Ezra: Bayamim Ha’ahem B’zman H’azeh-Tzippy Leichter

So happy to be here again. Every time I speak at the OU, it's raining. So maybe this is a good masle for [laughter] last time I spoke was also raining. So I guess maybe it's a good way to bring rain to Eritus. So can you hear me? Okay. Okay. So as you who've been learning Nakyomi or have learned any you know safe air in Nak realize when you learn Nak you see how much the Nak is relevant to our lives. And it's just amazing sometimes you'll learn a safer that you think okay what's the relevance of this safer to our lives and you find there's so much in every single every single passage of nach that just connects to our lives connects to to today connects to our current times and I really feel like more than maybe any other uh safer or time period right or maybe group of inh these of right Ezra and also the go with Zakari Mali they connect so much and they are so relevant to our times today and I just I'm amazed by it when I read through what's happening in Ezra and I look at what the Nvim are telling the people of that time they seem to be so relevant to our times so I really wanted to do today was look at just the first four pro of Ezra and some points in those procim and see how this is relevant to our times and what we can gain that can help us, you know, with and just with meaning in our lives today. So, I don't know how many of you have actually learned Ezra. Some of it may be, you know, repetitive, but I definitely want to go a little bit deeper into some of the ideas to really understand what we can learn from the safer Ezra. So, if we first look at if you look at the source sheet, the first source I have is really just the beginning of the famous Hatarath Koresh, right? Koresh gives this famous proclamation that the Jews can return to Israel and build the base mikdash. So we see the close of our right is so the first year of koresh when the the 70 years of yahoo are up as we know hashem he uh hashem right he did something to the koresh he he raised up his ru or he enlightened him he had some kind of feeling within his heart within his mind in his spirit the He sent out a message right in a call and in a letter to his whole kingdom. What did he say? Hashem according to what Ezra Kor sent a message to all his kingdom saying, "Hashem has given me all of the nations of the world and he has appointed me, right? He has given me the ta given me the job to build the house of Hashem in Jerusalem that belongs to Yehuda mo. Anyone in the whole nation of Yehuda who feels that Hashem is with him Yehuda, he can go up make aliyah as you all many of you have done by base Hashem Israel and he can build the house of of Hashem the God of Israel who this this Hashem who is the God over Jerusalem. This is amazing. And we see this right as many of you have probably learned that koresh decides according to Ezra Perrick Olive that he hashem has given him some kind of spirit right hashem has enlightened him hashem has raised up his spirit and now he decided that he's going to allow the Jews to go back and build the basikdash and the mafaram explained what does it mean hashem what does this mean like how did the koresh all of a sudden decide I'm going to let the Jews go back and I believe in this god who's allowing ing the Jews to go back and build the base on mikdash. So Rashi says interestingly, I didn't bring every single mafurish on here, just some main points and I'll tell you outside what some of them say. But Rashi says interestingly that um there was an avoa if you recall back in Yeshayahu if you remember when you learned yesahu there was an avua thatu said that you know at some point there's going to be this this king named koresh and this king is going to allow the Jews to go back out of gullis go back to archel and build the base of mikdash and somehow kesh rashi says kesh knew this nva or he heard this nva and so meaning he had this nva and he knew that it was his job and his mission to send the Jews back to Archisra. So that's Rashi. You know, it's a little bit far-fetched to think about like how did Koresh hear this nava from Yeshu's time which was you know hundreds of years earlier like what's going on with that? But that's how Rashi explains hey Hashem that Hashem like uplifted or inspired his his ruach or his mind or his idea. The Raog explains that maybe Koresh had some kind of dream, some kind of ru Kodash that he had. They're all trying to explain what does it mean that Hashem, you know, gave Koresh this idea to do this and why would Korish all of a sudden have this idea just to send the Jews back right to Aris Israel. Then the Mamm explains it a little bit differently and I would say a more um practical way of understanding what this is happening which actually fits in better with the words Hashem which we see in other contexts as well. And the maam explains and then we'll take the malabam and explain it even further that he explains that basically kures looked at history and he saw that okay years earlier if you remember in Danielle remember Balshhatzer had the dream and not the dream baser saw the handwriting on the wall remember that and then Danielle said to him you know what this means this means you're finished pers is