The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-שורש הרפואה - שו＂ת עם הגאון הינוקא במגוון נושאים (הוידאו מתחיל בדקה 0_43)

2:46 The filth of man is far harsher than the filth of an animal. Why? Because man is far more physical. The more physicality a person has in him, the more animality, the more he is a transgressor, the more he sins — and so his physicality, too, is repulsive. Not so an animal. A person can stroll through a barn of animals, and it will not be repulsive in his eyes. Not so with a person. With a person, because of 'and your camp shall be holy,' we keep four amos away from the place where there is no longer, Heaven forbid, filth or anything of filth.

3:19 Four amos from the place where there is no smell of filth. One keeps four amos away. Now, what I mean to come and tell right now is about Chiram, king of Tzor. Nevuchadnetzar came and saw him sitting in a kind of palace, on glass. He saw — who is this king? He said: 'Bring him down.' He took him, put him away, imprisoned him, and every day he cut a kezayis from him. And this was a punishment for the pride that had come to him, for he was a man of pride. Now, we have the orifices because of the pride and because of the sins and transgressions a person has.

3:49 Now, we know that teshuvah reaches up to the Throne of Glory. Teshuvah — if a person does teshuvah, how far does he reach? Up to the Throne of Glory. 'Great is teshuvah, for it reaches up to the Throne of Glory.' In Tractate Yoma, page 86, here, about the individual: because he did teshuvah, he and the whole world are forgiven, as it says: 'I will heal their waywardness... from him.' It does not say 'from them' but 'from him.' 'I will heal, I will heal.' 'I will heal' — that is the language of healing.

4:13 The Holy One, blessed be He — when a person does teshuvah, He sends him a complete healing from Heaven. He has healing. Teshuvah brings about healing in the world. Now, you find here, about a person, that we mention: 'It is revealed and known before Your Throne of Glory.' For it is as if we come to say to the Holy One, blessed be He: Even if, Heaven forbid, there is no teshuvah in us, and we are not even worthy of teshuvah, and we cannot reach up to Your Throne of Glory — I cannot do a teshuvah that will reach up to the Throne of Glory in order to heal him. I cannot.

4:42 But it is revealed and known before Your Throne of Glory that if one of them were blocked... As if I am asking the Holy One, blessed be He, that even if a person has not merited enough teshuvah, or does not do a teshuvah that reaches up to the Throne of Glory so as to be worthy that healing be drawn to him — we ask, as a free kindness, that healing be drawn. And that is the reason we mention the Throne of Glory. A very fine question. That is the answer, but... This is what I told him... yes?

5:21 Yes. It is the Gemara that also speaks about King David and his brothers, about the Hallel they said. Yes. There is someone there, the son is sick, and his wife asks him: why don't you pray for him? and he says... he sent to him... Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai... and she asks him: 'Is he more than you?' 'No — he is a servant and I am a minister.'

5:52 ...a servant goes in and out before him, and a minister only when summoned. 'A tzaddik decrees'... of G-d... in the Gemara, this is for others. He is asking about Rabbi Chanina and Rabban Yochanan — you mean Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa — how was he able to have his tefillah accepted? Like, what is the difference? Why is this one's tefillah accepted and why is that one's tefillah accepted? How is it?

6:17 What does it mean? Is that the explanation? No, no. 'A tzaddik decrees and Hashem fulfills.' If he says to the Holy One, blessed be He: please, give him a complete healing — 'a tzaddik decrees and Hashem fulfills,' right. Good. So I will explain. First of all, 'A tzaddik decrees and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills' is a wording that is found nowhere in the Sages. We do see 'a tzaddik rules with the fear of G-d,' and so on, but the source for this is the Noam Elimelech. The Noam Elimelech writes this wording, 'a tzaddik decrees and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills.'

6:47 What is written in the Zohar — that there is; and that, as it were, there is a difference between... the Holy One, blessed be He... 'you shall decree a thing and it shall be established for you,' that tzaddikim can change the work of Creation and annul decrees and everything — but this wording itself, this wording, 'a tzaddik decrees and the Holy One, blessed be He, fulfills' — this wording... Now, Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa was a very great worker of wonders.

7:12 Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa — he was a very great worker of wonders, a man of very great miracles, he was very close to the Holy One, blessed be He, he performed great miracles, and we see that all the Sages were turning to him and wanting his blessing from Heaven and his ability to work miracles. And further, in Berachos, page 33, where the Gemara tells of an incident in a certain place where there was an arod, a venomous serpent, and then they informed Rabbi Chanina; they said to Rabbi Chanina, 'Come.' And he said: 'Show me its hole.' And then he took himself and put his shoe, his foot, in that very place of the arod.

7:49 Think: today, what person would be willing — if they said, 'Listen, there is a viper's den here' — and then a person would come and say: 'Where is the snake's den?' 'Show me its hole' — he would come and put his hand, his foot, in that place, and the viper would come out and bite him, and the viper would die. With whom could such a thing happen? And then they expounded: it is not the arod that kills, but sin that kills.

8:14 No — because a well sprang up for him..., no? We are talking about very great miracles; this is not... Just by the way, this is the reason they make the blessing 'Who performed a miracle for me' only on an unusual miracle, where a tree suddenly sprang up for a person in the middle of the road — and not something like Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, for whom a spring sprang up. A person suddenly has an unusual miracle happen to him, one not in the way of nature — on that he makes the blessing 'Who performed a miracle for me' — only on a thing that is not in the way of nature, a thing that is unusual.

