The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-הגאון הינוקא - במסר על המצב לעם ישראל ובחיזוק לוחמי חיל האוויר The Yanuka

5:41 we could not survive even one moment next to so many enemies and so many destroyers. And the reflection we need to have at this time, and in our thinking in general, in order to get through this and to reflect: everyone knows that this world is upside down, it is a different world; it is not a world of truth, there is a lot of falsehood here, and a great many bad traits, and on one side we see good traits, and on one side we see a wicked man and on one side we see a tzaddik; on the other side we see the good and the bad meeting all the time, which is all the wars and all the disputes and all the hatred and all that there is in the world.

6:24 In the Talmud, in Tractate Pesachim, the Gemara tells, on page 49b, that the ignorant hate the Torah scholar even more than idol worshippers hate Israel. There is also a story along the same lines about Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, about Rabbi Yosef, his son, that he went up to Heaven. It was in a vision: he was like one departing to Heaven, and he was actually alive, but he fell ill and was close to dying, and he saw everything that happens there.

6:52 And when Rabbi Yehoshua, his father, asked him - he asked him: "What did you see, what did you behold in the Upper World, what did you see there?" So he began to describe to him that all those lofty, important and honored people are not held important there, and all the simple and lowly people who are here below, whom no one pays attention to, up above have great importance. And then, in fact, he asked him what they actually said, because there were a few things they said.

7:19 One thing he learned in Heaven, that they said: "Fortunate is he who comes here with his learning in his hand." It does not say "his learning in his mouth", it does not say "his learning in his mind"; it says "his learning in his hand", meaning that he fulfilled his learning. Because learning Torah - people learn, but the question is how we fulfill it, and with what we fulfill the Torah, which is the light of Hashem, blessed be He. And another thing he heard, that the Ten Martyrs of the kingdom - anyone who died to sanctify Hashem's Name - no man can stand in their precinct.

7:49 No one can stand in the precinct of one who died to sanctify Hashem's Name, about the martyrs of the kingdom. Whenever a person gives up his life to die to sanctify the Name of Hashem, blessed be He, no man... no one can stand in the precinct of these holy and pure ones, who rise and are elevated higher and higher, beyond measure. And if we reflect, we will see that there are things so, so important, also from what they taught us, that if we look at this story we can see a few principles that can be learned in order to understand and to look - how to look at this world.

8:25 The first principle we learn: when we look at this world we can always be mistaken, and see people who have importance and honor and greatness, but it could be that in the eyes of Hashem and in Heaven they are not real people, and in truth they deserve neither the honor nor the greatness. And the reverse: to see a simple person whom no one can bear to look at, even a person who cleans the synagogue, a person who is simple, a person who goes around like this alone and has no family, and no one turns to him and no one knows at all who he is, they don't recognize him - and in Heaven he is very, very, very important.

9:03 The holy Baal Shem Tov once said this as a very beautiful parable. He said that Avraham Avinu - that the Holy One, blessed be He, compared the Jewish people to the stars - so the Baal Shem Tov said that a Jew is like a star: from here in this world he looks very, very small, but in Heaven he is very, very, very great. And so it is with each and every one of the Jewish people; he is so precious and wondrous in Heaven, very much so, before Hashem, blessed be He, and each one is very, very precious and important, and each one is a "book of the generations of man".

9:30 Each one of us of the Jewish people has a story; there is a whole book written about him, from all of creation, from the beginning, from the start of his reincarnations, and all that he will go through. And that is why we ask for and await the coming of Mashiach. What does that mean? "Mashiach" comes from the word "mesiach", one who tells: he is destined to tell of the greatness of the souls of Israel, of each and every one. When the Redemption comes, Mashiach will have to tell of each and every one of the Jewish people; he will simply tell about each and every one, about all his history and everything he went through, and all the mighty deeds he did for the sake of Hashem and for the sake of the Jewish people, and all the wars, and all that he managed to conquer,

10:10 and all that he did before Hashem. That is what it means that we await the Redemption. We ask Hashem, in simple words, that He shine upon the Jewish people, that He raise the horn of His people, that everyone will see the preciousness and the importance of each and every one of us. We always tend to look a little at the outside, to see from the side, but the Torah and the Sages teach us a different way of looking. And that is why, as soon as Rabbi Yosef hears - he heard: "Fortunate is he who comes here with his learning in his hand" - that he brings his learning into action; he arrives in Heaven with his learning; he fulfilled the Torah, he fulfilled the good deeds, he did everything as it should be done.

