“Abraham Begat Isaac” The Revelation of Light Within the Laws | The Gaon Hinoka After Morning Pra...

2:58 What happened there? Why did Sarah laugh? She saw that Yitzchak was about to be born. Yitzchak is the Gevuros. So the whole world, all these lights, are contracted into the Alef. So she said: Yitzchak has come — we will receive the Torah in this merit. Why? Everything now goes to "or", light, with... We need to see another beautiful chiddush here. In Rabbi Meir's Torah scroll it was written "kosnos or", garments of light, with the letter alef.

3:24 It was not written "kosnos or", garments of skin, with an ayin. In the sefer ... it is ruled — for there is an opinion among the scribes — that if "kosnos or" with an alef is found in a scroll, following Rabbi Meir, as Rabbi Meir said, the Torah scroll is kosher. This matter is not so, but look at the view of... that if, in a scroll, "kosnos or" — instead of "kosnos or" with an ayin — is written "kosnos or" with an alef, the scroll is kosher.

3:50 As it was in Rabbi Meir's scroll: "kosnos or" was with an alef. That means the scroll is kosher, because at the true root it is "kosnos or" with an alef, garments of light, not "kosnos or", garments of skin. This secret of this Alef corresponds to "and I will teach you wisdom" — I will reveal wisdom in the world. "Va'a'alefcha" — it has two alefs in it, alef, alef, alef. "Va'a'alefcha" — that was lost. So the secret of "In the beginning G-d created" — and so Avraham Avinu begets — Avraham, to whom the secret of the letter Hei was added — and with da'as he begets.

4:24 Avraham Avinu is able to reveal the vessels of birth in the world. And what, in truth, was this secret? Look: when are the judgments and the Gevuros revealed, at the hardest times? At what time of the year? There is a time that has judgments in it. When in the year? In which month do we have judgments? The month of Av — Bein HaMetzarim, the Three Weeks — and the month of Teves, as is also in the Zohar, Shemos, on page 10 — there are several things there, many things that there is a great deal to learn about — that there are times and months in the year that are hard. Rabbi Shimshon of Ostropoli — I think that the hilula of Avraham Avinu was in Teves: "And you shall come to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age" — that is Teves.

5:07 "You shall be buried in a good old age" — in its initial letters. The truth is, the hilula of Avraham Avinu — for whoever wants to know, Rabbi Shimshon of Ostropoli writes it — is at this time. Even among these times of judgments — the judgment of Teves, of Av, all of it — the time when they are most aroused is Rosh Hashanah. And we have two days: dina kashya, the harsh judgment, and dina rafya, the soft judgment. Given that there is the harsh judgment and the soft judgment on Rosh Hashanah, we need to sweeten these judgments, we need to sweeten the Gevuros — we want to sweeten them; we do not want them to have any substance or to act, Heaven forbid. One nullifies all the judgments and all the Gevuros — and the secret of sweetening these judgments and Gevuros is only through joy.

5:49 And so what do we read? Exactly this parshah — "Why did Sarah laugh?" — about Yitzchak, about Avraham Avinu; Yitzchak is mentioned altogether. "And He said: No, but you did laugh." All the time we mention Avraham and Sarah — at the most exalted time, when the Holy One, blessed be He, is actually judging whether to give them children — for that is the Torah reading on Rosh Hashanah. The Holy One, blessed be He, is judging you: let us see whether you merit children. He gives you — gives you a judgment.

6:14 And what is the meaning of this laughter at all? Why is she laughing? What is he laughing at? She said... what is going on there? There is something astonishing here altogether: the Holy One, blessed be He, says, "Good — you will have a son." One ought to cry from emotion, to cry from joy. What is this laughter? What was the laughter there? And then they even name him after the laughter. "And He said: No, but you did laugh"; "and she laughed"; "everyone who hears will laugh for me." This laughter — it is disdain, it is mockery.

6:38 It is written as "laugh" — let it say "rejoice": "everyone who hears will rejoice"; "And He said: No, but you rejoiced"; "and Sarah rejoiced"; "and he rejoiced" — then let them call him Yismach. And we said: what is this secret of Yitzchak? But in truth, what was there — the great secret is that Avraham and Sarah knew that only through joy, the greatest joy, which is within laughter — there are several kinds of laughter.

7:08 In laughter there are several kinds. There are those who laugh in order to shame; in laughter there is a laughter of shaming, and a laughter in which a person sets his da'as free. When do we rejoice the most in the year? There are several times in the year when there is — there is a miracle with an awakening from below, and with an awakening from above. The awakening from below — when was that? That was on Purim. So on Purim it is an awakening from below, not an awakening from above.

