש ספר במדבר. And it's because we're about to enter ארץ ישראל. And that's why he said, the greater the destination of the place you're heading to is, the more mistakes you're going to make on the way. I think we've mastered that here in ארץ ישראל.

You know, and the closer you are to משיח, is the same exact ענין, right? It's the same ענין.Now you'll see how he's not just סתם saying this. This is rooted deep, deep in in in the teachings. אפשר ללמוד בשתי דרכים. There are two ways of learning.

אפשר ללמוד שאחד ועוד אחד הם שניים. לחשוב ששלוש ועוד שלוש הם שש. אבל ישנה דרך עמוקה יותר ללמוד. There is the way of learning where someone explains to you algebra.

Someone explains algebra to you. You learn, you figure you you more or less have the times table. I have this with the... It's it's so beautiful to to see with my with my kids at every שלב, there's like, I have now three that are the the the the the first three are, you know, already gone through the the alge- the the whole times table and everything.

So you can, you can make mistakes on the way to there, but you learn because you remember that this plus this is that and this minus this is that. That's an ענין of learning too.But there's a deeper way of learning something. And I think you could all connect to this already, what he's saying over here. Like learning something.

Learning something is not just remembering this comes before this, that comes after this. There's something much deeper. לכל אחד מאתנו, each and every one of us, יש מערכת יחסים עם השם. We each have a relationship with the Master of the world.

כדי ללמוד כיצד להניח תפילין אנחנו צריכים שמישהו יראה לנו כמה פעמים ואז נדע. In order to learn how to put on תפילין, we need someone to teach us a few times and then we'll know. I always have a bitter memory of this. But the first day I, I learned to put on תפילין, so my father taught me in our house, and then we went on a טיול שנתי that day.

And I was so excited. טיול שנתי means like an overnight trip. I was here in ארץ ישראל. Uh, what was it? Seventh grade? Probably seventh grade.

So, you know, my father taught me, I was just so excited to have my תפילין. I was wearing, I remember my I had like a, uh, Magic and Kareem and the Lakers championship of '88 were on my t-shirt. And I learned, I have, I have this imagery of it, right? I learned תפילין. It was a Raiders shirt, I don't remember.

And I felt so in גן עדן, right? And I took my תפילין with me to this trip. And then the next morning, everyone is woken up for דאווענען, right? And, uh, I'm never, like, it wasn't my, I wasn't one of those kids that was first or third or eighth. I wasn't a kid that didn't go, but I just wasn't one of the ones that would get there right first. But that morning, I'm putting on my תפילין, right, I'm there before anybody, and I take it out, and I have zero recollection of how to put on תפילין של יד.

I remember בערך תפילין של ראש, but that, but I remembered you put on יד before ראש. I'm not going to put on ראש and then figure it out. So I'm waiting there, and I'm so embarrassed, and I'm looking at so many kids. The only thing is, I had so many ספרדי kids in my, in my class.

And so many Yemenites and Moroccans, and they're, you know, in the bottom, their their ש ד י is completely different. ממש. Over here it's completely different. There was also a לובאוויטש kid.

And then I saw him, the way he puts the תפילין של יד is a little bit different up here, how they how they do the ש up here. And I was so embarrassed afterwards that, but but finally one of my רבנים saw that that I that I forgot, but so I didn't learn well enough the first day. So I get home and I learn. That's a learning.

That's a mistake, you learn. בסדר.אנחנו צריכים שמישהו יראה לנו כמה פעמים ואז נדע. But then he says like this, אם מערכת היחסים שלי עם השם היא במדרגה של לעשות או לא לעשות משהו אין צורך בהרבה טעויות. He says, if my, listen to this.

This is so, this is so powerfully deep. If my relationship with God is only on the level of doing things or not doing things, actions, then there's no need for a lot of mistakes on the way because it's an action thing and you חאפ it and you figure it out and and ווייטער. אבל במערכת היחסים העמוקה ביני ובין השם, but the deep relationship between me and השם, מצריכה ממש חיים שלמים. I need a whole lifetime שיש בהם עליות ויש להם גם כשלונות וירידות.

That I have highs, I have lows, I have successes, I have failures, and it's ongoing, and it's waves, and it's always, always, always going up or down, up or down. העיקר that it's not static.כך מלמד האיזביצער. This is what the איזביצער says, על כל הענין של ספר במדבר. Now where does he say this? Look at the footnote.

