The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-סוד שיחת הדקלים הגאון הינוקא בשיעור מיוחד לט＂ו בשבט

3:02 So we see that on the fifteenth of Shevat — in the Mishnah, in chapter 1 of Rosh Hashanah, mishnah 1 — the fifteenth of Shevat is "the New Year for the tree." For the tree. The New Year for the tree. We don't find that it is the New Year for the trees; it is the New Year for the tree. This exact wording, "the New Year for the tree" — the one who dwelt on it was the author of Tur Bareket, a student of Rabbeinu Chaim Vital — in siman 572, his sefer, Tur Bareket.

3:30 There he writes that this, too — there is a hint in this, in "the New Year for the tree": that the New Year for the tree is in fact the Tikkun for the supernal Tree, the Tikkun for Adam HaRishon, and on this day there is the possibility to make a Tikkun for the sin of Adam HaRishon. The very gathering — that we sit with what the Holy One, blessed be He, created, making a Tikkun over the creations that the Holy One, blessed be He, created, all the good and wonderful things, the wonderful taste of the fruits, and we praise the Holy One, blessed be He — this causes things to come to their Tikkun, and we will be able to return to the beginning and to the root, where there were no divisions.

4:07 As long as time passes — time goes by — we become more divided. What does that mean? The more that more souls and more people are born, and there is a multiplicity of people and a multiplicity of actions — every day they do more and more actions, more movements; people make movements, they change, they learn more, they grow wiser, as many actions as possible are done in the world; the world keeps multiplying — and sadly — I say this, I mean it in the reverse sense, as a euphemism, because I don't really mean what I am saying; I mean it about what they do — that they cause more ruin.

4:40 Because the more they increase with time, the more actions they do, and they increase technology more, and more destruction is done, and they destroy the world more. They don't build it. As time passes, they destroy the world. When we were at the beginning — why does the world say that with us, Judaism, the Torah, is only the Book? The Book that is one — and that is what we have. We haven't changed at all with this Book.

5:09 Because with us, with the Jewish people, there is no sin. Because we have no sin, actions don't apply to us. But with the nations, who are sinning all the time, they have development. Because they are increasing actions all the time, it becomes technology for them. It becomes tools for them to make technology. They got developments in all their wisdom — that is "wisdom among the nations — believe it." That is only because of their sins; their sins and their iniquities create for them all the technology and the multiplicity of actions.

5:37 With us — the wholesomeness of the Jewish people, and our ability to sit and learn Torah, and that we have the Torah scroll that is one — one — when we go back to one Torah scroll, we have only one, one Torah scroll, that everything begins from — only from one Torah — so all that we increase is only increasing in sitting and learning, and increasing in wisdom. All the actions done among us are actions on the side of the mind.

6:04 With the nations, their actions come from the side of the body. They start to go and act and do actions, to make machines, and they invent technology and invent things. But with us there are no actions from the side of the body; we only develop sefarim. Look how many sefarim have come out, how much Torah there is in the world. Only from the side of wisdom. And when there is one — when the Jewish people, within the Torah, have one, one tree — then the tree sprouts many branches and many leaves and many fruits, because it is one tree.

6:35 But when there isn't one tree, and a person comes and wants to cut down the tree, then presumably he will cut down many more trees. That is the nations. The nations go and cut; they only try to cut down — all the technology and everything they do, all those things. And therefore this is the exile. The exile is that, in effect, unity was cut off from us. The unity — that we are not together, that there is no baseless love among us, that there is no love of Torah among us, that we don't love tzaddikim at all, and we have no emunas chachamim, we are not standing in a high place at all, the head is murky and spoiled — all these things cause us, Heaven forbid, to cut down the tree instead of watering the tree.

7:19 King David says in chapter 1 of Tehillim: "Fortunate is the man who did not walk in the counsel of the wicked, and did not stand in the way of sinners, and did not sit in the seat of scoffers; but his desire is in the Torah of Hashem, and in his Torah he meditates day and night" — for it is his own Torah, "his Torah." "And he shall be like a tree planted by streams of water, that gives its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither." King David mentions one tree: "and he shall be like a tree planted." Why not "and they shall be like trees planted" — "for Hashem knows the way of tzaddikim, and the way of the wicked will perish"?

7:48 Seemingly, if King David says "the way of tzaddikim" and "the way of the wicked," and he counts in the plural, then if there is a way for many, there should also be trees for many — since this tree symbolizes a way of many. So seemingly it should be trees: "and they shall be like trees planted by streams of water." Yet it is "like a tree planted by streams of water" — one tree that is planted by streams of water. It implies only one tree, because the Torah is one, and the learning that bears fruit is only a person who learns the Torah lishmah, for its own sake.

8:16 Only that is called a tree that bears fruit. That is the meaning of "a tree that bears fruit." We are speaking of increase and of giving nachas ruach to the Holy One, blessed be He — that is only from Torah done for the Holy One, blessed be He, for the honor of the Holy One, blessed be He, for the sake of Heaven, for the honor of the Holy One, blessed be He, to give nachas ruach to the Holy One, blessed be He. That is called learning Torah lishmah. For the whole of creation, all the creatures, all the things there are in the world, have speech in them. Today we cannot understand the speech there is today among the creatures. We can't even hear creation; we can't hear our fellow.

8:51 We can't hear the heart of creation; we can't hear one another, because we are sealed off from one another. So we have no connection, and because we have no connection, we can't truly hear the Torah. The meaning of true Torah learning — I am speaking from the side of a person's level — is that a person would picture to himself — like just now, it was Thursday, we were at the grave of the students of the holy Baal Shem Tov. It was night — late; it was one or two at night, and darkness in the cemetery.

9:21 We see a lantern, and we see someone digging a pit — a gravedigger there. Digging, digging; there was only his shadow with the lantern. You see him digging. So fear came into everyone; suddenly they changed — their faces — everyone felt like that. That man — they asked him, "What are you doing here?" He said, "I work here. What are you doing here?" he said to us. "We came to pray here." So learning Torah lishmah — when a person learns Torah, he has to learn Torah as if he is learning facing his own pit.

9:56 Facing the final end. When a person doesn't think about the final end — that a day will come — Rabbi Nosson — his birthday — today is his birthday, Rabbi Nosson's, that Rabbi Nosson was born. When he was a small child, he once saw an old man sitting next to him in shul. And this old man — after some time when he wasn't bringing him candies — he asked his father, "Father, where is that old man?" So he told him, "That old man is no more; he isn't here."

10:22 So he said to him, "Where did he go?" When he began to explain to him — to a child of four — he told him that there is a place, that they took him there, and that's it, he won't come back from there. Meaning, that there are those who die. And then Rabbi Nosson was frightened, as a small child — frightened — how could they tell him such a thing? A small child — it shouldn't be — a small child heard such frightening and dreadful things?

10:50 You understand? From then on he already set his mind on the final end, to understand that a day will come when he too will not be — as a small child — and he took hold of himself to learn the final end. Today is the birthday of Rabbi Nosson — the one who, his whole life, saw before his eyes the day of the final end, the eternal, last day. He would always say, "Everything I can imagine — only my first night in the grave I cannot imagine."

11:17 One who has no fear of Heaven from the day of the final end, from the last day, is a person who has no fear of Heaven at all. One who truly fears Hashem is a person who thinks about the last day, about his day of the final end, about the day they will gather him in from the world, about the day he will have to leave the world, about the day he will have to part from the world. And only there does the wisdom of the Torah begin. The wisdom of the Torah begins only — all the tzaddikim that you see, the greatest and most awesome in stature, the greatest and most awesome — the greater the tzaddik's stature — that you see: these are only tzaddikim who lived the final end, who feared the day of death.

11:52 Without that, he can never be a tzaddik. One who doesn't think about the final end, about the fact that he lives in the final end — that today he stands before the Holy One, blessed be He, in the Heavenly Court, and they will ask him questions, at the stage when he gives his accounting before Hashem — if he has no fear of Hashem and doesn't know that he will stand before all this, how can he be a tzaddik? He can never be a tzaddik. It is never possible to be a tzaddik. That is how it was: the Arizal did not take his mind off this, and not Rabbi Chaim Vital, and not Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and the holy Baal Shem Tov, and no great one who ever was in the world — they did not take their minds off this.

12:26 And all the creatures and all the animals and all the birds — this, in fact, is the speech of the birds. Do people know what the speech of the birds is? It's interesting. The speech of the birds — do you know what the speech of the birds is? The speech of the animals, the speech of the palm trees — does anyone know? — the speech of the eagles, the speech of whales, the speech of sharks — the speech of the creatures. People don't know what this speech is.

