The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-איך נחזיר את השבויים？ הגאון הינוקא עונה שו״ת לאחר סעודה שלישית מוצ＂ש פרשת וישלח

2:43 Because otherwise you show that all the sleeping you did, all the sleep was, for what? What? For yourself, not for Hashem. Yes, it was not for the... you did not give all your strength for the prayer. All your strength must go for the prayer. Therefore in siman 89, as brought in the name of the Taz, that any person who does, for example, there are people for whom it is hard to get up, to pray at sunrise.

3:10 Early is very hard for people; not all people can pray at sunrise. But a person who has Torah learning, who needs Torah learning, and he goes to sleep too, he goes in order to rise early, all his sleep will be holy if he intends and says that all this sleep I am going to sleep, what will it be for? For the service of the Creator, for this his sleep will be elevated entirely. - And there are those who learn while asleep.

3:36 - Right. Words of Torah in a dream, there is that too, words of Torah in a dream. Whether a person receives reward for it or not, it is a dispute. Whether a person receives reward for it or not. Not that there is nothing in it, But there are revelations, all the secrets. Rabbi Shlomo Kluger had many dreams of words of Torah, and he was in doubt about it, whether he receives reward for it. Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz expresses that it would take him - what our master the Arizal said, seventy years to tell - for me it would take five hundred years to tell what happens in a dream.

4:10 Right, he wrote a whole book about what [unclear]. Right, right. Of course. There is certainly reward. What? There is certainly reward if one writes it. If we put it in writing and reveal it in practice, then of course it has very, very great reward, because then the elevation is beyond measure, what rose. What? - Questions of Torah from Heaven. - Questions of Torah from Heaven, yes. The Torah teaching of Rabbi Yaakov of Marvege, Questions and Answers from Heaven, you know, a dream question, when does one do a dream question, how does one do it?

4:42 The time for a dream question is from nightfall. It is not done after midnight; it is done from the time of nightfall. This is the time one can do a dream question. They write, they go - one must be fasting a whole day. - There are fifty. - What? There are fifty? There are several kinds of dream question? There are several kinds, right? But... there is a book by Rabbi Avraham [unclear]. Right. Rabbi Avraham [unclear], who explains how to do the dream question.

5:08 He also brings there from the Rambam, from the Ramban, from [unclear]. Right. How many times to do it... [unclear] 'Lehimalet Nafsho', The author - he wrote the book 'Lehimalet Nafsho'. One of the greatest of the Sages, his book is... his books are wonderful and sweet, I love his writings very much. Basically I will tell you the simple way, that can be kept - not everything can be kept, but one can do the lighter and simpler things; they are also rather hard, but the more refined a person is, he can receive an answer that is cleaner. One who practiced this a lot was the great Rabbi Meir of Premishlan, the father of the [unclear] Aharon, Rabbi Aharon'le of Premishlan.

5:46 He used to do many questions from Heaven. On everything he did he used to do questions from Heaven. What one does: a full day's fast; after a person fasts a full day, he prepares himself toward nightfall, he sits and thinks about that question, and he must do this for three days. After that he will certainly have help from Heaven, from Heaven. There are levels for the more advanced, who can put a note under the pillow, and they will have an answer.

6:14 This I have not seen - people who did it and it happened; I don't know. They say that the holy Baal Shem Tov used to do this, and a note would be written to him from Heaven, and there were many holy men and tzaddikim who used to do this, the Yismach Moshe also had such a thing, that he received a note from Heaven. What? But there is no need to do this, there is no point, there is no point in doing it.

6:42 Yes, one must separate from people, seclude oneself from people. Today this is very hard; today it is better to go and ask for da'as Torah, and Sages who, thank G-d, can be relied on, and this too is questions and answers from Heaven. - So one asks a child? That is what people ask. - No, a little one, no. Then ask a Torah scholar. - A dream question of [unclear]? - Yes, a dream question of... What? It is not [unclear], not at the time.

7:08 The more correct time to do it is at nightfall. When a person needs to go to sleep, right at nightfall. If he goes to sleep at nightfall, this is exactly the time when there are the watches of the angels, before they change over at midnight, because the time of midnight is a time of Torah, it is not a time of sleep. Then the angels can confuse him. The angels of the night, when a person sits up at night, are not the same angels appointed over the time of nightfall, because this time, which has the... why is this time the best to sleep, right at nightfall?