8:42 A tree suddenly sprang up for a person in the middle of the road — he could have had an accident, and suddenly a tree sprang up for him; he was traveling on the roads, and suddenly a spring appeared, all of that... How are you, sir? How are you, Rabbi? How are things? Rav, what is the reason? I am explaining. So we see from here, about Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, that Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, with his ability — that he went and said: it is not the arod that kills, but the sin that kills.

9:09 Now, seemingly, does this mean that he was more than others, or perhaps more than others? How was it that his tefillah and his blessing made an impression? So one thing can be learned from here. I explained this about the other tzaddikim and Sages, like Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai says, in Sukkah, page 45, as the Gemara says, that he can exempt the entire world from judgment.

9:33 It is the same thing. How can he exempt the whole world from judgment? How can Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa bring about an effect in Heaven? How can Rabbi Shimon annul a decree from the world? How? So I explained that with the Sages, the more the tzaddik grasps of the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, more than the tzaddik before him, he is able to compel, in Heaven, to bring about from the Holy One, blessed be He, whatever he wants.

10:00 And Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa, in his generation, grasped the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, so very, very greatly, to such an extent that he was able to act and bring the thing about. More than him as well? It could be even than him, yes. As it is written: 'Please, let there be a double portion of your spirit upon me.' What was it with Eliyahu and Elisha? Eliyahu the prophet, remembered for good — and Elisha had 'a double portion of your spirit upon me.'

10:25 From here you learn that a student can come along who receives double from his Rebbe; he receives twice as much as him. In ability and in influence he receives twice as much as him. There were many tzaddikim who did deeds, miracles and wonders, out of simple things, out of very small things. There was a story with the holy Maggid of Zlotchov, whose son — Rabbi Mordechai of Neshchiz, the Rishpei Esh, was the greatest of the students of the Maggid of Zlotchov.

10:57 And once there was a wedding, and someone fainted and died. So the Rishpei Esh said: 'Whoever brings me an object from my teacher — I revive the dead now, I revive the dead man; bring me something.' So his son, Rabbi Yosef of Yampol, said: 'Here, Father — I have this table of Father's. Take the table, revive the dead man.' He said, 'Bring a knife.' He took a knife, cut off a piece, mixed it into wine, gave it to the dead man to drink, and raised him up.

11:23 That is the story. They say that he performed an actual revival of the dead with an object of his teacher and Rebbe, the Maggid of Zlotchov — he revived him with this table. Do you see today such a deed, such a great wonder — that the student did a great thing, whereas he, the son of his Rebbe, and his Rebbe in his lifetime — there is no such story about the Maggid of Zlotchov, that he revived a dead man as Rabbi Mordechai of Neshchiz did. 'The elder tzaddik,' they called him; he was a man of remarkable old age.

11:54 So you see from here that a student can sometimes do a great wonder, because sometimes he grasps much more. Sometimes the great level is what a person grasps of the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He. Today everyone, you know, can bring something about; one can drink water, there are the shirayim, the leftovers, of sages, wine that they drink, water, and so on — each one and his level.

12:18 'You shall be as My mouth.' 'You shall be as My mouth'... just as the Holy One, blessed be He, decrees. There, Rav, baruch Hashem, it is simple. That this is one who brings merit to the many. 'You bring out the precious from the worthless.' No, no, that is tzaddikim. This is someone who is a little... I do not want to comment. Everything is fine. Is it the same aspect?

12:43 Yes, it is the same aspect, because the Holy One, blessed be He, tells him so: because he succeeds in bringing people back in teshuvah, he has much greater power and authority. 'If you bring out the precious from the worthless, you shall be as My mouth'; 'and you shall decree a thing and it shall be established for you.' The possibility, the power of bringing created beings back in teshuvah, is a very, very great and mighty power, with which one can bring about great things from Heaven, because it is drawing the souls of Israel close and bringing them back to teshuvah, bringing a Tikkun for the sin of keri, bringing people back, bringing them to their Tikkun, so that people will guard themselves and become holy — the ability and the influence, too, are much greater.

13:17 Yes, yes. And regarding what the Rav said... ...On the way back from Uman, my tefillin got lost. I want... So Rabbi Nachman says, in Sefer HaMiddos — you know what he says, don't you? One needs to do teshuvah over emunah. To strengthen oneself in emunah, and the Holy One, blessed be He, returns to a person all his lost things.

13:45 Sometimes the Holy One, blessed be He — a person has a loss, and the teshuvah that he does in emunah in the Holy One, blessed be He, that returns to him all his lost things. All his lost things return to their root. When a person does teshuvah he brings back all the sparks, everything that fell into captivity, all the distance from Hashem, blessed be He, and everything returns to its root. No — buy new ones, but you will have two, baruch Hashem.

14:12 That is good; it is always good for a person to have several pairs of tefillin. Torah scholars — one has to understand: a Torah scholar does not have the Torah as something in his own domain. The Torah is not his. If a person shamed a Torah scholar, 'there is no healing for his wound' — in Tractate Shabbos, page 31.

14:38 Rabbi Nachman brings the words of the Gemara; he is not trying... it is not something... Of course, in Sefer HaMiddos he attains many things and insights of his own, but here his intention is to tell a person that if a person shamed a Torah scholar, there is no healing for his wound. Why? Because the Torah — it will come and hold it against him. Because the Torah scholar is not permitted to forgive. What, is the Torah yours? What are you forgiving? They shamed you — forgive for yourself, but the Torah that is in the Torah scholar does not forgive; it demands redress for its insult.

