The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-איך זוכים שהתפילה תפעל ניסים？ הגאון הינוקא במעמד האדיר בהילולת התנא חנינא בן דוסא בפתח תקווה

4:54 the well-known story: "The whole world is in distress and Chanina is at ease" — and at once the rain fell; and the reverse, "Chanina is in distress and the whole world is at ease" — and the rain stopped, because of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. And wherever Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa went, Hashem, blessed be He, watched over him with a personal and exacting Hashgachah, and he clung to Hashem, blessed be He, with a great cleaving beyond measure; we do not find such holy men, who merited to reach such levels, such heights — that he overturned nature completely, that the whole world was sustained in his merit, that he reached such levels, such heights, immense beyond measure.

5:32 Contemplating Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa — what the Sages teach us in Tractate Taanis — everyone knows, on page 25, the well-known story of Rabbi Chanina with his daughter, who was crying on the eve of Shabbos, and he said to her: My daughter, why are you crying? So she told him that she had switched the oil with vinegar, and he said to her: Why should you worry?

5:58 What does it matter to you? He who told the vinegar— He who told the oil to burn will tell the vinegar. And so it was: that vinegar was transformed, so much so that they took from it for Havdalah at the close of Shabbos. So great was Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa's power to overturn nature. There was the story there — on that same page the Gemara tells that Rabbi Chanina — they brought before him— there was a man who left chickens there, which were a lost object, and Rabbi Chanina told his wife not to touch them.

6:26 And right away, of course, it was hard for Rabbi Chanina, because the chickens multiplied, so he sold them and in their place brought goats. And those goats went and — so people said — were causing trouble in the fields, that they were robbing the fields, so to speak, eating too much from the fields; and people said that these were Rabbi Chanina's goats. So he said to them: If you see that these are my goats — so he says to them: let every goat bring a bear on its horns by evening; it will come back with a bear between its horns. And of course this is a very great miracle, for how can a goat bring a bear?

6:59 And truly, so it was. It was clear that it was not Rabbi Chanina's goats, because when the time came, the evening, every goat came with a bear between its horns, and everyone came and everyone saw the miracle and this great and mighty wonder — how Rabbi Chanina — the Holy One, blessed be He, listens to him, and whatever Rabbi Chanina does, the Holy One, blessed be He, makes it succeed in his hand, and from Heaven there roll down miracles and wonders, signs and marvels; whatever he does, the Holy One, blessed be He, makes it succeed in his hand; whatever he prays for to Hashem, blessed be He, the Holy One, blessed be He, answered him.

7:33 Rabbi Chanina — beyond his greatness and the wonders he performed and his closeness to Hashem, blessed be He — in the Gemara, in Tractate Berachos, page 61b, it says that the world was created for the sake of Rabbi Chanina, that the whole world is sustained "for the sake of Chanina, My son". To contemplate, to think, to say that the world was created for the sake of Rabbi Chanina — to come and contemplate and say that the whole world is for the sake of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa — that is a thing of great wonder.

8:05 In the Mishnah, in Tractate Berachos, chapter 5, mishnah 5, and also on page 34, side b, the story is well known: whoever Rabbi Chanina prayed for, he knew who would live and who would die. There were sick people who were healed; he would say: This one will rise from his illness, and this one will die. They said to him: How do you know? And he said: "If my tefillah is fluent in my mouth." And Rashi explained that in tefillah, so to speak — tefillah is— one feels it in the tefillah; there is the possibility that this sage, this tzaddik who is praying — the tefillah is fluent in his mouth, he knows that there is— there is no disturbance in the tefillah, and so the tefillah works and is accepted.

8:43 And so said Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, that he merited to pray and would know who would live and who would die, and so it was, because Hashem, blessed be He, would hear his tefillah, and the sick were healed; and whoever would not — Rabbi Chanina knew who would die and who would live. In that same story there, the Gemara continues on page 34b: when he came to Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, Rabban Yochanan spoke to him about his son, who was ill — that he should pray for him. Rabbi Chanina laid his head between his knees and at once prayed to Hashem, blessed be He, and Hashem, blessed be He, sent a complete recovery to the son of Rabban Yochanan.

