למה הקב"ה העדיף את התהילים של דוד על פני חוכמת שלמה המלך? | הגאון הינוקא | הסוד של האות א'

2:41 Where is the mercy? The results hit so hard. I'd think that after a moment like that, it came, as it were, to forty years in the desert. I'll tell you something. Come, see something. If you look, and you see the bush burning, right?

3:13 'The bush was burning with fire, and the bush was not consumed,' right? [name unclear] says there were seven kinds of fire. Seven shades of fire were there, right? Seven shades of fire, a wonder. And this bush was burning in that fire. Moshe Rabbeinu saw the destruction of the First Temple, the destruction of the Second Temple, and everything the Jewish people would go through, all the exiles, and the third Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple.

3:40 He saw it all. Moshe Rabbeinu saw everything: all that was, all that will be, and all that is destined to be. Everything. From within the bush. At the bush was the revelation; that was the moment, the point and the time that was the highest in creation. The highest. There was one day that was the highest in creation for the Holy One, blessed be He — that is the day on which Shlomo HaMelech made the dedication of the Temple. That is the day the Holy One, blessed be He, made for Himself, and there was great joy — the gladness of His heart — there was great joy in the whole world, even with the destruction of the Temple already in view, but the...

4:25 But David HaMelech grasped the Torah with the beis. And Shlomo HaMelech grasped the Torah with the alef. And the difference between this Torah and that Torah — that is the secret of the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. The Written Torah, and the Torah that we learn — we learn the revealed Torah, what is revealed to us.

4:49 But the concealed and hidden Torah, what lies buried within the Torah — no one knows. That is the secret of the alef of the Torah, the secret of the inner dimension of the Torah, the secret of the Torah that is wonder. Pele, wonder, is alef. And so Shlomo HaMelech grasped the alef. But because he grasped it — he could grasp it alone; he could not teach it to the world.

5:15 He grasped this wisdom of the Torah, the secret of the alef of the Torah, of the Torah's inner dimension — the tagin, the secret of Rabbi Akiva's Crowns of the Letters. So he grasped the Torah with the alef, and that is why 'he spoke three thousand parables, and his songs were five and a thousand' — elef — the secret of the alef. And so He said to him: 'For better is a day in Your courts than elef, a thousand' — 'a day in Your courts' is better than the alef, than this alef that Shlomo HaMelech grasped.

5:43 He grasped only the alef — but he grasps the Torah at its root. But it does not help Me that only he grasps it — for 'I said: I will be wise — but it is far from me.' He can grasp this wisdom, but he cannot draw it down to others. You draw it down to others, David. You reveal the Tehillim, the hymns, the songs — so 'better is a day in Your courts than the alef.' I prefer your hymns over Shlomo sitting on the throne and grasping contemplations at the root of the crowns of the letters, from the secret of the Torah's alef. That is why He said to him: 'Better is a day in Your courts than the alef.'

6:12 That is a new insight, from right now. Ah — 'The alef is yours, Shlomo.' That is why He said to him: 'The alef is yours, Shlomo.' Yes. He said to him: 'The alef is yours, Shlomo' — 'and I will teach you wisdom' — alef is a term of wisdom; that is the secret of the alef, that Shlomo HaMelech received the secret of this alef. Alef — whoever has an alef in his name, that is something high. He acquired that himself.

6:37 So why doesn't the Torah... The alef is also the secret of pele, of wonder. Why doesn't the Torah begin with alef? Because we cannot grasp it; it is very high. That is why the Ten Commandments: 'I am Hashem your G-d, Who took you out' — golah, exile, now; 'I took you out' — and it becomes geulah, redemption. The alef is what was missing. The grasp of the alef is the wonder; there all the judgments are sweetened. That is why 'The alef is yours, Shlomo': it is as if He is telling him: what you grasp with your wisdom, you grasp alone. 'I said, I will be wise, but it is far from me' — you grasp the secret of the Parah Adumah, you know everything that will be, and you built the Temple, but still, you drew it only to your own grasp.

7:12 You cannot go down below. One has to go down to all the filthy places. Shlomo, who goes down to the places, all the filthy places — he went down with the foreign women, and this whole secret of... it wasn't really what it seems. Shlomo and the filthy places — the markets and women, so many thousands of chariots, so many horses, more than all Jerusalem. I mean, it isn't normal — the mind of Shlomo. And the whole secret was that Shlomo had to take his wisdom and bring it down to the lowest and farthest places. But he did not draw it down, and in the end he could not bring it down below, because he was wise above; he grasped the wisdom above and did not bring it down below.

7:54 But David, his father, could bring the wisdom down into the simplicity of psalms. That is why he asked — in Midrash Shocher Tov, chapter 1 — David asked that his book be counted like Nega'im and Ohalos. What's the connection at all? Nega'im and Ohalos are something that requires wisdom; you need the intellect to know what to declare impure and what to declare pure. That is the secret of the ashes of the Parah Adumah — knowing how to render impure, to purify the impure and render the pure impure. That is the secret of Nega'im and Ohalos.

8:20 That is the secret of Nega'im, and so David attained it through the psalms, in simplicity. So He says: dearer to Me is what you grasp in the simplicity of your psalms than the secret of the alef — the wisdom of which Shlomo says 'I said...' That is why He said: 'The alef is yours, Shlomo' — you grasped the alef, but 'better is one day in Your courts' — what you reveal for Me is more than the alef that I have. That is the meaning of 'than the alef.' What's the connection? Yes, it is something high, yes, but it is all somewhat up above. Compared to what Shlomo grasped, and to what we received — it stayed above.

