מי הוא הצדיק? שיעור יסוד מהגאון הינוקא

2:42 It is to reveal to you the Da'as, the true knowing, in the world: Hashem, blessed be He, Himself. That is the meaning of a tzaddik. The Da'as, the revelation of Hashem's G-dliness, the light and the power hidden in every Jew. The moment a person cancels this — when, so to speak, he does not understand Hashem and what it is all about — he cancels his own Tikkun, his own purpose. Because the whole aim is for a person to discover what is hidden in him — who and what — and who knows how far he can reach.

3:08 So when a person truly draws close to a tzaddik — a tzaddik who really is a tzaddik — draws close to a person who reveals to you that Hashem is righteous at every time and hour, and that whatever you have been through, however far you have fallen, you have hope and a Tikkun, everything — then he reveals in you what is hidden in you, and then you can cling to the Tzaddik: to Hashem, blessed be He. Only Hashem, blessed be He, is the Tzaddik. He always will be — forever and ever.

3:34 That is the whole point, now, of the splitting of the Yam Suf, the Sea of Reeds, and of Pharaoh. For Pharaoh did not understand. When the Jewish people went out of Egypt, right away, what is the first thing one could think? That Moshe Rabbeinu is avodah zarah, an idol. Because look: Moshe Rabbeinu takes Israel out of Egypt, the splitting of the Sea, the plagues, every good thing, and so on. "There you are," they say. But in truth, we see it from the Torah: the whole meaning of Moshe Rabbeinu, and the whole idea of Moshe Rabbeinu, was so that the Jewish people would discover what is hidden in them.

4:02 And Moshe Rabbeinu went after the Jewish people. Moshe Rabbeinu's whole aim was that the Jewish people would go out of Egypt, that the Jewish people would discover what is hidden in them: how much strength they have, how much Hashem loves them, how close Hashem is to them, how much hope and remedy there is for each and every one of the Jewish people, and that they must never, ever break, and how much they need to be in strength and in the greatest hope, and to believe that they can act and bring the geulah, and that they are the closest to Hashem.

4:28 So when Moshe Rabbeinu came to redeem the Jewish people from Egypt, when he came to speak, Pharaoh asks him: "Who is Hashem, that I should listen to His voice?" Who is this Hashem? Meaning: "I do not know Hashem, and I will not send Israel out either." "I do not know" — just like that. "I do not know Hashem, and I will not send Israel out either." What does it mean that he did not know?

4:54 There was — he had a book of every kind of avodah zarah that existed in the world, all the different idols, and he searches, and he does not find. And in truth he did not understand that Hashem, blessed be He — the Holy One, blessed be He, is so humble, and so merciful, that He is in every place, and He created this whole world, and He does not seek greatness, and does not ask for people's recognition. It does not matter to Him. Every painter who draws a form — paints, makes some figure, something — puts his signature at the bottom.

5:24 He makes a painting, he signs at the bottom. He makes something, he writes his name. A sculptor, a craftsman — writes it at the bottom. The Holy One, blessed be He, formed the heavens, the sea and all that is in them, put into them spirit, soul, life, hope — and He does not care about His name at all. He does not mind a thing. Until sages come, holy ones — those who came into the world are meant to reveal Hashem, blessed be He, to us. They need to reveal to us the revelation of G-dliness — the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself.

5:50 That is the aim and the purpose. And that is why now, at the splitting of the Sea, we say: "And they believed in Hashem and in Moshe, His servant." This was not belief in an essence, as though that is what one must believe in. The meaning is to believe that everything Moshe Rabbeinu taught us, and everything Moshe Rabbeinu toiled to reveal to us, is that there is only Hashem in the world. Now we believe the words of Moshe. Now we believe that Moshe Rabbeinu did the miracles for us and split the sea for us — because he showed us the greatness of...

6:19 This is to put things in order in your heads. And this is the whole of true emunah: the Tzaddik is Hashem, blessed be He. It is only the Holy One, blessed be He. Flesh and blood — whoever it may be in the world — is meant to reveal to us that He is the Tzaddik, and they say: "Hashem is righteous in all His ways." Only the Holy One, blessed be He. Now, you see the expressions: "Hashem is righteous, for I rebelled against His word." And that is what emunas chachamim, faith in the sages, is: to believe that everything the Holy One, blessed be He, does, and everything He will do, and everything a person will go through, is all the true good, the eternal and the greatest good for him.