The איזביצער says this in דברים. Because דברים, and and and and also the last, one of the first teachings in מסעי, which is the last פרשה in ספר במדבר. Because it's really, it's really encompassing all of the all all the the whole point of what's going on over here. Think about it.

Why do I need to know so many negative things about holy people throughout ספר במדבר? Because that's really what it is. I find out all these negative things, mistakes and failures by some very, very big נשמות. That's key, that's basically ספר במדבר.And now he's going to explain it deeper. אתה יכול להתנהג הכי טוב.

You could act the best, do everything right. And he would say this all the time. ובכל זאת לא להגיע אל הנקודה. And you're still missing the point.

אם איש מבקש מאישה שהוא אוהב להנשא לו ומסביר שכדאי לה כי הוא יעשה את כל מה שהיא מבקשת כמה רחוק כבר יגיעו היחסים האלה. If a man proposes to a woman and he explains, and he loves her, and he explains, listen, I'll do everything you ask. How far will that relationship reach? But some of us are like that with השם. You know, be good to me, I'm going to do everything you say.

זה מוכרח להיות הרבה יותר עמוק. It's got to be much deeper than this. דמיינו שאני אומר כך להשם. Imagine I say this to השם.

השם אעשה כל מה שתבקש ממני. I'm going to do everything you ask me to do. עדיין אהיה מחוץ לסיפור. I'm still going to be outside of the story.

כי צריך משהו יותר עמוק מזה. We need something deeper than this. לעשות כל מה שהשם מבקש זה לא הדבר הכי עמוק שאפשר להציע לו. This is so deep.

He's saying, doing what השם asks you to do is not the deepest thing that you could offer God. כי גם מי שעושה הכל כראוי עלול להיות בחוץ. Because even those that do everything right may find themselves outside of the story. It may be.

It may be. They may be, they may find themselves outside of the story.בספר במדבר אנחנו קוראים שאפילו משה רבנו יכול לטעות. In במדבר we learn that even משה רבנו can make mistakes. אבל למרות הטעויות, but despite the mistakes, הוא לא הפסיק להיות משה רבנו.

This is the, this is the עיקר here. We learn about משה רבנו. Listen, up until במדבר, where's משה רבנו in our minds? Just כאילו higher than the מלאכים. Right? Higher than the מלאכים.

No one greater than, there's there's nothing greater than him. משה רבנו. And then I come to ספר במדבר and I'm over here and I'm like, oh my gosh. רבונו של עולם, could it be that I have to, why do I have to find this out about משה רבנו? It was so much better when it was just this מלאך השם צבקות.

ארבעים יום וארבעים לילה, 40 days, 40 nights, לחם לא אכל מים לא שתה, didn't eat bread, didn't drink water. Give me, keep, I want to stay in that place. But במדבר is telling me, you want to go into ארץ ישראל? Learn that even the greatest people like משה רבנו make mistakes, but guess what? They're still משה רבנו. They're still משה רבנו.

He didn't stop being משה רבנו.כשאני קרוב מאד למישהו הקירבה אליו אינה תלויה בשאלה כמה הוא עושה את רצוני. Never measure closeness to someone based on how much they do what you want them to do. Because those people in your life are probably the furthest from you. Those that just do what you want them to do, that's such outside, it's not even closeness, it's it's, it's nothing to do with the קישקעס.

Nothing. Never measure closeness to another person based on how they obey your orders or they're in tune with what you want. That's an outside experience. That's an outside relationship.

However, if you think about it, there's so many people that are living that way with the רבונו של עולם. Because no one ever told them that there's something deeper. It doesn't, חס ושלום, mean don't do what השם wants you to do, but don't measure your closeness just based on that. And he's going to develop this.

And I'm בכוונה, I'm running today because it's it's it's very late. Turn the page.בספר בראשית אנחנו לומדים על ההתחלות. בראשית is all about beginnings, רב שלמה says. אנחנו לומדים כיצד ברא השם את העולם כיצד התחיל עם ישראל.

We learn how השם created the world, how עם ישראל began. בספר שמות אנחנו לומדים איך נעשנו לעם. In שמות we learn how we became a people וקיבלנו את התורה. בספר ויקרא אנחנו לומדים איך לעבוד את השם במשכן.

