הקדמה לתורת הקבלה - הגאון הינוקא בכנס רבנים מרחבי העולם @TheYanukaRavShlomoYehuda #הינוקא

3:46 They say that the greatest of the Kabbalists, with the straightest mind and understanding in the wisdom of Kabbalah, was our master the Ramban, Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman. And from the Ramban until the Arizal there was no one who could engage in this wisdom, only our master the Ari. And when our master the Ari came, who was the Urim VeTumim of the Jewish people, and revealed the inner dimension of the Torah, after that they began to build the whole kingdom of the world of Kabbalah, who received the Torah, and of course the methods are very different: the method of the Gra, the method of the Ramchal, Rabbi Yaakov [unclear], the order of hishtalshelus (the chain of worlds) of Chabad, Rabbi Nachman, the holy Baal Shem Tov, the holy Rashash, Rabbi Yaakov Abuchatzeira, each tzaddik's method, the Ramchal.

4:36 Everyone knows that each sage [unclear] a method and a reasoning, and in Kabbalah, the only way to reach Hashem, blessed be He - there are several levels in Kabbalah. There is what we learn: the wisdom of the Leshem, which in fact is the most precise method in the wisdom of Kabbalah - the Chazon Ish said he does not want to learn Kabbalah because he does not have the Leshem; he does not live in my area so that we could receive this wisdom from him, so I do not want to learn it.

5:07 Whether the Chazon Ish knew Kabbalah or did not know - he knew. But many of the greatest sages held that one should not expound Kabbalah in public, because it is the secret of Hashem. And because it is 'the secret of Hashem to those who fear Him', they did not expound Kabbalah in public. Because they said it is a secret; because it is a secret, they had to learn. And the custom was to learn it on Thursday, Friday and Shabbos - Kabbalah - because these days are days in which there is less of the kelipos, because we are close to Erev Shabbos, and on Erev Shabbos there is an ascent and an elevation of Malchus, how high and higher she rises. She shakes herself off, as we say in the piyut of Rabbi Shlomo Alkabetz, 'Shake off the dust, arise; put on your garments of glory, my people.'

5:50 And at the time the Jewish people go out to receive Shabbos, then they shake off all the garments, all the clothes, all that was in the six weekdays, and merit to receive the garments of the holy Shabbos. This is by meriting this great level. The higher one rises in level, one removes all the garments and rises. So that was one level, at which the Kabbalists who learned merited to learn and to teach, to keep and to do.

6:17 But there is another Kabbalah, much higher than everything, which in fact is a Kabbalah not written in books, and it is not a Kabbalah given to be expounded, but only from one man's mouth to another. And where do we find this? At the very beginning of all beginnings, who was it - who first engaged in this, where it was seen explicitly?

6:42 It was Tzaliya of the tribe of Dan. Tzaliya of the tribe of Dan - he killed Bilaam. He killed him by means of a Name, and of course, as the Kav HaYashar explains, and the Zohar in Balak, at the beginning, at the very start of the introduction there, where he writes [unclear], according to the edition, but - and we also have this with Chanamel ben Shallum, in chapter 32 of the book of Yirmiyahu. We find that then, at the beginning, when there began Nevuchadnetzar and the whole exile of the Jewish people that began, whether through the Romans or Nevuchadnetzar, Jerusalem was surrounded, as King Shlomo, who built it, hid away with Names all the holy things.

7:24 We find that they would still engage in things that were above nature, very, very hidden things, that no eye and no mouth has spoken, read, seen or heard. This is the wisdom of Kabbalah that passed from generation to generation, mouth to mouth, from Eliyahu HaNavi, may he be remembered for good. This is what our master Rabbi Chaim Vital writes about our master the Arizal, that he was an angel of Hashem, and he understood that the wisdom of Kabbalah - to know its secrets, he must receive it from his very mouth, because only he knows this Torah, and no one knew it.

7:58 And therefore, what that sage wrote in his generation - it is not only on that that we rely; rather, one must learn this Torah. That is why it is called Kabbalah - receiving it from one man's mouth to another, and of course from the mouth of Eliyahu, who received from the mouth of Achiyah HaShiloni, who was among those who left Egypt and among those who sat in the house of David. And when Chanamel ben Shallum came, and when Hashem, blessed be He - of course - Jerusalem was uprooted, and at the time [unclear] the Holy One, blessed be He, and then Jerusalem was destroyed, when the gates were opened, and then, in fact, the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, came, but Chanamel ben Shallum said a Name and suspended Jerusalem between heaven and earth.

8:37 Which Name he suspended it with, what he said and what he intended. There is the same story with Yishbi Benov in Sanhedrin, page [unclear], where the Gemara explains about Yishbi Benov, that King David - 'You widened my steps beneath me, and my ankles did not slip' - and King David jumped into the air and he was almost [unclear] on the sword that Yishbi, the brother of Goliath, had prepared for him, and then, in fact, he suspended him between heaven and earth, also by means of a Name, and what that Name is, in fact, he did not explain either.

9:07 What is that Name? What is that intention? What is that unification? What is that thing? We also have this with Achitofel and King David, in Sukkah, page 53, Yerushalmi Sanhedrin, chapter 10, halachah 2. It is written there too. I am talking about a Kabbalah that we see explicitly - explicitly - that existed generations before our master the Ari, or even before the wisdom of Kabbalah and the Kabbalists that we we are talking about; it came before them, it is from of old. That is, with Chanamel - in chapter 32 of Yirmiyahu, Chanamel ben Shallum is mentioned - who was the greatest of the Kabbalists who engaged in these very matters.

9:39 Yonasan ben Uziel, who engaged in this. All this wisdom is a tradition - the Sages sat - in Tractate Sanhedrin, page [unclear], Rav Chananya and Rav Hoshaya, who made the calf - they created a calf from Sefer Yetzirah. Sefer Yetzirah is also from the wisdom of Kabbalah. It is all in fact one. Our master, the holy Baal Shem Tov - everyone was amazed to hear - did not learn the writings of our master the Ari.

10:04 He did not learn Etz Chaim, and he did not learn the writings of the Ari. Now, not because he held that one should not learn them, and not because he was against it, Heaven forbid. Everyone knows that the holy Baal Shem Tov - that same story with Rabbi Meir of Premishlan, that he came close to his child, the little one in the cradle - he asked him: Who am I? So he said to him - he said, 'I am he' - Your Honor is our master the Ari.

10:29 That is what he said about him. It is known that the holy Baal Shem Tov disagreed with our master the Ari, of blessed memory, about the kavanos of the mikveh, but there was nothing contradictory between them; he did not come to hold a different method at all; rather, he drew and received this wisdom from the mouth of Eliyahu, and therefore he did not need to learn these writings. Though he had writings of Avraham Avinu, which were attributed to Rabbi Adam Baal Shem.

10:53 Rabbi Adam Baal Shem had writings; he buried them in the city of Kamenetz; they are tucked away in some mountain there, and no one knows about these writings. These are hidden writings that were there. There were maps they wanted to draw for people, to let tzaddikim know where these writings are, and they hid them. The book Bris Menuchah, by Rabbi Avraham of Rimon the Sefardi, was one of the books that the holy Baal Shem Tov held in high esteem, that they are above everything.

11:19 And this Rebbe too - who received his Torah, most of his Torah that he received, in Kabbalah, he learned from the mouth of Rabbi Avraham HaMalach, not from the holy Maggid. From the holy Maggid he learned the path and the service of Hashem, the plain meaning of the Torah, the inner dimension and everything; but Kabbalah itself, really - learning all the methods and all the sefiros and the worlds, what he drew in - he learned from the mouth of Rabbi Avraham HaMalach for almost half a year, almost seven months, from the time the holy Maggid passed away, he together with Rabbi Yehuda Leib, the author of Or HaGanuz.