12:53 People don't know what "speech" means. Even Rashi didn't know. In Tractate Sukkah, page 28a, where it tells of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, that he did not leave aside Gemara, and did not leave aside Scripture and Mishnah and Gemara and halachos and the fine points of the Scribes and the seasons and gematrias and the speech of birds, the speech of palm trees — he knew it all. So Rashi says — about the speech of palm trees, Rashi says that he did not know what it is. Rashi says, "I don't know what it is."

13:22 He doesn't know. Rashi says he doesn't know. There are several times in Shas where Rashi says he doesn't know: Tractate Berachos, page 20b, Tractate Yoma, page 19a, and in Tractate Beitzah, page 15. Several times Rashi says he doesn't know what is meant. With the speech of the palm trees, if Rashi says there that he doesn't know, one has to be precise, to really think and say what it means that Rashi says he doesn't know.

13:46 There are places where Rashi says he doesn't know — perhaps it is also by way of humility, perhaps a manner of speaking, when really he does know — but here, where Rashi says, "I do not know what it is" — he says he doesn't know what this thing is at all. He doesn't know what it is; he doesn't understand at all what this speech of the palm trees is. As if it is implied from Rashi's wording that he has no connection to this understanding of what the speech of palm trees is.

14:15 And here, really, in fact, we won't understand Rashi that way; here there is a very great depth. Because in truth Rashi did understand the speech of the palm trees, of course — just as Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai did understand. The speech of the palm trees is something a person can attain, and it cannot be taught, not even from a rav to a student. It is something so lofty that it can't be passed on as a tradition, by teaching. That is why he says "I did not know." When Rashi says "I did not know," he means there is no possibility at all of teaching this thing.

14:44 Because the speech of the palm trees is something that — it is the speech of the creatures, the speech of the created beings. It is written in Midrash Bereishis Rabbah — Bereishis Rabbah, in parashah 13, in siman 2 — it is written that all the trees converse with one another; all the trees converse one with the other. Now, when you go out to the field, outside, and you go to hisbodedus, and when a person goes out under the open sky to pray and he sees this tree, he sees the second tree facing it, and they stir toward one another — there is speech between them; this tree is conversing with that tree.

15:17 But one who passes by thinks there is a wind blowing, and he doesn't know there is speech between them. That is the speech of the palm trees — this speech that connects between them, between one and the other. There were once ancient wisdoms, ancient wisdoms that knew how to connect them, to know these things. It's called — there is the wisdom of Egypt and there is the wisdom of the people of the East. We learned this, in fact, from the verse about Shlomo. It is written of King Shlomo, in Melachim I, chapter 5, verse 10: "And Shlomo's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East and than all the wisdom of Egypt."

15:50 That is Shlomo's wisdom. The wisdom of Egypt — the Metzudas David explains what "the wisdom of Egypt" means: that they knew how to blend, to make the elements, to make the colors, the connection between the colors, between one and another. They knew how to understand the inner essence that is in every element of nature. That is the wisdom of the people of the East: they knew how to fly, they knew how to transform a thing, to do sorcery, to do things — that is the wisdom of the people of the East. It is an ancient wisdom that once existed. The wisdom of Egypt as well, the same thing: it is a wisdom of nature, a wisdom of herbs, a wisdom of healing, a wisdom of remedies. All these wisdoms — they knew how to create between them, out of this wisdom, to take all the elements, all these colors, to take the sun, to know how to align against the sun — all these wisdoms. But all these wisdoms are as nothing and naught compared to the wisdom of King Shlomo, for of him it is written, "And Shlomo's wisdom was greater than all the wisdom of the people of the East."

16:45 For King Shlomo's wisdom was loftier than all the wisdoms, all of them — there is no wisdom that can come into the secret of the height of King Shlomo's wisdom, for he was wiser than everyone. So because King Shlomo attained wisdom at the very highest level, which no one at all could attain — and the wisdom of the people of the East is something where you can't even compare Einstein or any wise man in the world to the wisdom that once was, because the wisdom of the people of the East is a wisdom no person can grasp — not even the elders of Athens, who had wisdom, could equal the wisdom of the people of the East or the wisdom of Egypt.

17:22 For the wisdom of Egypt is one matter, and the wisdom of the people of the East is another matter. So King Shlomo was wiser than this one, and King Shlomo was wiser than that one too. And he knew how to hear and to connect all the kinds of speech and all the wisdoms, all of them. The last one who knew how to attain this — Maran the Chida writes in Midbar Kedemos, he writes in the section for the letter Ches, entry 17 — he writes about Maran the Arizal. He writes that Rabbeinu the Arizal knew, like Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai — he knew how to attain all these wisdoms: to know how to hear birds, animals; to know a horse — to hear the horse, to speak with it.

17:54 Whoever wants to know about King Shlomo's wisdom — there are two places: in Midrash Shir HaShirim Rabbah, parashah 1, and in Midrash Koheles, the Midrash on Koheles, Megillas Koheles, also parashah 1. There it is written, at the beginning, about King Shlomo's wisdom — how wise he was, what he knew, all kinds of things like that. If you want to look there, you will find many wondrous things there, for whoever wants to learn about this at length — because it is impossible to go on at length about King Shlomo's wisdom, and there would be no end to his wisdom.

18:19 So that is a little, as well, on the matter of King Shlomo's wisdom. But Rabbeinu the Arizal — the wisdom that he attained to know — I am not speaking now about a tree or about trees — he knew how to look at the stars, he knew how to look at fruits, he knew how to look at souls; he knew how to see the inner essence of every thing. Now, shall we say this is something a person learns? Something a person passes on? Something a person receives?

18:45 It is not something that can be received; it is something that can only be attained — when a person's mind departs from the world, when the mind returns to the beginning. We explained earlier that when a person removes the mochin — after all, what happens at the time of a person's passing? At the time a person departs from the world, he arrives at the place from which he began; he arrives at the same place from which he came out.

19:09 The soul came out from the Heavenly Court; they made it swear: be a tzaddik and do not be a rasha. It came down below, arrived here, in this world, lived all the matters of the world, and then departs, and then he returns back to that same place where he must give his reckoning and accounting before the Holy One, blessed be He, Master of heaven and earth. There he gives his accounting before the One who created the heavens and the earth. So he arrives at that same place — when he departs.

19:34 When a person reaches his level — when the awesome tzaddikim reached such a level that they removed their mind while still in this world, without departing from the world — they removed their mind from the world — then, as far as their body and their essence, they are already above. And when they are above, they were able to attain the wisdom of the speech of the birds, the speech of the palm trees, the speech of the animals. And all this begins precisely from the day of death.

20:01 Precisely from the final end. It begins only then, from the beginning — it begins from the final end. For only then does all the abundance that comes down to the world come down; everything comes down from this. All the final end that comes down to the world. So the example of King Shlomo — it is not because he was the wise man with no one like him. It is Rabbi Hoshaya — it is written in Tractate Yoma, page 39b, about Rabbi Hoshaya, who said that King Shlomo planted kinds of choice fruits — kinds of choice fruits of gold; he planted trees of gold in the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple.

20:29 King Shlomo planted trees, and when the fruits would grow — now the season for the apples to come out would arrive — so when King Shlomo planted the trees of gold, fruits of gold began to come out. What then? They would take these fruits of gold and put them toward the upkeep of the Temple. They take them to the Beis HaMikdash; no one would touch them. It was gold, and this gold is called Parvayim gold. Why was it Parvayim gold?

20:54 It had the color of the blood of bulls. There is one tree in heaven, in Gan Eden. That tree there — all gold descends from it, from that tree. It is one tree, from which all gold comes down to the world. Now, King Shlomo — because his heart was wide open toward the Beis HaMikdash, and all the abundance he wanted to give — King Shlomo's whole essence — he did not stint on the Beis HaMikdash. He had silver and gold in plenty.

21:18 Rabbi Yehudah ben Rabbi Ami, in Midrash Rabbah, in Parashas Naso, in parashah 12, he writes — Rabbi Yehudah ben Rabbi Ami says that King Shlomo came and took — made — a thousand talents of silver — talents of gold — and put them into the furnace a thousand times, and brought out of them one talent of gold, in order to smelt it. He took a thousand talents of gold, put them into the furnace a thousand times, smelted them, in order to bring out one talent of gold.