10:49 And about the martyrs of the kingdom, that no one can stand in their precinct - this comes to teach us that it does not matter who it may be, and it does not matter what he goes through: the holiness of Hashem, blessed be He, rests upon each and every one of the Jewish people, upon every Jew who sanctifies His blessed Name. And the Yerushalmi teaches, in Tractate Peah, chapter one, halachah 1, that even the righteous of the nations of the world have a share, and they are destined for the life of the World to Come, if they do good and they help...

11:15 of course not for honor, but truly... because they understand, from their own decency and thinking, that it is not right, Heaven forbid, to cause pain to any of the Jewish people, Heaven forbid, and to protect and cherish this honored nation. And so the Sages teach us many times over. But there are a few things that hold us back, and of course it is not only the eyes that cause all the distance and the divisions and the thoughts, and the jealousy and the hatred, and all these things are what cause everything we see in the world.

11:49 It is true that today we may not merit to guard properly, or to have the right intention... or we don't know... but there are a few things that Hashem, blessed be He, asks, and this is the most important thing: that we guard the unity and the love there is between us, and not look, Heaven forbid, at anyone as separate, and not feel, Heaven forbid, division, but rather one must unite the mind and unite everyone, and think about the true purpose, and about the greatness of the souls of Israel, that we are the children of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, and about the greatness of Hashem, blessed be He, who shines upon and brings forth all the created beings, all of them; He gives them life and brings them into being.

12:26 Our teacher the Rambam - if you look in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, chapter 1, there are 12 halachos in the first chapter; in all 12 halachos of the first chapter the Rambam begins to list and explain the greatness of Hashem, how to reflect. The foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdom is that a person reflect and understand that Hashem, blessed be He, is the One who emanates, and all the emanated beings, all that there is in this world, all of them are from Him, blessed be He; everything is from His blessed truth, everything is from the greatness of Hashem, everything from the existence of Hashem.

12:56 That is what the Rambam comes to teach us. He comes to teach us that Hashem, blessed be He, exists; He gives life to all the creations and brings them into being. All that we see in this world - we need to reflect and understand that Hashem, blessed be He, gives it life and brings it into being at every time and moment, and nothing in the world can befall a person, not bad and not good, nothing, if Hashem, blessed be He, does not desire it.

13:21 And this is the great grasp of emunah in Hashem: that one must believe in Hashem even though a person, with the intellect, cannot understand anything; but we are forbidden to ask any questions about Hashem, blessed be He, because Hashem, blessed be He, is always righteous. "Hashem is righteous, and I rebelled against His word" - which King Yeshayahu, before his passing - these are the words he murmured before Hashem, blessed be He, to understand the greatness of Hashem, the righteousness of Hashem, blessed be He.

13:45 "Blessed be the Name of Hashem from now and forever" - to praise Him and to laud Him and to do His will. You know, Alexander of Macedon was one of the mighty men who won victories all over the world, and he conquered all over the world, and made wars all over the world, and was brave and mighty, and he waged very great wars, until he reached one place - this the Sages teach in Tractate Tamid, on page 32b; the Sages teach about Alexander that he reached some place where there is a spring of fragrant water; there was water with a wonderful scent of spices.

14:18 He reached some spring, and he begins to smell spices that are not of this world. He understood that this is a place and an entrance of the Garden of Eden. So he began to draw water from there, and he looks at the water and he smells the scent of the Garden of Eden. Then he understood that this gate is a gate to the Garden of Eden. So he wanted to go in. He said: "I am an important king." So they told him from Heaven, all this: "The gate of Hashem - the righteous shall enter through it"; you cannot, you are not righteous, you cannot enter this place.

14:42 So he said: "Give me something." He wanted to receive, to merit taking something from there. So they threw him a skull. He understood that surely there was something wondrous in it. He took this skull, and when he reached his kingdom he began to weigh it, and put it on a scale, and put all his silver and gold on the scale, and this skull always outweighed it. No matter whatever he put on the scale, on this balance, the skull always outweighed everything.

15:11 And he did not understand what wonder there was in this skull, how a simple skull like this can outweigh precious stones and pearls and gold; it always outweighed them in their weight. So he went to the Sages, for them to explain it to him, because there is something very puzzling here. So the Sages, truly, in fact, told him that, as King Shlomo says, "The grave and destruction are never satisfied, so the eyes of man are never satisfied", in Mishlei, chapter 27, verse 20.

