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The shiur in English
The Yanuka’s own words in this shiur, translated into English by Lehallel · 2,599 words · 16:34. Press a time to hear it said.
0:00 We know that the significance of music is very lofty, and very, very important. From the day of the destruction of our Beis HaMikdash, the Holy Temple, and our glory, the primordial serpent swallowed up the entire world. And the whole world is inside the filth of the primordial serpent.
0:24 And the one thing the primordial serpent could not swallow is the harp of King David. King David's harp remained clear and pure, and the musical instruments remained clear and pure. That is why, when Nevuchadnetzar wanted them to play before him, they said, 'How shall we sing the song of Hashem on foreign soil?'
0:48 'If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget.' We cannot sing and play before such a wicked man. Because Nevuchadnetzar wanted to swallow up the music, he wanted to swallow up their music, so that nothing would remain of this either. But they refused nonetheless. And so they cut off their hands, so that they would not play before him. And so the music was saved entirely from the Sitra Achra, so that it would not swallow it (the music), and they could keep the music in holiness.
1:20 And the meaningful thing about music: We have, We say, 'Create a pure heart for me, O G-d, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.' The service of Hashem is entirely in the mind. The whole meaning of serving Hashem must be with the intellect. The moment one loses the mind, there is no service of Hashem.
1:45 Because it is impossible to serve Hashem only with the heart. One cannot serve Hashem with the heart alone. One must be a person of intellect, one must be a person of perception, one must be a person of wisdom, one must be a person of understanding, one must be a person of knowledge, one must know wisdom, understanding, knowledge, the intellect, to know the holy Torah very, very well. Because a heart alone does not help.
2:09 One can have a big heart, but one must use the heart to appease Hashem, to placate Him and to plead before Him - for that one needs the heart. But the great significance is the 'mind'. And within the mind there is a 'point of the heart', and within the heart there is a 'point of the mind'. That is, one needs to know how to join the heart - the point of the heart that is in the mind - with the point of the mind that is in the heart.
Read the whole shiur in English (27 more parts)
2:38 Let us explain what this means; we will give you a parable. Say, for example, there is a person with a very, very big heart, who loves every person and suspects no one, loves everyone and is happy with everyone, and he has great fear of Heaven and everything. One day a certain person comes before him, and he loves him very much.
3:02 But what? He sees that he behaves with deeds that are not so kosher. He sees a little; he manages to notice that there are some things that don't look... But he still loves him. That he loves him - that is because of the heart. That he noticed that his deeds are not so kosher - that comes from the point of the mind that is in the heart.
3:26 In what situation would he not love him at all? If he looked at him from the side of the mind, at his deeds, he would have no love for him at all, and he would have no connection with him. How does he love him nonetheless, even though he has deeds that are not so kosher? It is because of the point of the mind that is in the heart. Because then he keeps his love for him, and he also keeps the mind to know that he will not err, and that the other will not lead him, Heaven forbid, onto the path of falsehood and wickedness as well.
3:54 Therefore the heart needs to have love in it, but one also needs to use the mind that is inside the heart to know how to maneuver, how to come close to Hashem, to know how to overcome all the obstacles on the way. The meaning of music is that music knows how to take the point of the mind that is in the heart and awaken it and unite it with that point of the heart that is in the mind.
4:20 And through this a person merits to have a mind and a heart that are united. Because the mind and the heart need to be joined. The moment the mind and the heart are one solid piece, then the deed turns from a candle into a torch, because it already becomes a much greater light, the power already becomes much greater, the prayer becomes a great and mighty prayer, the meaning of every word and the meaning of every utterance.
4:47 The holy Baal Shem Tov was very particular about this, that, Heaven forbid, there should not be anyone who does not join heart and mind. He would sit people down for eight, nine months to explain to them the work of uniting the heart and the mind, the order of this work, ...how important it is and how much work it is. And music - the purpose of music is that it joins the heart and the mind.
5:11 Because music is wisdom. After all, music is a very great wisdom, and on the one hand it is also a very great heart. Because wisdom plays the heart; the mind plays the heart. That is the meaning of music. After all, not everyone can know how to play. So one needs a mind in order to play. That is, the melody that is played comes from the side of the mind, and in practice, the result is that it awakens the heart.
5:39 That is, the mind awakens the heart. And therefore the service of Hashem must have mind in it. Because without mind, without wisdom, understanding and knowledge, which are the offspring of the mind - it gives birth to nothing. A person does not manage to bring forth anything. Therefore this is the most important meaning. And the meaning of our music is also that there be an awakening of the heart and the mind together.
6:03 So we will play a little, and after that, with Hashem's help, we will begin our shiur. We are in Parshas Chayei Sarah. The meaning of Chayei Sarah, the life of Sarah: We know: Sarah, the wife of Avraham Avinu. 'And Avraham was old, advanced in days.' And Hashem, blessed be He, loved Sarah and the prayer of Sarah, and only because of that she could not give birth.
6:38 The meaning of Chayei Sarah is how each one of us can live his life like Sarah. We know that Sarah was a woman of prayer, and she knew how to persuade Hashem, to appease Him and to placate Him.
7:13 And because of the power of her prayer she merited to draw down all the tzaddikim and all the light and all the holiness and all the abundance into the world. And truly, there is wisdom, as we said, there is understanding, and there is knowledge.
7:47 That one merits wisdom - wisdom is when a person can understand the reality before him, to understand of Hashem's greatness, to understand reality. 'Knowledge' is knowing what is good and what is evil. And 'understanding' is understanding one thing from another. We know that in order to merit to draw down and bear children into the world, one must connect through 'knowledge', and not through 'wisdom'.