8:54 Today, now — most of the Jewish people, the whole world — a person opens... look at how the Gra opens, in the introduction to his commentary. And with Hashem's help I also have a commentary on Mishlei, a very beautiful one. Ten years ago we gave shiurim, word by word, on the Gra's commentary, resting on the Gra's commentary and on the Malbim. But the Gra's commentary is very beautiful, very, very beautiful. For now they want to bring out one part — just a section, from chapter 1 to 3, two volumes, and then from 3 onward.

9:28 Two volumes on that alone. On two. On the Gra's commentary — together with the Gra's commentary. Rav, but what is the purpose — Shlomo HaMelech comes and brings this down... he grasps it for himself, after all, he did not bring it down to the world. What is the purpose of giving such a grasp to one man who did not spread it in the world? Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and handed it on to Yehoshua. Everything he was given, he passed on. — I'll ask you a question.

9:52 Pay attention. No, I'll explain something to you. — The Rav teaches Torah. — I'll explain something to you, but wait. Now, when you think — when you now think, for example, about the Gra. Do you think that the Gra — say you now got Sifra DiTzniusa, the commentary on Sefer Yetzirah, all the commentaries of the Raavad, the Rambam, everything they grasped — when you read it, do you think that is all the Rambam grasped? — Not at all. — What do you understand? — I understand it's a drop in the ocean. — It's a drop in the ocean, but many people don't think about that.

10:17 This is the Rambam, this is the Raavad, this is the Mishnah, this is the Talmud, this is the Gaon of Vilna. What a sage grasped and wrote down for you — that is what he agreed to reveal to you, what he thinks you are permitted to understand, as much as you can understand with your intellect — and he also constricted his own intellect. Rebbe Nachman, in Likutei Moharan, Part I, Torah 30, writes: 'A bed of knives — with what is it cut?' He explains the Gemara, 'A bed of knives, with what is it cut' — how do you cut down a garden bed of knives?

10:44 And it answers: 'With the horn of a donkey.' 'And does a donkey have a horn?' And he answers: 'And is there a bed of knives?' Is there such a thing as a garden bed of knives? It is an absurdity, an impossible thing. He explains that perceptions of Godliness can be grasped only through many tzimtzumim, constrictions — from cause to effect, from a higher intellect to a lower intellect. All the sages grasped the higher intellect. It was hard for them to bring it down to the lower intellect. So the parables that they told — the whole Torah, what the Ramban explains in his introduction, about the stories, in his commentary on Avraham and Sarah, always — that these things, the Torah had to clothe itself, the Torah put a garment on the Torah, and whoever thinks these are just stories —

11:21 he must turn to the secrets and understand that it is all secrets of Torah, every verse; it is all the secrets of the Torah. One has to understand the secret, the inner dimension that lies even within the cantillation marks — the te'amim, that is Tanta: te'amim, nekudos... the very highest places. In the te'amim alone lie the secrets of the Torah. Now, they grasped all that; everything they composed for us is their constrictions.

11:48 Meaning, in practice we have not grasped their higher intellect. Now, the sages grasped all of that — now think what Shlomo grasped. Every sage there ever was in the world grasps far more than you think and imagine. He knows far more. What we see today and understand and read and learn — that is not the sage; he is far beyond that. So you must understand: this is what is asked of us, and it is our privilege to take in what he favored us to understand. But when you come today to look at the wisdom of Shlomo HaMelech — he grasped infinite wisdom.

12:17 It is not revealed at all in Mishlei, Shir HaShirim and Koheles. It isn't. You don't even see there — you don't see there even the tip of a yud; you see nothing. Where do you find the wisdom of Shlomo? You know what — it isn't... 'He was wiser than all men,' than all the people of the East. It could be — but bring someone to match him. When you come and open his wisdom, you see Mishlei, you see Koheles, you see Shir HaShirim, and you see that there is not even a point of the revelation of his wisdom — it is not even the edge.

12:43 He grasped all his wisdom at the root; he could not bring it down below. He left it with himself; he did not reveal it in the world. So that is the secret of the alef. Yes — and by the way, it says: 'The alef is yours, Shlomo.' But David HaMelech grasped the beis — the 'Bereishis' — what can be expounded, what can be said in prayers. That is why the Jewish people hold on to the beis. What do people benefit from more: from the prayers of David HaMelech, or from the wisdom of Shlomo? They benefit from the Tehillim.

13:07 They benefit from the Tehillim. From the Tehillim, really. No question. All the Torah that he can — that he grasps and passes onward — from that, people benefit. What Shlomo HaMelech grasped stayed with him; no one touched it. — Right, it stayed with him. He is asking what the point is. It is written for you: the moment it has come into this world, it is revealed in the world — certainly, it is revealed, it it is already what... 'and a wise man will atone for it' — he atones for the whole world, for the whole generation, for everything.

13:35 That already brings about Hashem's mercy. Not everyone is worthy of it. And could they? I think — if everyone now got hold of the Book of Remedies and the... what would they do in the world? So the Sages agreed with Chizkiyahu when he hid it away. He had grasped a wisdom that could cause ruin for whoever would not handle it properly, so it has to stay hidden — meaning, not for all the others; only for you. It is enough for you, and you are wise enough for it. How does 'a wise man atone'? How does he really atone for it? — Look how you're asking a million things...

14:14 I'd like... All right, Rav Michaeli, thank you very much.