15:08 And that is why it 'takes revenge and bears a grudge like a snake' — because in the end a person can be punished for this. For a person who shamed a Torah scholar has no healing for his wound — not as a punishment. It is because he shamed the source of the healing. The Torah scholar is the source of blessing and healing. If a person shamed the Torah scholar, it is as if he cut off from himself the channel to healing, and then, when he is sick, he will not be able to be healed through that channel.

15:33 So that is why one must always do teshuvah over emunas chachamim, faith in the sages, because the flaw in emunas chachamim brings everything there is in the world. Yes — what do you need? I wanted to ask the Rav, actually: what does it mean, 'to bring the world to its Tikkun under the kingship of the Almighty'? What does that mean? For the King, surely everything is whole with Him. Right, but we want the revelation of the Holy One, blessed be He, to be a complete revelation in the world. That all created beings will return to Hashem, that the whole world will do the will of Hashem, that the whole world will be a revelation of the kingship of the Holy One, blessed be He.

16:04 Today you are in a world where here they know, and here they know, but you can go and you will see that the revelation of the Holy One, blessed be He, is not in the whole world. You can go to countries or places in the world and see churches, see things that are against the reality of the Holy One, blessed be He, that deny Him, that speak against Him, all over the world. You can see idolatry, forbidden things. When you say 'to bring the whole world to its Tikkun under the kingship' — that they will recognize, all of them, the kingship: that He is the One Who said to His world 'Enough,' He is the One Who created the world, He is the One Who allots to every living thing, He gives life, He gives sustenance. All created beings will recognize and say: Ah, He is the One Who said to His world 'Enough,' He is the One Who created the world, He is the One Who made His kingship known, He is the One Who gave us the world and set it in order for us, He is the One Who brought us to closeness and to the revelation of His kingship. And that is why precisely in Aleinu Leshabe'ach there is the great and evident praise

16:59 to the Holy One, blessed be He. Rabbeinu the Arizal says that this is the great abundance: Aleinu Leshabe'ach has the same numerical value as Aleph-Beis-Gimmel Yud-Tav-Tzadi — 'Please, with the power of the greatness of Your right hand, release the bound one' — from the first Name. This is a very great abundance that comes down to a person, the supernal abundance from the source of blessing. And the Kol Bo, in section 13, brought the virtue and the importance of Aleinu Leshabe'ach.

17:24 There is very great importance in saying Aleinu Leshabe'ach; it has very great power and very great blessing, and the supernal abundance, too, comes down to a person when he says Aleinu Leshabe'ach. And there, 'to bring the world to its Tikkun under the kingship of the Almighty' — the meaning is that all created beings — you can look — it is like a tefillah set in order: that all created beings will recognize the Holy One, blessed be He. You want that there should, as it were, no longer be the... something that tries to separate the created beings from the Creator; as it were, everyone will recognize the Holy One, blessed be He, in the whole world. Think how this world would look if there were no heresy, denial or apikorsus in this world, or anyone who does not bow down to the King. Picture to yourself how it would be, how the world would look.

18:03 The whole world, all the created beings, recognize the Holy One, blessed be He, as King. Try to imagine how the world would look. Look, try to imagine. The whole world would be run in this revelation of the kingship. Picture to yourself just the Land of Israel. No hatred, no strife, no people fighting over this, no wars; everyone knows Hashem, no one quarrels, no one tries to fight, no one tries to rob.

18:28 No sin, no transgression; everyone is equal, everyone is awakening, everyone in teshuvah, everyone singing to Hashem. With Hashem's help — we are waiting — tefillah. Little by little. Everyone has an animal soul, it feels... that it is separate. The question is: can something be done to change it, to stop it...

18:55 does he need to work from the side of the revelation of his soul, so that at times he will feel that he wants to serve Hashem, or does he himself need to work in a state where he knows that Hashem is the truth — the Jewish part in him as well, the spiritual part in him as well, will know... that there is Hashem — that he should also know that there is in himself a part of separateness, a part of the animal soul that feels separate from the Holy One, blessed be He — not that it is enough that he does not know of it and only comes in deed... at times he will have revelations of the soul, when he feels good with Hashem, feels that he loves Him, but he will not have it all the time...

19:39 I did not understand the question. I did not understand the question. Does a person need to know that even within his deeds — he keeps mitzvos, he does good... — Ah, you are getting closer. I understand, I understand. What is the question? — Rav, I will fill it in; tell me if I understood you correctly. That is, if a person — how, like, can a person know when he has the animal soul, even though he keeps mitzvos or things like that — whether it comes from the animal soul or from the G-dly soul, at the time of keeping the Torah and its mitzvos?

20:09 Like 'a scoundrel with the Torah's permission,' you mean? Not necessarily a question about the deed; in deed, he does everything as Hashem wills, but whether he also needs to know that there is a part in him that he feels is separate from Hashem. No. All right, so I will explain. I will explain. No. So I understood. So I will explain to you.

20:35 There is no such thing as something separate from the Holy One, blessed be He. There is nothing in the world, no reality, that is separate from the Holy One, blessed be He. Nothing is separate, not even the Satan, all right? Not the Samech-Mem either, and not the Satan. The Satan himself does the will of the Holy One, blessed be He, and he is a holy angel. The Satan himself is — he is a holy angel with eight wings. All the angels have six wings; the Satan is the only one who has eight wings.