9:17 Then he said, with a downcast spirit, that if ben Zakkai were to lay his head down all day long, they would not listen to him. He could not do that same miracle that Rabbi Chanina did, healing the sick one like that. So his wife, feeling somewhat downcast over this, said to him: How can you speak about yourself like that? Like that — what, he is a student, Rabbi Chanina; you said greater than him— he is greater than you? You can speak of him that way? So he told her that he — he gave a parable, on which there is a very great difficulty — he said that he is like a servant before the king, and I am like a minister before the king.

9:52 And this is a very, very great difficulty, but there is a secret in it, a very, very great one: that Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa — when he compares Rabbi Chanina, he comes to say about Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa that Rabbi Chanina, so to speak, is on the level of a servant and he is on the level of a minister. So one can explain— how can one call Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa a servant and himself a minister?

10:16 After all, since when does a king do the will of a servant? A king does the will of a minister; he does not do the will of a servant. It is no honor for a king to do the servant's will; it is an honor for a king to do the minister's will. The minister is the one who guards the king's laws, the king's decrees. The king will do the will of a minister. Since when do we find that a king does the will of his servant? So that too is one difficulty to ask on it — how did he say this about Rabbi Chanina? One can explain it this way: Rabbi Yochanan meant to say, I am like a minister, because I am Rabban Yochanan — I still have some pride; but Rabbi Chanina, with all his signs and all his wonders,

10:54 always holds himself to be a servant before the king, and he always cares about the king's honor, and that is why the Holy One, blessed be He, listens to him. That is the meaning — that the Holy One, blessed be He, would accept his tefillah. The Gemara in Tractate Taanis, page 25a — the Gemara tells of that house of the neighbor: they built the house, and the beams were not long enough to reach from one place to the other, and then, by way of a miracle, Rabbi Chanina prayed, and from his tefillah the beams grew longer — a cubit, half and half, from each side to the other — the beams grew a cubit longer on each side. Just to grasp the miracle and the wonder — how Rabbi Chanina, at such a great place, such a great level

11:32 of might and kingship and contemplation — who can reach such a level, that he literally played with nature, to do with it whatever came to his mind — simply to lengthen beams, which is beyond the way of nature — how can a beam grow longer and stick out from the sides of the house? And so Rabbi Chanina prayed, and the Holy One, blessed be He, heard his tefillah. In Midrash Tanchuma, Parshas Vayigash, siman 3, it is written that there was a certain lion — lions used to roam the Land of Israel — a lion that would cast dread and fear, like in Chullin, page [unclear], where the Gemara tells of the lion of Bei Ila'i — such was a lion in the Land of Israel; and Rabbi Chanina went and drove the lions out of the Land of Israel, so that they would not roam the Land of Israel.

12:12 There is also that story in Tractate Pesachim, page 112b, about Agras bas Machalas, who was a she-demon, a kind of she-demon who would harm anyone who went out at night. And she came before Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, she came to harm him, and Rabbi Chanina had to drive her out of the world. "I will drive you out" — drive her out — Rabbi Chanina had to drive her out of the world. She said to him: Because you — in Heaven they proclaim about you: "Beware of Rabbi Chanina and his Torah" — for whoever performs a wonder, it is because of the Torah.

12:41 From here we see that wonders without Torah are no wonder. The greatest wonder that Hashem, blessed be He, performs — only when there is Torah is there a wonder; when there is no Torah, there are no wonders at all. And this is the hint about Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa: that Hashem, blessed be He, performed such wonders through him only because of the power of his Torah. And then Rabbi Chanina did this great miracle and drove her out, that same Agras bas Machalas; he put her out so that she could not have dominion.

13:08 She asked of him: Only leave me the nights of Wednesday and Shabbos — that time when they have dominion, that time when the demons do harm. There is a book called Sefer Arazim. Sefer Arazim, where it is written— after all, angels have wings; that is written in Tractate Sanhedrin, page 109a, in Rashi, and in Tractate Niddah, page 24b. In Tractate Niddah, Rashi says there that the demons — these demons that do harm have wings.

