The Secret of the Good Point | The Gaon Hinoka | After Morning Prayer

3:13 I created it all; it is all the work of My hands — everything, the Egyptians too. In the tractate... the Gemara says: "The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you are saying song?" So really, what does the Gemara mean? "The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you are saying song" — is the Holy One, blessed be He, pained over the horses too? After all, they too are the work of the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He; He is pained over the horses too. Perhaps "The work of My hands is drowning in the sea, and you are saying song" means that the Holy One, blessed be He, is pained over the horses too, that they drowned in the sea — not only the Egyptians; or that it does not mean the Egyptians.

3:44 In the plain sense of the Gemara it looks as though the Holy One, blessed be He, is pained over the Egyptians. But in truth one can also explain "the work of My hands is drowning in the sea": that the horses themselves, too, are the work of the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Holy One, blessed be He, has pity on everything in the world. He does not want to destroy anything that exists in the world — not a thing, nothing. Everything He created — the Holy One, blessed be He, wants there to be a revelation of His light in the world. Every creature has a life-force, and that is the song of creation.

4:14 Everything in creation has a life-force. It has a song, a song that it sings, each one saying its own song. There is a very great virtue in saying Perek Shirah, specifically on Erev Shabbos, after... to say Perek Shirah every week. Erev Shabbos — it is a great virtue to say Shir HaShirim and Perek Shirah. It cancels judgments, decrees, troubles, and it has an effect. That is why it is written: "Rebbi said: Whoever engages in Perek Shirah..." "Engages" means that a person begins to say it, he occupies himself with it and learns it with commentaries.

4:40 And there is much to learn — from... Ohr Chaim — there are all kinds of commentaries that did very, very beautiful things on Perek Shirah. These are deep analyses of the song of creation. There are all kinds of wondrous things on the song of creation, because it is a great virtue — a very great virtue and importance — to engage in Perek Shirah, to understand that everything you see in creation is all the work of the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He. And the Holy One, blessed be He, said to the Jewish people: Look, I created everything.

5:07 But you must know that you are called "adam," man, and not the nations of the world, and in level you are above the animals and you are above them all. I chose you, I set you above. But you must always remember that I can take everything in creation and you must remember this. If you have a goal, and you have a purpose, and you conduct yourselves as you should, then I can take even things I created, that I am pained over, and nullify them before you.

5:35 But if you have no purpose and you have no goal and you have no reason, Heaven forbid, then the opposite, Heaven forbid. So — I do not want to say it — you already know, from what everyone asks: how could such a thing have been, how could such a thing have been, Heaven forbid, what befell Israel in the past, all kinds of things. The Holy One, blessed be He, says to them: Look, even the horses, who did nothing at all, who only served the Egyptians — I can drown in the sea.

6:02 In principle the horses — of all things, the horses could have been spared. The Torah stresses the horses too. I can take everyone who was against you, and all the tools, and everything that was used against you, and nullify that too. I can nullify everything before you. Everything, I can nullify. Even the servants that helped fight you — them too I will nullify. But the question is: where is your goal?

6:27 Where are your footsteps headed? What is your goal? And in truth, when the Jewish people went out of Egypt, the whole goal of the Jewish people was to receive the Torah, to go on and draw an inheritance into the world, to bring us Israel, to bring us our Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple. What is the Beis HaMikdash? The Temple is a house built of all the good points that every Jew in the world has. Every Jew in the world is full of good. Every Jew has — he has a good that his fellow does not have.

6:55 One has more compassion; one has more fear of Heaven; one has more love of Heaven. One has more joy; one has more tenderness, tenderness; one has more graciousness; another has more mercy on the poor; a third has more mercy on the weak... one is strong. Each one among the Jewish people has things, wondrous traits that his fellow does not have. And the Holy One, blessed be He, says of this house: "For My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the peoples." So the Temple is made up of all the good points that are in every Jew in the world.

7:28 They all gather together, and it becomes one whole house: the Temple. It is impossible truly to build the Temple when we do not find the good points in the Jewish people, when we do not judge the Jewish people favorably. Here Rebbe Nachman says, in Likutei Moharan, Torah 282, that truly — and in Sefer HaMiddos too, on its importance — that judging favorably is the matter of the geulah, and the whole work of Mashiach, in practice; that the geulah and the Temple, all of it, will be revealed only through judging favorably.