6:53 And the rest — what do we say? Our Sages, of blessed memory, our holy forefathers, and the tzaddikim — the tzaddikim. Why "tzaddikim"? Because they revealed to us that He is the Tzaddik. That is the meaning of tzaddik: to understand, to know, that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the Tzaddik, and that everything He does is truth. As it says: "The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice; a faithful G-d, without wrong, righteous and upright is He."

7:19 May the Name of the King of kings be praised and exalted — the G-d, the Merciful, the Humble, the Holy in every kind of holiness, the Pure in every kind of purity, the Eminent, the Awesome, the Wondrous — that we merited to be of the seed of Israel, and to praise the great Name of the King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be He. Then we will merit to be redeemed in the complete geulah. Amen. Amen. Amen. At some point we will begin to explain to you many things in which, to our sorrow, over the generations, as the generations grew distant, with the decline of the generations, many distortions arose, and people forgot who the Tzaddik is: Hashem, blessed be He.

7:56 Yes, "this one is a tzaddik" — people say the word tzaddik, and with reason. What is the word tzaddik? A tzaddik is not someone who sits and does not eat, does not drink, and sits on the floor. That is not what is called a tzaddik. That is someone who afflicts himself, who is holy, who is abstinent. That he is a "tzaddik" means that he justifies the judgment — accepts as right whatever is decreed in the world. But the Tzaddik — one looks to the tzaddik in order to see the Holy One, blessed be He. When one goes to a tzaddik, and travels to the grave of a tzaddik, he is meant to reveal to you that He is the Tzaddik — that Hashem, blessed be He, is the Tzaddik.

8:25 And that is why it is written now, at the splitting of the Sea: "And they believed in Hashem and in Moshe, His servant." That is the meaning of the emunah. It does not mean an emunah of bowing down to Moshe — no. The emunah is that Moshe Rabbeinu, that the Da'as of Moshe Rabbeinu, that what Moshe Rabbeinu revealed in the world, the Da'as of Moshe Rabbeinu — everything he taught us is the greatness of Hashem. That is the meaning, that is the aim, that is the truth, and that is the fire, and that is the light toward which we are marching. May we merit it, and the complete geulah, speedily in our days.

8:56 Thank you, thank you very much. Thank you. That's it, right — that is the meaning. That is the meaning. One moment, I will say what I want. [unclear] After all, where do we see it? In Tractate Yoma — Yoma, page 53, side b, the Gemara says that the Even HaShesiyah, the Foundation Stone — from it the whole world was founded. The Foundation Stone: from it the whole world was founded.

9:22 And on page 54b, the Gemara says that indeed the Kohen Gadol would enter. Where was the service of the ketores, the incense? Where did the Kohen Gadol enter — the innermost place, the Holy of Holies? And what was there? The Foundation Stone. Meaning, the service of the Kohen Gadol — the Kohen Gadol's service was in the Holy of Holies, precisely in the holiest place in the world, from which the whole world was founded. The whole world was created from this point, from this place, from Jerusalem, from this point, from the complete awe, from the great and awesome revelation of the sanctified place — precisely from this place.

9:55 The Foundation Stone, from which the whole world was founded — we need to understand this: the Holy One, blessed be He, created the whole world in a moment, in one brief moment. "By the word of Hashem the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host." Everything was created in one brief moment. So what really was there? When the Holy One, blessed be He, creates the world, He brought forth every thing, and renews it, and brings everything into being from a point. "And wisdom comes forth from Ayin, from nothingness." So the Foundation Stone is a point.

10:19 This is what Sefer Yetzirah explains: the letter Yud, which is the raw matter of all the letters — a small point, and from it all the letters take form. When I take a page and make a dot, and I come to a small child and say to him, "Which letter is this?" — the only letter he can say is Yud. A point. There is no other letter that a person can make this way on a sheet of parchment. He lifts his hand and asks him, "Which letter is this?" — it will never come out as Samech, Mem or Beis. It will always be Yud.

10:48 So let's say a dot is found on a Torah scroll. "Come, read what is written, tell me" — he will say right away: Yud. This Yud, this point, is the engraving — it is the Foundation Stone. The Holy One, blessed be He, created the world and formed the Foundation Stone. The Foundation Stone from which the whole world was founded — He placed a Yud in the world. He made one small point in the world, and from it the whole world was founded. This Yud, this small point, is the light and the secret within Jerusalem. It is the Holy of Holies.

