The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-הגאון הינוקא - ‏שיעור מיוחד שנמסר בט״ו בשבט תשע״ט The Yanuka

3:11 That is to say, the whole level of Tu B'Shvat - it is a delicate day, it is the day of the Land of Israel. This Tu B'Shvat belongs to the Land of Israel. It is a day when one is sanctified and connected, with all the roots, to the Land of Israel. A person merits to be wholly absorbed into the Land of Israel. And then he comes out of the curse. For there is a curse that rests on the world, from the day the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, and mankind sinned and the earth sinned.

3:36 So the earth sinned and was cursed. Why? It is written, 'Let the earth sprout vegetation, herbs yielding seed.' Right - so what is it? So it brought forth herbs yielding seed after their kind. It made 'after their kind', and it was supposed to [unclear] herbs yielding seed, only 'sprout herbs, herbs yielding seed', not 'after their kind'. It made 'after their kind' - it brought forth more. The Jerusalem Talmud says, in Tractate Kilayim, chapter 1, halachah 7, the Yerushalmi says in Tractate Kilayim that it brought forth - Rabbi Pinchas said, and [unclear], Rabbi Pinchas - Rabbi Pinchas says that it brought forth too many trees; it brought forth barren trees as well.

4:06 'You must bring forth fruit trees' - it brought forth the barren ones. And it joined a food tree and a barren tree together. That is forbidden to do - it made kilayim, a forbidden mixture. So the earth was already cursed because of this, because it did not do the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. 'You must do the command of the Holy One, blessed be He' - and it would not do it. So because it transgressed the command, the earth was cursed. And then the holy Zohar says - Zohar, Vayera, page 114, side a, side b, sorry. Side a - it is also cited there. Rabbi Shimon says that there is a curse resting on the world, and it will not pass until Mashiach ben David comes.

4:35 When King Mashiach comes, he will remove the whole curse from the world, and this whole curse will be consumed and utterly nullified from [unclear], from all created beings, and only then will those who sleep in the dust rise from the grave, and the Holy One, blessed be He, will [unclear] the resurrection of the dead. But as long as we are still in exile, not in the Land of Israel, not meriting the holiness of the Land of Israel, and still in the Diaspora, there is this punishment, the husk of the serpent, of the snake, and we do not merit to come into the holiness of the Land of Israel.

5:03 To come to the holiness of the Land of Israel, in order to merit the level of the Land of Israel, in order to reach the level of the Land of Israel, to merit it - it is specifically on Tu B'Shvat, because on Tu B'Shvat we come back from this, that everything was hidden from the eye, that this whole season it was covered with clouds, the whole earth was covered in clouds, covered with rain, everything was showers, everything was rain, you don't see anything, you can't see the tree for the snow, [unclear], everything - and now the sap begins to rise in the tree.

5:30 And only then can there be a New Year for the tree at all, to know its year, to know its time, to know when to bring the fruit, so that it may be absorbed into Jerusalem. When one takes the fruit so that it may be absorbed into Jerusalem, it turns out that Tu B'Shvat - the whole essence of Tu B'Shvat is Jerusalem, is the Land of Israel. And when one merits the holiness of the Land of Israel, when a person merits it on Tu B'Shvat, one merits the holiness of the Land of Israel, and then one merits the holiness of the soul, which is the purpose - to receive in the Land of Israel: that a person merits to feel his soul, like when a person is wearing tefillin.

6:02 He does not think about the tefillin, he does not feel their holiness. A person who is in the Land of Israel - in Tractate Kesubos, page 110, and on page 110: 'is like one who has a G-d,' and if a person is in the Land of Israel, he dwells without sin; he has no sins at all. He merits - he is like one who has a G-d, he cleaves to the Holy One, blessed be He; he does not take his mind off Him, and then he merits to be absorbed within the point of Jerusalem. When the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, everything is from the Foundation Stone, from which the world was founded. In Tractate Yoma, page 54b, the Gemara says that there was one stone, and 'Shesiyah' - that is the Foundation Stone, from which the whole world was founded. The whole world came out of the Foundation Stone. It is written in Vayikra Rabbah,

6:39 in Vayikra Rabbah, parashah 13, siman 2: at the time He created - when the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to choose the Beis HaMikdash, do you know what He did? He went and roamed every place and began to measure. 'He stood and measured the earth' - the Holy One, blessed be He, went to measure where He would place His house, until He reached Jerusalem and said: here [unclear]. And then He is found in Jerusalem, the holy city, and there the Holy One, blessed be He, measured - there is His house, in Jerusalem; there is the Beis HaBechirah, the Chosen House. Now, it is called the Chosen House because the Holy One, blessed be He, after He sifted through all the places and all the towns, He chose Jerusalem, the place of the Temple, this is the place where He would make His Name dwell,

7:14 the Beis HaMikdash - it is His place, it is the head-tefillin. It is the dearest thing to the Holy One, blessed be He. And all this - all the desires of the whole Jewish people - it all begins from the fruits that we now begin to make on Tu B'Shvat. It is beyond the planting, beyond the tree, [unclear] to thought. It is much higher than that, much above that; it is thought altogether. The Levush writes in siman 685 [unclear] that now it is the beginning of the mitzvah; we do the [unclear] for the mitzvah in the Land of Israel; it is the beginning of a mitzvah, and for this we make a celebration on Tu B'Shvat.