21:03 All those of 'with two he covers his face, his feet, with two he flies' — those are the angels. But the Satan has eight wings; he is of greater rank and importance, he does the will of Hashem, and in the end he is appointed over the hardest thing — what the world sees, what goes on — but he is a holy angel who fears and trembles before the Holy One, blessed be He. And I gave an example of this from the Yalkut Shimoni on Parshas Vayeilech, at remez 10, about Moshe Rabbeinu, at the time of the passing and departure of Moshe Rabbeinu — how the Satan himself weeps and grieves over the death of Moshe Rabbeinu, how the Satan is unable to take the soul of Moshe.

21:44 A very, very moving Midrash, and very painful, to see how even the Satan himself honors Moshe Rabbeinu and does not want to part from him. Now, the animal soul — its root, all the animality and the bad desires and everything — their root is from the side that is not good, whose root is from the Satan.

22:09 But it is a chain of descent upon descent through many things; it does not come just like that. The animal soul is, in fact, a vital soul that we need. I will give you an example. The existence of many things comes from the animal soul. The wheel that you see in the world — for instance, where does a person's desire to make money come from?

22:36 To go to work and settle the world and build and do. All the doing comes from the animal soul. Procreation, the power of procreation in created beings — there are created beings; the power of procreation comes from the strengthening of the animal soul. All the physicality — to go and eat, to drink, to rejoice, to dine, to rejoice — that comes from the strengthening of the animal soul. The animal soul has power and ability.

23:01 It is like — I will give you an example. It is like a person who has fire in his home. He can cook with the fire, he can heat the pot, make himself coffee, drink tea, herbs, be calm, be settled, cook for himself at home — and with this fire he can burn down the house, the whole neighborhood. This is called the aspect of Pharaoh: the oref, the back of the neck.

23:27 The back of the neck is Pharaoh. Pharaoh had a side of the face and a side of the back. And Pharaoh's nourishment was from the back of the neck, from denial, from the back side. You were right in what you said. That this is called the animal soul, the strengthening over against this world. One who in fact gives room to the animal soul, who is more in the aspect of the back of the neck, to the point that he is a bad person — he has an animal soul, he speaks lashon hara, he does bad deeds, he sins, with him it is all the time the strengthening of animality.

24:00 Eating, money — all the time animality, animality, animality. So he draws nourishment from the aspect of the back of the neck, and it even grows stronger in him over time; thoughts of denial arise in him, apikorsus about the Holy One, blessed be He. He already comes — from so much animality — the animality brings him a very great nourishment from the aspect of the back side, which is the aspect of the back of the neck, which is called Pharaoh, and he is far, and grows farther, from the Holy One, blessed be He, until he falls into idolatry, into desires, into sins and transgressions, and truly falls into great darkness, into the desire for money and into many sins and transgressions, and he grows distant.

24:35 And then, when he comes to the tzaddik, who is Moshe — when 'Moshe, you have spoken well' comes, comes over against Pharaoh, who is the person found in this place — and then he begins to send him out; he says to him: 'Send out My people that they may serve Me.' He says to him: come, bring it out already — he addresses the soul: bring out the light that is revealed in you, bring out the good. And then the person begins to feel uplifted; he begins to feel that he is rising, growing stronger, becoming holy; he begins to feel light, vitality, hope in life.

25:03 Until now he was fallen in darkness and desire and gloom; suddenly he has light, hope, joy, hope, vitality. And so the Degel Machaneh Ephraim explains: when they want to give a person a punishment, the greatest punishment is that they distance him from the tzaddik. That in itself is already the greatest punishment, because from there he is already liable to all kinds of evils, since he has no protection at all. He is alone. Being far from the tzaddik - that is what casts him out alone, with no protection and nothing at all.

25:28 And drawing close is what can bring a person to many blessings. So the Satan - what does he lie in wait for most? He doesn't lie in wait for a person to draw close; he lies in wait so that a person will not draw close to a sage, to a true tzaddik, because he knows that the moment he draws close to him, he will have a great many good things. He doesn't want to let him have many good things. So he holds him back, he puts obstacles before him, confuses him - confuses the person, only so that he won't draw close, so that he won't receive all these gifts.

25:54 He prefers to hide him. So he strengthens the animal soul in him, and the animal soul now begins... There is an animal soul that is vital, and there is an animal soul that is forbidden, which is called 'a scoundrel with the Torah's permission': a person sleeps all day, which is permitted. He isn't doing anything forbidden. He isn't committing a sin. Seemingly, if he commits no sins - baruch Hashem! You'd say, look, he is given reward when he does a mitzvah; the main thing is that he not commit sins.

26:19 But we have a different problem: he doesn't recite the Shema in its time, he misses tefillah, he doesn't pray, he doesn't learn Torah, and then he already loses many, many things, and then he is called a scoundrel with the Torah's permission, this person. Because on the one hand he is doing something permitted, but he strengthens it too much - and so with the other desires - the animal soul grows stronger and stronger against this, and this person loses many things.

26:44 Kelipas nogah is the scoundrel with the Torah's permission. That is the best definition of a scoundrel with the Torah's permission. It is good and evil, it is a mixture of the good and the evil. Kelipas nogah touches both good and evil, and on the one hand I can't say that this thing is forbidden. On the other hand, I also can't say that this thing is permitted. A person now sleeps a lot - what sin is he committing? Is he committing a sin? What is meant here? What sin is there in this?

