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The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 3,526 words · 19:09. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 When a person knows - when you know that your child is not in your hand, he is with Hashem, blessed be He - always tell yourself: this is better than my hands. How much can I watch over him, what can I give him? Can I give him what he lacks? Can I help him? Always feel... What can one say to a person, to strengthen and to encourage? It is impossible with words, impossible.
0:24 It is impossible to say anything. But I can only tell you that he merited - merited to have such a father, such a mother, that you can know that he is in the best place, more than anyone who is here in the world. Because he already... he has such parents who raise him up. As we find even with King David: with Avshalom, who was the worst in the world, the very worst, who turned the hearts of the elders, and the heart of Israel, and the heart of his father - because of that he got three spears in the heart; he turned them.
1:00 And King David, who was a tzaddik - what did he say? "Avshalom, my son, my son, my son." He raised him up from all the chambers, and he merited what he merited. What do we learn from here? That a person, even when he is not in the world, goes on living. And there is no such thing as saying - a person leaves the world, that's it, it's over, there is no more. A person who thinks that, Heaven forbid, it is over - so why are we praying now? If it is over, then let's go now, everyone will do what he wants, and with that it is over.
1:29 What are you praying for, why are you turning to the One who sits above? Why do we turn? Because deep inside we know that we have a continuation. There is no such thing as a person who leaves the world. There is no such thing, no such thing, Heaven forbid. A person always goes from strength to strength, every soul, every Jew in the world. The non-Jews go - if they kept the seven mitzvos of the children of Noach, they have a share in the World to Come.
1:53 A non-Jew who keeps the seven mitzvos of the children of Noach has a share in the World to Come. They have reward for it. And all the more so we, who are here. And certainly he merited - such a father. Everything you put into him all the years, and every mitzvah that he kept, and you don't know at all the intentions he had in mind, how he prayed to Hashem, blessed be He, what prayer he had, what a heart he had, for every thought he had before Him, blessed be He, for every time he raised his eyes to Heaven - there is no end to what Hashem, blessed be He, gives, no end.
2:23 You know, I once compared this to a parable. I once explained, the way we see things in the world: a person who travels by train today - let's say people travel by train. Give me an example of a train that goes from point to point. Where is there a train today? Let's say Be'er Sheva - Tel Aviv. But are there stops from Be'er Sheva to Tel Aviv? Netivot, Ashkelon. Let's say from Be'er Sheva - let's take it to where? Up to Haifa. Are there stops on the way? Of course.
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2:50 If we now take two people who get on the train at Be'er Sheva, they need to get to Haifa. They both paid for a ticket. One comes from Be'er Sheva and gets off at Ashdod, and one bought from Be'er Sheva to Nahariya. They are sitting on the train. He gets on, travels from Be'er Sheva, travels as far as Ashdod, gets off.
3:16 Gets off. That one comes to get off. One sitting next to him shouts at him: "What, you're getting off here at this station? You paid, you have to ride to the end. Use your ticket. You paid to the end, get off at Haifa. You paid for it." He says to him: "Look, I need to get off here. I need to get off at Ashdod. I have business in Ashdod." He says to him: "No. You paid, you'll get off at Haifa.
3:40 Use your whole ticket." But he says to him: "But I need to get off at Ashdod..." He doesn't listen. What would you say about this person who shouts and tells him: "You have to get off at Haifa"? That is the parable and its meaning here. We see a person get off at such a station - at such an age. We see a person get off at such a station - at such an age. Rabbi Avraham of Prohobisht was a tremendous, tremendous tzaddik. It was impossible to grasp his level. He passed away at twenty; at the age of twenty he passed away.
4:06 He was a tremendous tzaddik - at twenty. Rabbi Shalom Shachna of Prohobisht too was at the age of thirty-six. Many tzaddikim, the greatest of the world, who were - passed away at a young age. What will you say - the Holy One, blessed be He, cannot give them long life? He cannot give them long years? He can give them. They had their task, which was to get off at this time... Every person - the Holy One, blessed be He, whenever He...
