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The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 2,861 words · 17:46. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 What holiness one draws here! Jerusalem is a city; the closer one is here to the place of the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, one draws holiness here, very awesome holiness. It doesn't even depend on spiritual work; one doesn't need to do any work, only intention in the heart, only that a person directs his heart to the place of the Temple, and one draws holiness here that has no measure.
0:24 It depends only on the intention of the heart, but even if a person does nothing, only that he stays here with the thought that he is close to the Temple, he draws all the holiness, all the wellsprings of wisdom, the blessings. That is "And you shall draw water with joy from the wellsprings of salvation" - that is the House of Hashem. "A spring will come out of the House of Hashem" - that is "the wellsprings of salvation."
0:48 You come to Jerusalem, you come here: direct yourselves only to the place of the Temple, just direct your heart. The very fact that I bring my body to the place of the Temple, even without any work, even if a person cannot do spiritual work, cannot do great work, because he has no clarity of mind, he is sick, weak, tired, he doesn't manage to focus his mind, with everything he is going through, only let him direct his heart to the place of the Temple, while staying here, and everything goes up before Him, blessed be He; everything, everything goes up.
1:16 Everything is repaired, everything goes up... What a thing this is... When will Hashem, blessed be He, finally have satisfaction? Master of the Universe, may He redeem us; we can't go on any more with this exile.
1:42 We can't, we just can't go on any more with this exile. That's what I love here: the zemiros from every side, as they sing Shabbos songs here on Shabbos. Remember we were here on Shabbos? You remember. I'll tell you a beautiful story. Once there was the holy Baal Shem Tov, with the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov.
2:07 There is a book, "Tikkun HaDerech"; have you heard of the book? A very old book, an old book, an old edition. There are all kinds of things written there about serving Hashem while traveling. Sometimes a person is in a small state of mind; he serves Hashem with that. He should not be distressed, because sometimes a person is traveling, so...
Read the whole shiur in English (29 more parts)
2:32 Sometimes in life a person goes through a small state of mind, sometimes an expanded state of mind. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev: for a whole year his spiritual awareness was taken from him; he had no spiritual awareness for a whole year. Everyone sometimes goes through ascents, descents, thoughts, difficulty, emotional pain, heartache, sorrow, distress; everyone, sometimes...
2:59 Most of the world is in sorrow from imaginings and from nonsense, and from difficulty that is not really difficulty, but... There was once a story, So he writes there in the book that a person should not feel bad when he sometimes sees he is in a small state of mind, so too in serving Hashem while traveling, because sometimes Hashem, blessed be He, wants him to serve Him in this way, and sometimes Hashem, blessed be He, wants him to serve Him in that way; once like this and once like that, only that he should not be distressed.
3:28 Now, there was a story: one of the disciples of the holy Baal Shem Tov, he doesn't give his name, they don't give his name there... There is also another story there from a disciple of a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, that this too is something that happened to him, but there his name is written; that's from a different book. But I don't want to say his name, because it is not respectful... In the new editions they already left out the name; in the old editions the name remained.
3:53 So I say they left it out, truly, because the story is not respectful... I'll tell you the story there. It is told that he asked Heaven a dream question, to know which day was the dearest before the Holy One, blessed be He, in Heaven, so that he would know how to behave like that day, before Hashem, blessed be He. He said: Master of the Universe, show me from Heaven that day which found favor in the eyes of Hashem, blessed be He, so that I'll know how to behave according to that day: how much I ate, how much I drank, how much I learned, what I learned, how I prayed, what I intended, where my intention was...
4:37 so that I'll know how to repeat that day exactly, like the day I dreamed of, like the day I directed my heart on. I want to do it like that; and that's what he did. And truly, in Heaven, with a dream question, after all, a dream question: there are set times for a dream question; one must do it right when the stars come out; one must go to sleep right when the stars come out, be in a fast of speech all day, and all kinds of...
5:07 This too has practices, how to do it in order to attain a dream question. It's not that you ask and go to sleep. OK, fine, he went to sleep, and he received an answer from Heaven. They answered him that it was in a month of the year; they told him the month: it was the month of Tishrei; that's what they told him. OK, after that he said: surely, most likely it's Rosh Hashanah, it's Yom Kippur; it's one of these days; Hashem, blessed be He, loves teshuvah most of all.
5:39 It's surely one of these days; I had a Yom Kippur surely full of elevation... He asked another question, to know which day it was, what time, not only which month, but more: what time. And then he received an answer that it was during the Ten Days of Teshuvah. That is no longer Rosh Hashanah, and not Yom Kippur either; it is the Ten Days of Teshuvah. And after that he asked a dream question once again, that they should now show him what happened at that time.
6:10 And indeed he dreams that he sees himself returning from Rosh Hashanah at the holy Baal Shem Tov's, and he is traveling in a wagon; that is how he sees himself in the dream. And he sees that he is learning on the way; in the carriage, he is learning. And just then the wheels of the wagon, of the carriage, broke, and suddenly there was a big noise, and the whole wagon was about to overturn, and he fell from the wagon into the mud, the mire and the clay, with the books, and with everything he had; and he was so dirty, and he was distressed.