27:11 He goes to sleep. He doesn't want to commit sins. You know he would be committing sins, so he says, 'I'm going to sleep, I'm leaving it.' So: neglect of Torah, and the Shema in its time. But we said, regarding the Shema in its time... He also does it with a certain self-interest... - What's that? He is also doing something right; he does it not for its own sake - that's also kelipas nogah, right? - Yes.

27:40 But that is already for the more advanced, what you're saying. If he is already in such a place, of 'not for its own sake', then for him that is kelipas nogah. That is a person who has no hold in the evil of nogah, and he is in the good of nogah, only he 'reaches and does not reach', and then the 'not for its own sake' is, for him, kelipas nogah. That is already the second level within nogah itself. I'll get to that in a little while. It's somewhat a level for the advanced. It can even be people who are in the middle, beinonim, for whom their nogah is whether it was not for its own sake or for its own sake.

28:07 Say there was eating - permitted food, in kedushah and purity - he had no kavanah in the blessings: for him, that is nogah. There is one who eats with desire and all, and said no blessing - for him that is the evil of nogah. And that is the good of nogah. It's like a mixture of good and evil. The name Nogah? No. There's no problem at all with the name Nogah. As a new name, I wouldn't give it in the first place, but a woman who is called Nogah - there is no problem at all in being called Nogah.

28:37 Now, nogah. In Kabbalah, kelipas nogah is a kind of mixture of good and evil. It's something of a glow of light. It's as if there is a revelation of light, but in a dark place. It's something where the mixture isn't so clear. It's hard for me to tell what is happening in that place. There is a revelation of light, but in a closed-off place.

29:03 And that, in fact, is this kelipah. It is a kelipah that is mixed, good and evil. It's a time when a person does things that are permitted, they are not forbidden, but he comes to a sin. Meaning - what do you mean, a sin? What do you mean, a sin? What kind of sin could it be? So I said, for example - here, as I said - the Shema. A person went to sleep. He isn't committing a sin, but on the other hand he misses the Shema in its time.

29:31 According to the Rif and the Rambam, the Shema is before sunrise; according to Rabbeinu Chananel and Rabbeinu Tam, the Shema is after sunrise. So if he was awake and recited the Shema late - recited the Shema late - then he lost out, both according to Rabbeinu Chananel and Rabbeinu Tam and according to the Rif and the Rambam, because he recited the Shema at two in the afternoon. This person in the end got up at two in the afternoon; he didn't pray, he didn't recite the Shema in its time, and the four hours had also passed - a dispute of the Rambam, the Tosafos, the sages of France and the Geonim - and as halachah it was ruled: until four hours.

30:02 So ruled Maran, the Shulchan Aruch, and therefore one cannot recite the Shema too late. So a person needs to look at the time - the calendar, the Magen Avraham, the Gra - to see when it ends. So now he got up at two in the afternoon, one in the afternoon, two-thirty, one, two. What do we do? This person missed the Shema in its time. He didn't say the Shema in its time; he has no one at all to rely on.

30:28 He lost out. From then on he is given reward like one who reads in the Torah. But can I say of him, 'Listen, he committed severe sins, he ate on Yom Kippur, he did forbidden things'? No, I'm not saying that. He is called a scoundrel with the Torah's permission. He says to himself, 'I'm doing something permitted, but I'm dragging out my time. I begin with what is permitted: I'm allowed to sleep at three at night, I'm not doing anything forbidden.'

30:55 Though perhaps he is - according to the Zohar, Emor, page 90a, that a person who stays - who doesn't stay awake at night... that is the main virtue of learning Torah at night. According to the words of our master Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the Zohar, according to Kabbalah, a person who doesn't learn Torah at night - as Rabbi Yaakov Koppel Chassid writes in the siddur - that in fact this is the time of the union of Yaakov and Rachel - at the hour of Yaakov and Leah, at chatzos, and the ascent of Yaakov and Rachel is at the time of sunrise.

31:19 to learn Torah all night, and so on, to raise it up. So if he doesn't do this, he is under a ban Above. The law of a ban Above is like a blemish of the bris. See how severe it is, according to Kabbalah, not to be awake at night. But today, not everyone can stay awake all night and learn Torah. He can't, he's tired, it's hard for him, so he went to sleep. Of course, one must always say - do - the bedtime Shema, as we know - the Beis Yosef in siman 239 - say, they gave several reasons, close to seven or eight reasons, for saying the bedtime Shema: 'Say it in your hearts upon your beds, and be still, selah'; that a person should fall asleep amid words of Torah; he does teshuvah - the 'masters of the accounting' of the Zohar, Korach, page 178a - he does teshuvah,

32:00 and enters into much sleep and slumber, and his soul - 'My soul yearns for You in the night.' He can truly draw down Torah chiddushim and revelations from the upper worlds, and even attainments and levels, and I don't know what - and his sleep is holy. And then he says - he goes to sleep out of kedushah, out of Torah, with the aim: that I should have strength and vigor for learning Torah. That is my aim. I am going to sleep so that I'll have strength to pray Shacharis.

32:26 I am going to sleep so that I'll have strength to pray with kavanah and with joy. That is the aim of my sleep. So he declares that the aim of his sleep is that I should have strength to pray. So he has turned all of his sleep into a mitzvah. And then, as soon as he gets up from his sleep and occupies himself with Torah or with tefillah, at once he has turned all the time of his sleep into a mitzvah. So likewise - this is also a person of whom we say that he is a scoundrel with the Torah's permission.

