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The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 3,922 words · 18:08. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 Every kind of food, bread, pitas, all food items need to be wrapped in two bags. And when a person eats something that isn't bread? No, no, rice and such don't need it. But bread, over which we say Birkas HaMazon, with bread one must be careful: two coverings. It's very... to throw - don't throw bread away, because the Zohar says: 'One who throws bread, crumbs of bread' - one who throws away crumbs of nahama - nahama is bread in Aramaic - 'One who throws away crumbs of bread, poverty pursues him.'
0:32 Poverty chases after him because he threw away the crumbs of the bread. Then the Zohar says: 'All the more so one who throws away the crumbs of the brain.' Heaven forbid. Anyone who throws away the crumbs of the brain, the seed, Heaven forbid - all the more so he will be poor. That is why 'motzi zera levatalah', wasting seed, has the initials: mazal, good fortune. When a person blemishes the covenant, he has no mazal. It damages the mind; it ruins a person's tzelem, his divine image.
0:57 His mazal is driven away; he becomes panicked, confused, full of fears - 'Sinners in Zion are afraid' - he becomes full of fears, and anxieties, afraid of everything - livelihood, his mazal, poverty, he has no abundance, everything goes down and dwindles. So the kedushah of the covenant - there is no - there is no such reality as a person being holy in the covenant and not having abundance. There's no such thing.
1:22 It's nature, it's like an obligation from Heaven. There's no such thing, there is no such reality. It's like one plus one equals two. And if he does teshuvah? He does teshuvah, but he has to be holy in the covenant. Look, real teshuvah is when a person was habituated to a sin, and the Rambam says explicitly, in Hilchos Teshuvah, chapter 6, that he no longer does it, Heaven forbid. A person can do teshuvah as much as he wants; he says: I did teshuvah, I did teshuvah.
1:47 But what truly testifies that he has done teshuvah? That a test comes to him, and he finds himself in the same situation, at the same time, and he does not sin. Say a person used to stumble - every time, eating meat and milk together. He has a yetzer hara for a glass of milk with schnitzel. I don't know. The test came - a test, a test - and suddenly he said to himself: I don't want the glass of milk, and I'm not eating schnitzel with milk. That is a sign that he has done teshuvah.
2:14 Teshuvah is not necessarily how much he cried and prayed over it. Real teshuvah before the Holy One, blessed be He, is that this sin comes your way and you don't do it. You told the Holy One, blessed be He: I will not blemish my eyes anymore. You did teshuvah, you cried over the blemish of the eyes, you did teshuvah for forbidden sights - well done, sir, well done. But that is not a Tikkun for the blemish of the eyes, until the moment you tell yourself: I no longer look at forbidden sights. And he no longer looks - that's it, no way, the yetzer hara doesn't get in to him.
Read the whole shiur in English (33 more parts)
2:41 He doesn't look. - That is about the past; the Rambam is speaking about what lies ahead. Right. - The story of Yosef Meshisa, who went in and did all that: 'Is it not enough that I angered my Creator once?' He didn't really do teshuvah; he doesn't want to anger the Creator again - that's what is being said here. - There is a difference between Yosef Meshisa and the case I am describing here. - But the person here, it's the same reason. - It's not the same reason. There, first of all, he was now in the hands of the Romans. They told him: we are going to saw you and cut you up. He has nowhere to go.
3:09 Here, a person is in a reality where he sins and says: never mind, the Holy One, blessed be He, will forgive me. Tomorrow I'll do teshuvah again. That is not like Romans sitting on a person's head and telling him: listen, go in and bring it out - and he tells them: 'Have I not angered Him once already?' He understands that they are going to kill him and send him on to the World to Come. He says to himself: I will not anger the Holy One, blessed be He - because there are no more chances. Here, a person has now sinned, he goes home, he can sin again; he'll go somewhere else, sin again, keep on sinning.
3:38 Nobody grabs him, points spears at him and tells him: listen, if you do such and such... The Romans - with Yosef Meshisa, he understood that his story was over; there was nothing he could do. That is different. - [unclear] ...they also need to ask, and also, for the sin, do teshuvas hamishkal? Not to sin - very simple. The test will come, and then you know that you have rectified the sin. When you want to rectify the sin, the most correct thing is not to sin in it anymore.
