#10 Iggeres Hateshuvah Tanya — Chapter 1 part 9

 Iggeres Hateshuvah, chapter one part nine.

This series of in-depth Tanya classes is presented by Rabbi Yaakov Krasnianski.

Thank you for being here, and may the study of this Chassidus lead to the coming of Moshiach.

Timestamps:

00:00 (Intro).

00:28 (Opening words).

01:06 (10 Shevat and Teshuvah).

14:16 (15 Shevat and Teshuvah).

20:53 (Thank you to our sponsors).

21:24 (Recap).

02:18:44 (Outro).

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to in-depth Tanya classes by Project Hasidis, presented by Rabbi Yakev Krasniansky. This is Class 10 of Aegetas Hachuva, Chapter 1, Part 9. The following recording includes supplementary segments, which were inserted after the fact. To skip past the class's introductory preamble and jump straight into the actual chapter, please skip ahead to in the middle of minute 21. We appreciate you being here and hope you enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Welcome back everyone to the Tani class. Thank you all for being here. Tonight, Bezus Hashem, is the long-awaited moment. We're going to conclude the first chapter, chapter one of Igaris Sacheva, and it's a particularly great time to be doing this. The auspices are good. For we're living in special times. We're coming out of the 15th of Shvat, Tubishvat, which itself is following after and coming out of Yud Shvat, the 10th of Shvat. And while those are special and auspicious days, which means it's a blessed time and a blessed energy, specifically the themes of those days is directly related to the discussion and the topic and the theme of Triba. How so? So we'll go backwards and we'll move forward up to our time. So Yud Shvat, the 10th of Shvat, which is the yard site of the Frida Koreb, the previous Rebbe, Resivitsuk Shnearrison. That's when he passed away in 1950, Yutchvat. And then one year later, to the day, the Rebbe, Rebbe Ibenachem and Del Shnearrison, ascended to the position. He took up the mantle of leadership. He assumed officially the position of Rebbe, the Rebbe al-Habad, Mamali Makim, taking the place, filling the place, filling the seat. He said his first inaugural Mimer, Basilagani. He laid out his mission statement and that we're the final stretch, the final run to cross the finish line and to bring Mushriach. That's our generation, it's our task, that's our destiny. And the reason why this day has much to do with chuva and is directly related to the theme of chuva. So for several reasons. So first of all, a yard site of a tzadik, it's a very special time, it's a very special thing, it's a very holy thing. And some circles, amongst other Chasidim, amongst the Palaisha, amongst the Polish Chasidim, the other groups. So on a tzadik's yard site, they don't say tahran. They don't say a sham. They don't do tahun. It's like a holiday. And in Chabad, though, in Chabad, that's not the custom. In Chabad, on a tzadik's yard site, we do say tahran. So it's a very stark contrast. Especially since a big cornerstone of Chasidicism is the Moisha Rabinu, is the Tzadik, who leads us, who guides us, who's our head, who's giving us our direction. And much revolves around the Tzadik, the figure of the Tzadik. And so why is it that the Palishirs, the Polish custom, don't say Tachrun? And we do say Tachn. So the Rebbe Sheared once, and this is printed in the Kudesukhis, volume 11, page 210, that he once asked this question to the Friedekrabba before Yatshvat, while the Friedekra was still alive. And he asked the Well, at least at least this question was asked. Yeah. So he asked the Friedigrebber this question: why is it that on the Tzadik's Yaritzite you don't say tahun? Right? And the Friedigrebber told him a very interesting line. He said, Wu is nochda best of ice betan. He said, on the contrary, we say tahun because it's a tzadix yardait, because what better time for your prayers to be answered to find atonement, to find cleansing, to find forgiveness, to have your requests be answered. And so almost the best day to say tahun, the best day to be cleansed of your sins, the best day to do shiva is on the day of its tzadik's passing. And the Rebbe explained the difference of approach once he heard that answer. So in the Quddisqhis, the Rebbe explains, and this is along the themes we've been discussing in the last few classes, that the main approach of the Polish Chasudam is to try to escape, is to try to leave our materialistic bonds and to try to raise oneself higher and kind of elevate oneself, which is why generally they pursue the philosophy of self-isolation and trying to basically carve out for themselves a more holy sanctuary, detached from, you know, the dirt of this world and the confusion of this world. And they believe in self-isolationism and trying to like go into the desert basically. And part of that, so they take a tzad the way they view a tzadik, the way they view a tzadik's jar is a time to leave, leave the whole scene of sin, of struggle, of humanity, and ascend to a higher place with the tzadik. Whereas Chabad is all about the dear bit achtinim, bringing God's truth down to earth, into the street, into the real world, into the Gashmias, to blend the heaven and the earth. And so, what's the goal of the tzaddik? And what's what do we use the power of the tzadik's jar site for? On the contrary, to transform and elevate and cleanse the body and the space of sin and the body from its sin. And therefore we say tahran to achieve kapara, to achieve cleansing, to achieve chuva within the body, within the real world. So that's point number one. Point number two about why Yud Shvat, the passing of a tzadik, is a day for chuva. So the Rambam writes in the laws of Avo, the laws of mourning, uh, this is the very last book of the Rambam. And at the very end of chapter 13, Halocha Yudbeys, Halakha 12, he writes that death, in general, the message of death, or what death should lead to, is that it should inspire one to do chuva. Death, the passing of people. Yeah. And in the words of the Rambam, call me shalloi mis abil, kemoy shit sivu khachamim. Anyone who has a loved one who passes away and doesn't mourn the way that our sages instructed us to take time, to reflect, to mourn. Hareza achzari. This is a very callous kind of behavior. And it shows on a certain callousness to life and heartlessness. And it's interesting. In American culture, this is a little bit the culture, right? Where people die and the next day very often people are back at work. It's a little strange. But in any event, so that's the culture. So the Jewish culture is very not pro that. And it says you have to take, not meant to just numb yourself and distract and go elsewhere. You have to take the time to process. And it says, rather, what should be, what should you give yourself room to process? It says the Rambam, El Yifchad Vidag, Vifashfish Bamaisov, Vyasibushua. Rather, it should be a time for self-reflection and introspection and to improve your ways and to return to God and Shiva. And so the Ramam says in general, any passing in your life, it's a moment for serious reflection. And it's one of the most sobering moments of life when we encounter death. And it makes us really think about what's real in life and what's important and what life is really about. And therefore the Ram says it's a prime time to actually remember what's real in life and what's not real and reorganize your priorities and do chuva. And the Ram says it's about any passing of anyone you know or any loved one. So Kalbuchimer Khoshukin, we see from the Rambah in the source that the passing of a of our collective father, the passing of a tzadik, the passing of the Friday Kiraba, is meant to inspire, and the theme of the day is to do chuva, the aksubershuva, to do chuva. And last source on this theme, on this element, the Altar Eva in Tanya, in the fourth section of the Tanya, Igarisakesh. So in Epistle 28, he's writing it to his colleague, Rabbi Levi Yitsuka Berditchev, the famous Berditchever, the great lover of Jews. And Rabbi Levi Yitzhak Berditchev had the ultimate tragedy that no one should have to experience, that he lost a son in his lifetime. And it's the most tragic thing that could occur to a person. And the Alterebbe wrote him a letter of consolation. And you can read it, you can learn it's in the Tanya. And one of the things he writes there, he writes this line, which he describes the great effect, the great power, the great benefit to the world that comes from a tzadik's passing, that it causes much Yeshua for the world, brings a lot of blessing to the world. And he writes that with the passing of a tzadik and of a righteous soul, such as your son, and any tzadik, pail yeshua's bikaribarats, it causes salvation, it causes miracles, it causes uh an uplifting. Bekarats in the midst of the earth, for those who are stuck in low places, those who are trapped in low places. L'haper Al-Aven Hadar, by bringing atonement for the entire generation and for all their sins, through his passing, it like cleanses the whole Jewish people of their sin. And he continues, Afgam Al-Hazadoinish Atmeash, even for those sins, the worst, most egregious sins possible, the worst possible sins that connect you with the worst levels of impurity, the Gimoklibis Atmeas, which are the lowest levels within impurity, the darkest sins you can imagine. Those sins are washed away and cleansed from the generation, from the people through the passing of a tzadik. This hapchash the Shvidas Akelum the Nahida Ilamatikon. And not only is that darkness and that stain removed and washed off from us, the passing of the tzaddik has the power to take that darkness, to take that deepest darkness of Ilamataiu, and to transform it, to transmute it into light of Ailamatikun. This is what the Al Tribah writes. This is a short excerpt. And this is he's writing about the, he's writing about this particular person, but it's a general principle about the passing of any Tatik, how we should view it, one of the things that it's accomplishing, so to speak. And therefore, again, this great date, Yutchvat, the passing of the Friday Krieba, the game is Stalkus of the Friday Kriba, in the Al Trabba's words, what it affects, what it does, and every single year when it comes back around, is it cleanses the collective Jewish people of their darkest sins and not only cleanses them but transforms that sin, transforms that very darkness into light, which is literally the idea, the union of Triva. And so again, coming off of Yutchvat, it's very powerful Triva energy. So great time. So that's point number one. Point number two is that what is the whole theme of the discussion around Yutchvat? So if you learn the Maimur, if you learn the Far Brang, the Maimer Basadagani talks about a teaching that originally Hashem's presence was in this world. This world was a beautiful, godly, divine, holy, wholesome place. It was a garden of Eden. Literally, it was Hashem's garden. It was like Hashem's right royals used to have these special gardens that they planted and they were like their happy space. And like you go to these crazy palaces, these insane elaborate gardens that they invested, I don't know how much money into and effort and money and resources to build these sanctuaries, these beautiful places, these escapes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:20

And Hashem is a Ghanaian, not this kind of a garden.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

No, no, this world was a Ganaiden. This was Hashem's garden.

SPEAKER_05 8:26

Do you mean like the Versailles thing?

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Just like literal kings build themselves Versailles gardens. Why is that in their mind? Why is that in their psychology? Because it's a reflection of the king of kings. Hashem owns the whole world, but he has his happy space. It's called this world. And he built himself the most awesome garden called Qaraidan. And who is the caretaker of that garden? Adam. Humanity, the Jew. He said, You're the caretaker of the garden. And Hashem built this world as a special garden, a special project, his special Versailles, so to speak, Lahavdo. And Adam was the caretaker of the garden. It says Hashem put in there love the Illushamre to guard it. And Hashem would come to this garden. And what made it his happy spot? Not only that it was a beautiful garden with beautiful flowers and bushes, but it was the happy spot because there he shared his most intimate moments with his beloved, with the Jewish people, with his cala. And what did his cala do? What did Adam do? What did the Jew do? They sinned. They did the Avera. And it says, as a result of that Avera, By Yigarish, Hashem expelled him. But as we said in the first class, for those that were here, the general introduction, our sages say, by Yigarish, he expelled him, is the same word as Gayrishon. Hashem divorced him. Because sin causes you to be in a state of fracture, a state of disconnection, a state of divorce from Hashem. And Hashem's presence, right? The first couple in history to separate was God and the Jewish people. And they set a very bad precedent. And what is the whole life's mission since then? What is the whole purpose of humanity and the purpose of the Jew? Is to correct that, is to come back from that, is to bring God back into our home, back into the garden, to do chuvah, to remarry with Hashem, to reconnect. And it explains that in this reconnection that will be completed, that will occur when Mashiach comes, when the marriage will occur, so it's not just gonna be that we'll go back to we'll go back full circle to how things originally were. Originally things were perfect, and then and then Oive, things broke down and things got ruined. We lost the vigilance, and now we have to go back and restore things the way they were. Because if that's how it's gonna be, then really essentially that means that everything we did was for no great purpose. Because if we're just going back to how things were, then we didn't have to go through this whole difficult, painful process and exile and thousands of years of suffering and work. If it's just to bring us back to the original state, then it would have been better if Adam never sinned. And it says everything's by design, even hard as it is to fathom and explain theologically, when a person sins, that too is in God's control and part of God's plan. And therefore the fact that Adam sinned and the fact that humanity fell out of grace and fell out of God's presence and God was expelled, and darkness was brought to the world, and man had to do triva, and man had to work hard to restore the world, it means ultimately, ultimately, ultimately, that when we do restore the world, when we bring Hashem back into this world, when we're reconnected, we're not just gonna be back to the original state of strength, but we're actually gonna have we're gonna have a stronger, deeper, higher light and a stronger, deeper, higher connection that would never have been achieved, would never have been possible without that initial separation, without that initial divorce, without that initial sin, because that's the idea. The place that a Balt Shiva stands, the connection that a Balt Shiva has with Hashem is incomparable to the connection that a Tzadik has with Hashem. The tzadik who never sinned, the Tzadik who never did anything wrong, the Tzadik who never got thrown out of the garden, it's beautiful. Just from the get-go, he was good. But the person who went through the Adam experience, they fell, they sinned, they fell out of the garden, they became disconnected. When they return, when they restored their life and their world into a garden of Eden, into a place where God is welcome and God is present, that garden is more beautiful, is more rich, is more wondrous, is more wonderful than it would have been originally without the sin. And so, since this is the whole theme of Yud Shvat, it means really the whole thing of Yutchvat is about Shiva. It's about doing shiva and coming back from our sin, from our disconnection, from our sin. And what's amazing, even quite literally, it's interesting that Yud Shvat is when the worst thing happened, so to speak, right? The free to grab passed away. And you read the Rebbe's letters in the first days and first weeks after. Crazy things. The Rebbe writes how it's difficult for him to even pick up a pen and write, and he's in a state of shock. Very moving words. And he writes to Chasidim then about fulfilling the Free to Grabber's edicts and spreading Chasidis. And if they're a little bit lax, the Rebbe says, What are you waiting for? How can we wait another minute without seeing the Free to Grabba again? And we need to bring the Free to Grabber back through the coming of Mashiach and the Triya Samesim, etc. etc. And what happened? On the same day, out of the ashes, so to speak, of Yudchvat arose the phoenix, right? The phoenix arose out of the ashes. Out of the ashes of Yujvat, the Rebbe ascended as the Rebbe, which is why actually we say that Yuim is talkus. What do we call in terror tradition, in Hasidic tradition, what do we call the passing of the Tzadik? One of the words we use for it is Yuim Hilula. Hilula is a very strange word because in Gemara, what does Hilula mean? Hilula means a wedding, a wedding celebration between a man and a woman. A festivity. Not just a festivity, though, a wedding celebration, the ultimate joy. It's a little bizarre, it's a little inappropriate. Because what seems to be on the moment, initially, a disconnection, a bad thing, a negative, not only is that not really truly a negative, but it's Pel Yeshua's Bekai of Arts. It brings great happiness and great joy and great goodness. And the ultimate goodness of the ultimate wedding, the wedding between Hashem and the Jewish people, it inspires Shiva, which is compared to a wedding. And literally, out of again, out of the passing, out of the Yatshvat, came the greatest revelation, the greatest light, the Rebbe's light, our Rebbe, on the same day. Which again speaks to the coming back of the Truva, is much more powerful and even greater light than the light that existed before. And so, and so that second point why Yud Shvat's all about Shiva, and so we're coming off that high, we're coming off that wave. Which is in addition to the fact that the whole theme of Yud Shvat and of Basilagani is to take the elements known as Shtosilomaza or Strustaklipa, the Ase Shitim, the very lowest, most base aspects of the animal soul and of evil and of darkness, and to overcome them and overpower them and ultimately transform them through the great and mighty power of Strustakedusha, which can only really be accessed and is only really brought online in response to the Strustaklipa. And so again, through encountering in this final exile of Durashvi here in America, the lowest, most gross elements of the Klipa, and through falling so so low, that actually enables us and is how we rise to the ultimate heights and ultimately to the coming of Mashiach to not only serve Hashem and connect to Hashem in a way known as Tam Vidas or in a standard way, but in a manner that is Lamayla Matambidas, the very highest heights and the ultimate pinnacle, true, absolute atomistica connection with Hashem, which can only be achieved out of the fall and out of the darkness and out of the chuva and out of the energy and a voidah represented by Yut Shvat. And thirdly, even more recently, we're coming now off Tu Bishvat, the 15th of Shvat. And Tubishvat is all about Shiva. It's the whole thing. Why is Tubhishvat about Shiva? So, first of all, it's interesting that what is Tubishvat? Tubishvat celebrates the trees, the beautiful trees. It's not a coincidence that Tubishvat comes right after Yuthvat. No, there's the whole Yud Shvat is about taking this world that's now a dump, that's now full of garbage, that's now barren, that's now a wasteland that has been destroyed, and bringing back the beauty. Slowly but slowly moving away the debris and the darkness and the fallowness and the dead earth and bringing it to life, giving it greenery, bringing it freshness, bringing it life, bringing it flowers, bringing it beauty, making it into a garden, bringing it trees. And so that's why Tubishvat follows directly after Yitzhvat. The call of Yitzhvat is to make this world into a garden for Hashem, or to restore it into the original garden that it was. And so right away, what's the first thing we do? The first holiday within the same week? We start celebrating trees, the planting of trees. Right. In other words, we start producing trees. We start making the garden right away. We start coming back from the sin. We start coming back from the sin and making the world a beautiful, holy place. And it says, what does the garden produce? Fruit trees. And it explains all throughout in general, for those who are anthropologists, but also uh in tarot books, you'll see that nowadays, fruits are like healthy foods, right? And unhealthy foods is the candy, right? Is the cake, is the sugar, is the lollipop. Versus in a natural world in the olden days, they didn't have all these artificially produced foods. So what was a sweet item? What was a luxury item? What was dessert? It was actually fruits. Fruits were dessert. And what was a staple? What was the main food? So either bread or protein, that was like sustenance. And fruits, you didn't need fruits. You had fruits as a delicacy. Fruits was an indulgence, right? Which is why we say that Abraham, who didn't just take care of his guests, he indulged his guests. He literally treated every one of his guests, even if you were a guy off the street, he treated you like you were royalty. Abraham made a point of planting fruit trees in the middle of the desert, which was like an impossible feat. He made this whole billion-dollar agricultural investment project, right? They have skiing now in Saudi Arabia. So Abraham made these fruit trees, these fruit groves in the middle of the desert, in order that his guests, how could one of his guests not have fruits, not have luxuries? You treat everyone like a five-star king. And fruits are speak to luxury. So it says that in a deeper sense, what is the fruits of Tugishva that we celebrate? So literally we celebrate the literal fruit trees and the literal fruits, and especially the fruits of Israel, and we eat those fruits. But in a less literal sense, it says, what is really the fruits in the spiritual sense? It's the teachings of Chasidas. Because just like you have basic foods, basic staples, meat, bread, right? Protein, these are basic sustenance. So in terra terms, like the Raman writes about this, the laws of Tirah, the basics of taira, the basics is basic staples. You need to know basic halacha, you need to know basic gemara, basic chumish. That's compared to like meat and bread. Like basic staples, basic sustenance, basic nourishment. What's an item of pleasure? Revealing like deeper secrets, more geschmack, going deeper, going beyond the basics. That's chasidis. The kabbala, the soid, the deeper meaning. That's compared sometimes to alcohol, to wine, sometimes it's compared to fruits. Basically, just like in a meal, it's the item that's not strictly necessary. You can have the basic, you can get by, you can survive basic nourishment on the staples. But you know life would be pretty miserable, right? If we're robots, then we we would just eat basic staples. We want to enjoy life. We wanna wanna bring pleasure to life, we want to have zest to life. So we have, we add some wine, we have fruit at the table. It gives the extra, the pleasure of life, the joy of life. Life is not just about everything should be utilitarian. There's also living life to the fullest to truly enjoy life. And therefore, the fruits represented by Thubishvat is that one has to bring Chasidis, and that's the point. What is the tree that brings the garden back to this world, that makes this world back into being a garden, that restores this world? It's chasidis. It's the teachings of Chasidis, it's the light of Chasidis. Those are the fruit trees. The more Chasidis we produce, the more chasidis we plant, the more chasidis we disseminate. That's how we turn the world from a dark, bleak place, spiritual place, into a flourishing, green, beautiful garden of Hashem. And so immediately after Yurishvat, Tubishvat, the call, is to turn this world into a garden by planting and disseminating the fruits, by planting and disseminating the words of Chasidis, the words of Tanya, the words of Igersa Chuva. Therefore, Tubishvat is truly all about Chuva. And last, last point on this, we actually mentioned this also in an earlier class. But what makes Tubeshvat very unique is that there's a pasak. There's a verse right in the beginning of the Bible in Genesis, early in Genesis. It's on Baratius chapter 8, verse 22. And there it's describing the seasons of the year. And Hashem says there's a season called Khairif, which means winter, and there's a season called Kar, which means the cold season. So Rashi asks the obvious question. Winter is the cold season. What do you mean there's two seasons? There's winter and there's cold. It's the same thing. So Rashi says no. Winter refers to the longer stretch, basically all the way from Khajvin all the way up to Nisan. Kor he says, Kar is colder than winter. It's the coldest part of the winter. It's the heart of the winter. It's the very center of winter, which is the whole month of Tavis, the darkest, coldest month of the year. It's the second half of Kislev. So from 15th Kislev to the end of Kislev, that's why we put Hanukkah there, to dispel that darkness, to push back against that darkness with light. Then Tavis is part of this coldest month. And then the first half of the next month, Schvat, the first half of that month, is also the end. And where does this super, super cold part of the year, the coldest part of the year, the darkest part of the year end? Where's the breaking point? Where's the tip? Halfway through Schvat, Tubishvat. Tubishvat is that day, has that force to take this darkest coldness, and suddenly it breaks it, brings it to an end. It flips it. It starts to blossom with hope. It starts to blossom with light.