11:52 Rabbi Yehuda Leib HaKohen of Anipoli, who himself actually composed the Or HaGanuz, on the Shas, the Mishnayos, and Zos LiYehudah is on the Shas, and Or HaGanuz is on the Torah. He in fact composed it, and one already sees in him that he already presented many secrets and kavanos then, as he writes in the introduction. Because in Kabbalah, in fact, there are several methods of learning. One can learn this method, that method, and the method - the very highest level - is to merit to know the Kabbalah truly, from the mouth of what we received, from the mouth of the great ones, who can know about everything that happens, as can be heard in what our master Rabbi Chaim Vital writes of the Ari in the introduction, that he knew, like Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, the speech of the birds and the beasts and the palm trees, or like King Shlomo,

12:38 who knew everything that happens in the world. And as we see regarding time, there is the book Tzror HaChaim; it is written there in the introduction that every time and every hour of the day has in it the unification that is unified. After all, we have the Name Havayah, blessed be He, and the Name Adnus. And in every second and time and moment, according to the proportional hours that are calculated - after all, we know that an hour can sometimes be 59 minutes, sometimes 62, and three, and two and a half - and these times are in fact divided, and within every second and combination - so he writes, one of the early ones, 400-500 years ago - that in every second and moment, at the time it changes, there is a different unification that unites every moment, and whoever knows the combination

13:24 of that minute and that hour and that second and that moment, then within all this the mercy of Hashem is also revealed. For sometimes there is a time that is more judgment and a time that is more mercy, a time that is more auspicious and a time that is less auspicious, and so on in this way. Now, the greatest level is to merit to reveal the mercy of the Holy One, blessed be He, with constant mercy, so that a person can come close to the Creator, blessed be He.

13:52 Within Kabbalah itself there are several paths. There is a path called the Yichudim (the unifications). The Yichudim - there are the Yichudim. There are the kavanos (the intentions), where one does kavanos; there are kavanos - there is a difference like heaven and earth between Yichudim and kavanos, and that these are the holy Names and so on; I will explain it. Kavanos, Yichudim, and there is the way of learning the inner dimension.

14:18 Now, one learns Kabbalah and the secrets of the Torah, and the secrets of the Zohar, which is the main learning - which is specifically learning the inner dimension - and the writings of our master the Arizal, whatever one learns. And if a person wants to follow a method, the Leshem or the Ramak, or whatever he wants - I always recommend to people to follow one method, and not to mix the methods, because in the end, once one learns and mixes the methods, people do not know it, but the things that come out of them in the end are not precise things.

14:51 Because there is no precision, there is no understanding, and a very great distance from Hashem results. Now, the whole true and complete purpose of this learning is to bring a person as high as high can be, to the Holy One, blessed be He. There is the Or Ne'erav of the Ramak, in chapter 2, in part 2, chapter 2, the Or Ne'erav, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, writes. The Ramak writes there that the way to come close to Hashem, blessed be He, is of course through this known wisdom - he calls it 'this known wisdom' - and through love and fear.

15:24 That is, he does not separate between this wisdom, this hidden wisdom, and love and fear. That is, a person who does not manage to grasp and understand a little of these exalted Kabbalistic concepts - since these are not simple concepts - and many, Heaven forbid, fell into very great mistakes: they read those expressions of our master the Ari, and thought there were mistakes in them, because they did not explain them correctly, when they see Arich Anpin and Zeir Anpin, and Abba and Imma, Zeir and Nukva, especially Yisrael and the great Rachel, the small Rachel - they do not understand what these concepts are: Malchus, Leah, Keser, Zeir Anpin, the Yichud of Zeir and Nukva - what such expressions are, which people do not quite manage to understand.

16:15 And there are those who learn it from the angle of mathematics or philosophy, but it will never help them, because they will not understand anything of it, and they will not feel awe in it, and they will not understand anything. The true learning is that a person can reach the exalted level where he reveals the ancient Kabbalah that existed. The ancient Kabbalah that existed, which I am talking about, is what we received, what our master the Ari attained.

16:43 After all, our master the Ari did not need writings in order to reveal what he wrote. He did not actually copy a book, and he did not cite anyone; he simply attained it. That is, the true wisdom is that a person has the purity and the separateness and the withdrawal and the purity from the world, but on the other hand he does not contradict it. Because it is no wisdom for a person to withdraw from the world and then say he is in heaven.

17:08 The wisdom is to take the physical matter, and this is what the Torah teaches us, and it shows us, that we see that we, in all the mitzvos of the Torah - Hashem, blessed be He, wants us to enjoy, Hashem, blessed be He, wants it to be good for the creations, He wants it to be good for us, and that we come close to Hashem, blessed be He, and that there be joy, and that there be much good. And the closer we come to Hashem, the more we feel His love for us, and we love Him.

17:35 But it takes very, very, very, very great devotion to understand His will, what He does in the world. We see many things that are impossible to understand. How was this done, and how was that done, and this, and that. Or confusing things: a person who is very righteous and holy and pure and prays to Hashem to give him a righteous son - he prays, and in the end a son is born who goes very bad and walks a corrupt path, very far away.

18:06 And the opposite is with a wicked man who does not pray for a son at all, and suddenly a son is born to him, holy and righteous and a servant of Hashem. This is what our master the Arizal wrote in the introduction, Sha'ar HaGilgulim, introduction 21 and introduction 22. There our master the Arizal explained the meaning of souls that are sometimes born from places very, very - of very great souls that come into the world, that give birth to precisely the opposite of them, exactly the opposite. A person who is very far away suddenly rises and becomes established and reveals, higher and higher, until he reaches a very, very high level.

18:41 The true Kabbalah is that a person can understand and learn what is happening, and a little of what stands behind everything there is in the world. That is, sometimes there is weather that is too hot, then we know it is drawn from the side of the Gevuros, or there is weather that is too cold, that too is drawn from the side of the Gevuros, and there is the weather between Pesach and Atzeres, which is what the Sforno says, that this in fact was the finest weather and the most exalted, which is why they also sinned through it, for which Sodom had to be overturned, because they had such fine weather; they had everything there.

19:17 There was nothing like the weather of today. And these seasons that pass over a person - this is what counts a person's years. How does the body know when a person marks another year, so as to grow old? After all, old age depends on time, and this time is revealed within the seasons. The seasons - the Holy One, blessed be He, brought them. So the Sforno explains, Rabbi Ovadiah Sforno, explains that the Holy One, blessed be He, brought it about, and explained what the seasons are.

19:44 For since there was the Flood, it is impossible now to dry up great quantities of water. You have to understand, we all know that such quantities of water are something beyond measure, neither for drying it up nor for somehow using it. So what Hashem, blessed be He, did: He simply froze all these waters, and these waters froze completely, and then we see very great mountains of snow, and on the other side we see places of heat and desert, so that is a place Hashem, blessed be He, made, and put fire there [unclear] to evaporate the water.

20:16 That is, the results of the seasons, as the Sforno explains, are in fact in order to reveal to us in the world the mercy of Hashem, blessed be He, in order to cancel from the creatures the troubles that were supposed to come, when the creatures would not have survived. That is, the seasons came in order to bring the world back to an orderly world.

20:41 But because there are the seasons, the body enters into the seasons and so it counts old age. For above age 100 - a person who reaches the age of 120 years - has more rows of teeth here; this is known to the experts in medicine who know dentistry: there are more rows of teeth here that are supposed to grow after 120 years. That is, the Holy One, blessed be He, makes it so that there would truly be these ages, that people would live 200 years and 300 years, 400 and 500, and there would not be this old age.

21:13 And what we see, that the world does not manage to live long, it is because people too rejected the way of Hashem, and they also do not truly serve Hashem, and they also only want things from Hashem, blessed be He. And because there came to be many opinions, each one pulling and saying, 'I know what the way of Hashem is,' and 'I know what the way of Hashem is,' they do not manage to truly reach the true and complete intention.