ספר העבודה. We learn in ויקרא how to serve God in the משכן. אבל אתם יודעים מה?But you know something, האמת שאתה יכול לדעת את בראשית שמות ויקרא ועדיין ליפול לתהומות עמוקים. You can know בראשית, you could know שמות, you could know ויקרא, and still fall into the deepest abyss of darkness.

כי צריך יותר מלדעת. צריך יותר מלעשות. We need more than just knowing how things happen. We know we we we need more than just doing things on an action level.And he goes into one of the few the examples of people that knew everything.

They knew בראשית שמות ויקרא, and it still wasn't enough for them to avoid them falling so so deep. Look what he says here. המרגלים היו ממש האנשים הכי קדושים בעולם. That's in במדבר.

The spies were the holiest. כל אחד שנבחר למרגל היה האיש הכי קדוש בשבט שלו. Right? כולם אנשים ראשי בני ישראל המה, as the פסוק. ראשי בני ישראל.

They were the chief, the greatest chief rabbis of their jurisdictions, of their שבטים. ובכל זאת, nonetheless, מגיע רגע בחיים שבו היתה לאדם מספיק קדושה בשביל חמש דקות שעברו אבל היא כבר לא מספיקה בשביל חמש דקות הבאות. Comes a time in life that your holiness was good enough for five minutes ago. But the holiness of the next five minutes are something completely different.

This is all, this is ממש עליה. What he's speaking about here is תורת ארץ ישראל. And and people can't they don't they don't understand, what are you talking about? Like, it's like, what worked for you then, it doesn't mean that it's not קדוש. It just means that the holiness you reached, the the levels of internalizing, learning, growth, all that was great for five minutes ago.

But from five minutes from then now is a completely different story. So the מרגלים were the holiest in the world. For what? For their up up until they had their greatest test in life. Up until then, it was it was it was great.I always tell חברה, you know.

Some some of the חברה that come here, they have a hard time. Why? Because in חוץ לארץ, they saw that they could like נגלה, they could reveal to someone that like גימל comes before דלת and blow the minds of like many people or like, you know what I mean? Like very simple like and or whatever. Here, ארץ ישראל, that it's it's so much deeper. It's you got to you got to be filled with so much more.

And it's true בכלל in the world. It's true about every stage in life. But the מרגלים, this is a very important thing. The holiness that was good enough for me five minutes ago is not שייך at all to what five minutes from now are.

And it's the same thing with marriage, חברה. The way that I, the holiness and the dedication that I may have had for my family, the level of dedication I had for my family two weeks ago was perfect. But that dedication today is toxic. Is that being, is that clear? It it was great for when the stat- the situation of your family was so and so.

But in light of what's needed right now, גארנישט מיט גארנישט. It's nothing. It's nothing. Because the greater the destination is, right? The greater the destination is, then that means that the greater mistakes you you're going to come, which means it's going to demand of you.

It's going to demand of you more and more and more.So first of all, you have to not freak out from mistakes. That that's אלף. 100%. So so, נכון.

So אלף, right. So I would say that's אלף. And and I love your question. But I believe that אלף is, remember, משה רבנו was still משה רבנו after he hit the rock.

We're all still that, right? But it's to live a life of paying attention and noticing that what was good enough for five minutes ago was good enough for five minutes ago. It may I need something deeper. I need something that's more in harmony with where I'm at now because I'm closer to the goal. I'm closer to the destination.

And the how, I believe is throughout ספר במדבר by looking at the פנימיות of each mistake.What do you mean? In terms of what I was doing up until that point was okay, but then post, it's like a different, different מדרגה, and you have to get to a different point.Right. We were speaking about, yeah. It's also עשיה, but it's not the, but it's not the עשיה, and many, and many will, will, I've gone into trouble for saying this. But I'll tell you what the danger is.

When I was a kid in high school, 14, 15 years old, there were tons of of of suicide bombers on buses. It was like, it was like happening all the time. All the time. There was suicide.

Till today, I have in my house, I just found this, I was moving stuff in the מחסן, I found these wires, these burnt wires that I remember that I went to one of the scenes of, if any of you remember us, there was a קו שמונה עשרה consecutive Sunday mornings, the 18 bus in ירושלים on יפו blew up. You were there? So I I went, I was, I don't know what I was doing there. I was like for- I was 15, but I went there and I I took some of the wires and I brought it home with me, right? Now, how did we pride ourselves back then in terms of עשיה? Clean it up, move on. How how much did that do for us? By the way, that's the part of that whole scene that is etched into my, I was watching them clean.