SPEAKER_05 19:06

The first seal of spring.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

It's so first seeds of spring are beginning to occur still beneath the earth. So you know it's not so obvious. You don't see it so palpably, but things are already starting to shift, and just in a couple of weeks, a couple of months, we'll see the what's shifting now will pop to the surface and will become obvious to everyone. And so likewise, all of this is symbolic of a person, because the verse says famously, it says in Devarim 2019, Kyo Adam Asa Sada. Man is compared to a tree. A tree. Which means

Recording (10).m4a@0:30:47.68

SPEAKER_01 19:29

just like in the winter, the trees all die. They shed all their leaves, they shed all their fruit, they lie there limp, they look like corpses, they look, they look like scarecrows, they look disheveled and broken and almost like a corpse and pretty lonely and pretty sad. And in general, the whole world of life and vegetation comes to an end and dies. And so this is representative of the state of sin. State of sin when a person seems to be spiritually dead and spiritually finished, and spiritually disconnected from their source and disconnected from life and disconnected from light and disconnected from truth. And we all look ourselves and highs in the mirror and we're experiencing a winter. Our souls have gone into deep hibernation. We seem limp, we seem lifeless, we seem dead. It seems like there's no coming back. Could be our hearts, our souls have turned cold, and it looks like we're dead. And Tubishvat says Tubishvat's the flip moment where the truva begins, the revival begins, the triya Samesin begins, the coming back, the second coming of every person, of every Jew. And no, winter is part of the plan. It's not a mistake, it's not a cosmic accident. Hashem designed the world, winter comes, and winter is always followed by a fresh spring, a fresh growth, a fresh blossoming. It's guaranteed to happen. It's avtaha. You don't go outside and like, oh, will spring come this year or not? So when you find yourself in a space of disconnection, in a space of sin, we can always remember Tubishvat is coming, the beginning of the revival, the beginning of the rebirth, the very beginning of the shuva. And it's guaranteed, it's avtaha in the Tara, that at the end of time, even from the greatest darkness, that darkness will break, that darkness will end, the night will end, the winter will end, and shuva will happen. And so coming off of Tubishvat, it's the perfect, ideal, most idyllic time to be doing shuva and studying shuva. So awesome stuff. Okay, good stuff. Okay, so that's that's for the introduction, that's for the preamble. And we want to thank the sponsors of tonight, which is sponsored in honor and the Ila Nishmas, Joe Arono, in honor of his first yardsite. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that his nishama should have an unbelievable, incredible Aliyah. The Ila Nishmas Yesim Mordechai Ben, Israel al Chaim should have an aliyah's nishamah and his incredible investments and efforts to support this community and the revival of Jewish life here on the Upper East Side should bear fruit. And his Nishama should get a lot of nachas from that and is deserving of Big Schosim for everything that he helped to do. Okay. We're going to do a quick recap where we're holding, and then we'll jump further into the text. And Baz Hashem, tonight we're going to finish the first chapter. So good stuff. Okay. So we'll move through this quickly, step by step. The altarabit told us earlier in this chapter that what is the essence of the biblical mitzvah of Shvah? The essence of the biblical mitzvah of Shva is Aziva Sachet Bobad, the decision to go cold turkey, to abandon the path of sin, to decide I never need this again. I'm done with this sin forever. I don't want this sin, I want a shem. Yeah, and I want a shem. And I'm not gonna do this air anymore. I'm not gonna continue to neglect to do this mitzvah, aziva sachhet. And if that is your decision, if that is your identity, if that's your self concept, if that's what you decide you want. And then that's your resolve in your heart. That feeling, that sensation, that experience is the essence of chival. You've done the essence of the mitzvah of chuva. So that's that was point number one. Point number two that the altar was said and that we brought up is that also biblical for shlamas hamitzvah, which means to fully flesh out that mitzvah or to have that mitzvah in its complete form. So the Torah tells us that one should and one has to confess. One has to do vid'h, right? Then we practice this as we mentioned in Davening, either in the basic version when we just say in Shmainasre, it being our chest, and we say the words a little bit more elaborate after Shmeinasre by Shakhar Samincha Tachman. And that's that's a verbal confession. This is mentioned by the Tarah. This is like a part, an extension of the biblical mitzvah of chuva. But this is shlema sachuva. This is how to flush out that mitzvah, how to do that mitzvah to completion in the ultimate form, to give it the full form. But the essence, the seed, the heart of chuva, the essence of chuva, the soul of chuva, you've already accomplished, you already have, you've already done instantaneously with Aziva Sakhat. That was point number two. Point number three, building off that, and it's just right, the altar was getting more and more like progressively further and further, explaining where everything is. He said for ultimate shlamas at Shva, to fully, to fully flesh out this change, to fully flesh out this seed, to fully flesh out the spirit of chuva, to have the full package, to have the full mitzvah and it's shlamas and its ultimate complete form, one needs various details, various pratam. For example, there's an idea of regret, regret for the past, right? Being regretful, having remorse for what you did in the past. Now that's not strictly necessary to accomplish, to do the essence of the mitzvah. The essence of the mitzvah is going forward, I'm never gonna do this again, I'm resolved, I'm committed to never doing this again. But to have the full shiva, to have shlamas setshava, one also has to look at the past and feel bad about it, have remorse, regret, cry over it, whatever it may be. Also, there's the detail, an important detail, especially in different kinds of sins, especially where other people are involved. There's obviously the idea of restitution or making things right or compensating or swagging people's feelings or whatever it might be, which is an important part again of the full package of the full picture of the shiva, of the shlamas setshiva. But again, that's not the essence of the mitzvah. There's also the idea mentioned by the Rambam, mentioned by the sages, to have full thuva, to have the full package of chiva, to have the shiva in its ultimate, complete, fullest sense that your resolve is so strong that even if you're brought back to the same challenging circumstances, you would be able to withstand the challenge. Which means not only did you resolve, I never want to do this again, and not only did you resolve I never want to do this again, so I'm never gonna go anywhere near somewhere that I might do this again, but your resolve is so strong, it's so true, it's so absolute, that even if you came, in the words of the Rambam, you were in the same house or the same location and the same woman, and you're the same drive, and she was the same beauty. And then you, this time you pass the test. This time you're not with Aisha's Pitifar, right? You're not with the woman. He says that shuva then is complete. Ishlamas is shiva muola, it's the highest level of chuva. But that's not required to have done chuva, to have done the essence of chuva. That's if you want, again, the fullest chuva, the most expansive shiva, the fully developed shova. And we've given different examples for this, different imageries. Maybe one imagery, just a little bit strong imagery, maybe get the point across. There's an idea of a living human being, right? A living human being. And there's laws and there's morals, there's ethics around a living human being. So for example, one of the most basic ethics, one of the most basic morals is we don't kill living human beings, right? It's unethical. Respect for human life. Now, what qualifies as a living human being? What qualifies as human life, right? So we're not gonna get into it here, but essentially it's not so complicated. Everyone understands, even if you have a person that, uh, God forbid lost all their senses and is on life support or is bedridden, is blind, deaf, and dumb, or has no arms and has no legs. But if there's a living person, right, if there's brain activity, this is a living person. And they have all the rights of a living person. Just like it's understood, we don't go and kill any living person. This is a living person. Now, is this living person living in the full way? Or is it in other words getting the full flushed out experience of life? Obviously not. But it doesn't matter because they have the essence of life. In other words, right? They're essentially they have the essence of life. And because they have the essence of life, they essentially they have life. They are alive, not like halfway. They're 100% alive, they're 100% as alive as you are, right? And therefore have have all the rights you have. And taking it a step further, we wouldn't even say that if it was between your life and their life, then you have the right to just kill that person, right? It would be the same question in general. What happens when you're up against two lives and you have to choose? Right? We wouldn't say this is less life, you're more alive, we choose you. You're two living people. You both have the essence of life. So that's the idea, that's kind of a way to frame that with a ziva sachet, you have the essence of the mitzvah. You have the essence of shiva. Now, if you want to give that shiva arms and legs, and you know, a more functional life, a more active life, a more full life, you want to give it senses, you want to give it arms and legs, you want to give it completion, then that's where these different details come in. But the essence of the thing, the essence of the mitzvah has already been achieved, has already been drawn down with a ziva sachet bhavat. So that's that's the concept. We have this mitzvah. There's the essence of the mitzvah that the Torah tells us is the essence. There's other things that are needed for its shlamis, for its full completion. Some of those things are mentioned explicitly in the Torah, such as the confession. And therefore, it's a part of the biblical mitzvah of how to give it shlamas according to the Torah. But even that is not necessary for the essence. And then there's many other details, and here would just be a good place to mention two points about remorse and the importance and the place of remorse in chva. Even though remorse is not explicitly mentioned in the Tirah as a requirement. Charata, yeah. So one is some people say you need charata, you need remorse, because what is chiva? We said is a firm decision, a true resolution to never do it again. If someone doesn't feel bad at all about what they did, then how how true could their commitment be that they'll never do it again? Right. So some people say almost in an indirect way, yeah, there's no specific need or commandment or obligation to feel remorse, but you do need to be firmly resolved to never do it again. And if you don't feel at all bad about what you did in the past, then what's exactly how true or how deep is this commitment to never do it again? And therefore, almost some would say you almost by default need to have remorse because it's the remorse that motivates you to never do it again. So that's that's one way to explain, in other words, the place and the necessity for remorse. But even according to that understanding, it's still two things. It's almost like technical, like without remorse, then what kind of commitment going forward could you have? Another very interesting explanation given in Chasidis, why remorse is important and what the place of remorse is. And again, though, remorse is not the essence of triva, but it's part of the shlamas of triva, is it says that when you did the sin, when you did the transgression, there was two halves of it, or two aspects. One was the body of the sin, the actionable action and body of the sin, the physical acts you did. And then there's the soul of the sin or the spirit of the sin or the passion, right? So when you do a sin, there's the act, there's the bodily investment that you put into it. And then there's the amount of taiva, the amount of passion, the amount of like zest that went into it, the spirit that you invested into this moment, into this act. And when you do chiva, you're trying to free, you're trying to bring back that energy, that Jewish energy, that soul energy that you invested into this forbidden space, into this forbidden act. Both the bodily energy, when you move your body, it's a soul energy that moves through the body, right? Like there's a power in your soul to see and that works through the eye. There's a power in your soul to move your hand and that moves through the hand. So there's the actionable soul energy that you invested, the bodily soul energy, and then there's the passion, the desire, the intention of the soul energy. And you're trying to bring both those back. You're trying to salvage, to retrace both those things, right? It's almost like a child knocks down something all over the floor, and then you have to go and like pick it up, right? So that's almost like in a way what chuva is, right? Through the sin, you spilled it out into the into the forces of clipa, and I have to go gather it and pick it back up, or birra and it's usually, as we call this. So it says to retrieve each of those two halves, you need to have a parallel in the chuva experience. So for the body of the sin, your chava has to involve like an actionable action, has to have a body to it. And that's the confession. That's the words where you physically, even though it's not a full-on action, but you move your mouth. It's not just in your head, it's not just in your heart. You move your mouth, you physically move your body, involve your body. So it explains that that parallels and corresponds to the body of the sin and is corresponding to that and helps retrieve the energy that was poured into the body of the sin. And then the remorse, the regret, the feeling in the heart that corresponds to and that parallels, and that's how you redirect and bring back the excitement, the passion for the sin. And in fact, I think it's a principle that energy can never be destroyed, it can only be redirected or moved around. So that energy that you poured into the sin, that passion, that excitement, that zest, that lust, whatever it is, that you poured into the sin, it's energy. It can never be destroyed, it can only be rearranged or moved around or redirected. And it's not like you invet you no, it's not like you had this spirit energy of tithe, of temptation for the sin. And now you have a new emotion called regret. What is really the regret? What is that feeling of regret? It's really that same emotional energy that you invested that you poured into the sin, saved and salvaged. And it's the same energy that is the energy that's fueling the regret. It's like a mirror image. Yeah, or even more than that. It's the same, it's of the same substance. It's the same substance, which is why, for example, if you never did something wrong, you can't feel regret. No, and if you never did a sin, right? You can't sit and conjure up the emotion of regret, right? Because you have no building blocks to make that, right? That emotion, the emotion of regret is built out of the emotional excitement or energy you poured into the wrong act. And therefore, that regret is literally the feeling of regret, which is a positive feeling. It's one that's kind of making you more committed to the truth, more committed to the right way of life, more committed to Hashem. What's actually driving, what's fueling, what is the substance of that feeling? It's the evil feeling, the impure feeling, the impure taiva and temptation for the sin. And so this is what we mean that the Balchiva has the ability to take darkness, to take evil, and to redirect it to good. And in other words, what's fueling his his karata, his passionate feeling that he doesn't want sin, he wants God, that he feels so remorseful? When Rabbi Alazar Ben Dadaya sat and weeped and weeped and died, when he weeped over his whole life, he regretted it at all. Where was all that feeling coming from? How was he generating all this explosive emotion? It was all that passion that he sat for decades and decades and decades and poured into this sin and that sin and that sin. He gathered together all that passion, all that titha, all that misdirected energy, and retrieved it and it came back into a holy form. And the holy form, that energy was redirected and removed around and caused him to now look at those same objects, those same actions, and instead of looking at it with lustful eyes and with great excitement, instead he looked at it with like horror and with great remorse.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

I would say that this idea, the way you're explaining it, is fascinating to me. But when I think about it, I'm thinking about it in ways that might better, if not only apply the sin of committing something you shouldn't be doing. Losa say versus not doing something you should be doing. So if someone doesn't put on twill and it's an Aveira, I'm not doing the midst of a twill. But this passion, this excitement is doing something. Actually, I'm not doing something. I'm sitting home all day, I'm not putting on fill. No action, just nothing. No passion not to as opposed to a sin where you're you're you're looking at you're um you're stealing, you're doing, actively doing something you shouldn't be doing, you're putting energy out there to do something you shouldn't be doing, as opposed to not doing something you should be doing. This discussion is nicely aligned in my mind with doing something you shouldn't be doing, but I'm trying to understand it because you do do chuva. I never put on a filling or I never divened, or you know, I never went to show I I I I want to do chuva. So, how does the energy, how does the passion fit by not doing something you should do?