4:30 As we find with King David: he wanted to pass away before, he wanted to pass away after. He told him: "One kingdom does not touch another even by a hairsbreadth." This is King Shlomo; now it is his time. "For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand" - than the offerings of King Shlomo. How dear to Hashem were King David's prayers, his toil in Torah, and He wanted to leave him one more day. That is to say, everything is in the hand of the Holy One, blessed be He.
4:55 There is Someone above us; we are in His hands. Our lives - "for our lives which are entrusted in Your hand." All the lives of all of us, of the whole entire world, and of all creation, all of it, is in His hand, and He judges and decides everything. We cannot do anything. There is nothing for us to do about it. It is forbidden to [unclear], forbidden. One should rejoice over those who remain - so says Rabbi Nachman.
5:20 And if a person, Baruch Hashem... look at who remains beside you. Be glad for who remains beside you, smile at who remains beside you, because he also stays with you, he stays with you. You cleave to Hashem, you pray to Hashem - he is with Hashem. Once, one of the tzaddikim, the Rebbe of Sanz-Klausenburg, may his merit protect us, Rabbi Yekusiel, a tzaddik, may his merit protect us - A tzaddik, he lost many children.
5:46 Many children he lost. Once they saw him jumping. They said: it is from too much madness - he lost so many children. They said, what... this cannot be. How a person lost so many children - 11 children and his wife; he was left alone.
6:10 He jumped like this, dancing - a person who lost everything, was left alone, jumping... So they said to him: "What happened that you are jumping, you are happy?" He said: "They took everything from me, the Nazis, but my joy, my emunah in Him, blessed be He, Him Himself they did not take from me. Hashem they did not take from me. My emunah in Him they did not take from me.
6:35 They did not take my emunah in Him from me - they took nothing from me. This is what I have; Him they did not take from me." Rabbi Meir Baal HaNes, who then came to his wife on Erev Shabbos, wanted to see the children. He said: "Where are the children?" She said to him: "Come, eat. Sit, eat the meal, be calm." So he said to her: "Fine, show them to me." She said to him: "Sit with a settled mind, calm..." She is trying to put him off.
7:00 She doesn't want him to go to the children... She is trying to calm him. And then she says to him: "If the owner of a deposit comes, must one return it to him? A man deposited something with me - must I return it to him?" He said: "Certainly" - and he already understood by himself. There is an Owner of the deposit, as we know this. We know that an offering is not brought, not from the peacock, and not from all the...
7:25 Hashem, blessed be He, wants the pursued - so we find. Also David, who fled from Shaul. Whoever is pursued, whoever's heart is broken, there the Holy One, blessed be He, is closest to this person. Chanah - how much she prayed to Hashem, how much she prayed, how broken she was, so much.
7:50 For forty years a heavenly voice goes out and announces that a tzaddik is to be born - Shmuel, Shmuel, Shmuel. All the women are saved, all of them pray. She does not know, in the end; she does not even imagine that this heavenly voice is she herself, is her son. She, He is the one; for her, in her honor, it went out. Do you understand this thing...
8:15 It is something the mind cannot grasp. King David - his whole life hard, disgraced, his whole life. He never saw a good dream. All of King David's life, never in his days did he see a good dream. A dream, a dream - he did not see a good dream. He is already living, they pursue him with persecutions, his child rose up against him, they cause him grief, a leper for 6 months, he was in grief, he was disgraced.
8:43 So he reigned 40 years - to reign 40 years is a great thing. But he did not reign 40 years the way you think he reigned 40 years. He made Hashem King for 40 years - that is the difference. He went through so many troubles, so much suffering. He tasted every taste: the death of children, the grief of wives, violation - Avshalom violated the women, he caused him grief, disgrace, the feeling of death.
9:11 Then Yishbi wanted to kill him, Golias wanted to kill him. All the time he is facing death. Samael wiped the sword on him, then, in the plague that took... wiped it on him, on his tallis. King David's whole tallis was all blood. And fear all his days - he did not sleep any more, from the fear... He turned around, he heard a noise, he saw Samael doing like this on his tzitzis, wiping off the blood.