4:06 When you have rectified the sin - that's it: you didn't sin in it, you rectified it. That is teshuvah. A person who used to sin in a certain matter, and he no longer sins in it - he has rectified it. That's it, finished. No more yetzer hara, no arguing, no negotiating. - Is there such a thing, Rav, is there such a thing, Rav - a pull that lasts a whole lifetime, and once you break it, it's gone?
4:33 There is a person who gets up every day for neitz, the sunrise prayer. No way - he doesn't pray at 10 in the morning. For him that isn't even a yetzer hara. He's used to getting up; for him it's nothing. Tell him: listen, what do you care? Just get up at 12 noon. Don't pray Shacharis. For him that is no test. 'What are you talking about, nonsense! I pray at neitz every day.' Someone else will say to himself: wow, I get up every day at 12 noon - how can anyone get up for neitz? I can't manage to get up at 8; I can't manage to get up at 10 in the morning.
4:59 - According to the Rambam, when a person sinned, repented, did teshuvah, and all the days of his life a test of that same kind never came to him again - would such teshuvah not be teshuvah? Of course it will be teshuvah - why not? - The Rambam writes that a person must come to the same test, stand in the same situation, and only if he withstands the test... - This test didn't come to him now; he guarded himself, guarded his eyes - it counts for him as teshuvah, that's excellent.
5:27 Certainly, the Rambam simply means to sharpen the point that if it did come your way - of course it is better that it not come a person's way, but if such a case did come a person's way - certainly. Look, a person who has now withdrawn - a person was a soccer player, and he left soccer, left women, left honor, left money, and now sits all day in the beis midrash learning Torah. No test of money or women and the like comes his way now, because he is inside the beis midrash and he won't run into it. So what - he hasn't done teshuvah? Of course he has done teshuvah.
6:00 But what I am coming to tell people is: there are people now - not said of anyone among the Jewish people - who, you know, sin and do teshuvah - or a person who each time lives however he wants, does whatever he wants - while we give our very souls, sitting, straining, learning and so on - and he says to himself: come on, never mind, Hashem will accept me. He is the one who decides whether Hashem accepts him or not? Cases like these - there are no sources for that. There are no sources for these things.
6:26 Heaven forbid to say such things. A person has to sacrifice of himself and make an effort. There is no such thing as overcoming a desire or a sin without learning and effort directed at it. It is brought from Rabbi Yehonasan - Rabbi Yehonasan Eybeschutz, who is the Urim VeTumim - in the introduction to Hilchos Shabbos: that if a person does not learn the laws of Shabbos, he stumbles in them. You want to work on a middah, a character trait; you have a bad middah - if you don't learn about it, and don't pray about it, and don't learn mussar on it...
6:53 There is an animal side in a person. If you don't learn mussar that relates to that desire or that middah, you will not get out of it. You will not get out of it. One must learn mussar. Mussar refines a person and brings him to great levels. You learn for a week, two weeks, a month, two months about a certain middah - and you uproot it. You uproot it. - But someone who has a number of these middos, where does he start and where does he finish, where does he start? - He starts.
7:22 He takes a sheet of paper and writes down the points. He reads a little every day about each middah, and takes on three middos for a week. Three middos a week - and there is already a change. After two weeks he takes another middah. He makes himself a list; within a full month he has already learned about several middos. Orchos Tzaddikim - that is a tremendous sefer. It is an awesome, mighty sefer. See how much mussar there is in the sefer Orchos Tzaddikim.
7:48 There is no middah it doesn't touch on. And of course, as I explained, the most important is to learn the Gate of Envy. Because envy is the most important - because envy is the bad, bad, bad middah, the murkiest and most terrible one, which distances a person from the Holy One, blessed be He. It is the most disgraceful middah there is. That a person - what? - Does envy come from anger? Is that its root? It comes from pride. - No, but... - It is both pride and anger.
8:13 Where does anger come from? Anger comes from a person being angry at a reality that Hashem makes in the world. Why does 'anger rest in the bosom of fools'? When a person is angry - angry, it is as if he is saying: 'What are You doing, Holy One, blessed be He? What's the matter with You?' Let me give you an example now. Say Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai comes now, for example - this, for instance - I'll give you an example - this is a beautiful hourglass - look how beautiful, a glass hourglass that was brought to me, yes?
8:42 The glass hourglass, mine, beautiful. I am sitting with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai - I like it very much, this hourglass is dear to me, someone brought it, I use it, I've had it here a long time, it is very dear to me, I like it very much. I am sitting with Rabbi Shimon. Now Rabbi Shimon comes to us, reveals himself to all of us, sits with us here, gives us a drashah, gives us chiddushim, gives us everything - and suddenly he just grabs this: 'What is this nonsense?'