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Okay, excellent question. Awesome question, actually. So you're saying this imagery, this analogy fits much better when you actively transgress and actively, you know, excitedly put energy out there and passion into the sin, and now you're this remorseful energy is bringing that back, versus when you fail to do a positive commandment, you didn't put anything out there. You didn't pour in passion, you didn't do anything. You were just you were just passive. So, yeah, probably it does fit a little bit better to Ly Sais, but I would say is that actually, while it might not be as obvious, there is a spirit of the Nefesh Bahamas. There is an unholy spirit that drives negative commandments, that drives us to go do forbidden things, and there's also a spirit of the Nefesh Bahamas that drives us to neglect mitzvahs assais. It's just a very different spirit, but they're both a very powerful energy. And for example, you have two different temperaments. You have a person who has a lot of fire in their spirit chart, and they're a very ambitious-driven person. Clearly, a very strong energy that's flowing through this person's veins and coursing through their blood. And you have people like that. Generally, the downsides of that might be they're they get angry easily or whatever, but they have high drive, are very, you know, strong workers, are ambitious, whatever it might be. Then you have another energy, and like the Altereba discusses this in the first paragraph Tanya in the Kotiamoram, where a person has a lot of earth in their soul chart. Not so much fire, a lot of earth. Now, such a person generally is much more slow moving, is not particularly a rush, is much more calm, is much more uh even tempered. Now, one of the big downsides of this, says the Altareba, that could happen when this takes on an unhealthy form, is such a person is very prone to laziness, to depression, to slothfulness, to maybe anhedonia, right? Depress right, like a clod of earth. So now, now let's just take that example. When someone is deeply lethargic or deeply depressed, what is that energy basically causing to happen to them or causing them to do? To be very inactive, to be very stagnant, right? Or to even be very numb and just like very almost like a stone or like a clot of earth. It's not the lack of energy. It's a certain energy. It's just a much, it's a much quieter or maybe stiller energy, but it's a very heavy energy. It's a very strong force that's that's sort of pushing them into stagnancy. So the Nefesha Bahamas or animal souls take on different forms and has different faces. And some people's Nefesh Bahamas generally is going to be more of a certain type, and other people of a different type. And one of the Nefsha Bahamas is someone who's much more full of, you know, passion for sin and is much more active and alive and fiery. And generally they'll be more tempted by doing forbidden things or going to forbidden places. And then you have another person who might not be so driven in that way. Their Nefsh Bahamas doesn't present so much in that way. Instead, their Nefesh Bahamas is a much more heavier or earth-based, you know, kind of element. And it basically holds them back or holds them down from getting up and doing the mitzvah they should be doing. So while it might seem they're just being still and they're not investing any energy in that, there is in fact a certain a different kind of energy. When you don't, even though you're meant to and you know you should and you know you could, well, let's say you don't, you don't put on fillin' for a bunch of weeks, right? Or you don't go and learn Tyree, or you don't dive in, or you don't go and hear the Schaefer, right? So even though you didn't actively seemingly do anything or invest any energy in not doing it, but there was an energy being invested by the Nashville Hamas in not doing that. And then when suddenly you wake up a day later, a week later, a month later, and you're filled with this feeling of remorse, which again you would have never felt if you didn't do the sin, if you didn't neglect this mitzvah, where's that energy coming? What is it? It's that same emotional energy that was invested into like keeping you stuck from not doing the thing you're meant to do, which now has been, you know, elevated and brought back and transmuted. So that would be the, I think, the answer to that. Um, okay, but to sum up this point, so it explains in Khasidis that the place of these two things of Viday of Confession is to target the body of the sin, whereas the harata, the remorse, is to target the soul of the sin. Those are the levels, those are the tears of chuva, the mitzvah of chuva. Then the Al-Tarab introduced another point, which this is not even chuva. It's not only not the essence of chriva, it's not even the shlamas of tva. This is called kapara. Kapara is what we translate as atonement. Kapara is for a different thing. Kapara is not part of Shriva. It's related to chriva, it comes side by side with chriva, but it's a different thing. Kapara is finding cleansing for the dirt of the sin. Kapara literally means to wipe yourself clean, and it's to find cleansing for the dirt of the sin. So, even going back to our example, you're trying to build out a human body. So the essence of tiva, the essence of life, all you need is a head and a torso, maybe. Right? And then you can have a living person. You want a full person, you want an inyun shalim? So you want to give them arms and legs and eyes and right? She's a full functioning person. This full functioning person, though, maybe can be filled with scars or with stains or with dirt or with stench. And these are like, they're not affecting his experience as a person, but they're gonna be ruining his life experience because they're like patterns from the past. I mean, this is the idea that when you do a sin, one of the things that happens is it literally it's like a person becoming filthy or becoming dirty or becoming smelly. They're not less human. They can't do anything less than another human could do. They're not missing any part of their humanity. They're just, they're full of filth, they're impure. And that that is indirectly gonna affect their life experience. Maybe they won't be able to as easily interact with people or whatever it might be, or it just doesn't feel good. They don't feel fresh, they don't feel good. So it says when you sin, part of the lasting effect, the lingering effect of that sin is that it sullies your soul. It sullies your consciousness. There's stain, there's dirt, there's stench somewhere inside your system, on your car, on your body, on your soul's person. And even if you do chula and full chula, there's a separate thing that you wanna you want to be cleansed, and that's kapara. Now, how is kapara achieved? So the algebra said there is no way that humans can do kapara. We don't have the power to do kapara. Just like we don't have a power that I know of, at least, to take away scars after the fact. Maybe, I don't know, maybe there's some crazy scars. Okay. Exotic technology aside, in a standard way, you could avoid injury, you could even heal injuries, but once an injury happened and it gave you a scar, it's just it's there, right? So humans do not have the power to give themselves kapara, to cleanse themselves of the past scars and past stains of their of their sin. Just like clothing again, you could avoid stains. There's certain stains that can't be removed. This is will be on the tablecloth forever, right? And and that's what a sin does. And who's the only one who can cleanse even the uncleansable stain? Hashem. Hashem could bring a person kapara. What is the methodology of Hashem's kapara? We said suffering. Yasuram. Right. And Yasuram, Hashem's suffering is the way that Hashem can cleanse you, but it's a gift to be cleansed of your stench, to be cleansed of your to be made fresh to do the impossible for you. Right? You went and you you put on the suit, the thing that's like literally not cleanable. And there's this one expert dry cleaner in the world who knows how to do it, but like they're not just doing it for every Joe Shmo who carelessly ruins their thing. If it's a special circumstance or something or they call it a personal favor, they'll pull out their magic, right? So Hashem will only do this for you. It's a sign of love, and Hashem will only do it if your chuv is done out of love. And if your chiva is done out of love, then Hashem will respond in love and do you this great favor. It's usually it's not on the cards, it's not really an option.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

That means we should want the Yasurum?

SPEAKER_01 38:22

These kind of Yasuram, that's what it says, yeah. Yeah. And like we'll say there's other kinds of Yasurum that are of a different category. But these kind of Yasurum, yeah, we should welcome them. And that's what Alderbick concluded last time by saying. We should view them as a love, as a loving act of God. And you should view them with love.

SPEAKER_04 38:33

Yeah. Question about um I would imagine that why should someone be cleansed of their sins if they have not attempted to help or apologize to that must have been.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

Okay, okay, good. You're so you're bringing up a good point. We're gonna save it for a different class, but I want to acknowledge it. A lot of the things we say here, there is a special unique category, a special caveat of sins that involve other people. We are even there, you do have the essence of shuva with a ziva sachet walk, but definitely for that, part of the shlamas of shva, part of doing a full-on shuva, and part of ultimately attaining kaphara and cleansing is you must make it right with that person. You must help that person. And anyone who doesn't do that, anyone, okay, great, they did shuva and they, you know, they abuse tons of people, or they rob people, or they hurt people, and then they're now a monk on a mountaintop, or they're a Russia Shiva, right? Somewhere and they they never apologize to the people. It's very cute. And yeah, it could be they have the essence of chiva, but their chiva is fundamentally lacking completion. Now, the exact caveat, how that works, and nature of that, and the difference in that and the standard sin between you and God, we'll have to make a discussion out of that, but it's a very it's a good point. Yeah, okay. And and so he said these are two things there's chuva and there's kapara. And kapara again is not in our hands, it's in Hashem's hands, and it's only through suffering. And even we said it's not, it doesn't help if you try to bring suffering upon yourself. So if you fast, he said, or you torture yourself or whatever, it's not it's like trying to copy the cleaners, right? At home. But okay, so this is what he says. So there's chuva, then there's kapara. Kapara's not in our hands, it's in Hashem's hands through suffering, and it's not a kind of suffering that we know how to do or how to impose upon ourselves, and any suffering you bring upon yourself won't bring you that kapara. It's like trying DIY, something that needs a profession, right? Don't try it at home. Okay. And okay. And he says if you do, it doesn't get you that effect. Now, a different class, it's a whole discussion about what exactly is the relationship between chuva and kapara. Is chuva left incomplete without kapara or not? So that's gonna be, we're gonna save that for later on in Igarasa Chiva in one of the future classes, but that that's an important in-depth discussion.

SPEAKER_05 40:14

Do they go together?

SPEAKER_01 40:15

They're two different things, but they're they're often, you know, they're often spoken about hand in hand. So we'll talk about later the exact relationship between kapara and shova. And he says, this is why everything we mentioned to this point, Aziva Sakhet, which is the essence of chuva, the Vida, a confession, which is how the Tara tells you to have a full chiva, the other aspects of remorse and restitution and coming back to the same challenge, which is like the further shlamas of chiva, the further details of how to have a complete shiva, and even kapara, how to achieve cleansing for one's sin through suffering, all of that is mentioned by the Rambam and the laws of Shiva. Because all of this is related to the topic of chiva. Either the essence of chiva, the shlamas of chiva, or kapara, which isn't directly part of chiva, but there's a strong relationship between them, as we'll get to in a different class. But he says what you will not find in the Rambam in Shiva, there's not a single mention of fasting, not a single mention of fasting. Because fasting, he says, has nothing to do with the mitzvah of Shiva, and it has nothing to do with kapara. Fasting does not bring you kapara for your sin. Like we said, only Hashem could do that through his suffering, his divinely inflicted suffering. And fasting is no bearing on whether or not you did the mitzvah of Shiva, not on the essence of Shiva, not on the shlamis of Shiva. Fasting has no connection to Shiva. If so, and this is the Alzheimer's premise, this is what he said. And he said, unlike the mass misconception that people think that fasting is a very big, integral part of Shiva, and it's part of how you do Shiva actively. He says it's completely false. It has nothing to do with Shiva. And he says, that's why open up the Rambah. You'll see he talks about many, many details. Not a single word, not a single mention about fasting. That's where we left off. Now the Al-Tarab is going to question his own statement, his own premise, that Shiva has no place in fasting. And he's going to quote to us seemingly sources which state that if you want to do triva, fast, it's part of the triva experience. Okay. So he'll begin with biblical sources and then he'll move on to further sources from the great rabbis, and he's going to explain how to reconcile all of that and to understand the place of everything. Okay. Umashikosov the Yail. As to what is written in the book of Yale, right? Yael is uh in the Naviah Machrainim, he's one of the later prophets. It's a book in the Bible. And it says how in the days of Yale, in the beginning of the Seifer, it says how in the days of Yale there was a great plague of locusts. Terrible locusts. As a locusts. Grasshoppers. And till today you can see videos, it's like crazy, right? In Africa or different places in that region, Africa or the Middle East, where they get hit by these swarms. And it's unless you see it, unless you see it, you can't even fathom. But it's like crazy. Yeah. When you read about it in Egypt, it sounds like your childish imagery or whatever. You can only conjure up so many locusts when you actually see a video, and that's not even like a particularly bad plague. It's like a cloud storm. Like literally, the sky turns black. And it says in Yel that a storm of locusts came, and there was never ever such a storm of locusts, such a terrible plague of locusts like it before or after. That's what it says. It was the worst plague of locusts ever in the world. Now, those who are familiar will know that on Shemis, on chapter 10, Posik 14, it says that God brought a plague to Egypt, the plague of the locusts, and it says it was the worst plague of locusts ever brought to the world. There was never a plague of locusts like it before, and there was never a plague of locusts like it after. So how do you how do you reconcile these two psychokim? Surashi writes, very interesting answer. He says there's different species of locusts. He says in Egypt, it was all of one species, and of that of an individual species, it was never a plague of so many locusts gathered together of one species. But he says in Yoel, it was many different species, and collectively, it was the biggest army, it was the biggest alliance of locusts that ever descended upon the world to any specific location, and there was never anything like it. And therefore, bottom line, there was actually more locusts in the signs of Yale, but Egypt was pretty big also. And never, ever, ever, anywhere in the world was there a single species of locusts that gathered in such force against the people. So, but it's interesting, the Bible tells us that the biggest locust storm in history was in the days of Yale, and they completely shattered the land and ate the entire crop and ate everything that moved and everything green. And literally, the people were on the brink of starvation. People were literally starving. It's not like today, right? There's canned food and and whatever, lots of packaged foods, right? Cookies. Right. In those days, you lost the harvest, you were dead. Yeah. And the whole it was the whole land. It wasn't like one city. And basically, the whole people. Deep will was facing this terrible situation of mass starvation. So the Jews were facing a terrible situation. And the prophet Yael called them to chiva. He called them to chriva, which in general the Ramam writes in the laws of fasts, a different section than the laws of Triva. He says, when terrible things happen to us, nothing's an accident in the world. And if you just think it's an accident and whatever, he says that there's nothing more cruel. And obviously it's the hand of Hashem. And we have to return to Ashem. It's calling us to fast and to do Shriva. So Yael called on them to do shiva. And it says in Mashakasa, like it writes in Yael, Yael said to them, Shhuvu Adai Bacholovavchim. He's prophesizing in the name of the Lord. And he says, Shuvu Adai Bacholavchim, return to me, do shiva unto me with your entire hearts, fullheartedly, with full sincerity. Not halfway, like we mentioned, not a falsehab shiva, not a half commitment. But the moment the pressure is taken off, right, you you drop the commitment. True commitment. Bits Saim Uvifri Goimer with fasting and with weeping, etc. So seemingly, this would be a pretty good source, but he's calling them to do shuva. And what does he immediately mention? The first thing he mentions is fasting with fasting, do shiva with fasting. So we see that fasting is part of doing shiva, it's part of the mitzvah of shiva, it's part of the call of chuva. Now, an interesting side note is everything in the in the Tanya is extremely meduyak, it's extremely meticulous. And even the name Yoel, even the fact that he chooses to cite Yoel here is by design. Because how does the book of Yael open up? The book of Yael says, Dvar Hashem, this is the first Pasak, it says Dvar Hashem, Asher Haya el Yoel ben Pasuel. This is the word of God that came to the prophet Yoel, the son of Pasuel. Who is Pasuel? So the Medri says, Amidbar Rabbah says that Pasuel is another name for Shmuel, Shmuel Hanavi, Samuel the prophet. And that Yoyel was his son. Shmuel Hanavi, the one who anointed Shaol and then King David. His son was Yoel. Now, what do we know happened to Shmuel's sons? So in the book of Shmuel, it tells us in chapter 8, Sukkim 2 and 3, it says Shmuel had sons, and his eldest son was Yoel. Now it just says that, so we wouldn't know on our own that's the same Yoel. But the chazal tells us it was. So his eldest son, he wasn't just Shmuel's son, he was Shmuel's eldest son. And what happened to Shmuel's sons, it says, it continues to say, that while Shmuel was one of the most righteous men to have ever lived, he was God's prophet. His sons grew up in power and grew up as the like the people who ran the sanctuary, and his sons became corrupt. They turned to bribery, including Yoel. All the sons became corrupt, the position got to their heads, and they they would charge exuberant fees for the services of the temple and would rip people off, and you know they only would bring your sacrifice if you're able to pay. Even the temple became corrupt, right? It's an old story. And this is what it tells us, and they they all became corrupt, and God was very angry. What do we see, though? The fact that Yoyel is the prophet in this story, and the sages tell us it's the same person. We see that Yoyel was a Balchuva, one of the earliest Bali Shiva. And Yoel did shiva, even though him and his brothers originally all became corrupt. And whatever, we don't know exactly when or where it happened, but Yael did Shiva. And therefore, he's he's learning from Yoel, this person who himself did Shiva. He's now calling the people to follow his example. And in general, right, the people at large were corrupt in that age, which is why this terrible plague was happening to them. And Yoel's calling them to shova. And Yail says, return to God with your whole hearts, with fasting and with crying. Okay. Seemingly this is a very strong question, right? The altar of said that fasting is no part of Shiva, and that's why the Ramah doesn't mention it, and there's no mention of chuva with regards to fasting. And then we have this. So he says Hainu. This means, what's the meaning? Hainu, this was an order. Why did he mention fasting? Levatl Hagzera, Shinigzida, Lmarik of in Hador, Al Yudey Yasudim, Baarbah. This was an order, Levato to nullify, to remove, to take away. Hagzaira, the heavenly decree, the heavenly divine punishment. Shinigzida, which had been decreed against them, right on Rosh Hashanah, everything is decreed and was decreed against them. There's gonna be this terrible plague, and many people are gonna suffer and die. And there's this terrible decree, Lemurak of Inhadur, in order to expunge the sin of that generation. They were a corrupt generation. Ayudei Yasuraba Arba. And what was the decree? The decree of punishment was a terrible plague, the terrible afflictions that would come with the Arba, with the locusts. Okay. So basically, what did the Al-Darb just say? Al-Tarb said, there's three things. Don't confuse them. One is you did a sin. Sin, the kate, disconnected you from Hashem. And Shiva is to reconcile yourself with Hashem. It's not about fixing the damage of the sin or what the problem with that individual sin is. It's a greater overarching underlying issue that you and Hashem have now come disconnected and you have to reconcile with Hashem. That's Shiva. There's a second thing called Kapara. Kapara is as a result of your sin, your soul, your person, has become sullied, has become dirty, has become darkened, has become impure. And you need cleansing to cleanse yourself of that dirt, of that stench, of that mud. And the only way to cleanse yourself is through suffering, and but it's Hashem suffering, not human suffering. You might think Vashem could bring suffering to make you suffer. And what's Hashem suffering? It's not some magical suffering, right? We don't say you have to wait to get Hanim and there's like a different kind of suffering. Hashem suffering is I'll make you poor, I'll make you starve, I'll make you imbat, right? I'll make you lose your status. So why can't you think, why can't you re-reproduce that, right? So you would think that that's the place of fasting. Fasting is a way to like naturally or organically like reproduce the suffering of Hashem. So he says, no, there's a third thing, and as a result of our sins, we're also told in the Khamish if you follow the mitzvahs, many blessings will come to you. It goes on a whole list, all the blessings that will come to the Jew if you choose the mitzvah. If you choose the mitzvah, you choose life and you get life and you get blessings. If you follow the path of sin, everything will start breaking down, everything will start going wrong, and you'll be punished, quote unquote. Right? And terrible things will happen. And it goes list and lists a whole list of punishments. He says, those gazires, those punishments are a different thing than the asurum that we mentioned that Hashem will bring upon you to cleanse you of the stain of your past in three ways. First of all, the stain of your past is a stain from your past, right? Just like again, you got yourself into a terrible situation, a terrible injury, and right, your body was cut open, and now you heal the, you reconciled, you healed the wound, but you now have this ugly scar down your chest forever. It's a scar from your past. And again, unless this magical surgeon would come and offer, willing to do this procedure to remove the scar, it's an ugly stain from your past. You can't get rid of it. That's the ceremony that Hashem brings to cleanse you of your past. Then there's a separate thing that is a result of your sin, besides the sin leaving residual damage or residual stain from the past, the sin triggers or brings upon you punishments going in the future, or gazarus against you in the future, bad energy against you in the future, which is gonna cause bad things to happen to you in the future.