21:45 That is King Shlomo, who does not stint with the abundance the Holy One, blessed be He, gives him. The Holy One, blessed be He, gave him abundance, gave him wealth such as there never was. And he took this gold, put it in and smelted it, and brought gold out of it. So that gold was called Parvayim gold. Why Parvayim gold? Because it had the color of the blood of bulls, which was red — like that, corresponding to that tree that was dripping from heaven; gold would drip for them. Corresponding to this, the gold there is fruitful and multiplies, and "Parvayim" is also from the term that it is fruitful and multiplies: it keeps — the gold keeps multiplying, keeps multiplying, keeps multiplying.

22:18 And the Gemara says: until the nations entered the Heichal and defiled it, and those trees were hidden away, and ever since then we don't have those trees. Let us look at how great the blessing was — the blessing of the trees of gold, of the gold that was fruitful and multiplied — for it was spiritual gold. A person would pick, take from the gold, and he would take a kilo; two weeks later it would become ten kilos for him; after two months it would become two hundred kilos. The gold would be fruitful and multiply with him; it kept being fruitful and multiplying, kept increasing.

22:47 The Yerushalmi in Tractate Yoma says something else — it's not relevant, but the Yerushalmi says there was indeed gold that multiplied — also in Tractate Yoma, chapter 4, halachah 4. The Yerushalmi says the gold was there, and also that this gold that was there in fact ceased only because Menashe set up an idol in the Heichal. That is a different explanation entirely. There is a difference between Menashe and the nations — whether it is from the seed of Israel or from the seed of the nations. If the nations went and defiled it, and so it stopped — that I would understand.

23:12 But if you say that Menashe set up an idol in the Heichal — then it came precisely from the side of kedushah, the one who brought in the gold and nullified it. So from here we see that whether we look at it this way or that way, it makes no practical difference. Because either way there is the damage, and the gold departs. But if it comes precisely from our side — that we are the ones who destroy, Menashe himself setting up an idol in the Heichal — then this gold departs, because the gold is entirely spiritual.

23:40 Gold is entirely spirit, completely, and that is why gold arouses din, judgment. Because it is on such a spiritual level — if there is a woman who has not conceived for many years, she should take the gold off herself, just until she conceives. And not put on any diamonds — a diamond — she shouldn't wear diamonds, and she will conceive. If there is a sick person, Heaven forbid, he shouldn't wear any gold at all. No gold on him, no gold color, nothing to do with gold — he shouldn't touch gold at all.

24:05 Because gold is din. The moment he puts the din on himself, it arouses the din upon him. So how will he draw chesed, kindness, upon himself? That is why he must remove the gold from himself; only then can he draw down blessing. A woman who is about to give birth — also before the birth, late in the pregnancy, in the very month, already close to the contractions — she too should take off the gold. Even if she has some gold on, she should take off the gold, take off the stones, before the birth.

24:29 With all these things one must be careful. Why? Because gold — its power is very spiritual. The power of gold can also work for a person, for good things — of course, to grasp wisdom. For many tzaddikim. Rabbi Naftali Katz, the author of Semichas Chachamim, the Shach — when he wanted to understand something, he would hold a piece of gold, and he would understand. Gold has segulos for understanding, for wisdom — gold has many segulos, but not in order to take the gold and use it for things that are not good, Heaven forbid, to use it for things that are not from the right side — the way the world makes jewelry and such things. For this gold was created only for the House of Hashem, blessed be He, so that there would be the Beis HaMikdash — for that, gold was created.

25:08 Now, what is special about gold is that everything we see that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in the world is a miracle, a gift from the Master of heaven and earth, Who is able to give it. And King Shlomo knew the whole chain of where that gold came out from — from the Even HaShesiyah, the Foundation Stone. The whole chain from the Foundation Stone — for from the Foundation Stone, veins go out to the whole world, of all the springs there are in the world. And King Shlomo knew that very point, that very place where these veins go out, and to plant that tree there, and from that tree that came out there to seed this gold, and to take that gold and give it to Jerusalem.

25:51 This King Shlomo knew, and no one else could know it. No one could know this wisdom of King Shlomo. And so only King Shlomo knew how to grasp this secret of the building of the Beis HaMikdash. And that is also why he was the one who built the Beis HaMikdash — King Shlomo. Since his wisdom was on a higher level than anyone who was on the face of the earth, he was able to attain this wisdom of the Beis HaMikdash. He knew the secret of the Foundation Stone. And so the trees — all the blessing that the Holy One, blessed be He, rests upon the world is precisely upon something that is hidden from the eye.

26:22 As Rabbi Yitzchak said in Tractate Taanis, page 8b, that blessing rests only on something hidden from the eye. And Rabbi Yishmael says: blessing rests only on something the eye has no power over. When the eye does not see the thing, then the blessing rests. Now, this gold was entirely spiritual. No one had any hold over the place it came from, because it came from a place that no eye can see. It came from a high place, an awesome place, that cannot be grasped at all. No one sees that place there, where the tree comes from.

26:49 It is a tree that grows all the gold in the world. And to this day that tree is hidden away, and no one can know that tree or grasp the secret of that tree. A person can come and say that he knows about this tree, or that he knows how to find this tree — only King Shlomo knew the wisdom of this tree. And this is what Tu BiShvat can remind us of: that this whole time is now — for the beginning is now, from Tu BiShvat, now a month to Purim, and from there, again, to Pesach.

27:15 All of these are the fifteenth — the fifteenth is the middle of the month, the moon at its fullest, the chasadim, as Beis Hillel hold, which is chesed. Now all the mercy begins to shine, and then the sap rises in the trees, and then we draw down the kedushah of Jerusalem. Now the neta revai begins, the fourth-year fruit, after the three years — now we come out of the orlah, out of the kelipos. We take the fruits and eat them in Jerusalem. If we cannot eat them in Jerusalem, we redeem them onto a coin and buy fruits with it in Jerusalem, and only then are these fruits raised up to kedushah.

27:43 That means the whole level of Tu BiShvat — it is a delicate day, it is the day of the Land of Israel. This Tu BiShvat belongs to the Land of Israel. It is a day when we become holy and connect, with all the roots, to the Land of Israel. A person merits to be wholly included in the Land of Israel, and then he comes out of the curse. For there is a curse that fell upon the world. The day the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, human beings sinned and the earth sinned.

28:08 So the earth sinned and was cursed. Why? It is written: "Let the earth sprout grass, herbage yielding seed," after its kind. "A tree making fruit," right? So what did she do? "Herbage yielding seed after its kind"? She did "after its kind," and she was supposed to bring forth herbage — "herbage yielding seed," only "let it sprout herbage yielding seed," not "after its kind." She did "after its kind" — she brought forth more. The Talmud Yerushalmi says, in Tractate Kilayim, chapter 1, halachah 7 — the Yerushalmi says in Tractate Kilayim, that she brought forth — Rabbi Pinchas said, and Rabbi Yehudah, or Rabbi Pinchas — Rabbi Pinchas says that she brought forth too many trees; she brought forth barren trees as well, a fruit tree and a barren tree together.

28:45 That is forbidden to do — she made kilayim, a forbidden mixture — so the earth was already cursed because of that, for not doing the command of the Holy One, blessed be He. One must do the command of the Holy One, blessed be He — if only she had not done that. So because she transgressed the command, the earth was cursed. And the holy Zohar says — Zohar, Vayera, page 114a — side b — sorry, side a, and side b as well. Rabbi Shmuel says that there is a curse that fell upon the world, and it will not pass until Mashiach ben David comes. This curse will come to an end and be completely nullified from the creatures, from all created beings, and only then will those who sleep in the dust rise from the grave,

29:20 and the Holy One, blessed be He, will awaken them and hasten the resurrection of the dead. But as long as we are still in exile, not in the Land of Israel, not meriting the kedushah of the Land of Israel, and are still in the Diaspora, there is this punishment, the kelipah of the chivya, of the serpent, and we do not merit to enter the secret of the kedushah of the Land of Israel. To come to the kedushah of the Land of Israel, to merit the level of the Land of Israel — the Land of Israel — to merit it is precisely on Tu BiShvat. Because on Tu BiShvat we return to this, that everything is hidden from the eye: this whole season, everything was covered in clouds.

29:52 The whole ground was covered in clouds, covered in rain — it was all rain, all downpour. You see nothing. You don't see the tree, in the snows and all of it. And now the sap begins to rise in the tree. And only then can there be a New Year of the tree at all — to know its year, to know its time, to know when to bring the fruit so that it be included in Jerusalem. When we take the fruit so that it be included in Jerusalem — it turns out that Tu BiShvat, the whole essence of Tu BiShvat, is Jerusalem, it is the Land of Israel.