21:38 And then our master the Arizal came. When our master the Arizal came to Egypt, there he was by this Nile; there he went on to reveal the hidden and concealed wisdom that he had attained. Our master the Arizal came in a period and at a time when there were - it was already the end of the period of the Rishonim and the beginning of the period of the Acharonim, and Maran the Beis Yosef was - it was the time of Maran the Beis Yosef, the Terumas HaDeshen; there is a difference of some 15 years between them, and that is why he could disagree with him, Maran the Beis Yosef, because he was his contemporary, and it was such a dispute, that he disagrees with Rishonim, that he disagrees with the Terumas HaDeshen.

22:12 So from here we see that it was - he came in a period that was very, very, very significant for the Jewish people. And at that same time, in fact, our master the Arizal began to reveal the things that are sealed and hidden in the world, without which it is impossible to know what we are doing in this world. That is, the whole true wisdom of Kabbalah, in fact - the understanding comes to bring a person to understand what is done in this world.

22:38 And only by our understanding this, and living it, and being true with Hashem, blessed be He, will it be revealed to a person. That is, our master the Arizal attained - after all, he did not learn Kabbalah from any book - through his holiness, and through his trait of truth and his trait of cleanness, that he had no false charm and no false gestures and no garments, and [unclear] cleanness, and the stripping away of physicality, in fact, so that there is no mixing and no nourishment for the outside forces.

23:11 What he explains: that a person who carries, for example, from domain to domain on Shabbos, from a private domain to a public domain - he explains that the prohibition is, in fact, that on Shabbos everything is the private domain; everything is a revelation of G-dliness, to see the greatness of Hashem, blessed be He. A person carries out to the public domain - that is, as it were, the place of the kelipos, the place of the outside forces; and therefore it is forbidden to carry from domain to domain. He explains the inner meaning, what stands behind the inner meaning of the halachah.

23:36 That is, behind every single thing we have that we fulfill in the Torah, we in fact have the inner root, which should bring us close to Hashem, blessed be He. And our master the Arizal, through his separation from the world, and his withdrawal from the world, and his purity, and also the holy Ramchal, yes, they attained it: Kabbalah was simply revealed to them. And so there were many holy men who did not pray with the siddur of kavanos, like the holy Gaon, Rabbi Shabsai of Rashkov, who, after he composed the siddur of kavanos - who composed these kavanos, in fact, after many new insights that were revealed to him, and of course many additions and yichudim from our master, the holy Baal Shem Tov.

24:19 There are many additions and new insights there that the holy Baal Shem Tov added. In the kavanos - he was the greatest of his disciples in kavanos; this is the siddur of Rabbi Shabsai of Rashkov. And much of the thought was that this is what is revealed to a person, and to truly attain this clean wisdom, this pure wisdom, one must be very, very, very, very clean before Hashem, blessed be He. A cleanness where a person has no hold on anything that is opposed to Hashem.

24:53 And Heaven forbid - there must be no hatred. Pay attention: we find in Tractate Gittin, page 90, that the Holy One, blessed be He - the altar sheds tears, when, Heaven forbid, there is a separation between husband and wife. Before they divorce, there is a separation. Now, while they were married, the Name Havayah, blessed be He, was upon them. Now that they are divorcing, we find that even the altar sheds tears. And why is this? Because all that we are in this world - engraved on every single thing is the Name Havayah, blessed be He.

25:25 There is a revelation of the light of Hashem, blessed be He, on everything we see. And the moment Hashem, blessed be He, reveals His light, all the life and everything we see, every thing that comes into being, is formed and exists, is by His light, blessed be He. And when we act and reveal in the world traits that are opposed to the Torah, such as, in fact, hatred and dispute and separations, they are what, in fact, erase all the letters of His Name, blessed be He.

25:54 That is, a person who can do kavanos, or can learn Kabbalah, or can think that he is learning - he can learn a book and have no connection at all to Kabbalah; he does not know what Kabbalah is, he does not know his right from his left. There was once a very great story with the holy Gaon who lived about 70 years ago, Mori Chaim Sinwani, one of the greatest of the true Kabbalists, a rabbi who was the last one, who was the teacher of Rav Mordechai Sharabi.

26:23 He was something very, very, very great. Many have heard of him, a rabbi who was expert and great in Kabbalah, but he was very, very simple. But there was something tremendous in him. Everyone has surely heard of him; we see that he was the Arizal of his generation, and he saw all the upper worlds the way people see the paths, and the heavens - like Shmuel: 'The paths of heaven are as clear to me as the paths of Nehardea.' But the thing - I will explain to you a very, very nice thing, so that you understand - what happened was a lighthearted matter, yes?

26:52 There was someone in his beis midrash who prayed with kavanos, and he goes like this with the siddur. So when Rav Mordechai Sharabi came to him, his disciple, he said to him, 'Mori, Rebbe, how is he already praying with kavanos so fast? Already? He hasn't finished this yet and already he's like this?'

27:17 So he said to him, 'He is only turning pages.' Do you understand? He is only turning pages; he is not really praying, he is turning pages, he is not really doing the kavanah, truly. That is, the true kavanah is revealed to the tzaddikim without their needing to reach for it. That is, this is also the view of the holy Ramchal. The Ramchal had many new insights.

27:42 He also says that the more a person reviews the Torah, he will merit to see the form, the letters standing out, until it is revealed to the eyes of his mind. He will literally see this revelation. A person reaches this only when he truly, truly, truly clears the desires out of his heart, when he refines his will. When the will is clean, clean, clean - it is like the liver, the liver in the body, which filters the blood; for these are a person's vital organs: the brain and the heart, the liver.

28:14 The will is like the liver, it is connected to all the blood, it is like the boiling of the blood, and also corresponds to the Name [unclear]; that is, I will explain - corresponding to Malchus, why the secret of 'Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh' - so remind me of it, and I will explain to you what the secret was, that they were taken out of Egypt. And this is connected exactly to the liver too, and to the murky blood. Which is what our master the Arizal says: that in the 'back' form it is 'dam', blood - alef, alef, kaf, yud, so it comes out to the gematria of 'dam', blood, corresponding to the first plague that the Egyptians in fact received in Egypt; the Holy One, blessed be He, came to hint to the Jewish people the beginning of the redemption.

28:52 That is: 'You are now in exile, but I desire to redeem you. And in order for Me to redeem you, you need to refine your will.' The will corresponds to the liver. When a person is clean, clean, clean, his will is clean, clean, he has no - nothing in his will that could contradict and oppose the will of Hashem. The moment the will is clean and you are nullified to His will, blessed be He, there is a very great possibility that a person will merit to reach the lofty levels of the revelation of Eliyahu and Divine inspiration, levels and attainments, and all the stories we see about the levels of the tzaddikim, who saw from one end of the world to the other. Many people know the story of the holy Gaon, the Chozeh of Lublin,

29:39 who put a band over his eyes for seven years and went blind; he did not see anything. There was one who did as he did, and he also went blind. And he does not see anything. After seven years he [unclear] and came to the holy Chozeh and said to him, 'So many years I toiled, until such a danger came upon me, and I do not see anything from one end of the world.' So the holy Chozeh said to him, 'Fool! I put the covering on in order not to see this world. You put the covering on in order to see this world.

30:06 That is why you see nothing.' That is, this is called the high Kabbalah, the cleanest Kabbalah: when a person learns with his cleanness, the Torah, for the sake of a very pure and refined will, in order to learn the inner part of the Torah. And there must be no false gestures or false charm, or all kinds of gestures and things and all kinds of... one needs a separation, complete and absolute, from every physical gesture.

30:38 Just as the upper worlds are not up there - they are here. The tzaddikim who would experience levels and worlds did not need to close their eyes and [unclear] some world that is located where the stars are - the upper worlds are not where the stars are. It is foolishness to say that. The upper worlds, the levels, are here, right where the person is; there the upper worlds are. So how does this really show itself?