13:35 And in Sefer Arazim he writes that it was at that time when Adam HaRishon was [unclear] Chava, and that was 130 years, and a great many demons and spirits and night-demons and harmful spirits were created. That is also the reason we read the bedtime Shema. The Beis Yosef, in siman 239 — it is one of the eight reasons, eight reasons — that it nullifies the harmful spirits: 1,125 in a day, and 410,625 harmful spirits in a year — that is times 365 — the time when all the harmful spirits are nullified, and through the teshuvah that one does — which is in the Zohar, Parshas Korach, page 178a, where Rabbi Shimon writes of "the master of the accounting" — and this is in fact that same contemplation of a person who does teshuvah before the Holy One, blessed be He — whose law is like that of a man on his deathbed,

14:24 and Yoreh De'ah, siman 330, se'if 2 — that a person does teshuvah before his passing, because he is like one who is about to rise up on high. So he wrote in Sefer Arazim that at that time, when Adam HaRishon came— when those demons and spirits began to multiply, Mesushelach came and engraved the Explicit Name on his sword, and began to strike them, all those harmful spirits; he wanted to drive them out of the world — until Agrimus came.

14:54 Agrimus was a son of Adam HaRishon from the side of the spirit. He was a son of Adam HaRishon — so he writes — and he was called Agrimus. He pleaded before [unclear] that mercy be aroused, that he stop; and then he drove out all the demons, he drove them to the ocean, that there they would have dominion, and they could make no mark and would have no dominion in the Land of Israel; and they were driven out, and they all fled to the ocean and to far-flung places, and there is their place to this day.

15:20 The demons are in Antarctica, they are in places where one cannot see, and they cannot be there, in our place; they are in cold places, in the mountains, in the ocean, in far-flung places, where no eye can see them. That is what Abba Binyamin said in Tractate Berachos, page 6a: that "if the eye were given permission to see, no creature could stand" in the presence of those harmful spirits — from sheer faintness; for whoever sees them, dread and fear can fall upon him from the terror of the sight of the demons and harmful spirits. For their appearance — it is written in the Zohar, Pekudei, page 268a — Rabbi Shimon describes them, those demons and harmful spirits: there are some among them that are like bare souls; they are seen and not seen, they are lacking, now and then seen and then not; nothing of them can be grasped;

16:18 they vanish, and they have no garment and no form, those demons; sometimes they are seen and sometimes not; they make themselves absent and vanish. That is how they are, those demons and harmful spirits. The word for demons, "shedim", is from "shadud", plundered — plundered and vanished; they are in places where no one can be. And the males among them have long hair, and therefore he writes in Sefer Chassidim, in siman 1155, that one who grows long hair resembles a demon.

16:44 His appearance is like a demon's — those with long hair, who have it; and likewise those who [unclear] — so it is similar, as he writes there in that siman. And this is the contemplation: all the kelipos and the destroyers and the harmful spirits there are in the world — one needs to understand how they can be driven out of the world. That is what Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa did, that he drove out the harmful spirits. Just to contemplate how many demons and harmful spirits there are — it is a thing beyond measure to think of — one who nullifies at all the spirit of impurity and the kelipah that is in the world — what is written in Tractate Taanis, page 20b, which is in fact a spirit, an evil spirit that is there, that does harm, that is on the hands,

17:26 that is when people— as Rashi explained in Tractate Yoma, page 77a, of Rabbeinu Gershom, where he explained, in Taanis, page 20b, that it is an evil spirit— explained that it is an evil spirit that rests on the hands when one does not do netilas yadayim. And in Rashi, in Yoma, page 77b, he makes it that spirit of impurity — when they touch bread without netilas yadayim.

17:50 He writes there in the name of the Tosafos Yeshanim, in the name of Rabbeinu Tam, that there is an evil spirit that harms a baby; it chokes babies when they give them bread without netilas yadayim — when they do not wash the hands, it can harm the baby. So writes Rabbeinu Tam; the Tosafos Yeshanim bring it in the name of Rabbeinu Tam. So, to contemplate, to see — to do harm. One can also offer a new idea: that this is the reason for what is said in the name of Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel in Tractate Shabbos, page 10b, that "one who gives bread to a child must inform his mother."