15:37 So King Shlomo teaches, that just as the grave and destruction can never be satisfied, so too the eyes of man are never satisfied. The eyes of man, like the grave and destruction - the end, the hard things, the final purpose - what the world understands is the grave and destruction; there is no satisfaction in it, because they always see the world, where it is going. So too the eyes of man cannot reach satisfaction.

16:01 That is why the Sages told him: cover the skull, cover its eyes, and you will see how the weight will go back to being... you will be able to outweigh everything. And he covered the skull, covered its eyes, and then everything outweighed it; all the silver and gold went down, and of course this was on the scale, and they understood that everything had truly become nothing, because the power of a person in this world is his eyes, it is his sight; it is to be happy with his portion, it is to reflect on the greatness of Hashem, it is to look at the good in another, it is to look at the good in his fellow, it is not to be jealous, it is not to be upset about anything, it is to see only the good, it is to rejoice in the good of his fellow,

16:35 it is to feel the pain... when another is in pain, then I need to feel the pain; when another has joy, I need to rejoice in his joy; and to reflect truly on what the true purpose is, that we, the people of Hashem, can win all the wars. You know, one of the kings who had courage and strength and might, about whom they say that he was expounded both in praise and in disgrace - this was King Achav.

17:08 Achav was a very mighty king; he was brave when he would go out to battle, to war; he was always the first to go out, in the whole front line of the war, and he would gallop on the horse and fight wars and win. Of course, in the end he died by the arrow that Hadadrimon ben Tavrimon, who was the king, planted in him, and Ben Hadad, who planted the arrow in him.

17:33 And then, in fact, Achav fell and died afterwards. But the might of Achav was that he stayed in the battle, in the field, and he did not want to leave the war, so that they would not see him and become afraid and say, "The king has fallen..." He wanted to strengthen everyone, and he stayed there with this arrow inside his heart to be a sign of might for everyone, and he had very great might.

18:02 The life he received was a life given as a gift; he received 22 years. Achav, in fact, was a wicked king. There is a discussion about this in Tractate Sanhedrin, on page 102; there the Sages teach that he did not leave a door on which he did not write that he denied the G-d of Israel, and every furrow, everything there was... there was idol worship there that he set up, and he did very, very many things that were not good, in idol worship, before Hashem, blessed be He.

18:33 And in the Yerushalmi, in Tractate Sanhedrin, chapter 10, halachah 2, the Yerushalmi tells and describes about Achav that Rabbi Levi expounded about him; for six months he would teach the students, he would expound to them for six months on the disgrace of Achav, on the evil he did and on the bad deeds, until Achav appeared to him in a dream and said to him: "Why do you expound on my disgrace?

18:57 You know it was Izevel who made me wicked..." That is how he rebuked him. And then, in fact, he expounded another six months; he expounded in his praise, in praise of Achav. And so we see that what there was with Achav was both for praise and for disgrace, from what he did. And on page 103 of Tractate Sanhedrin, it is told there: the Sages say that he was expert in the laws of Toras Kohanim, and he greatly honored the Torah; he honored Torah scholars.

19:27 And on page 102 it is written that he was generous with his money, and he would let Torah scholars benefit from his property. He did a great many things, but he had a very, very, very great love and honor for the Sages. And from the honor he gave the Sages, and from the honor he gave the Torah, he came back and returned to Hashem. In Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, chapter 43, it is written that he did teshuvah and occupied himself with Torah.

19:52 And also that the Holy One, blessed be He, testifies to this, in the Yerushalmi, chapter 10, halachah 2, in Sanhedrin, where it is written about Achav: "And the word of Hashem came to Eliyahu the Tishbi, saying: 'Have you seen that Achav has humbled himself before Me?'" So says the Holy One, blessed be He, to Eliyahu the prophet, remembered for good. The Holy One, blessed be He, looks in Heaven and He sees Achav, the mighty king who worshipped idols. Achav understands his mistake; he understands that he sinned against the G-d of Israel; he understands that he sinned and transgressed, and he tries to return to Hashem.

20:23 So he humbled himself with all his heart, and then the Holy One, blessed be He - "And the word of Hashem came to Eliyahu the Tishbi, saying: 'Have you seen that Achav has humbled himself before Me?'" The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: "Have you seen that he humbled himself before Me? Have you seen? Look, I see that he has humbled himself. Look at what he did: all the transgressions, all the crimes, all the sins - I see that he has returned." So He said to him: "Because he has humbled himself before Me, I will not bring the evil in his days."