7:40 This is how people used to sleep once, because the angels are... there are angels of judgment that come down at these hours. 'A band of evil angels.' They come down at these times and they do harm; therefore most of the harm in the world is always at these hours. In the hours from nightfall until midnight. There are many things that once happened, and they immediately go to cover themselves, and at midnight very great mercy would descend.

8:05 And at the time of the last watch of the night, the Mateh Ephraim writes in siman 581 that then is the time of favor, when the Selichos are said, because the Holy One, blessed be He, roams in this world, He descends and roams the world; this is the time of favor. So from midnight, the closer one gets to the time of dawn and sunrise, the mercy grows stronger, and from nightfall... so therefore this is the finest and most excellent time for sleep, and this is the finest and most excellent time for a dream question, for whoever wants to ask. - According to the Geonim or Rabbeinu Tam?

8:39 - According to the Geonim. According to the Geonim it is enough. Rabbeinu Tam is only for stringencies [unclear]. What is this? He said that the name of the Rav, [unclear], to ask questions from Heaven. To ask questions from Heaven. - It is written in the books that in the last generation there is a third of the troubles of the world, that is, there is of the world, all the years of the world, and in our last generation, a third of the troubles, the footsteps of Mashiach, all the troubles were [unclear] in these years of the footsteps of Mashiach.

9:17 Now, on one hand we see that people once were very strong, they were very lofty in their souls, they had hard days, they worked hard for their livelihood, but they were happy, they had passion, they had emunah. Today it is a generation of abundance. There are many good things, there is progress, there is medicine, and, to distinguish, there is Torah, a lot of Torah, there is kindness, there is knowledge, people want to listen, but on the other hand we see difficulties of the soul.

9:45 Not only difficulties of the soul between a person and his fellow, between a man and his wife, and mainly a person toward himself - difficulties. But not only difficulties of the soul, but also difficulties in material things, that is, we see people going through all kinds of upheavals, all kinds of ordeals, all kinds of things our fathers never imagined. On one hand, yes, people want to hear Hashem's view and truly want to hear the Rav's view.

10:12 How can one overcome, get past this whole hurdle, all these things? People see the world in pain, one could say. People are breaking, and many do not get up; people do not move forward. On the other hand we have the great light, we have the Rav's Torah, the faith, and with this we can be better Jews than we were once. - I will tell you what I think.

10:41 It is because of the [unclear] and the heresy that has entered. Today people already, I say this out of pain, there is very great heresy. This heresy brings into people the 'my strength and the might of my hand', and people think they can be saved on their own, and they think that the Holy One, blessed be He, was there for our fathers once, and today He is not with us.

11:10 So they permit themselves to do all kinds of transgressions and all kinds of sins, and then the Holy One, blessed be He, chastises them. Once, you know, a Jew who was in a time of trouble, you surely read in all the stories of tzaddikim how a Jew fell into some trouble, immediately some old man came to him, held out a hand to him, took him out of the pit; he needed a livelihood, he prayed; the poritz threw him out, immediately some poor man arrived, brought him some gold coin and saved him.

11:39 How did they have these stories once? Today we read these stories, all the Midrashim, all the stories of tzaddikim, all the deeds of Sages - how can this be? Because they were full, full, full of emunah. They had no such thing called heresy, they had no such thing as 'it cannot be', that Heaven forbid Hashem would abandon them and it would not happen. Today people feel as though, so to speak, abandoned, not clinging to the pure emunah, in cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He. One must know how to cleave to Hashem, with complete and absolute emunah that Hashem, blessed be He, will not abandon anyone, and everything is possible, and one can get out of anything, from any situation, and also today Eliyahu, remembered for good, can come and save a person from any trouble he is in, as in the earlier generations, and so we will have the same miracles, and so we will have

12:32 the same things, only simply we do not merit to see. I am sure that every Jew here in our world today, surely somehow there was some Eliyahu who helped him in some way, sometimes in this form, sometimes... You know, in Tractate Chullin, page 6, Tosafos says that 'that old man' is Eliyahu. wherever it says 'that old man', 'that old man', and in the Zohar it is the same thing too.

12:57 every 'that old man' that is said, that elder, is Eliyahu. Today we do not merit to see him in the form of 'that old man', as the Ramak writes, in 'Know the G-d of your father', in his book. We see him in aspects that are somewhat more of hiddenness. a little, sometimes in a thought, suddenly a good piece of advice, or sometimes one sees him in the form of some merchant or poor man, but as 'that elder', that one sees him arriving - people don't see that so much, but I have heard all kinds of stories; today too, when people come to me, I hear all kinds of stories in which I understand between the lines what that person does not understand, but I understand that he had some 'that old man'.

