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The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 1,902 words · 9:18. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 "I, I am He who comforts you," "and in Jerusalem you shall be comforted." May the Holy One, blessed be He, give strength and health and joy and hope to the family. May Hashem, blessed be He, give us, all the Jewish people, hope from Heaven to be united in these days to receive the Torah. The Sages teach us that to fulfill the entire Torah this is all of it: what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.
0:30 "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." When we want to come close to the Holy One, blessed be He, and we want salvation from the Holy One, blessed be He, one of the most important things that the Holy One, blessed be He, is strict about in the Torah, which includes the whole Torah, is the honor of every person. Many times we find ourselves in life, in the world, we meet all kinds of people and we judge them because of how they look, because of their behavior, because of all kinds of things like these, and through this we increase, to my sorrow I say it, hatred, and divisions and disputes and things that are not good.
1:12 Our way, the Jewish people, already back then, when it came to King David, and Shmuel the prophet, when he came to anoint David, then he said: "Are these all the young men?" He already thought it was over, there was no one fit to anoint as king, and then someone sees there, he sees Eliav, who was tall. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: "Do not look at his appearance or at his tall stature, for I have rejected him." The Holy One, blessed be He, says: he cannot reign over the Jewish people, I cannot take him to be king over the Jewish people.
1:42 The Sages teach: because he was a man of anger, he was not fit to lead, because he was quick to anger. And from here we can learn the main thing for success in this world: that we must respect every person, every creature. "Beloved is man, for he was created in the image." To respect old people, to respect people, every creature in the world. The Holy One, blessed be He, has compassion on the Jewish people, He respects all of the Jewish people and also respects the nations of the world.
2:11 And I will finish with something small, something I said, a very important thing, that comes to teach us, the Jewish people and the whole world: the mitzvah of the Chanukah light; the Chanukah light is the miracle of the jug of oil, it is a small jug. The miracle was a very tiny miracle, very small, compared to the miracles and wonders that the G-d of Israel did for the Jewish people in all of history.
2:36 The smallest miracle in all the history of the Jewish people, it is the smallest miracle there is. People have spoken about this. Just reflect and think. And over this small miracle, the miracle of the jug of oil, the Sages came and instituted a mitzvah to say the Hallel on all of Chanukah, with a blessing. This is called the complete Hallel.
Read the whole shiur in English (13 more parts)
3:00 I asked a question to the students, the Torah scholars here with us, one Shabbos I asked them: tell me, why is it that the mitzvah of the Chanukah light, which is rabbinic, which is a lower level, while a great miracle from the Torah, like the miracle of the festival of Pesach, which is not "a miracle", it is miracles and wonders. To call it a miracle, it is called...
3:25 for the Torah says: "As in the days of your going out of the land of Egypt, I will show him wonders." That means the Holy One, blessed be He, emphasized the miracles: "And I will strike Egypt with all My wonders." The power of the Holy One, blessed be He, is so great that He struck Egypt and struck all the land of Egypt. And then I asked: why is it that for those same miracles and wonders that were done on Pesach we say Hallel with skipping, with omissions?
3:50 We skip parts of the Hallel and do not complete the Hallel. Maran the Beis Yosef writes in the name of the Shibbolei HaLeket: what is the reason we do not complete the Hallel with a blessing? Because of the seventh day of Pesach. That's it, that is the reason. So I asked: it is the opposite! The seventh day of Pesach is the most powerful miracle of the Exodus from Egypt. The Jewish people go out of Egypt and the sea splits for them; it is the highest event.
4:20 And the commentators, the Machzor Vitry, Rabbi Shmuel of Vitry, the student of Rashi, and many, many more of the great Rishonim, discuss whether it counts as part of the remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, or perhaps it is something else entirely. In the view of the Machzor Vitry and others, they say it does count as a remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, so it turns out to be one matter, one part of the Exodus from Egypt. And then I asked: if we see such a great miracle, yet we cancel the mitzvah of reading the complete Hallel on all the days of Pesach because of the most powerful day, when the sea split, let a person just imagine what it means, the sea splitting into 12 parts, and Tosafos explain that it was like an arc, with all the paths curving, and the water reached up to the height of the sky,
5:05 and there were 50 miracles done at the sea, these are things that cannot be imagined at all, the greatness of the miracles, and today, even in the research of all the great archaeology of Egypt, we find that all these miracles and wonders that happened in the land of Egypt, they have it in their history, in all the hieroglyphs that engraved the miracles done for the Jewish people. One can read and learn it in the history of the Egyptian people, and really see the whole chain of events.
