Torah Knowledge Versus Human Knowledge | A Basic Lesson from the Genius Hinoka - A Must-Hear From...

2:52 You know that if a person is to rise — he nullifies himself to him, he will rise. So he does not want him to rise. So he puts into people a great deal of... For the whole test is that a person should not have emunas chachamim. For he says that if a person falls in emunas chachamim and has no rav, that is his gate and his opening to make him lose everything. And so where do you find this? Moshe Rabbeinu. Now, Pharaoh did what he did, right?

3:18 When did Pharaoh begin to be struck? After all, Pharaoh was cruel, Pharaoh was wicked. It was not only now, because Moshe Rabbeinu came, that he began to be a sinner. Pharaoh was wicked long before Moshe Rabbeinu came. He would bathe in the blood of little schoolchildren. What happened, that as soon as Moshe Rabbeinu came, plagues begin to come? Moshe — from the moment Pharaoh began to oppose Moshe and began to come out against Moshe Rabbeinu, as it were, in this way the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: "I will strike you when you are against him."

3:50 So wait — as long as he had not yet opposed Moshe, there was nothing with Moshe; everything was fine. The moment Moshe came to him and he began to be against him, and began to contradict him, and began to shame him, and began like this, to make a mockery of him, then the plagues of the Holy One, blessed be He, came against him. That is why: "Do not touch My anointed ones." And so with Yeravam, who was with Iddo the prophet: everything he did, the calves and all of it, the Holy One, blessed be He, forgave.

4:19 But the moment he said of Iddo, "Seize him" — at once it is written: "and his hand dried up." His hand dried up at once. The Holy One, blessed be He, is exacting about the honor of tzaddikim, about the blemish of emunas chachamim. So all the time that it was still... like that, it was fine. He said: never mind — you set up calves, you do this — the Holy One, blessed be He, forgives. You said "Seize him" — at once, "and his hand dried up." His hand dried up only when he came to touch the tzaddik. "Do not touch My anointed ones, and do no harm to My prophets." So, simply — Pharaoh, when Moshe Rabbeinu came to Egypt, the moment he had the dispute with Moshe Rabbeinu, that at once brought it upon him. The Amud HaEmes writes

4:54 about Yaakov — about Esav and Yaakov. That is: do not imagine to yourselves, he writes, that Esav was a wicked man and a swineherd, who looked like an animal and all that. No. He looked like a tzaddik from the outside. This was a man — the brother of Yaakov, the son of Yitzchak. We are speaking of a great man. This was not someone who looked like a lawbreaker or a criminal, one who just does whatever he wants. He looked like a man of dignified appearance.

5:22 Everyone — no one doubted him. And from the day he deceived him — a tzaddik cannot see the evil that there is, the flaw in his own offspring. From the day he deceived his father Yitzchak, no tzaddik can see a flaw in his offspring. The holy Baal Shem Tov said this: that from the time he deceived him, from Heaven there was already a blinding of the sage's eyes, from seeing whether his own son behaves properly or not.

5:49 There are cases where they can indeed see; there are stories like that, where they did see, but that was apparently flashes, or things that happened at that particular time — not exactly the same thing. And then, that... that... where were we? - Esav. - Esav. Esav... Yaakov. But the whole sin — he writes in the Amud HaEmes — do not think that he looked like that. His whole essential sin, for which he was "Esav the wicked", is only because he opposed Yaakov Avinu.

6:18 - Wow. - By that he was judged. It is "kim leih bid'rabbah mineih": a person who has two prohibitions is judged — he committed one severe prohibition — he moved muktzeh and murdered someone. What — will they judge him for the muktzeh? They will judge him for the most severe thing. The judgment goes after the greater thing; does it go after the small thing? He commits two sins — one looks at which sin weighs more. One whose prohibition is from the Torah and one that is Rabbinic — will they judge him for the Rabbinic one?

6:46 They do not judge him for the Rabbinic one; here there is the most severe prohibition that he committed. So here it is, as it were, the same thing with Esav and Yaakov. What was more severe? All the sins that he did — or that he opposed Yaakov Avinu? The sin of coming out against Yaakov — that in fact was his "kim leih"; it was, as it were, far greater than the rest. And here was the sin, the greatest blemish: that he let questions into himself, that he said to himself: "My brother Yaakov — he is my brother, he is so great; my brother Yaakov is such-and-such — but I am more, because in honoring my father I am more than he is.

7:19 He actually shames my father; he tried to steal the birthright from me." And he began to permit himself all kinds of justifications: why Yaakov Avinu is in fact a sinner, and why I am permitted to murder him at all. He tried to find himself all kinds of justifications in order to harm Yaakov Avinu. - But the tribes too opposed Yosef, and they are still, as it were, tzaddikim. That was with a justification. It is not that they were tzaddikim — relative to... they are tzaddikim — relative to their level in kedushah and whatever you like, before Hashem.

7:47 Just as when you are holy in your eyes and holy in the covenant, you are considered a tzaddik. You are considered a holy person; you are not considered an impure person. But relative to what happened with Yosef, it is considered a criminal act, in which they erred, one that we have been paying for to this day. This whole sale of Yosef — the entire exile came out of it. That is, you see from here that the exile came solely because of this. All the Ten Martyrs — Rabbi Yeshevav the Scribe, Rabbi Chutzpis the Interpreter, Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon — you are speaking of seraphim on high, you are speaking of the great ones of the world, you are speaking of holy ones.