13:37 And so the Holy One, blessed be He, [unclear], and I see it especially with people who have simple and pure emunah. Whoever has simple and pure emunah is helped. Today you see people crying out about their livelihood for 20 years and some... does not come their way... because it is all only because of the heresy. Here one must fear Hashem and guard the Torah with self-sacrifice, understand that it was given to us, and guard kedushah, guard purity, guard these things.

14:05 These are the things that connect a person to the Creator. to the Creator. And the moment people let go of the Torah, and as I said, in the Pesikta Zutrasa, where it is written: why was the Torah given, in the Ten Commandments, in the singular? 'I am Hashem your G-d, who took you out of the land of Egypt', 'You shall have no other gods before Me' - why in the singular and not in the plural? Rather, so that you should not say: since the Torah was given, let it be kept by others. Rather, the Torah was given through you, given to you in the singular, so that you too will keep the Torah. You too are commanded to keep it. Each one of us is not exempt from keeping the mitzvah of the holy Torah.

14:39 Everything Hashem, blessed be He, commands is for each and every one of us. There are those who feel they must lift themselves up with their own hands. If a person gives his soul for the Torah, gives his soul for it and keeps every word of Hashem, he will give his soul for it, he will see from Heaven that same salvation of the early generations. You see the ultimate end, everyone is fearful and trembling; truly we see how much one sees in the world the ultimate end, the last day, that at the moment a person departs from the world he sees that nothing accompanies him, and at any slight moment he can leave this world. This world: a small blow, a small wound, a small illness, and the person is already not in the world, close to danger,

15:23 and he goes, and they lead him to his end. So how much must one fear Hashem? For what is the purpose of this whole world? We see that this whole world is futile, we see that this whole world is... We must do everything here in order to reveal G-dliness, the ultimate purpose. People forgot, got a little confused. They forgot, gave too much to this world, as if it were the main thing, and then all these plagues, [unclear] 'Hashem will make your plagues extraordinary, great and lasting plagues, and evil and lasting illnesses', it is because of the flaw in emunah in Him, blessed be He.

15:56 That's it. If there is emunah in Him, blessed be He, then there will not be such plagues. that elder will come, help a little and assist, and all these hardships will end. People will come. Today, in such a generation where people set their minds, everyone today would think he lives at least 700 years, 900 years, 1,500 years. roughly, by the way people behave. At least that is how it looks. A person spends all day on his days and on his money, every day; it seems as if he will live 700, 800 years, 1,000 years.

16:25 Instead of giving his mind to his days - a person worries about losing his money and does not worry about losing his days. His money does not help, and his days do not return; and his days do not return, nothing will help. Therefore one must always fear Hashem and think always to look far ahead, about the true and eternal purpose a person will have, and that he return to Him, blessed be He, and fear Him, blessed be He, truly as he should; then he will see that all the questions and all the problems, many things will be solved with just a light thought.

16:56 See how, when a person thinks with fear of Hashem, his whole life changes. if he wanted to do such a thing, a whole way of life can change only from fear of Heaven. Seventy, eighty years will look different to a person only with fear of Heaven. That is why I explained that Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov explains that the greatest thing a person can have is a true Rebbe. If you have one like that, you will be able to know that you are spending your days and years correctly.

17:21 And if not, a person will lose all his days and years. He can lose seventy, eighty, a hundred years that go to waste. He will lose his whole incarnation. both his incarnation and everything. And for this the Satan lies in wait more than for anything. The Satan does not give his all over the mitzvah of tefillin. The Satan does not fight a person over the bris. The Satan does not fight a person over Shabbos. He fights a person only so that he will not bring himself close to a true tzaddik. Because the moment he loses this, he says, I cut him off from this, this way I know that I bring all the disruptions.

17:52 And this is the test in every generation. So too wrote the holy Gaon of Komarna, the holy Gaon of Munkacs, [unclear]. Chapter 4. - We merited [unclear], Rav. - We merited, we merited. True, I am true; a tzaddik I am not. - Rav, how does one reach the emunah the Rav speaks of? - How does one reach emunah in Hashem, truly reach this thing? Only through the holy Torah.