7:34 They do like this with the gragger: it spins up above. You turn it from here, and it spins and makes its noise. Unlike Purim, on Chanukah it is the opposite: you spin the dreidel from above, it spins down below — it spins the other way around. The awakening on Chanukah is from above, and then it is revealed below. As in the dispute of Beis Shammai and Beis Hillel: do we light the menorah decreasing as we go, or do we add — every day adding a candle?

7:59 That is why he said to him: "My lord asked his servants, saying: Have you a father" — av — do you light in the order of alef, beis — a candle each day, adding as you go — "or a brother" — ach: on the first day, all the way to eight? He asked them: do they have "av"? Or "ach"? What is the secret that you hold? Do you light on the first day and go on adding — do you have "av"? Or "ach" — right on the first day you light eight; ches, eight. So — "av" or "ach"? And what did they answer? What did they say to him?

8:26 What did they answer? What is "av zaken", an old father? Look: she saw Avraham Avinu, the Holy One, blessed be He — "and my lord is old" — she saw that it goes on adding. What does that mean? That each time, one has to go on and add strength. Every day we add another candle. We do not despair, and we are not broken by anything. And this secret of the "old father", of joy — it is the secret of Purim.

8:50 On Purim we rejoice so much, and laugh, and drink "until one cannot tell between Cursed is Haman and Blessed is Mordechai." We reach the joy of the laughter of Purim — everyone making laughter and joy, which is Purim — it is the secret of Yitzchak Avinu: "Everyone who hears will laugh for me" — that we rejoice with such joy. And this secret of laughter leads to hope. And so when we rejoice on Purim, we merit mochin d'gadlus, an expanded mind, and nullify all the judgments just by drinking wine — because from this joy one merits everything.

9:20 So that is why it says, of Avraham... "and she laughed" — all the time it is "will laugh for me", mentioning laughter again and again — because the meaning of it, the greatest closeness to the Holy One, blessed be He, that there is, is devekus, cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He — when the salvation is clear to a person. That is, their laughter was not at all just the way people laugh — laughing as if to say, "How can this be?" — rather: it is clear that it can be. And this is also like the view of the Rambam. That is, it is clear that Hashem can: "Is anything too wondrous for Hashem?"

9:47 The laughter was as if to say: it is clear — "Is anything too wondrous for Hashem?" The laughter was like the drunkenness of Purim, when one cannot tell between "Cursed is Haman" and "Blessed is Mordechai." And so, with the mention of Avraham Avinu and Yitzchak Avinu, every time, we mention Yitzchak — Yitzchak; we mention the offspring, the holy Avos: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov. We mention the merit of the Akeidah of Yitzchak Avinu — for the one who goes through all the Gevuros and all the hardships is Yitzchak Avinu. He was also bound on the altar, and with all he went through — to the world of Torah, in Gan Eden — "everyone who hears will laugh for me." Yitzchak, Yitzchak, Yitzchak, Yitzchak — Gevuros.

10:19 And so, the secret of joy, of laughter: to make laughter, in joy, out of everything in this world — and do not take anything hard or heavily, Heaven forbid. Through this a person will rise, be lifted up on high, and be in devekus. And he lived the longest of the Avos: a hundred and eighty. Avraham was a hundred and seventy-five; Yaakov, a hundred and forty-seven. He lived the longest — Yitzchak. So whom do we see making the greatest laughter of all?

10:44 King David. When he was leaping and whirling, he made laughter. And how much King David went through — and everything King David went through was only in order to reveal the light of the Holy One, blessed be He, in the world — which is the true purpose in everything we bring out here in the world: to turn the world around and reveal in it His G-dliness, blessed be He, to shine the light of Hashem, blessed be He, to reveal the kingship of Hashem, blessed be He — and may we merit to be in joy always.

11:11 And this is to be remembered always: "Avraham begot Yitzchak." Always, when any person is going through whatever he is going through, he should not panic. Remember at once: the judgment and the Gevurah and everything passing over him — who begot them? Avraham Avinu. There is Chesed even within the trouble, as David said: "In distress" — "In distress You gave me room" — in this very distress, in the trouble itself. And Yitzchak — in the judgments, the Gevuros — the one who begot them is Avraham. So: "In distress You gave me room."

11:38 And "we have an old father" — we have "av", and not "ach". We go on adding from day to day. For every kind of need. ... I will speak with him, though. — Ah, I do not know... in my eyes; I went to... they already thought I had the illness, they did tests on me, they did a scan of my whole head. They found nothing. I came to you, I got home, it all went down — everything. Rav, Rav... [crowd] The judgments are sweetened through the Pele Elyon, the supernal Wonder.