8:21 These were not simple people; these were not just... these were the highest levels there are. And why was all this? Because they came to make a Tikkun for that blemish that was done. What blemish was done? The dispute against Yosef. Yosef HaTzaddik — what did he do, all in all? He learned with Yaakov Avinu. They tried to find in him, and to see, every thing that he did — that he curled his hair — they said that he does this to make himself attractive. Every thing that Yosef did, they took it, as it were, with an evil eye, in order to permit his blood.

8:57 And the moment his blood is permitted, then there is no sin upon us: "Our hands did not shed this blood, and our eyes did not see" — the secret of the eglah arufah. That is exactly what he had learned with Yaakov Avinu. That is, as it were, to permit the blood: "We did not see, we don't know what this is about, it has nothing to do with us." And that is the most dangerous thing. How can we know — how can you, too, always know whether someone is good or not good? Anyone who holds on to a dispute, and holds on to evil, and holds on to...

9:24 "I'm not speaking with you. I'm against you. I'm not..." Anyone who pulls his hands away and says, "I don't speak with so-and-so, I don't..." — he speaks lashon hara and so on — it is known that he is the Sitra Achra; he is the one who goes against this. For what is the proof? Why is it written "loving peace and pursuing peace"? It is already written "loving peace", right? And wanting peace.

9:49 Loving peace and seeking peace. What is "pursuing peace"? Peace has to be pursued, so that it will exist. One has to do everything possible so that there will be peace. To pursue, so that there will be peace. But all those who go and do not speak, and threaten, and talk, and plot schemes — all of them, that is the way of the Satan. And then they look for justifications, in themselves and in their way, to make their deeds kosher. - But Rav... - And they look at the Torah with an evil eye in order to justify their deeds, and so they mislead themselves. They do not know that they are in fact — they themselves — the very body of the Samech-Mem.

10:25 Clearly — he transgresses "and he shall not be like Korach and his company." These are the only ones whom it is permitted to shame; [a name, unclear] also writes about this, and others. It's like — it is clear that it... in the sefarim that they write. That is already "written by a heretic and an apikores" — what else is it? The Rashba writes that a person who shames a Torah scholar — his status is like yayin nesech. His wine is yayin nesech — his wine, the wine that he drinks is yayin nesech, what he makes Kiddush on.

10:54 Better — a person who shames a Torah scholar, tell him that when he makes Kiddush, he should see to it that he drinks cooked wine. - Not only what he drinks. - If he wrote something before he shamed a Torah scholar? It depends. If afterwards — if what he did came from da'as, that he does it, as it were, with da'as, then it is a problem; it is a sefer written by a heretic and an apikores. If what he did afterwards came from madness, there is nothing in it. That is, it came from madness; he is a poor soul.

11:20 It is like madness. - So they don't sell the sefer? - That comes from madness. There is a person who acts out of madness, not out of sanity. That is, there is a person with da'as, and he opposes. Here is the problem. That is a sefer of... - Rav, the fact that he opposes — isn't that already madness? Today there is a person who acts out of madness; not always does everyone oppose out of da'as. There are some things that... - Madness is one thing, but the fact that he opposes, isn't that already madness? It's already... - That is also a kind of madness. But sometimes there are people who oppose with da'as, for this reason or that, sure of themselves — sure of themselves. Every person who...

11:54 After all, you find, for example — where do we find it in the Torah? That a person is now in a quarrel with someone — now you are fighting with so-and-so — now, what must you do at once? According to the Torah, one must come and try to make peace, to soften him and to soften yourself. You have to make peace. It is forbidden for there to be — "You shall not take revenge, and you shall not bear a grudge," and "You shall not hate your brother in your heart." Such things are forbidden.

12:18 The moment you pursue peace, and the other side does not pursue peace — he does not want peace with you — now — and truly there is no reason, yes? No logical reason — of course, it is not a matter of a reason — but one must not hold on to it in the heart. It is forbidden — you transgress "You shall not take revenge, and you shall not bear a grudge"; one transgresses many Torah prohibitions in this. That is — and you, as it were, say, "I'm not speaking, I don't want to speak, I..." Now, the moment such a thing is done, it shows that this person transgresses the whole Torah, because he transgresses all the prohibitions of the Torah: he, as it were, increases dispute; he transgresses "and he shall not be like Korach and his company" — for he increases everything that all this hatred has done. Why?

13:02 Because you find even — with whom do you find this first? No — yes. What does the Holy One, blessed be He, do — does He say, "You sinned against Me"?

13:27 What does the Holy One, blessed be He, say? "Ayekah — Where are you?" He tries to speak with him, with Adam HaRishon — "Where?" — so that he will do teshuvah. He tries to speak with him, He tries to converse with him. As if the Torah is saying: come, speak. And at once Adam HaRishon, instead of coming to reveal the secret of teshuvah — Adam HaRishon runs away from teshuvah. So He said to him: Nu, come — here, I will reveal teshuvah to you. As it were, He hinted to him: "Ayekah" — where are you? And he, as it were, instead of doing teshuvah, he goes, as it were, into hiding.

13:58 That is — and from here a person comes to hester panim, the hiding of the face: that, as it were, instead of always doing teshuvah to Hashem, he hides his face from Hashem; he, as it were, denies it to Hashem: "Our hands did not shed this blood. I did nothing." "I'm allowed, I'm allowed, I'm allowed." "Why did you sin?" "Because my life is in danger." "Why did you do it?" "Because he hurt me." "Why did you do it?" He permits himself all kinds of justifications; he becomes a scoundrel with the Torah's permission. And then a person sins and transgresses, and becomes guilty and far, and grows very distant from Hashem, blessed be He.

14:27 And then he is confused and frightened, and his da'as is confused. He enters an imagination that he knows, he understands, he has da'as, he already knows what is truth and what is falsehood and what is what. And that is how this world runs today. Don't you see how many people in the world today "know"? As it were — the whole world today: this one tells you, "Listen, this is the truth, that is a lie; I feel it. You can know it — rely on me, that's how I am." The whole world is like this — built on the power of imagination, on the person.

