The Yanuka Rav Shlomo Yehuda-הגאון הינוקא - מוצאי ראש השנה תשפ＂ד - השיעור השמחה והריקודים The Yanuka

2:53 into his inner self, his NaRaNChaY - into the Nefesh, into the Ruach, the Neshamah, Chayah, Yechidah, his levels and his elevation - only by way of the thought and the holiness. And now - you remember that we learned a few more important things, that one of the most important things we learned, if you remember, is the advice that it is very important that you remember all the days of your lives, forever, and always act this way: that immediately when Shabbos goes out, immediately when Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah goes out, immediately when a person leaves the Kotel, immediately when a person leaves the grave of Rabbi Shimon, Rachel Imeinu, the Cave of the Patriarchs, any holy place in the world where a person stayed, and any place where a person was in holiness, in any place,

3:44 or some act, or a great attainment, or a great level - to ask Hashem, blessed be He, for forgiveness and pardon and atonement for the stay, and for the time, or for the place: 'If I did not behave properly in the holiness of the place, and if I did not pray and keep Shabbos properly.' And I will explain why. Many times a person makes a practice of doing teshuvah, so he does teshuvah for his iniquities, his sins and his transgressions.

4:12 But when do we find that a person merits to sit down calmly and feel sorry or confess over a mitzvah or over holiness, or a grave of a tzaddik where he stayed - and perhaps he did not think in holiness at that tziyun, perhaps on holy Shabbos he thought about forbidden things, Heaven forbid, perhaps he was not careful as he should be with the holiness of the place? So we see in Tractate Shabbos, page 150b, the Gemara tells about that pious man for whom a caper bush grew - he had wanted to fix the fence, and because of that thought he was careful not to fix it, and a miracle happened for him, and so on.

4:45 But this story comes to teach us that beyond the fact that he was careful about the thought that he thought - not to do work, only in his thought - he fenced himself in never to do it, and Hashem, blessed be He, paid his reward: a tree actually grew for him, which by itself fixed the problem for him, that he had needed to fix the fence. But one can learn from here how great is the importance and the care with a holy place, with a holy time, with a holy hour, a time of favor, a holy grave of tzaddikim - a request of a small teshuvah, a thought of teshuvah, where a person asks of Hashem, blessed be He: 'Forgiveness, Master of the world, if I did not stay there properly, if I did not keep Shabbos properly,

5:27 if I did not keep the holy days of Rosh Hashanah properly and took my mind off the awe of Your holy judgment, or did not have the proper intention, if I did not pray as I should, if my mind was not settled' - like that, in simple words, in his own language. This brings about that all the vessels he made and worked, whether at the holy tziyun of Rabbi Shimon, at the Cave of the Patriarchs, whether in Hebron, whether in his stay at the Kotel, whether in his stay on the day of Shabbos, or on Rosh Hashanah, or on Yom Kippur, or in any holy place in the world - it guards all these vessels, so that the outside forces cannot draw from them, so that nothing bad comes to him, so that no trouble befalls him.

6:02 It guards and protects everything he merited to gather in that time of favor; and this is the merit and the ability a person has to preserve it and bring it about, and that it will be guarded and stored away with him for everything he will need. So remember this rule, because it is very important, and it is worthwhile for a person to accustom himself to it all the days of his life. And also when a person takes off the tefillin he wraps them up; at the time he wraps the tefillin, he should have a thought of teshuvah: 'Perhaps I was not careful and guarded as I should be with the holiness of the tefillin.'

6:33 Every time a person has a thought of teshuvah over any thing and mitzvah, or over a thing of holiness that he was in, that he stayed in and did, that is what will preserve for him the hidden, stored-away light of the time of the mitzvah. And another thing one must beware of is, Heaven forbid, to regret fulfilling a mitzvah or giving charity, Heaven forbid.

6:59 Because if a person is sorry he fulfilled a mitzvah, or gave charity, or a good thing he did - I don't want to explain, and you also surely know what the consequence of that is. I will explain to you how this can sometimes come about. It can come about when a person traveled to the graves of tzaddikim in the north, traveled to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, and on the way, after he came back from the trip, he stopped along the roads, and his car broke down, and he had to fix the wheels or something, and he is upset or he is angry, and quarrels with his household, and he is sorry, and he says: 'Why did I make this trip?' Heaven forbid.

7:46 And he does not notice that he is regretting it and saying: 'If I hadn't traveled, then this wouldn't have happened to me with the car...' And it is the Satan who set it up for him, to make him regret the whole trip... And one must be very, very careful about this. Therefore one must remember the rules, for these are the things which a person shall do and live by them. For everything that a person fulfills, or merited to do in this world, in Torah and in mitzvos and in holiness, whether in charity or in anything else - if he shows that he is happy with it and he never regrets it, then it will be guarded for him forever and ever, for all eternity.