30:22 And when we merit the kedushah of the Land of Israel — which a person merits on Tu BiShvat, we merit the kedushah of the Land of Israel — then we merit the kedushah of the soul, which is the purpose, to receive it in the Land of Israel: that a person merits to feel his soul. Like a person who is wearing tefillin: he doesn't think about the tefillin, he doesn't feel their kedushah. A person is in the Land of Israel — in Tractate Kesubos, page 110 and page 111 — he is like one who has a G-d; he lives in the Land of Israel and dwells without sin, he has no sins at all. He is like one who has a G-d: he cleaves to the Holy One, blessed be He, and does not take his mind off Him. And then he merits to be included within the point of Jerusalem, from which we return to where King Shlomo created the world — when the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world — it is all from the Foundation Stone, from which the world was founded. And only King Shlomo knew the secret,

31:08 for he knew where to plant, by each and every stone, from which the world was founded. In Tractate Yoma, page 54b, the Gemara says that there was one stone, and it was called Shesiyah — that is the Even HaShesiyah, the Foundation Stone, from which the whole world was founded; it came out from the Foundation Stone. And only King Shlomo knew where to connect to these veins, to bring forth all the trees, so that the Holy One, blessed be He, would bring out the gold — where the gold must be brought out from that Foundation Stone. All the channels go out from there; you cannot bring out water from any other place.

31:33 It is only from the Foundation Stone — for one who knows the secret of the Foundation Stone. And who merited to enter this wisdom? Only King Shlomo, for "Shlomo's wisdom was greater than the wisdom of all the people of the East" — for he removed his mochin, his mind, entirely from the world, they were not in the world at all — so he could attain a wisdom that is above the mochin of human beings. And then these mochin were included in the Land of Israel. That is why, when Moshe Rabbeinu went out, he wanted to reach the Land of Israel: he wanted to merit, in his mochin, mochin that are beyond grasp, which are great mochin, mochin of gadlus, of greatness.

32:05 There is the tefillin of the arm — that is mochin of katnus, of smallness — and the tefillin of the head — that is mochin of gadlus. To merit an intellect that is beyond all the intellects there are, an intellect that is more exalted. For he wanted the Land of Israel in order to merit to fulfill the mitzvos that depend on the Land. The mitzvos that depend on the Land — that is the head. The mitzvos of the Land of Israel are the tefillin of the head. For the Jewish people are called "My son, My firstborn, Israel," and the tefillin of the head is what the Holy One, blessed be He, puts on — us, the Jewish people, the Land of Israel. And when Moshe Rabbeinu came and wanted to be included in the Land of Israel, he wanted to merit

32:34 its kedushah. He wanted to connect to it, he wanted to be here, in order to fulfill, in simplicity and wholeheartedness, the mitzvos that depend on the Land, the way a Jew must fulfill them here — what no one, anywhere in the world, can merit to fulfill; only one who is here, in the Land of Israel. And only when King Shlomo came and built the Beis HaMikdash, and the First Temple was built, and King Shlomo began to uncover the secret of the wisdom, and removed his mochin completely, was he able to grow trees of gold — and a tree of Parvayim gold at that, the very finest gold, that is fruitful and multiplies. Today a person doesn't know how to produce plain gold; he doesn't know how to produce silver; he doesn't know how to produce dust. He knows... even a plain orange he doesn't know how to make.

33:21 And King Shlomo manages to produce gold that is fruitful and multiplies, that is on the very highest level, and that nothing has any hold over. And this gold goes on — and all of it was for Jerusalem, for the Beis HaMikdash. It is written that when the Holy One, blessed be He — in Vayikra Rabbah, Vayikra Rabbah, parashah 13, section 2 — when the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to choose the Beis HaMikdash, do you know what He did?

33:47 He went and roamed everywhere and began to measure. "He stood and measured the earth" — the Holy One, blessed be He, went to measure where He would put His house, until He reached Jerusalem and said: here He will measure out His house. And so He is found in Jerusalem, the holy city, and there the Holy One, blessed be He, measured — there is His house, Jerusalem. There is the Beis HaBechirah — so it is called the Beis HaBechirah, 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.

34:13 That is the place where He would rest His Name — the Beis HaMikdash. That is His place, that is the tefillin of the head, that is the thing most precious to the Holy One, blessed be He. And all of this — all the desires of all the Jewish people — it all begins from the fruits that we are now beginning to do on Tu BiShvat. Which is beyond the planting, beyond the tree — as a rule, it is the thought. It is much higher than that, much further above that.

34:37 It is thought altogether. And the Levush writes, in siman 681, Orach Chaim, that now is the beginning of the mitzvah — when the planting is done for the mitzvah in the Land of Israel, it is the beginning of a mitzvah, and for that we rejoice on Tu BiShvat. Just for the beginning of this mitzvah. It is already the beginning of all the mitzvos. Only from Tu BiShvat 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 is standing on — that it is holy ground, that here it is possible... there are awesome things that a person's mind cannot fathom at all, and cannot contain at all; he cannot grasp them at all, he cannot be in them.

35:15 It is not a state of connection at all. Connection is when a person is able to enter into something that he joins with, that he is with, that he is on a level with. But the Land of Israel — its level is so exalted that one cannot grasp anything of it at all. One cannot grasp anything in the Land of Israel, attain anything in the Land of Israel — and on Tu BiShvat there is a possibility to attain, only through the fruits. We are, in effect, touching the garment — the garment, the hem, the robe — to merit a little, to come close to something that is without end, something that is infinite.

35:48 For the will of the Master of heaven and earth was that this is the place He chose to rest His Name — in the Land of Israel, inside Jerusalem, the holy city — to bring the fruits up there, and that this be a nachas ruach, a pleasure, before Him. That what the tree brings forth — and what the tree brings forth is already the Tikkun of what it brought forth then, at the beginning. What the tree brought forth in the beginning — and we did not listen to the tree in the beginning, when there was the sin of Adam HaRishon, and the tree began to bring forth.

36:15 So there was already the sin of Adam HaRishon — it all started from the beginning. And now, on Tu BiShvat — to make a Tikkun for the sin at its root: every fruit, every thing that a person takes and makes a blessing on, he makes a Tikkun for the sin of Adam HaRishon, he returns everything to the beginning, returns everything to the root. For this we have pas shacharis, the morning bread. We go — when a person comes — tomorrow is the day of Tu BiShvat; one should do this whole seder that we did, do it tomorrow, which is the main thing — tomorrow, to do it specifically not at night.

36:41 That is the level — to make the Tikkun specifically by day, in chesed. As we said, Beis Hillel hold the fifteenth, which is chesed, the New Year of the tree. That is when the chasadim begin to shine; it is the time of healings, when all the healings shine in the world — they begin to shine from the morning, from the time of sunrise. That is also the time of pas shacharis: six halachic hours from sunrise — from sunrise, six halachic hours: that is the time of healing, when a person should also eat the pas shacharis, so that it has its effect on him.

37:08 This is Bava Metzia, page 107b, where the Gemara speaks of the virtues of pas shacharis: that one merits — merits to learn, to learn and to teach, to keep Torah, to fulfill it, and so on, all the virtues; to take him out of the impurity, away from the harmful forces, all the things that are not good. A person merits to fulfill this through the virtue of pas shacharis. A person merits pas shacharis if he does it specifically at this time. If he does not do it at this time, it will not help him. It is stated — the Shulchan Aruch, siman 151, se'if 2 — the Shulchan Aruch writes that if he is accustomed to it — and it is good to be accustomed to this — then before he goes to the beis midrash, he should first eat pas shacharis.

37:41 Take a piece of pas shacharis — they make him a little something to eat, and at the right time — all the better. So eat as much as you are used to eating. If you are on such a level, eat. The Eshel Avraham of Butchatch, may his merit protect us, the holy Gaon — he writes that even drinking a little coffee can count for a person as pas shacharis, to fulfill the obligation. But with fruit one does not fulfill the obligation of pas shacharis at all. One does not fulfill the obligation with fruit — only this: if a person wants to eat mezonos, then he should eat a little more than a kezayis.

38:09 He should eat 40 grams, 45 or 50 grams — he should eat, and only then does he get to say Al HaMichyah. I am speaking of mezonos: if he eats mezonos, then he can. But we are not speaking only about tomorrow — we are speaking in general, about every day. Because there is a very, very great matter in this. It is also one of the virtues for the kedushah of the bris, for Tikkun HaBris — pas shacharis — for the Tikkun of a person's mochin, for the Tikkun of the blemish of the bris. A person wants to merit the Tikkun of the mochin — there is a very great virtue in pas shacharis. But here too, of course, he should be careful and eat properly, and not eat too much.