18:19 Only through the Torah. That a person learns, learns Midrash, learns the Torah, he prays, says Tehillim, keeps mitzvos simply, he is wholehearted, he does not come to the Holy One, blessed be He, with intellect, he will reach emunah. However much a person needs to be a great scholar, but with Hashem, blessed be He, one must be simple, not come to the Holy One, blessed be He, with clever ideas. That is why the Jews in the past were very strong in themselves, they were strong in emunah. Certainly. In fact they were also strong in spirit, they were strong, they were happy. They had miracles - what do you want? They had miracles.

18:51 Don't you read today the stories of the Baal Shem Tov, stories of the Vilna Gaon, stories of the Baal HaTanya, stories of tzaddikim, chassidim? You see how much - what miracles they had? What miracles? These are miracles. We say, today too we have miracles. Only apparently we have no glasses to look with. Right. We don't see. There is a Midrash on Parashas Vayeitzei, And here [unclear] Yaakov all the nations [unclear] going up and down. He said to him: Go up.

19:17 And I am afraid that I too [unclear]. That he did not believe and did not go up. What does it mean that Yaakov did not believe and did not go up? It is possible to mention this. That is not the meaning. as we interpret 'did not believe and did not go up', about Avraham Avinu it is written, 'And he believed in Hashem, and He counted it to him as righteousness'. Their emunah was not an emunah like ours. Their emunah was more like, for example, with Sarah Imeinu, that she laughed.

19:46 What, would she not believe that Hashem - Hashem is all-powerful? Rather, it is not emunah about whether Hashem can or not, it is emunah about whether I am worthy. That is the explanation. Do you understand? It is also the same thing with Yaakov Avinu. It is not meant, as it were, that he does not believe; he says, the question is about me, whether I am worthy to be among those who merit this. If he had thought he was worthy, Hashem would have thrown him off the ladder.

20:16 And then it says, 'lest the sin cause it'. 'Lest the sin cause it' - but the meaning is that a person must understand that he is not worthy of all kinds of good things; we are not worthy of anything. Even that we, about this it is said, 'And Yours, Hashem, is kindness, for You repay each man according to his deeds.' even that we merit at all to pray and to learn and to lift our eyes to Heaven, as I explained after the prayer, according to the Ramban, that this is the mitzvah of the privilege of prayer, that we merit to pray at all, the Ramban says, this is a kindness of Hashem, that you can lift your eyes to Heaven at all and you have Someone to pray to. This is kindness; with this it is finished.

20:55 This kindness - this is the privilege. Yaakov Avinu does not credit himself even with this privilege. The Holy One, blessed be He, brings this thing about for me; that is the privilege. That is to say, 'he did not believe' means: how do I merit this? Like if you saw some person, now one will come, some great king, and say to you: you are the chosen one to enter my treasure house, take whatever you want. So you stand at the entrance and you say: how did he suddenly pull me from here, what am I, I was here in the middle of the prayer, now suddenly they took me out, they are letting me be king - so you stand there, astonished, you understand that you are about to take it, but you feel in yourself: maybe they made a mistake with me, maybe I am not worthy, maybe I don't deserve it,

21:29 maybe soon they will realize it is not me, then they will take me out and bring the one who deserves it. That is how Yaakov Avinu felt, that is how Avraham Avinu felt; they felt they did not deserve it on their own account, despite everything, such was the shame and the closeness to Hashem. This is the reason the Holy One, blessed be He, loved them so much and cherished them. They never took credit for themselves. Each one credited good to the merit of the one greater than him. 'Thus said Hashem to the house of Yaakov, who redeemed Avraham.' This is in the merit of the grandson.

21:57 Avraham [unclear] in the merit of the grandson, altogether. Yaakov was found in the merit of the kindness he did with Esav. Esav - the Holy One, blessed be He, brings it about that Chushim son of Dan would kill him, his head. Each one comes about in the merit of some good thing; Hashem kept some merit for him, and gratitude - this is in each and every case. In practice He brings about something small that He credits to him, but no one attributes any merit to himself.

22:22 'I surely did something good.' He does not say, 'now it is me and my deeds.' Like Chizkiyahu, he attributed it to merit, he said, 'Behold.' So the Holy One, blessed be He, does not like that. The Holy One, blessed be He, says that a person should take, attribute - everything is Hashem, blessed be He, not me. That is the great level. That is the meaning, that you should see it. Also in the Midrash on 'Vayosha', also in the Mechilta, Parashas Beshalach, how the sea split for them.

22:48 They stood and hesitated; so it is not that they did not believe that the sea would split for them and Hashem would bring about the miracle for them. They said, what did we give? we, idol worshippers who came out of Egypt, will be worthy that the sea should split for us? That is the meaning. So if a person does some mitzvah, you can say, [unclear] this mitzvah [unclear], [unclear], no? If a person says this, he can take the reward of this mitzvah; he [unclear] the mitzvah.