7:57 That is, we cannot say we await the geulah — "geulah," "our righteous Mashiach," "geulah," "Hashem, redeem us" — when we are not at all making the vessels and the way for it. What are the vessels and the way? It is called merit: to judge everyone favorably, to search for the good points that are in all the Jewish people. For there is no such thing — "A little longer and there is no wicked one; you will look at his place and he is not there."

8:23 If you truly look at any person, even the farthest of the far, the lowest of the low, suddenly you will see him: when it comes to self-sacrifice, he will jump into fire for Hashem, blessed be He; he will jump on a grenade to save his friend. Say you ask a person — you say to a friend of yours, "Give me a wafer." "Leave it, I don't want to give you." Right now he is being tight. So one says, "What is he..." But five minutes later, a grenade is about to explode — he will jump on the grenade to save him.

8:57 So do not look now at his not having given me a wafer. Look now at this: that if there were a grenade, he jumps on it for you. We see it now in all the acts of heroism the Jewish people have been through in all these recent years — stories of miracles and wonders, of the heroism of self-sacrifice that people showed. One, to save his students in the war, jumped on a grenade to save his students.

9:23 And this one jumped on a grenade, and this one jumped on a missile, and this one jumped... And suddenly you see — and throughout history, Jews who suddenly found themselves in all kinds of death camps, and in all kinds of — in the Inquisition, and all the Crusades, and all the things the Jewish people went through in history — there was always an act of heroism, where suddenly someone far away, whom people used to laugh at — that he eats pork and acts against Hashem and lights fire and all that, whom nobody wanted — suddenly, when the moment came and they told him, "Listen: either you bow down to this idol, or you now get such and such" — at once you see how they jumped into the fire, and gave up their lives, and they suffered, and went through so much affliction,

10:08 so many troubles and ordeals. And suddenly you see how there is a good point that is revealed even in the farthest of the far. And therefore — why is it forbidden to speak about anyone, anyone at all of the Jewish people, even about the lowest of the low, whom you see among the far ones? Because in the end, about whom are you speaking? About the Holy One, blessed be He. You are speaking about the Holy One, blessed be He. It is as if you come to the Holy One, blessed be He, and say: "What have You created in the world? What is this?"

10:33 And then you are speaking against Hashem. You are speaking against the Holy One, blessed be He. For what is all this? It is all the work of Hashem's hands. The Holy One, blessed be He, has pity on the work of His hands. Why are you speaking? True, fine, he is very far. He is far. All right, he is far. But there is a point here that will suddenly be revealed, that is the closest of all. True, as it looks now he is not close — but suddenly, there may be a spark in him, and suddenly he will return in teshuvah, to such levels — he will reach levels so great that suddenly he can be, with his teshuvah, even above the tzaddik of the generation.

11:06 Rabbi Yitzchak of Drohobych, the father of Rabbi Yechiel Michel — have you heard of him? was one of the greatest tzaddikim. He was holy in the covenant... you have heard of him. He sits with the tzaddikim in Gan Eden, and decides who gets in: only one who was holy in the covenant. He was strict that no one else come in — until the Rebbe of Rimanov settled it between him and Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz. Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz is appointed over the Chamber of Truth, and he judges people: whoever spoke a lie does not get in.

11:34 And the other stood at his post: whoever was not holy in the covenant does not get in. The Rebbe of Rimanov came and said to them: "Listen, people are not getting through in Heaven. Let us settle it between them." He said: "You go and sit here, and you go and sit there." And since then — he said this half in jest — everyone gets through in peace, so to speak; they are no longer strict with them, they simply pass, whatever their kedushah and whatever their level. See what great heights, and what wonders.

11:59 Where were we before? Yes... Now, when we judge favorably, we reveal the splendor and the beauty of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world. This is what Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev says — he says a very beautiful insight. What about a Jew who puts on tefillin, and they are invalid?

12:25 There are no parshiyos in them, or there is a defect in a parshah: it is written "And you shall love your G-d" — without "Hashem." Words are missing. Are those tefillin kosher? No, not at all. The tefillin are invalid. If there is a defect in the tefillin, in the parshiyos, they are invalid. So: You commanded us in Your Torah that we keep the mitzvos properly; if something is not kosher, is invalid, we have not fulfilled our obligation.