14:52 On the power of imagination, on "the person knows" — while his da'as is not clarified at all, and the Torah is not clarified in him, the knowledge of Hashem is not clarified, and he already... he is in such a place. And from here you see that a person comes to hester panim afterwards, and the Holy One, blessed be He, hides His face from him. And therefore many holy ones, many tzaddikim, wrote a great deal about this — about this matter, about this clarification. And today, in our generation, to our sorrow, this is a very painful thing.

15:16 If we truly knew the... what the blemish is — the blemish of emunas chachamim — it is not only the blemish of the whole Torah; it is the blemish of all the exiles; it is the blemish of everything together. when we, Heaven forbid... In Hilchos Talmud Torah, chapter 5, there too he writes that it is a great sin to hate the Sages or to shame them. It is a great sin; it's like — there is no measure to it. There is no generation without a tzaddik — the true tzaddik — in every generation. But people did not manage to understand the tzaddikim; they knew that they were great tzaddikim, but they did not nullify themselves completely. - Right, that is why the geulah has still not been completed; we are in exile all the time.

15:51 As Rabbi Avraham ben Rabbi Nachman said: "If the world had known the greatness of the Baal Shem Tov, of blessed memory, and had drawn close and nullified themselves to him, Mashiach would have come. And if the world had known the greatness of the Rebbe, of blessed memory — Rabbi Nachman — and had nullified themselves and drawn close to him, Mashiach would have come. If the world had known the greatness of Moharnat, of blessed memory, and had nullified themselves and drawn close to him, Mashiach would have come." And then he said about himself: "If the world knew the greatness" — as though he were speaking of himself — "and came and nullified themselves to me, Mashiach would have come."

16:19 - But Rav, you don't need everyone. - What? - You don't need everyone to nullify themselves, only most, like... - No chance. A chance. - Like Mordechai. It is enough that we are here at Shimshon. The Rav said that we are here at Shimshon now. The 19th of Shevat now, right? - The 19th? - The 19th. On the 19th of Shevat — we are now on the 19th of Shevat, 5786, Erev Shabbos, Parshas Yisro, right?

16:49 - Two more hours to neitz already, I think. - One more hour to neitz. We are here; there is kedushah here, deveikus. What are we doing here? What are we doing here? At our true root, we came because we are searching for the will of Hashem. And the will of Hashem is not found with us. There is no one who knows the will of Hashem. Only who can attain the will of Hashem?

17:15 One who nullifies his own real will and turns it into a will that is G-dly. When a person has a will of his own — that is a rasha, a wicked person. Rasha — the initials of "ratzon shel atzmo", a will of one's own. That is a rasha. The Baal HaSulam writes this. He explains it at length in Shamati. Rasha is a will of one's own. He is a rasha; he cannot know what the will of Hashem is.

17:41 A person may have a will to receive, or an inner will of his own — he cannot understand the will of Hashem; he cannot understand what is happening here in the world. It is the opposite. The tzaddik — his will is the will of Hashem, blessed be He. That is, he loves the way Hashem, blessed be He, looks at things. One can read, for example, a great many things in the Torah and turn them upside down. For example — for instance, one can read about Yosef HaTzaddik, and with a distorted outlook, by what the eyes see, one can make Yosef out, Heaven forbid, to be arrogant, Heaven forbid, as one who hints at sin and makes light of it.

18:17 To see Yosef along all those lines — Heaven forbid, they would paint Yosef as not good. Where does this come from? From a standpoint of evil. When one sees evil — the very fact that a person sees evil at all, sees a reality of evil, that already shows that he is not good, because he sees evil. In real truth one has to look for the good, to see: "A little longer and there is no wicked one; you will look closely at his place, and he is not there" — that there is no reality of evil.

18:45 That is, this is the true way of looking, and we do not look this way. You can come and look at Shimshon, and say — on page 10, where the Gemara says: "He went after his eyes" — he went after his eyes, "therefore the Philistines gouged out his eyes." He says, "What? Shimshon — this is a tzaddik? He went after his eyes." At once someone comes along, some fool, and what does he tell us, with his outlook? "Look, he went after his eyes." He thinks — he compares himself, today, in our generation, as if he were a friend of Shimshon.

19:12 And he says: "David — King David — the wives; and King Shlomo — a thousand wives." They start talking about the Sages — "and they mocked the messengers of G-d." And by his outlook he says: "Listen, I don't — no. I am not going to accept from King Shlomo; I don't read the Book of Mishlei. Come see what he did — here, it is written that foreign wives turned his heart away. Come, here, it is written that he multiplied horses for himself, multiplied wives for himself. This is a king? This I should accept? He is going to write mussar for me?" Ah? I am asking you.

19:39 So a person will come and say, "I don't accept it." A person will come at King David. King David — he will start talking, saying, "What — how was the episode with Bas-Sheva? How was the episode with Bas-Sheva? What happened to you? What is this? King Shlomo even came out of that." "You know about this — Shlomo, how he came to be, from what deed he came." He starts coming out against him. You can take this outlook and look at things that way. But what do the Sages teach us? "Whoever says David sinned is simply mistaken." You see? That is, you say, "Ah — what is going on here?

20:06 Shimshon went after his eyes — what is going on here?" And then they, as it were, take us out of it; the Sages explain to us that we do not understand at all the true mind of the Torah, which is the opposite of our mind. Every outlook that you think permits you your desires, and permits you your inner will, and by which you look at the world and at the Torah — that is, a person comes with his own will.