8:22 And if, Heaven forbid, there is something, then it can do harm. In what words should one say the thought of teshuvah? The thought of teshuvah can be either in thought or by mouth - one can say in teshuvah: I have sinned, I have done wrong, I have transgressed. It is also possible to just think the teshuvah; if a person even only thinks teshuvah over this, that will also help him. But it is worthwhile for a person to say it with his mouth, so that it always becomes part of the very essence of his life.

8:51 That is to say, a person went to the Kotel and prayed; he leaves the Kotel, he always carries on with his life; he says, 'I was at the Kotel.' But while he was at the Kotel, it could be there were foreign thoughts, it could be he was not careful with the holiness of the place, it could be he turned... did not pay attention... took his mind off it, maybe spoke idle words, maybe he leaned on the Kotel, maybe he put his hand between the cracks, which is also forbidden.

9:15 You know that leaning is me'ilah, misusing what is holy, or all these things which are forbidden. There are many rules and levels of holiness that one must be careful with and keep every time a person is in a holy place. And sometimes, when a person is there, from all the busyness and his desire to pray, he forgets them. But that can still, Heaven forbid, stand against him as a kind of stumbling block - that he was not careful enough with the holiness of the place, that he was not careful enough with the holiness of the tzaddikim.

9:40 And I will tell you a beautiful story about the Ateres Tzvi of Zidichov, may his merit protect us. Rabbi Tzvi Hirsh of Zidichov - you have heard of him. He was the prince of the house of the Zohar. He was one of the greatest tzaddikim and geonim that the Jewish people had. He explained the Zohar, and he wrote many commentaries, and he was a gaon and holy, and did many good deeds for the Jewish people, miracles and wonders, and he was holy and awesome, a wonder-worker, a man of the holy spirit, and more.

10:07 There was once a story that several chassidim were on their way to him, and they asked themselves - they said, each one of them said: if he does a miracle for me for my wife, who is having a hard labor, he would be his Rebbe - so he said in his thoughts. The second chassid said: if he will know my Tosafos, the place where I am up to in it, he will be my Rebbe.

10:31 And the third said: if he will know what I am thinking, he will be my Rebbe. And so they got onto the wagon and traveled to the Ateres Tzvi of Zidichov. And when they reached the Ateres Tzvi of Zidichov and went in to him, the Ateres Tzvi of Zidichov said to them: 'You - your wife, baruch Hashem, will give birth at this very hour. I have released you; you will have, with Hashem's help, a son - for next week.

10:57 Be happy' - before he had begun to speak. The second - he said to him: 'Your Tosafos is in Kesubos, on page...' and began to explain it to him before he knew. 'And you - what you were thinking about is this and that sin that you did. Here you have what you wanted, and I do not want to be your Rebbe. You think that you will choose me, that if I... I do not want to be your Rebbe.'

11:21 So the Ateres Tzvi said to them. 'It is not that you will decide whether I will be your Rebbe; I do not want you as students.' So the Ateres Tzvi said to them, and he sent them away from before him. And of course he was a tzaddik, holy and awesome and exacting; these are levels... But you see from here that even at such levels of tzaddikim, the very thought - they stayed with him and came to him - if perhaps there had been a different thought, it could be that they would have merited to gather more, both of the salvations and of what they wanted.

11:48 We see from here that the very way they came to that sage, to that tzaddik - even though they received their salvation, in the end they lost much more, for they could have gathered much, much more had they looked with simplicity, with innocence, and with complete and pure emunah. And from here we can learn from this story much, much, much of a moral lesson, which comes to tell us how careful we must be with all the holiness and awe of the place, and with the fear of Hashem, and with the purpose, and with closeness to Hashem, blessed be He.

12:18 And this is the great, greatest thing that we should merit to gather. And I, the small and lowly one, bless you that you have a good year, that you have good tidings, amen. I merited to be together with you, and to learn from you and to hear you and to pray with you. I had joy and a very great elevation, and holiness. May Hashem, blessed be He, save you in all matters, all of them, and may you bring about all good, and from all good, and be answered and crowned with mercy from Heaven, and may your prayer be accepted, amen, and may you have miracles and wonders, amen, and all good, and from all good; may you have all the good blessings flowing to you.