12:55 So says the Holy One, blessed be He, and He gives us the mitzvos to keep. But the Holy One, blessed be He — the Torah — He too keeps the Torah, as we say; the Holy One, blessed be He, as well. The Holy One, blessed be He, puts on tefillin. It says: the Master of the world puts on tefillin. What is written in the tefillin of the Holy One, blessed be He? We — in ours we have the praise of Hashem: "Shema Yisrael." And with the Holy One, blessed be He: "Israel, in whom I take glory," "My firstborn son, Israel" — all the praises of the Jewish people are inside the tefillin of the Holy One, blessed be He, all the praises of the Jewish people. How strict the Holy One, blessed be He, was with the prophet Yeshayahu, who said, "I dwell among a people of unclean lips": at once, when Yeshayahu fled and was hidden inside the tree,

13:33 they cut him at the mouth — so his head was split open, at the lips, for having said "among a people of unclean lips." So the Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: "How do you shame My people? How dare you speak about My people? Even if you are Yeshayahu, the very greatest — who are you to see what is not good in My people?" And at once — so it was, from Heaven. And see it from here, with Yeravam: he said "Seize him!" about the prophet Iddo — and at once "his hand dried up."

14:01 He only stretched out his hand against Iddo. All the time that he desecrated and acted against Hashem, nothing happened. The moment he stretched out a hand against Iddo, at once his hand dried up. His hand dried up; it could do nothing. His hand became wood, like this — it could not move. So the Holy One, blessed be He, is strict about the honor of His servants, the honor of the Torah, and the honor of the Jewish people. So this judging favorably is in practice what goes and builds the Jewish people; it brings the geulah closer, and it draws the good out of all Jews.

14:33 So Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev said: if we are in Your tefillin, and You are in our tefillin — if there is a defect in Your Name in ours, our tefillin are invalid. So if you now speak ill of a Jew, it is as if you are saying to the Holy One, blessed be He — what? "Your tefillin are invalid." See from here how careful one must be.

14:57 See good in the world; do not see bad. See only the light, only the good. See the good in the created beings. How much the Holy One, blessed be He, loves us. How the Holy One, blessed be He, takes pride in us. He did not leave us, He does not leave us, and He will never leave us. Amen. Amen. That is the very essence. And from here we can see what "horse and its rider" is. Now you understand why the Torah said both "horse" and "its rider." Now we understand why: so that we learn.

15:23 With all that — the might of the horse, that goes out to war, that has no fear — they were bound to one another. That is how they were stuck, and so the two were together. Such great cold — it is cold outside — and so early you get up to pray in the morning. The Maharal explains that the time of sleep in the morning is very hard. Why is it so hard for people to get up in the morning? It is very hard. Look: Minchah, Maariv — everyone comes, no problem. But Shacharis, to get up at sunrise — that is hard.

15:53 It is a time when people — everyone, after being tired — everyone has excuses: why to sleep, why he is allowed: "Listen, I had a hard day, of course; today I'm sort of like this, and there's this too, I need to sleep, I..." No. Rebbe Nachman said something beautiful. That is: first of all, get up to pray; afterward deal with it, afterward make up the sleep. First get up; afterward deal with it, afterward deal with other calculations. First of all, get up. He said that a person — even a small child — when he comes up to the door of the beis midrash, going to shul, going to Talmud Torah, going to a house of — wherever it is — he only takes hold of the little handle, and it is cold in his hand;

16:32 wherever it may be, in the morning, he is cold — he receives reward for that little bit of cold that he had in his hand. Every effort you make for the honor of the Holy One, blessed be He — whoever exerts himself for the honor of Hashem, it is hard for him to get up and he gets up to go and pray — and truly, thank G-d, so many come and pray like this, and interestingly, it is even warm. Pleasant, eh? It is in your merit. It is in your merit? You are the ones who brought it... Excuse me, what did a Jew say to me this week?

17:01 He says, "How — seven years already, seven years I have been waiting. What, where is he?" I told him, "I was waiting for you too." "I was waiting for you too — I waited those seven as well." So from here — from here you can know how we need to see, to conduct ourselves, and to speak always well of the Jewish people. Whoever speaks not well — all the troubles and sufferings that come to the world are from those who speak not well of the Jewish people.

17:34 They see what is not good, they look for what is not good. We need to see the good. And so the Maharal says that the time of judgment, when a person is judged, is in the morning, when it is hard for him. He is judged in the morning. That is the time of judgment; he is judged. And now, when he exerts himself like this and gets up, he is saved from the judgment, and can bring relief upon himself. So always see: every exertion and every toil in which a person makes an effort — a person prays, a person tries, he wants acquittal before the Holy One, blessed be He — in every way that he prays to Hashem, he cancels from himself a great, great many troubles and a great deal of suffering. Every single small effort.