20:32 How does it work? When does a person make his claims? When he has his own desires, his own opinion, his own life, his own way of looking, the way he learned, the way he got used to, the way he was raised. He built himself his own truth and his own way of thinking. He takes it and brings it into the Torah as well. By it he also learns, looks at the tzaddikim, reads the stories, imagines — and then he comes, a lecturer at a university, looks at King David: "You see? Look."

20:58 "This was the king" — and he starts talking. "This was Shlomo" — and they start talking however he wants. Because he built this for himself, and if you speak with him, you will not convince him, because he built himself his own truth. And for the Torah — the Torah says: "Go forth from your land, from your birthplace, from your father's house, to the land that I will show you." With Me, one does not come with what you learned and were raised on. The Holy One, blessed be He, says: "To understand My Torah, you have to leave your own will, to leave your own mind, to leave your own opinion altogether — the idea that you understand anything at all — and to know that you know nothing, because you do not understand the will of Hashem at all."

21:32 And from here the turning point begins. And then, after a person goes many years, many years upon years, decades — we are talking about over seventy years — one has to be very, very refined. Moshe Rabbeinu — that was no longer at the age of seventy; that was already eighty, already reaching gevuros, strength. One is already past seventy; it is beyond that. One starts reaching seventy, eighty, ninety; one starts going higher — that is reaching the secret of the gevuros, which is already...

22:01 Why do they say "With the aged is wisdom"? At the end of Tractate Kinnim, where Rabbi Shimon says — Rabbi Shimon ben Akashya says — what is "With the aged is wisdom, and length of days is understanding"? For the end of Tractate Kinnim concludes with "With the aged is wisdom, and length of days is understanding": "But the elders of Torah are not so; the older they grow, the more their da'as settles upon them." Why, the older they grow, do they have more da'as that is settled — they are more settled? Why? They nullify their own will more; the will is refined.

22:29 Why do they say "You shall rise before the white-haired," as the Torah says? Don't we say what a "zaken", an elder, is — it is not one who is getting on in years — for in Tractate Kiddushin, page 32, the Gemara says: "zaken" — "zeh kanah chochmah", this one has acquired wisdom. This zaken has a mind; he has acquired wisdom. A person comes to grasp his rav's da'as after forty years — in Avodah Zarah, page 5, the Gemara says: it will take him forty years, and he will grasp the da'as of his rav. Only after twenty — forty years.

22:54 From here you say: "zaken — this one has acquired wisdom," in Kiddushin, page 32. That is — decide what a zaken is. On one hand we said a zaken is a person who is already at "with the aged is wisdom"; and on the other hand this zaken — he has acquired wisdom. And on the other hand, altogether — if I acquire wisdom, then to grasp my da'as, if I acquired it, it will take someone else forty years to grasp my da'as, if I acquired the wisdom. You understand? And in Tractate Sukkah, page 21, the Gemara says that the everyday talk of Torah scholars needs study. - Hundreds of years. - So that is, it is already hundreds of years, because if — if you say that to grasp my da'as in a single statement will take you forty years,

23:31 and my everyday talk needs study — as it were; not I, of course — I am speaking, as it were, the way a person speaks of himself — then understand by yourself that this requires hundreds of years, by the Sages' calculation. - More than a lifetime. - It is more than a lifetime. Now — so where can a person even come and say that he can understand the Torah at all? That is, it comes out, according to this, that a person does not understand even the Torah at all. So how can people argue against the Torah and say, "This is the truth"?

23:55 Because today you see that there is so much ignorance — ignorance has multiplied — that everyone speaks a great deal of lashon hara among the Jewish people. So much, so much. The Yerushalmi, Pe'ah, chapter 1, halachah 1 — all the lashon hara that the Gemara speaks of there — and how much lashon hara they speak; and this one opposes that one, and he opposes this one, and this one is against that one, and against that one. And at the inner root it is all full of honor and interests; and this one wants it this way, and that one wants it that way, and he is against this one, and he is against that one; and he is his brother, he is his friend, against the other one, who is tied to his party; this one is tied to that allocation, which is tied to something connected abroad, to which he is tied; and that rich man drew close to him, and this rich man drew close to that one,

24:32 and that one — because he drew close to this rich man, and this rich man wanted to donate to that one, so he wants to donate to him — so he comes out against him: why isn't he donating? and this one against that one, and full of lashon hara, in order to smear, in a contest of honor, in a contest of all this. And all these things take shape and clothe themselves upon the souls of those people and those opinions, and they teach and bring in and inject this whole thing into the people, and they breed, in people, mistaken minds and false opinions, and people do not feel that the Torah lifts them up; they feel fallen, they feel that they know nothing; they are not revived, they fall into opinions, and they fall through the blemish of emunas chachamim,

25:11 and that is worse than a thousand blemishes of the covenant. It is endless — it is a blemish in the very drops of the mind; it is the most severe blemish there is. They fall down below — "and behold, the tears of the oppressed, and they have no comforter" — and they become worn out with the toil of making a living. For Rabbi Nosson writes it in Likutei Halachos, many times over — as in the laws of Birkas HaRe'iyah, and in the laws of the Megillah, and on Purim — many times over. So you say: What?

25:37 How can that be? A person falls into the worries of making a living; he falls into mochin d'katnus, a constricted mind. That is why you see that there is no livelihood, and the generation has come to a bad state — in darkness. And in Tractate Shabbos, page 139, the Gemara says: if you think there are many troubles here, go out and examine the judges of Israel. So the judges of Israel — because of this, everything is full of competition and honor, this one against that one, and he against the other. You already say: what do they want? To teach us?