going to come over take over above right and he said wait a minute why did that happen to Balshhatsar because he brought the kale of the basikdash to his party and he wasn't really so respectful of the Jews and their God and their temple. I don't want that to happen to me. So, I'm going to look back at political events that happened in the past. I don't want the same thing to happen to me. So, instead of me, right, oppressing the Jews and not respecting their temple, I'm going to let the Jews go back and build their temple and then maybe life will be good for me and I won't lose my kingdom like Balshhatzer did. So the mob's looking at it not that Hashem gave him a nvua or he had a dream or some kind of but more that Hashem just kind of put this idea in his head. He looked at events that were happening that had happened in the past and he just like Hashem just gave him an idea of what to do. Now to take this even further, what's interesting is that we know historically we have the the Cyrus cylinder which maybe you've heard about, right? where this what we know from history is that Cyrus Koresh when he told the Jews to go back to build their temple, it was not a thing that he said, "Oh, Hashem is the one God and therefore I'm going to let the Jews go back and build their temple in Jerusalem." It wasn't like that at all. What he did, he decided he's going to let all the nations that were in Gulus go back and build their temples to their gods. It wasn't just Ben Israel and Yehuda. It was a proclamation he made. I'm going to let them go back to their God and build their temple. I'm going to let this nation go back to their God and build their temple. So, it was nothing to do with recognizing Hashem and only letting the Jews go back. And the reason that Aurorish did this was because he had a different policy. He looked at the past. He looked at Ash and Bavl. And what did they do? Ashaw and Babel their whole political approach was go in conquer kill destroy exile right and that's what they did that's how they approached politics in those days but kish looked back and said you know what that wasn't really such a successful approach because what happened every time these nations tried to put down right or destroy the other nations that are under us there was always these rebellions coming up right if you're always trying push down the people, they're going to just keep cropping up, right? It's like whack-a-ole. They just keep coming up, right? And you know, it's like it's like with our with parenting, if you keep telling your kids like no, no, no, no, they're going to just start rebelling, right? You sometimes have to give your kids a little bit of leeway and and have a discussion with them and figure out what's going to work and then sometimes they're more like, not always, but sometimes they're more likely to work with you and listen to you. So, Korish looked back at the past. He looked back at the the policies of Bavl and also Ashure and he said these weren't working so well. So I'm going to change my political approach to a policy of appeasement where I'm going to say instead of just kill anyone who rebelss against me, exile anyone, destroy their temples, I'm going to allow them to go back to their lands, build their temples, and they'll feel like they have some autonomy, but they're still paying taxes to me. I'm still in charge of them, right? And therefore, because they feel like they have some autonomy because they have their own temple and their own religious service and they have a little bit of a a governor over their little land, they're more likely to listen to me when I impose taxes on them when I give them rules. So that was Korish's policy and that's you know we see that in how he treated all nations. So then how do we understand then that and hashem because from the sukim it seems like hashem caused caused korish to have this sudden right this epiphany to do this and it's all from hashem but if you look at historically it seems like korish just had this policy this was just a you know a political policy that he had so what I learned from actually most of I should say most of what I learned from safer e was from an amazing teacher that I had Rabbi Yehudhuda Tropper I don't know if anyone knows who he is um he taught me a lot of safer Ezra. So a lot of our I just have to um speak in the name of the person right who um it's a pero who says that and you should always give credit to the person who taught you and speak with shamero right alum. So that is what hopefully I will do. But a lot of what I not everything but a lot of what I'm saying I learned from him and he taught um the concept which called you see it through alan which is really dual causality. Okay, that there's something that's happening in the political world and it looks like, you know, this person's elected, this person has, you know, lost the election, right? The politician decides to do one thing and you know it's economically or politically there's something that's happening in the world but the Tanakh is telling us the reason behind it is that Hashem is the one who is Hashem is the one who is you know Hashem is the one who is influencing the hearts and minds of the politicians and all the people in the