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The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 4,068 words · 20:36. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 When Moshe Rabbeinu went up Mount Sinai.. To reach great levels like Moshe Rabbeinu Not everyone can reach the level of Moshe Rabbeinu But to receive the Torah - that everyone can do What is the difference between receiving the Torah and Moshe Rabbeinu? That when the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Torah, He gave it to the whole Jewish people But in order to pass the Torah from the Holy One, blessed be He, to the Jewish people that is a level that not everyone can reach; this is called the handing over of the Torah And Moshe Rabbeinu, the Holy One, blessed be He, chose Moshe, that he would give the Torah to the Jewish people So there is a screen: when the Holy One, blessed be He, does not want them to come close He makes a screen, and this screen is called concealment
0:51 As we see today, before a person rises and comes close to Hashem, there is concealment This concealment comes at all the times of holiness Whenever there is very high holiness, there is concealment Like, for example, the Kohen Gadol, whom they must separate before he enters the Holy of Holies on Yom Kippur; they separate him for seven days - that is concealment so that when he enters the Holy of Holies, he will have a revelation Moshe Rabbeinu - when the Jewish people had to keep apart for three days so that is actually called concealment, but this level is holiness Now we too are in concealment But not only is it not on a level of holiness, rather, it is called impurity What is this impurity about?
1:42 This impurity is called Bein HaMetzarim, between the straits It is the impurity of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple When the Beis HaMikdash stood, there was holiness and purity And now everyone is impure from the dead, and we have no ashes of the heifer So the screen that separates us between the Holy of Holies and elevation and holiness is not the screen of fog that there was at the Torah when Moshe Rabbeinu goes to receive the Torah for the Jewish people And not the screen of the Kohen Gadol, and not the screen of the Jewish people but it is a screen of impurity And this impurity - it is impossible to break through this impurity except only through the attribute of truth that a person be the absolute truth he can break through all the screens
2:31 But one must distinguish between the holy and the mundane, between the impure and the pure For when there is a level of holiness like Moshe Rabbeinu.. For after all, anyone could ask, that there were many holy and pure people among the Jewish people and the Holy One, blessed be He, chose Moshe Rabbeinu There were Moshe and Aharon And the Torah tells how great and holy Aharon was: "and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart" which is the greatest testimony to give a tzaddik, about his level that he can receive the Torah from his brother that there was no jealousy and hatred between them For Hashem, blessed be He, gave us the Torah specifically through two brothers in order to repair the sin that was at the beginning, of Kayin and Hevel
3:13 Kayin and Hevel - that was the first murder in the world He did not know where the soul goes out so he struck him with a stone on all the parts of his body and made his body like a sieve, like a strainer, as was done to Yoshiyahu And then actually, from the arrows they shot at Yoshiyahu, he became like a strainer So the murder of Kayin and Hevel was in order to shake the whole world so that we would know how the Holy One, blessed be He, wants people to live in the world that they not commit murder, that they not cause death, that they not, Heaven forbid, rob Then began everything the Holy One, blessed be He, did in the world until Hashem, blessed be He, gave us the Torah, and there was a revelation of the Torah
3:49 That is to say, before we had the Torah, in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu there was a screen, a screen of impurity not a screen of holiness These are two aspects Before the giving of the Torah there was a screen of impurity which is the separation, in impurity And after we received the Torah and we had the Beis HaMikdash and the Mishkan of Shiloh then we had a screen of holiness And when the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed 1953 years ago Now we are entering 1953 it turns out that we had a screen of impurity That is to say, there was a first screen of impurity and a second screen of impurity - that is now And that was before the giving of the Torah, with Moshe Rabbeinu and after the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed For when we had the Torah
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4:44 and when we received the Torah from Moshe For what was at the beginning, before they received the Torah then the impurity was very great so that they could not lift their eyes to Heaven, they could not pray So that is why it is written, "and their cry went up to G-d" that they cried out so much to Hashem that they could not pray because of the screen of impurity It is impossible to break through the impurity except only through the attribute of truth Why does Hashem, blessed be He, not redeem the Jewish people now?