23:14 One may not say this. One must say: 'from the treasury of free gifts'. Never attribute it to the merit of a mitzvah I kept, or to the merit of a good thing I did; attribute - because if a person asks in the merit of this, it could be that he will receive [unclear]. The Noam Elimelech says a very interesting thing, that a tzaddik can give a person his World to Come in his lifetime. That is to say, the tzaddik has the possibility to weigh, he sees a poor person now who is suffering greatly in this world.

23:46 He can - I am talking about tzaddikim; everything he speaks about is tzaddikim very great in stature, not tzaddikim as we understand them, yes? These are very, very great things; people think anyone can do this. Like for example, when the person - no, he sees the poor person, he can weigh and decide to give this poor person - now, let's say, he deserves Gan Eden above, and here he suffers a lot - he can take from his Gan Eden and give it to him here, and remove the sufferings from him.

24:17 But what? it could be that this will lessen his Gan Eden above, of that same person. The tzaddik does not take from himself, he takes from the person, he decides for him, as it were, he does for him: he now has 100% Gan Eden above, and here 0%, so he suffers sufferings. This can take off for him some 20% for here and keep 80% for him. Only a tzaddik great in stature can do such a thing. Only someone... great.

24:42 - What? With permission or without permission? - Without permission. Without permission. He doesn't want it? He needs the tzaddik. Even though he doesn't want it. That is why I say, That is why I say, it must be a person who is very righteous and very great, because he will decide whether it is needed; he decides alone whether to do it or not. - Tzaddikim who take sufferings upon themselves - why don't they [unclear] at the person's expense? Like Rav Ben Tzion Abba Shaul, may he rest in peace.

25:07 His uncle. May he rest in peace. [unclear] is Rav Ben Tzion Abba Shaul, may his merit protect us. He took many sufferings upon himself. Holy of holies, a genius of the world. All the sufferings were... Why did the Rav take it upon himself? - What? - The sufferings of the other one. 'You be healthy,' let him take the sufferings upon himself, instead of taking from the World to Come of that one. He won't suffer, [unclear] won't suffer. - You are right in what you say; I don't know why he didn't do it, but these are hidden matters; as they say, these are the laws of tzaddikim, one has to learn them. As [unclear] said, by him he has nothing at all.

25:46 How could it be - perhaps he had nothing, but one doesn't touch this; like, we have not found anyone who did this, who took this from a person and gave it to him; it is only people who are suddenly close to some, I don't know, [unclear], I don't know, like, one has to know to whom to go. Today there are those who don't know at all that such a possibility exists. After that one has to know whether to do it, if he attributes it to the merit of the tzaddik.

26:14 [unclear], in the merit of tzaddikim. If you attribute it to the merit of tzaddikim and you attribute it to the treasury of free gifts they will not deduct it from your merits. A person who hangs it on his own deeds may be saved, but he takes the reward of the fruits of what he did here in the world. Therefore a person must say that it is from the treasury of free gifts. Every request that a person makes, too - to ask from the treasury of free gifts - from Hashem, blessed be He, that He give freely of His own, in order to receive reward.

27:01 - It is not said about a request - about just any request, or a request of [unclear]. - I will explain the matter. Basically, I understand what you are saying. You need to understand: everything that flows down into the world, everything the Holy One, blessed be He, bestows on the world, everything that flows down - livelihood, children, a salvation a person needs - a person is judged in Heaven now, at the time that a person...

27:27 Now, a person comes to a situation where he is standing next to a leaning wall. This wall is about to fall - what happens in Heaven? How? So they judge him. So they judge him, right? What do they judge? By merits. By merits, right? They judge: does he deserve it or does he not deserve it. If he deserves it, they save him, but of course they deduct it from his merits. If he does not deserve it, Heaven forbid...

27:53 When we speak about the treasury of free gifts - that a person comes to ask the Holy One, blessed be He, for kindness, a person comes to ask the Holy One, blessed be He, for a certain request that is [unclear] mercy, any request that a person demands from Heaven - at the very time that a person asks, in Heaven they ask, 'Who is this, and what is he, that his request should be granted?' Because at the time a person prays to the Holy One, blessed be He, at that very moment, accusers are also aroused against his prayer.