38:37 He should be careful with the pas shacharis, that he fulfill the obligation — to do it with Birkas HaMazon, to do netilas yadayim, in order to merit this blessing — as much as a person can be careful with it, because there is a great virtue in it, especially tomorrow. Then, all the more, the virtue is to set a table fit for a king, to do all these wonderful things, which hold awesome virtues and Tikkunim — to make a Tikkun for the tree at its root, a Tikkun for the tree, a Tikkun for everything from the beginning.

39:01 Why...? Why? Why that one in particular? It stands out nicely? It does stand out. The speech of the trees — and why the speech of the palm trees? In the Land of Israel, once, mostly what grew was just palm trees. Those were trees that grew in great numbers. Olive trees, all kinds of trees — but the palm tree, its way is to stand out. And those were the trees found in those regions of theirs; where they were, there were almost no trees to be found.

39:32 Today you are here, and baruch Hashem you have an abundance of trees — you have banana trees, mango trees, all kinds of trees like that. There are plenty of such trees that came — tropical trees. Once there were not so many trees; this is what was common. Palm trees — those were the trees they would use; they used these trees for cruel deaths, as with the one whose one leg they tied here and one leg there, to palm trees, and they let go, and he was torn in half, Heaven have mercy.

40:00 That is what was common — for executions, for food, for everything there is. That is what there was — the palm is what was common. Good. So let us explain a little, just one thing. The speech of the palm trees — when we speak of what it means, when they say of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai that he knew the speech of the palm trees — what does it mean? For it is certainly not something that can be taught.

40:24 For the Mochiach of Polnoye, the author of Kol Aryeh, may his merit protect us, the holy Gaon Rabbi Aryeh Leib, the Mochiach of Polnoye. There were several Gaonim, tzaddikim. In the recent generations there was the Gaon, the Rav, the Chazon Ish — they made the blessing over him, "Who has shared of His wisdom with those who fear Him" — over the wisdom of the Chazon Ish, for there was none like it. Who made the blessing over him? Rabbi David Baharan. Rabbi David Baharan was a holy Gaon in his time.

40:50 He was the son of Rabbi Nachum HaLevi. This Rabbi Nachum HaLevi — he was a son of Rabbi Shlomo, Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Lifshitz. In his time he too was a holy Gaon; he was the av beis din of Posen. Rabbi David Baharan was very close to the Chazon Ish. He would learn — he had a custom to learn: to pray Shacharis, Minchah, Maariv — and from Maariv he would learn until sunrise. Every day he would learn like this — from Maariv, in a taanis dibbur, a fast of speech, right up to sunrise.

41:14 And when he came to the Chazon Ish — the time he sat with the Chazon Ish — he made the blessing over the Chazon Ish: "Who has shared of His wisdom with those who fear Him." Now of course he did not examine him on whether he knows the speech of the palm trees, or the speech of the birds, or such, in order to know whether to make the blessing over him — because that is not what one makes the blessing for. It is not only one who understands the speech of palm trees — he does not need to know the speech of the palm trees for such a blessing to be made. But the meaning of the speech of the palm trees — come to the speech of the palm trees: it means that there is a person who can deduce,

41:42 from the sound of the palm trees, from the connection between them, what the palm trees have the power to grow. Which is what King Shlomo knew. That is to say, when King Shlomo saw the trees, he knew that it is possible to create a tree at all that would bring forth gold — and not just any gold: Parvayim gold, that would be fruitful and multiply. It is gold that is entirely...

42:06 For there is a connection between... for there is, there is — there is a wisdom. For trees have life in them; trees speak. Let me give you a story so you will see — you will see something beautiful. They tell of Rabbi Shlomo ibn Gabirol, may his merit protect us, that he was in Saragossa, he was in Valencia, he was in Spain, in those regions. I was not in his village, but I merited — I was there, in that exile, in those towns; I was there. They tell of him that he passed away in the year 4830; that is the year of his passing.

42:38 He was once passing along some road there, and a certain non-Jew came, a wicked man, and murdered him — Rabbi Shlomo ibn Gabirol — and buried him under a fig tree. He buried him underneath. Rabbi Shlomo ibn Gabirol — everyone has heard of him, he is so famous, known to all — everyone has heard of him, such a Gaon, may his merit protect us. Nine hundred — nine hundred and sixty years ago he passed away. A mighty Gaon. Who has not heard of him? Of his wisdom, of his piyutim, of his songs, of his genius, of his writings.

43:09 Who has not heard of him? And when he passed away, the fig tree began to grow figs beyond the way of nature. Until once the king passed by, and he saw the figs, and he saw that non-Jew. He said: "Where did you get these figs? Maybe you watered them with some potion? Maybe you put something into them that makes something good grow? Give me some for my palace too, so that I will also have trees like this." So he told him: no, no, no, he need not go on. He said to him: "Are you mocking me? Are you mocking?"

43:37 "No" — until he tortured him, until he confessed that he had murdered the greatest of the Jews, Rabbi Shlomo ibn Gabirol. And this fig tree brought about the discovery that this is the grave of Rabbi Shlomo ibn Gabirol. That is about a fig tree. That means the trees had speech — the fig tree's. The fig tree simply spoke. How did it speak? By bringing forth fruit. The fig tree brought forth fruit, so that was the fig tree's speech — you can call that speech.

44:06 And who knew how to read that speech? The non-Jew king. How did he read it? He did not know how to read the speech; he simply understood that it is not the way of nature for a fig tree to bring forth such a big fig. And since it brings forth such a big fig — there, he knew how to interpret it, from its bringing forth a big fig. But when King Shlomo came and saw the trees, and knew that from the power of the trees it is possible to bring forth gold — such a tree, that would bring forth gold — that is something no one at all can grasp.

44:36 Who could know how to bring forth such a tree? King Shlomo. So that is called the speech of the palm trees: that a person can know, from all created things, exactly what stands behind each thing that was created, what the Holy One, blessed be He, created. Our holy Rebbe, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, writes in Likutei Moharan, Part I, Torah 17. He writes: "They were emptying their sacks" — awe and love can be received only through the tzaddikim of the generation. Only through the tzaddikim of the generation can one receive awe and love.

45:02 He says that the tzaddik seeks to know, in every thing, the will of Hashem. How so? Why did Hashem create the lion in this form? And why did He create each thing in its form? Why did Hashem, blessed be He, make it so and so? Why? What is the reason? That is called an aspect of speech — that he manages to understand, from every thing in creation, the connection of man to the Holy One, blessed be He. That a person understands, in every thing that the Holy One, blessed be He, created, its connection and its purpose toward Hashem, blessed be He.

45:28 That he can just look and understand, in all that Hashem, blessed be He, created, in each and every thing that was created at all — that he will go out and see trees, and he will understand that surely these trees hold a great secret, in that they sway specifically to the left, or more to the right; or that this tree was cut down, or this tree fell, or this tree is blossoming and that one is not — and he will know to understand that it is all Hashgachah pratis. If he knows how to understand this — the speech of the palm trees — then of course he will certainly know far beyond that.

45:57 So I had begun to tell of the Mochiach of Polnoye — as I said, Rabbi Aryeh Leib of Polnoye, the Mochiach, the holy Gaon of Polnoye, the Mochiach — not Rabbi Yaakov Yosef HaKohen, the author of the Toldos, Ben Poras Yosef and Tzafnas Paneach. This was the Mochiach, the Rav, the Gaon, the author of Kol Aryeh, may his merit protect us. He has a sefer, Kol Aryeh — a famous, holy Gaon, head and shoulders above. And once he came to the Baal Shem Tov with a complaint: that he wants to know the speech of the birds and the speech of the palm trees, the speech of... he wants to be Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai.

46:24 So the Baal Shem Tov laughed here too: "You want to be Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai? You are a mochiach, a preacher! You cannot be Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai." But he insisted to the Baal Shem Tov that he wants to know this wisdom. And the Baal Shem Tov tells him: "You will not be able to know it." And so he insisted. The Baal Shem Tov did not teach him. He did not teach him; he only let him see — to see, to grasp it for just one moment, as the Baal Shem Tov wished, without teaching him — and that is possible.