32:53 He went to sleep at three at night, four, toward morning, because he was tired. He began at a time when he is allowed to sleep. He went to sleep, but he dragged the sleep into times where he already became a scoundrel with the Torah's permission, because he transgresses by missing the Shema in its time. Do you understand? That is called the mixture of nogah, where the evil has already overcome the good, which brought him to failure and to stumble. And then the kelipah can rest upon him. But of course, we are not speaking of a person who could come to a risk of more severe sins or more severe things - like, for example, on Yom Kippur, when it is better that he sleep, and not be awake and stumble in eating - because on Yom Kippur the main thing is not the tefillah; on Yom Kippur the main thing is the fast, 'and you shall afflict your souls.'

33:39 So at every time, one needs to know exactly what the definition of that time, that occasion, is. And then - that is called the mixture in nogah. Now, what you said about 'for its own sake' and 'not for its own sake' - one for whom the question is 'for its own sake' or not - that is already - you are speaking of someone who is on greater levels, with whom everything is done properly, only the revelation wasn't at the right time. Meaning, it wasn't for its own sake here, it wasn't for its own sake there.

34:10 Yes, tzaddik - you raised your hand. What did you ask? Soldiers - we are now in the midst of the fighting in Gaza. From what you spoke about - when we have mitzvos, negative ones and positive ones - I understood that in some sense they aren't exempt from them, but it sounds as if there isn't judgment on them as on a person who is not in a war. Now, a physical war is material, and we know that a spiritual war is harder.

34:35 So all the more so: if all of us are under a spiritual war, with the yetzer hara fighting us, doesn't it apply to us - that all of us are considered such that every mitzvah we do is from the side of chesed, and there are no judgments upon us if we don't do what is laid upon us, the 613 mitzvos? Good. First of all - be strong and courageous. Yasher koach for finding merit for the Jewish people. Very good. Before we continue - in a few more minutes we'll pray Arvis.

35:00 Oh, baruch Hashem - the light. 'And there was light.' 'And there was light,' baruch Hashem. Yes, your question brought light. Did you see? You found merit for the Jewish people and suddenly you brought light. See? Agreement from Heaven. 'And there was light' - 'vayehi' is an expression of distress. The Gemara says that about the Mishkan too, but the Gemara resolves it with Nadav and Avihu.

35:29 'Vayehi', 'vayehi' - meaning, that is why, even though the Mishkan was standing, still even that did not help, because that was the death of Nadav and Avihu. But that is the continuation of the Gemara there. But I'll explain something that you said - what you said. The meaning - the thought is that a person is in the midst of a war, as you say. Everyone has a war. You know, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, in Likutei Moharan - there is Torah 72, it's called - that the yetzer hara of the world is foolishness and great madness.

36:01 He laughs at the yetzer hara of the world. He says of King David and of the tzaddikim that their yetzer hara was the holy angel himself. They had a holy angel. Today Rabbi Eliyahu told us about the Vilna Gaon - that the Vilna Gaon, whose hillula has come - may his merit protect us - that with the Gra, someone wanted to have his yetzer hara. He said to him, 'If only I had your yetzer hara.' So the Gra said to him, 'No' - that his yetzer hara is very great, right?

36:29 The Gra said to him, 'My yetzer hara...' He said to him, 'You are mistaken about me; my yetzer hara is very great.' You see from here? Yes - what is the reason for this? But apparently these are great matters, that, meaning, their yetzer hara is the Satan himself. Now, to come and say, 'Today we are all at war' - You know, back in the time of the Komarno - there was Rabbi Eliezer Tzvi of Komarno, son of Rabbi Yitzchak Eizik Yehudah Yechiel Safrin, the author of Nesiv Mitzvosecha, Heichal HaBerachah, Zohar Chai - he was a kabbalist, great, supremely holy.

37:00 He attained very great ruach hakodesh. And there are many sayings in his name, and many teachings of his, that are very close to the Torah of Rabbi Nachman, in outlook, in closeness. And the whole Komarno dynasty were like that too; they are between Kabbalah, between Chabad and Breslov, sort of. They have teachings and sayings that are very strengthening, interesting, in Kabbalah.

37:25 He also has a sefer, Or Einayim, on Kabbalah - not Me'or Einayim; Or Einayim. It is a very brilliant sefer in Kabbalah. Already in his time, he saw that the Jewish people would come to times of very hard suffering, and he said that a time will yet come when whoever does not take his own life - knowingly destroy himself - will be a tzaddik. In Tractate Semachos they want to know what the law is of a person who knowingly takes his own life.

37:51 There were two who saw someone go up to the roof, throw himself off the roof and die. That has the law of one who knowingly takes his own life - if they see a person, if witnesses saw that he threw himself down. Today - today, even if we see a person who jumped, we don't say that he took his own life. You don't know whether he took his own life. And besides, even if he jumped, he surely regretted it and did teshuvah on the way. So surely he... There is merit to be found even for such a person. And even about such a person - you can't; we don't say of a person that he took his own life, we don't say of a person that he knowingly destroyed himself, because today, in this generation, it is very hard for people to hold themselves up. And woe to those creatures who think that death is an escape.

38:25 That is woe and alas. One must fight, no matter what, to remain in this world, not to be driven out of the world. And one must always know, even when it seems to a person that this is absolute darkness - 'there's nothing, nothing, you can't get out of here, nothing' - Tractate Berachos, page 10 - Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Elazar both said: 'Even if a sharp sword rests upon a person's neck' - pay attention to the wording - 'he should not withhold himself from mercy.' So I once said a beautiful chiddush.

