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Torah · 8:50

Turning Evil into Good - The Secret of Listening | The Genius Child

3.7K views · Jul 5, 2026

The Yanuka — Rav Shlomo Yehuda

The shiur in English

The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 1,826 words · 8:50. Press a time to hear it said.

0:00 On the holy Shabbos, I said the chiddush of the truth. I told you... maybe I will share it with you briefly. That the Jewish people received the Torah because they said "We will do and we will hear", na'aseh venishma. The Holy One, blessed be He, says that every Jew, everyone who keeps the Torah and the mitzvos - the secret and the root of the Torah and the mitzvos is that a person keeps it without any doubts, without any questions. The whole matter of Amalek is the doubts, to spoil a person's na'aseh venishma.

0:30 It says: "The ear that hears the reproof of life will dwell among the wise." "Hear, my son, the instruction of your father, and do not forsake the teaching of your mother." We must listen to the words of the Sages, listen to the voice of the Torah. The whole Torah is emunah. To believe in the Holy One, blessed be He, to listen to the words - to the word of Hashem, to the Sages, to what the Holy One, blessed be He, teaches us. So we see a very beautiful thing.

0:56 It all begins with the flaw in the na'aseh venishma. When we damaged it over the generations, from that came ruin. But the highest level is not only to nullify the evil; it is to subdue the evil and return the evil to its place. To take the evil and return it to its root, to bring it back in teshuvah, to fix it and raise it up to the root. This is also much of what the holy Ramchal explains. The teaching of the Ramchal, also our holy Rebbe, Rabbi Nachman, and Rabbi Nosson, the tzaddikim - there were tzaddikim who spoke of the matter of nullifying the evil, and the matter of returning this evil, to return it, specifically, to Him, blessed be He, specifically to reveal G-dliness in the lowliness itself, in the most forsaken place, in the most distant,

1:37 precisely there to reveal His G-dliness, blessed be He, so that it too will return to Hashem, blessed be He. This is the tikkun: not to nullify and reject the evil, but specifically to bring it back in teshuvah, not to push it away, but to bring it back in teshuvah. Therefore, Yehoshua ben Perachyah, Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachyah, says there: "Judge every person favorably," because from there, too, came all the exile and the flaw of Christianity and all the falsehood - the falsehood that is all the false beliefs, all the things that went from captivity to captivity, from one fall to another, all the flaw, also the Ishmaelite faith, and the beliefs that sank lower and lower.

2:14 And the great tikkun is to fix the na'aseh venishma, in order to truly do teshuvah in completeness, in order to fix the na'aseh venishma. Now, we see what Hashem said to Moshe: "Write this as a remembrance in the book, and place it in the ears of Yehoshua." What was the point of this writing? The Holy One, blessed be He, asked Moshe Rabbeinu to hand over to Yehoshua the whole matter of the holy Torah: to preserve the holy Torah, to bequeath the holy Torah, to teach the holy Torah to the Jewish people, that you see the Torah: "lest you forget the things that your eyes saw, and lest they depart from your heart, all the days of your life... the day you stood before Hashem your G-d at Chorev."

2:50 The meaning of the Torah is not to forget it, that it be before our eyes. And then we see that Moshe and Yehoshua - that this, of course, is Yehoshua's task: to remember, and of course to do, and to wipe out the memory of Amalek. We will wipe out the memory of Amalek from under the heavens, and we will not forget. The whole meaning of this hearing was so that Yehoshua bin Nun would nullify the memory of Amalek, that there be no remembrance of Amalek. And on the other hand, we remember Amalek. Not only that: on the one hand we are commanded to remember Amalek, and on the other hand: "I will surely wipe out the memory of Amalek."

Read the whole shiur in English (12 more parts)

3:28 So You ask to wipe it out - and this is something You want me to remember? You tell me to wipe it out - then let me forget it. What? There was no need to mention him; he should have been wiped off the Sefer Torah, from the first time, and not written in, and we would learn it from the Sages: it would have been fitting to speak of Amalek and wipe him out, but - the Gemara would say - the Holy One, blessed be He, asked to wipe out the memory of Amalek, and therefore Amalek was not mentioned. You only have to see what a sugya there is in this.

3:52 The Torah already commands us to wipe out the memory of Amalek. On the other hand, the Torah writes it and reminds us every single year to speak of it and to remember it. Now, the Magen Avraham says that one who did not hear Parshas Zachor - then on Purim, or in Parshas Ki Seitzei, you can hear it, and intend to fulfill your obligation - one who did not hear the portion of Amalek from the Torah. You say: what kind of remembering is this? A remembering that is...