18:19 So perhaps one could explain it by this: that the point of informing is, in case there is a spirit of impurity in it, lest that spirit come and do harm — that this is what Rabbeinu Tam meant. And for this reason one must be careful every day about netilas yadayim — that we wash our hands — for this is what removes all the impurity from the world; we nullify all the impurity there is, all the impurities and all this filth that is in the world, the spirit of impurity, that Hashem, blessed be He — that the world make themselves impure, and all kinds of things — and that we bring about kedushah and purity, and are stirred by the Holy One, blessed be He, in kedushah and purity, from what is known in Tractate Berachos, page 60b, that we do netilas yadayim,

19:00 we offer tefillah before the Holy One, blessed be He, and a person washes his hands, and then the spirit of impurity that is on the hands no longer does harm — for in Tractate Shabbos, page 108b and page 109a, when a person is there with his hands at the time he rises from his sleep, there is an evil spirit that can harm the eyes and the ears, so we do netilas yadayim in order to remove this spirit of impurity, and it is for this — that we nullify it. And so the Rosh wrote, in siman 23: because the hands are busy.

19:26 And the Abudarham wrote that it is like a Kohen Gadol who serves in the service of Hashem, blessed be He. Our master the Rashba wrote, in part 1, siman 191, that it is like a new creation. When a person becomes a new creation, he washes his hands; so he becomes a new creation before Hashem, blessed be He, and the Holy One, blessed be He, removes the spirit of impurity from the earth. And so it is written in the Zohar, Vayeshev, page 184a, 184b. And netilas yadayim — there is a very great secret in it, which the author of the Olas Tamid writes, from the introduction, in Toldos Yaakov; he writes in his introduction, in the first chapter, that netilas yadayim should be next to the bed, with a vessel.

19:58 As he writes in the Shulchan HaTahor, or Menoras Zahav, that a person washes next to the bed with a vessel and nullifies the spirit of impurity, so that the spirit of impurity should have no hold over him; and there is great kedushah in this, most awesome — for one who washes his hands next to the bed, it purifies the soul and brings about salvations, miracles, wonders, livelihood; he nullifies the spirit of impurity. that the spirit of impurity — like what I told a Jew who gave us great strength, when he risked his life for the sanctity of Hashem, blessed be He — he and his wife were on the road, and they were set upon by criminals, those terrorists, and they made them suffer; and he told of his self-sacrifice, that he truly was not afraid,

20:44 he truly acted with self-sacrifice to save his wife, and she lay in her blood in his arms — a thing that is sheer madness; it pained us greatly to hear this thing that he told me; it was shocking. And I told him — he said that he goes everywhere to sanctify His blessed Name — and I told him, "You are making a very great kiddush Hashem." So I told him a story that strengthened him very much, about Count Potocki, Avraham ben Avraham, the righteous convert, Count Potocki, who at first was a priest, from a very, very great and high noble family in Vilna, who was one of the very wealthy, from a family of distinguished lineage, a respected one, of the wealthy, of dignitaries, of priests, and it was a wonder to them how one of them, in the end, left all that honor and greatness and went and converted,

21:37 and changed his name to Avraham ben Avraham. And everyone talked about him, they would murmur about him: "What is this? How can he be like this? What is he doing?" And they said they would put him to a cruel death. There are several versions of this in the books, which left things out, and I will give you a little from old printings, that this is in fact how the story was. On the day they took Count Potocki, Avraham ben Avraham, out to his passing, when he died sanctifying Hashem's Name, all the Jews in Vilna shut themselves in their homes, closed the windows, closed up their houses, the doors.

22:13 They were afraid to go about [unclear] the rioters, the priests, began to run wild and to kill more and more and more. So they sat inside the house, and Count Potocki, Avraham ben Avraham, walks on with self-sacrifice, keeps walking, walking, walking, and the priests are taking him along the way, and all the Jews are hiding at home, watching, and he passed by the Vilna Gaon. And the Vilna Gaon opened the window and said to him, "Avraham, do you want me to save you with holy Names?"

22:39 And he said to him, "No. I want to die for the sanctification of His Name, blessed be He." So the Vilna Gaon said to him, "Go quickly, quickly, to be bound as an offering for the sanctification of His Name, blessed be He. Go quickly, for the honor of Hashem; bind yourself as an offering before Him, blessed be He. Go quickly." And truly he went, truly with joy, and they seized him on the table and did very harsh things that are hard to say, before they burned him. They did harsh things to him, in the stomach, in the intestines; they tormented him, cut him, and they were truly torturing him very, very much.

23:11 They said to him, "How do you still hold to your wayward path? Take it back." He said to them— when he said to them, "With us, with the Jewish people—" he said to them, "You cannot keep the Torah." In Tractate Bava Kamma, page 38a, it says that the Holy One, blessed be He, went around the whole world to offer them the Torah, "and you, the nations of the world, cannot keep it. It is written for you, 'You shall not murder.'" He said to them, "You are murderers. Can you keep from murdering?" He said this to them; he rebuked them, he scolded them for their deeds, that a day would come when they would be judged for this. And they truly tormented him, and burned him.