26:02 You are giving us in-depth shiurim in the laws of lashon hara! Is that what you teach us as the way of Hashem? Teach us Torah! The way it once was — Rabbi Mordechai of Neshchiz, the Alter Rebbe, all the great ones of old, the Rebbe, the Gaon of Vilna, all the holy ones of old — they would sit and meet: "Give us Torah — give us some Torah." From their mouths you would hear Torah. You would not hear lashon hara from their mouths, as in our generation, where ignorant people have multiplied, who speak lashon hara and dispute words of sense without knowledge, and talk about people they do not know, and talk...

26:36 only out of an inner self that is not clean. That is how it is in our generation today, to our sorrow. I say it out of pain — I say these things — that they dispute, and do this, and do that... And you say: none of it is clean. And all of this, joined together, in the end creates a kind of nuclear bomb that simply blows up the soul, and people come to denial, to heresy, to blemishes of the covenant, to impurity, to distance.

27:03 And in the end the claim falls on the person himself — a person who thinks — he hears lashon hara about someone in the Jewish people and thinks, "How lucky, I was saved and I walked away." No — the opposite: you have fallen into the depths of despair. It is the reverse. People say, as it were, "Good — look, I was saved; there was lashon hara." What can the individual do about this? The individual — what can he do about this whole thing of ours? The individual — I, as an individual, what can I do?

27:28 What is "the individual"? Influence over the whole Jewish people — I don't see that. You have to influence yourself. And if you have someone beside you — the other person, beside you. If you have no one beside you — yourself, your own mind. You really have to fence yourself in, truly, with a true and clean understanding, to understand what we are being taught: are we really learning clean Torah, or are we learning lashon hara here, in depth, with all the Tosafos and Rashi? That is what there is. In practice, that is our generation today.

27:53 We are blemished in da'as and in emunas chachamim, faith in the Sages, and one has to understand that today — today the whole matter of sages and rabbis is something that really grew out of what the world says. It did not truly grow from what Hashem raised up. Few are those whose light the Holy One, blessed be He, made shine, compared to... I mean, whose light did Hashem truly make shine?

28:18 There are those whose light Hashem made shine, truly — through toil and effort and serving Hashem — and the Holy One, blessed be He, made their light shine. And there are those whom... simply the media — the media, or all kinds of politicians, or all kinds of money — all sorts of things like that made them famous. But that is not truth. It does not really point to truth. It doesn't mean... not everyone who is called "Rav" today is a Rav.

28:46 A Rav, a Rav — it's not like... The Chasam Sofer already said: what is a Torah scholar? His whole house burned down? He knows it — a page, he takes a quill, and starts writing out everything that burned. Let him at least name the books — but a person doesn't even remember the order of the books in his own bookcase. I am talking about great Torah scholars. The Rogatchover was with Rav Ziemba — Rav Menachem Ziemba. When they sat together, he came close to hear the Rogatchover, and he pushed him away — he told him, "Move."

29:11 They were alarmed — like, "Why are you pushing Rav Ziemba?" He was still young then. He was a very great Torah scholar. And he said, "What do they know about learning? They know nothing." That is how he spoke. On the other hand, when he once came to a shul between Minchah and Maariv, they said to him: say a word of Torah. He said: "I only know how to say a gezeirah shavah." You see that he... you come to understand, you say: such great ones, such tzaddikim, with their great minds — they did not come to make you small.

29:39 The whole aim is to make you great. To come and tell you things you don't understand and can't grasp — no problem; any great sage can make a person that small. But a true sage has to make you greater. He has to bring you across. "Rav" is from the word for "increase." He has to increase you — in mind and understanding and influence, in salvations and abundance — to lift up, to bring Tikkun, and to guide your soul higher.

30:04 But one who is not a true Rav... there is a Rav of Bavel and a Rav of the Land of Israel. What is the difference between a Rav of Bavel and a Rav of the Land of Israel? — Wisdom. — Not only wisdom. Rather, a "Rav of Bavel" is the one that "stands in Bavel and sees a carcass in the Land of Israel." That is bilbul, confusion: he "stands in Bavel" — the holy Baal Shem Tov says — "stands in Bavel": a person who is entirely confused; "and sees a carcass in the Land of Israel": that is the complete tzaddikim. They are complete tzaddikim, and he stands in Bavel, at the height of his confusion. So your mission is without end — this is the mission: to rise and find that tzaddik, to truly draw close to him, not only to be near him. That is far higher and more important than everything — because the Satan knows that in the end, if a person draws close to a true sage,

30:43 he will, in the end, attain everything. In the tale of the Rav and the Only Son, in Sippurei Maasiyos — the whole meeting is the great light and the small light: Mashiach comes. There is a secret in this: that a person truly reaches his real root — he truly discovers himself. A person thinks he knows himself, and he does not know himself at all. A person is born and he thinks... a person knows only what he likes to eat and drink and what he likes to want — but he does not know himself. He doesn't know who he is, he doesn't know what he is, he doesn't know what his abilities are, what his powers are, what lies hidden in him, how far he can reach, what his strength is, who he is, what he is — he knows nothing.

31:16 Nothing at all. He only knows his name, the one he was given. He knows what he can... what he likes to drink and how much he likes to sleep. And every so often he thinks that he wants Hashem. That much he knows. He does not know himself one bit more than that. What does he know? And after that — more than that — he even hands out grades and ranks to us: who is great, who is small, and so on. They talk "da'as Torah" — they say "da'as Torah," the Torah's view. That is called "da'as Torah." Meaning — da'as Torah: the Torah speaks about the beauty of Rachel. Say there is...