9:08 Boom - he breaks it on me. Could I ask him anything? Would I say to him: 'Hey, Rabbi Shimon, what are you doing?' I won't think about this hourglass at all. What hourglass? Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is here with us - do I care about this hourglass? A thousand like it wouldn't matter. Right? Would anyone say to him: 'Hey, Rabbi Shimon, what are you doing to my hourglass?' Would anyone say that to him? No, no. But when the Holy One, blessed be He, suddenly takes something from a person - suddenly something of yours got scratched, suddenly you got a bang here, suddenly your garment tore, suddenly someone did something to you - you shout: 'Why did you do that? Why did you do that?'
9:41 A person doesn't see that it is Hashem Himself who did this to him. It's not Rabbi Shimon who broke the hourglass - now it is Hashem who broke the hourglass. So why are you angry here? So it stems from - when a person has a flaw in his emunah and has pride, he attributes things to himself. And why is envy so severe? When a person envies, it is as if he says: 'Hashem, how can You do this? Why do You give to this one and not to that one? Why do You do this? Why do You do this?' It is forbidden to envy.
10:06 Whatever Hashem wants - that is how Hashem wants it. That is the will of the Creator. Why are you meddling with the Holy One, blessed be He, in how He runs the world? Let it go. - The root of emunah is - What do you mean, the root of emunah? Everything is rooted in emunah. If you truly believe, you won't envy, you won't get angry - right - you won't seek honor. Right, you will know that everything is from Hashem. And even more than that: a person who has no envy in him - his bones do not rot.
10:34 'Envy is the rot of the bones' - in the grave. And more than that: a person who has no envy in him goes into fire, and the fire does not burn him. Our Rabbi Yitzchak, the tzaddik - awesome things, miracles - he went into the fire, and nothing happened to him. Not even to his beard - nothing. It stayed just as it was. A wonder of creation. A wonder. - How can any person share in the pain of the community if he has reached this understanding?
11:02 How does a person who holds this view - everything, you know, everything is from Hashem...? - Now, there is hardship in life. Anyone - come now and tell him: sit with yourself, you have something that is hard for you. Something isn't good for him; he has a certain difficulty in livelihood, in mazal. Something isn't going for him, something is stuck, it isn't moving. Everyone has his difficulties; everyone has his difficulties.
11:27 But one must know that this is how the Holy One, blessed be He, wants it; this is how He leads us. There is nothing to do; one must accept with love what Hashem does. - Yes, but then... - If you don't accept with love what Hashem decrees, and that this is how Hashem wants it, then how can a person cope in the world? - Yes, I'm talking about a person like that, who has already reached this. Now they tell him: share in the pain of the community. But he doesn't feel pain! He says: everything is from Hashem - what pain are you talking to him about? He says, of course, everything with joy. There is a war - it doesn't trouble him.
11:54 He says: there is a war - in the end it is Hashem's will, it brings the geulah closer. He is right. He is right - everything is from Hashem. What do you want? - So how will he be sad together with us? - You know, the grandfather of Rabbi Nachman of Breslov was called Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka. Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka would say about everything: it is all for the good. All for the good, all for the good, all for the good. They say that once, he and the Toldos Yaakov Yosef of Polnoye were traveling by wagon on the eve of the holy Shabbos, and they wanted to get to the Baal Shem Tov for the holy Shabbos.
12:25 They are traveling, and suddenly there was an emperor's carriage ahead of them, and it was going slowly. Now, it is forbidden to overtake an emperor's carriage. I mean, if you have an emperor in front of you, you can't - you cannot pass him and travel ahead of him, because he has to travel with everything clear; there is no such thing as traveling ahead of him. Like today - I don't know if today it's possible, it seems today it is possible, no?
12:51 So indeed, they were very distressed. So Rabbi Nachman of Horodenka says to him: 'Why are you distressed? It is all for the good.' He says to him: 'What do you mean, all for the good? A few hours to Shabbos until we get there, and you say all for the good?' He says: 'It is all for the good.' He says to him: 'If you had been in the generation of Haman, you would have said that too was all for the good - that Haman and Achashverosh too are for the good, and you would not have prayed.' True or not? And in the end they arrived; in the end there was a miracle, the road was opened for them, and they arrived and all. It was a long story, but 'Whatever He does...' - siman 230 in the Shulchan Aruch. Truly a siman that doesn't seem to belong in the Shulchan Aruch.