23:43 That is how it was, and he sanctified the Name of Hashem, blessed be He— "Who sanctified us with His mitzvos and commanded us" on kiddush Hashem— for the honor of Hashem, blessed be He. That is what Count Potocki did: he died for the sanctification of His Name, blessed be He. And truly, if they had said Kaddish, at that moment Mashiach would have come. And the Divrei Yechezkel of Shinova, the greatest of the sons and students of the Divrei Chaim of Sanz, the choicest son, his great student, the Divrei Yechezkel— he said that he went up to Gan Eden with his shoes on.

24:12 That is what he said: he simply went up to Gan Eden with his shoes on, and everyone saw him in Heaven, the tzaddikim; they all honored him, as he arrived from Heaven into Gan Eden— Count Potocki, Avraham ben Avraham, who died with such great self-sacrifice that no one could even imagine how he would pass away by such a cruel death. And that is what he did, to sanctify the Name of Hashem, blessed be He. And so did that Jew who told us yesterday that he saw his wife like that, lying in her blood.

24:40 He was not afraid. He showed self-sacrifice there. May the Holy One, blessed be He, watch over all the Jewish people and strengthen [unclear]. Of righteous women—we know of the righteous wife he had— Rabbi Chanina too, Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa— his wife was a righteous woman. There is the story about her, the painful one, in Tractate Taanis, page 24b— it is a truly painful story— that on Erev Shabbos she would bake in her oven— and all the neighbor women would light—the bread—the oven, for baking, and Rabbi Chanina's wife had nothing to bake in the oven.

25:12 She would light that oven as though, as if she had something to bake in the oven. She was ashamed not to bake—the oven— not to light it, so she lit the oven like everyone else, kindled the fire like everyone else. And so it was that truly, and from Heaven, some neighbor came in to borrow some thing or other from her, and truly the whole oven filled with baked goods, and there was a great miracle—baking, it was all bread, all of it, truly a miracle. And then she came to Rabbi Chanina and said to him, "Enough of this suffering for me. Do something."

25:41 So he truly worked a miracle, and showed her: there came down a leg of gold, which came down from Heaven. And then they dreamed that it was lacking from the World to Come, and truly a hand came out from Heaven and took it. They said that "the last miracle was greater than the first"—for how did they take back what had already been received?—because Heaven knows only how to give. Hashem, blessed be He, does not know how to take. In Tractate Bava Basra, page 74, side a, the Gemara tells of the kartalisa that was in the heart of the sea—Rabbi Yochanan, traveling on a ship.

26:08 He told that he was once on a ship, when he traveled by ship, sailed on a ship, and he saw a certain chest, a kartalisa. He saw this chest, which was a box full of precious stones and pearls, and this box was the great wealth, the treasures, of the wife of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, which in the future is to make techeiles for the tzaddikim, and all kinds— and there were kinds of karsha— karsha means all kinds of fish—that surrounded this chest, the kartalisa, to guard it, so that no one would touch this chest, this box, of the wife of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa— by her power and her greatness and her holiness.

26:46 How righteous she was, how holy was the wife of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. All the contemplation of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa— for Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa says in Tractate Avos—he is written several times in the Mishnah— in Tractate Avos, chapter 3, mishnah 9 and mishnah 10, where he says that one "whose wisdom is greater than his deeds, his wisdom does not endure"— that a person's deeds need to be more numerous, that his fear should come before his wisdom, so that the wisdom will truly endure.

27:15 For whoever wants to remember the Torah, whoever wants to grow wise in knowledge, needs to have fear of Heaven, needs to be holy, needs to be pure, needs to fear Hashem. That is "his fear comes before his wisdom": first of all fear of Heaven, first of all fear. "The beginning of wisdom is the fear of Hashem." First of all, the beginning of all wisdom is to know the Master, the Master of all deeds; to sanctify oneself in holiness, in thought, in the eyes, in the true purpose; and all the vanities of this world—to despise all the falsehood, and to lift one's eyes to Heaven all the time, to cling to Hashem, blessed be He, to rise in holiness. That is how one merits to see Hashem "eye to eye," to truly see, "when Hashem returns to Zion."