government who are trying to do things. So even though it seems from the outside world from the Cyrus cylinder that Cyrus just decided to do this because this was you know what made sense politically for him the Tanakh is giving us the backstory or the what's what's really going on behind that and that is that Hashem is the one who is influencing the hearts and minds of the politicians and all the people on the political scene. I'm sure you can all think about you know our time period and how that can apply. um example RB Trapper gave was the example of he talked about you know there was a big movement called nationalism right in the late 1800s and early 1900s that's nations should have their own state right you know we're a country we should have our own state and that caused the Jews to say okay we also should have our own state right and that led to Zionism right Zionism was a form of nationalism and so it could look like if you're just looking at the political scene okay Zionism foreign because of this policy this you know this new zeitgeist in the world of nationalism but if you look what did Zionism do it caused us you know to come back you all alo to arch our to have our own country and to have the state of Israel which leads to all the things that it's led to today so what he said was and what we can look at any political event is that yes it looks like there's something going on politically in the political spectrum but at the same time really what's happening is that Hashem is causing nationalism to enter the world to enter the minds of the people in the world so that the Jews can then formulate Zionism and then eventually get their own state. So we can look at really like any events in history or anything that's happening in the political world and see that if we look at it with the eyes of the Tanakh and with the eyes of Amuna, we can see that really what's happening is that Hashem is causing policies or events or ideas to come into the minds of the people of the world so that he can allow certain things to happen for the sake of Amusel. And that's what hap what we really see going on in Ezra through we see that really Hashem is you know Hashem is influencing didn't say uh right he didn't necessarily say those words that Hashem has appointed me to build the bias he but he thought to himself okay I want to do this I want to do something that's going to help my kingdom have more power and part of that is also allowing the Jews to build their house in Yehuda in Jerusalem. So all of it came about because Hashem was influencing righte as we know as Pik right in Mish that Hashem is influencing the the people the political spectrum to do certain things. So that's the first way we really see that Ezra, you know, the story of Ezra, the beginning at least with Korish, the Hatsarat Koresh really can apply to our times to any time that we see so many things happening politically and and militarily and and we often don't understand why these things are happening. But just to start with that premise that Hashem is Tanakh tells us, right? We learn Tanakh to learn to apply it to our times that that Hashem is the one who is really influencing things behind the scenes and bringing things to its purpose. So Koresh says, "Okay, the Jews can go back. They can build the base of Mikdash and then it sounds great, right? It sounds like everything is going to be amazing. We're going to have Basheni. Everything is going to be perfect." And then what happens? So what I showed you in source number two, I made a chart here. I didn't I didn't really want to make overly overly um [laughter] inundate you with sources. So what I made a chart was the the comparison between description of the of the kanukas bias rishon the times of schlommo as it's described in zayyamim and the shivaton came back the laying of the foundation of bias sheni that's described in ezra algiml the aliyah and laying of the foundation of the first bas of the second basikdash okay now what's interesting is dbrayam and ezra both written by Ezra both written in that same time period, right? Written by Ashen Sagodah, people who lived with Ezra. And they're both written by the same people, the same time period. And they're describing two events. One event is the Kanuka Habayas of Rishon back in the times of Schlommo. And one event is describing right the coming back to Eritist and laying the foundation of Bay Sheni. And the lashon in these the language is so so similar. I didn't you can look it up yourself. I didn't have a chance to quote the whole different hayyam or the whole story of Azar algar gimmel but I just did here is I made a chart to show you some contrast between them to see the difference between them and the first thing that I in each uh box of the chart I have a different aspect of the kukasa bias versus the laying of the foundation of the second bias to show you the contrast. So if you look at the first box here, it says kra were there. I know it was every single person, but definitely it was all theatim. It was definitely people from all over. And in addition to that, there were 38,000 levian, okay, at the kanukas of and they were from three big families of Levim, which you may recognize these names from