SPEAKER_05 49:40

That's not to cleanse you.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

That's not to cleanse you. Yeah, that's to punish you, basically. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's not to cleanse you, it's not to punish you, which is why the cleansing we said Hashem does out of love. It's a favor. And Hashem will only do that for you if you do trib out of love, if you deserve it. Versus the punishment you don't have to deserve. It's not officially done out of love. It's done out of, it's like punishment. In other words, you do you right? And therefore, that's not a favor. That just will happen to you when you do sins, these punishments, these gzeris will come against you, bad things will start to happen, and you could avert those decrees through fasting. And that's what he says. The purpose of fasting here, and the purpose of some fast sometimes, is levatal hagzerish niggsera. It's a way, it's a method to be mavatal, to nullify, to remove a decree that's decreed against you for the future, but not to cleanse you of the damage of your past sin, which would basically mean as well. Let's say in general, Rosh Hashanah, which in general it happened to be the Xera was brought against them in response to a sin they did. But hypothetically, let's say it comes Rosh Hashanah, and there's a gzera on you that you know, some gzerah is upon you. There's a decree decreed in the heavenly tribunal that something's meant to happen. So fasting is this method known in Judaism of it's a response, it's a methodology to remove, to get rid of future gxers.

SPEAKER_05 50:43

Even death.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

Sometimes even death, yeah. Okay, so that's how he translates. That this is future looking, which is why. Where does the Ram talk about fast, for example? If you go into the Rambaum, Hilchis Tynus, the laws of fast, there he says this exact scenario. Because if terrible things are happening to the Jewish people, there's an enemy army marching upon them, it seems like the economy is about to be destroyed, dark clouds are looming towards them, clearly something's up, there's gazera against us. We fast, we call mass fasting, and we ask Hashem to remove the Gazera. And this is a method, this is a time-proven method that Jews do in times of crisis to remove gazires. So fasting is an established practice in Jewish tradition. The purpose, the function of fasting is to remove looming disaster. It has nothing to do with chuva for your past. In other words, it doesn't, it doesn't reconcile you to Hashem for the sin that you did, and it doesn't either remove the stain from your soul from the sin that you did. It's literally to remove, it's nothing to do with you even. It has to, right? It's to remove this terrible disaster and danger that's looming upon you. Last class we mentioned that. I'll so I'm not gonna go over it, but in brief, we quoted from the Zaya and the Gemara. It did say that that you basically could throw yourself into Tara study because Yasurah humble a person, make a person feel weak and broken and like less arrogant and less smug. And Tara is very confusing. So if you throw yourself deeply into Tamil Bali, especially, Tamil Bali is very intricated in and out. So it says that's a way to like, so that's a spiritual method of like mitigation. But there's no physical, there's no physical suffering you could bring upon yourself to mitigate it. Yeah. Now, this is further seen, a further diak, this is further seen, a further proof to this, is why does the Altraba have to throw in that it was a plague of locusts? No, it's interesting, but in other words, like it's an extra word and it's not particularly necessary. A, if you just open the book of Yale, you could see that. And he could have just said, I know the explanation. There it was Lovatla, Gzera Shigzara, it was to remove a Gzera, whatever the Xera is. Why is it necessary to say it's locusts? The Alterba's trying to say at this point that what was the fasting coming to do? What was it coming to mitigate? What was it coming to remove? Physical looming threat. This physical army of locusts that were coming to destroy them and then eat up every last crop. Which means it has nothing to do with the suffering it talks about in the Braissa, which cleanses you, which brings you kapara, which cleanses your soul of its sin, because that's that's a spiritual cleansing of a spiritual threat, of a spiritual stain. Here it doesn't, right? It doesn't say it doesn't say they fasted to remove the stain of their sin, to cleanse their souls. They fasted to dissolve this army of locusts, to dissolve the physical threat. Because that's the only power, that's the only place that fasting has in Jewish tradition. And it's not, it's not part of the tva experience or the chuva mitzvah, and there's no relevance. It's like talking about chemitz in the middle of a talk about shiva. Two completely different areas of Jewish law and Jewish tradition has nothing to do with each other. Okay. The Zehu Atam, and now that the Alterab explained how you're meant to read and understand the story in Yel and why they fasted and what the purpose of their fasting was, and it wasn't to do chuva for their sin. It wasn't to cleanse their souls of the spiritual stain of their sin. It was rather to literally dissolve this oncoming, looming threat, this physical threat. It happened to be an army of locusts. Same would be if it was a Hitler or a physical army, right? So he says, Vizzehu Atam, this helps explain to you now the reason. It's the same reason, it's the same logic, it's the same reasoning. In general, when the community is facing a distress, facing a coronavirus, they're facing an Iranian regime, they're facing evil, they're facing a haman. This is Jewish tradition, this is Jewish law that Jews gather in mass and they call a public fast. It says that is the purpose of that public fast. That's the purpose of fasting in the Jewish community. To again be Mavatl Hagzerish Nigzerah, to thereby dispel and nullify the uncoming decree that's been decreed in heaven. Uh Hhmeshikasov, and like it's written, a second source that proves this, the Megillus Esther. The story of Esther and the story of Puram and the Megillus Esther were over there. Jews were facing a terrible threat, a heman, a physical danger, and they fasted to avert the danger, to avert the decree. They didn't fast to reconcile with Hashem for the sin of having joined Akashvarus' feast. They didn't fast to cleanse their souls of the Tumma of the feast, which is how you could interpret it, right? And then and then they were they were in good graces with God, so everything worked out well. That they did Shriva for, that Harata for all the things we say that Truva involves. And then because there was an oncoming enemy, an oncoming war, an oncoming threat, they fasted that if there was any decrees on the table, those decrees should be riffed up and thrown away, which is the power of fasting. It's a different distinct thing from Truva. It does, hypothetically. Practically, it's not done so often, but it will be done from time to time. Now, a few points here. So, first of all, the Rebbe said an interesting misconception that he says most people who are in the Tanya have that the Alta Rebbe doesn't, in general style, he doesn't spell out his exact source. He just says, like the fast and Michael's Esther. What do people think that's talking about? So actually, this Tanya itself has an error. We can write to the editors. What's the source that they put? And lessons in Tanya has for source 39. Because it says in the book of Esther, they say this is the fourth chapter, the 16th Patak. There, Esther famously is about to go into the king, unsummoned, without permission. And the king rules the world. He has his way. When he wants his wife, he calls her. If he doesn't want her that night, he wants someone else, he doesn't call her. And if she goes uninvited and ruins the party, he calls her, that's the laws of the kingdom. So Esther said, I'm risking my life. I'm not summoned to just go in and try to request something. And so she says, for me, so that this looming danger of Ahashferish, anger, whatever, if there's a Gzairah against me, then I'll be saved, right? It's for the purpose, yeah. It's for the purpose of being able to intercede, but it's not about Haman's decree. It's about Tsumuelai's, yeah, fast for my sake so that the danger on me is averted. I'm going into the lion's den, I should be saved. And the Rebbe says clearly, the case of Yael wasn't about an individual, it was about the tzibar, it was about the general community. Like the Alt-Rebbe even stresses, there was Lovatl Hagzerish Nigzerah Lamarik of an Hadar. It was to avert the decree against the whole generation. And also in the example of Esther, and he says, with all cases when there's a tsara coming on the tsibar, we fast. Like it says in Esther. Can't be talking about that verse, says the Rebbe, because that verse is not about a danger to the community, it's a danger to Esther. And she's asking the community to fast for her support. So the Rebbe says what the author is actually saying, he's referring to later in Miguel's Esther, the fifth to last Posak, chapter 9, Pasik 31, there it talks about the Jewish people at large taking on to fast. And that's the correct Mara Makim, which is interesting. I don't know why they didn't uh they didn't know that. Okay. Now the Rebbe asks an interesting question a little bit. He says, if we're trying to bring sources and Tanach of communities that seemingly fasted to do Shiva, one of the most obvious sources to bring, and why wouldn't the author ever bring it, is the story of Ninveh in the book of Jonah and the book of Yana, where there's the city, the sinful city, Ninveh, the sinful city of Ninveh, a non-Jewish city, and God calls his prophet, Jonah, Yana, in the middle of Succhis, in middle of Simchus Besas Shueva, and he tells him in prophecy to go to Ninveh and tell them that there's a looming decree, they're gonna be destroyed. They're gonna be destroyed. And Yana doesn't want to go. A, he doesn't want to save them. Two, he doesn't want to leave his holy abode. He doesn't want to go involve himself in the campaign of Shheva mitzvis. So he ran away, he tried to run away from God, and he got swallowed by the fish, and ultimately he had to face his destiny and face his calling and go on shlchas to do the Shheva mitzvis to inspire the Gleam. And Yayina went to Ninveh, and he shows up and he starts preaching and he catches the attention of the people. And it says they do chuva. And in the book of Yayna, chapter 3, Posik 5, it says that the people of Ninveh fasted. They fasted in Shiva. And who was actually, who was actually the king of Ninveh? Who was the leader of Ninveh? So it says in the it says in Pirkadabilazir 43.8, a fascinating thing. It says, learn from Pirah the power of Thuva. That Pare, who's literally the arch villain, so it says Pirae, who is the worst guy, the worst guy ever. Literally the worst. Mass murderer. Mass murderer. He killed and bathed in the blood of Jewish babies. This is as bad as it gets. He persecuted the Jewish people. He defied God. He defied Moses. He tried to chase them to the sea. So it says in the Pickers of Eliasar that his entire army drowned and he was speared. He survived. And ultimately, even after his whole army was drowned, he didn't do Shiva. Instead, I guess uh his stint in Egypt didn't work out so well. So he relocated to a more promising kingdom to Ninveh, and he became, and he and that's why he made it into this powerful nation and powerful city. And Ninveh he corrupted as well. And he made them the most corrupt place on earth. And he continued his defiance. But when a second prophet showed up and started prophesying about the downfall of his kingdom, so finally, I guess Pare learned the lesson. And Pari took it to heart, and Pare did Shiva, and the whole city of Ninveh was saved. Pare and the city were saved. So it says from here, Picker Blazer, learn the great power of Chuva, even if you're like Pare to do Chuva. And seemingly, how do they do Shiva? They did Shiva with fastid. So the rabbit says this would have been a great um question source, right? And even though the Altura could have and would have answered it the same way, right? It wasn't the Altraba could have answered it the same way that they fasted, not out of Chiva, but out of out of the Xera. But why didn't he bring that as a question? Especially since Anya and Kippur, the day of Chuva. What do we read in the Haftara? We read the story of Yena, we don't read the story of Yale, we don't read the story of Esther, read the story of Yena, which means Yena's like a real powerful story about Shiva and the power of Chiva, because it's a great story about Shiva. Anya and Kippur, Anya and Kippur, read the story of Jonah and how Ninva did Shiva. So why wouldn't Daljib choose to quote it? And to make the question even bigger, based on a Sikha of the Rebbe said on Purim Tafsin Khafchas, that is Purim 1968, printed in Sikh's Kedish on pages 429 through 434, where the Rebbe cites different holy books, Jewish Svarim, which say that the Jews in the time of Purim, even though the decree had already been sealed and was set in stone, so to speak, where did the Jews have the faith and the confidence and the surety that through a fast they would be able to repeal and get rid of the looming decree?

SPEAKER_02 59:34

So they actually took faith from the story of Ninveh in the Bible that Jews read at the close of Yimkippur, that even though there wasn't just a negative energy and a negative decree vaguely looming in the ear and potentially ready to form, but it was actually already written and more than already written, it was already inscribed and sealed and locked in and written in stone.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