4:17 He told me to wipe it out - the very thing You want me to remember - to wipe out and destroy, to forget. From here we see that there is a point in bringing the evil back, and the reverse: by mentioning this evil, we subdue it, and we expound and remember what this evil was meant to do to us. And in truth, the descendants of Amalek - who came out of there? The wicked Haman. The wicked Haman was the Agagite, and from there came the wicked Haman.

4:43 Indeed, when Shmuel the prophet came to Shaul - it had been said: not to have pity on Agag, and not to spare anything at all. So when he came to King Shaul, he said to him: "And what is this sound of the sheep in my ears?" What is this sound that I hear? What is this sound in my ears? What is it, what I am hearing? There is something here that I hear; what are these sounds? So King Shaul now explains: these are sacrifices, burnt offerings that he wanted to sacrifice "to Hashem your G-d".

5:10 These are those sacrifices, so that there be praise to the Holy One, blessed be He; that is the reason I left it. And then indeed, as a result, Agag remained, he did what he did, and from there came - from that night came the wicked Haman. And so it came about that there was a flaw in the na'aseh venishma, because Shaul damaged the na'aseh venishma. He did not wipe out Agag; he did not do the "we will do" nor the "we will hear"; he did not listen to Shmuel the prophet, and so that sound remained, the one that was in his ears.

5:38 And therefore the tikkun that we do - we fix this precisely on Purim. The whole point of the Megillah is the hearing, in order to fix the root of King Shaul, to fix the na'aseh venishma of King Shaul - we fix it. Therefore "we will do" corresponds to Esther: "What is your request... and it shall be done" - the whole matter of the doing, that was it. And "Mordechai would walk about in the courtyard of the women's house, to know how Esther was and what would be done with her" - he walks about in the courtyard of the women's house to hear, to know what is happening here. Look: "And the king's decree will be heard"; "son of Shimi, son of Kish" - it is mentioned in the Megillah, "son of Shimi"; "And it was, when the king's word was heard";

6:18 "as Mordechai had commanded her"; yes, "Esther did not tell of her people"; "and the matter became known to Mordechai, and he told Esther"; "And it was, as they spoke to him day after day, and he did not listen to them"; "if you keep silent at this time"; "I would have kept silent, for the adversary is not worth..." - I mean, the whole secret of hearing, see, this whole secret of hearing is precisely - the tikkun of this hearing was fixed precisely at this time. And so Shmuel came, "and Shmuel cut Agag to pieces in Gilgal."

6:44 What does it say? It teaches that he cut him into four parts. He cut him, and nullified Agag, and the memory of Amalek was wiped out. And this is the secret of King David: King David received a great many humiliations from Shimi, and it is precisely from there that Purim came out. The whole secret of Mordechai and Esther is precisely from Shimi ben Gera. Shimi - the ears, that is shemiah, hearing - and indeed he comes from his descendants. This is the secret of Mordechai and Esther.

7:08 That is to say, the whole Megillah, the secret of Purim, fixed the na'aseh venishma of King Shaul through Heaven bringing about all the humiliations that King David received from Shimi. That is to say, the humiliations that King David received from Shimi, and the compassion he showed him, actually gave birth to the light of Mordechai and Esther, and through that they fixed the na'aseh venishma of King Shaul and of Shmuel the prophet.

7:36 That is the tikkun of the na'aseh venishma. And this is a chiddush that came new to us in... Right, Amalek came - indeed, Rabbi Eliyahu adds that Amalek came precisely to nullify the "Nations heard, they trembled; terror gripped the dwellers of Philistia." He came to cool it down. And Yisro too, indeed: "And Yisro heard" - as it is said, "What report did he hear, that he came?

8:04 The splitting of the Yam Suf and the war with Amalek." So he really came to fix that for you. Yes, this also strengthens your question. This is a chiddush that comes together for us. Chushim ben Dan. Rabbi Eliyahu has questions too. It is all in the merit of Rabbi Eliyahu's questions. Chushim ben Dan. Chushim ben Dan, right. Oznei Haman too - we bake "Haman's ears". Yes, one must always hear good things, and not...

8:32 To take the evil and turn it into good. We take Haman's ears, and the Jewish people enjoy them; we turn it into good. So, to be only in joy, to reveal the G-dliness and see how everything is full of the hidden light. Thank you very much. Good tidings and a good life.

All of the Yanuka’s shiurim in English

More from The Yanuka — Rav Shlomo Yehuda

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