Tahillim. Asaf, Hmon, and Dun. Three families levim all were there singing and dancing and playing instruments at the kanukas habayas of Schlommo who was there at so first of all the oim the people who came up were only as you probably learned between 30,000 and 42,000 now why do I have that range I'm not going to get into that right now but basically it says there were there were 42,000 but if you count the people in paric bays there were only about 30,000 29 something so there are different ways to explain explain that um which I'm not going to get into right now. Basically that the discrepancy is probably the people who were from the Asser Hashbatim okay not from Shvet Yehuda and those 12,000 or so people had been remember when Ashure had taken the the top the north out there were some people still living in the north and they had kind of trickled down to Erit Yehuda so those about about 12,000 so they had also been exiled to Bavl so the 10 lost tribes are not totally lost by the way there probably are some of them maybe we're we're from some of them too mixed in okay and we know that He invited some of them down to the Pesak and which you'll learn about um so so there 12,000 of those people according to most of the explanations were probably those 12 there those different explanations that's the one that I think makes the most sense were probably from those those other and therefore they're not counted in the families from Shv Yehuda or Ley but either way there's only you know and you probably know this is a very very small amount right very very few people came back again and as Khazal I'll say in Gamarin Yuma which I'm sure you learned that if more people had come back right maybe that would have been the gula and again relevance for our times are obvious as you guys can think about that right if we come back it could you know it could be the gula so very very few people were there and listen look at this the amount of lavim that were there was about the same amount of people total and there were only 341 lvim as opposed to 38,000 look at the difference in numbers and only from assaf only from one family and there are bayotus which means that we weren't really sure what family they were from or they really from Ley there were a lot of problems with who they were from described in paricet in Ezra what else is different by cole miktosh were there right what did he what um we had the aron the same aron and then what happened built 10 minoras 10 shanos there was mbot there was beautiful kior very elaborate description of how schlommo built all the same caum that mosha had built for the Mishkan Schlommo is building or you know taking or elaborating on and what caum are described as coming back in parallel of Ezra Kaum kanim our gakim and capor what are these things I don't even know what they are you could probably look at translation for them these are not the kalem that we want we want the big kale we want the shan we want the monora we don't care about these little spoons or cups right that's the kale they brought back from baval with them >> who else what else do we see where did the people live people who came to the Kanuka of Schomamas and Kamas is up in not Kamas Kamat I should say [laughter] Kam which is in Syria okay they lived very high up they had Syria too right okay um all the way until the whole right the whole sent representatives to this and where they live in in Ezra's time bushim and aris they live in one small concentrated area they don't have the whole Israel What else is different? In Schlommo's time, they brought oamim. They brought all kinds of carbonos. Schlamim are usually the carbanos that they're car toad. They're carbonos that we share the meat and we eat it and it's part of a celebration and a happiness. Ezra's time they didn't have as much to bring. They only brought olos, which are the obligation, the obligatory carbonos, right? That you have to bring. What else is different? Schlommo. We have a leader, we have a ruler, right? We have sovereignty. and Shivaton. Who do we have? It was Kerish and Koresh. We only were allowed to do things with the permission of Koresh. We weren't We didn't have our own sovereignty. Who did we have? We had Zeravla Yehuda. He's a a governor. He's a little you know, okay, he had some power, but he had to answer everything to Koresh. He had no power really of his own. And he Zubel, by the way, he is from Mah was based of it. He does have that ability to be the Melik, but he didn't have the real ability. He didn't have ability for sovereignty to be the melik and we also I didn't say here we had Yeshua coing God also but again he's not serving the same capacity as in the bias rishon time period and what else is different there's one huge difference that we're going to talk about and that's what's actually absent and I highlighted here hashemas habias when they have this huge ceremony this what happens there's this cloud there is this kav hashem theina fills the bias Hashem is there. They feel the with them. They know, they sense that Hashem is with them and it's absent. They don't have that. They don't feel that in the times of Bad Sheni. So there's this there's this excitement. There's this anticipation of what could be, but so many