Like the prophet Jonah literally told them the exact date that they would be destroyed. Even so, through their fasting, they were able to be mavatal and they were able to be rid of the uncoming decree and to make it totally disappear. And so that is the source for this concept, the original source, that fasting has the power to even avert a decree that's already inscribed and sealed, which is the very reason why we read it at the end of Yinkippur, to say that even if there's decrees against us that have been written, and even if there's decrees that have been sealed through today's fasting, through the fasting of Yinkippur, that should completely nullify and revoke and remove all such decrees. And that is again why the Jews in Purim had faith and confidence and knew that this was a time-proven method. And so that makes the question even bigger that if the Alta Rebbe quotes the story of Puram, of the Jews fasting in the times of Puram, as a question of us seemingly seeing that fasting is a part of Chiva, then why wouldn't he also quote or cite the story of Ninveh, which is one of the most classic stories in the Bible of a population and a community fasting in connection with Chiva? So the Rebbe says, because the Alta Rebba is trying to prove what's entailed by the mitzvah of Chuva. Does the mitzvah and shiva involve fasting in any capacity or not? And therefore he says, while it's a wonderful story about Shiva and the power of Triva, we can't really learn from that story details about the Khivat of Thuva or what it involves because it's to Goyim, it's to non-Jews, which A, not necessarily Goyim have the mitzvah obligation of Thuvah that Jews have. And even if they do, even if they do, very often when Jews and non-Jews have the same laws, the details differ. Like let's say, let's just for just to give an example, let's say there's laws about incest, right? It's against the terror, it's a very serious crime. There's certain relationships that for a Goy are not incest, and that for a Jew are incest. There's certain ones that are the same for everyone, but there's certain ones that are that have different laws. There's so in other words, the laws for Jews and the laws for non-Jews work differently. It's two different codes. It's like men and women have different halachis in certain areas. Jews and non-Jews have different halachis in certain areas. So all because maybe the chuva of goyim involves fasting, maybe not, maybe yeah, but it's not wouldn't be a question or a proof. You see, they have fasted part of their thuva, so it means that part of Jewish chuva, the mitzvah of chuva for Jews, is fasting. That wouldn't be a good proof. Because again, it was Pare and these non-Jews in Ninveh, and it's not a good proof to the gather of the mitzvah. That's what the Rebbe explains there. And here would be a good place to talk a little bit about the difference between chuvah for Gayim for non-Jews and for Yiddin for the Jewish people. And what's about to be sheared is based on the following sources. It's based on the Kutisakhis volume 2, page 409, the Kutisakhes volume 6, pages 53 through 56, Sikhaskadesh Tafshinchaf, Parshis Re, pages 394 and 395, Sikhaskadesh Tafsenhov Alef, Parshus Mishpatim, page 97, Sikhaskadesh Tafsenhavches, Fabrangan of Vov Tishre, page 43, Sikhaskadesh Tafsin Khafches, Parim Farbrangan, pages 429 through 434, Sichhaskadesh Tafsin Mem, Farbrengen of Vov Tishre, page 21, and finally Sikhus Kadesh Tafsin Mem Maiti Lagba Imur, page 35. And essentially the main point that the Rebbe explains between all of these sources, and it's all based on a very interesting question, which is we know that Shiva is considered to run deeper and be higher than the Tara and Mitsface, which is the very reason why Chuva can rectify and atone and make up for having broken the structure of terra and mitzvahis and for having failed to observe it. And that being the case, how can it be that non-Jews are able to do chiva? That we have instances of non-Jews doing chuva and the Tira, such as the city of Ninbe, when we know that non-Jews are not allowed to study taira and are not given the mitzvahis, because those belong exclusively to the Jewish people, which means to say that only the Jews and the Jewish soul really shares a connection with terra mitzvahis, and a non-Jew can't really relate or get anything out of it, and therefore it's off limits for him, or it's not intended for him. So if a non-Jew doesn't have a connection to Tira Mitzvahis, how much more so should he not share a connection with the experience of chava? And so what does it mean when non-Jews do do chiva? And based on this difficulty, the Rebbe explains that the primary difference between the way Goyim can do chiva and the way Jews are called upon to do chiva is that if a non-Jew has done wrong or gone down a bad path, they are expected and called upon, and they have the opportunity to change, to turn over a new leaf, to choose differently going forward, to realize the error of their ways, and now engage in course correction. And so essentially they can change their behavior or their choices going forward and discontinue the sin, which also has the power to discontinue the negative elements that come together with being a sinner. And this could also help to avert the punishment that they are facing. Like we find that the city of Ninveh, through their truva, through their repentance, through choosing a different path, was speared the apocalyptic destruction that had been prophesized. We find that back in Egypt, when Pharaoh decided to do chuva and to let the Jewish people go, we find that the plagues were halted and stopped midway and were discontinued. And once he returned to sin, then new punishments and new plagues came. But when he decided to change, even if it was only momentary, that averted the decree, that averted the punishment. And this is the maximum power of a non-Jew's chuva. And because of this, the Rebbe explains that the maximum word you'll find for the concept of Shiva in secular languages is some form or some iteration of the word repentance, which means to repent of something, which essentially means to change something about oneself or choose a different path or a different course, which speaks to a great course correction, wishing to change one's ways and one's self-concept and to be different going forward. Whereas in the Jewish language, in God's language, in the holy tongue of Lushna Kedish, there is this unique word called Shiva, which literally means to return. And the sense of this word, the meaning, is based on what's written in Jewish books and Jewish spharim, that the word Aveira, to sin or to transgress and to stray from God, essentially is a form of form of the word eiver to cross over or to walk over. And the idea of the word, what the word Aveira describes, is that with a sin, a Jew is leaving the Rishus, is leaving the home, is leaving the court of God of Hashem, and is going to a different Rishus, is walking on a different path, a different lane. And so quite literally, because through his Avera he was Aiver, he left God's Rishus, the appropriate response or what a Jew is called to do is to do chuva, which is to return, to come back, to step back over the line, to return back home into Hashem's Rishus. And this leads us into the most fundamental difference between the chuva of a Jew and the repentance of a non-Jew is that while as we said, a non-Jew only has the power to change how he is going forward, a Jew through his or her chiva has the power to reach into the past and change and transform the past and make the original sin and the original brokenness into a holy thing and a holy energy that their sins can literally be transmuted into merits in some form of spiritual alchemy. And the reason why a Jew is able to do this, the reason a Jew has this power can either be explained by the fact that a Jew is a piece of Hashem, a chelikal khami malmish, a part of God's being who naturally relates to and stems from the reality known as Saiv Kalaman, whereas non-Jews and Gentiles are part of the reality of Memali Kalaman, or what we call Heshtals or Teva. They are components within creation, whereas a Jew is not a creation but a part of creator. And just as Hashem, Havaya, which it's interesting that Pharaoh said he did not know Havaya, he couldn't recognize Havaya. But Jews who are a piece of Hashem, a piece of Havaya, and Hashem's name Havaya actually speaks to something about Hashem, that Havaya essentially means Haya Haiva Via Kachad. To him the past, present and future are all the same. He's unaffected by and doesn't abide by the entire structure framework of time and space or of the reality that we exist within or within the rules of the game or within Tava or Staushless. He transcends all of that. And so to him the rules of time are essentially irrelevant and don't apply and he doesn't experience reality through that lens or through that framework. So a Jew, when they do shiva, when they essentially return to their Jewish essence and are in touch with the part of themselves that is one with God. So such a Jew then stands in his or her most powerful posture and is fully activated and essentially is wielding or channeling or expressing the power of God or the power of Shemavaya. And from that state one is not bound by time and the past, present and future are all the same. And so whatever one does in that moment, it's as if it occurs in the past, present and future. And so from that space you are able to literally transform the past. Just like we understand conceptually even though it's difficult for us to actually imagine this, but we understand conceptually God can retroactively or from this point change something that happened in the past whatever the consequences of that might be like quite literally conceptually God can change a physical fact that occurred in the past and then just the ramifications of that or the natural development or consequences of that would now change in the future. So a Jew by virtue of the fact that they are a piece of God through their triva can transform the sin into a merit, into a positive thing. So that is explanation number one and essentially the second explanation is very interestingly that when is it impossible for something now to change the past? It's only impossible if you're trying to out of the blue generate from nothing or create a change in the past. And that simply is not a possibility. It's not it's not part of our reality that doesn't work. If you want to affect a change you can do something now that can change and affect everything that follows after it or everything that's built upon that starting point or that cause all the effects that come after that cause will be affected will be changed. And it doesn't make any sense it's not possible for the cause to come after the effect. And so you can't have an item in the present be a cause to cause something to take effect in the past. However, when is that true? When is that the case? So that's only the case if like we just described you're trying to do something now to cause something to take effect in the past. And just to give like an example so you understand the concept if we make a business deal and I sign over assets to you or more simply I sell you an item so through the transaction through the deal through the sale that's the cause and the effect the consequence is the transference of ownership and that is within our power. However it's not in my power to make a deal with you now or to make an agreement or a sale now that causes my object to have been sold to you or transferred to you going back two years or going back five years or even going back five minutes. That simply doesn't make sense and isn't possible or another halachic transaction is if a person is Mikadish a woman to be his wife so through that ceremony and through that act that serves as a cause to effectuate the effect which is their marital state. And while obviously people have the power to do that, it is not within human power to do such an act or do such a ceremony now in order to effectuate that you should have been married a year ago or five years ago or 10 years ago or even yesterday. So that's true and that's pretty basic. However what does work and what can work is if something done now doesn't serve or seek to create a reality or change a reality in the past out of the blue or without basis but rather serves to reveal or confirm or clarify or show what the status of something in the past is or was, then it can work. If now it's only serving to be Mavara or Megala, what was the dubious situation before? So just to give an example of this perhaps is let's say a man draws up a divorce for his wife and then sends it with a messenger to be delivered to her and then shortly afterwards tries to chase down the messenger or prevent it from being delivered in some way. So even if he fails, it could be argued that the fact that he did something so strange that so quickly after sending out such a divorce he's running to have it stopped might reveal retroactively that when he originally wrote it it was under duress or without actual intention. And so that can take something which originally we wouldn't have known or wouldn't have thought to question and because of a later action or a later statement it makes us see what happened in the past differently with actual ramifications. Or just to give a more down to earth example is there could be a person who you don't like or is a bad person and then they can at a certain point change and work on themselves or change or make new choices and you can then come to appreciate them or like them and like the new version they have become but another situation could be that there's someone that you're not sure about their character or they're somewhat of an enigma to you and you're not sure in your mind if they're a good person or a bad person or how to classify them or judge them. It's kind of an open question mark and then they do something or you come to see something or understand something that reveals to you or settles the question in your mind and reveals to you that they were always good or they were always bad. And that wouldn't be an instance of them doing something now which is causing them to be bad in the past or is causing them to be good in the past. Rather it's simply revealing and clarifying the original unknown status of this person in the past. Or just to give one more example maybe so it will be easier to understand when we apply this to the Jew is let's say you have a double agent who's really working for his people and working for his government. But on the surface he's aiding the enemy and he's working for the enemy and essentially he's a collaborator. So so long as you're watching this person, you would think of them as a bad person or doing evil or engaging in sin, so to speak. And then when you eventually discover that they were actually there on an assignment from their own government or they show their true hand in the moment of truth and do something unbelievable for their side to completely undermine the enemy and achieve victory for their home country. So that would reveal to everyone that the whole time and all these things they did in the past that looked evil were really good or they were really good the whole time. So says the Rebbe in a similar way, Shiva doesn't actually change anything about the past which is consistent with what we've been saying that for a Jew, Shiva primarily doesn't really mean to change. It means to return to your true essence or to remember who you really are and who you really always have been. And there's this idea that a Jew's essence is one with Hashem and is incorruptible and no one has the power to contaminate it or corrupt it. Not even the Jew himself and that part of a person is always faithful with Hashem is always faithful to Hashem even in the midst of the sin. Even while engaging in the worst most heinous sins, the Jew himself, the true part of the Jew, is not choosing to do the sin in betrayal of God and it remains faithful to God. Even if externally in artificial layers of consciousness which have attached themselves like fungus upon the Jew, upon the Jew's being upon the Jew's core, so even if those outer external artificial layers of consciousness are engaged in the sin for the sin's sake and in total disregard or betrayal of God, the Jew himself has never actually strayed from God. Somewhat similar maybe to how even if the double agent for the sake of his assignment needs to do terrible terrible things, which would seem to indicate that he's a total sellout and he's a traitor and he's joined the enemy when in fact it's all part of the assignment that he's been enlisted to do. So underneath all those external outer appearances and layers he's a very loyal soldier he's actually maybe even more loyal or more devoted than the average soldier. And so long as a Jew is pursuing a path of sin, all we see is that this Jew is a traitor. This Jew is disconnected from God. This Jew is filled with bad. But when a Jew ultimately does chuva, so besides the fact that going forward he's obviously going to be acting differently almost similar to the spy, once he shows his hand, he's obviously not going to continue in that role anymore. He's now going to be extracted and is now going to openly work for his government. So besides for the Jew acting differently going forward, the Jew then also reveals how the whole time, even in the moment of sin, even in all those times and all those moments and all those years, he was pure and he was good and he was connected to HM, which is what's behind his change now, his flip now. Whereas a non-Jew was actually bad to his core till now and just something caused him to convert so to speak or to take on a new behavioral identity. What's causing this sudden inexplicable change in the Jew isn't because he's changing it's because there was this voice there was this stirring there was this goodness within him the whole time that's been bubbling or growing closer to the surface which now has come to the surface almost like when a a plant grows or a tree grows it didn't begin now. It's been there beneath the surface and now it just came out into the open has been revealed. So for a Jew to do chuva the moment of chuva is like when the tree sprouts or the flower sprouts and comes out into the open out into the open air it reveals that this whole time this barren ground wasn't actually barren. There was something going on beneath it there was a goodness there was a freshness there was a light which now has come out into the open and revealed what was happening all this time. Whereas if you would go to a truly barren land and just transplant there and put a bush there, that would maybe be like a guy there was actually there wasn't goodness there and now going forward we've brought goodness here or now there's goodness going forward or there's a there's a better way of behaving or there's a better form of being and so that is another way that the Rabbi explains this concept of a Jew's chiva having the power to reform and change the past and the rabbi actually invokes a different halachic principle which is a little bit stronger that there's an idea of doing something altnai which means to say that let's say I make a sale or I give you a gift and I give you a million dollars on condition that you learn through the whole Talmud within five years or on condition that I climb Mount Everest within the year. So what's interesting is in such a situation what happens is is that an action which occurs at a later date retroactively causes something to happen or not happen in the past. Or let's say in a case of marriage a man is Mikadish a woman now on condition that he will eventually become the president of the United States and she accepts so let's say in 10 years from now he becomes the president of the United States that causes that Lima Freya retroactively they were married 10 years ago or because I climb Mount Everest today it caused a sale to take effect from a year ago. Which there already we see a greater power that there are times when an action done now can affect things in the past. Now obviously the reason for that again is because you're not starting or beginning the story or starting or beginning this action today and expecting it to affect the past. From the past you almost like plant it this action in the future and because there's that connection there and this relationship between that past moment and this present moment the present moment can reach into the past and alter that past moment but this is all to give a conceptual idea that there is this kind of possibility sometimes where present items or present moments can be connected to and can alter things from the past. And so however you explain it, a Jew does have this unique power unlike Nanju that through their chuva they can change the sins of the past and the transgressions of the past and not only repent going forward, become a reformed man or woman but show and reveal and return to who they always were the whole time inside to the inherent goodness that they always held and was always their truth. And the Rebbe actually relates all this to a beautiful story of the Balshamtev that when the Balshamtiv came out with his whole movement of Chasidis and Hasidicism, etc so he was asked what did you accomplish with all this? What's the purpose? What's the point? What's the need? And they told him before you came on the scene there was also many religious Jews and there was many holy Jews and pious Jews and righteous Sadigim and what did you bring to the table with your Derech? So the Balshamtev answered that if you're at home and a criminal a thief steals his way into the home so there's two ways for you to react one is in the Balshantev's words Menmachde Gesche which means you you let out a cry and you try to startle him and the thief is discombobulated and disoriented because they've been discovered and he tries to flee and run out of the tunnel or run out of the chimney or run out of the window whatever it is. And even though you've chased the thief away and you've secured the items of the house and the family is safe but the risk is or the problem is that the thief might come back tomorrow or sometime down the line and that's their nature they're going to try again. There's another path says the Balshamdiv though that men chaptem you don't scare him off you don't startle him or chase him away or cause him to flee the scene but you grab him you take hold of him machdem iber Far isher and you reform him to be a good ethical person. And then you never have to worry again about him in the future because his evil has turned to good the Zudainus Nasim Kazakhis. And the Rebbe relates a story to this point to say that in traditional Judaism or nigla the general verbiage and the general understanding surrounding Chuva is Kharat Alavar, the Kabbalah Allah which is you regret the past, you decide to change and going forward you act differently. Shlayash al-Khislaid not to return or continue with that foolish path which basically means just to stop the evil going forward to stop the evil call turkey. Whereas the Balshamdev and Chasidis introduced, you actually transform the evil element to good, which is you transform the Yetzir itself, you transform the Ganif himself, and you transform the very actions themselves, the very sins into good. And the Rebbe says that this difference of interpretation of chiva between the nigla and the pneus between nigla and chasidis parallels the difference between Gayim and yiddin that Gayim who are more connected to the surface level of reality. They're connected to the nigla surface understanding of chuva whereas Jews who are connected to the essence of reality and the core of reality and the deeper undercurrents of reality they're connected to the chuva taught to us by the Balshamtiv to the chuv of chasidis. And this actually explains an unbelievable law with a very beautiful and gorgeous explanation which is it says in the Talmud in Bab Matsya 58B Imhaya Balchuva if there was a person who was a Bal Shiva they used to be a sinner and now they reformed Loi Yeimerle one is not allowed to tell him it is forbidden to say Zuchur Mai Secha Hershainim remember your original deeds don't you remember how you used to be and to call to mind in front of this person his previous way of life and his previous sins is forbidden. And this is Halacha the Ramam actually writes us in Hilchishva chapter 7 Halacha 8 and he says very strongly Bal Shiva it is an absolute total utter sin to say to a Balchva Zuchor Maisachinim remember your previous deedshe or to mention them before him or to bring them up in conversation to the purpose of giving him embarrassment or making him feel uncomfortable. Or even more tactfully or with greater sophistication and plausible deniability that you bring up conversations on topics that you know will cause him discomfort because he was associated with those things in the past or he used to do that in the past. And the simple understanding of this law very basically according to Nigla is that it's simply not nice. It's cruel this person now is doing the right thing they're living like an upright person. They've changed and so it's simply cruel and callous to mention their past and rub it in. But according to Hasidis it is explained an amazing thing that the reason it's forbidden to mention the Balchuva's past to him is because it's a form of defamation because he truly is not that person anymore. He truly is a different person or the person he is now is not considered to have done those things. Through his chuva he has transformed his past his sins have turned to merits and he's like a reborn person, an entirely new person who at worst doesn't have that sinful past anymore is a new reborn person or at best has a different backstory now has a meritorious backstory. And so to speak about him and speak about his past as a sinner is a grave injustice in that you're speaking about something that isn't true. And this person has in fact not done those things he's a different person who has not committed those sins who is free from and not associated with that past life no matter how grievous or terrible or unthinkable those sins are. Which is where the idea comes from that for a Jew, no matter what he's done, even the worst of the worst of the worst, one can always do chiva. And the final point on all this is this is true about a deeper level of chava or what we call shiva ma'ava, shiva motivated by love or a desire to return to Ashem, which essentially means a desire to return and reorient oneself towards one's own nishama and one's own truest self. So that has the power to transform the past. That's the unique chiva that a Jew has and a Jew is capable of and what we really aspire to when we talk about doing shiva and again that could change the past for one of two reasons either because when it's out of Ava, when you're doing it to connect with Hashem or to connect with your own essence and your own nishama, you then are tapping into a force that transcends time or because you then reveal your own inherent eternal goodness, the peace of God within you, which reveals that the whole time in the past, even in the moment of sin you were good. So when it's then it has the power to change the past. Whereas if it's only Miira, if you're changing because the consequences are too much not to change or because you realize or are afraid of the consequences like Ninve did shuva because they didn't want to be destroyed in some great apocalyptic destruction and Pharaoh did shuva because he saw the might of God. So when a person does chuva not primarily because they want to connect with Hashem or they want to connect with the truth or they want to be truer to themselves but rather because the consequences of sin are too much. So that's the level of chuva that a guy could do as well. And when a Jew does that does not have the power to change the past and to change one's past sins. And so that concludes this little talk about the difference between chuv for Gayim and Shiva for Yudhin and also this explanation of a concept that we mentioned several times but never really fully explained which is why and how chuva indeed has the power to transform the past. And now we will return to the main flow of the chapter. Okay so now if indeed what the Al Tebba is saying is true. Shva has nothing to do with fasting fasting has nothing to do with shiva. Shiva is a different thing it's to mata like zera it's to nullify a decree and there's no bearing on shiva then why does Yael word it turn with your whole heart with fasting which would seem to imply that in other words the fasting is how you're returning to Hasham is part of the Shiva. So the Rebbe says it's actually the opposite way around that really the question of the Al T Rebbe here is why does right that was his question. He says he should have just said Uh Yael like it says in Yael, but Sayyidhi should fast he actually quotes the opening words to answer his own question or to prove his own point that he says do chuva to me fullheartedly. If you already did full hearted shiva which means you did full shiva and obviously you don't have to obviously your chuva is not lacking. You don't have to do anything else to do shruva in other words if he would have said do chuva with fasting or do partial shiva and fast then it would mean the fasting is part of the triva. The fasting actuates the chuva but the fact that he already writes him return to me with your whole heart they would have fulfilled that statement it was a full hearted shiva it was a full shiva was a complete shiva chuva shlema that wasn't lacking anything. So that itself shows you actually to do a full shiva it comes before the fasting you don't need the fasting. Fasting is speaking to a different thing it's another thing it's another aspect that's his point. And then okay and the purpose of the fasting is to be mavatl hagzera like there's a similar law with an individual this is an Irachaim Simon 288 where it says famously that if a person has a disturbing dream on Shabbos or lata fast it'll be mavatl hagzera nullify the decree. Now if it's during the week and you want to fast it's not much of a proof because you could just say okay we want the guy to feel good right but the fact that it's forbidden to fast on Shabbos and we say if you have a disturbing dream that you feel is a portent of some terrible decree that's looming over you, Relafts to be mavatzerah means A, it's a real it could be a real sign of a true impending decree. And the fast has the power to be mavatal that decree and therefore you're allowed to fast on Shabbos. So there is this concept there is talking about an individual here it's talking about the community and specifically he wants to talk about the community he stressed that twice. Twice he said this talking about the tzibar he specifically didn't want to talk about the fast forever Her individually to avert her individual decree. He wanted to talk about the community. The reason for that exactly why we'll get into it in a moment. Okay, so to sum up this page, that was the Al-Trab's first challenge to his own premise. His own premise was that fasting has nothing to do with triva. He questioned that. Seemingly we have different sources. We have Yoel, we have Mikhail Sester, we even have Ninveh, where seemingly they fasted as part of the Chuva or when they needed to do chiva. And he says, no, the way you should read and interpret all those stories and the place of chuva in Jewish tradition and Jewish writings, place of fasting in Jewish tradition and Jewish writings, is not as part of the chriva, but again, to avert the upcoming looming decree. Okay, now he's gonna bring a second challenge. Umashikosov Besifeha Musur. As to what is written about in the Musr books. Now the Al Trab is not talking about modern Musr, or what generally people would say Musr when they mean today. Those are very modern books written in the last uh 100, 200 years. That's a that's a more modern movement. That's not what he's referring to, because that wouldn't be much of like a question. He's referring to very uh ancient books, ancient writers from the early medieval ages, the 11 and 1200s. Virusham, and while this is mentioned in many of the ancient books of Musr, the early medieval writings of the rabbis at the head leading this kind of messaging, you'll find this a lot very heavily in these two very well-regarded books, Sefer Harak, Vsefer Hasidim, and the Sefer Harakah, and the Sefer Chasidim, which are Harakeah. So he says these are two of the leading Musr books, old medieval Musr books, written again in the 11 and 1200s. And there he gives very detailed details. Harbe tinius Vesigufim, Lo Iver al-Krisus and Mrs. Bezdun. There it writes, if a person did worse kind of sin, sins that carry the death penalty, whether by the court or whether in heaven, in heaven's eyes, if you did an Aveira that carries the death penalty of Crisus and Mrs. Bezin, then it gives their lists of fasts you should do, and Sigufim, Sugufim is even more than fasts. Sigufim are like bodily afflictions and mortifications, like rolling in the snow is a common one, or self-flagellation. You whip yourself, right? These different very intense acts. In the Christian world, this is very big as well. And they write about these stuff. Seemingly, what's the purpose of that? Purpose is seemingly to cleanse yourself, to do complete chuva, or at least do kapara, at least attain kapara for your previous sins. How do we know this? Why wouldn't you just assume, in other words, once the Al Trabba gave us his answer, why wouldn't you assume it's the same answer? It's the same thing. Why wouldn't the same answer work as easily? Same answer that in other words, when it says in the Musr's forum that you should self-afflict, it's not to do chuva or to attain kapara, it's to remove any future decrees against yourself. So there's two reasons why the question here is bigger. The question here is bigger. First of all, we have a very established Jewish tradition. It's in the Tanakh, it's written about in the Rambaum, how fasting is something we do to stop an impending decree. Nowhere, nowhere does it talk about in any of those sources about self-affliction, about mortification, about hurting yourself. Sigufim is a unique thing here. The tiniest is fasting, that we already talked about a little bit, we touched upon. But suffim is a new thing, and therefore, and we're never told that sufim is a way to stop a future gazera. Sugufim is self-affliction. Whether you whip yourself or you go or you roll in the snow. Fasting is a technique that we know we're told is used to stop an impending decree. Right, right. We're never told that sugufim is used in that sense. And so, and it would seem that what is the place of segufim? What is the idea of the self-affliction? That's basically a way of inflicting upon yourself the pain that we're told Hashem will bring on us to bring us kappara.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:02