5:15 Why does Hashem, blessed be He, not bring the geulah now? Why do we not merit the geulah now? Because there is no attribute of truth in the world If there were the attribute of truth, and everyone were truth and people of truth then Hashem, blessed be He, would immediately bring Mashiach Hashem, blessed be He, would immediately bring the Beis HaMikdash Hashem, blessed be He, would immediately redeem Israel And because there is no attribute of truth Hashem, blessed be He, leaves the whole world until they reach the truth And when they reach the truth, they will have to strive after the truth in order to reach 'the absolute truth' For within truth there are levels Reaching truth is only a gate; one must go inside the truth And there is a further level, of 'the absolute truth'
5:58 And this is called the receiving of the Torah of Moshe That Moshe Rabbeinu, before he received the Torah, cried out and shouted to Hashem, blessed be He, to direct him to the truth And Moshe's mind was nullified and set aside before the Holy One, blessed be He And all the Torah that Moshe gave - Heaven forbid! The created beings should not think - if they think, Heaven forbid, that this is a Torah of flesh and blood, that is denial, heresy and apikorsus Rather, one must believe that the whole Torah was given from Sinai And what does 'the Torah was given from Sinai' mean?
6:31 That, Heaven forbid, they should not think that there is a hand of flesh and blood in the Torah Rather, the Torah is all holy, all spiritual all from the Creator, blessed be He This is the level of holiness, this is the level of Moshe And that is why Hashem, blessed be He, made a fog over Mount Sinai Why did Hashem, blessed be He, make a fog? What is the matter of the fog? Does Hashem, blessed be He, need to hide something? After all, everything is concealment Rather, the reason for the fog, simply, is to explain that it is impossible to reach and come close, and to see with the eyes of the mind 'the absolute truth' There is a beautiful thing that Rabbi Nosson writes in Likutei Halachos He explains.. many times in Likutei Halachos you find this
7:12 It is a holy, awesome and tremendous book, explaining the reasons of the laws He explains that the essence of truth is that a person know he is far from the truth utterly far - that is the essence of truth If you want to know if you are true, how much truth you have know that you are the farthest from the truth A person should not think in his mind, Heaven forbid, that he is true for many in the world are mistaken and think they are truth And the question is whether that person is as true as he thinks So therefore the essence of truth is that a person know he is the farthest from the truth That is the essence of truth And the moment a person knows he is the farthest from the truth
7:53 then surely Heaven will grant him to come close to the truth The Baal Ahavas Yisrael of Vizhnitz once said, Rabbi Yisrael of Vizhnitz said - he was the grandfather of the Admor, the father of the Imrei Chaim of Vizhnitz, the grandfather of the Admor who passed away - he once said that, to reach the truth, I never knew anyone who reached it but I have seen people who are far from falsehood One cannot come and say about a person that he reached the truth One can say that people fled from falsehood, are far from falsehood But truth - it is so hard to explain who it is that merited to reach the truth And within reaching truth, one must merit to reach 'the absolute truth' That is why this is the Torah of Moshe Rabbeinu
8:40 The Torah - that Moshe Rabbeinu gave us the Torah, he did not give us the Torah only so that we would learn it For a person learning the Torah and knowing the Torah, that is all good, and give thanks to Hashem for it but the main thing is that he take the Torah and take the reasons of the Torah and the inner depths of the Torah and aim for 'the absolute truth' through the Torah That is to say, when a person learns the Torah he must aim all the time for the absolute truth for the sake of Heaven, for His honor, blessed be He, that everything be for His honor, to give Him pleasure and to truly aim for 'the absolute truth' in their view, their intent and their explanation and that no error, Heaven forbid, come out
9:19 whether in understanding, in explanation, or in ruling or in each and every thing What is the reason, and what is the understanding I strive toward? What am I contemplating? This is called 'the absolute truth' And this was the mind of Moshe Rabbeinu, And this was the mind of Moshe Rabbeinu, That is why every time we mention 'Who chose Moshe His servant' we mention Moshe Rabbeinu because Moshe Rabbeinu was humble, and humility is truth For the Holy One, blessed be He, wants all created beings to be submissive before Him, blessed be He He wants them to crown Him, blessed be He, wants them to have humility wants them to have self-nullification toward Him, blessed be He wants them to have lowliness toward Him, blessed be He that they not trust in the work of their hands, that they not trust in their wisdom
10:00 that they not trust in their great wealth; that they trust in Him, blessed be He And the moment a person has personal interests in this world he thinks he has something of his own or he trusts in his own mind, or trusts in his wealth or trusts in his strength then this is actually called Bein HaMetzarim Now let us understand what Bein HaMetzarim is We are in the second screen of impurity for there was the first, which was in the time of Kayin and Hevel And that is why Moshe and Aharon came and repaired the sin of Kayin and Hevel to show that there is unity between the brothers and there is no jealousy between them and no hatred between them and on the contrary, they receive the Torah That is why the Holy One, blessed be He, was very strict
10:41 when Miriam, Aharon's sister, spoke against Moshe "concerning the Cushite woman whom he had taken" They had so much.. Hashem, blessed be He, was pained by this, Why? Because it brings back evil between brothers that there is evil and strife between the brothers That is why the Torah was strict about the sale of Yosef among the brothers and exile was decreed, and the Ten Martyrs Why such a punishment for this?
