Know someone who would love this shiur?
The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 1,874 words · 8:30. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 You know, when a person acquires land, how does he acquire it? He does some work on it, puts up a fence, does something on it, makes it some railing, and he acquires the land. And if a person wants to acquire movable goods, how does he acquire them? He lifts them, right? He does hagbahah, lifting. And an animal, how is it acquired? By meshichah, pulling. First of all, the animal is the animal nature.
0:25 How do we acquire the animal nature? We have to nullify the animal nature by pulling. The more we are drawn after kedushah, pulling ourselves to the Holy One, blessed be He - "we compel him until he says: I want to" - that is how to reveal the inner self of a person, all his kedushah, that he wants only the Holy One, blessed be He. So to acquire the animal and return it to the Holy One, blessed be He, what we have to do is meshichah, to pull the animal. And that is why: "If this scoundrel meets you, pull him to the beis medrash, the study hall." And seemingly there is a very big question here.
0:55 After all, what will it help? I mean, if a scoundrel meets you, why pull him to the beis medrash? You pull him to the beis medrash, you bring him to the beis medrash, and then you can spoil other people. Why are you bringing him into the beis medrash? Right? Seemingly, do not pull him to the beis medrash. If this scoundrel meets you, pull him to the cemetery. After all, "let him remember the day of death", right? Akavya ben Mahalalel: "Look at three things, and you will not come to sin." So seemingly it should say: if this scoundrel meets you, pull him to the cemetery.
1:22 Pull him to the final end, take him to the dead, let him see... that is more fitting. And yet they say: pull him to the beis medrash. So here one can answer it, and understand it: if the scoundrel meets you, that is the evil inclination, pull him to the beis medrash. Because the moment you do meshichah, you do meshichah, you show the Holy One, blessed be He: here, I am making this acquisition. And then, as a matter of course, the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself comes to help you, because you are actually turning it into the essence of kedushah.
1:48 You return it to the Holy One, blessed be He, because an animal is acquired by pulling, and then you nullify your animal nature, and then, as a matter of course, when you reach the beis medrash, there is already the inner revelation of the person, the "I want to", where his whole point of Jewishness is revealed, that truly he is entirely holy, and he has no connection to the Sitra Achra, to all the sins and all the transgressions, because he does not belong there. "In that day the sin of Israel will be sought, and it is not there" - because no sin or iniquity belongs to any Jew, because they are all holy, they are all tzaddikim, they are all holy souls, and there is no flaw and no evil in the Jewish people, and one must always raise the evil up to its root,
2:22 fix the evil at its root, see that truly there is no evil in any Jew in the world. "A little longer and there is no wicked one; you will look at his place and he is not there." How does he suddenly disappear? Because if this scoundrel meets you, then "pull him": make an acquisition by pulling. Show the Holy One, blessed be He, that you are nullifying your animal nature. And this animal nature too - you take ownership of it, you acquire it, you turn it into the essence of kedushah, and it is nullified.
Read the whole shiur in English (12 more parts)
2:46 "A land that devours its inhabitants." The land, eretz, is the ratzon, the will, it is the "I want to". When he reveals it, then it actually devours the whole essence, all the animal nature, all the not-good things there are in a person. So that is why, if this scoundrel meets you, as a matter of course, if you "pull him", if you pull him, then he will automatically turn into the essence of kedushah, so there is no problem with you entering the beis medrash. Now, that is one thing. That is "pull him". Nice. Yes, nice, right?
3:12 And now this shows the light there is in the Jewish people, the side of merit there is in every Jew, in all the Jewish people. Now, the Sefer Torah too: what do we do? We lift up the Sefer Torah. What are we saying to the Holy One, blessed be He? This is our acquisition. The Holy One, blessed be He, waited 974 generations in order to give the Torah. The Torah is the most important thing to Him. And also: "The Torah of Hashem is perfect", temimah. Where else does it say temimah? "A red heifer, perfect."
3:37 The red heifer is temimah. Now, we see that the red heifer, a person who had in mind... I will give you an example, yes? In Tractate Chullin, page 33. Now, how can a person actually slaughter a red heifer, and in that same slaughtering it is kosher, and in that same slaughtering it is invalid? How can that be? In one slaughtering, in one slaughtering a person slaughters a red heifer, it is a slaughtering; in that same slaughtering it is kosher, and in that same slaughtering it is invalid.