Oh, so you can't do it on yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:04

Right. So it would seem that that's what the Al-Zabba said. The Al-Zrabba said you can't do that on yourself, but it would seem that that the Sifri Musir are saying that you could do it upon yourself, and that's what that's what they're saying to do. This is further seen or implied. What are the only kind of sins that the Sifri Musar talk about doing this for? What kind of sins do the Sifri Musar say that you should the worst kind. The worst kind that carry the death penalty? Now, if you go to the Braissa, we opened up the chapter with, it said that if you do a lower level sin, if you do a regular mitzvah say or a lisa say, all there is is chuv, the emkippra, there's no suffering, right? You don't need suffering from God. What kind of sin do you need suffering from God to achieve kapara? To achieve cleansing? Only Averis that are Krisus and Mrs. Bezden. Sins that carry the death penalty. There's 36 that have the Chrisus, and there's another 36, some overlap, that have the death penalty. So murder would be one of them, hurting your father and mother, eating a Mkippra, etc. etc. So these are ones that have the carry the death penalty. So the only place we're told that you need that for your kapara, for your cleansing, you need suffering. And Hashem is going to bring that suffering is only for Krisus and Mrs. Bezun. And suddenly we find in the Sifri Musir, they say for these sins, for these sins that carry the death penalty, here's how you fix them. Here's what you should do. You should fast and you should afflict yourself. So it could sound very much like they're saying basically, you should achieve your own kapara, you should bring that suffering upon yourself. You should make it happen for yourself, which would completely contradict what we said that the suffering which brings you cleansing is not a humanistic suffering that we're able to do on ourselves, or A, we're not encouraged to do on ourselves, but else you can't. And something in Hashem's court and Hashem's hand, and it's not our focus in life. And once there's a mention of Sigufim in that form, in that capacity, it means that also the tinyness they speak about, also the fasting they speak about, it's in one breath. So the fasting is also for the same purpose to achieve seemingly to achieve kapara, to achieve cleansing for these most grievous sins that carry the death penalty.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:38

So he's taking a position against Rokiah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:41

No, no, no, you can't, because there he's saying seemingly it's a qu just like previously, he said seemingly it's a question from the Bible, and then he answered the question. So he's also gonna answer the question here.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:49

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:49

He's saying seemingly you can get the wrong idea from these farum, and I want to clarify for you. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the altaraba wouldn't, these are these are Rushinim, so the Alteribel wouldn't have the authority to override them. He's saying that you're mistranslating them, you're misunderstanding. Okay. Versus just to clarify that point, versus it could be that for failing to do mitzvah sasis or for doing base level leisuse, that could bring a gzera. Like we're told when the Jews didn't do Birchasatera, they basically didn't do it on mitzvah sasse, then a punishment came upon them. So everything could spark a gzera. And in response to any gzera, we would fast. But the fact that they're limiting this, that the only place you should do fasting and sufim, self-inflicted suffering, is in response to Christmas and Mzbezin that we're told need suffering from Hashem to cleanse you. It sounds like what is the purpose of that self-affliction? To bring that cleansing upon yourself, not waiting for Hashem. And seemingly that means that it is our prerogative and it is in our power to cleanse ourselves of the stain of our sins through suffering, through fasting. And the Altribut said that's not true. And now we'll just make the question a little bit bigger and then we'll answer the question. The Khain, and likewise, if you look in the Sifri Musra, if you look in these books of Musr, so where do they write protocols of fasting and different protocols of self-affliction? Cleanse yourself of the sin. So they write it for mitzvahs that carry the death penalty. And then there's one other mitzvah they write it for. They also write it, mitzi zer Lavatala, for the emission of seed for no purpose, which basically means out of the context of a relationship, which there it's not lavatala, there it's mitzerah to have a baby, right? But uh mitzizer lavatala is masturbation, right? You just get off for the sake of it, just for for pleasure, which Shaqhayab Misa Badeshamayam, which they group together as part of these other Averis, generally carry the death penalty, because it says that the deserving punishment or of this transgression of the sin is on the level of chorus. You deserve death or you receive death, or you're deserving of death in the eyes of heaven. Like the Torah tells us regarding Aaron Oinin, which we'll we'll explain in a moment, Vedinoi and the law or the treatment of this Avera, Kechaev Khrisis Leninze, is similar to the Averis, is similar to his transgressions. Carry the death penalty from heaven, carry caris, Leninze in this regard, in this respect.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:46

So, what are we adding to what we just said about Rock and Sarah Cosita? Adding another sin that carries carus.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:54

He's trying to show you'll only find this if you gather all the Averas that they talk about. Right. Because they don't frame it in that way. They don't frame it that laws that have death penalties, this is the protocol.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:03

Oh, they don't.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:03

They say this Avera, this Avera, this Avera. The altar is if you actually are vigilant and gather it all together, you'll realize that the only Averas they give it for are Averas that have the death penalty. And I, there's one Avera which officially in the Shokhan Arach doesn't have the death penalty, meaning to say there's a list in the first mission in Kauris, it gives 36 mitzvahs that carry the churus. Zara Lavata is not in the list. That's what the Al Trab means, Inyan Ze. What does he mean? It's counted like a churis avera in this regard, in this respect. Because generally in Shokanarach, in the Rambam, in the mission of Kauris, it doesn't list this as the Kauris mitzvah. Yet if you look in the source in the Tirah, it does speak about people dying in a church-like way as a result of this. So he says, with regards to a chava process, or in the in the Musra Swarim, la inyanzh, in this regard and how you what you do in response to having done that sin, they group it together. Even though in most Hablaqic sources it's actually kind of in its own category. Okay, that's what he means that in this regard of how to atone for it or what to do, that we find in the Sifri Musar, what to do in response to having done that sin, we find it grouped together. Which again, we only find them writing this about sins that have the death penalty or churus, which means it would seem like we're basically giving an alternate way, a do-it-at-home, a DIY way, how to bring upon yourself the suffering that's incumbent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Now we have a lot of things to say. A lot of things to say here. Okay. Okay, so a few points. First of all, what is the story of Erin Oinan? So it's found in Baratius, it's found in Genesis chapter 38. And it says that Yehuda got married, and he had three sons with this woman. And the oldest son was Er, next son was Ainan, and the youngest son was Shayla. Okay. Now the babies grew up, they became men, it became time for them to get married. And so Yehuda started looking for a wife, and he found a wife, Tamar. And he thought it should be a great daughter-in-law. And his eldest son, Er, married this woman, Tamar. Beautiful. It says that shortly after the marriage, it says that Er was evil in the eyes of God, and Hashem killed Er and Er died. So it doesn't say. It doesn't say befarius in the past. Then, after he died childless, so they did the mitzvah of Yibum of the Leverite marriage. And the next son in line, Oinin, married Tamar. And there the Torah tells us explicitly what he did. It says that when they were intimate on the wedding night, so as they were approaching the climax, right, in the moment of ejaculation, so Oinin made sure not to impregnate her, to spill his seed onto the ground.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:09

Why?

SPEAKER_01 1:37:09

So that she would not be become pregnant. Because he understood what's the purpose of Leverite marriage. What's the purpose of the law? Your brother is now his like his line came to an end, and his name will be forgotten forever. And so you're kind of by proxy almost, like taking his place. Because generally you're not allowed to marry your sister-in-law. Of course. The logic of the mitzvah is that you're almost you're almost becoming like your brother Schliach. You're taking you're by proxy, you're continuing his like his role as the husband of this wife. And so you're almost having you're almost having children on his behalf. Now, whatever that means spiritually or whatever, it's a whole discussion, what the idea of that is, but he took it very seriously, and he felt that the children born out of this wouldn't really be considered like his children spiritually or whatever, and they'd be his brother's children. I guess somewhat like a Kai and Heavel situation. He didn't want that to happen. And so he didn't want to have children with her. Now, this is biblical times, so presumably he could have had other wives, and with his other wives, he would have had his own children, and with this wife, he wouldn't have children. He wouldn't have children for his brother's name and not in his own name. And so, and this is what he did. So basically, this is a form of Zeriloba Tawa, where it's not, it's not masturbation in the typical sense of the word, right? He didn't like do it alone in the bathroom, but it's the same idea. He put C to waste.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:10

It's not better if he hired someone to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:12

No, no, no, no. Okay. Now, what happened? It says that this was evil in the eyes of God, and it says he was evil in the eyes of God just like his brother Error, and so God killed him, and he died also shortly after the marriage. So from here we see that what was Er sin, even though it didn't tell us explicitly what Eris sin was, the fact that it says he did the same thing, and it tells us what he did, so it means that Er likewise made sure to spill out the seed on the ground. Now, now a different reason. What was the reason for error? So the reason for error was because Tomer was so beautiful, he didn't want her to get pregnant. And A, A, when she's pregnant, she wouldn't be as attractive. And then in general, pregnancy and birth makes what makes a woman lose her looks. So I don't know if he never wanted to have children, or definitely not at this time. He wanted to preserve the beauty for some time, and that was his motivation. Yeah. Okay, good question. You're saying how does this play out in the modern day and age? Okay, so so two points. The first is we had we in one of the earlier, earlier classes, we had a whole discussion about this, about punishments in the Tara, and in the modern day they don't apply. We said it's not because God forbid, like some people conclude, that it's a little bit too extreme and is not commensurate. And the olden days the world was a bit of a more violent place, and people were more fanatical. So then it made sense to follow these things, but nowadays, like we're modernized and we're more normal, and kind of stuff got shelved since the rabbis, you know, updated. But rather, it still applies conceptually. The level of the transgression is the same. The only difference is is that our spiritual awareness and maturity and sensitivity is at a very, very low level. And the example we gave for it is just like if a 20-year-old takes a gun and goes into a house and shoots everyone, a monster, right? And you execute him. Whereas if a three-year-old stumbles into his father's closet and picks up his shotgun and walks out and shoots his whole family. So it's not less the action isn't less damaging, then the the transgression, the crime isn't less grievous. The tragedy isn't less grievous. The child actually can't punish him? No, not only you can't punish him, it doesn't make sense. Why would you punish him? The biggest tragedy is on the child. The biggest trauma, the one who's most traumatized is the child, right? The biggest tragedy is that is that he's put in a position where he's people let him pick up a shotgun and shoot people, right? So it says nowadays it's not less. In other words, when you break Shabbos and you deserve the better death penalty, it's not that the the sin of Shabbos now we realize is not such a big deal and like whatever. It's a terrible, terrible thing. It's like picking up a shotgun and shooting people, just to give an example. It's like setting off a nuclear weapon that of course you deserve, in other words, the action warrants death. The reason why we don't kill people is because people don't appreciate or see or not capable of realizing the seriousness of what they're doing. Just like a two year old has a very vague conception of what they're gonna what's gonna happen if they pull the trigger. Even if you tell the two even if you sat down the two-year-old, you're like, don't pull the trigger because, right, it's gonna be very bad. I've got a vague sense that there's something forbidden about this, right? But like it doesn't really, it won't really resonate, right? So, right, and therefore it's even if you gave them a warning, it doesn't work to therefore now you can put them in death row, right? And instead, in other words, it's a tragedy. So it's the biggest tragedy is that we're raised in a world, we don't even realize how we're hurting ourselves and hurting the whole world when we break Shabbos, when we when we do these things. And again, the gravity of the act is the same. You don't get punished for it because we're you have to be aware of what you're doing to deserve deserve and be worthy of punishment. So that's why the courts discontinued. And and once the courts discontinued, they don't punish for any sins. They wouldn't punish for murder either. Murder is more of like a it's just a it's more practical that like you have to run a society, so you have to stop people from murdering, so you you lock up or execute murderers. But it's not like nowadays murder deserves to be murdered, but these things don't. That's that's kind of that that's one point. And the second point is the outrage was gonna ask a question later on in Yersa Chova. How could it be in general that the Tara tells us if you do these 36 sins, and according to in some ways, there's this 37th sin, Zarlavatala, it says you'll die, right? Karus, you literally you'll die either right away or at a certain age, and it says you look around, it's not true. People are doing these sins and no one's dying. So the altar the ultra addresses that question and discusses it. In the court, we know the court stopped executing for the reason we just gave. Why should he? It's a system of the world, it's a system of reality. And yet we see seemingly they did they did stop doing karas. Altara says, When did that happen? How does that work? Why does that work? So he's gonna get into that. Um a few things I want to say. So now the Khizkuni on the Khomesh actually writes a fascinating comment. He says, Not only did Aaron Oinan, you know, before before the climax, pull out and spill on the floor, they didn't even take her virginity. They engaged sexually or they didn't take their virginity, which is why he explains later on in the story, Yuchuda, now under false pretenses, he didn't realize who she was, or else it would have been an inappropriate thing to do, but he was with her, and once he realized who she was, he ended up, at least according to one opinion, he ended up marrying her. How could he have married her? Right? It's against the law to marry your daughter-in-law, your ex-daughter-in-law, son's ex-wife. So he says, because legally she was never married to his sons, because they never actually penetrated her. So that's just what that's what the Khuskuni writes. But in any event, in any event, so this is the source in the Torah. This is the first mention explicitly of Zerilabatala. We see that how did God respond? What was the punishment? God struck them down, chorus. Even though it's not officially worded as a command there, and it's not categorized again in the Mishnah as one of the 36, very grave sin. And the Shoch Narach, when it talks about it in Evan Ezar, Simon 23, which there it does codify the mitzvah. So it doesn't say, it doesn't say that it's chorus, but it does say, Avanze, Khamer, Mikol, Averishera. This sin is more extreme or more severe than all the mitzvahs of the Tara. And this is the and this is actually, it's funny in in modern English, one of the more uh refined ways or more sophisticated ways to refer to this act is onism. Onism, right? It's an English word. What does onism mean? Onanism is a more sophisticated way of saying of saying Zerla Batal or saying masturbation. Now, where does it come from? Where does it come from? It's a biblical reference. English was made by Christians who knew the Bible. It's a biblical reference to Onin, not to Error, because Error doesn't say explicitly what he did. Onin is the first person who says explicitly what he does. So we have this word onism, it's named after Onin. Error and Onin. So it's named after him. He got the he got the he got the credit. He got the pattern. Uh okay, sorry, what was your question?

SPEAKER_03 1:43:44

Why would somebody, why would they try to understand that they're sends more?