9:38 To see such a thing? What he went through! So what will we say? What was King David guilty of... And where did David find himself all the time? With his eyes to Heaven, all the time. All the time with his eyes to Heaven, all the time upward. All of our Torah - we see stories about the dead, in a language of understanding.
10:03 You learn about Avraham, about Moshe Rabbeinu, about Yitzchak, about Abaye, about Rava, about Rabbi Yochanan, about the Shas, about Rashi, about all of them - everyone that you learn, the whole Shulchan Aruch, all of them - everyone that is learned: we learn Torah of people who are already above. So what is it - where is above? They are alive. They are with us, they are among us, they do not leave us. This is something one must always, always remember.
10:30 Never forget, never forget. There is no such thing as saying a person, Heaven forbid, is gone, a person, Heaven forbid, that's it... as the world says... Now, what do they call them? The House of Life, they call them - the House of Life: then life begins. Everything we toil at today is so that a person will get there in the end.
10:55 This is the world of effort, this is the world in which one toils and prays, and a person builds his life for himself. We do not really come here, to this world, in order to live, work, sleep, laugh and eat. That is along the way; that is a means. Everyone who lives here builds his purpose for himself. in his purpose. A person must always say, all the time tell himself in life, all the time: All the time.
11:21 that I live in the world - I live before Hashem. This, that we see many people, that it should never cause you - it causes the world today to forget Hashem, blessed be He. We see lots of people, lots of human beings, we see millions, we see lots of people, and think that this is the safe place, because a person's nature is to be drawn to the many. He sees, let's say, money, so he sees it as a safe place, so he is drawn. People love rich people.
11:48 Why? Because they see such a rich person, so they are drawn to him, because they see abundance; where there is abundance, everyone is drawn to the abundance. But they do not look at Hashem, blessed be He, as the Creator of everything, because He is hidden and cannot be seen. He sees and is not seen; it is impossible to see Hashem. For who at all is it who would see Him? How can one show them whether to see Hashem or not to see Hashem?
12:15 There is the Gemara in Tractate Chullin, page 59b. Have you learned this story there, with Rabbi Yehoshua bar Chanania? Chullin, page 59b. The Gemara tells about Rabbi Yehoshua ben Chananiah and the emperor of Rome. He said: "Your G-d is compared to a lion - 'A lion will roar, who will not fear?'" What is a lion? A lion is not such a... a lion today...
12:39 King David defeated a lion, Shimshon the mighty defeated a lion. Rabbi Yehoshua said to him, said to him: A lion... it is impossible to see such a lion. It was at a distance of 400 parsah, where it was, it only let out such a cry, a roar. How much is a parsah, roughly? 4 kilometers - 4,600 according to the Chazon Ish, and according to Rabbi Chaim Na'eh it is 3,800 kilometers, something like that.
13:09 Let's do the calculation. We'll take 4,600 meters. Right? Work out the distance it was there: 1,600 kilometers. It let out a roar - all the women miscarried, all the pregnant women miscarried, and the wall fell. That is a lion - he had not even seen it yet. After that, at 300 parsah, it let out a roar: all their teeth fell out, and the emperor fell from his throne.
13:37 You understand - the emperor fell from the throne. The lion - you cannot see it. The lion - they could not see it, this lion. Hashem, blessed be He - who can see? A lion, we are talking about once - they could not see it. Who can see Hashem, blessed be He? A person can see Hashem, blessed be He? Is it at all possible to understand what this is, with our mind? We are just ordinary human beings here, the softest, the weakest, small.
14:01 How is it said: "And Yours, Hashem, is kindness, for You repay a man according to his deeds"? The Baal Shem Tov asks: you see a person who worked for you, renovated your house, twenty years. You tell him: "All right, listen, I am doing you a kindness." Like that... He hears this, he says: "What? Take. What do you mean, you are doing me a kindness? Of course I deserve it, I worked..." That is what the Baal Shem Tov said. "And Yours, Hashem, is kindness," King David says, "for You repay a man according to his deeds."