28:19 And now he asked - so-and-so asked for livelihood - and that accuser comes and says, 'Ah, what did this one do before You? [unclear] such and such and such.' And when a person hangs this prayer like that, and he asks, then it goes easily. That is the reason we also say the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy at a bris milah, afterward. We arouse Hashem's mercy, as we say: 'I am Hashem before he sinned, and I am Hashem after he sinned.' That is the reason we say 'Hashem, Hashem': 'I am Hashem before the sin, and I am Hashem after the sin.'

28:44 So that is the same attribute of mercy that the Holy One, blessed be He, arouses upon a person, to give him his request without reducing his merits and without judging him. So every person needs to come with the understanding that he comes to pray to the Holy One, blessed be He, not hanging it on anything in the world, but like 'the poor man speaks entreaties' and then the prayer will help it be accepted. - What about mitzvos of [unclear]? What is the problem?

29:13 - Yes, but I do not do the mitzvah for the sake of its reward. as in Chullin, about that one who saw a mitzvah of length of days - honoring father and mother, and sending away the mother bird - and he fell and died. So you see that... But how can that be - as it were, a mitzvah of length of days, like sending away the mother bird and honoring father and mother, that 'the reward of a mitzvah is not in this world' - there is no reward, truly, to understand the reward of the mitzvah in the world, but what we can know is that 'you do not know the giving of the reward of mitzvos', because a person does not know that some such-and-such mitzvah he does will suddenly bring something about.

29:57 Therefore we need to fulfill the mitzvos out of love for Hashem. Love for Hashem will in any case bring down to us all the abundance - good things are created and made in the world from our mitzvos. 'the merit of its letters, and the merit of its verses, and the merit of its vowels, and the merit of its cantillation notes' - you hang this on that, you hang this on the power of that.

30:25 You are, as it were, coming to stress how great the virtue of this is, how holy its place is, how great this thing is. 'In the merit of the holiness and virtue of Shir HaShirim, which is holy of holies,' and so on - 'may I have help and assistance from Heaven' - and then it helps you to have that very thing. The more you contemplate the holiness... I gave you a nice reason, if you remember, from the Pnei Yehoshua, who writes in Kesubos, page 110, that a person who does not understand the holiness of the Land of Israel and lives in it like 'a commandment of men learned by rote' does not receive the influences of the Land; it does not - the holiness of the Land does not rest upon him; he does not receive the influences.

31:04 Whereas a person who understands that he lives in the Land of Israel - understands, is moved by it, has a longing for the Land of Israel, understands that he is in this place - then more and more of the holiness of the Land of Israel flows onto him. Everything depends on contemplation. If you think about the virtue of tefillin, if you think about the virtue of the Kosel, you understand: the more you contemplate the holiness of the place where you are, so you draw all the light onto yourself.

31:30 When you do a mitzvah and you prepared for a great mitzvah the whole day long, the virtue of the mitzvah is even greater. You learned about the mitzvah; you prepared for the prayer. The preparation is vessels to receive the great light of the prayer. So if you understand what the Land of Israel is, and you learn about the Land of Israel, and you fulfill the mitzvos in the Land of Israel, your holiness in the Land of Israel will be much greater. And if you come to fulfill it and you understand the virtue of tefillin, and you are moved by putting on tefillin, your holiness will be much greater. There is a person now putting on tefillin for the first time, after he longed for and searched for tefillin, and decided to do teshuvah, and did not find tefillin. Every day he searches for tefillin, and suddenly he found tefillin at the Kosel.

32:12 He began to cry, and he put on tefillin for just a minute - they put them on him for a moment - and he wept, as there are so many such stories at the Kosel about Jews who came and suddenly began to return to Hashem. You surely understand that the virtue of his tefillin in that minute, two minutes, however long he had them on, with weeping and tears and emotion, had a great influence on his soul, much more than one who does it like 'a commandment of men learned by rote' and does not contemplate. Or like the Jews who came to the Land of Israel, and like those holy ones who came with self-sacrifice. Today we walk about and go around here, and this is the greatest and holiest level that a person only through this awareness.

32:59 - There are now all those who remained there in Gaza, [unclear], they still have not brought [unclear] out. - Our captives, the captives. One should say 'the captives' and not 'the abducted'. There are captives, there are captives. 'The abducted' are only those who were abducted now - and what about captives who have been there from long ago? There are many captives, wherever they are. There are surely captives in Iran, in Egypt - Jews who risked their lives in all kinds of ways for the safeguarding of the Land of Israel.