46:51 So he did with him what he did, and then that man grasped what he grasped, and while he was grasping what he grasped, he felt that he was about to go out of his mind from the world. He could not bear the world any longer, because he could not be settled in his mind, because it troubles his thoughts. So the holy Baal Shem Tov took it from him and said to him: "Nu, now do you still want to learn it?" He does not want to learn it. Because it is in fact a wisdom that a person can attain only when he departs from the world. For it is a wisdom where the mind cannot see the world. It is impossible for a person to see this world and love it and think that this is the purpose, without his devotion to the path of Hashem, blessed be He — for that is a person who does not change, a person who stays as he is. The tree — the tree that is bound to the earth, to the roots — and as much as we see its roots, it is what is covered from the world. For there is the shrub,

47:43 there are the fruits of the ground — we do not see them. All their roots are in the ground. And so too, the deeper inside the roots are, the healthier the vegetable is — just so you know, as general knowledge. The darker the color, and the more the vegetable is inside the ground, the healthier it is. A potato — there is the yellow potato — potatoes in general, Rabbi Shlomo of Zvhil said they are not healthy; maybe there is a little bit of health in them at all, 10% benefit, something like that. And to this day the scientists have ruled that it is good. And there is the Jerusalem potato, the Jerusalem artichoke, all kinds of produce, zucchini, things like that — these are things that are inside the ground. Carrots, sweet potato — all these things that are inside the ground: the more it is inside the ground,

48:24 the more it has its effect. Turmeric or ginger, if it's turmeric, it stays three years in the ground, a long time in the ground - it's even better. The longer it is in the ground, the more it draws in; it's better, its quality is greater. Now, the tree stands outside the ground, and it seems as if, if I push it, it falls.

48:50 Right? Everyone sees the tree - except for that tree we saw at the grave of Rabbi Tarfon, that one you cannot push - it is a huge tree. But always, whoever looks at a tree and sees a tree, it seems to him that this tree - he will push it and it will fall, because you don't see its roots, and you don't see how firmly it is fixed inside the ground. This is the secret of "man is a tree of the field." Because the Tikkun of the sin of Adam HaRishon, to this day - when we look at the sin of Adam HaRishon, we see that from one sin so much multiplicity came about - from one sin.

49:21 The "one" is reshus hayachid, the domain of the one, and the "many" is reshus harabim, the domain of the many. The holy Zohar and our master the Arizal explain what is meant by the domain of the one and the domain of the many. The domain of the one is the place of the greatest oneness; it is the place of the Holy One, blessed be He - that is where He is, that is the One. The domain of the many is going out to the kelipos. Yes - it is forbidden to go out from domain to domain on Shabbos. When a person goes out, he goes out to the kelipos. The domain of the many is the kelipos.

49:47 There, there is no protection; there, there is no guarding. That is the domain of the many. That is the danger, this domain of the many. There is no guarding there, no protection, in the domain of the many. One must always be in the domain of the one. And this tree, in fact, is always in the domain of the one. This tree that we were, before the sin of Adam HaRishon - we were all in the domain of the one. We were one, we were inside one tree, everything was one; it was the domain of the one. But because there was the sin of Adam HaRishon, it threw everyone out into the domain of the many.

50:16 The sin of Adam HaRishon brought us to the many, to manyness, where each one wants what he doesn't have. That a person wants what he doesn't have - that is the domain of the many. It is not truly from the side of kedushah. If it were from the side of kedushah, he would be happy with what he has, because he would be in the domain of the one. That he wants what he doesn't have is a sign that he is in the domain of the many. He is not in the domain of the one. So he is not happy with what he has. So it is also not from the side of kedushah. And when a person is not happy in his life, when a person is despairing and miserable and wretched, or I don't know - all the troubles there are in the world, all these things, all the sorrow,

50:47 all the pains, all the disasters, all the harsh judgments - they happen only in the domain of the many. It is not in the domain of the one. In the domain of the one everything is one; there is nothing. And because of the sin of Adam HaRishon, we went out of the domain of the one and rolled down into the domain of the many - against our will, of course - we arrived here, in the world, in this generation, each one of us, with the responsibility to return to the Master of heaven and earth as is fitting, to repair what was done, to repair the damage, to crown the Holy One, blessed be He, as King, to crown Him, so that everything will be one.

51:20 Not that there should any longer be a domain of the one and a domain of the many, but that all be one, that everyone return to Hashem, that there be no more divisions, that there be no more bodies. That we are so many bodies - that is already the domain of the many. We look at this one, we look at that one: "He is different from me, this one has more, this one has less, this one is more" - we are one. And Tu BiShvat is the thought, to understand that we are one, that we are one, that we are the tree of the field.

51:46 "Rosh Hashanah for the tree" - not Rosh Hashanah for the trees; Rosh Hashanah for the tree - for one tree. Not trees, not many trees; there is only one tree. Because when you repair this one tree, you are in fact repairing all created beings, all of them. The Tikkun is made far deeper, and beyond what you think, because you are repairing the One at its root. And therefore "the Holy One, blessed be He, saw" - in Tractate Yoma, page 38b - it says: "The Holy One, blessed be He, saw that the tzaddikim are few; He arose and planted them in every generation." He planted them, He planted them in every generation. What did He plant in every generation?

52:24 He planted a sapling for Tu BiShvat, for Rosh Hashanah for the tree. He planted the tzaddikim of every generation. Drawing close to the tzaddik, and holding on to the tree - holding on to the tree is the way to blossom, to go out from the domain of the many to the domain of the one, to bring everything back. But when a person, Heaven forbid, is around the thorns, as, to our sorrow, today the grasses have multiplied greatly, so that a person cannot see at all the falsehood that has spread in the world. It is impossible to grasp at all the falsehood there is in the world.

52:53 So many grasses - "Who creates kinds of grasses." There is no path at all. What "Rebbe"? "Ra be'einei Hashem" - "evil in the eyes of Hashem" - is the acronym of "Rebbe," says the Rebbe of Vilednik, in Sha'ar HaHiskashrus in the sefer She'eris Yisrael. He writes that "Rebbe" is the acronym of "ra be'einei Hashem," evil in the eyes of Hashem. Evil in the eyes of Hashem. And now everyone has already left the right path; everyone's head has already become twisted and spoiled; the mind has become - so many grasses. You see all kinds of types of people, types of rabbis, types of trees, all kinds like that.

53:22 But to grasp it at all, to draw close to the tree - to the tree - that is to go out from the domain of the many to the domain of the one. This is the dispute between Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Meir in Tractate Berachos, page 40b. Rabbi Yosi and Rabbi Meir. Rabbi Meir says: one who now goes and says, "Blessed - how beautiful this bread is, blessed is the Omnipresent Who created it" - he has fulfilled it, he has fulfilled his obligation of the blessing. Rabbi Yosi says: he has not fulfilled it. Why? It is a change from the formula the Sages coined. It has no mention of the Name and of Kingship. And so is the halachah - not like Rabbi Meir. Now a person starts praising: "What a beautiful fruit, what a lovely apple,

53:53 blessed is the Omnipresent Who created this" - well, there would be no end to it. That does not fulfill the obligation; he has not blessed the Holy One, blessed be He. One does not change from the formula the Sages coined. And it is exactly the same thing: that a person merits such a level that he crowns the Holy One, blessed be He, King over what the Holy One, blessed be He, created. A person's crowning of Him - he sets the Name of Hashem in place and praises the Master of heaven and earth for what He created. To praise the Holy One, blessed be He, to say it - like everyone; even non-Jews say it.

54:17 There is also the person who says, "I'll be a good person, I don't do anything." He thanks Hashem, he praises, he says every day, "Good" - but in practice he does not change. He changes from the formula the Sages coined; he does not change in practice; he does nothing with his life. He stays in the same place, but he says, "Blessed is the Omnipresent Who created it - how lovely, what beautiful bread, what a beautiful fig" - beautiful, but he is not blessing the Holy One, blessed be He. What does it mean, he is not blessing? He is not crowning Him King, he does not make the Torah his business, so it is as if he serves avodah zarah - idolatry.

54:47 What is avodah zarah today? This is avodah zarah: a person doesn't learn Torah, doesn't set fixed times for Torah, doesn't keep the Torah and the mitzvos - that is avodah zarah. He does an avodah, a service, that is zarah - foreign - to the way of Hashem. It is not the way of Hashem; it is foreign. We don't know such a thing - to sit all day. You sit all day in kollel - you don't sit all day at that. All day they sit. So that is what his head becomes - his head becomes like the roots of the tree, crooked, with the worms, with the...

55:11 that children dig up and suddenly find some grub. That is how the head looks too. It looks upside down. Upside down: his feet up, his head down. That is how he looks, with the feet. He is heading downward. He doesn't understand; his head understands nothing. The head has to go with the feet down - the feet down - and walk like that. You go up, you climb - that is how you go up the tree. You don't go up the tree with your head down; you don't walk the opposite of the way of the world.