11:16 It is the point of the light of the Torah: in every Jew there is a Foundation Stone, a small point, from which he is the very best there is. He is a Holy of Holies — which is the pure soul that is in him. That is: "The soul You placed in me is pure." The foundation of kedushah, the Holy of Holies that every Jewish soul has, which is at the highest level there is — he has this small point. Now the question is: will the whole world be founded from it? Will he be a "tzaddik, foundation of the world"? Will he reveal the Holy One, blessed be He, in the entire world?

11:44 And will he have the service of the incense, with the Kohen Gadol entering the innermost place? It all depends on him. So one must reflect on this and remember it always: that every Jew — just as there is the Azarah, the Temple courtyard, just as there is also outside of Jerusalem — there is also the Holy of Holies within every holy Jewish soul. The whole geulah depends on each and every one of us. And may we merit to reveal the Holy King, the Tzaddik in every kind of righteousness, the Holy in every kind of holiness.

12:11 I will tell you a real question. Now, I understand it this way — truly: we do not say, "Blessed is Hashem, the King — HaMelech HaTzaddik," the Righteous King. So we ought to conclude, on Rosh Hashanah and on Yom Kippur, "HaMelech HaTzaddik" — just like "HaMelech HaMishpat", the King of Judgment. We do not say "HaMelech HaTzaddik". So we ought to conclude "HaMelech HaTzaddik" — that is more correct. If you say "Hashem is righteous in all His ways and kind in all His deeds," "The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice; a faithful G-d, without wrong, righteous and upright is He," "Hashem is righteous, for I rebelled against His word" — meaning, all these expressions — this is when King Yoshiyahu says it. They shot three hundred arrows into him, and he looks — so what is he saying? "Hashem is righteous, for I rebelled against His word."

12:50 So you say: how... the meaning — the conclusion of the blessing should have been: "Blessed are You, Hashem, HaMelech HaTzaddik." It should not be "HaMelech HaKadosh", the Holy King, nor "HaMelech HaMishpat" — that, as you say, is the wording one should conclude with. So in truth, a person cannot say this. Because if he says it, he looks, Heaven forbid, like one who is lying. Why?

13:15 Because a person in this world is full, full of questions about Hashem, blessed be He. He does not truly hold that everything he sees is good. In emunah, they tell him: "It is good, it is good. What Hashem does is good." So all his life he learns, he davens, he learns Torah, and he says: "It is good, it is good — because I am told to say that it is good. It is good, because one has to say it is good. It is good, because the Sages said it is good." But he does not really see that it is Hashem Himself. He does not see that it is righteous.

13:43 He does not see the justice in what Hashem does in the world. He also cannot understand it; he cannot take it in, because it is higher than him. And it does not belong to this world at all. It belongs altogether to the World to Come. The revelation of the Tzaddik belongs only to the World to Come. And here, in this world, what belongs to us more is mishpat, judgment: intellect, logic. The World to Come... We, in this world, are in Da'as, knowledge, and the World to Come is in Binah, understanding.

14:08 Binah is "one thing out of another", and only in the World to Come is it possible to understand one thing out of another: why this was so, and why this was so, and why this was so. And the Tzaddik is in the secret of Binah. He is in the supernal Binah, and there all the judgments are sweetened. The contemplation — to understand everything Hashem does and everything that happens in the world, at the level of "Tzaddik" — that is in Binah. It belongs only to the World to Come. But we are here in Da'as, below. We can only tell good from bad by what appears to our eyes: this seems good to us, this seems bad to us.

14:37 But to know why this came from here, and why that — we cannot understand. That is why we say "HaMelech HaKadosh", the Holy King. For what is kadosh, holy? Kadosh is separation, it is setting apart; it is Da'as. For kedushah is in Da'as. That is why right away we bless "Atah Kadosh, You are holy", and right after it we bless "Atah chonen l'adam da'as, You grant a person knowledge." "You grant a person knowledge and teach a mortal understanding" — all of it is Da'as, Da'as. Right away we conclude — after "Chonen HaDa'as", Who grants knowledge — we conclude "the Holy G-d", "the Holy King", in order to draw down and bring us this contemplation — how important it is.