33:30 They were detained, and they are captives, and nobody knows about them, and some are not spoken about though they exist; their families cannot, because these are people of - the Mossad, and they really are captives there, and no one knows of them and no one prays for them. So the moment you say 'captives', they too are included; but when you say only 'the abducted', it means only those who were abducted. And certainly there are many such Mossad people who risked their lives many years ago, and to this day their name is not known, and they do not make their faces known, so that it will not be known that they are spies, and they are captives there; they cannot get out, or cannot escape, or perhaps they are suspected, or some are imprisoned.

34:05 So that is why one should say 'the captives' - how? Yes, here, he is included among the captives - for him too one must pray. So one must say 'captives'. As for what can be done: to pray for this, that they come out; the parents and the families need to or in general, Psalm 25 in Tehillim: 'Of David: To You, Hashem, I lift up my soul; my G-d, in You I have trusted, let me not be ashamed.' Psalm 25 can bring about the... to bring them back to Him, blessed be He, that they come out - especially for the parents.

34:40 A father who has a son - I said this to one of the parents whose son is a captive: I told him to say Psalm 25 with intention: 'Of David: To You, Hashem, I lift up my soul.' This psalm is an awakening of teshuvah - that a person is awakened to teshuvah. It is the 'falling on the face' prayer, done with intention. When a person returns in teshuvah to Hashem through this psalm, with intention, at that moment, when a person does teshuvah, he draws all his offspring after him to return.

35:04 Everything that came from him, all his descendants - in all of them, thoughts of teshuvah are immediately awakened. And the same applies to the whole Jewish people. When we do teshuvah, we awaken all our brothers, all of them, to return to Him, blessed be He. So teshuvah is the same thing - [unclear] that they return to Hashem, or that they return to the Land of Israel, but that they return. One must do teshuvah so that they return. To bring back - 'and the children shall return to their border': 'and they shall return' is teshuvah.

35:31 One must increase teshuvah in the world. When teshuvah increases in the world, the Holy One, blessed be He - what is said in Tractate Yoma will be fulfilled, on page 86: it was taught, for the sake of one individual who did teshuvah, they forgive him. It was taught, Rabbi Meir says: for the sake of one individual who did teshuvah, they forgive everyone, as it says, 'I will heal their backsliding... for My anger has turned away from him' - it does not say 'from them'. 'My anger turned away from him', not 'from them'. Through an individual - that the individual who does teshuvah, the whole world is forgiven. [unclear] one person will do teshuvah, Hashem will already forgive everyone, will atone for us for the sin of the Golden Calf, and for the sin that we disgraced Zechariah, and caused pain to Zechariah and to Moshe Rabbeinu.

36:08 This is what we said: 'In wrath You march through the land.' Either 'za'am', wrath, or 'nezem', a ring - or 'out of the strong came forth sweetness'. So this is the novel point he made: 'b'za'am' - Zayin is Zechariah, Mem is Moshe - that we spoke against Moshe - and Ayin is 'egel', the Calf. And every day one must do teshuvah for having pained Moshe Rabbeinu in every generation, and that sage who was in every generation - we always disgraced and spoke ill of Hashem's holy ones, in every generation.

36:36 That is having pained Moshe. For 'the extension of the Faithful Shepherd is in each and every generation'. And if we had been in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu, we would have been [unclear], right? The Yismach Moshe also wrote that he was there then, in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu. And for having pained Zechariah - that Rabbi Aharon Moshe [unclear] of Brody, who was here in the Land of Israel - he went often to the grave of Zechariah in order to appease him, and he is [unclear] there next to him. He passed away about 200 years ago.

37:01 In the glosses on the Levushei Serad, the sage Rabbi Moshe Aharon of Brody, who came to awaken this matter - that it can have an effect, and a very great drawing near in Heaven, and [unclear] upon us, over the blood of Zechariah, and for the sin of the Golden Calf - that Hashem, blessed be He, forgive us for the sin of the Golden Calf - to awaken this too. I usually, at the opening of the Ark, on Monday and Thursday, ask about this matter, because I mention it - also Zechariah, also Miriam, and also the Calf. I ask the Holy One, blessed be He, to forgive, so that the Holy One, blessed be He, will forgive us and pardon us.

37:41 This is the reason written in Siman 580, Se'if 3, in the Shulchan Aruch: that these supplications are made on Monday and Thursday - it is over the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash and the burning of the Torah. And therefore one should be careful about this too, so I add this as well. - But we were not at Zechariah; we did not do that to Zechariah. - 'We did not do that to Zechariah' - there is no such thing. We all belong... 'And at the sin of the Calf we were not - we in this generation were not there'? No. We too were there, in every generation.