31:04 It is simply because of a person's materiality and his [unclear], because of his will, that he wants what he wants; he does not truly want the upper will of Hashem, blessed be He, so in fact he can never reveal and draw down Hashem - the revelation of Hashem. Therefore we see that all these holy men I mentioned - we see that they have many new insights in the teaching of [unclear].

31:31 And where did they get these new insights from? Because of the refinement of their will, that they managed to reach the highest level, and there, in fact, all the kavanos and yichudim were revealed to them, and everything that could possibly be accomplished in the world, they knew how to do it. And they attained revelation from the mouth of Eliyahu. The Ramak, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, writes in [unclear] that there are three aspects in the revelation of Eliyahu.

31:58 There is one, when Eliyahu the Prophet comes in thought: he is revealed to a person in thought, he is revealed to you, he speaks with you inside your thought, inside the mind. This is a very high level, but still, it is called lesser; it is not truly the highest level, it is a lesser level, but it is a very tremendous level - it is like a maggid, he speaks with you inside the thought; this is the aspect of the revelation of Eliyahu. There is a level even higher than this, he explains: that Eliyahu the Prophet is revealed to you as if in the form of a poor man.

32:28 He comes as a poor man, he comes as a merchant, he comes as a mighty man on some horse, as we found with many holy men, in the stories about them, that one was in need at some place and he came to him. And there is the greatest and loftiest level, when Eliyahu the Prophet comes with a belt on his loins, a hairy man, by his signs, as in the time of the prophets. They see him, exactly, coming like this.

32:56 Melachim II, chapter 17. There the story of Eliyahu the Prophet begins [unclear]; suddenly he appears, from no place. We do not know where Eliyahu came from, where he begins; he starts coming to Achav, starts rebuking him, and all the stories there begin. Where - where did he come from, where is he from, from which tribe, who is he? There is a great new insight from one of the greatest Kabbalists; it is a wonder. I didn't want - I didn't find this anywhere, this new insight that he writes, and check it, ask.

33:25 He says: who really is Eliyahu the Prophet, may he be remembered for good? He writes that it is Chanoch ben Yered - it is Metat. No one wrote such a thing. This is written by the author of Ahavas Yosef, one of the Kabbalists and sages of Yemen, who was one of the greatest sages; he says, he writes that this is it - it is a thing no one else writes. - Pinchas? - How? What do you mean?

33:54 Yes, that is known, yes - Pinchas is Eliyahu, yes. I don't mean that, but I mean that he says something else. He says that Metat, Chanoch - for in order to understand where he came from, where he is from: he says, 'Chanoch was not, for G-d took him,' right? So he learns here that He took him, and from here, suddenly Eliyahu appears; so he says that this is it, that is what he says. He says that this is it; he really seals it with certainty that this is it, and it is a wonder, a very great one, that it is Metat; that is, that Eliyahu the Prophet, may he be remembered for good - that is what he says. It is an opinion, but there are many contradictions in it, for if we say this,

34:27 we will contradict all kinds of things; but it remains in need of study, a great deal. Is it a sound line of reasoning? And there is already something here that requires great study, truly, truly one could think this; but from here you see that Eliyahu the Prophet, may he be remembered for good, is not a legend, and not - it is something that exists; and Eliyahu the Prophet, may he be remembered for good, taught Torah to our master the Ari, and he truly received Torah from him, heard from his mouth, learned from him.

34:54 Rabbi Chaim Vital writes this, that he received from his mouth, and he knew about me everything I would think, and everything a person would think, and everything he would do, everything in his heart to do, and whom he would marry, and where he would pass. All this he attained - Divine inspiration. These are the loftiest levels and things. And how did they merit this? And this was the true wisdom of Kabbalah. For he began to understand yichudim and combinations and Names, and the greater and loftier the thing, then one can attain. Sometimes it is combinations of Names, holy Names that rise, and a person can calculate with them.

35:27 And yichudim is already when a person begins to unify letters, begins to include each letter in its world, and he rises and is elevated and climbs until he feels his NaRaNChaY, the part of the nefesh and the ruach that rise and are rectified and rise in the worlds. These are levels very, very, very great; but to truly attain this, it requires coming to the learning of true Kabbalah, which also depends on cleanness, which is the complete refinement of the will, that we purify our will; so we will also be able to attain the true inner part of this revelation of Hashem, so that we are not misled from Heaven.

36:06 For if a person learns the inner part of the Torah and does not come with a truly clean will to the upper will, which is truly Hashem's will, asking from the mouth of true sages and tzaddikim, and he merits a truly true, complete and rectified will - he can reach the chambers of the Temuros and err completely, Heaven forbid, and go from bad to worse, or, Heaven forbid, [unclear] Kabbalah. Therefore, the true inner part of the Torah, as the Or Ne'erav explained in part 2, chapter 2, is in order to bring this wisdom, this knowledge, this known wisdom that we learn, to love and awe.

36:41 That is, one must come to cleaving, and love and awe of Hashem, blessed be He, to reach a level where I am in love with Hashem, blessed be He. They say that the holy Baal Shem Tov would cry and cry at the time of his prayer; our master the Ari [unclear] - his whole place was tears when he prayed. Whoever opens the siddur of our master the Ari, or whoever opens the siddur of kavanos of the Rashash, and does not understand - it is intellectual, it is hard enough to understand what is there; how can one still cry from it?

37:09 So how did they attain this? It is as I explained. This is the highest level, beyond what we read. And for this, Hashem said to Moshe, 'Write this as a memorial in a book.' But the continuation is, 'and place it in the ears of Yehoshua.' To understand what is written in the book, one must learn it from the mouth of a true sage who learned, from the mouth of one who learned, back to one who received from the mouth of Eliyahu, in order to merit to truly attain the cleanness and the completeness of the will, in order to cleave to the Holy One, blessed be He.

37:39 Whoever thinks he can understand the will of Hashem and know what Hashem's will is - we are all here in a world that is full of desires. And the desires, in fact - 'Ra'ava d'Ra'avin', the Will of Wills, is the passing of Moshe Rabbeinu, the will within the wills. We want, but our desires are very, very murky, like the liver, which has a lot of waste, and a lot of dirt, and a lot of fat. And the cleaner the liver, the cleaner the blood in the body.

38:06 The purer and cleaner a person's will is, so too his heart and his thoughts, and the influences he receives, and the intellect with which he understands, and the intention he intends, are cleaner, so that he reaches Heaven. And when we find about the holy ones, about the holy ones, how they did this, like with Chanamel ben Shalum, who said a Name there, then, in their time, in chapter [unclear] of Yirmiyahu, what Name he said, and what he intended, and what he unified, and how he did it.

38:34 Then we understand that this truly was not from some book or siddur of kavanos that he intended. He simply had a very, very pure and clean will, that when one reaches this level, through this the light of Hashem is revealed. And therefore it is not simply 'when will Mashiach come' - when Malchus rises to the Keser of Zeir Anpin. Only when Malchus is united in the Keser will there be a revelation of very, very great mercy, of the Name Ehyeh.

39:01 Therefore it is said, 'Ehyeh asher Ehyeh'. When the Holy One, blessed be He, was revealed to Moshe Rabbeinu in the burning bush, the Jewish people were in the hardest situation there is. To redeem them we have three holy Names, unification, blessing, holiness. There is the Name Havayah, the Name Adnus, and the Name Ehyeh. And the Name Ehyeh is corresponding to the Keser. 'And the children of Israel go out with a high hand' - Onkelos translated: 'And the children of Israel go out b'reish gelei, with head uncovered.'