12:54 Yasher koach to all the helpers, to all who assisted, to all the planning, the beautiful thing they did so that we could pray here, to all the holy staff who did it, all the Torah scholars, all the rabbis, all the holy ones. May Hashem, blessed be He, give you salvations, give you miracles and wonders. Chazak u'baruch, Rabbi Asaf and Rabbi Nissim Chaim, Rabbi Yisrael Moshe, the shofar blower, with Rabbi Eyal, who did the shofar blasts for us according to all the opinions. May you have help from Heaven - all the effort, it was a great light, wondrous and awesome.

13:22 May you have all good, and from all good, amen, with Hashem's help, miracles and wonders. - Forgive us if we did not treat the Rav's honor as we should. With the permission of the holy congregation, in the name of the whole holy congregation that is here: people came here from every... from abroad, really on special flights; they fly back on the night after the holiday, tomorrow. People came from out of town, from the south, from the north, from Eilat, from all over the country, and also from every end of Jerusalem, from Gilo, from Ramot - a two-hour walk, every step on foot, in prayers, on the holiday, and truly your self-sacrifice for the whole minyan.

13:57 We thank the Rav in the name of the whole holy congregation for all the prayers, for all the elevation, for all the awakening, for all the attention, with all the burden of the hard work of prayer that our teacher and our Rav has in these holy days, with all the devotion. But we see here all the devotion, to pay attention to every Jew, wherever he is, so that every Jew leaves here happy and joyful and encouraged and strengthened.

14:21 And you know that the Rav - we, on Rosh Hashanah, cry out 'the holy King' for ten days, but the Rav cries out about it day and night, all his life. All the time the Rav talks about the kingship of Hashem, blessed be He, about this place, about the kingship of the House of David, about all the prophecies, about everything we plead to Hashem for: 'And so, and so, and so - may Your Name be sanctified, and place Your fear', 'and so the righteous will see and rejoice'. The Rav talks about it all the time and comes back to it.

14:45 All of the Rav's Torah is always to reveal not only the kingship of Hashem in the world, but to reveal that every Jew belongs to the kingship of Hashem. We thank the Rav with all our heart for all the prayers, for all the self-sacrifice - whoever knows: this place was truly established with self-sacrifice. And we thank the Rav. May the Holy One, blessed be He, give the Rav a good and long life, amen. With Hashem's help, may He inscribe the Rav for a good life and for peace.

15:09 With Hashem's help, may we merit next year - already next year, may all the Jewish people be here, with Hashem's help. May we merit, with Hashem's help, that the Holy One, blessed be He, show the Rav all the joys of the Jewish people, all the salvations of the Jewish people, amen. May the Rav see every Jew come with good tidings in his mouth, amen, full of light, full of joy, full of happiness. May all this memory of Rosh Hashanah go with us all year, with Hashem's help, and may we show the Rav how much we truly live from the holy Torah that the Rav teaches us - a holy, pure and clean Torah, which cleanses all the 248 limbs and 365 sinews and shows a person the truth: that the Holy One, blessed be He, dwells within us.

15:47 So may it be His will that the Holy One, blessed be He, give the Rav a good life, to him and to all his household, with Hashem's help, amen, to all who are attached to him, to all the Jewish people. May the Holy One, blessed be He, widen his borders with true students, amen, who want the kingship of Hashem. And may we all merit, with Hashem's help, to be inscribed for a good life and for peace, and all the Jewish people; and so may it be His will, and let us say amen. - One more small thing. I wanted to also ask forgiveness.

16:14 All year I try, baruch Hashem, to listen, to pay attention to whatever I can; I try very hard. I ask forgiveness if someone turned to me and I did not manage to answer him, to pay attention to him on the way, I did not manage to shake his hand, something... to listen... I try - judge me favorably. Forgiveness also, if I did not manage, did not succeed, and someone was hurt - judge me favorably.

16:38 I love all of you, remember everyone, pray for everyone. I hear so many stories and things, and I do not forget anyone. And not once and not twice it has happened to me that I came to make Kiddush on Friday night, and tears fell from me onto the wine, from the stories I hear - people come... very painful things. And people think that they tell me, and each one goes on, but these things pain me very much - the sorrow, the pain.

17:09 And I pray for everyone, and I want everyone to have only good tidings. So judge favorably if I did not manage, so I did not succeed, something. But I always pray for everyone, for salvations; I pray for you, care for you, love you. May Hashem, blessed be He, save you, and may we have only good tidings, miracles and wonders, and may we find favor in the eyes of Hashem, blessed be He, amen, salvations and miracles and wonders, and may you bring us only good tidings, amen, miracles and wonders, amen, and the complete geulah, amen.

17:40 With Hashem's help we will meet on Yom Kippur; prepare vessels for Yom Kippur.