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The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 500 words · 2:20. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 I bought you a gift; I waited for it a very, very long time. - What is it? - It is 'sweet oil', the first from Mount Gilead. - What is it? - Let us move closer. The first from Mount Gilead. There are thirty bottles that were made in the Land, and this is the first. This is a seed - no, this one, from this - a seed from a thousand years ago that they found there and grew in the Galilee. - What is this? - And this I brought you from Gilead. These are seeds of the frankincense.
0:25 - These are seeds of frankincense? - Not of frankincense, of the... From it they make the sweet oil. - It is sweet oil, I understand, but what is this? These are balsam seeds, as they are called? - Yes. Balsam oil - there is no balsam oil today. In Berachos, page 43b, There in the Gemara the Sages say about balsam oil: 'sweet oil'. It was instituted for balsam oil, because it is so special - for its uniqueness. This oil - whoever would eat the balsam would die.
0:50 Whoever would anoint his face with balsam would stay young forever. Embalming - they would embalm the dead with balsam oil. Today such oil is not found. We know that this is something close to it. It also used to grow in Jericho. Why in Jericho? From the word for scent. The Holy One, blessed be He, saw that they were using this oil. They are on the border of the Jordan. - Is that near Jericho?
1:15 - I do not think so. On the border of the Jordan, in Gilead... So it grew only in Jericho. And after Jericho came to an end, after this city, all the people - the Holy One, blessed be He, saw that the kings were using it, the Holy One, blessed be He, did not like this, and He hid it away from the world. He took away the fragrance. There was an old synagogue there, from two thousand years ago, in this synagogue, somewhat from the period after the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, even before it existed, and all that - and there was an inscription there that they wrote, that the Sages cursed whoever reveals how the balsam is made, and where it is grown and where it is found. - This is from four kinds; this is a strain they found from a thousand years ago. - No, it can surely be a kind of it, yes? But simply, the real, pure balsam from the time of the Temple
2:06 does not exist. This is surely something from the family. It is from the family of the Gilead strain, the myrrh of Gilead. - Yes, the Gilead strain, it is good. Yes, the Gilead strain... It is very pleasant to me; it is very, very pleasant to me... You made me very happy. Blessing and a good life.
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