6:50 Right away he got up and tried to fix things, and so he sat for hours fixing the wheels, and passersby helped him, and the whole day he did not manage to learn, and he simply sat with the wheel, fixing the wheel. And he had such sorrow: it was only just now Rosh Hashanah, and the Ten Days of Teshuvah are holy days, and how he is wasting them on fixing wheels! And he had a broken heart before Hashem, and he raised his eyes to Heaven, and he was in sorrow: how am I busy with such a thing?
7:18 What has befallen me, Master of the Universe, to fix a carriage wheel? Precisely now, in the Ten Days of Teshuvah, You gave me a carriage wheel to fix! And so he was in great sorrow over this, and so it was. And then in Heaven they answered him, And it went on like this all day, until Minchah came, when he simply ran to some place that had a holy community and a synagogue, and he went in to pray Minchah like that.
7:46 He even missed the prayer; he started with the repetition. And they told him in Heaven that that day, with this Minchah prayer, it went up the highest before Hashem. And then he suddenly woke up from the dream. So he thought that perhaps it was just his own stray thoughts, or something like that. And when he came to the holy Baal Shem Tov, the holy Baal Shem Tov told him: You thought that "dreams speak falsehood", but about this it is said, "In a dream I speak with him."
8:20 He knew that he had asked a dream question, and they spoke with you about the dream question. And truly that disciple understood that this dream... they showed him from Heaven that the day that was so important before Hashem was the day his heart was most broken, because Hashem, blessed be He, loves a broken heart, for "To this one I will look: to the poor and broken in spirit."
8:45 How much Hashem, blessed be He, loves a broken heart! How much Hashem, blessed be He, desires a broken heart! How much Hashem does not love haughtiness, does not love pride before Him! And so it truly was; and truly that disciple was really, all his days, in lowliness and very great humility, and tried all the time to think this way about the greatness of Hashem. And how would the Rebbe of Kotzk put it?
9:11 Contemplate the greatness of Hashem, blessed be He. He says: 'Don't tell the Holy One, blessed be He, how great your troubles are; tell your troubles how great the Holy One, blessed be He, is.' That's a beautiful saying: to contemplate your smallness, and to contemplate the greatness of the One before Whom you sinned; that is the thought.
9:36 That is contemplation, that is the connection by which one attains closeness to Hashem, the... When a person desires to come close to Hashem, and understands that closeness to the Creator is the highest and most exalted thing, because, to make an infinite distinction, yes... but today the world: they would want to be close to a minister, or a governor, or a ruler, so they boast about it, that they are close to this minister.
10:05 That's how it has always been, ever since the time of the Talmud: that they were close to the emperors, or to the Caesar of Rome, or they were close to the Greeks; and also, of course, it helped, to save from wars, for the sake of peace with the kingdom, and all that. But I'm saying: today most of the world, over the generations, they were happy with the kingdom they had, and with closeness to a minister, or to a governor and ruler, and so they would want their closeness, and try to find favor among them, or they would also recite psalms in order to find favor before a great man, for in Shimush Tehillim it is written that Psalm 122 is a segulah for this.
10:47 Everyone has a psalm... There are also segulos, even to find favor in the eyes of a minister, a ruler and a governor, that he should find favor in his eyes. So imagine: the tzaddikim always try to find favor, and the closeness of the One Who created the world. They are not interested in flesh and blood, only in the Creator, blessed be He.
11:11 That is why it is written, "The eyes of Hashem are toward the righteous, and His ears toward their cry." And whoever touches them is like one who touches the apple of the eye of the Holy One, blessed be He. That is this closeness to Hashem: the desire to be closest to the purpose, to the Creator, to contemplate His greatness, His compassion, to walk with truth, not to be a liar, to be truthful, to speak with the mouth and the heart as one.
11:43 That is Jerusalem, that is the building of the Temple: there was truth in the world, there was peace in the world, there was contentment in the world, there was closeness to Hashem; everyone wanted the closeness of the Creator, they wanted the revelation of the Creator. But the further one moves away from the Temple, from the revelation of the King's kingship, So then what one seeks is much lower things: one wants closeness to a minister, ruler and governor; that is the glory, that is the showing off, instead of finding favor in the eyes of the One Who spoke and the world came to be.
12:26 That is why the beauty in Noach is that the Torah says Noach found favor: Therefore "And Noach found favor in the eyes of Hashem"; to find favor in the eyes of Hashem. That is the greatest thing, and the hardest thing in the world: that a person should find favor in the eyes of the One Who created the world.
12:54 The Creator's gaze upon a person is like a contemplation of everything He created, because Hashem created man, so He knows his heart. He examines his heart, his kidneys, his mind, his soul, his face; He checks him in every matter. And to find favor in the eyes of these eyes, that is the hardest thing.