55:37 The way of the world is in the way of the Torah. Right - Tractate Berachos, page 35b: the Gemara says about Rabbi Yishmael and Rabbi Shimon, "Many did as Rabbi Yishmael and it succeeded for them; many did as Rabbi Shimon and it did not succeed for them." "I have seen bnei aliyah, people of ascent, and they are few." Bnei aliyah are people who can raise fear - yirah - to its root, who can raise up the way of Hashem, who can raise up the blessing, who can raise up the Tikkun, who can bring about the Tikkun - but not everyone merits that.

56:03 Not every person can merit to rise and repair and say that he is something. But at least this is the claim against you, the grievance against you: fine, you are not one. But why did you not merit to draw close to someone who is? Right? And of that, one cannot be cleared. Because when a person arrives at the Heavenly Court, and they show him all the grasses he was next to - he was with all kinds of grasses; all his life he circled around some grass, and his Rav too was like some head of grass, may the Merciful One save us.

56:29 Well - and they tell him: "In the end you were next to a head of grass like that; kinds of grasses is what you had. You were not by a tree?" A tree - you have to climb a lot. To a tree you go with the head up, the feet down, to take hold of Torah; not to walk crooked like that. When you walk with the world, crooked, you walk like that against the Torah, against the way. Of this a person cannot be cleared. When they come at him with a grievance in Heaven: "Why didn't you go?

56:56 And why weren't you like this? And why that?" - he can always get out of it and say, "I'm not that kind of man - 'I am not a man of words' - I don't know, I don't understand." This is what the Torah says: "And He will bless your bread" - in the Book of Shemos, chapter 23, verse 25 - "and He will bless your bread and your water, and I will remove sickness from your midst." The Holy One, blessed be He, says - the Torah says - "and He will bless your bread and your water, and I will remove" - "I will remove": you will have no more sickness - "and I will remove sickness from your midst." This the Holy One, blessed be He, says.

57:24 No one else can say this. "I will bless your bread, I will bless your water, and I will remove sickness from you" - no one can say this; only the Holy One, blessed be He, says it. But this is on condition that you listen to the voice of Hashem your G-d, "and do what is upright in His eyes." But this is only on condition that you truly walk in the right path. If you walk in the way of Hashem, and you cleave to Him, and you listen to His voice - this is "the way where light dwells," and without this, it is not the way where light dwells.

57:55 It is impossible to know the Holy One, blessed be He, at all. A person who walks alone in this world is like a person who would now go to the sea here and start swimming to Israel, alone. The same thing - he looks the same, even crazier than that. You see a person going into the sea at night, at twelve at night he goes into the sea and starts swimming. You say to him, "What are you doing?" He says, "I'm looking..." - he wants to get home. Home is where you want to get - in the heart of a stormy sea, in darkness, in such cold, alone?

58:23 And the Torah and the way of Hashem are more frightening than any sea in the world. Heaven forbid, a person can reach a state where he becomes some opponent or reviler. In Likutei Moharan, Part I, Torah 28: the opponents who shame and revile those who fear Hashem - that is from shedin Yehuda'in, "Jewish demons." It can be, Heaven forbid - may the Merciful One save us - that the Torah you learn is from fallen chiefs, chiefs - so that all this Torah of yours has nothing in it; there is nothing at all in your Torah.

58:50 A potion of death. There is no life at all in your Torah. Tosafos in Tractate Ta'anis, page 7a, say that this learning that is a potion of death is when he learns in order to provoke, learns in order to be arrogant. For that he learns - to contradict all the time, to accuse all the time, not to learn the Torah at all. So his learning is upside down. All the time his learning is upside down; he learns with his head down; his head is not up.

59:17 And instead, were he to start the learning of Torah from its beginning, to start learning the Torah as it should be, for the sake of Heaven, only then could he merit to understand, perhaps, what Torah even is, what fear of Hashem is, what an ilan, a tree, is, what an etz is, what a wise man is, what a tzaddik is. But today everyone is already born knowing it all on his own. A person may say: "Who? Where am I - in New York? I'm in a community; my Rav is so-and-so." Sure - your Rav is a Rav who knows what money is. A Rav who already knows what money is - beware of that. That is the Erev Rav, may the Merciful One save us.

59:49 A Rav has to know what Torah is - and not know what money is. And from here it starts: "Who creates kinds of grasses." "Who creates kinds of grasses." When a little honor starts, and a little money, and a little of this - and they don't see the grave before their eyes. So you want to think about what a tzaddik is. A tzaddik is one that after he dies, you know - you go to pray at his grave. Think: if you are such a tzaddik - think - have you ever thought - after you go, after 200 years, whether anyone will really come to pray at your grave, the way you look, all of you - full of bad middos? And who will come to your grave a long time afterward?

1:00:20 Only worms will come to that grave. It is frightening. One has to be so holy, on such a level, that a person knows that after 120 years people will come here to pray. That is how the holy ones once were. What about our master the Arizal? Tzaddikim like these - after he passes away, at once the Shechinah rests there; the body is whole; nothing happens to their grave, because they are holy and whole; they see the purpose. That is a tzaddik. That is one who is not touched by the world: the world does not touch him and he does not touch the world. That is how it is.

1:00:46 It will always be like that - minus and plus; it doesn't connect. There is no such thing as being a tzaddik of the world like that. What is this - noodles with sauce? You make noodles, you make fish with sauce. It doesn't go together. This is sauce and this is fish. The fish will never be sauce, and the sauce will never be fish. It doesn't connect, this world - but everyone eats it together.

1:01:11 Together, together - they make unity; they want to make unity; with everyone there is sauce and there is fish. What - fish and sauce together? Fish and sauce don't work out together. Either there is fish or there is sauce. Once, the Tzemach Tzedek, may his merit protect us - they tell of the Rebbe of Vilednik: once there were fish swimming in the river on the way to Lubavitch, and he caught the fish - because, after all, in the time of the Baal HaTanya, after that it passed to the Mitteler Rebbe, the successor, of course.

1:01:42 And after that, in his time, the Tzemach Tzedek, may his merit protect us, the Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, Rabbi Menachem Mendel. The Tzemach Tzedek was one to whom many came, many traveled; he sat in Lubavitch. Many, many would come to him, travel to him, in his time. But the one who, at that same time, many also traveled to - just as they traveled to the Mitteler Rebbe - was the Rebbe, Rabbi Yisrael Dov Ber, the She'eris Yisrael, of Vilednik, may his merit protect us.

1:02:12 Once he sat at the table and there were fish before him. He holds the fish, looks, and says: "Fish, you were traveling to Vilednik, and you were traveling to Lubavitch. And now in the end both of you have arrived in Vilednik and been eaten." And right there were some chassidim who were on their way to Lubavitch. And he looked at them and said to them: "You too were with this fish on the way to Lubavitch. Now you are here," he says to them. "Now you have arrived in Vilednik," he says to them.

1:02:38 And so it was - they became chassidim of the Rebbe of Vilednik. That is what this comes to explain about Tu BiShvat. Tu BiShvat is Rosh Hashanah for the tree. Rosh Hashanah for the tree is how much a person merits to draw close to Hashem and to make a Tikkun for the sin of Adam HaRishon. You have a time to make a reckoning of the whole year: how far did you succeed - was your blessing like this: you said, "How beautiful is what Hashem created" - or did you crown the Holy One, blessed be He, King over what Hashem created?

1:03:08 When you bless without kavanah, then you are saying, "How beautiful this is." Nice - you have not fulfilled the obligation. Well done for saying how beautiful it is. But when you do not change from the formula the Sages coined, and you bless, and you crown the Holy One, blessed be He, King over what He created - then we go like Rabbi Yosi, and one has fulfilled his obligation. The meaning of fulfilling the obligation - its explanation is to crown the Holy One, blessed be He, King. Only when one crowns the Holy One, blessed be He, only then can one fulfill the obligation; when one does not crown the Holy One, blessed be He, one does not fulfill the obligation. That is why Tu BiShvat is a time when we say many blessings - in order to crown the Holy One, blessed be He, King.

1:03:44 And to crown the Holy One, blessed be He, King is the hardest thing, because there is one who crowns Him in thought, there is one who crowns Him in speech, there is one who crowns Him in deed, but the crowning of the Holy One, blessed be He, is when a person crowns Him in thought, in speech, in deed. Every person can choose: either I am in "kinds of grasses," or I am in "Who creates the fruit of the ground," or I am in "Who creates the fruit of the tree." Up on the tree is the highest - of the tree, the ground, or grass - or in the grass - each one according to his matter.