31:45 Come, let's look at things. I mean, the Torah can tell you about the beauty of Yosef. But it does not come just to tell you now: "You hear? Rachel was beautiful." I mean — no, no. That is what the commentators say — as it were, her features, the shape of her face. That is fine. But the inner meaning, then, is like what the Torah says about Yosef. "And Yosef was..."

32:10 "And Hashem was with Yosef, and he was a successful man, and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian." Today, say to someone: "You hear — what is a successful man?" He will tell you: he has several cars, he has a hundred houses, he has a hundred ships, he is very rich, he is in control. That — that is wealth. Today everyone is blessed with something like that. According to the Torah, what is wealth? What is blessing? What is success? What is a successful man? Pay attention to the verse of the Torah: "And Hashem was with Yosef, and he was a successful man."

32:37 A proof from the Torah — here it is, d'Oraisa. "A successful man" — but where is it written? "And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian" — he is in prison, of all places. Meaning, according to the Torah, a successful man is a person who is in prison. I mean — why is he called "successful," in prison? It should have been written: "And Hashem was with Yosef, and he was a failed man, an embittered man, a humiliated man, a small man." As it were — in his situation, he is no successful man.

33:03 Today, say to a person: "Listen — a successful man; you are in jail." That is no successful man, in jail — that is a man who has nothing. He has no means. But the Torah says: "a successful man... in the house of his master the Egyptian." According to the Torah, it is sometimes the opposite of how people see it. The Torah tells of her that she was beautiful — not to belittle anyone who is not beautiful, but to tell you: this one is so beautiful and so righteous, and she took her beauty, subdued it, and said: I will look for a tzaddik.

33:28 "I am not looking to take my beauty and go show it to the whole world, and look for some wicked man, or some king who will praise me. No king interests me. This is what I will do: I will take my beauty, I will be modest, and I will love my Creator. Flesh and blood does not interest me. I do not sell myself to flesh; I sell myself to my Creator." So the Torah tells you: how beautiful was Rachel? Look — she waits another seven years. "Take the signs, go ahead of me. Even Yaakov does not interest me.

33:54 I am waiting for Hashem, blessed be He." That is what the Torah teaches us. It tells you about Yosef: "You hear? He was handsome, and all that." What can you understand from this? Why does the Torah tell us this? What importance does it have? What — if a person is born the ugliest in the world, and he is a hunchback, and he is like this, and he has no face, and he cannot see himself, and he is, Heaven forbid, some very heavy man, and he cannot move, he is so... so what — he has no remedy?

34:18 The opposite. No. He has the most remedy of all — and the uglier a person is, the greater the level he has; and if he is the worst failure — higher still. Because he will come the very closest to the Holy One, blessed be He. The closest of all. Like with Rabbi Yehoshua, who said: put the wine in vessels of gold — let's see what comes out. The opposite — exactly the opposite. When you come and say to yourself: wait, why does the Torah serve me this? It comes to tell you: listen, Yosef is handsome. It is not coming to tell you about the fact that he is handsome; it comes to tell you that he says...

34:45 He could have been in the highest place there is — the very, very highest — to be a model, to use his power, at the most extreme point, at the peak of the world. He took that and said: this is nothing. It is worth nothing at all to use this before the eyes of people. What I need is to find favor — to find favor in the eyes of the Creator. This thing does not interest me. What does Yosef do? In order to find favor in the eyes of Hashem, he stands in the test in which the Holy One, blessed be He, puts him in the pit. Think about it — do you understand what it means, that the Holy One, blessed be He, takes someone who says to himself: look, I am the most handsome,

35:20 I am the most perfect, I am wise, the son of Yaakov Avinu and of our mother Rachel — what am I doing in a pit? For what? For what? Over some woman who tried to lure me into sin? Yosef the tzaddik could have said: listen — my brothers, too, put me in a pit; they were jealous of me. After that, this woman tried to lure me into sin. They put me in prison — for what? Why am I going through so much of this? Because you wanted to do the will of Hashem.

35:45 And Yosef the tzaddik says: this is my success. The success is that I kept the will of Hashem. That is why it is written: "And Hashem was with Yosef, and he was a successful man." And where was he? "And he was in the house of his master the Egyptian." Yosef's success was that he was — and stood firm — in the will of his Creator. And when the Creator decreed and Hashem commanded, Yosef the tzaddik stands in it. That is Yosef's success.

36:11 But how will the world explain "a successful man"? One who has many women, and one who has income, and one who has planes, and one who has ships. That is not a successful man. That is a failed man. That is not da'as Torah. That is how the world explains it: "Come on, this is an important man." "Rebbi honored the wealthy" — Rebbi honored wealthy people who were holy. It's not... Here — listen to them, how they are howling. What is that? — Hyenas.

36:35 They are praising Hashem, no? Praising Hashem. They hear Torah — Torah about the tzaddik — and they get excited. They get excited. Stay alone with them — let's see if you would get excited. I don't think so. That is clear. Every one of us, if he were here alone, would run for it. — It seems that a person has to take on awe of the tzaddik more and more; there are many levels to it.

37:00 Right. — Fortunate are we, with our Rebbe! Now, the Torah says — now, here you see that the Torah says "a successful man" "in the house of his master the Egyptian" — Yosef, in the pit. On the one hand he says to himself: what is my life worth? Look what my brothers did to me. What did they do to me — and for what? Because of what — that Father learned Torah with me? This is what you do to me? On the other hand, afterward he comes and stands in the test. Someone else would say: what — a matter of sin has come my way?

