The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-הינוקא • תיעוד רגעים משמחת חג במעמד הקבלת פני רבו וברכת חג בהשתתפות מרנן ורבנן סוכות תש＂פ ירושלים

5:52 So 'everything' is a symbol of blessing. And we also need to understand the doubled wording: why does it say 'And Avraham was old, advanced in days'? It should have been written 'And Avraham was old and Hashem blessed him with everything.' Why did the verse of the Torah double the wording? 'And Avraham was old, advanced in days, and Hashem blessed Avraham' - seemingly it should be written, 'And Avraham was old and Hashem blessed him with everything.' Why does it mention Avraham again? Seemingly it is not clear why.

6:19 Rather, it reminds us - as it is written in Megillah, page 11a, that the Gemara says about Achashverosh: 'he is Achashverosh', he is Achashverosh, 'he is Achashverosh' who reigned in his wickedness from his beginning to his end; he is the same wicked one, so they won't think he is a different wicked one. Therefore one who reads the Megillah out of order has not fulfilled his obligation, because then it comes out that Achashverosh is some tzaddik, as if, Heaven forbid... as if at the end, look, he gave to the Jews and cancelled everything.

6:45 One who reads from the end - then it comes out that there is some side of merit for Achashverosh. If one reads it out of order, then he has not fulfilled it. One must read the Megillah in order, so that his wickedness is revealed from his beginning to his end. So when it says 'And Avraham was old', and again says 'and Hashem blessed Avraham', it is to tell you that the main blessing, the 'everything' that came to him, was because he was Avraham, a tzaddik, at his beginning, and he is Avraham at his end. He is the same Avraham, he did not change, he remained the same Avraham.

7:12 As Hillel says, 'I am here' - it means that Avraham says, 'I am Avraham, I am not something else.' 'Avraham was old' means that Avraham is Avraham, he did not change himself. Do you understand the meaning? That is why it says 'And Avraham was old', and then it says 'and Hashem blessed Avraham' - why 'with everything'? Because all of the blessings, all the abundance of blessing, will reach the one who is the same one he was at the beginning.

7:37 Just as you were Avraham at the beginning and remained Avraham, it means that your abundance will remain under that same name. But when abundance comes down to the world for a person, and he is someone else, where will the abundance go? It will not reach him, because it is not the abundance written for him, because he is not the same one; he changed himself. So that is why it says 'And Avraham was old, advanced in days, and Hashem blessed Avraham': to tell you that He still blessed that same one with everything.

8:03 And so Hillel says, 'I am here, everything is here.' 'Everything' corresponds to the blessing with which Hashem blessed Avraham, because 'everything' corresponds to the blessing. So he says: if I am here, then everything is here. For otherwise it would not be understood why the Torah says Avraham twice, and it would also not be understood why Hillel says, 'I am here, everything is here.' What does it mean that Hillel would say 'I am here, everything is here'? What is this 'everything'? Rather, one can say that 'if I' - this is the proof that Avraham is Avraham, he was mentioned twice to say that there was no change in him at all - then everything is here.

8:29 It means that his whole essence remained. So we see from here that the main joy will come to a person when he is himself. Because when a person is something else, or something he is not, it will bring him sorrow. And then one can also ask - in one of the shiurim; this is a different answer from what we explained - that it is written in Tractate Avos, chapter 6, Mishnah 4, it is written: 'Bread with salt you shall eat, on the ground you shall sleep, and a life of sorrow you shall live.'

8:54 And the Torah commands us - it is written in Devarim, verse 47: 'Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and with gladness of heart.' So the Torah says that one must serve Hashem with joy. So how can they tell us, 'a life of sorrow you shall live'? After all, a life of sorrow would go against what the Torah commands. And the Rambam, now, in the Laws of Sukkah and Lulav, chapter 8, halachah 15, the end of the Laws of Lulav - so the Rambam says that a person who does not fulfill the commandments of G-d with joy will be punished for it.

9:28 One must serve with joy and gladness of heart, with vitality, to serve through the mitzvos of the Holy One, blessed be He, that He commanded, to serve Him with joy - and a person who does not serve Hashem with joy will be punished. So we see it here in the Rambam, and we see it here in the Torah, and there are more and more obligations on this from our Rabbis, that one is obligated to serve Hashem with joy. So how will this fit with 'a life of sorrow you shall live'? It won't fit, right? So one can explain that 'a life of sorrow you shall live' means: be in sorrow only over the fact that you are not you.

9:56 Because if you will be you, then you won't need to live a life of sorrow. That is the meaning; this is an explanation now, not what I said then. Then we said a different explanation; it was connected to the exile, to the bread with salt. We explained why 'on the ground you shall sleep' is needed, and why they divided it, because, after all, it is written 'bread with salt' - that is something measured, and 'water by measure' is something measured, but 'on the ground you shall sleep' is not a measure, because seemingly a person can sleep on all the ground.

10:26 The bread with salt is a measure, water by measure is a measure, and 'on the ground you shall sleep' is not a measure, it is without limit, because 'on the ground' - it should have said 'on the hay you shall sleep', in the way they continued. So he explains the meaning of 'on the ground you shall sleep': it means that a person attaches himself to earthliness; and also according to the secret teaching, it is Malchus, because the earth is Malchus, Kingship; it is as if: think all your life about the raising up of Malchus, not about your own kingship, but about the Kingship of Heaven.