Cleaning. Fast. Fast. I'll give you another example.

I'll give you another example. דיזנגוף סנטר, same year. You were there while it happened? In the building. ערב פורים, it's תענית אסתר, I think.

Afternoon. I went there at night with one of my רבנים in high school and some friends, דוקא to go to the to the area and do and do a קריאת מגילה there. It's בדיוק, it's as if nothing was there. It's it's surreal.

So that level of that level of עשיה, I don't know, just to do, I don't know. It seems that that that can't just be it.That's what we're here doing learning ספר במדבר. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just two more minutes, חברה.And we're on the we're on the fourth line in the second paragraph.

אנשים רבים הם קדושים מאד. Many people are very holy. אבל כשהם מגיעים למבחנים החשובים בחייהם הם נכשלים. You have a lot of holy people that when they reach the great tests of their life, they fail.

Why? מפני שבמבחנים הכי חשובים בחיים האדם זקוק למשהו אחר. Because דווקא in the great tests of life, you need something else than what you were accustomed to. כל כמה שמשה רבנו היה קדוש, as holy as משה רבנו was, הוא היה זקוק בבירור לעוד סנטימטר אחד קטן כדי להכנס לארץ ישראל. He needed one more centimeter in order to get into ארץ ישראל.

ורבונו של עולם אמר לו חסר לך את הסנטימטר הזה. You're missing this centimeter.אולי בכלל אסור לדבר על כך מפני שהסיבה שמשה רבנו לא נכנס לארץ ישראל הרבה יותר עמוקה מזה. And he says maybe we shouldn't even talk about that because the reason משה רבנו didn't come into ארץ ישראל was much deeper than that because on the level of action, was there anyone better than משה רבנו? And let's say on the level of mistakes, did anyone else make less mistakes than משה רבנו? All we know of from the תורה, from the פשט of the תורה, was one. נכון, there's a דרש that says that he made a mistake by divorcing his wife and he was less sensitive to חכמת נשים, and if he was still married to צפורה at the time of sending out the מרגלים, the כלי יקר says he would have chosen to send out מרגלות, like we learned many times, instead of מרגלים, and then the מרגלות, women's eyes looking and scouting the land would not brought about that report and we wouldn't have had תשעה באב, there wouldn't have been חורבן הבית.

But from the פשט of the תורה, one mistake. One mistake. So, maybe it's even deeper than all that. אבל.

כמו שאומרים הצדיקים, and this in the חידושי הרי"ם I want to do this this year. Every year I say we're going to do it. This year when it comes חוקת I want to do this. אלי you've seen this inside.

כיוון שהדבר נכתב בתורה עלינו ללמוד מכך. It's no, it's not a nice and a pretty thing to delve deep into אהרן הכהן mistakes, into משה רבנו mistakes, into מרים הנביאה לשון הרע. It's not נעים, it's not nice. That's why I can't stand the field of biblical criticism.

They have a, it's, they have such, they have more גישמאק. They have there's like a שמחת הנפש when they find characteristic flaws in the אבות ואמהות. They have, they have such שמחה. Nothing greater till משיח is going to come.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, we're still deciphering the psychological downfall analysis of the רבנו household of maybe משה אהרן ומרים didn't receive proper love from their mother and that's why they became all the... I can't stand this stuff. Drives me, makes me sick. Sick.

You we we approach learning the mistakes that are written in the Torah about holy people, because the Torah wants us to learn something deep about ourselves. Not to start figuring out all these things people do with with גדולים.מה שאנחנו צריכים ללמוד מכל זה הוא שהכל יכול להיות מושלם. What we learn from all this is that everything can be perfect. אתה יכול להיות קודש קדוש שבקדושים כל ימיך, עד לרגע זה.

You could have been the holy of holiest in your life till this moment. ובחמש דקות הבאות, in the next five minutes, ריבונו של עולם ימיד אותך בניסיון ואתה עלול להיכשל. ריבונו של עולם could put you through a test right now and you could fail. And you're sitting there saying, I don't understand.