11:05 But every thing recalls the first sin For every time a sin is done every time a person sins, he recalls his first sins For when, Heaven forbid, a person sins he recalls his first sin When the world sins, they recall the first sins And every murder committed, Heaven forbid, recalls the sin of Kayin and Hevel And every theft and every, Heaven forbid, violence in the impurity of the generation of the Flood, in robbery, in adultery in all the severe sins, everything that was at the beginning is awakened and then the attribute of judgment is awakened for then Hashem, blessed be He, remembers what they did And that is why we always say Vidui; we say "we and our fathers" Why do we say "we and our fathers"?
11:54 To also recall the first sins, what was that we say we are sorry over them For if there had been no first sin, surely there would also have been no need for a last sin for there would have been no descent and no distancing So the meaning of teshuvah is that we do teshuvah for everything that was we do complete teshuvah for everything that was before And when a person does teshuvah truly and nullifies himself to Hashem and he thinks over every thing and every view what Hashem, blessed be He, wants in this in my teshuvah, in my truth, in my learning "And when you rise from the book, search in what you learned whether there is something in it that you can fulfill" which is what the Ramban taught his son See if there is something, when you get up,
12:35 how you can change And not to think that one changes after a while One changes right away, now, in a brief moment, quickly, with a correct mind, to be truth The whole world - there is so much falsehood, and everything is many screens And "Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not know You and upon the kingdoms that do not call upon Your Name" For all the falsehood is created by them; they grow the falsehood and light up and glorify the falsehood and try to make this falsehood rule over the whole entire world over all created beings, and especially over the holy nation But our separateness is that we will not learn from their deeds and we will not think, Heaven forbid, of going after them and not listen to them, and not hear their views, their foolishness and their ignorance
13:20 all that they plan, Heaven forbid, about this world That is why the Rebbe of Rimanov once laughed at those who wanted segulos to be saved from the evil eye So he said that the greatest segulah to be saved from the evil eye is that one not go about in the clothing of non-Jews If a person, Heaven forbid, dresses in clothing - he wears foreign clothing, the clothing of the non-Jews, then the evil eye will rule over him That is why one must always dress in the clothing of the holy nation, to be separate from them that our clothing not be like their clothing, And this is the tradition of dress that we and they not be in the same clothing that there be no mixing, Heaven forbid, in appearance and in clothing So this separateness causes the thought and the mind to be raised
14:09 and then actually we can get out from all the impurity that keeps us from coming close to holiness So if at first we were on a level of holiness in the time of the Beis HaMikdash, in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu in the time of the prophet Shmuel and King David and King Shlomo and all the holy ones who were on a level of holiness and everything holding them back from coming close to Hashem was from the side of holiness so today, what holds us back from coming close to Hashem is not holding back from the side of holiness it is holding back from the side of impurity; the whole world is full of impurity and all the views are full of falsehood And a person must strive again and again after the truth after Hashem, blessed be He, to seek Him, blessed be He, to please Hashem
14:53 And what is my purpose in all the vanities of this world? What is the purpose of every person, of all that he will go through? And he should set his mind on the last day, when they will bring him to the grave and he will be alone, and nothing will accompany him only Torah, mitzvos and good deeds, all that he did he will be full of the fear of Heaven and holiness And there they will not give him any honor And there no one will go with him and no one will accompany him, and no one will defend him only all that he did and accomplished before Hashem, blessed be He And this knowledge one must know at every moment, in every contemplation What is true cleaving to Hashem, what is fear of Hashem?