27:51 And so he says in mishnah 10: "Anyone with whom the spirit of people is pleased, the spirit of the Omnipresent is pleased with him." And he was very particular about the honor of others. These are the sayings of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. We see from here that hidden in this, in what Rabbi Chanina says, hidden in it is the power of his miracles, when he speaks of the spirit of people and the spirit of the Omnipresent: that if a person is pleasing to people and brings people joy, then the spirit of the Omnipresent will be with him; Hashem, blessed be He, will always be pleased with him.

28:18 For one of these things that are important for miracles and wonders—it is received in the name of holy ones and tzaddikim, the Rebbe, Reb Elimelech, and his colleagues, all the holy ones, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak and all the holy ones there were— they said that they do their wonders out of love and unity and clinging to the Torah, and especially pure emunah in Hashem, blessed be He. The pure emunah in Hashem that Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa had, who sanctified the Name of Hashem.

28:44 And when a person merits such emunah and clinging to the Holy One, blessed be He—which is the greatest emunah in Hashem, that he sees only Hashem, always— then he removes from himself the whole bite of the serpent. For the whole bite of the serpent, the whole sin of Adam HaRishon, the filth of the serpent that it cast into man— the serpent's filth cast into man sadness and laziness, despair, which is the most terrible impurity there is, which is the root of all heresy.

29:10 That is why, in Tractate Berachos, page 33— in Berachos, page 33a— there is the story of the arod, where the Gemara tells of an arod that struck Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa—Rashi says it was a kind of tzav and snake, a kind of crossbreed of a tzav and a snake. It bit Rabbi Chanina, and in the end the arod died. "Woe to the arod that met Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa." In the Yerushalmi, Berachos, [unclear], halachah 1, it is mentioned by the name chavarbar; that is what they called it—chavarbar was its name, that was the name of that arod; they called it chavarbar.

29:42 Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa was on such a level of emunah that he said, "It is not the arod that kills; rather, sin kills." The sin—there is a hint here to the sin of Adam HaRishon, for it is all because of the sin of Adam HaRishon, all this impurity. And the impurity of the sin of Adam HaRishon—because in the sin of Adam HaRishon there was the sin of theft, for Hashem, blessed be He, did not want them to touch that tree, the Tree of Life; so it was, so to speak, also a sin of theft. That is why Shlomo said in his wisdom—he hinted in it that the serpent's bite is sadness and laziness— that is why he said, "Go to the ant, you lazy one; see her ways"—and so let us look at what this is, "Go to the ant, you lazy one," in Mishlei, chapter 6, verse 6:

30:18 "Go to the ant, you lazy one"—look, contemplate the ant. Now we need to contemplate it, to see what there is to learn from the ant. In Tractate Eruvin, page 100b, in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, who said that if we did not have the Torah, we would learn modesty from the cat, we would know proper conduct from the rooster, and about theft from the ant. Seeing about theft from the ant, we would know not to steal, if we would look at it and see. There is a very great secret in this.

30:44 Why would we learn about theft from the ant? After all, we see it is something that is not logical, to learn about theft from the ant. One can also raise a difficulty on this altogether: in Tractate Taanis, page 5, side a, in Tractate Chullin, page 134a, about ant holes; in the Mishnah in Peah, chapter 2, the seventh mishnah, where it is written about ant holes— that is, a field that bandits reaped, that anyone who reaped it— if there should be, Heaven forbid, bandits who came and reaped it, or the ants gnawed it— meaning that if the ants came and gnawed that field, it is exempt from peah.

31:17 What does it mean, "the ants gnawed it"? So from here I see that ants are in fact thieves. So how do you tell me that we would learn, in the name of Rabbi Yochanan, about theft from the ant? I see from here that ants are thieves. [unclear] that do commit theft. So what is the explanation here of Rabbi Yochanan's words? One can explain it: truly, the ant does not steal from its fellow. From its fellow. From its own fellow the ant does not steal anything, because it knows that what is its own is what was given to it.