13:24 Fortunate is the one who finds favor before You, blessed One, Master of the Universe! Fortunate is the one who carries grace and kindness before the One Who spoke and the world came to be! Him I envy. Only that we merit to find favor before You, blessed One, Master of the Universe, the great, mighty and awesome G-d, G-d Most High; only that You should have satisfaction.
13:51 That is the contemplation there must be every time: in thought, in prayer, in Torah, in a request, in a good deed, in a mitzvah: to see how the holy and awesome eyes, how the eyes... "pure of eyes, and dwelling in Heaven", how He looks upon us, how He looks at me, how He sees me, how He gazes at me; that is the gaze.
14:21 That is King David, that is King David; King David was "beautiful of eyes and good-looking", for he had this way of looking at the world: he saw the beauty and the good there is in everyone. He looked at him favorably; every person can look at the other either looking at him for bad and for guilt, or looking at him for grace and for beauty.
14:50 One can look this way or that way at everything. King David chose to look at the beauty and the good there is in everyone; that is why he was the King of Israel, that is why he composed the Book of Tehillim for us, that he can awaken the good there is in all the souls of the Jewish people and reveal it in the whole world. These are his psalms; this is his book.
15:16 May the merit of this holy place, the resting place of King David, as the Rav of Munkatch, the Minchas Elazar of Munkatch, says, he would say: "Ben Yishai at the head" (Sanhedrin 102a), that the resting place of King David comes before all the holy places in the Land of Israel. May we merit, with Hashem's help, the revelation of His kingship, blessed be He, and merit closeness to Hashem: "And as for me, closeness to G-d is good for me"; that You should have satisfaction, King of the kings of kings.
15:49 May Hashem, blessed be He, have mercy on His people Israel; may there be protection and shielding for all the Jewish people. May it be Your will, Hashem, our G-d and the G-d of our fathers, that You guard and save all Your people Israel from all evil, and guard all the Jews of the Diaspora, and all who are in the land of Russia and Ukraine, and Poland, and all the places, and guard all the holy places and all the graves of the tzaddikim buried there, and guard all Your people Israel from every evil mishap, from every evil thing, and from every plague, and from every war, and from all kinds of calamities that stir and come upon the world, and guard them, and save them from all evil, and give them a good life, and good blessings,
17:00 and abolish all wars from the world, and grant us peace, and grant us the complete redemption, speedily in our days. May there be good blessings, may there be a good life. One really needs to pray for the Jewish people who are now in the Diaspora, in all the places; one must pray for them.
17:25 It is very painful, for children and holy ones who are there, many who are there have turned to us, and they are really there in sorrow and fear, and it hurts them, and you really don't know what they feel there. We really must do something: pray, ask for them. It is impossible, when our brothers are in a time of war...
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The opening of this shiur, in The Yanuka — Rav Shlomo Yehuda’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.
the special holiness that is drawn from here Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) is the city; the closer one is to the site of the Holy Temple the more one draws holiness – holiness that is exceedingly awesome This does not depend on your spiritual efforts from within you do not need inner spiritual efforts at all; just have the proper intentions in your heart Just guide your heart to the place of the Holy Temple and one will draw from here infinite amounts of holiness It all depends on the intent of one’s heart. Even if a person does nothing else, but just stays here – with the intent of his being close to the site of the Holy Temple He will draw all the holiness, all the wellsprings of wisdom, and positive influences This is the meaning of the “Drawing of the water with joy – from the fountains of salvation” (Yeshayahu 12:3) – a reference to the House of Hashem (the Holy Temple) The fountain that flows from the House of Hashem – that is the fountain of salvation When we come to Yerushalayim, we should just reflect on the site of the Holy Temple; only to think about it The very fact that I bring my body to this holy site even with no inner spiritual efforts, even a person who can’t exert himself spiritually And he is incapable of putting forth significant effort; his spiritual emotions are sapped. He is ill, weak, or too tired. He cannot focus properly because of everything he is going through All he needs to do is direct his heart to the site of the Holy Temple while he is here And then everything will ascend up to Hashem; everything! Everything will ascend! Everything will be rectified, everything will go up, what an amazing thing... When will Hashem receive the enjoyment (from His creations) that He deserves?
Jump to a moment
- 0:00the special holiness that is drawn from here Yerushalayim (Jerusalem) is the city; the closer one…
- 1:37Master of the Universe, please redeem us; we can no longer endure this exile! We can’t;…
- 3:08So he writes there in the book A person should not be discouraged if he sometimes…
- 5:18They told him it was during a certain a month of the year; they told him…
- 6:50he immediately got up and tried to put things together So, there he was sitting for…
- 8:52Hashem totally dislikes arrogance; Hashem loathes one who acts with conceit before Him. And that is…
- 10:24for the duration of the generations, they were happy with the empires that ruled over them…
- 11:58They wanted the divine revelation of the Creator But the farther away we are from the…
- 14:09How He looks at us, how He views us How He perceives me, how He looks…
- 15:49That Hashem should have compassion on His nation of Israel Let there be protection and shielding…
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