8:27 'Through knowledge' means to draw down holy souls of tzaddikim into the world, and not to draw down, Heaven forbid, souls of the opposite kind. Therefore, what is said about Avraham Avinu and 'Sarai' - that Sarai is barren - is because to draw down a soul that is completely good, that is not 'evil' and not 'good and evil', but completely good, complete knowledge, which is the power of distinguishing, can come only through her becoming Sarah, only by her going out from wisdom to the level of knowledge.
9:17 Because with wisdom it is possible to draw down all the awesome tzaddikim from the side of wisdom; one needs to bring them to the level of knowledge, which is the Hei of Sarah, for it was necessary specifically to pass from the Yud of Sarai to the level of the Hei, which is knowledge, so that she drew them all down from the complete good, those holy and pure souls that have no blemish at all, Heaven forbid.
9:50 And then Yitzchak Avinu and Yaakov Avinu were drawn down into the world. The meaning is that they revealed the knowledge of the absolute truth in the world. And the life of Sarah - in fact, it says 'Chayei Sarah', the life of Sarah - it is in the present, because it is always the life of Sarah, because she lived so much for the honor of Hashem that she lives until today.
10:25 She lives with us now. Every thing that is done that is the raising up of Malchus, Kingship - that is Sarah. Therefore, to draw down into the world that great day, which is the day of the geulah, which is the joy - Sarah already drew it down.
10:52 As it says that she laughed: 'Why did Sarah laugh?' 'And He said, No, but you did laugh...' The meaning is that in fact she laughed when they told her that there was about to come out of her that figure who comes from the complete good, from the immense and infinite abundance.
11:20 And she engraves her whole life into the world, she reveals them through... After all, what are a person's children? What is 'And you shall teach them diligently to your children'? A person is like a quill, and your children are the book - what you write in it. What comes out of the children is what you leave in the world.
11:44 It is your book, it is your memory, it is your diary. So Sarah comes and sees that she is about to give birth to the light of the geulah, to those who will bring the last day, the day of the geulah, when 'Then our mouth will be filled with laughter and our tongue with song'. So she laughed, she laughed, because she knows that she merited to draw down all the holy souls, all the holy and pure tzaddikim.
12:18 And she saw with wonder all who come out of her. And therefore the life of Sarah continues until now, until this very moment. Because the meaning is that every time, every minute and every second that she drew such holy ones into the world, she did not despair and did not fall into despair about her salvation.
12:47 Because she could have fallen into despair. As much a woman of faith as she was, she could have fallen into despair and said, 'For me there will be no salvation,' and given up on herself completely, Heaven forbid. But she said, 'Perhaps this is a Tikkun from Hashem, there is a purpose in this delay, and out of this delay will come specifically good.' And she rejoiced in Hashem that this whole delay is truly for the good. And it truly turned around for her: she lived, and did not waste her life. Because another person could have said, 'What - she wasted her life, and at the end of her time to give birth like this?'
13:14 Rather, 'Chayei Sarah' - to tell you, 'the life of Sarah': she lives to this day. And the fact that the salvation came at the end does not mean that one no longer lives; it means that life begins... and behold, she lives to this day. We mention her and live her light, and she rises and lives and is elevated. This tells each one of us: when a person does not see his salvation coming, and...
13:39 do not think that the time is being wasted, Heaven forbid. You will enjoy, and you will have a good life, and everything will work out, as it says, 'Make us glad according to the days You afflicted us, the years we saw evil.' 'Let Your work be seen by Your servants, and Your splendor upon their children.' What a person goes through in fasts, the sorrow a person suffers, and the bitterness he went through - everything has turned around for him for the good. Even the little child who goes in the evening, goes in the morning, to the house of Hashem, and puts his hand on the entrance of the Talmud Torah, and his hand is cold from the handle, from the cold - even for this moment that he touched this cold, he will have a reward in the time to come.
14:19 Even for the cold a person suffers in the service of Hashem, he will have a reward... for the smallest cold he will receive a reward, higher and higher, in the World to Come. That is the great, immense and mighty meaning of this thing. How very important it is to believe that there is good hope for our future. That is the meaning of Chayei Sarah. Because her immense level is that all she went through, all the humiliations and all the disgrace, and all the pain and bitterness, and everything she goes through - she laughs, and she is happy, and she is joyful, and she knows that she will live forever, and she envies no one, and she does not despair, and she just lives her life.
14:59 So in fact, that is Chayei Sarah. This is a figure one must learn from how to live, and to understand that one serves Hashem with the vessels and levels that I have, at a hundred years old, at twenty years old, at seven years old. Whether you received the vessel of a child of seven, who is really young and small, and foolish, and doesn't really understand things, and has not yet attained what he would attain; at twenty years, when you received the strength of a mighty soldier in an army, someone who can fight the wars of Hashem, whether you received, you merited, the level of a tzaddik; and at a hundred years, which is an old man who has no more strength, and he is weak and cannot move - the level is that Chayei Sarah: she lives also at a hundred years,
15:54 even though she had old age and difficulties, and she cannot move, and sadness, despair and old age fall upon her - she serves Hashem. And at seven years - when there is no vitality and it is impossible to pray and there is no strength - nevertheless she holds herself in emunah and strengthens herself and does not despair. And at twenty years, when of course she attained what she attained. Because everyone goes through what he goes through, and the main thing is to hold ourselves in the trait of trust, in the trait of hope and eternity, not to fall into despair, Heaven forbid, to be mighty and to be strong, and to believe that Hashem will save us.
16:27 May it be His will that the Holy One, blessed be He, help us, that we have help from Heaven, that we have a Shabbos of peace.
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