37:28 People today bring themselves into sin. Yosef the tzaddik... They permit — they permit themselves whatever is "allowed" for them. Yosef the tzaddik — Yosef the tzaddik flees from the sin, and the Holy One, blessed be He, puts him in punishment for fleeing from the sin. And what does the Torah say? This is "a successful man." Do you understand? How opposite our mind is to the Torah — we are so opposite to the Torah, and we think that we have da'as Torah.

37:53 That is what one should weep over. And I don't know what to weep over: over the fact that we think we have da'as Torah, or over the fact that we do not understand the Torah at all. But which do we weep over first? That is what has to be understood: that we need to learn the Torah correctly, to learn the Torah cleanly, to learn the Torah for the sake of Heaven; to truly understand this clarifying of emunas chachamim — of what it is to believe, what emunas chachamim is, what kedushah is, and how many levels there are among tzaddikim — that between one tzaddik and another there is a difference like that between a Jew and a non-Jew.

38:21 It is like that same difference. You cannot compare a sage like this with a sage like that, who is far more, and far above him. — But the Rav said that a blemish of emunah is worse than a blemish of the covenant, in those words. And the others... for them, is it a blemish of emunah? — Certainly. — Move back, so the Rav can... — And what about the Ten Martyrs? Is that called a blemish of emunah? — Clearly, clearly that is the blemish of emunah... a blemish of emunah is much worse. Let him pass.

38:49 Come, make way... Pass — pass where? Where should we pass to? that the geulah is stuck, and that was the exile, and this one is over them, and greater than them, and that torments them — a feeling against him. That means that whoever... loves me. You just arrived? — Out of all the distance, and all that they went through, that they had to go down, down, down, and reach this realization: that they — there is nothing to them at all. They came down to a crust of bread — and that was precisely the blemish of emunas chachamim.

39:16 In the end the person came to the grinding hardships of poverty. And all the sufferings, and all the illnesses, and the hardships of poverty — it came from the emunas chachamim that they blemished with Yosef. And Yosef was the head. And in the end they came down to a crust of bread, because they blemished the root of emunas chachamim. Meaning, they suffered for this — it was because of this. And had they attained emunas chachamim in full, they would not have gone all the way down; if anything, he would have raised them up right then.

39:41 Because the moment they were with Yosef, they would have risen. But they did not know that the Satan lies in wait for them only to make them lose this. And so today the world walks around with such pride — that they know what the truth is, what is false, and so on. They do not know that you have to doubt the very thing you think is truth. In the end, the main loser is you — because the truth does not need anyone. "I am not obliged to appease anyone." "Otherwise I would have gone under completely, long ago."

40:06 It is like they say — a person hears, a person starts saying about the Torah: "What — you have to go and listen?" You understand? In Tractate Megillah, page 11, where it speaks about when they wrote out the Torah for Talmai — and then the whole world was filled with darkness. Why did they have to translate the Torah? What happened? And the Holy One, blessed be He, puts it all into the heart of every one of the Sages. Now, if you look at this according to...

40:33 seemingly, Heaven forbid, the Sages dared to do such a thing! What — you can change what Hashem said? As if the Sages are mistaken — that they dare to change, to do such a thing with the Torah — and one should come out against them over it. But in truth, in actual fact, what happened here was the will of Hashem: He made a miracle — the Holy One, blessed be He, put it into the hearts of all of them to write "G-d created in the beginning," not "In the beginning G-d created" — so that it would be in order. Meaning, we do not understand da'as Torah at all.

40:58 So all the more so — what I came to explain, what I came, in short, to tell you — is that we do not understand da'as Torah. Can it be said that we understand the da'as of the Sages, too? That is even more so — because it works out that it takes us seven or eight hundred years to understand one conversation, an everyday conversation. Well, in short — we have stayed on, and we should... it is best not to go on long. — My chavrusa, the tzaddik — about the weekly parshah — he told me to ask the Rav about Parshas Yisro.

41:23 He asked why it is called Parshas Yisro at all, when he was a convert — and the Ten Commandments, too, are inside Parshas Yisro; perhaps Moshe would have been more fitting. Yisro was a convert. So really — what does Rashi say? "What report did he hear, that he came? The splitting of the Sea of Reeds and the war with Amalek" — as they say. Actually, you know what — it is beautiful. I once said a beautiful explanation; I will tell it to you — about Yisro, the way I explained it.

41:48 After all, Yisro — he was a high priest, he was at the highest rank. He was a man of standing, of wealth, an adviser to Pharaoh. He comes to Pharaoh, he advises him, gives him counsel, gives him understanding, gives him direction, guides him. "Here I am — this is my place." And suddenly, when Yisro hears — he heard a report. Pay attention precisely to the contrasting things that he heard: the splitting of the Sea of Reeds and the war with Amalek.

42:19 Yes — but not only that. What is the war with Amalek, next to the Sea of Reeds? All right, there was a war — a war for the people; what is the point? Fine — baruch Hashem, it is a miracle. Fine — but you cannot compare it to the splitting of the Sea of Reeds. The splitting of the Sea is the splitting of the Sea. The war with Amalek — a war. It was not a war that came, you know, like the plagues there were in Egypt — as if the war with Amalek came with plagues raining down, and suddenly fire came down from the heavens with hail, and the wild beasts came and tore into Amalek, and this came, and suddenly they are hit with fifty of everything in the war. Amalek — and you say:

42:56 there was something here — a war. Evil came; they win, they defeat the evil. Good came and overcame the evil. Moshe raising and lowering his hands — that was the victory. It is a victory, of course — but there was something more inward here. That is how I explained it. The secret of the splitting of the Sea of Reeds, which Yisro heard: Yisro heard that the Jewish people had arrived — they had nowhere left to go. Meaning, they are in a place where they have no way — "the wilderness has closed in on them."