5:33 And then I told them the answer, based on what, to sharpen the matter a bit more, what the reason is. In Tractate Megillah in the Talmud, on page 10b, the Gemara says: "The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you are singing a song?" says the Holy One, blessed be He. I do not agree that you should praise My great Name and say Hallel with a blessing while the work of My hands is drowning in the sea, the Egyptians are drowning and suffering.
6:03 I don't want your song. Go ahead, skip over the Hallel, move on. You left Egypt; I don't need this praise. And then I said... I once had a conversation with a person who is from Christianity. I was at a shiur, and a man from Christianity was passing by. It was in Jerusalem, and some Christians passed by there and heard the words, and they sort of asked a question or something, and I answered them. Along the way I brought them this as a proof, to explain how Judaism is the opposite of what happened in the Inquisition and in all the history of the Jewish people and what they suffered, and they loved this answer very, very much.
6:39 And I explained to them that with us it is the opposite: with us, when a person is drowning in the sea on Shabbos, it is a mitzvah to save him, even if he is a non-Jew, even if he is not Jewish. And that is how I explained these things to them. And then I said: this is exactly what the Holy One, blessed be He, teaches. The Holy One, blessed be He, teaches us: the miracle of the jug of oil is small, it is the tiniest miracle there is, and we say Hallel all those eight days, whereas the miracle of the Exodus from Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea and all the wonders that happened on Pesach, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: say Hallel without a blessing. Why?
7:07 Because "the work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you are singing a song?" I respect the Egyptians, says the Holy One, blessed be He. Look at everything they did to us, the Egyptians, suffering like no other. It is written in the Midrash Vayizhir that one of the reasons there was a plague of darkness on the Egyptians is that they used the Jewish people as torches. At night a Hebrew would come, he would come to his house, to the house of the Egyptian. All day he would work, and the Egyptian takes him and uses him as a torch.
7:32 He would say to him: bend down, bend down, stand here, let me see the table. If he did not stand properly, he would take a sickle and cut off his head. And so the Holy One, blessed be He, said: give them, Egypt, a plague of darkness. He struck them with the plague of darkness, "a darkness that could be felt"; they could not get up. That is the reason for the plague of darkness. And it is written there in the Midrash Vayizhir... it is also written that one of the reasons, in the plague of the firstborn, even the firstborn... let's say there was an Egyptian woman whose son was killed twenty years before the Exodus from Egypt; if she had a picture or a statue of her son, that statue too melted in the plague of the firstborn. She would come,
8:07 she had a picture of her son, a drawing of him, it would melt and vanish and turn to blood, and be destroyed in the plague of the firstborn. That is what the Holy One, blessed be He, did. See what miracles He did there out of His care for the Jewish people, and still He did not want to accept the praise, because He respected the Egyptians too. And from here we can learn: "Beloved is man, for he was created in the image," that the most important thing is to respect all creatures, to respect the Jewish people, to respect the nations of the world, to respect everyone.
8:32 This is how the Sages taught us to be first to greet every person with shalom, even a non-Jew in the market. May we merit this, with Hashem's help, and continue the path and the goodness and the light of the family, the family of distinguished lineage. We know this family, the rabbis of the family, the relatives of Rabbi Yaakov. May the Holy One, blessed be He, watch over you, that you continue to succeed, that you continue to do good and to make the Torah great and glorious, and may your wellsprings spread outward, the whole family together.
9:03 All good blessings; may you have hope and comfort from Heaven. "I, I am He who comforts you, and in Jerusalem you shall be comforted." May we merit the geulah, good things for all the Jewish people; may there be strength and hope and joy for the Jewish people.
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