18:10 You went to the mikveh; the mikveh was cold. You pushed past the hardship here — you were saved from a great many hard things. You got up to pray; it was hard for you, you wanted to sleep — you got up, you pushed it aside: you will be saved from a great many things that are not good. There is no such thing as a person not receiving his reward. Every effort a person makes, praying for the honor of Hashem — this brings him to very great levels and powers, especially when a person overcomes every trial.

18:38 Every trial and every difficulty and every bitterness a person has, every sorrow a person has — as we see in the Song of the Sea: all of Pharaoh's host, the horses, even Pharaoh's chariots that sank in the sea — the Holy One, blessed be He, stuck them together. It says "horse and its rider" — the horse and its rider. What does that mean? That they were stuck to the horses; they could not separate from one another. Now a person says, "Fine, I'll run from the horse, I'll escape to dry land."

19:03 He was stuck to the horse; he could not get off the horse. He could not leave it. The horse — they were together, stuck, together. They were one, a single piece. They could not separate from one another. What about the gold? So from here we see how much wisdom and importance there is in the Torah — that the Torah teaches us from everything.

19:36 But above all, we learned always to speak well of the Jewish people. Why? Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz says: whoever speaks not well of the Jewish people is from the root of the Serpent, Bilaam and Amalek — Amalek, who speak not well. And at the very moment a person spoke, he becomes a chariot for the impure kelipah that brings troubles, and orphans and widows, and the troubles that happen in the world — because of that man who speaks ill and not well of the Jewish people. See how grave this is: the lashon hara that there is in our world — with it we are trying to invalidate the tefillin of the Holy One, blessed be He. Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz says an astounding thing; you must remember it all your lives.

20:16 When a person feels like speaking lashon hara now, he wants to say something not good, and he says to himself, "I am not saying those words" — he holds back. In Tractate Chullin, page 89, the Gemara says the whole world endures on one who holds his mouth closed at a time of quarrel, as it says, "He hangs the earth upon nothingness." But he wants to say something now, he wants to say something to his wife now — he even wants to quarrel with her — wants to say something, to his son, to his friend, to his neighbor, wants to say something — and he says to himself, "I am stopping."

20:45 Pay attention to what he says: it is like seven fasts from Shabbos to Shabbos. As if you now fasted from Shabbos to Shabbos — a week, another week, another week, another week — seven times. "I wanted to say something, and did not say it." Good. No — he said: Sefiras HaOmer. Did you hear? Like Sefiras HaOmer. Imagine a person fasting all through Sefiras HaOmer, from Shabbos to Shabbos — for this: that he wanted to say a word that was not good and did not say it.

21:15 And the other way: if, Heaven forbid, he heard a word that was not good from someone and at once protested — told him not to talk like that, "It is forbidden" — and stopped the other one too — then it is double: I have seven times Shabbos to Shabbos, and another seven times Shabbos to Shabbos — because I both did not accept it and also kept the other from saying it. So how much is that? Fourteen. It is already double. Isn't it seven times seven? Ah, seven times seven! Come on, come on.

21:39 Amen. I tell you, the Holy One, blessed be He, will already count it as Shabbos to Shabbos to Shabbos. If that is so with punishment — the measure of good is five hundred times more. So from here we must learn how much this speech means to the Holy One, blessed be He. When you heard a word that was not good and said, "Don't say it, it's a pity, stop" — you caused the other one, too, not to speak lashon hara: at once it is double — you did not and he did not, so together it is double. And who knows how much more it will be counted in Heaven.

22:10 So let us learn this from here, and draw down the presence and the revelation of Hashem, blessed be He, in the world. You see what we learned from the words "horse and its rider." See how much Torah there is in every verse. Of course, we could go on further too, if you like, but something a bit sweeter: You know that in the time of the Communists there were many Breslov chassidim who were given time — every day they did a great deal of labor.

22:37 Every day they were put to work, and were given a portion of time. At one point they were given a quarter of an hour a day. Of course, in those times, what they could do was learn — review things by heart. They said, "What shall we do with this quarter of an hour?" Elderly men, seventy, eighty years old, seventy, sixty, eighty, ninety — there were all kinds of ages there; there were very old people, elders. "What shall we do with this time, this quarter of an hour? What do we do?"