10:54 As if: think 'on the ground you shall sleep', that the sleep - which is a person's mind - should think about Malchus. So how does one crack this - whether it is him or not him? How does a person discern this? How does a person correct himself, catch himself, so that he always is what he truly is, and does not imitate others? So come see a beautiful thing, a beautiful new insight we will now explain.

11:20 There is a distinction and a difference between Sukkos and Pesach: both of them have different things, but the opposite things. On Pesach we search for the chametz in order to destroy it, in order to push it away from us, and on Sukkos we search for the esrog, in order to bring it to our heart - it is the opposite - in order to reveal the heart. On Pesach you search, search, search, and make a blessing on the removal, in order - the whole search is in order to push it away: the klipos, the Sitra Achra, the chametz.

11:56 And on Sukkos you search for the esrog, to search for the heart, because the esrog is the heart; in order to search for it, to bring it close, against the heart - that is the meaning. So we see from here that Sukkos is a search for something connected to revealing the person. And that is why it is with joy, for Sukkos corresponds to joy, because in joy a person is revealed: when you see a person dancing, when you see a person who is happy, then he reveals his essence.

12:21 Because a person who is sad and in sorrow - that is not the truth, because the truth is that a Jew must be happy, and the joy of the Jew needs to be seen. And on Sukkos the joy of the Jewish people is revealed. The joy of the Jewish people is revealed on Sukkos. So it comes out that on Sukkos, the search for the esrog is to tell us that a person needs to search for his joy; the whole search of a person is to see why he is not in joy, how he should make himself happy - and the main joy will begin with the mitzvos.

12:49 Now there is a proof for this; earlier we also spoke about it, with the new insight. The Rebbe, the tzaddik, the Rebbe of Kehal Chassidim, was here, a wondrous gaon; we spoke wondrous things. So the Rav of Kehal Chassidim says - so I explained earlier; now we will renew it, and this will be understood better: that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, in the Zohar, in Tikkun 13, on page 9, side a and side b - so Rabbi Shimon says: 'I will climb up the palm tree, I will grasp its branches.'

13:32 'E'eleh' - its Aleph is the esrog, then the aravah, the lulav and the hadas. So he says: 'And they are weapons of war.' These are called the weapons of battle of the Jewish people. The four species are called the weapons of battle of the Jewish people. With them the Jewish people wage the wars, and fight against all the Sitra Achra and the Satan and all his troops, all his camps - they fight by means of these weapons of war: by means of the hadas and the lulav and the esrog and all that.

14:03 Now, Our Sages said in Sanhedrin, page 107b, the Gemara says: 'Our Rabbis taught: always let the left hand push away and the right hand bring near.' And seemingly, we do all the mitzvos with the right first, and everything begins with the right, yet the esrog we take in the left. In Tractate Sukkah, page 37b, Rabbah said - what is the reason we give the importance?

14:32 So he says: 'These are three mitzvos, and this is one mitzvah.' Meaning, these are three mitzvos: hadas, lulav and aravah are three, to put in the right hand, and the three mitzvos come first, and the esrog is one mitzvah - what about the esrog? So we put it in the left hand. So the three come first. If a person switches them, and takes the left one, the esrog, in the right, and takes the three species in the left, then the Meiri writes there, on page 37b, that he does not fulfill his obligation.

15:06 The Ritva, on page 42a in Sukkah, says that the meaning, if he reverses them, is that he reverses the order; if you - the way it grows - if you reverse... The Chasam Sofer also brings this: that if he intended to fulfill the mitzvah, he fulfills his obligation, if he intended to fulfill his obligation. The Magen Avraham, in siman 551, se'if 9, brings - the Magen Avraham - following the view of Rabbeinu Chananel and Rashi: Because of this, no, so one puts the esrog, sets it down, and that's it, and then at the time of the blessing one gathers them together.

15:45 If so, then it comes out that the obligation the Magen Avraham states is: if he held the esrog in the right and the three species in the left, then he should shake again, and hold the esrog in the left, hold the three species in the right, and then shake without a blessing. So writes the Magen Avraham: he should do it without a blessing. So what do we learn from here? Where is the importance of the shaking, of the esrog? That it be in the left. And we explained that the left pushes away and the right brings near.

16:09 And seemingly the esrog should have been in the right, because the importance is specifically on the right side. But from here it will be understood that specifically the left - specifically on the left side, in the left chamber, where the murkiness of the blood is, where the sorrow is, where the hardship is, where the pain is, where the darkness is - there we put the esrog, against it, in order to drive out the bad.

16:34 Because the esrog is a symbol of the light of the Jewish people. So from the outset one should aim for it to be yellow, and from the outset, as it is written, to buy the esrog yellow from the outset, not that it will turn yellow, but yellow from the outset. And the yellow corresponds to the sun; the sun is what shines, this corresponds to the light of the Sages, who illuminate a person's soul. So it will be opposite the left - do you understand the meaning? In the left, it is to drive out the darkness a person has in his heart, for a person has darkness and sorrow and pain.

17:05 So that is why Sukkos corresponds to the joy of all the Jewish people. His genius: when the Rebbe [unclear] once came to [unclear], and they told him to read [unclear], He said to them: Tehillim I don't know how to read.

18:47 A person's heart has to be in the... The esrog - it always corresponds to the heart.