SPEAKER_01 1:43:47

Right, no, okay, great, great question. You're asking, you're asking, why would a normal average person be incentivized to find out more, find out the truth if it just makes them realize how complicated a lot of things they do are, right? And like, and life was much simpler before. So, all right, and and in a way it's true, ignorance is bliss. Like even even simple, even more simply, let's say Shabbos, right? Someone just starts becoming a multi-a, they have a very simple notion of what it means to keep Shabbos. Once they actually starting the halakhis, it's like, oh, like I I got I didn't even realize half the things I was doing, right? And why what what what would incentivize a person to find out these things they're doing wrong, basically? Before they were living in in blissful ignorance, and now suddenly they have this challenging, demanding knowledge, right? So a few points. Even from like objective perspective or a shabbat's perspective in the legal system, cop pulls you over for zooming 150 miles an hour or for running the red light. You say, Oh, I didn't know, I never read the law, I never, you know, I didn't ever knew it was illegal. That doesn't work, right? Why not? Because that itself is a sin. In other words, it's your responsibility to educate yourself. That's only true within the level of education that is possible for you to achieve. Right? So you're not, you're not like to the two-year-old, you should have, you know, you should have, you should have realized, you should have known because it's not possible for him. So we are responsible. Our ignorance doesn't save us from the ignorance that we're we're able to conquer. It only saves us to the degree that it's kind of beyond our our level of awareness, our level of understanding, our level of spiritual sensitivity. So that's that's one point. The second point is the purpose of life is not only to avoid, to have excuses and to be able to avoid punishments. That's if you're dealing with something that you don't respect inherently or don't think is like has any meaning. So if you can convince the cop that you didn't realize it's illegal to park on this sidewalk and get a ticket, of course you'll try to argue that because like you don't you think the whole ticket system is ridiculous, right? Versus to just to give a cultural like example, right? The the term, right? Red pill, blue pill. Do you want to know the truth or you don't want to know the truth? So it's an interesting question. Why would someone want to know why life's in always the live they're living in blissful ignorance? Why would someone want to take the red pill? Why would someone want to wake up from their delusion, from their matrix, right? It's a much more, it's a much more challenging reality. But most people, I would say, but definitely a lot of people, the only thing that's driving the decisions in life is not just convenience or what's easier. People want, people are drawn to people want to want to know actually. Like people want to live meaningful lives, people want to know truth. Even if that truth is confronting sometimes. It challenges you to, you know, challenge your previous reality. And I think I think for most people, ultimately that trumps easiness or convenience or or just being able to keep you know being blissfully unaware. Right, right. So a few points, a few points. We mentioned this in the general introduction. This is the first time so far we've encountered this topic in a Garisotchova towards the end of the first chapter. It's interesting. If you read through the chapter so far, thus far, while he's talking a lot about the concept of sin and the damage of sin, he's only actually given us three examples of sins. We've mentioned many, many examples of sins to try to illustrate different concepts. But he only actually gave us three examples. One, he mentioned missing Kriishma. The second thing he mentioned is missing or neglecting Tamatara. Third thing he's mentioning now is this is the first negative transgression he's explicitly mentioning, is wasting seed, is Erlawatala, which Rebbe says that actually the examples the Al Trabic gives in this chapter and in the coming chapters, if you'll pay attention, you'll notice, he gives examples, very common sense, that no man is free from, no person is free from entirely. In our examples, like these three.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:43

Oh, does three? I mean, we know.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:45

No, many more also, but but in other words, he doesn't in our examples to illustrate, right? Relatable, right? Relatable, and that anyone reading this, it speaks to them. There's other niche examples that we gave to illustrate different points in a in a in a good way. But the altar doesn't, is Alder is speaking to every person. Everyone needs to do truva and had it best do chriva. And and so that's one point. He says he says things that every person deals with. So that's that's point number one. Point number two, as we said, is that really Malgarasa Thuva is written as a way to help people achieve chuvva in general. Most specifically, says the Rabba, the holy garrison chriva is written to help humanity and to help society, to help the Jewish people achieve, uh overcome sexual sin and sexual dysfunction, and to align and to align completely with Hashem in this area. And the Arizal, which we quoted, which says that this is actually primarily the responsible for the uh perpetuation of the final exile, and that it's the it's it's the conquering and fixing of this area, though primarily bring bring Meshiach. And therefore, spelling out of these concepts, Thalzeb is gonna drop in this topic many, many times. In I think we said five of the chapters in Agarsahuva, five out of twelve chapters, which is quite disproportionate. And so we'll talk more about it as it comes up, as it comes out below in the book, but this is the first time, so we'll just mention a couple of like uh perspectives a little bit. Where basically the way the one of the ways to view this, the way Yiddish guy tells us, it gives us the truth, it gives us a very positive perspective, is if you look, if you look in Jewish tradition, there's tremendous, tremendous respect or reverence around sexuality and around the sexual organs. And you find something almost bizarre, very interesting. When Avraham, when Abraham, the first Jew, wanted to make his servant swear to him something, he told him, Grasp, grasp he used the euphemism, he said, grasp beneath my thigh, but he said, Grasp my member. And he held his member and he said and he made the he made he made the he made the he made the promise to him. What's this like? It explains. You want to make the ultimate shvua, what do you do? Well, the safer terrah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? In court, when they want to make someone swear, what do they what do they do? You hold the Bible, you hold a sacred object, you swear on your sacred object, right? Nowadays, the most sacred object we have, at least that's publicly acceptable, would be the safer terrah. And if you want to make a serious shvua, you do it on a safer terrah. And in those days, and really the holiest object, and they had the level of maturity that it wasn't like it wasn't, you know, it didn't make a joke out of the whole thing. Also, in those days, they didn't have a safer terrah. Only mitzvah Avram had from God was the brismelah. The holy object was the bris. And he held the brist and he made the made him the promise on a holy object. And it's worth mentioning here on an aside that in Genesis chapter 24, when Abraham, when Avraham has his servant hold his holy bris and swear to him, there's an extra layer of meaning in this narrative, in that the oath that Abraham administered to his servant was that his servant was to find a wife for his son Yitzhuk, from his own family, from his own people, from his own nation, from his own seed. And under no circumstances whatever was he to take a wife for Yitzhuk from the cursed Canaanites, from the local Gentiles. And essentially, he was making his servant take an oath to ensure that Isaac, that Yitzhuk, would never intermarry, which the prohibition of intermarriage is actually originally worded against marrying with the Canaanites, for they are the center and core of the Gentile nations, which is why even if a Canaanite converts to Judaism, you are still not allowed to marry them. Whereas other nations, if they convert, you can marry them. If they do not convert, you cannot, it's intermarriage. But in any event, Abraham was making him swear that Isaac Yitzhuk would never intermarry with a Canaanite girl, which to intermarry Is in effect to violate and profane the sanctity of one's bris and of one's sexual organ and of one's essential connection with Hashem. And while all the Arayas, while all the forbidden sexual sins and acts are the opposite of Shmirus Abris, are using the bris in a profane way, the worst of the Arais, the worst such acts, the worst form of Pegama bris is the sin, is the transgression of intermarriage, of being with a non-Jew. And so the Tera specifically tells us that in swearing his servant to the pact against intermarriage, against Pagama bris, Avram had the servant place his hand upon the bris to swear by the bris that he would never allow it to be profaned through intermarriage or any other act of Pagama Bris. But again, to the larger point of this narrative is that the Tara is describing a very striking thing that when seeking a holy object, a sacred object to swear by, that wasn't just a regular standard commitment or an expression of his desire to see through the will of his master, but rather a sacred oath. Which holy object did Abraham select? He selected the physical bris upon his own body. Which basically means to say, Yiddish guy tells us, which in general a lot of people have this notion, and but it comes actually from Christianity and Christian dogma. There's a lot of strong feeling around sexuality and sexual sin, and especially when you read like very strong statements about it. Yeah, there's a lot of shame, and it's almost like the whole thing is like this deep, toxic, shameful secret of humanity that everyone has going on, you know, beneath closed doors or whatever. And we don't we don't acknowledge, we don't speak about, but this is like, and it's like this like secret part of our identity that whatever that is happening again behind closed doors. And whatever, it's part of the human reality, and we just have to, you know, has its place and it does its thing and it's whatever, it's happening. And in Yiddhishkeit looks at it the opposite. It's not a secret, shameful thing. Private thing, holy thing, it's a revered thing, but there's nothing, there's nothing, it's not uh it's not a shameful like area or topic of the human, of the body, of the of life. It's holy, it's sacred, it's prized, exalted actually above all else. Is why, like, in the base amigdush, for example, what was the holiest room? What was the holiest spot? Kiddish Kadasham. It was spoken about, it was seen, even today, right, in people's popular imagination, it's like special. It's like Khajush Kadasham is special. What's the law with the Kaish Kadashim? Only go in with great intention. You don't just go in, it's not a casual place. Otherwise it hurts you, right? Because things that are so powerful, things that are nuclear, if they're not treated with a certain respect and reverence and and and intention, just used cheaply or casually, they end up being destructive, they end up being nuclear bumps, right? And the greater a forces, the greater a power, the greater the holiness of something, the greater the potency, the more reverence, the more respect you have to have for it. And that's where the privacy element comes in. You don't just peek into the Gaish Gadasham. You don't just it's not a tourist attraction, right? Don't just go every Monday and Tuesday. Go in with a purpose, with intention. You engage with it very intentionally, and it's very powerful, it's very transformative, it's very uh it's the most uplifting element of the whole cycle of the time, right? Of the year. And it says, very fascinating, the books of Tanakh. Our sages say that in the books of Tanakh, in the books of the Bible, it says all the books in the Tanakh are Kedish. They're compared to different holy elements of the temple. One book corresponds to Khadesh Akadash. Oh, Sherashirm, you open it, it's like this uh salacious love story romance novel, right? Steamy.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:04

I mean, the first time I read that, I was like, what is that?

SPEAKER_01 1:53:06

Yeah, and it's describing the relationship between Hashem and the Jewish people, and it's using very, very non-bashful, yeah, very erotic uh imagery of this man and this woman, and like again and again and again, like very, very, very detailed. And it says that this, in other words, the this, the sexual experience within man, within Yiddishkait, it's the first mitzving the Torah, and it's the it's it's the Kaida Shukasham, it's the ultimate thing.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:26

But he wrote about Hashem.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:53:28

Is that normal?

SPEAKER_01 1:53:29

So, okay, so he says this is the this is the Kaida Shukadasham. And because of that, there's a reverence to it, there's a privacy, there's a tsnias. T'inas isn't a response to it needs to be buried, needs to be hidden, needs to be shamed, it has to be avoided. It's special, it's private. And one of the things, one of the consequences of something being very valuable, it attracts a lot of criminals. Nobody's trying, you don't have criminals circling around trying to break into the homeless man's shelter, right? Right? Where are they circling? Where are they all hoping to get into? The banks, the four knocks, the di the mansions, right? Because these places are loaded with gold. So it says spiritually as well, areas of life, areas of the world, the areas of our the areas of life, the areas of the body, the areas of the human experience that have very weak spiritual potential, not so much investment on the side of the clippa to try to like, you know, try to try to get in there. Try to s obviously they want to try to dominate everywhere, so they they they'll send a couple of soldiers, a couple of squads. But where are they where are they pouring 80, 90, 95% of their troops? What's like the what's the what's the right to the the capital city? The Berlin, the Stalingrad, right? Where's the where's the key objective that if they get this, the whole thing's over? The Jerusalem is where there's with the the the the Fort Knox, the bank, they get in there, there's billions to steal, there's billions to seize, are the places of greatest spiritual light, of greatest potential. And that's why there's such a powerful clip of that hovers around, that surrounds this area and tries to corrupt this area. Not because, right? So when you see all the clippa, you can think this is like the dirtiest thing in the world. On the contrary, because it's so beautiful, because it's so pure, because it's so light, right? When you go when you go into the night, the big lamppost, what are you gonna see around it? If you're in camp upstate, hordes and hordes of bugs and moths and creatures. And and the same thing. When you see clipa gathering in mass and forest around something, on the contrary, it's it speaks to what it truly is. And therefore, really, right. The now, what is the most precious thing in the world? The soul of a Jew, the Shama. That's the most precious thing in the world. Where is the physical soul? Where's the where is the soul of a Jew embodied physically or held physically? What's the vessel? The Zerah, the Zera, it's literally literally in the Ramama's words. The Zera carries the essence of your soul, right? Which is why an unbelievable thing. What's Zera? Zerah is the the sperm, the seed. Which is why an unbelievable thing, literally, your Zerah has the ability. The soul is not a physical thing, it's it's a what's the word used? It's a metaphysical thing. We don't like we don't write soul, but yet the zera, the sperm, literally is a physical conduit or channel or or holder of the soul that literally when you when you pass along the zera, literally can inhabit and give birth to new consciousness, to a new human, new life, new and regenerated energy in life. It's crazy thing. It literally carries your it carries your soul's essence. And has their own soul. The child's an extension, it's the extension or branching out of your soul. It's a different facet of your soul. Yeah, a child, not just someone you produce, a child is literally perpetuating or extending your own soul. It's like a form of eternal life almost. Yeah, it could be a little different because they also have the mother's soul, they also have the mother's soul in it, but also besides that, even even yourself, right? Just like on different days, you see a different side of yourself.

unknown 1:56:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:20

In a in a subtle example. So your soul can produce ten different children because our souls have infinite, you know, facets to them. In your child, a different aspect of your soul is revealed, maybe, or different potentials. So basically, it says essentially that our sperm or our zera, basically, is uh is you can look at it, it's like liquid, it's like liquid gold or liquid silver, right? It's it's it's it's the most valuable thing, resource in the entire universe. And and right, exactly. And and and just like and just like in every interaction, in every interaction, you're essentially investing your energy into things, right? When you even even the books you read or the people you interact with or the locations you go to, you're investing your energy into certain things. And when you invest your energy into things that that drain you or suck you of energy, right? Dissipated yourself all over the place, and you'll maybe you feel drained or burnt out or or meaningless. And when you start investing, you're gathering back your soul energy, right? And putting it into investments that that actually it's like you get you get you have $10,000 or you get your paycheck. You can either spend it on transient things that leave you bankrupt or in debt, or you can put them in in bonds and in stocks and in ETFs or in or in good and meaningful experiences or therapy, right? And and it enriches you, right? And then you get more money and then you're getting richer and richer and richer. So likewise with our soul energy and force, when you invest it into, when you put yourself into things that that are enriching, you enrich your spirit and your being and stronger and stronger and stronger. And the ultimate investment we get to make, ultimate choice, is our sexual energy, is our sperm, literally. And it's the most valuable resource. Like imagine if someone came to you and said, Give me $10 million. You have $10 million and give it to me, right? You say, crazy, right? So and yet the eight Sahara comes, the eight Sahara comes, he says, hand with your own hand, hand me, hand me the billion dollars that you have in your account. Right? So why is it? And and and and part of the part of the part of the perversion is he pretends like he's doing us the favor, right? He's giving us something. He's literally robbing you blind, it's like, right? It's like a magician. He's he's keeping your attention up here and he's robbing you blind of your most of like literally, he's emptying your accounts, right? Without you even realizing what right what he's doing. And right? And and and instead of what it's real, what is it, how does how does it how does the Terry refer to this mitzvah? He calls it Shmira Sebris, to stand guard over the bris. It's literally this imagery. It's like you have a palace, you have a bank account of the billion dollars, you're meant to stand guard, and the thieves are circling around. You see this guard at the door. Their strategy is to, you know, have a pretty girl walk on the left, and then the other guy's running and grab the money while he's right, while he's not looking. Right. And and really the purpose of a Jew or the terror vision for a Jew is to recognize this unbelievable gift and power and spiritual thing, and like and like like he's saying, why to what we mentioned earlier? Hashem puts his mark, Hashem puts his presence on the Jew. Where does he choose? He could have put it on our forehead. Instead, the circumcision, the mark of God, where God tattoos himself and makes himself indelibly like connected to us, bonded to us, is on is on the sexual organ, just like Hashem's presence is in the Kedashakadashim, just like in a man and woman relationship, a husband and wife, what forges them together as husband and wife? Uniquely, it's the sexual act. It's in there that our relationship to Hashem is there, that's what that's where our soul is most expressed, and where Hashem is most in our lives. That's where the clippers are trying to get into. The Romans, like Titus, what is he trying to penetrate into? Trying to break through the walls of Yushalayim and break through the temple compound so that he can break into the Kaish Kedashim and really penetrate where it matters. And so a Jew is meant to realize the sacredness of what they're standing guard over and guard it with their life. What is the proper time? What is the proper context to take out the the crown jewels? Special occasion. The high priest goes in with great intention onto the Kaish Gedoshim and engages. So then when you had in the context of a marital union, of a marriage, and instead of right, and then you plant your seed, plant your spirit into fertile, you know, feminine ground. And instead of just dumping and and spilling and dissipating one's energy, one's soul energy, one's power into the gutter, literally, just leaking it out, you you deposit it, you invest it in a in a safe, secure holding and place. And the ultimate like return on the investment, so to speak. And then there it's not, you're not really there, it explains spiritually. So you don't feel spiritually drained in the same way or dissipated or empty. Because even though it's left your body, it hasn't really left. You haven't just dumped it. You've invested it. In other words, your soul is invested in somewhere that is still active, it's still alive, it's still connected to you, it's still holy. And then the woman has the power, the unbelievable power, just like you put a seed in the ground, and the tr the ground, the earth has this power to produce a tree out of that. You you deposit your seed, your sperm, and the woman has the power to literally make out of that little seed a full tree, a full human, Adamita Sada, into a full human being. The greatest return on the investment, the greatest gift. And the child is you. Your soul now is still alive. In other words, you didn't just dump part of your soul out into the ether. And right, it's like it's it's even better now. I know it's now like you've you've expanded your life. You haven't lessened your life, you've expanded your life. It's done in the in the proper way, the Tara tells us. And and that's the ultimate um gift for the soul contained within your sea, that it now has it came to life, it has human form, it itself could do Torah mitzvah. And the Semestetic explains in Derek Matari Secha and Pru Revo that the great tragedy of the Savera is that he says you're literally pouring part of your soul out into the out in again, out into the nothingness. And the nishamas or the part of your nishamah that was meant to manifest and like come to life and do mitzvous is robbed of that opportunity forever. And like is like has like almost a kapeda. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:15

When you say it's oh it's all like dollars, right? It's not one of those multi-where resources.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:20

Oh, okay, they're gonna ask a different question. Um, you're asking if there's so much of it, then what's the pro in other words, you're not like you're not gonna have less kids with your wife because if you go right and do uh and do Zara Loatella because you have so much of it, you can it's not you're gonna run out.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:32

Or for that matter, while your wife is pregnant, I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:35

Right, okay. I thought that was a question. I'll ask so I'll answer that question. I'll answer that question. So, I mean, just to give imagery that we relate to, materialism, which doesn't have inherent value, is only valuable due to scarcity. Why, like the Ramam rights, when Mashiach comes and we live in a technologically booming world where he says Madonna Mitsuim Kaffer, luxury will be printed like paper and will be readily available, it won't hold value to us. It would just be a given. It's just we live comfortably. We won't pursue it anyway, nothing to chase because it's valueless. There's no if there's no supply and demand, there's no scarcity, there's no real value. Versus something that has inherent value, human life, it doesn't matter if there's more humans. It's like children, right? It's not like you're children you only love your children because you have so few children in the world, right? It's not like if you have 20 children, then like, ah, okay, they're expendable, like a big deal, right? That's not the way it works. It's inherently value, it's infinitely value. So that's that's to that point. And to Howard's question, how does this all make sense when let's say you're married to someone and they're pregnant, and right, you're intimate during pregnancy, obviously, and you're not having any children, it's all going to waste kilo. Or someone's barren, even if you stay married to them, right? It's all right, what's happening? Or the woman has passed menopause, right? Or or past an age where it's healthy to have children and and you're right on and how luckily you're not now on birth control. So this is and in general, even in a regular situation, not every act is leading to pregnancy, most not statistically. And more than that, and okay, more than that, within each sperm, I don't know how many, how many, what's the count? How many viable sperm are within every many, many, many. Many, many, many. So essentially in every act, even when, even if you impregnate someone, millions just went to waste, right?