38:50 What is 'he should not withhold himself from mercy'? The mercy is flowing; it comes down every moment, without a break. You, in your own mind, if you despair, you prevent the mercy from coming down. It does not say 'he should not despair of mercy'; it says 'he should not withhold himself from mercy', as it says, 'Though He slay me, in Him I will hope.' The Gemara's wording is 'he should not withhold himself from mercy.' Meaning: don't you be the one who withholds the mercy. The moment you understand and believe that the mercy is flowing upon you, you bring it flowing down. The moment you don't understand this, you think, as it were, that there are judgments upon you and that's it - despair. You say, 'Here is a sword on my neck, there is no chance of getting out of here,'

39:28 and then you become the one who withholds yourself from the mercy. Have you heard of the Rebbe of Zutchka? The one who every year would hold - the brother of the Rebbe of Nadvorna - who holds every year the hillula - the day of the rescue. Rabbi Yoel of Satmar too - Rabbi Yoel of Satmar too holds the day of the rescue every year. What is it, tzaddik? Ask for a moment - ask, and I'll answer him, and afterward I'll come back to you. Ask, so that you don't forget.

39:53 If there is someone in the family who is, so to speak, called a Torah scholar - he learns all the time - and every so often he lets out curses from his mouth at parts of the family, do you need to pay attention to the curses or not? Look, first of all, you mean because of 'a sage's curse, even a conditional one, comes about' - from that side, or is it, like...

40:18 That's how, so to speak - he supposedly learns Torah. I think he is not a Torah scholar, but that is how people speak of him. Look, all right - in a little while I'll come to you; I'll just finish with him and I'll explain. Regarding what you said, sir - regarding what I said: the mercy is flowing, it comes down from Above, and in fact, the moment this mercy comes down, and we don't become an obstruction - it comes down and flows upon us.

40:42 But the moment a person, Heaven forbid, thinks about judgments and troubles and things that are not good, or speaks of them, or lives them too much, and he thinks there is nothing - he loses hope in living - then that itself makes the judgment for him. And the Rebbe of Zutchka, as I was telling you - one time, he was in the Holocaust, and the Nazis began to quarrel among themselves, and he remembered this Gemara. He said, 'Rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Elazar both said: even if a sharp sword rests upon a person's neck, he should not withhold himself from mercy' - that is how he thought about it.

41:11 He said, 'What does it mean? What does it mean?' That is how he kept the hope in mind. And then they began to quarrel among themselves, they fired into the air like this and left him, and he took down the rope - and he kept the rope, every year - and all his life he had a bullet in his leg, and he danced with it. He had the bullet that they fired at him; it hit him by accident, went into his leg and didn't kill him, and they ran away, and he was simply saved - and Rabbi Yoel of Satmar was saved too. Even if you see the curtain, 'there's nothing' - but what I say about this generation is: no matter what, it is never permitted, it is absolutely forbidden, no matter what, it is forbidden to despair. True, we are at war.

41:47 Still - we are in a hard war, there is that side too. See how many hardships there are in the world. We have enemies, the Yishmaelim, and countries surrounding us, and illnesses and plagues. As it is, one can't understand what they want from us - these Yishmaelim pursue us. As it is, they don't live here two hundred years. How long does a person live in this world anyway? How long? 'The days of our years are seventy years, and if with strength, eighty years' - and a person wants to live a little. What does he do? A little food - little spoonfuls like this.

42:14 We are all such small people - such a small spoonful. A war over this small spoonful; everyone is at war to bring the small spoonful home. Quarrels, wars, and lashon hara, and haters, and enemies, and quarrels. What goes on in the world! Instead of just letting things be - as it is, a person has a war at home, and his wife quarrels with him, and the children - a child goes off from here - and parnassah - he can't manage to bring in parnassah, and the work is hard, and parnassah, and his car is gone, he goes out to work, his boss quarrels with him.

42:46 He goes out to work - everything is hard, everything is hard as it is - and on top of that the Arabs are shooting in the streets. You say, 'Wow, it's a madhouse here, this world. What is going on here? How much they fight us! Why do they fight us? What does a person have here in the world as it is, that they so quarrel and fight with us? What do they have against us?' You see - so from here one must know: first of all, the most important thing is never to break. It is true that there is great merit to be found here for this generation, but that does not exempt a person from exerting himself with all his strength, to do everything he can, not to do what is evil in the eyes of Hashem.

43:19 There is no such thing as 'and they camped in Refidim'. Today, in our days, one may not say to himself, 'Shalom aleichem - since it's hard for me, I'm allowed.' There is no such thing as 'I'm allowed.' There is no such thing as permitting it. A person must fight to the end. It's as if a terrorist came against a person and he said, 'A terrorist has come against me - I'm allowed, I won't fight.' You fight him with all your strength. So too when that Baal Davar comes, that yetzer hara, who comes and tries to entice the person and to fight him - he should say to himself: let the whole world turn upside down - what Hashem commanded in His Torah, the smallest siman, the smallest se'if - a person will not transgress.

43:54 To fight for this, to fight for the law of Hashem, the law of the Torah, of Moshe Rabbeinu. There is nothing more important than this - than keeping the Shulchan Aruch. The Shulchan Aruch is the light for our feet, the way, the path to keep the word of Hashem. That is the most essential thing; with that, it is settled. A person does this - with this he has acquired everything for himself, and of course this rises and builds on that joy. Now, what you asked, sir, about people who foul their mouths and speak curses, or lashon hara, or bad combinations of words: there are many cases where a person curses himself.