4:06 How? At the heifer itself, that is certain, but if in fact there is one more thing for the knife to cut, and he intends to cut that too. Just for example, say, I put a squash there. All right? I have the heifer, and I cut with the knife, and I also intend for the squash to be cut. So I cut the squash and the heifer.
4:30 That is invalid. But if I cut only the heifer, and a squash just happened to be there and it got cut by itself, and it never entered my mind to cut it, then actually there is no problem with it; there is nothing invalid in it. It has to be set apart in thought, to designate it only for this, not for anything else. So it is the same thing. How did we get to this? I am on the Torah now. In the acquisition for the Holy One, blessed be He: the Torah, which is temimah, and the red heifer, need a thought set apart.
5:02 And the Torah is temimah; the Torah too needs a thought that is set apart. That a person not take his mind off it, that he be nullified to the Torah alone, that his essence and his life-force be the Torah; that he understands that in all this world nothing counts, only the essence of the Torah and the desire for the Torah. That is "the Torah of Hashem is perfect", and that is the red heifer, which is temimah. And so we say to the Holy One, blessed be He, when we lift up the Torah, we say to the Holy One, blessed be He: this is our acquisition.
5:28 If this is our acquisition - You are the owner, You gave it to us, we acquired this thing from You, and we want the owner not to regret what He gave us. Because You gave us the... there was a sale with us. You cannot go back on it now. We acquired it, we paid. That is to say: are You going back on it, Owner? "I gave it to you." Yes: "For I have given you a good teaching; do not forsake My Torah." And then we say to the Holy One, blessed be He, and we lift up the Torah to show the Holy One, blessed be He, that this is the most precious thing in our eyes. And so this lifting of the Torah is also to show the Holy One, blessed be He, that we have a right
5:55 in the acquisition. And then we add this acquisition too, and also the second acquisition, of pulling, "pull him to the beis medrash", and also the acquisition of lifting, together, and we also work, we do some labor in the courtyard of the House of Hashem, we make a fence, a railing, walls, here in the shul - we already merit to be the owners of the land here. And then You see that we already have all the acquisitions as well; it all belongs to us, and then, as a matter of course, what is left is for the Master to have mercy on us, and to save us, and to watch over us, to dwell among us.
6:27 That is what is left. But we just have to direct our intention. But what matters here... this just came out new from it, just like that. Excuse me, I was reminded, about the shul. Do you know what you remind me of? Your question on Purim - on Chanukah - from the Rav of Brisk. You spoke about the oil. Whether one may benefit from the oil, remember? Yes, I remember the oil. So you said: "And they lit lights in the courtyards of Your holy place."
6:52 You said it should have been written: "and they lit lights in the courtyard of Your holy place." Why "courtyards"? Do you remember or not? Right. Eh? I remember. I will say what the Rav answered; I also remember what I answered. Come, you say what I answered. The Rav said that since all of Klal Yisrael acquired it, each one wanted to have a share in the land, that is why it became "the courtyards of Your holy place", because each one had a share in this holy place. In the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple. In the Beis HaMikdash, yes. A courtyard.
7:19 It becomes "courtyards", because it belongs to all the Jewish people. That is what I answered. And what did you answer? I said: "they lit lights in the courtyards of Your holy place" - by lighting the light of kedushah, the spark is lit, the kedushah in each and every one; you see the lights being lit, and they burn in each and every one of the Jewish people. And "the courtyards of Your holy place": by their lighting the lights inside the Temple, all the courtyards in Jerusalem, all the courtyards in the whole world, were made holy. They all had light.
8:01 All the Jewish people had light. Each and every one shines. We merit, baruch Hashem, to come here all the time, to the Rav. And all the time, the Rav - everyone who comes in goes out with a smile. Everyone who comes in goes out with a spark of light. With kedushah, with joy, with salvation. Each one, each one. And that is "in the courtyards of Your holy place". Blessed! Joy! A good life! Amen! We will continue more, with Hashem's help! Amen!
Get the week’s best, by email
One email a week — a handful of shiurim and music. No account needed.
Know a family who would use this? Give a Lehallel membership.