SPEAKER_04 2:02:58

And all that sham made that.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:00

I mean, okay, okay, okay. So, but it's explained, no, so it's explained, and it answers all those together, is that there's two things. There's physically, like, physically produce a child and you're just, you know, wasting it. It says spiritually, the spiritual coming together of male and female, and in the in the in the union of male and female creates the capacity for birth, the potential for birth, which sometimes on occasion translates in physical, like pregnancy and conception and birth. And every time, every single time a man and female are together, are intimate, that essence of soul, that essence of self that's transmitted from one to the other, gives birth and brings out many, many souls, and every one of those sperm is birthed in a spiritual sense of the universe. Even if physically it's not possible, or physically it doesn't translate. Right. So in every act of intimacy, in a spiritual sense, all those sperm are birthed into the universe. Souls. As the living souls.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:47

Where do they go? They're not connected to anyone because no one is born.

SPEAKER_01 2:03:50

No, they're not, yeah, they're not, they don't, they don't take on physical form, they don't take on bodies, they're not born physically, but spiritually birthed into existence. Versus if it's not done in that context, like Aranean, then those souls are like dead or like killed off or like whatever. So that's what that explains. Okay, let's finish the line so we can finish the parak. Okay, so this was the Alterabah's question, the Salah, right? The Alterabah now asks a different question. As seemingly, we see in the early Svaraba Musur talk about fasting and self-affliction in response to having done a sin that carries the death penalty, whether from the bezin or from the churus, or from this, or this particular 37th sin that seems to somewhat carry the church, at least in at least in this regard. And seemingly the purpose of that self-affliction, and therefore also the purpose of those fasting, is to cleanse you, to do kapara for the punishment Shem is meant to bring to you for these sins, to bring you kapara, to bring you cleansing, which means to impl which would seem to say there is a way to self-inflict kapara and cleansing on your soul. And that doesn't fit with what the altar ever said, that that's not true. So the altar is gonna say three possible explanations what the purpose of this fasting is, what the purpose of the self-affliction is, and none of them are chuva, none of them are part of kapara, like I the altar ever said. As we'll see, they're progressively closer and closer to closer in relation to the field of chuva and kapara. Okay. So he says hainu. The meaning of these fasts, the meaning of this self-affliction, the meaning of this, the purpose of this self-affliction and this fasting, kide linatsal, ma'unish yusurum shamaila, chasushalam. It's to save oneself, to save oneself, it's to avert from oneself. Punishment was decreed against one from above, God forbid. Which this is basically almost identical or very similar to averting the decree. To averting the decree. One slight caveat with one slight difference. And but the same, it's the same thing in the sense that it's not to reconcile with God for having betrayed him for the sin you did. It's not the purpose of the fasting that the Sifray Mosa talk about, and it's not the purpose of the self-affliction. It's not either to wipe your soul clean the stain and of the dirt of that sin. It's again a future-oriented thing to save yourself, to free yourself, to remove from yourself, to avert from yourself the punishment that's decreed upon you as a result of your sin. Because the Tara speaks collectively and individually that if you follow the Tara, good things will come to you, brachis, and if you follow if you do have veris, death will come to you, bad things. And so as a result of a veris, we could be punished, or bad things could be decreed against us, which again isn't, at least on the surface, an act of kindness, right? That's you sin, a sinner gets bad things happen, bad karma comes to you. Versus the kaphara we spoke about is a again, it's an act of love. It's only done if you deserve it, if you detrive from love. And in response to your love, versus the punishment could be happening, is it's happening as a punishment, whether you want it or not.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:14

But once the point sounds like this only would be similar to in a decree because you don't want to be punished from my shame with horse, but how would that answer the question of an executive for the bezden saying you have to get skill uh whatever? Now, that how are you gonna avert the bezden for a bezden's not a shem. They're not gonna forgive you. You killed 10 people, you had witnesses. So, what is self-affliction of fasting gonna do for you? It's not chuva, we said, it's not kaupara. How is it gonna change bezden? Hashem you can work with bezden forgiven. Right, right. How does it help there?

SPEAKER_01 2:06:50

Okay, so two points. Firstly, nowadays, because we don't have the death penalty, it gives us a certain advantage. We have the opportunity to do chuva even for death penalty since. If you lived 2,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago, broke shabbas, they executed you, right? You couldn't, you didn't have the chance, or your triva didn't help to keep you alive. And even if you really did chriva in your heart, bezdin are not mind readers, they execute you. Whereas nowadays, because there's no court execution, it gives them the opportunity till their death to actually do chuva, even for yeah, for bezdin would have executed them. The second half of that point. Is olden days, even when there was bezden, very often the bezdin practically didn't kill you because nobody witnessed it, or the other, or whatever, and quit in trial you were found innocent. So still you you have to do chiva. And then third, not necessarily the zera that you're averting is the official punishment metered out by the Tara. Not necessarily for breaking Shabbos, the Gzera is you'll die, right? The Gzera could be that locust will come to you, right? Or whatever it is and destroy your farm. It just says in general, when you do a veris, bad things will happen. Bad things will start to happen, things will start breaking down in your life because you you broke down your own infrastructure. And whatever that gxera may be, as a result, yeah, it doesn't have to be specific. Any Xera that's gonna come, this can help deal with that. Yeah, okay. So, okay, so that's that's so that's that's that's explanation number one that when the Sifri Muster talk about fasting and self-affliction response to a veris you did that carried the death penalty, it's not again for truva, it's not true, it's not reconciliation with God, and it's not got power, it's not cleansing you of the stain of your previous sin. Rather, it's forewarning and removing and being mavatl, future gzerais. One difference, if you look closely at the words, it's not the same thing as when he talked about the community. Because when he talked about the community, how did he describe it? Through that fasting, mivatal hagzera shinigzer. Being mevatl, you're like, you're like dispelling the gzaira that was decreed. Here he uses a different expression. Linotsal me'inishurum. He's like, you make it like it never happened. Linotsal means like to be saved, to be saved from, in order to be saved from your Ainish. And the Rebbe explains that he's distinguishing here. This works slightly differently. In the community, we talked about fasting, traditional Jewish way, to avert and get rid of and dispel the decree, have Hashem right rip up the decree of future suffering. Hypothetically, there is such a concept individually as well, with Esther in the other source within Esther that the Alterab didn't quote, that there's a Gzera against you, through your fasting and prayer, you can have it ripped up and thrown in the garbage. Problem here, why the Altrib didn't answer that, is because here, besides her fasting, works in the way we just mentioned, there's another mention of Sugufim, of self-affliction, which we never heard about. We're never told about Sugufim to tear up a future Gzerah. Rather, says the Rebbe, what's the getter? What's the role of the Sugufim? Not viewed as a way to rip up the Gzerah, it's a way to exchange. So in other words, Hashem is going to bring upon you this terrible suffering. And you say, okay, let me let me make myself suffer first to avert to exchange. So the practical difference could be, as we'll say later on in Garsa Chova towards the end, that when we take things on in advance, it could be mitigated to a slighter form. Or like l it doesn't have to be as intense. When someone preemptively comes and offers to like to do restitution, maybe maybe they'll get a better deal. And if they wait later, if they wait till it's forced upon them. So it's like that could be the idea that by bringing it on upon himself, he could take on a A, he could choose his, he could choose your evil, you could choose your poison, and it could be less, so it's worth it. So you're saving yourself from this future Gzera by taking on this Gazera upon yourself now. Not as, and that's where that and that's where Segoufum comes in.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:54

Well, it's accurate to say you never know when you're doing a sugufum on yourself. You're good now. You know, it's all up to you to figure out how much you're gonna do to self-flagellate or yourself.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:06

Yeah, yeah. A voice is not gonna come from heaven. That's it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:09

That's you know, if you want to met her, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 2:10:11

Okay, so that's so that's okay, so that's explanation number one. Again, though, it's nothing to do with Shiva or Kapara, it's about a future Ghazara, Vigam, and also another reason why the Sifrimosa would tell people to fast and to do, to fast and to do Sigophim for their severe sins that bring on harsh Khazaras. Kide, Lizarez, Ulamaher, Gamar, Kaparas Nafshri. Order to urge on or expedite or bring faster to fruition complete cleansing of your soul, meaning to say, this is already getting closer, being related to Kapara, but it's it's still not doing the Kapara, meaning to say, the author of it said that the only one who could do Kapara, the only one who has the power to cleanse you of your sins, Shem. He's the only one who could do kapara. What triggers Hashem to do that? Your chuva out of love. What happens if your chuva is like not so strong or not so much, didn't so much qualify out of love? It could be it's like on the fence whether your chva was strong enough or good enough to get that response out of Hashem. It's almost like in general, you're trying to get someone to respond to you in a certain way. So it could be you do something and they're totally not responsive. You totally failed. It could be you completely succeeded and they respond to you exactly the way you wanted. And then it could be they're like almost on the on the border on the on the on the on the line, on the fence of if they're like gonna, you know, take you up on what you want or respond to you in the way you want or not. And sometimes you need something else to like just like you know, push them over the edge or trigger them to go into that mode. So he says through you doing this, the the purpose of this fasting and the purpose of this self-affliction is to like induce Hashem to right to to bring on his cleansing to happen and to happen faster and to make sure it happens and to like entice him into it. Meaning to say, like, and why why that maybe would work, because it's not so clear if your chuva was out of such a strong enough love that like it it pulls Hashem to like do you this great favor of bringing you cleansing, bringing you kapara, showing that I really want that kapara and the suffering that required for the surgery that will bring me the kapara, showing that by maybe making myself suffer a little bit. Or by um, or in general, trying to make my children more sincere or my regret more sincere. And by doing that, you can inspire Hashem or push him over the edge to decide, yeah, I'm gonna grant this person kapara and I'm gonna make him suffer and do him the favor of bringing him kapara. So not to mean to say not that you're not that you're not that you're fasting or your self-affliction is directly bringing you kapara or causing you to have kapara or causing you to have cleansing, because we don't know how to cleanse ourselves. We're not capable of cleansing ourselves. But almost to give a silly example, like let's say we can't reach the the middle of our back. So you can't scratch it. But if you're like reaching for the middle of your back, maybe the other guy will step in and scratch your back, right? So almost like almost like Hashem's not Hashem's not is like kind of on the fence, and by you maybe like reaching for it, Hashem then obliges you and sees that at least you have that level of it shows a little bit more sincerity or a little bit more interest in him or interest in the shuva or investment in the shiva, so that inspires Hashem to do the kabbara. So already it is direct, it is related, but it's not an act of chuva. It's your chuva wasn't good enough, wasn't full enough or good enough to inspire this kapara. You're doing something else which will inspire Mu Hashem to bring you the kapara you need. But it's not directly part of Shiva, and then again it's why it makes sense that the Rama wouldn't mention this anywhere in Shiva, because it's like a it's like a side mechanism to make it happen.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:09

Is there a distinction between saying I'm doing chuva and I mean it? I'm doing chuva and I mean it so much it's out of love. Say that Hashem will only do kapara for you, and only Hashem could do it if your chuva was out of love. I'm not sure I understand what the love part has to do with the meaning it can mean my chuva. In other words, is it one of the same things, the chuva? If you really mean your chuva, it means it's out of love, which means Hashem out of love will give you the kapara.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:40

Do you know what I mean? Oh, interesting. I mean, I think I think the way you were trying to say love here, you're doing it out of unsolicited true interest in drawing closer to Hashem, and not so much out of like out of fear is like you don't want to do this, but you also don't want to be, you know, you don't want to be hurt. So there's no like so, in other words, in the moment you're not gonna be hurt, you stop because versus out of love is like you're going more than you need to do, I guess, because you really want it. So maybe that's like that's why this would be an expression of your love.

SPEAKER_04 2:14:06

And then from your heart versus from your uh brain.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:10

Right, right. Okay. Okay, and then the third thing, okay. So now the second one is is now it's close, it's drawing much closer that this is related now to kapara. It's not just a separate thing altogether. It's a mechanism that relates to kapara, brings in the kapara, but it's not itself causing or creating the kapara. Even there, talking about a level of chuva where them might even ultimately give you the kapara, or you might be deserving the kapara, but it's not as definitive. So either it's on the fence or Hashem's not gonna do it happen make it happen right away. And you're bringing it on, you're making sure it happens, you make sure it happens faster. And then in the third level, which makes it have the strongest connection and relation to chuva and kappara, vagam, and also another explanation perhaps. Ulai, perhaps Aino Ishavel Hashem, Bholiba Vinaf Shameava. Even though he sincerely returned to Hashem, meaning he completely changed. It wasn't out of love. One of the classic examples, one of the things that brings people to chova very often is their suffering. In other words, suddenly they have a terrible diagnosis, something happens in your life, or you need to find your parking spot. You need, and suddenly you want to like wanna clear up your karma or clear up, you're compelled almost, and you're you're driven by fear or by right, by terror, by necessity to shape up, basically. And it could be, it could be that, it could be you realize that I really need to shape up and like forever. And like never, you know, not and like change. It's not necessarily coming, there's not necessarily any specific interest in Hashem versus like I need to not fall into that situation. So it could be the Khaliba, you could fully and genuinely and forever change, but it's not out of love. And when it's not out of love, that doesn't elicit that same response within Hashem, Kamaim Upanullah Panam, that Hashem is acting in a generous, loving way to you. And so that kind of shiva done from yeira doesn't have the power, doesn't cause that response of Hashem to give you, to do the loving act of granting you cleansing. Kiya Miyira, you only return to Hashem out of yeira, and therefore, based on that, there is not going to be kapara. The Sifra Musra are saying, if you did Shiva out of yeira, mechanisms of Shiva is not going to bring about kapara, it's not going to bring the kapara suffering to you and get and grant you that gift. There's a method, there's a mechanism, an external mechanism, that if you combine that with your chivalmira, you could get Hashem to bring the kapara. And not because the fasting and the self-affliction in and of itself has the power to cleanse you. I guess how it works again, to what we were saying a little while earlier, is you're showing Hashem, I know I don't deserve. I know I didn't do enough to deserve or naturally call forth your kapara. I really want to be cleansed. I really want to be cleansed of my sin. And I'm asking you to do me, do me a do me a good one. What's the expression? Solid. Do me a solid here. Throw me a solid here. Do me a solid. And to show, like, I really I you the way you ask, like, I really want this, is you you start like doing it to yourself. Not that doing it to yourself at all, even 1%, uh effectuates it or is is having that impact or effect, but that could make a shem say, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this guy, do this guy this favor, this loving favor, even though I'm not so right. Sometimes we do loving favors to people, even if we're not feeling so much love for them, per se.

SPEAKER_03 2:16:49

It's almost like chuva with yeah block. Asking and self-mortification calls chuva nahaba.

SPEAKER_01 2:16:57

Yeah, yeah. So this is the closest we'll get, right, from the from the four things the Alderba spoke about. Asking to abolish and dissolve an impending Gzera. Asking and self-affliction to exchange suffering of an impending Zera. Asking to bring Hashem off the fence and to expedite one's kapara cleansing that Hashem will bring. And then this fourth thing, fasting and self-affliction, to make Hashem go the extra mile and give you this kapara, even though you don't really deserve it. That's the closest directly to kapara. But ultimately, even in that fourth level, none of them have anything to do, none of them are part of again Shiva, none of them are part of the reconciliation themselves, none of them actually affect the kapara or help cleanse you in any way. And and that's why, and then this explains why the Rambam doesn't mention fasting in Shuva because it has no bearing to Shuva or Kapara directly. It's an indirect relation that will be spoken about in others' forum, but it's not it's not the Ramba's place to mention it.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:44

But how can shuva be done out of fear? The only way for punishment itself, it's not the gentle. Why would anyone do chuva?

SPEAKER_01 2:17:50

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_04 2:17:51

You don't do chuva. Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:17:53

Right, right. Okay, so no, no, okay, no, what's out of it? No, no. We're saying that afflicting yourself for the punishment is not gonna help you do chuvr or kapara. But we don't say that doing shuva. Nowhere have we said that doing shuva might not at least partially help, mitigating or removing the punishment. You can eat shuva and fast, and then you get fast and get rid of it. Sometimes even just doing shuva will remove your punishment. It's not guaranteed that it will. Maybe it depends on the level of punishment or the level of Xera. We never said that shuva is not contributing towards mitigating or even removing the punishment. Only said it the other the opposite way that the the fasting or self-affliction is not at all contributing at all, even 1% towards the the chuva, the reconciliation with Hashem, or to the Kapara, the cleansing of the damage of your sin. And that fasting for its part has no place in the chuva process or in the kappara process. And with that, we conclude the first chapter of a Yarisha Chuva. Thank you for listening, and thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_00 2:18:44

Thank you for listening to in-depth Tanya classes by Project Chasidis. If you enjoyed this class, then please help us in our mission of spreading Chasidis and bringing Mashiach by sharing this content with at least one other person. Thank you. And we look forward to having you back in future classes.