43:22 They understand that to go back, or to the right — no; everything is closed. And he hears that the Holy One, blessed be He, did the impossible — He "Who makes a way in the sea." He heard that this is a people that arrives at the edge, with nowhere to go — and there the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself to them. When they reach the dead end, He reveals Himself to them precisely there, in that place. So Yisro was amazed and said: I know that wherever one reaches the edge, there is nothing after the edge.

43:50 How do I know? Like — you have reached the edge, that's it. With me, in my nature — when the sea comes, that's it. It is drowning — there is nothing. He heard that the Jewish people reach the impossible, and it becomes the most possible thing. It becomes the most possible. Yes — it becomes a road, it becomes everything. All the miracles — fifty miracles that were done there. Suddenly the sea is torn into twelve parts, and the waters go up to the sky, and the Holy One, blessed be He, set it for them — "the depths congealed in the heart of the sea" — there are pits there now, and suddenly it all became one level plain, and grass sprouted for them. Because if it is "the depths congealed" — you have to freeze them, because they cannot go down into the sea like that.

44:22 The sea is not a level plain; it is like this — you go downward. Now you have to freeze the depths. But if "the depths congealed," then it is all mud and ice, and it would be hard for them to walk on ice — their feet would stick to the ice from the cold — so He laid a coating for them, and on it He put grass, and on that He put a mosaic of precious stones — what did He not do for them, so that it would be pleasant for them? And He brought out sweet water for them from the salty water. Yisro heard that this is a people for whom, like, everything carries on.

44:51 What does that have to do with the war with Amalek? So what really is the connection to the war with Amalek? After all, the war with Amalek is more natural, more, like, less — of course... Miracle and nature: the Chacham Tzvi writes, in siman 18, that in truth there is no such thing as nature. It isn't... "nature" — there is no such thing. The Holy One, by His will, can do whatever He wants. He can make the sun — with Hashem's help — shine at the height of summer and the whole world be ice, and warm snow come down for everyone. You could cover yourself with snow — you go to sleep with the snow.

45:21 Hashem, blessed be He, can do that. It is not that the luminaries have power and control below — that is siman 18 in the Chacham Tzvi. You see that nature is something that is null. Meaning, from here you learn — you see from here — that Yisro hears: there is something immense here. On the one hand, the sea is split for the Jewish people — the impossible arrives; on the other hand, suddenly Amalek falls upon them — that is something more straightforward, like, they are fighting them — and then he heard that the "natural" thing comes, as it were — that, here, well, they came, they try to fight them, the Jewish people win the war — but he said: the Holy One, blessed be He, helps them in the impossible and also in... also in the possible — in the possible too.

46:02 So he understood that the Holy One, blessed be He, never leaves the Jewish people. Meaning, even if they have now reached a dead end, He opens the sea for them. And also when they are facing something that... What did Bar Koziba say? "Have You not, O G-d, forsaken us? And You do not go out, O G-d, with our armies." "Do not get involved for us." A war comes — Yisro comes and hears. Listen: when they go out to war, seemingly, he said — like — the Holy One, blessed be He, did not do something for them here now; He told them: come, win — make war and win. Meaning, He is above, with them, watching over them, but He wants the will of the people.

46:40 That is why it is written: "And they camped in Refidim." Meaning, he understands that if the people is not so nullified before this Creator, then He does not do for them whatever they want. Like, this is not a people where... "Ah, a war now? Come on — fire from the heavens, take them all apart." He saw that it is like — when they reached a dead end, there He helped. When they have a war — the cause being that they camped in Refidim — maybe here there is something: they have to make an effort. He said: I want to be part of this people.

47:04 He understood that here — it is demanded of me; I am required to give all my strength here, and when I reach a dead end, the sea will open. He understood that there is something here that is the greatest thing there is. He understood that these miracles are not a game, and that when Hashem does them, there is a purpose. What does the Gemara say in Tractate Nedarim, page 41? The Gemara says that the miracle done for a sick person is greater than that of Chananyah, Mishael and Azaryah, who went into the fiery furnace.

47:30 For the fire of Chananyah, Mishael and Azaryah — that is a fire lit by an ordinary person. A simple man lit it. Who lit that fire in the fiery furnace? Anyone can light it. It is a simple fire. Like Nimrod and Avraham Avinu. You too can light that fire. It is a simple fire. But the fire of the sick person is a fire from above, a fire of Heaven. Only the Holy One, blessed be He, gives that fire. And only the Holy One, blessed be He — only He can put it out.

47:55 So only the Holy One, blessed be He, does this — He Himself, He and no other. Meaning, these are miracles all the time. Meaning, here you learn that Yisro understood that the Holy One, blessed be He, is with the Jewish people: on the one hand He does not leave them, and even when they reach the most extreme moment, He will be with them there; on the other hand, the Holy One, blessed be He, wants mesirus nefesh, self-sacrifice. He wants you to be for real, He wants you to fight, and to be faithful to Him, blessed be He. And so, exactly — "And they camped in Refidim" — that is exactly this time: when they grew slack — a slackness in Torah.

48:25 What is a slackness in Torah? That the Torah is not being learned correctly. In comes Amalek — the denials, the confusions, the blemish of emunas chachamim, the heresy, the opinions, the thoughts — all these things come upon a person when he is in "they camped in Refidim," when he does not understand the Torah's truth and the way of the Torah, and what to do in the world. Well — may it be His will that the Holy One, blessed be He, lead us on a right and true path, and may we all merit emunas chachamim, the true purpose, salvations — and with Hashem's help, may it be of benefit to you.

48:56 like what we learned here, at Shimshon, in this holy place. Shir HaMaalos — "A Song of Ascents..." Amen!