44:31 That happens too. A person isn't always cursed by someone else, either. Sometimes he curses himself too. In any case where a person comes and curses himself, he opens his mouth, Heaven forbid, for evil. A curse - generally, when it can do harm, Heaven forbid - it is only on one condition. It is when you did something improper to that person, and out of his anger he cursed you. Still, it won't take hold; it is a remote concern that it would take hold.

45:00 A remote concern. When is it dan... this is the time when it is dangerous: if a person - a person sinned against someone, truly hurt someone, did things that were truly improper, truly pained him, shamed him, harmed him at work, and out of his anger and his sorrow he cursed him - that can do harm. And even then not always. But in the end, a baseless curse returns in the end upon the one who cursed. And this does not exempt a person: it is forbidden to curse, no matter what. If there is a person who just curses people, and the people aren't doing anything to him - he's in the family, a 'Torah scholar' - one who curses and curses and curses is, first of all, not a Torah scholar, because what should be found in his mouth

45:41 is blessing and good; he should be blessing Israel. It sounds like he curses them - he is cursing all the time. So he cannot be a Torah scholar, and really, in any case, his 'blessing' won't make much of an impression. So as for fearing a curse - one never needs to fear, and one need not fear that it will take effect or anything like that. What is true: one must be careful not to say bad combinations of words, and not to curse with the mouth, and not to say such a thing. The whole concern is that perhaps a person did something not good against someone, and when he did that thing against someone, then there can be anger and wrath, and then a curse can take effect - and of this one must be careful.

46:18 But even of this one need not be afraid, one need not worry - it is a remote concern. Curses - it is forbidden to curse. One never curses any creature, any person, because in the end it can come back, and he himself is cursed. The very person who cursed - the curse returns to that person. Therefore never, never, never is it permitted to curse. And so too all those who do all that divination and that sorcery, because in the end they have the law of all the sorcerers and diviners who do all these things - because it is like magic: like a magician who does some trick, and he has to show that person how he did the trick - that too is called sorcery. Curses, sorceries, all these things are things that 'deny the Heavenly household'. Meaning, why are you trying to create

47:07 something that is not good? And Maran, the Shulchan Aruch, in Yoreh De'ah, siman 179, warned very, very strongly to be careful and to keep far from all of them. No curses, no sorcery, no divination, no witchcraft, no curses - we don't curse anyone, we don't do anything against Hashem, and we don't try. What the Holy One, blessed be He, set in Creation, we leave as it is; we don't meddle with it. Certainly we don't curse, and we don't do things that are forbidden.

47:35 Now, what was asked - a person who has a lot of fear at night, or a child who sees things, so he says... a person like that, at night. The question is where he lives - in the Land of Israel, or not in the Land of Israel. Sometimes it can be because he is not careful with the bedtime Shema. Sometimes because he is not careful with netilas yadayim. Sometimes his fingernails are grown too long. Sometimes he has too much hair.

47:59 Too much hair on the body can bring these fears. Too much hair; sometimes the mikveh - he doesn't go to the mikveh for months. The mikveh - it may be that kelipos are resting on the body. It can be from his not being careful with the blessings over enjoyment, and all kinds of kelipos take hold of him. All kinds of evil afflictions take hold of him. It may be that he does evil to people and causes them pain. It may be that he spoke lashon hara about the dead. That is another reason: he slandered the dead, and then their souls and spirits try to harm him.

48:28 A person who gives a dead person a bad name has no forgiveness. About the dead it is forbidden to spread a bad name; it is a very severe thing. He wants to ask his forgiveness, so he, all kinds of... Look, I'm not saying whether it is forbidden or not forbidden, I don't know. Meaning, we can never come and give a definition of who was this kind of dead person or that kind of dead person, yes? It's not - we don't hold a competition of who is more evil and who is less evil; we are not permitted to come and distinguish between one person and another.

49:10 If you were at netz today - I said that it is even permitted to say Kaddish for a Druze soldier. Remember? A Druze soldier, even though they are Druze. Yes, we didn't finish with the Kaddishes, right - we can go back to it and talk about it. What's that? I'll get to that in a moment - what? My daughter killed a terrorist. And, well, this terrorist comes to her in all kinds of nightmares and things like that, at night, in dreams. - Really? Yes. She saved the Jewish people - what do you want? - She saved, yes, the Jewish people. There are two, twins; a year apart, each went through an attack, yes...

49:42 one killed a terrorist, and the second was run over by a terrorist, and it is a miracle from Heaven - things you don't see. What are you saying! Right. So she killed the terrorist - so what do you want? Because - so the reason that fears and so on come to her is that it is a frightening thing. To kill a person is something frightening; it leaves impressions in the soul. How can I calm the soul over this?

50:06 To calm the soul over this, one calms it from this side: she saved herself, and she saved the Jewish people. And there is no problem. Look - whatever the case, in this world one should always refrain from killing. No matter what - always refrain from killing and from looking at the faces of the dead. - They have already been saved many times. - No, of course, of course. I understand. I understand, I understand - no, certainly. I understand that it was to save lives, and what happened happened, and I am speaking...

50:35 One must always know that the Tikkun of the world, of the Torah, is to save created beings as much as possible. The whole world. Meaning, not to kill anything. Not mosquitoes - even mosquitoes, on Chol HaMoed. Only if they are causing you pain are you permitted to kill them.