39:27 'And the children of Israel go out b'reish gelei' - the meaning is, the Jewish people would go out when there would be a revelation of the head, of the Keser, a revelation of the Name Ehyeh, a revelation of the mercy, that it would flow and come down below. When there would be a revelation of the mercy, then the Jewish people would go out. Now there is no revelation of the mercy - the Jewish people cannot go out. And then Moshe Rabbeinu receives a revelation in the burning bush, and he asks about the Name of Hashem; he tries to understand who and what He is, and He says to him, 'Ehyeh asher Ehyeh'.

39:56 'Ehyeh asher' - 'asher' has the letters of 'rosh', head, it is corresponding to the head and corresponding to the Keser, and 'the children of Israel go out b'reish gelei, with head uncovered'. Now there is a revelation of the Keser. Moshe Rabbeinu understands that Malchus is about to rise. There is about to be a unification, the greatest and most exalted thing in the world is about to happen, there is about to be a revelation of the Shechinah. The Jewish people are about to go out of Egypt. Therefore it is written, 'And with great awe' - this is the revelation of the Shechinah.

40:21 There was great awe at the burning bush, but there was a revelation of the Shechinah; the Jewish people go out of Egypt. And the Exodus from Egypt is the greatest and most exalted thing, that the Holy One, blessed be He, overturned nature and turned nature into something that, as it were, does not exist. There was one of the greatest tzaddikim to whom they said from Heaven: 'Everything your heart desires to do in the world, do.' Everything you want to do.

40:47 He did wonders and miracles and marvels more than all the tzaddikim we have heard of. A Rebbe - I don't know how many know of him, but he is one who simply did signs and wonders - the stories of the Baal Shem Tov and the stories that are told of overturning nature - he did immeasurably more than all of them. That was Rabbi Shalom Shabazi. Rabbi Shalom Shabazi, son of Rabbi Yosef - he was the teacher and master of Rabbi Yitzchak, and Rabbi Yitzchak was the father of our master, the holy Rashash.

41:23 Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, the holy Rashash, he passed away - he was born on the day that Rabbi Shalom Shabazi passed away. When the funeral of Rabbi Shalom Shabazi was on Erev Shabbos - it was on Friday - it was already almost two hours before Shabbos, and they did not know whether to bury him or not; they wanted to wait. A great crowd of people had come - this was the great one of the generation - and they saw the sun simply...

41:48 they wanted to go to receive Shabbos, they saw the sun simply going backward because of the honor of Rabbi Shalom. So they say; the holy Rashash, Rabbi Shalom Sharabi, testified to this himself, what his father told him, what they told him; they are the ones who wrote and testified to this. He writes about him - Rabbi [unclear] says - this is how he writes about him: he was the soul of King David, of King Chizkiyahu, the Faithful Shepherd and King David.

42:15 So he writes about him, that it was he. There were many stories with him, things he turned around for people, those wicked ones who were there, the king. He was a boy of fifteen; he saw everyone crying, he saw a decree against the Jewish people. He simply went to the king and said to him: annul the decree upon the Jews. He did not agree, and he turned his back to the king. The king said - when the king saw him, a boy of fifteen, he said, 'Here, the first Jew has come to convert to Islam.'

42:44 So Rabbi Shalom said to him, 'Tear up the decree and save the Jews. Do not touch the Jews.' He had made a decree that he wants to destroy the Jews, from their communities, and to wipe them out, to carry out pogroms against them. And he said exactly like this: to annul it. He wanted big taxes; if they would not pay him, he would do [unclear] to them. And so it was, and Rabbi Shalom stood against the king and said, with the Name: ten, with the Name ten, five, six, five - that is what he said.

43:14 The king did not understand what he was saying; he turned around, turned his back to him, and then the king said, 'Now you are liable to death.' 'You turned your back on me, you are liable...' What courage, to turn your back on a king - they had there such a king, such an Arab king, frightening, of those terrible criminals there are - he turned his back to him out of his trust; he was so attached to the Name. They say that he came down to the world with a note, so they say: 'Everything your heart wants to do in this world, do.'

43:40 Everything he wanted to do, he did - really so. And he sent dogs at him; the king sent dogs at him. As soon as they reached him, Rabbi Shalom said - he did like this with his hands - they turned into [unclear]. As you have surely heard in stories like these - how did they do this? This is exactly what I explained before. It is through the cleanness of the will. That is to say, the will is so, so pure that there is no mixture in a person's will with another will that is opposed to the will of Hashem; the will is clean, it is not mixed of good and evil from the kelipas nogah, which is 'a scoundrel with the Torah's permission'.

44:20 The kelipas nogah is 'a scoundrel with the Torah's permission'. When a person does something forbidden, that is the three impure kelipos; this is 'her feet go down to death', this is the ten crowns of impurity, this is all the kelipos, this is all the impurity, this is the place where the bad thing is. But when a person is the opposite - a person is permitted to eat, and he eats kosher, but he eats too much, without a break, without a break, sleeps without measure, does not pray, neglects prayers - and he does not do anything forbidden; I cannot say that he commits a sin.

44:50 But on one side he is called 'a scoundrel with the Torah's permission'. This is called kelipas nogah. This is nursing from nogah. About the kelipas nogah, this is [unclear]. On one side he does not do anything forbidden. On the other side, though, he also does not do a good deed. So the very picture and reality he is in - he nurses from the nogah. And the more a person lives like this, then he really has a portion and a place on the side of the nogah.

45:14 And he is mixed, good and evil. And his Torah is good and evil. And his nourishment is good and evil. And he is confused, and he teaches confused Torah. And they do not understand what they know, and so such Torah multiplies across the world. And people no longer distinguish between good and evil, because they are all mixed in nogah, they all have nourishment from the nogah, and then it is also impossible to distinguish between this tzaddik and that tzaddik. They think all the tzaddikim are the same thing, and all the...

45:39 until there is such a mixture and falsehood, and everyone thinks they know what the truth is, and they decide to make a path, and the redemption gets longer and longer and longer. The true redemption will come only when they listen to those who fear Hashem completely, whose will is pure and refined, refined according to His will, blessed be He, for there is the light of Hashem, and only through this can the redemption come, and also through this they will be able to attain perceptions and levels without measure.

46:08 So may it be His will that we merit this pure and refined will, so that we merit to reach the great and exalted levels, which in practice will be what the Jewish people's going out of Egypt was. Therefore notice that Hashem, blessed be He, said to Moshe Rabbeinu at the bush, He said to him, 'Ehyeh asher Ehyeh'. Why is the word 'Ehyeh' doubled? One 'Ehyeh' is corresponding to the exile, the first one, when the Jewish people went out of Egypt, but the last 'Ehyeh' is corresponding to the last exile.

46:42 That is to say, in the merit, 'and with great mercy I will gather you'. This mercy is corresponding to the last Name Ehyeh that is said in the word Ehyeh, 'Ehyeh asher Ehyeh'. And therefore with this mercy, corresponding to the Keser, that it will flow into the world, and people will stop nursing from the nogah. After all, what happens when one makes a mixture of good and evil, what is called 'from the nogah'? People receive their life-force from there. And when they receive life-force from the nogah, it is impossible to receive the mercy of Hashem; it comes down to a place where there are no vessels.

47:14 The moment a person stops the mixture of good and evil, he stops being 'a scoundrel with the Torah's permission', he serves Hashem truly, he cleans himself truly, he understands that he [unclear] before a great King, high and exalted, and he pictures himself, he understands that he is touching the King's garments, [unclear] of His Torah, then he builds the vessels. And then, when the mercy of Hashem comes down - if he were in nogah, then the mercy would go [unclear].

47:41 But if he thinks that he is not in nogah, and the Jewish people have gone out of this nogah, then in practice, through this, the light of Hashem, blessed be He, is awakened; this mercy illuminates Malchus. And then Malchus begins to shake herself off from her dust, like on Erev Shabbos. Every Erev Shabbos, when the holy Shabbos arrives, the hidden light is revealed. The rectification of the sin of the first man comes, and then in practice it is called true teshuvah, because all the people receive the knowledge.