13:29 Siman 230 in Orach Chaim: 'Whatever the Merciful One does, He does for the good' - that a person is obligated to say that everything Hashem does is for the good. Really - why did the Shulchan Aruch put such a siman into the Shulchan Aruch? How does it bring in such a siman? What, can a person fulfill that - like washing the hands, going to shul, putting on tefillin? What is the connection of this siman? How, like...
13:54 - What exactly is the siman, honored Rav? A great level. That you need to, like, take the whole reality that passes over you as being for the good. So I once explained it, that... that truly, the Holy One, blessed be He, does everything for the good, and a person also knows that everything is for the good. In practice, ask a person: 'Do you know that the Holy One, blessed be He, does everything for the good? Do you know that we don't control what happens?' It is just that a person's mindset is that he doesn't think about it.
14:20 At least let a person know it and think about it; in the end he will fulfill it. Meaning, the Shulchan Aruch put it in; he said: fine, people know about this. So in practice, let's give it to them inside the Shulchan Aruch, and once they understand that it is a halachah, it will sink in so that they live it too. Meaning, he brought it so that we would live it. Because everyone knows - ask a person: listen, Hashem did it - everyone knows that Hashem did it, but we don't internalize it; we don't live it ourselves. So you hear of someone that something happened to him, and one says: listen, it's from Hashem and so on.
14:47 When it happens to the person himself, he doesn't accept that it is happening to him. When it happens to others, a person says: it's from Heaven. When it happens to himself, he doesn't say it's from Heaven. That is why the Shulchan Aruch said that you too must see, for yourself, that everything you go through - that too is from Heaven. So that you don't say it only about what happens to others. - Does that mean that certainly everyone will go through a hard test in life, so that he will have to face this matter of 'everything is from Heaven'? Look, it's not so precise that everyone will go through it. You know, Rabbi Akiva Eiger - he had a daughter, the wife of the Chasam Sofer.
15:24 His daughter married the Chasam Sofer, and the Chasam Sofer, may his merit protect us - Rabbi Akiva Eiger's daughter passed away, and the Chasam Sofer now had to marry another woman. Now he says: if I inform my father-in-law, Rabbi Akiva Eiger, he will be in pain, he will be a mourner, that is not good. Do you want to take him away from his Torah?
15:49 He told him nothing, so that he would go on engaging in Torah and bringing merit to the many. He told him nothing. After some two or three years, the Chasam Sofer had already remarried and all. Rabbi Akiva sends him a letter: 'In a week's time I am coming to your town. I wish to meet my dear daughter and to ask after your welfare and all.'
16:15 The Chasam Sofer says: what shall I do? What is going on here? He has asked me to see his daughter. He didn't want to cause his father-in-law pain. He says - that is the reason - he said: I will cause him pain - so he didn't inform him, so that he would not sit in mourning. Because with mourning the law is that if a person is informed and he knows... as long as he doesn't know, he is exempt from sitting, and so on. So he didn't inform him. And the Chasam - and Rabbi Akiva Eiger arrived, and the Chasam Sofer doesn't know what to do.
16:41 He said to his new wife, who came - he said to her: come, sit here. 'Tell him...' Look, Rabbi Akiva Eiger, as far as I remember, it was said he would hardly look at - at - 'Say: whatever he says to you, say yes, yes.' Rabbi Akiva Eiger came in, sat with the Chasam Sofer, learned with him for another two or three hours, then went into the room and asked her: 'How are you, my daughter?' She said to him: 'Fine, everything is fine.' He said to her: 'Yes?' 'Well, I need to continue traveling.'
17:08 And he thought that she was his daughter, and all his life he never sat in mourning for her - he didn't sit in mourning, he didn't sit in grief. The Holy One, blessed be He, spared him that pain. So from here you see: it is not everyone who has... There is contemplation, there are thoughts, there are stories. So one needs to know, with each thing, how to examine it and how to relate to the picture. But what is important is that a person be strong and courageous, and never be broken by anything that we go through.
17:40 Simply strong, courageous, and trusting only in Hashem. May it be His will that we all merit to be strengthened. Amen. Good tidings. Amen. And salvations. Amen. And miracles and wonders. Amen. And to bring down all our enemies and those who hate us and all who seek our harm; may dread and fear fall upon them; and to reach the complete geulah, with no wars.
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