31:42 It does not try to steal anything from its fellow, because it is in fact clean of the serpent's filth, of that laziness and sadness that there is. So—the serpent came and cast filth upon Chavah— when a person is in fact clean of the serpent's filth, and has none of the "skin of the serpent" in him, then there is no dust in him, nothing at all of the impurity. He can go up to Gan Eden while still alive, like Eliyahu HaNavi, may he be remembered for good, who goes up—"a belt of leather girded around his loins," "a hairy man," among his signs— as it is written in Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer in the name of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, this too in the name of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, in the name of [unclear], in chapter 30, he says

32:16 that the ram of Yitzchak Avinu—what was made from its hide, that was the "belt of leather girded around the loins" of Eliyahu; and of the horns: the left horn was the horn sounded when we stood at Mount Sinai, and the right horn, in the future, will be blown at the geulah— from that same horn, from that same ram. And so one must take care with what Rabbi Chanina says; the secret of it is in fact the secret of the geulah: that we pray and long for the geulah only in order to shine the light of Hashem, in order to be saved from the serpent's filth, so that a person will be completely clean of all the serpent's filth—which is all the laziness and the sadness and the "skin of the serpent" and the heresy and the theft, all these thefts that the world is busy with, only

32:59 touching money—which is the blemish and sin of Adam HaRishon, which makes the laziness heavier, and the sadness and the despair of all those who fall into these places and come to low and lowly places. And on the contrary, by rising up they do teshuvah—to do teshuvah, which is the thing. That is why it is written in the Tosefta, in Bava Kamma, chapter 10, that theft from the public is something that has no remedy; it is impossible to do teshuvah for theft from the public. When one wants to do teshuvah for theft from the public, one has to do something, to make an effort and pray to Hashem, blessed be He, that He arrange something—that he give tzedakah and do many things, as it is written in Bava Kamma, page 94b, or in Choshen Mishpat, siman 366, se'if 2.

33:41 It is something one cannot grasp at all, how far the world is from this—that they are not careful about theft, not careful; they go and do all kinds of things and cause blemishes, Heaven forbid, or they harm the public and do nothing about it [unclear]. That is why the Aruch HaShulchan writes, in siman 366 in Choshen Mishpat, that when one gives the tzedakah, the Holy One, blessed be He, arranges from Heaven that it will help to repair what the person damaged.

34:06 Hashem, blessed be He, will surely arrange that it reaches the public [unclear]. This is something—so he cannot return it. The Holy One, blessed be He, is the One Who will arrange it; He is the One Who arranges it—what is called individual Hashgachah. Only for one who truly clings to Hashem and prays to the Holy One, blessed be He. And that is really what the Bach writes there, in siman 366: it is not necessarily so that it will be repaired; one has to see in which case it will be repaired. Not everyone who committed theft from the public will give something for it and then it is repaired.

34:33 It is for certain cases. Like the teshuvah for weights and measures, about which it is written in Choshen Mishpat, siman 231, se'if 17, that it is hard for a person to do teshuvah—he cannot do teshuvah at all. It is impossible to do teshuvah if he caused a blemish in measures and weights, Heaven forbid—he took more weight, made a different, larger measure for someone and collected more money from him.

34:57 With these things it will be very hard for the teshuvah to be accepted, because he caused a blemish at its root, in the sin of Adam HaRishon. He distanced himself and cut himself off from Hashem, blessed be He. And so, when one does teshuvah at its root, it is first of all to repair the sin of theft. When one does teshuvah and there is no theft in the person's hand, and he returns what was stolen, he restores knowledge. For when he restores knowledge, he knows that everything is from Him, blessed be He. He knows that everything is from Hashem, blessed be He, and he needs nothing from this world. For whatever Hashem, blessed be He, gives, He gives it all in His wisdom, and so His wisdom, blessed be He, has decreed. And then he will know Hashem in all his ways—

35:29 and so: "In all your ways know Him, and He will make your paths straight." Berachos, page 63, side a; as the Rambam wrote, Hilchos De'os, chapter 3, halachah 2, halachah 3; Orach Chaim, siman 231—Maran the Shulchan Aruch ruled: to know Hashem in all one's ways, wherever he goes, everywhere, in his sleep, when he rises, everywhere. To be attached to Hashem, blessed be He, all the time, never taking one's mind off Hashem, blessed be He. All the time he thinks about the geulah, thinks about Hashem, blessed be He, thinks about the true purpose, the eternal, the true. What is the purpose of all the life of this world? What is the purpose? All the time he thinks for the sake of Heaven. All the time he clings to Hashem; all the time he thinks about Hashem, blessed be He.