12:13 The Pele Elyon, which is full of mercy and complete Chasadim — there all the judgments are sweetened. The Pele Elyon. The Pele — that is the Alef. That is what sweetens all the judgments. And so, when there was an aluf, a chief, of Esav — the alufim of Esav, alufim — aluf, aluf — every aluf is the Pele, it is the alefs; the alefs are there. Now, the whole quarrel was between Yaakov and Esav: who would inherit this Alef.

12:39 For it is written: "And behold, tomim — twins — in her womb." It is not written "te'omim"; "behold, tomim." Tomim — without an alef; the alef is missing. Why was the alef missing? Because they were fighting between them over the Alef, so there was no Alef — this Alef disappeared. And so the Rama of Fano writes that the spark of Esav came as a gilgul, a reincarnation, in Shimshon. Shimshon, who had the hair — he was ruddy, he was a man of hair, by his signs — whom did he recall?

13:08 Esav. Shimshon — it disappeared. So that means: the secret of this Alef — who took it? It is the secret of Yaakov, within this Alef. And this Alef was between Shimshon and the Philistines — and always, between the wicked and the good. There is always a war between the Jewish people and the nations of the world.

13:32 "For you have striven with the Divine and with men, and have prevailed" — with Yaakov Avinu. Every time there is a war between the Jewish people and the nations of the world, there is a war between good and evil, between Mordechai the Jew and the wicked Haman. The secret of this war is who will inherit this Alef — the secret of the Alef. And so, when the angel came to Manoach — in Shoftim, chapter 13 — and said: "Why do you ask my name, seeing it is peli, wondrous?" — that is "alfi" — that is what "peli" is.

14:01 "Peli" is the Alef. He said: Why are you asking my name? My name is the Alef — this exalted one. I have come to give you this Alef. And so Manoach rejoiced — he and his wife rejoiced — and they had thought they were about to die, because they said, "An angel!" They said: there is no such thing as this happening here; there is a very great secret here that has been revealed to us from Heaven. And what remained for them to discover was this secret of theirs. And then they understood that Shimshon ben Manoach is the one who received this Alef, and he is the one who will triumph and take vengeance on the Philistines.

14:32 So when Shimshon prayed, "Remember me, please, and strengthen me, please, just this once" — this is the secret that Shimshon ben Manoach asked for: to be avenged on the Philistines and to cut off the Philistines. And the Philistines gouged out Shimshon's eyes — right? And who went blind from the smoke of the idolatry of Esav? Yitzchak. Yitzchak. And Yitzchak was Gevuros. Yitzchak was strength.

14:56 So look at it all — how each thing goes and connects with the next: the secret of "his eyes grew dim", and this immense light that is here. And so it is written: "And behold, tomim in her womb." This "tomim" corresponds to the war they had over this Alef — to take the light toward kedushah; and the other wanted to take it to impurity.

15:22 So one must always take everything into kedushah, with no hold and no nourishment at all for the chitzonim, the outside forces, and may it all be raised up to kedushah, as we have said. — I see that today there is a lot of contradiction between the Oral Torah and the Written Torah, and also quite a lot of differences within the Torah itself — there are many contradictions between the book of Devarim and the books of Shemos, Vayikra, and so on and so on.

15:48 Shall I go into the details? — First of all, I want to explain something to you. I want you to understand. First of all — have you ever had the chance to finish the Torah? — Once. — What does that mean? — To finish the Torah means to read Bereishis, Shemos, Vayikra, Bamidbar, Devarim. — Pay attention to what it takes to finish the Torah: to read the whole Chumash, all the Prophets and the Writings, the commentators, with the Midrashim, the Talmud Bavli, the Talmud Yerushalmi, Pesikta, Tosefta, Mechilta, Sifra, Sifri, Rishonim, Acharonim, the halachic rulings — to know the ideas, the whole meaning.

16:28 That is once, in order. A second time, you learn it not in order. What does that mean? That if there is a difficulty in the Bavli and in the Yerushalmi, you learn that same Gemara on that same difficulty. That is, I learn what is in the Yerushalmi together with the Bavli. Sugyos in the Yerushalmi and in the Bavli. There are many contradictions between the Yerushalmi and the Bavli. It is another Talmud, sealed a hundred years earlier. But I learn the Yerushalmi, I learn the Bavli together with it. I learn the Zohar with the writings of our master the Arizal, and all the introductions of the Leshem — things in order, because there are many introductions in Kabbalah itself. One also has to know which method of learning.

17:01 Whoever comes by way of the Sulam — that is the precise method. I will explain to you simply what is happening. Today, to our sorrow, there are many rabbis who did not learn the Torah properly, and did not learn it from the beginning to the end, at least once — and then, after that, to learn it in depth. Why is it important to learn the Torah in depth? Because many, many commentators have far more difficulties than we ever had.