23:03 They took benches there, set them up like slides, and began to slide on the slides, So there was someone there, astonished, who asked them: "Tell me, what do you want? These are men of eighty already, ninety!" "This is what we do with our quarter of an hour: we go on slides." Really, just like that. Look — it is a beautiful thing to learn from.

23:28 What's going on? I will tell one more story, about the Divrei Yatziv. But this one really is sweeter, this continuation, it does not weigh on you so. There was a beautiful thing with the Divrei Yatziv. After he lost his eleven children in the Holocaust, he was walking with a few chassidim, and they saw him — he went through the camps too — they saw him on Erev Shabbos leaping, joyful, dancing, with a few chassidim.

23:54 And they whispered among themselves: "Poor man, poor man — with all the troubles he went through, to lose a wife, so many children — what, he is not in his right mind." They talked among themselves; that is what they said. And he heard them. He said to them, "What — what are you saying?" He called them over. "No, Rebbe, Heaven forbid — we said it out of compassion for the Rebbe — that perhaps he is not settled in his mind, after the Holocaust." So he told them: "There is no need to say that I am not normal.

24:21 They took everything — but the emunah, the hope and the trust, they will not take from me." That is what he told them: "That, they will not take from me." He came here, to the Land, and composed the responsa Divrei Yatziv — a halachic responsa work such that there is no place in halachah where he is not cited among the later authorities; there is no posek who does not cite the Divrei Yatziv. We are speaking of one of the pillars of the world — the Rebbe, author of the Divrei Yatziv, Rabbi Yekusiel Halberstam, may his merit protect us, amen.

24:48 And his level, and his power — immense, holy... a worker of wonders. So, in short, see — it was the same with those chassidim. Those Breslov chassidim really did make the slides. And why did they do it? So that they would be in joy. We are now in a dark period, and we are being taught, we are being told: the most important thing is that we be in joy.

25:14 Where do we see this? As though the mitzvos are only in order to be in joy — where do we see this from the Torah? The Jewish people go out of Egypt — what does it say? "Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aharon, took the drum in her hand." Where did you get that drum from? Where did you bring it from? From here you see: they went out of Egypt, and they too did as those Breslov chassidim did. They brought drums with them; they went out like that, with joy, with dance. They said: we must go out in joy. So they also took with them the secret of joy — "For in joy you shall go out."

25:45 When one goes in joy — in joy one can get out of all troubles, no matter what one goes through. If he is joyful, there will be joy. "Machol" is dancing. When a person dances — with the machol, the dance, there comes for him mechilah, forgiveness, from Heaven; forgiveness from Heaven — a person is granted forgiveness, abundance, mercy, salvations, miracles, wonders. May it be His will, with Hashem's help, that we merit salvations from Heaven, that we merit good tidings, that we merit the tidings: He has had mercy on us, we have been saved, our Holy Temple has been built for us.

26:18 It is awakened in Heaven — all the mercy of Hashem. Music, joy, awaken it; we make music for the Holy One, blessed be He. That is why in the Yerushalmi, Pesachim, in chapter 4, in the first, it is said that the music of the Levi'im can bring an awakening to teshuvah for the Jewish people, so that everything is atoned for a person. "And to atone for the Children of Israel" — with song, for the Levi'im would say the song; whoever heard them would tremble, would be shaken by the songs, by the instruments.

26:48 And their service of song is a very, very lofty thing in the Temple — the service of the song of the Levi'im. No one else can do their service. There is a dispute whether others, who are not Levi'im, can also take part in the song of the Levi'im... Only the Levi'im may serve with song, for it is part of the Temple service, and it is the greatest thing. Today we too have all kinds who sing of the Holy One, blessed be He, even ones who are not the Levi'im.

27:15 Everyone's song awakens toward the Holy One, blessed be He — the main thing is that it be an awakening to the Holy One, blessed be He, or that there be teshuvah. For in the end, when one hears music, one hears of the Holy One, blessed be He. In the end, whoever hears song draws close to Hashem — and that is the most important thing, the very purpose of the world: to draw close to the Holy One, blessed be He. May it be His will that we merit this, and that for the Holy One, blessed be He, we always be only in joy.

27:39 Amen. Look how many alefs: "Amar" — alef. "Oyev" — alef. "Erdof" — alef. "Asig" — alef. "Achalek" — alef. See how many alefs there are here — five alefs. The secret of "I will teach you wisdom" — it is the da'as that comes to rest upon a person, and that is how he can attain all the supernal abundance from Heaven. All right? May we merit complete da'as, and then we will receive salvations, with the supernal abundance.