1:04:16 Or "kinds of spices," or "fragrant herbs," or "fragrant trees." "Fragrant trees" is the highest. Because from this tree one can write a Torah scroll. From an herb one cannot write. Herbs - it doesn't hold. It doesn't take the ink, the herb. And "kinds of spices" too, altogether - it evaporates. A thing that has no substance of fragrance like the tree itself has, which is entirely fragrance. Or "Who gives a good fragrance in fruits" - that too is a great level. Each one according to his matter, according to his level.

1:04:40 But the great level is "fragrant trees." "Fragrant trees" is the aspect of Mordechai and Esther - that is Purim, that is soon. May it be His will that the Holy One, blessed be He, grant us to be the head and not the tail. What does it mean, to be the head and not the tail? The head is the tefillin of the head; it is the Land of Israel. The tail is Amalek: "and he struck at your tail, all the stragglers behind you." That you be the head, that you always be in the Land of Israel and merit the kedushah of the Land of Israel - what Moshe Rabbeinu wanted.

1:05:08 That is why Moshe Rabbeinu sent Yehoshua. Yehoshua went to fight Amalek. Yehoshua is the one who fought Amalek. Hashem's war with Amalek is specifically through Yehoshua, through the seed of Yehoshua - that is Ephraim son of Yosef, Mashiach ben Yosef - wiping out Amalek completely. "For a hand is upon the throne of Kah" - Tosafos in Tractate Berachos, page 3, that this is "For a hand is upon the throne of Kah: Hashem's war with Amalek from generation to generation." "Amen, yehei Shmei rabba" destroys the whole Sitra Achra, all the plagues - the throne of Hashem is over them.

1:05:33 It is specifically one who merits to praise the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He - that is "May His great Name be blessed from now and forever" - that is specifically through Yehoshua, for Yehoshua is the salvation that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Jewish people; he merited to be the successor, he merited to be the leader after Moshe Rabbeinu. And Moshe Rabbeinu, who was "more humble than any person on the face of the earth" - that is the tefillin of the head. This is the tefillin of the hand, this is the tefillin of the head. The tefillin of the hand is the aspect of Yehoshua bin Nun, who did the deed: he brought the Jewish people into the Land of Israel.

1:05:58 The tefillin of the head is Moshe Rabbeinu, who in thought and in will brought the Jewish people into the Land; but the one who brought them in in practice was Yehoshua bin Nun. That is why Moshe Rabbeinu, who was in the domain of the one, was with the Jewish people in Egypt; he could not go out further than that - he was forbidden to go out. But Moshe... Yehoshua bin Nun brought them in. They crossed the desert together, going with the Jewish people and fighting Amalek, fighting all the wars, entering the Land of Israel, which was the domain of the many: the Kena'ani, the Chitti, the Emori, the Chivi, the Yevusi, the Girgashi. All the war with Amalek, all the wars they fought in the Land of Israel - that is the domain of the many in the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel has to be brought back to the domain of the one,

1:06:35 so that once again it will be the Holy One's, blessed be He - to return, to give it back to the Jewish people. That is why this was the sin of the spies: they chose, they said, "This is the domain of the many! How can one win, conquer the Land of Israel? We cannot. We are afraid. We are in the domain of the one; it is impossible to do more than that." And then in the end the Holy One, blessed be He, shows them: "Look - you were in the domain of the one, you crossed into the domain of the many, you conquered the domain of the many, you made it the domain of the one.

1:07:01 There are no more nations, no one left to fight you; no one will make war on you any more; everything will be fine. That's it - now you can come and return to Me." And then they crowned the Holy One, blessed be He, King - and this is the kedushah of the Land of Israel - and the Land of Israel became the domain of the one, which is the tefillin of the head: only one. If you want to put on Rabbeinu Tam as well - then it is a dispute. But one should put on Rabbeinu Tam. Good. Good - so that is roughly it, more or less; that is the meaning of the tefillin of the head, and "we will be the head and not the tail."

1:07:30 That we be the head and not the tail. Because the tail is "and he struck at your tail, all the stragglers behind you" - "struck at your tail" - that is Amalek. We only know - we only know that in our last generation, when everything is so mixed up and confused, we simply don't know where the good is, and where the truth is, and where the falsehood is; it is all such a mess. Good. May it be His will that the Holy One, blessed be He, bless us, that we all merit the Tikkun - simply all the Tikkunim; may the Holy One, blessed be He, give us much blessing, grant us the Tikkun of the minds, grant us the Tikkun HaKlali, grant us that we merit to bring the Shechinah back to the Beis HaMikdash,

1:08:15 and that we merit to give Him nachas ruach, that we merit that the Beis HaMikdash be built. Amen. That we merit that all the blessings we say - and we have all said blessings - will repair the supernal Man. Amen. That it will repair the supernal Tree - which is what matters, everything one needs to have in mind.

1:08:43 This is the Temple: it is not about repairing a house that was destroyed; it is to repair the very essence that we destroyed, from the sin of Adam HaRishon - from the sin of Adam HaRishon - to repair everything at the root. And of course, to say as many blessings as possible every day; each person, to say as many blessings as he can. In chapter 16 of the sefer Shevet Mussar he writes to him: "My son, be careful on Tu BiShvat to say blessings, all kinds of new ones; it is a custom of the vasikin, the devout of old."

1:09:08 He writes about Tu BiShvat that it is a custom of the vasikin, on Tu BiShvat, to say blessings every year on Tu BiShvat over these fruits, it says. It is a custom of the vasikin to say blessings. If it is a custom of the vasikin, know that once, when they did it - each one - it was great, awesome and fearsome. It was not some... now, when they tell a person - someone tells the Rav, someone said to say a blessing... It was something awesome, truly awesome, what they used to do. Their blessing took several minutes, with kavanos, with yichudim, with...

1:09:34 When they did Tu BiShvat, it was not like what is done today, some kind of table. They would understand, with awesome fear, the whole unfolding of the fruit, what it goes through, until they bless in order to repair it. Know that this is the custom they once had. Not the way it is done today. With seriousness - to bless: the beginning, the end, kavanah, holy thoughts. Rabbi Meshulam Zusha of Anipoli writes, in the sefer Menoras Zahav, to have in mind the holy Names - in the sefer Menoras Zahav he writes to have in mind "chayil bala vayekiennu," "he swallowed wealth and will vomit it up."

1:10:03 This Name sifts out all the sparks of kedushah from within the food. The Noam Elimelech, in the Tzetel Katan, also writes: when a person eats, drinks something, he should have in mind to give up his life for kiddush Hashem - not to take pleasure from this thing, so as not to drop it into kelipas nogah. As the Tanya writes in chapter 1, at the beginning. I think - that kelipas nogah is the mixture of good and evil - at the end. At the end of chapter 1 he writes that it is a mixture. A person will have to give an accounting for this - for everything he saw and did not bless.

1:10:29 Everything a person saw and did not bless - the end of Tractate Kiddushin in the Yerushalmi. In chapter 4, halachah 12 - the end, at the end of Tractate Kiddushin, Yerushalmi - that everything a person saw, everything he saw, every thing, the smallest, and he saw it, he wants to bless over it, and he did not bless over it - he will give an accounting for it before the Holy One, blessed be He. Why? As we said before: because he did not raise it up to its root, he did not repair it. He should have taken this thing and crowned the Holy One, blessed be He, King over it.

1:10:56 You did not crown the Holy One, blessed be He, over it; you took away from the Kingship of Hashem; you will give an accounting for it; you took away from the Kingship of Hashem. Although in the Bavli, as we said - in Tractate Berachos, page 35a - it is that "it is forbidden for a person to benefit from this world without a blessing." For he benefits from this world, and what is more, he has committed me'ilah - misuse of what is holy. But the Yerushalmi says that even if he only sees, he will give an accounting for it. The Bavli says: "he is a companion to a man who destroys" - "a companion to Yeravam ben Nevat, who corrupted Israel toward their Father in Heaven." The Yerushalmi says he will give an accounting for this - for his having only seen.

1:11:23 That is: this one is about seeing, and this one is about eating. How stringent the Yerushalmi always is! Here it says: just one who saw at all - a person only at the level of seeing, not even at the level of eating. And of course that is how one should act: everything you see, crown the Holy One, blessed be He, King over it; crown the Holy One, blessed be He, King over everything the Holy One, blessed be He, created in the world. And this will be the Tikkun. May the Holy One, blessed be He, grant us to see the building of the Beis HaMikdash, and may we merit the complete geulah.