36:07 And then he reaches the level, the greatest and most exalted, of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. That is how Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa lived. All the time his deeds, all the time his thoughts, were only on Hashem, blessed be He. He thinks about nothing else. Those who merited this were a few holy tzaddikim. The greater and more complete the tzaddik, the more he repairs the sin of Adam HaRishon. When one repairs the sin of Adam HaRishon at its root, that is how one rises and ascends, repairs the purpose, repairs the root of everything, which is the most important thing. We are here in exile, and we need to do everything in our power to turn this exile into geulah. And it depends on each one of us: if we long for the geulah, and long for the coming of Mashiach, and long for the Beis HaMikdash, and turn this whole exile

36:49 into geulah—by our shining the light of Hashem, by fixing pure emunah in our hearts and shining the light of Hashem, blessed be He— which is the whole chain of descent that comes down from above to below, as one begins to draw down Hashem's mercy until it descends to the lowest and lowliest places. "She came down wondrously; there is none to comfort her." When one merits the level of Ayin— when the Shechinah rises to the level of Ayin—then there is one to comfort her.

37:13 This is "she came down wondrously," pela'im: coming down pela'im is the secret of the alephs, the secret of the fallen alephs, which must be returned, raised up to their root—all the blemishes, all the sins. Then, Ayin: that we bring the Shechinah to the level of Ayin, and everyone will be in lowliness and recognize the greatness of Hashem— which is the whole chain of descent of David HaMelech that appears at the end of Megillas Rus: that Peretz fathered Chetzron, Ram, Aminadav, Nachshon, Salmon, Boaz, Oved, Yishai and David. That is the lineage of David HaMelech at the end of Megillas Rus.

37:42 It is the hint to the whole chain of descent of David HaMelech, that he came down from above to below, until he comes down below and reaches the low and lowly places, which is this world. That is the lineage of David HaMelech. And when David HaMelech comes, he composes the Book of Tehillim, he sets in place all the songs and the melodies, he repairs knowledge, and that is why he lived 70 years— to repair the sin of Adam HaRishon. That is what Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa did: he repaired the sin of Adam HaRishon. That is why Hashem, blessed be He, did miracles and wonders through him.

38:08 And may it be His will that we all merit to reveal the light of Hashem, blessed be He, in the whole world, to shine His light, blessed be He, the light of our Master the Creator, blessed be He, in the whole world, and all will know Hashem and serve Hashem, and cast away their idols of silver and gold, and return to Hashem, blessed be He, return to the purpose, the true and eternal one, and stop looking at flesh and blood— to lift our eyes to Heaven, to truly take hold of ourselves, toward the true purpose, toward the Holy One that we have, our Master the Creator, blessed be He. We have a G-d Who is great, great, great and awesome.

38:40 One looks at the body, looks at the hands, looks at the sky, looks at the clouds, and a person sees for himself: "What will be on the last day? What will be at the moment they lead me out of this world?" A person looks at himself and lifts his eyes and says, "What a fear, to come and appear before all the holy ones, all the tzaddikim, all the holy ones who were in all the generations in the world." One must hold oneself firmly to the purpose, before our Master the Creator, blessed be He, the great G-d, the mighty and the awesome, the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. When one learns the Torah, one learns it with fear, learns it with awe and with dread, learns it with trembling and shaking, with holiness,

39:17 with purity, with joy, with elevation, with devotion—that is how to learn the Torah. May this, with Hashem's help, protect us, in the merit of Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, in the merit of everyone we mentioned, the holy Tanna, all the holy ones, all the tzaddikim. May it be His will that all these holy and pure ones speak in our favor, and that we have help and assistance from Heaven to draw close to Hashem, blessed be He, to merit the complete geulah, to merit the building of our Beis HaMikdash, our glory.

39:42 And now [unclear], our Master the Creator, blessed be He, our King at our head— may His Name be exalted and exalted, the Name of the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. Forgive us for the sin of the Golden Calf, King of kings. King of kings, forgive us for the blood of Zechariah that was spilled. Forgive us for having pained Moshe Rabbeinu in every generation, and remember us for a complete geulah, to be redeemed with a high hand, [unclear], amen and amen. - The public is invited to remain in their places to hear holy niggunim together with Maran the Gaon, the Yanuka, shlita.