20:48 That means the Holy One, blessed be He, told Eliyahu the message that because Achav did teshuvah, and he was sorry and he humbled himself before Heaven, humbled himself before the heavens, so the Holy One, blessed be He, says that He will not bring evil in his days. That means there was evil that could have come in his days, but because he humbled himself, the evil will not come in his days.

21:13 And from here we can see the foundations that can be learned from the Sages, from the prophets, from the Torah, how they teach us that one must humble oneself before Hashem. We need to know that Hashem, blessed be He, is the One who makes all the reality we see. Despite all this hiddenness we are going through, yet Hashem, blessed be He, can in one brief moment destroy and annul all our enemies, all our haters, from the ground that can open up, from anything that could be.

21:42 And if you look, you can see it in a very, very simple and open way: to see how Hashem, blessed be He, truly shook the hearts a little, so that they would lift their eyes on high. Some time ago there was this whole plague that was in the world, and everyone was shaken and afraid.

22:06 And after this plague, once again the world had fear, but right away went back... After that there were all kinds of quakes and shaking in the ground, where there began to be a sound of trembling in all kinds of places, so that from these quakes too, fear and dread fell upon the world. Then they understood what fear is. And now Hashem, blessed be He, did this, so that there would be an even greater fear, one that already touched bodies.

22:31 And look and see that Hashem, blessed be He, always does something - He does everything gradually, so that the world will begin to reflect. So too with the affliction that there used to be, that the Kohen had to purify the affliction slowly, slowly; the affliction would reach the outer walls of the house, and enter the house, and the garment... until it would reach the skin. It would not reach the skin directly; it would come on the outside, until he would reflect - maybe he will do teshuvah and it will leave him - until it reaches inside the body.

22:57 And so it also was: there was a plague in the world, external; you don't see at all what is there; you don't hear and you don't see, and there is a plague, something spiritual that you don't see. After that there was the earthquake; now the world already begins to feel that something is strange. And when they still don't reflect, then, Heaven forbid, what happened, happened, so that the world will return to Hashem. As it says, "And Pharaoh drew near", that Pharaoh causes the Jewish people to draw near to their Father in Heaven.

23:25 What Hashem, blessed be He, wants from us is that we can simply learn the Torah, and understand, and look... Sometimes we cannot merit to fulfill the whole Torah, and we cannot learn everything, but we can simply look and see what are the principles and the things that caused the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple. In the Temple there were several classes: we had very, very great Sages, there were very great rich men, there were the thugs, and there were the poor.

23:58 Before the Temple was destroyed, that period was a very hard period. There was very great wealth: Ben Tzitzis HaKesses, Nakdimon ben Gurion, Kalba Savua; Marta bas Baysus, a rich woman, who married Rabbi Yehoshua ben Gamla, who was a Kohen who bought his priesthood. And there was great wealth, and it was all at that same time.

24:22 But on one side there were poor people who suffered, and no one saw their suffering, no one saw their hardship, no one paid attention to them, no one felt their pain. And there were Sages who sat and learned and occupied themselves with Torah, and on one side there were the thugs, who looked on from the side and said: "How can all that is happening be? After all, you see... You Sages need to rebuke the rich, maybe they will help the poor and stop the class differences, and maybe something will change, maybe this baseless hatred will stop, that they shame this one and shame that one; maybe something here will begin to change."

25:00 And so, in fact, these splits and these camps that formed in the nation - they are the very ones that caused the destruction of the Temple. And then the thugs came and burned all the grain and all that was left, and of course the Shechinah went into exile from Jerusalem, and the holy Shechinah said: "Alas, farewell, My Sanctuary; alas, farewell, My House", and the Sanctuary was burned, and the Shechinah went up on high, and our holy and glorious Temple was burned.

25:30 And when we look, and we see and understand that throughout all the generations, until we reach the time when there was the unity and the tranquility and the revelation of the Shechinah - that is the Temple - it was destroyed because of the camps, because of the splits, because of the class differences, we needed to understand that we must be as united as can be, and to learn from that period that there must be no splits in the nation and no disputes in the nation, and the rich are obligated to help the poor, and the poor must judge favorably, and the Sages need to rebuke the rich, and those thugs must listen to the Sages.