17:28 You have to understand: when I come with a difficulty — be sure that the Gemara asked your difficulties. Be sure that the Ibn Ezra asked it, that the Sforno asked it, that the Abarbanel asked it — that many great ones before us saw this question. And they saw the question that came up for you, and they gave an answer to it. You do not grasp the great sea that the Torah is in — so as to know the answer from there, and to draw the answer up from there, and to bring the source from there.

17:52 And then what happens? It is as if there are half-things, things that are not clear, and there are difficulties on the Torah. What does the Gemara in Tractate Megillah, page 11, tell about King Talmai — that he took Sages and seated them? "Interpret the Torah, write the Torah for me, explain it." All the Sages — Hashem put it in their hearts: "G-d created in the beginning." They did not write "In the beginning... created." Why? Because it was a miracle, a great miracle. I said: what is this miracle?

18:17 Would it not be better — what could He have done for them instead? Put it in his heart that he would understand it, and that is all. Why did the Sages need to change it around? So that he should not think that "Bereishis" is some kind of deity. For all of it, Sages were needed, and safeguards. That is why one must know — first of all, let me explain to you, sir: I am sure that deep inside you you have very great emunah. — Only in Him. — Only in Him. I am sure. — Only in Him. Only in Him. Today I no longer believe in people.

18:44 — You are right. You are right. I agree with you. When you see people, you see the deeds, you see the ways, you see what is going on in the world — it creates a barrier. — Completely. — But you need to understand that the Holy One, blessed be He — He loves you, He is with you, and you too — you believe in everything. It simply lets you understand less of everything you see, everything you read.

19:11 Today, to our sorrow, there are rabbis who sit and teach Torah, and say things from here and from there, and they raise questions out of the Torah, and they deny the Oral Torah. They deny it — they do not believe in the Oral Torah — because they run into a great many contradictions. That is only because of a lack of in-depth study of the Torah. There is a way of learning the Torah for breadth, bekius, and there is a way of learning Torah in depth, iyun. Learning Torah for breadth is very important, because as you go through the Torah, you will notice a great many — suddenly, thorns that come up out of the mind, doubts and questions — but in the next Gemara you understand the continuation.

19:46 The Gemara begins, in Tractate Berachos: "From when do we recite the Shema in the evenings?" And then the Gemara starts asking: reciting the Shema in the evenings — where was that learned from? Suddenly you learn that the Gemara will explain to you, further on, the questions that come up for you. You begin learning the Gemara, and suddenly you see that I have no question. The difficulty I came to ask — suddenly the teacher is asking it. What I came to ask — the Gemara in Sukkah answers. Everything is already there. That is with bekius. When I learn the Torah in depth, you begin to dive down and understand that a great, great many great ones before me saw my question a thousand times over, in a great many variations, and answered it.

20:23 So I am telling you, sir: I am sure that you have no question. And I would suggest one more thing to you. If you want, we will sit together, we will set a time, and you come with all the questions and doubts you have. Prepare for yourself all the questions you want — in the Written Torah, in the Oral Torah, in the commentators, in whatever you have — and I will sit with you calmly, and we will be able to learn it together, and I will answer you, and I will be glad for you to receive the answers. I will bring you from what Hashem has graced me with; I will answer you with what I remember, what I know.

21:02 But I want you to remember — promise that if you find, when you understand these things, that you will reconsider and learn the Oral Torah. — I promise. My word. — You will learn the Oral Torah? — My word. Even now — I am still continuing to learn it. — So you will go on learning? — I am going on; I am still continuing to learn it. — So I promise you. — I am only saying that I find in it more doubts than truths.

21:30 — So I will explain to you how there are no doubts at all, and you will see that you will succeed in everything. — Amen. — You will come to me with all your questions, all of them, and together we will learn, and I will show you sefarim, and I will sit with you; we will set aside some minutes for it. Together, at a set time — come with all the questions and I will answer you. — On Sunday he has a very dangerous operation on his back. — First of all, may you have a complete recovery from Heaven. — Amen. — The Gemara says — Berachos, page 28b, and Bava Kamma, page 16 — there the Gemara speaks about the spine: one must bow until all the vertebrae in the spine stand out.

22:03 That is submission to the Holy One, blessed be He. — As I said, I am, completely. — You know, the Sages say — everything the Sages teach us, always — they had awe of the Holy One, blessed be He; their yirah was far greater. Remind me, too, to tell you a parable — a certain parable — about what yiras Shamayim, fear of Heaven, comes from learning Gemara. Remind me of it; I will tell you a parable about it, one that I made up. I believe in you, and I know there is great strength in you, and we will succeed.

22:32 — Thank you very much. — Thank you. I will yet learn together with you. — With Hashem's help. — We will learn together. — I was glad to meet you. — And I you. All the questions — prepare all the questions, bring everything.