15:09 And there is much, much, much more to expand on here, but this is a little, like a drop from the sea. And now I will also take strength from the Torah reading, where we see a verse here now. After all, tumah, impurity, is permitted for the community. We saw here, from the verse: "And Hashem spoke to Moshe, saying: Speak to the Children of Israel, saying: Any man who is tamei, impure, through a dead person, or on a distant road..."

15:35 But "on a distant road" — that is all the distance that every point has, every one of the Jewish people. But this distant road is only "lachem", for you. Only to you does it seem that you are far from Him. To you it seems so — with all the troubles that you, the Jewish people, go through. But "or for your generations" — even if you come to generations in which you fall low, and you are not strong, and you do not believe that I am with you and hear you — even then: "he shall make a Pesach for Hashem. In the second month, on the fourteenth day, in the afternoon they shall make it; with matzos and bitter herbs," and all that. Meaning: precisely the far ones and the cast-away have the chance to come close, at Pesach Sheni —

16:14 to say that there is hope and remedy and healing for every one of us. But what must we remember? That this is truly the most severe sin there is. It is the thing that can make a person lose all the worlds, and push him far away, so that he never has a remedy: a flaw in emunas chachamim. A flaw in emunas chachamim — because when a person in fact damages his emunas chachamim, and does not have emunas chachamim in full, he has fallen from it; he has fallen from the whole Torah, and he is in fact damaging the root of his kedushah. For then it comes out that the moment he falls through a flaw in emunas chachamim, he cuts himself off from both worlds, because he cannot enter the World to Come.

16:55 That is why, when the Sages said "Whoever disgraces a Torah scholar has no cure for his wound" — it is not out of revenge. It is not that Hashem wants to destroy him. "Oy, oy, oy! Nu, nu, nu, nu — he will get no cure!" Hashem is a Healer, full of mercy. Rather, it is because the root of all healing is drawn from the World to Come, from Binah, from knowing that Hashem does justice in the entire world. When a person disgraces the sages, in fact he cuts himself, his life-force, off from the World to Come, and then he hastens to bring blows upon himself.

17:23 So with Pharaoh — what was the reason that He, so to speak, began to strike him? In truth, when Hashem had blows in store for Pharaoh, He arranged Moshe for him, so that he would quarrel with him, would oppose him — so that He could strike him. And so the root of all the blows and the sufferings and the illnesses and the troubles and the ordeals that the Jewish people go through in this world is only because we disgraced Moshe Rabbeinu in each and every generation, and it is only because of all the holy ones we had in every generation, and we did not truly follow them, and we disgraced them — "and they mocked the messengers of G-d."

17:57 This whole thing, these harassments — because of this, illnesses and troubles came down into the world. That is the sin of the Golden Calf, and that is every trouble there is. [unclear] We ask before the Holy One, blessed be He, to forgive us for the blood of Zechariah — for the blood of Zechariah, and for the sin of the Golden Calf, and for the pain of Moshe Rabbeinu, whom we disgraced. There was the holy Rabbi Moshe of Brody, of blessed memory, of the lineage of Tzvi. When he went up to the Land of Israel, he went straight to the grave of Zechariah, asked his forgiveness — and he passed away, he departed, right there.

18:26 He was buried there, beside him. He gave his very life, and said of this that it is the thing holding back the geulah, and that all the Jewish people must ask, must always do teshuvah, for everything we did to the holy ones and the sages. And may we truly merit emunas chachamim. When we truly merit emunas chachamim in full, then one discovers the connection. And to come close, in this generation — such a confused generation — and to find the true tzaddikim: that is something so...

18:50 it is like watching for the stars to come out: looking for three stars in cloud and fog at the end of Shabbos. There is no way to know when Shabbos has gone out. One cannot manage to find the stars — to know who is the true light of Hashem, and where the Holy One, blessed be He, truly shines the light, and where there is a clean Da'as. And so the Holy One, blessed be He, sometimes gives a person the merit, the opportunity — and it comes only through crying out to Hashem — that he can truly come close, and shine the light, and know the right path for him.

19:19 If a person is in the mire of the depths — "I have sunk in the mire of the depths, and there is no foothold" — he is in such raging waters, in views so low, that he cannot reveal the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world. His views are so confused and flawed, and his mind is flawed and unfit, and he cannot truly learn the Torah for its own sake, and truly understand what the Holy One, blessed be He, is saying through the Torah. And then, with this crooked mind, he tries to judge and to understand and to know what truth is, and all that — and from here come all the troubles and all the disputes and all the divisions in the world.