48:07 Therefore it is called Shabbos. Shabbos is from the word 'shabta', from the sense that everything returns to the beginning of creation. We return all of creation to begin to be rectified and connected from its beginning. If until now we were in exile, when Shabbos arrives there is no more exile, there is nothing; everything reaches the level of tikkun, everything reaches perfection and tikkun. Therefore they say teshuvah: teshuvah - 'tashuv hei', the hei returns to its place, 'tashuv hei tata'ah', the lower hei returns to its root, to the unification of the Name of the Holy One, blessed be He.

48:40 And therefore Hashem, blessed be He, said to Moshe, 'Ehyeh asher Ehyeh has sent me to you'. That is to say, Moshe Rabbeinu, you must return Malchus to her place, the hei, the Shechinah in her exile, the hei, the Shechinah in her exile - and that the Jewish people do teshuvah. And clean and true - they need to be true. Most important is to teach the Torah in truth, and to tell the world the truth, and to speak with people from the point of truth.

49:08 And this is what is called the whole wisdom of the hidden, which in practice touches the heart in order to come closer to Hashem, blessed be He. And through this, not only will we merit all the blessings and the abundance and closeness to Hashem, but we will also merit the revelation of His kingship, and we will also merit the redemption. It may even be that there will be some along the way who will also merit to see Eliyahu, with Hashem's help. May it be His will that there be good tidings for all of us, and that we merit to truly learn this path, the inner dimension, with Hashem's help, the inner dimension of the Torah.

49:41 - Honored Rav, to what extent should this Torah be spread to the public? Here in the room there are rabbis who together, every week, reach hundreds of thousands of views, and videos around the world in English. To what extent should the Torah of the hidden be taught outside, to the public? - Look. Or just show the Torah of truth, so that they connect to the truth; show the cleanness in it.

50:09 Exactly. If we teach the truth - after all, look, when you teach someone something that he does not understand, you have not taught him anything. In Tractate Avodah Zarah, page 19, the Gemara says: 'A person should always learn, even if he does not know what he is saying,' 'as it says: My soul is crushed with longing (garsah).' Learn, learn Torah; even if you do not understand, go over it, but this aim is in order to advance in my learning.

50:35 It is not so that I will not understand, it is so that I advance. If you did not understand now, you will understand afterward. When we deliver a message to the Jewish people, it is very important to deliver to them a true message that they will understand. You know, one of the great and hidden books of Kabbalah, which is among the greatest there are in the wisdom of Kabbalah, that I would say, what... the greatest, what... the greatest in Kabbalah, is the book Sippurei Maasios of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov.

51:05 The book Sippurei Maasios of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov hides within it the whole wisdom of Kabbalah. It is a very lofty and awesome book of Kabbalah. And I will tell you something. Yes, it is a book of Kabbalah in every respect. The book itself is a book of Kabbalah. The stories are simple. You need to understand the story. Inside the story that you understand are built and woven tikkunim and worlds and kavanos and yichudim that he made.

51:37 And when you understand the story - I clothe it for you inside a story. If I want to give you some explanation, I give you a parable and its meaning. You understood my parable - the meaning you have already understood. The understanding has been accomplished. That is to say, in order to learn the wisdom of Kabbalah and to teach the wisdom of Kabbalah, one should understand its simplicity, its truth, and what its aim is. That is Kabbalah. A story of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, simply, is learning Kabbalah in every respect.

52:05 If the one you teach - it is story one, the story of the Lost Princess, or the story of a King and an Emperor, or the story of the king's son and the maidservant's son who were switched - it is about all the souls and about this generation, that we are truly the king's children, but the maidservant's children - all kinds of stories, they understand a simple story. Within them, the yichudim and his revelation were made. There is in Torah 30 - in Likutei Moharan part one, in Torah 30 - there it is written, 'A bed of knives - with what does one cut it?'

52:35 There he brings the Gemara: 'A bed of knives - with what does one cut it? With the horn of a donkey.' How does one uproot a bed of knives? 'With the horn of a donkey.' 'And does a donkey have a horn?' 'Is there a bed of knives?' Can there be a bed of knives at all? It is like - these are words, things that we do not understand. We do not understand this, but surely it is as if - like 'build us a house in the air of the world', build a house in the middle of the world. These are things that are nonsense, that cannot be. A little to understand of the wisdom of the elders of Athens, but but there are some very great secrets standing behind this.

53:05 That is to say, the things are very simple. All the stories of Rabbah bar bar Chanah, on which Rebbe Nachman gave an explanation - there is also the explanation of Rabbi Eliyahu Guttmacher, the tzaddik of Graiditz, the Gaon, author of 'HaKen HaMeforeshes' on Tractate Kinnim; he also has an explanation on Rabbah bar bar Chanah. There is the explanation of the Gra on Rabbah bar bar Chanah. Each one gave an explanation on the stories of Rabbah bar bar Chanah, and Rebbe Nachman gave an explanation on this, but take an explanation that you can explain to someone.

53:33 If he does not understand what you explained to him, he will not understand anything. That is to say, all this learning in practice is supposed to be a message, so that the other side understands, so that in the end whoever understands these things will be able to take vessels with him, as the Ramban said: 'When you rise from the book, search in what you learned, whether there is something in it that you can fulfill.' The main thing is cleanness. You, baruch Hashem, are rabbis, you teach, you know what cleanness is, because you, baruch Hashem, are true.

54:00 A true rabbi who teaches Torah - he is true; he decides to dedicate his time, he decides to invest it for his brother who is in exile, and he wants to teach him and to help him - even though I know, but you do not, so I teach you. But you need to teach it to him so that it is clean. The cleaner it comes out of you, without ulterior motives and outward show, that it be clean and simple, so the things will be received in his heart and will act in him and make an impression on him.

54:31 Because our holy Torah, which is the highest and most exalted thing there is, is stories. It begins with a story about the first man, it is the story of Noach, and whoever reads it says, what, this - this is the creation of the world? These are the highest things? These are the highest things. If you think these are just tales, you [unclear]. You need to understand that these are secrets, and these are heaps upon heaps of laws, and the whole Torah.

54:56 But the Torah is simple: it is white parchment with black letters. That's it - there are no vowel points, no cantillation marks, nothing. It is all writing. And you need to understand and know that this created the world. The simplicity: that Hashem, blessed be He, created this great world that we see here - but it is simple. Materials, everything - it is simple. Hashem, blessed be He, created a wondrous world, but Hashem, blessed be He, conducts Himself with simplicity with the Jewish people.

55:28 The Torah - one needs to see it in simplicity. To explain: 'Moshe began to explain the Torah.' The moment you take the Torah to a place that is complicated... Thank Hashem, I - the students with me, that we write, what I write, thank Hashem, and teach my writings, and my students - I always explain to them to explain as much as possible all the things that I say.

55:52 I also always try to explain everything, to explain the things as simply as possible, so that the things will go and reach the very, very, very farthest place that can be understood. The moment you leave the things closed and sealed, then you did not understand and you did not explain. So if you did not explain, then you also did not understand. And if you did not understand, then you did not learn; and if you did not learn, then you did not teach, and in effect the things will not be revealed in the world.

56:20 So there are all the kinds of wisdom there are today, where people try only to show: 'Look what I know, and see how much you don't know.' These are not called teachers of Kabbalah, and it is not called learning Kabbalah. True learning of Kabbalah is: you learn something like one story, you teach it - it is really Kabbalah; you taught it. It has the status of Kabbalah. But the whole true goal is to teach the things so that they will be of benefit, and so that people will be able to reach their own truth, and they will discover who they are, what they are, and what their abilities are, and what achievements they can reach, and what their tools are to come close to Hashem, and what their abilities are to come close to Hashem, and how each and every one, he too can come close to Hashem, blessed be He.