15:29 That a person at every moment is ready to give up his life and he is not alarmed to stand before the Heavenly court That is fear of Heaven A person who fears Heaven is not a person who sits with an innocent face Fear of Heaven is that a person at every time and moment is ready to give up his life and has no shame to stand before the Heavenly court He knows that even at the time they escort him he will be full of the fear of Heaven before the Heavenly court This is called fear of Heaven that he imagines how, at the time they wash him and wrap him and put him in the grave, he remains full and brimming with the fear of Heaven in holiness, in purity - this is called fear of Heaven
16:04 And this is still a small level I will not elaborate to you what further levels are, but this is a bit of the simple meaning of fear of Heaven, these are things one must think about But in order to get out of Bein HaMetzarim since we are in this state of exile and we are again in this time when we are coming close to this pain of the destruction of the Beis HaMikdash and we see how our House was destroyed the place where His blessed Name rested His Shechinah, in this place in this holy place, in this pure place King David, who merited to find it exactly and learned, of course, from the book of Yehoshua, that he had a proof of this from the book of Yehoshua and he knew how to find exactly the place of the Beis HaMikdash
16:52 for he did not want to give sleep to his eyes and he found the place of the Beis HaMikdash and Hashem, blessed be He, guided it through him that what David chose and what David found, he found exactly the place that is the will of Hashem and Hashem, blessed be He, agreed through David, and built the Beis HaMikdash King Shlomo, there at the place of the Beis HaMikdash this place that is exalted and glorious before Hashem, and there His will, blessed be He, was revealed And now that we are in this time of exile, and the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed and everyone goes on, stands and errs and they continue in the exile of their minds and struggle with a screen of impurity for this impurity is all the thoughts there are in the world
17:35 it is all the views, it is all the pride, it is all the sins, it is all the transgressions it is all the views there are in the world, all of it is called one big screen And when a person truly loves Hashem and cleaves to Hashem and does teshuvah before Hashem, he has truth in his hand, he has 'the absolute truth' he longs for Hashem all the time, and he always thinks about his purpose he can break through this screen, This one must remember and contemplate remember and contemplate always, always, that this is the difference that we should not think that we are perhaps now People will err and think they are in the time of the Beis HaMikdash, in the time of Moshe Rabbeinu and their obstacles are obstacles of holiness These are not obstacles from the side of holiness
18:20 Every obstacle a person has is from the side of the evil inclination, which tries to hold him back from everything how to come close to the true and eternal good This one must break, and this one must nullify, and fight like a lion like a mighty lion, for the honor of Hashem, blessed be He to overcome everything and to crown Hashem in every contemplation, in every glance in every thought, in all the limbs, in all the sinews only to crown the Holy One, blessed be He, only to crown Hashem only to crown the Creator, blessed be He over all the limbs, over all the sinews not to take the mind off Hashem, blessed be He, not even for a brief moment there is no taking the mind off Hashem, not even for a brief moment
18:58 in thought, in speech and in action to be cleaving to Hashem, blessed be He, at every time and moment that even if a person went to sleep for a brief moment went to sleep, in some dream, even in the dream he continues to cleave to Hashem also when he gets up he cleaves to Hashem, when he goes to sleep he cleaves to Hashem and Hashem, blessed be He, is all his life, all his hope The Rebbe of Vilednik says in the name of the holy Baal Shem Tov that the Baal Shem Tov used to say: "May Hashem fulfill all your requests" - that all your requests should be that Hashem be made full, 'Yemalei' - that the Name of Hashem be made full Now the Name of Hashem is lacking So the main hope of a person, the main request of your heart -
19:36 says the holy Baal Shem Tov: "May Hashem fulfill all your requests" that you reach such a level that all your requests will be that Hashem be made full that the Name of Hashem be made full, that His throne, blessed be He, be whole that His Name, blessed be He, be whole This is the purpose - to crown Hashem, to think only and solely about Hashem, blessed be He May it be His will that the Holy One, blessed be He, bestow good abundance and that we merit to give Hashem, blessed be He, pleasure that we merit 'the absolute truth' that we merit to cleave to Him, blessed be He, truly, simply to be wholehearted before Him, blessed be He, to serve Him, blessed be He to bring Him, blessed be He, pleasure and honor and to pray and hope that Hashem, blessed be He,
20:18 will build His House, blessed be He - the Beis HaMikdash to crown Him, blessed be He, in all the worlds and that they all testify and declare as one: Hashem is One and His Name is One Hashem, blessed be He, will reign over us forever and ever, and may we merit the complete geulah
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