38:06 'All of Israel' - Tractate Shevuos, page 39 - to this day we are guarantors for one another. For everything [unclear], you say in the confession: 'we and our fathers and the people of our household'. What happened now - what [unclear]? Well, they told him that someone... Right, it is possible. If you come specially - I spoke about this before - if you come to the gravesite of a tzaddik or to that sage, specially for him, you walk specially to the place, and you go to the place specially, and you see, and you pray from there - that is fine.

38:41 Yes, but coming must be from the outset, not on the way. Not that a person comes, as it were, on the way. He did not find the feeling; he does not want the [unclear]. He can stand right there, look up close, look, pray, mention - and that is considered like taking part, yes. Of course, there is the virtue of the four cubits. But if a person does not want to and cannot, or it is withheld from him, if he comes to the place where he sees, and he looks, and he gazes, then it is good.

39:08 As the Radbad writes, that just by seeing the place of the Temple, abundance flows [unclear], and like Calev, who was in Chevron. It is the same thing. Also the kohanim, yes. Also the kohanim, yes. According to the brother of the Admor [unclear], yes, a kohen can too. The festival of redemption. The festival of redemption. Thank you - we will stop in peace, yes. May it be His will that we all [unclear] the festival of redemption. Amen. May there be good tidings. Amen. May there be miracles and wonders. Amen. May there be a good life. Amen. May there be protection and safeguarding, [unclear] - in the meantime, not yet; [unclear] the footsteps of Mashiach, and we will truly wait for Hashem to bring down the wicked, and we will merit that the holy kingship be raised up. In the meantime

39:57 we still need to pray. No downfall has happened, and not yet... Faith in the Sages. If you truly have faith in the Sages, you will have a pure, straight and clean mind, and you will understand the Torah in the best, most absolute and complete way, when you do not put your own mind into it.

40:22 When a person has faith in the Sages, he understands the Torah; a person who has no faith in the Sages already understands on his own, yes. - that the tzaddik comes to his gravesite [unclear] - when they say, let's say, he says, people travel two days before - that is also the same thing.

40:51 [unclear] it is just... - I know about the three days. It is written in the book of Rabbi David of Modena. Part 2, Article 3: he writes that one should light - put out the menorah three days before Chanukah.

41:21 He writes that there is significance in these three days before the festival. That is what I saw [unclear]. Regarding [unclear] a tzaddik, is there nothing like this? That is the only place I saw such a thing. [unclear], they said, maybe he has a part in... [unclear], he says. They already say that he wrote this, but I did not see it anywhere. So here it is - Rabbi David of Modena. That is to say, the custom is to put out the menorah three days before Chanukah.

41:47 The custom is to draw down this light - already putting it out three days ahead, to make a preparation. And yes, afterward too, yes. To leave it out three days before. So you see there is significance. There is also in the book Botzina D'Nehora, the Botzina D'Nehora of Rabbi Baruch, that he used to go up to the gravesite three days before as well - within the three days - when people do not come. It is possible. The main thing is the intention. Look, [unclear], anything you do, even if you come in the middle of the year, and also pray - anything you pray to the Holy One, blessed be He, from the depths of the heart, the Holy One, blessed be He, will save. As I mentioned - Yerushalmi, Berachos, chapter 9, halachah 1: that when a person has trouble, he should not cry out to Michael,

42:29 nor to Gavriel - 'to Me let him cry out, and I answer him immediately.' Let him cry out to the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Holy One, blessed be He, answers him. May the Holy One, blessed be He, have mercy on us, and may you all have help from Heaven. I enjoyed being with you. May you have a good Shabbos, a good week, good tidings. We are still in Shabbos, so good Shabbos - a good life, salvations, miracles and wonders, protection and safeguarding, good tidings - and may we give our Master, the Creator, blessed be He, satisfaction.

42:53 Amen. And may we merit that everyone returns to Him, blessed be He. Amen. Awaken each and every one to do teshuvah - all the people, all the relatives, all the people - awaken them to return in teshuvah to Him, blessed be He. Awaken people to think about their true and eternal purpose, that they always pay attention to the purpose and not waste their time for nothing, and that they be upright and holy people, and in this merit we will merit to be redeemed with an upraised hand, and [unclear], good tidings, a good life, and so may it be His will, and let us say Amen. [unclear] May He make the Torah great and glorious.