57:05 And with Hashem's help, perhaps we will build a siddur with kavanos, where we turn everything into kavanos of the plain meaning. We will do it already - we already spoke about it, with Hashem's help. We will work on it, with Hashem's help, without a vow. This too will come. It needs a lot of work and a lot - there are many things in it, but everyone who teaches his own level, they teach. 'And from there you will seek Hashem your G-d, and you will find Him, when you search for Him with all your heart.'

57:37 When you see these things from here - these stories are the greatest. And you know, I said, I once explained, that I asked what was the greatest act in the binding of Yitzchak. What was the greatest test with Avraham Avinu? I once asked students on Shabbos, as we sat like this, and we sat like this, and I heard all kinds of things - I like sometimes to ask so that...

58:03 I like to hear more lines of reasoning. I like to hear more lines of reasoning, more opinions; suddenly I hear wise things, Torah scholars answer very beautiful things, you hear another opinion and another opinion, and you say, what things! And this is a beautiful new insight, and this one says - how beautiful! But I wanted to see if someone would think of my explanation. And I truly explained to them that in Avraham Avinu's binding of Yitzchak there is something that I also searched for in the commentators and many things, that is truly hidden, that they did not address.

58:36 And I wanted you - what would you say? Think about it. And I will also explain to you how it connects to Kabbalah, to the inner dimension of the Torah. Avraham Avinu is in a period when everyone knows who Avraham is; he was a king in the world, he had the status of a king, he went everywhere, everyone knew him, a great, respected man, and Sarah - great, respected people.

59:04 And Avraham Avinu and Sarah need children, and they have no children, and then he prays, and Hashem, blessed be He, answers him, and Yitzchak is born to him, and so on, and so on, and so on. And then Hashem, blessed be He, comes, after Avraham Avinu has already made it known to three quarters of the world and teaches them the seven mitzvos of the children of Noach. You find in Sanhedrin, page 56, a prohibition both on 'You shall not murder' and also [unclear], and he teaches them forbidden relations, all the things that are forbidden, the seven mitzvos of the children of Noach - for them too it is forbidden; one must teach [unclear] about this.

59:34 But Avraham Avinu stands in a test where he says to himself: after I taught all these students that it is forbidden to murder, how will they look at me, that I am taking my only son and I am about to go to bind him and to offer him up as a burnt offering, and perhaps I will lose all these students and all my influence on the whole world.

1:00:00 Because I am now going to do a thing that - what will they say? How will they interpret it, that I am taking my only son, and what will they say? 'Why, you warned us that it is forbidden to do this.' 'So now you take your wood, and everyone will say that Avraham slaughtered Yitzchak?' Everyone will find this out. So what will I say? So he thought to himself a moment - there also won't be... So what will I say to them? This is another test within the test, that Avraham Avinu said.

1:00:26 What will be left for you, to teach people? Who will remain with him to be his student at all, of Avraham Avinu? After he did such a deed. 'After he taught us, he did the opposite of everything he taught us.' But Hashem, blessed be He, revealed Himself to me - but what will I do? Hashem, blessed be He, revealed Himself to me; on the other hand, nobody knows that He revealed Himself to me - so how do I deal with this? This was the test of Avraham Avinu. But Avraham Avinu kept this as a secret before Hashem.

1:00:51 And he knew: I don't care about anything in the world. If this is Hashem's will, I will do Hashem's will all the way to the end, and I don't care what the world will say. And this is what Avraham Avinu did, and this is what brought Avraham Avinu to greatness. And in the end it is written, 'And the two of them went together.' After Avraham Avinu understood: I don't care what will become of me - and therefore it is said of Avraham Avinu, 'Avraham was one.' He said to himself: even if I remain one, alone in the world, I will continue to serve Hashem, blessed be He, and I don't care about anything the world will say about me.

1:01:23 So, in order to come close to Hashem and truly understand the inner and higher world, above what we see in this world, and this wisdom, which is a holy wisdom, hidden, true and pure - one needs to be 'Avraham was one,' to disconnect from all the people of the world, from all the thoughts of the world, and to climb to another place.

1:01:47 And then one succeeds in reaching the insight of our forefathers, and seeing everything that we can, only by contemplating this world. That's it. This is the answer to your question, honored sir. Do you want a little music? In music too, for example, I will explain to you something more: we see that one can hear it, that there is Chesed, Gevurah, Tiferes, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, Malchus.

1:02:17 We can see, in effect, that we have chassadim in sounds. Pay attention - for example, this is chassadim, pleasant, and there is more gevuros. In a niggun too, if you hear a niggun, you can identify from which side it is drawn - whether more from the side of the gevuros or whether more from the side of the chassadim, whether it is Tiferes, that they play a little in the middle?

1:02:56 The more pleasant the things are, more of chassadim, that the niggun stirs a person to [unclear], each time there is a certain time, and it is drawn from the side of some sefirah. This is the light of Hashem, blessed be He, which He decided to shine into the world; and so that we, the created beings, will understand it, it is revealed each time in a certain measure, like colors. The color red is more some kind of gevuros, compared with white, which is more chassadim and brings calm to people.

1:03:21 This is an illumination that Hashem, blessed be He, shines into the world. And music, in effect, is the only thing that remained pure from the sin of Adam, the first man. The only one - everything remained spoiled. This is the reason that created beings love music. And note that at the feast of Achashverosh there was everything, he gave them everything, but there was no niggun at the feast of Achashverosh.

1:03:47 Why? Rabbi Yaakov Culi writes in his book Me'am Lo'ez, he says: Achashverosh knew that at the moment the Jewish people would hear the music, their heart would return to their G-d, they would do teshuvah, and immediately they would be redeemed. [unclear] That is to say, the Holy One, blessed be He, saw - Achashverosh knew this - that the Jewish people would hear the music. Music is a very important thing. Quite apart from this, I very much love to play, and I also want a little music so that people will have an awakening to teshuvah like this, and come close to Hashem, and there will be purity; it opens the heart, and brings close to Hashem, blessed be He.

1:04:27 Let us do a few niggunim. Do you have a preference for some niggun? A preference for another niggun? Which niggun?

1:12:32 - The Rav's niggun. - My niggun? - Yes. The Rav will tell us a little about how he got into music. We can't hear. [unclear] - I will tell you a story. I will tell you more of a story. Just - a niggun is 'words that come from the heart', that enter into them. True. First of all, I learned to play - it was when I was in a place, I heard someone playing on a [unclear], I really had a longing, I was about 15, something like that - maybe not, a bit 16, something more, sixteen and a half.

1:13:15 And I heard someone playing, and there was some kind of awakening like this; I heard him from the window, he was playing, and I was walking like this in the street, I heard someone playing. It was about 12 at night, someone; I said to Hashem: 'I want to play before You, Master of the world; let me learn, let me succeed,' and so on - just like that, it suddenly simply entered me, I just passed by, I heard someone playing, and then I decided that I want to play. And then, with the help of Heaven, they brought me a simple organ, really it was a small [unclear] like this, it did not have many things in it.

1:13:50 And I tried to think, to think a lot, a lot about the organ. And alone, without a teacher, I started to look at the keys, I said: in everything there is logic; I must understand what is going on here. I tried pressing here, here, here, here. After three hours I managed to do some little something. And after a few more hours I [unclear] on it a little, because it took me some few hours. And then, over a few days, I started to move my hands a bit better, better, some time passed, and slowly, slowly I play - I am still bad, I don't know how to play well, but from prayer.

1:14:26 I say that I know how to play today - it is only from prayer, without a teacher, without anything. I only prayed. Hashem, for everything. It is written in the Yerushalmi, in chapter 9, halachah [unclear], Berachos. The Yerushalmi says: when a person has trouble, he should not cry out to Michael, nor to Gavriel, nor [unclear], but to Me he should cry out, and I answer him immediately. You have a problem, you have trouble - cry out to the Holy One, blessed be He, pray to Hashem, and the Holy One, blessed be He, answers. 'And to atone for the children of Israel' - with song; this is the Yerushalmi, Pesachim chapter 4, that the song of the Levites would arouse the Jewish people to teshuvah.