7:48 Just for the beginning of this mitzvah. It is already the beginning of all the mitzvos. Only from Tu B'Shvat does it begin, for the mitzvos of the Land of Israel. So if a person knew at all, even a little, what there is in the place he stands on - that it is holy ground, that here it is possible - there are awesome things that a person's mind cannot take in at all, and cannot contain them at all, he cannot grasp them at all, but he cannot be within them.

8:13 It is not a state of connection at all. Connection is when a person can come into something that he connects with, that he is with it, that he is on a level with it. But the Land of Israel - its level is so exalted that it is impossible to grasp anything of it at all. It is impossible to grasp anything at all of the Land of Israel, to attain anything of the Land of Israel. And on Tu B'Shvat there is a possibility to attain - only through the fruits. We are actually touching the garment, the garment, the hem, the cloak - to merit a little to come close to something that is infinite, something that is endless, for the will of the Master of heaven and earth was that this is the place He chose to make His Name dwell there,

8:52 in the Land of Israel, within Jerusalem, the holy city, in order to bring the fruits up there, and it will be [unclear] before Him, that what the tree brings forth, and what the tree brings forth is already the repair of what it brought forth then, at the beginning, what the tree brought forth at the beginning, and we did not listen regarding this tree at the beginning, when there was the sin of Adam, and it began to bring forth [unclear]. Then there was already the sin of Adam; everything began at the beginning.

9:16 And now, on Tu B'Shvat, to repair the sin at its root: every fruit and every thing that a person takes and blesses, he repairs the sin of Adam. He returns everything to the beginning. He returns everything to the root. This is done with pas shacharis, the morning bread. When a person comes - tomorrow, the day of Tu B'Shvat, one needs to do this whole seder that we did. To do it tomorrow - that is the main thing. Tomorrow, to do it specifically not at night. That is the level - specifically to repair, specifically by day, in kindness. As we said, Beis Hillel hold the 15th - that is kindness - the New Year for trees.

9:48 This is when the kindnesses begin to awaken; it is the time of healings. That all the healings [unclear] in the world begin to awaken from the morning. From the time of sunrise - this is also the time of pas shacharis, 6 seasonal hours from sunrise. From sunrise, 6 seasonal hours - that is the time of healing. That a person also needs to eat the pas shacharis so that it will influence him. In Bava Metzia, page 100, side [unclear], the Gemara speaks of the virtues of pas shacharis: that one merits, merits to learn, to learn, to keep, to learn Torah, to fulfill, and so on - all the virtues.

10:15 [unclear] from the heat, from the winds, all the bad things. And a person merits to fulfill, in holiness, the virtue of pas shacharis. Pas shacharis - a person merits it if he does it specifically at this time. If he did not do it at this time, then it will not help him, we said. The Shulchan Aruch, in siman [unclear], se'if 2, the Shulchan Aruch writes that if he is accustomed to do it - that it is good that he be accustomed to this - before he goes to the beis midrash, he should [unclear] pas shacharis.

10:40 That way the pas shacharis goes in, that he have a little something that he eats on time - by all means. So eat as much as you are used to eating. If you are on such a level, the Eshel Avraham of Butshatsh, may his merit protect us - the holy Gaon - he writes that even drinking a little coffee can help a person, like the law of pas shacharis - you fulfill the obligation. This is not said about tomorrow; rather it is for every day in general, because there is a very, very great matter in this. It is also one of the virtues for the holiness of the covenant, for the repair of the covenant - pas shacharis - for the repair of a person's mind, and also for the repair of the covenant.

11:09 A person who wants to merit the repair of the mind - there is a very great virtue in pas shacharis, but also, of course, he should be careful and eat properly, and not eat too much, he should be careful with the pas shacharis, to fulfill the obligation of saying Birkas HaMazon, the Grace after Meals, and of washing the hands. In order to merit this blessing - as much as a person can, to be careful, because there is a great virtue in it. Especially tomorrow, this is the virtue, all the more so, of the seder that was prepared with royal bounty, to do all these wonderful things, in which there are awesome virtues and repairs, to repair the tree at its root, to repair the tree, to repair everything from the beginning.