26:06 Because if the thugs had listened to the Sages and had not taken the law into their own hands, then the Temple would not have been destroyed either. We always had to learn and reflect from one another, so that we would be united; nothing can be destroyed. And these are the most important principles and foundations that we can learn about. And we know that we are in such a distant exile, but if you look at this, to our sorrow we see that in this generation there are many class differences, and a great deal of hardship among people, whom others belittle and pay no attention to, and do not relate to, and they cause pain to the poor and the unfortunate, and they raise up that rich man, and they shame the poor, and so they make splits and honor,

26:49 and it is all false, and everything is turned over, and the whole world is in a great madness, until the Holy One, blessed be He, decides to awaken the world - that Hashem, blessed be He, awakens the world. He does not wait now for the world to leave everything and return in teshuvah... One needs to know to honor the G-d of Israel. Hashem, blessed be He - this is the greatest and most awesome thing, beyond all estimation. To say that the Holy One, blessed be He, does such things in order to awaken - we cannot say these things.

27:19 Hashem, blessed be He, is a merciful G-d, full of mercy, awesome in deed, and great and exalted, and no intellect or logic or idea can contain Him. Rather, what He awakens us to is between man and his fellow; it is only this matter of awakening to the unity between us. Because even if we are far, and even if we are at the greatest distance, the greatness of the mercy of Hashem, blessed be He, when He sees us united - no nation or tongue in the world will be able to overcome us.

27:47 And that is why antisemitism began in the world, and that the disputes began once again, and the world suddenly begins to stir, and they begin to see what the world really thinks of the Jewish people: in order to remind us. Suddenly Hashem, blessed be He, takes us back to those years long ago, to those eras, to the old books, to see: "Har Sinai - hatred came down to the world", and how the whole world - what it thinks of the Jewish people, for no reason.

28:12 And this is only to awaken us to go back to being one, to go back to being one, united, honoring one another, loving one another, revering one another, not, Heaven forbid, speaking lashon hara about one another on the side, not shaming the other; helping the poor, helping the distant one, helping the sinner; that distant one - trying to bring him close, trying to make peace, and to cancel the disputes and the classes and the splits, and to try to bring back the true peace that was in the world.

28:51 And may it be His will that in the merit of this, and through this and this reflection, we will merit the great mercy of Hashem, blessed be He, the great G-d, the Merciful One, full of mercy; and may Hashem, blessed be He, guard you and give you help from Heaven, and give you protection and defense from Heaven, and may you have all the good bounty.

29:17 And always remember to crown Hashem, blessed be He, over all your deeds, and over every single step you take, to ask for His kingship, to ask for His victory and to ask for His strength, because always remember: "Hashem is a Man of war"; "Hashem will fight for you, and you shall be silent"; that Hashem, blessed be He, is all-powerful, and He made, makes and will make all deeds. May it be His will that Hashem, blessed be He, quickly return all the hostages to us, and that Hashem, blessed be He, return all the soldiers, all of them, guard them from every trouble and distress, and may all our enemies fall beneath us, and may they make no mark on us at all, and may we merit great mercy and complete mercy, and the complete Redemption, and the building of our holy and glorious Temple.

30:00 And Hashem, blessed be He, our King at our head - and may we merit the resurrection of the dead, and that no heart be in sorrow. There are so many losses and so many broken people, and so many people in sorrow, whose hearts ache and cry over the great loss, that a part of them was lost - flesh of their flesh: children, parents, a wife, a father, a mother. It is such a tear, and a pain beyond measure, that no one can gauge.

30:29 Or the pain of a hostage, not knowing what he is going through, that he is in captivity, and all the ordeals, all kinds of ordeals that the world goes through. And this sorrow is a sorrow beyond measure, that the mind cannot contain at all; one cannot bear it at all. We must already ask Hashem, blessed be He, for salvation and pray every day that quickly, quickly, right away and immediately, truly, truly, truly, we will merit to see them healthy and whole, and that they return quickly to their homes, and that we also merit, quickly, the resurrection of the dead, to see all these dead who have departed from the world, to see them at the resurrection of the dead, in the complete Redemption, speedily in our days. Amen and amen.

31:15 Be strong, be strong, be strong! Do not fear and do not be afraid of anything in the world, and Hashem, blessed be He, is with us, our King at our head, to victory. - Be strong and blessed, our teacher and Rebbe, for the holy words, which strengthen and encourage, lifting up the spirits and our souls higher and higher. With Hashem's help, the Rav will [unclear] for our teacher and Rav, and with Hashem's help afterwards the Rav will perhaps do one niggun, and with Hashem's help the Rav will also hand out tzitzis to the precious souls who are here with us, and also a segulah for protection: everyone will receive a special one from the aravah that the Rav beat on Hoshana Rabbah, which is known in the holy books to be truly effective for protection and defense. So with Hashem's help, wait,

32:02 With Hashem's help, everyone will come up for a blessing from the Rav.