19:50 So we must always remember that we must always nullify ourselves before the Holy One, blessed be He, and praise the Holy One, blessed be He, and know that He — He, blessed be He — He is the Great One; He is the Tzaddik. To Him alone, blessed be He, is praise fitting; Him alone, blessed be He, may we serve — to kneel and bow down to the Holy King. So that is the reason we conclude "HaMelech HaKadosh", the Holy King — in the language of separation and setting apart, because we are in Da'as — and not "HaMelech HaTzaddik", because that is only in the World to Come.

20:17 For in the World to Come — which is Binah, which corresponds to the World to Come, where everything becomes clear — only in the World to Come will it all become clear — it will be possible to conclude "HaMelech HaTzaddik". And so it is written: "On that day Hashem will be One and His Name One." "Will be" — that is Tzaddik. And then everything will be revealed — that it was all for the good. There is no difference at all between good... and so we would be blessing for the true good, the true good, just as it is, at about the same level.

20:44 But only in the future to come will there be the true revelation that He is the Tzaddik in all His ways, in all His ways, in all His ways. And for the Jewish people — this is the Tzidduk HaDin, the accepting of the judgment, said over the departed, and so on: "Blessed is the true Judge", and we say: "The Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are justice; a faithful G-d, without wrong, righteous and upright is He." Precisely then one cannot understand it — that such a thing was done — because it corresponds to the World to Come; it is only in Binah.

21:09 It is something a person in this world can never understand. It is impossible to understand the deeds of Hashem here in the world — to understand what He does, and what He will judge, and what He will decide. Because it is all bewildering and confused. A person can do evil against his fellow — he can slaughter him and murder him and persecute him and beat him and do evil things to him, and then go off in peace, with a non-Jewish woman, and set up a home and everything — and suddenly his way succeeds, and it all turns out well for him, and everything.

21:38 And the poor man — the oppressed, the robbed, the robbed, the murdered — who fell, and went down even lower, and is ill and in pain, and so on — and people will look on from the side and say: "How can such a thing be done here in the world?" Something that cannot be understood. Because the workings of Hashem cannot be understood in this world. Nothing, nothing, nothing. They will never understand the greatness of Hashem. That is why King David said, and prided himself, that he merited in this world to attain the Da'as of the World to Come.

22:07 He said: "For I know that Hashem is great, and our Master is above all gods." Only I know the greatness of Hashem. I can say that I know the greatness of Hashem; I know what He thinks, how He thinks, and how He looks at it. And so he prided himself: "For I know that Hashem is great, and our Master is above all gods." Only King David can say this — that he attained Da'as in full, the ultimate purpose of the World to Come: to know how everything is a revelation of G-dliness, Binah — and he is, in fact, in Binah, and he sees Hashem in all His ways, and in everything that happens in the world — that it is all kindness and cleanness and complete Da'as. May we truly merit this, Amen — a true, complete and clean Da'as, Amen. And this is the greatest purpose there is. For the Satan — when it comes to drawing close to the tzaddik —

22:51 and it is brought — [unclear] — in the name of Rabbi Tzvi Elimelech of Dinov, and the She'eris Yisrael of Vilednik also writes about this — that the Satan will give a person everything in this world, wealth, and a wife, and everything — but for him to draw close to the path of truth, to draw close to a true tzaddik, to true Da'as — over that he will fight him all the days of his life, just so that he does not merit to draw close to this path of truth. Why? Because he knows that the moment a person draws close to Da'as, and truly has it, he will attain on his own; he will be able to discover in himself all the strength and the light hidden in him, and he will even be able to bring the geulah.

23:25 So that is the reason that all the holy ones in every generation, the true tzaddikim, who fought the wars of Hashem — went through what they went through. Only those few in the generations who truly had this great light, with all that stood against them — who could bring and restore the Tikkun to the world. May we merit this in full, and may we merit the complete geulah, speedily in our days. Amen. So that is what I wanted to say on this. Ah, here there is also a difficulty: "the Children of Israel" — "And Moshe spoke to the Children of Israel, to make the Pesach. And they made the Pesach in the first month."

23:56 That is, normally it is made every year in Jerusalem. So Rabbi [unclear] says: every year Pesach is made in Jerusalem. So what is this, written here in the verse? Look, every year it is made in Jerusalem — so why is this year [unclear] in Jerusalem? "And Moshe spoke to the Children of Israel, to make the Pesach" — "in the first month."