14:28 He does us a kindness, that He gives us anything at all, because even this, that we fulfill - even what we do, Hashem does that too. Hashem does this too; you surely know it. There are no words, there are no words. Only - fortunate are you, be strong... you are beloved, precious, dear. May Hashem, blessed be He, give you joy, may He gladden you with great joy, may He give you, with Hashem's help, long, good, happy lives.
14:59 Be happy; may Hashem, blessed be He, make you succeed, may He give you hope. May you merit, with Hashem's help, to truly feel that Hashem, blessed be He, is with you - "for our lives which are entrusted in Your hand." Truly feel that the deposit - everything is in the best hand in the world. That you should have no feeling of pain or of grief, that Hashem will hide it, remove it from your heart, remove it from you, and give you in its place trust and strength and hope and encouragement.
15:29 And with Hashem's help you will be like a new creation, with Hashem's help. We love you with a great love, we rejoice in you with a great joy. Everyone here loves you, everyone. How much Hashem, blessed be He, looks on in Heaven, the angels too, the whole host of Heaven, look on. We saw in the Book of Iyov how one sees, in the life of Iyov, the gaze of Hashem, the gaze of the angels. Everyone looks: all of creation, all the tzaddikim, everyone, and they see only them playing...
15:57 only Iyov and everything that he goes through, the whole storm of his life. We see their gaze, of the Satan... Everyone in Heaven looks, watches the person, and how much Hashem, blessed be He, looks at the person's heart: if it is broken, He sees him and is with him, and comes beside him, and it hurts him. For Avraham Avinu had the pain of the circumcision, which hurt him so much - we see how much Hashem, blessed be He, looks at the heart that hurts.
16:23 And Hashem comes to dwell with a person, comes to be with him, comes to be together with him, loves him, does not leave him. So who comes to your heart, who sees your heart, who comes? Hashem. May Hashem save us, redeem us with a complete redemption, with Hashem's help, quickly, swiftly, soon, to the resurrection of the dead, Amen, and to see already, with Hashem's help, the complete redemption, Amen. And Rabbi Yehudah ben Beseira was from the descendants of those who rose in the valley of Dura, Rabbi Yehudah ben Beseira.
16:56 With Hashem's help, very soon now the resurrection of the dead. Very soon now we will see everything. It is not a thing... it is a thing that can be seen, with Hashem's help. It is a great thing: the Book of Yechezkel, the whole prophecy about the third Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple. The whole Book of Yechezkel is all prophecies about the redemption. The third Temple - it is a tremendous thing. Rabbeinu Yosef Chaim passed away at the tomb of Yechezkel the prophet. Also in the responsa Torah Lishmah of Rabbeinu Yosef Chaim, he calls himself "Yechezkel, take for me", "Yechezkel, take for me"...
17:25 as if it is him, anonymously. But Yechezkel... he hinted that he is the soul of Yechezkel. He also passed away at the tomb of Yechezkel. It was something tremendous, Rabbeinu Yosef Chaim. He would rectify... it is impossible to explain what this mind is. He would write with his right hand and with his left hand.
17:49 With his right hand he wrote a work, a commentary on the Torah, and with his left hand he wrote responsa, answering questions. And he would free agunos... matters that came to him at the same time. He would also permit and forbid, questions... He would also answer at the same time, and also write. Also monetary matters. Rav Pe'alim, Mekabtziel - that is in Berachos, page 18. All the names of his books he took from there: Ben Ish Chai, Rav Pe'alim, Mekabtziel - tremendous...
18:19 Tremendous The book Torah Lishmah - that is sermons, right? Yes, sermons. [unclear] with me there, yes. Ben Yehoyada on the Shas - what novel insights... It is impossible to understand the Shas without the Ben Yehoyada. It is impossible to understand the Shas at all if one does not learn it; one cannot understand anything there. How he explains everything - something unbelievable.
18:46 Who is Rabbeinu Yosef Chaim! Fortunate are you; we love you with a great love. Fortunate are you, May Hashem gladden you, Amen. Life, hope, with Hashem's help - may you merit the complete redemption. New, New, all of it.
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