1:14:57 The Jewish people, hearing the song of the Levites, would cause everyone - to atone for all the children of Israel; there would be atonement for all the Jewish people; through the song of the Levites there was atonement for all the Jewish people, from the teshuvah. Music is a very, very, very important thing. And there was a story with Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz. Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz was in a time - and you know, it was in a very, very, very, the hardest time there is. Between the period of the Baal Shem Tov, the Sabbateanism, they were very afraid of the Sabbateanism, this - Chassidus began, this was another kind of frightening light, and they did not know what to do, and the period was very, very confused, and Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz was a very wise man.

1:15:37 In the time of Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz there was a certain man who was a great wonder-worker, and they said ruach hakodesh, and Torah, and all kinds of stories. And they did not really know - he did not speak from the Baal Shem Tov, and he was not from the Litvaks, and he was not from the Chassidim. They said: who is he, as it were? He is not from the Chassidim, he is not from the Litvaks. What line is he? Where does he receive from? What is his way? So Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz - they said to him: how will we know?

1:16:04 Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz said: there is only one thing by which you will be able to know. He said: take a violin and stand next to him. If you play the violin and he hears you, and enjoys hearing you, know that he is holy. So he told them. And if he pushes this violin away from you, know that he is impure, impure. Because the sitra achra cannot bear music.

1:16:32 It cannot bear music. Pay attention why. Or in the Three Weeks, Bein HaMetzarim, on Tishah B'Av music is forbidden. Why? Because these are days when the outside forces take hold. The outside forces - therefore music is forbidden on these days. Music is forbidden. [unclear] the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash it is forbidden to play. Because these are days of... Why do we not wash hands on Tishah B'Av? With the afflictions, [unclear] Yom Kippur. But Tishah B'Av - what is this, what is this matter of affliction?

1:16:57 Rather, because also on these days, this day, the main rule of the outside forces is on this day, and therefore they say: since they rule on this day, washing hands will not help. So this is the reason that washing hands also does not help, because this is the rule of [unclear]. On this day, also all this time, music is forbidden, because this is their time; they cannot bear music. [unclear] the opposite - uh - holiness. So he said to them: if you put a violin next to him and he loves the violin, know that he is holy. He said to them, and if he knows how to play, he is holy to Hashem.

1:17:28 If there is music in him, know - not only that he is true, he is holy to Hashem. So therefore, in Nadvorna, with Rabbi Mordechai of Nadvorna and [unclear], because of this story there were many who learned the violin. They learned the violin; they wanted to play the violin. Whether they were great musicians, I don't know, but they learned the violin. They learned in order to play, you understand? That I already don't know - it is each one and his own expertise.

1:17:54 But it is written that they engaged in this music; it is a very good thing. I think music is a very... Yes, their wisdom of niggun is something very great, yes. They have wisdom in niggun, something very, very special. There is also a certain non-Jew who is very great, whom I now, there is with him something special like this in the music that I do.

1:18:22 He heard about me, and he wants to do something with me. I learn from him; he also wants to learn from me something that I did. We receive from one another - only the music, nothing more than that. We will take it from them, the wisdom, and transform it among us. And they truly have something that is, truly - they have the wisdom of music at a very high level. Music is, the Vilna Gaon says that it is one of the seven kinds of wisdom.

1:18:50 He writes that to attain the wisdom of the Torah without the wisdom of music is not possible - so he writes. That is to say, if we could attain the wisdom of music in perfection, we could understand the Torah in perfection. That is to say, music is a very, very important thing. Now, the intention is not that a person should start learning to play and so on - that is a waste of time, it is neglect of Torah study, and it is also tiring and discouraging. It takes a lot of time. People say: listen to a ready-made niggun already, and enjoy. What difference does it make who plays them?

1:19:18 Now, until you play more - simply move ahead, work from this. I think that also what the Holy One, blessed be He, gave me, to play, is so that people will enjoy it, and they will have sweetness, and come close to Hashem. It is, once again, for the Jewish people; I don't play just because it is for fun. I play - I say, there will be another awakening to teshuvah, another someone who will feel good in his heart, something more - I play.

1:19:43 And usually I play after receiving the public, when I meet many Jews and I hear all the things, all the cases, then the organ is, the piano receives me, as they say, because there is no one to talk to afterwards; you cannot tell people what you heard. I hear cases that are very, very - things that really break the heart, really; you cannot explain to anyone what it is, but it is really hard; I have no way to explain this difficulty; there are times it is like choking, you say, wow, it is so painful, so painful, really, pray that Hashem will have mercy, and thank Hashem, Hashem has mercy, you really see the hand of Hashem, Hashem, blessed be He, is with us, He does not abandon the Jewish people, and the piano really lets you let it out, and a niggun comes out of it.

1:20:34 And so all my niggunim, in effect, I called by names of Torah. As it were, names of hope; one I called 'There Is Hope', one 'Hope to Hashem', one 'Be Strong in Your Deeds', 'Believe and Prevail', one - that is what I called them. Names that will signify meaning to people. Not just any name like that - so that there will always be only hope for people. - Do you think so also during the prayer? - What do you mean?

1:20:59 - What I mean: there are sometimes minyanim where people bring out a guitar and play in the middle of the prayer itself. It arouses the congregation, as if they think about the words more and... - Look, I say today: if there are people who in their synagogue are accustomed to do this - look, it is not so similar to what was in the time of Maran the Chasam Sofer and the Bayis Chadash and so on, that they wrote a responsum about it, where they used to set up all kinds of instruments.

1:21:32 Yes, among the non-Jews. Yes, this is the responsum of the Bach; we have what he writes. But this is very different, because they used to do it with the clergy, with the priest, and they would play their tunes, and it was with a kind of organ, a certain kind of instrument that is in their [unclear], that they set it up and play it. This is very different from the instruments we have today, guitars, pianos, organs, things that people use.

1:22:00 True, true, true, true. There are simply several approaches in the Shiltei HaGiborim, and according to, as it were, several opinions - after all, what was it? After all, each one [unclear] - a flute, or 'chemas chalilim' is a kind of drum, or there are all kinds of opinions; and in the commentators there are many contradictions between the instruments, what each kind of instrument was; sometimes it changed, whether truly the same instruments, or the magrefah that was in the Beis HaMikdash is the same; maybe it is a nevel, maybe it is a kind of kanun.

1:22:34 How? How many strings were there on the... [unclear]. They say that it is the harp of David, it was [unclear]. King David will attain the eighth, the ninth and the tenth note, because he said, 'With a ten-stringed lyre I will sing to You.' He is the only one; and Mashiach will attain only the eighth note. That is to say, King David will attain two more notes above Mashiach. That is to say, all the melodies there are today are from only seven notes.

1:22:59 Think what it will be if three more are revealed. It will simply be out of this world. The niggunim. So, yes. I will play you niggunim. Yes, yes. All right. This is a niggun I called 'There Is Hope'.

1:27:56 ...very, very much to get to know you, and I wish you, with Hashem's help, all the blessings, with Hashem's help, in Torah, in Scripture, in Mishnah, that will rest upon you and continue to do valiantly, that the Holy One, blessed be He, will watch over you; that you continue to make the Torah great and glorious, and [unclear]. Amen. That you continue to increase the light of Hashem, blessed be He, in all the worlds. Amen. And may the Name of Heaven be made beloved through you. May there be blessing and success for you, each and every one of you. Amen. [unclear], good tidings, salvations, miracles and wonders. Amen. And may we merit, with Hashem's help, the geulah soon. Amen. Fortunate are you, Israel; fortunate are you, Israel. Amen.