How in the world did I not pass this test? Why are you putting me through this test? You saw how holy I was. ריבונו של עולם let's be. שולי רנד has a great song, he opens up by saying ריבונו של עולם, אם נדבר גלויות, if we speak גלויות, revealed, כאילו, let let let's talk openly. Let's talk openly, right?Like someone once told me and I thought it was such a pompous thing that they were saying to me but it actually was very deep.

He said, he said to me, שלמה, אני לא מבין. ריבונו של עולם יודע איזה שחקן יש לו פה למטה. Right? He was like saying about how hard his life, he says, השם knows what kind of a dude he has on the court for him. Why why would he do this, right? It was perfect until a few minutes ago.

For now, it's something else.So he ends off here and he says, this is why the Torah was given in the desert. מדוע ניתנה תורה במדבר? כל הצדיקים אומרים שהתורה ניתנת רק למי שיודע שבלי התורה הוא כמו מדבר. All the צדיקים know that the Torah is given only to those that know that without the Torah, my life is a desert. במדבר אין חי יודע לאן אתה הולך.

In the desert you have no idea where you're going. אתה יכול ללכת במעגלים כל החיים. You can walk around in circles your whole life. דמיינו שאתם אבודים במדבר, you're lost in the desert, ומי שנותן לכם מפה והמפה מלמדת אתכם איך לצאת מהמדבר.

And this map shows you how to get out of the desert. גוואלד. כמה חזק תחזיק את המפה הזו? How hold are you gonna how strong are you going to hold on to this to this map? וכל הצדיקים אומרים שצריך שאתה צריך לאחוז בתורה הלוואי, we should feel like this. The צדיקים say we have to hold on to the Torah כאילו הייתי במדבר, as if I'm in the desert, והיא המפה שלך החוצה.

And this is your map to get out.Any of you ever get lost in the desert? It's very hard. Happened to me last week with Yossi. Literally.התורה. I once had a map so I got out.

I I I didn't have a map. I one time took my, I was being a חכם, I took my my daughter and her friends on her birthday or something to to a hike. Okay? Somewhere. I I don't know this is so not characteristic of me.

But I did, I don't know how it happened. Maybe it was my turn to volunteer in camp, I don't remember what it was. I took them onto a certain hike and it was hot. And I'm realizing I took them up the mountain.

I have no, there was no, I had no idea how to get down from here, how to get out of here. And the water is running out and it's hot and my my daughter and her friends are like ran out of, you know, chants, their songs and everything. And it was the first time that I felt like, wow, I ממש need a and also there was no, there's no reception. There was no reception where I was so I couldn't even figure out.

Yeah. Oh my god. And then I'll this is just so funny. I'm like sweating bullets and my, I'm trying to keep a smiley face, not get my daughter worried and her friends and.

And then I see this like couple, like people finally, I saw this couple. And I I go up to them and I'm like, and they's like, are you שלמה? I'm like, listen, I just need to get out of here right now. Like, I'll be anybody you want me to be right now. If you're not married yet, I'll do your חופה.

Just get me out. It was a couple, they were dating. I was like, just get just tell me how to get out of here. ממש they were my tire.

I was holding on to them for dear life. But that's how it has to feel. That's what he's saying. You know? That's like for dear life.התורה ניתנת last line, התורה ניתנת במדבר כדי שתדע שגם אחרי שהתורה ניתנת אתה עדיין במדבר.

The Torah was given in the desert to tell you that even after it was given, you're still in the desert. עדיין אינך יודע מה קורה. You're not sure exactly what's going on. כי אפשר ללמוד כל מילה ועדיין לטעות לגמרי.

You could still learn every word the Torah says and still be completely off. Like we see many גדולים, many גדולים like this. The פנימיות of this is, גל עיני ואביטה נפלאות מתורתך. ריבונו של עולם teach me how to lift up my eyes to to understand in a deeper way how to live the Torah that I כביכול know.

And may I never rely on how holy I was 10 seconds ago. That's the Torah of במדבר. May I never rely on how sweet and beautiful and the good things I did 10 minutes ago. Because right now may be something completely different.

And the closer I am to greatness, the more that it's going to be happening to me. The more that that מכשולים are going to be on the דרך, which is exactly what עם ישראל has been stuck in for a long time, but specifically in our תקופה right now. And the הכנה for שבועות, there's no greater הכנה in my opinion to to שבועות. So let's celebrate the book of