things are different and so many things are absent. And if we look at toward the end of Peric Gimmel, the end of Paragiml, actually, you might remember this from Ezra. I just I find this passage I don't know so moving when I when I read it. So first we hear right that is similar to the lashim right they have right this we know this from right hashem has done so good for us we have we're laying the foundation of the second temple the whole nation is shouting this big happy shout hashem al- husad hashem they have laid the foundation having a big ceremony a big party they're so happy that they're laying the foundation of the base Hashem. But then what happens, right? There are a lot of people that are Conim Luvim and these older people, right? The heads who were older, they had seen the first temple, right? They It wasn't that it was really about, you know, they're 52 to 70 years depending on different counts. Okay? But let's just say 52 years about when they actually not when they built the base of mik when they laid the foundation was about 52 years since they had left when they they laid the foundation of this house before their eyes. They start crying. There's these people older people sitting there crying and the next time there's people who are happy and dancing and the young crowd is getting all excited right going to their shoulders. You imagine like Torah, they're all happy and and dancing and singing. Then there's people sitting there on the side just whailing and crying and they can't differentiate the sound of the laughing and the sound of the crying. I get so emotional that I read that it just you can imagine like that scene there's this loud whailing and crying. It's not what we hope for, but we're so happy we have it. We have the foundation of bayeni, right? And and this voice is heard. It's so loud. So there's this anticipation and this happiness and this excitement, right? That we have it. We have we're finally here. We're back in our we have Basheni. We're laying the foundation. At the same time, it's not what we hoped, right? What we thought it was going to be. All these things that we had, particularly the is not with us. It's not what we thought it was going to be. And we see even further that later on Ezra. Yeah. >> We say has never left. That means that we have the now. >> So what exactly did this mean? The was obviously was there, >> right? They didn't they didn't feel it or see a manifestation of it. There was no AON. There was no cloud coming down. There wasn't a fire coming down and bringing the carbonos up. There wasn't anything external that they could see. >> Yeah, we're going to get to that. So I'm going to talk about that soon. I'm going to talk about what exactly what you're saying. That's what I want to hopefully get to. Right. So how do you explain theina the Hashem's presence is always here especially in our especially in there's different levels of it for sure. But I don't know if you remember has a vision of the kind of leaving the 10 levels. Remember that I don't remember but the the manifestation right the the ability to know for sure that Hashem is there. It didn't have that. That's a really good question. Does that make sense >> to you? Yeah. Right. They're missing a lot of things, right? There's no remember there's the thing there's no aron, there's no caporus, there's no fire coming down, there's no smoke, right? Um all these things and we'll see nvua is is not as right now. We don't hear of any nim right at this exact moment, but we'll see soon. We do hear no soon. So, but but the idea is that there's these and then I continue on. What else happened in um in in paragalid malimnos? Remember this. There were people who were upset because what happened? They said we, you know, the koutim, right? People who had been living in Aritzel since the times of Galis of the Sarahim. And they said, "We want to be part of it. We want to build with you. We don't want to be left out." Right? And what happened said, "No, you can't join us. Only for Hashem, only for Yehuda." And so they decide to start. We don't know exactly what they did, but they were preventing them and weakening them from building send people to tell him stop the building. This goes all the way until the time of Daravesh. So this goes through three kings as you you read in that perk of Ezra. I don't know if if you're up to that yet, but no, you finished Ezra. Okay, so you did that. So you read in Perk Dalid that all these king all these kings were sent messages from these enemies, right? not not so new to us that have enemies to prevent us from doing what we need to do in Eratra and preventing them from building the basikdash. So in addition to the fact that we don't have the schina, we don't have the amount of people, we don't have the kalin, we don't have everything that we had before, we also have enemies who are trying to prevent us from building, who are telling us stop the building, right? And and sending messages to koresh and to all the different kings, right? Telling them to stop us from building the bamed. And we see that this is something that I think looking at this it's a very very relevant scene for today because I was thinking that it's so relevant because we're living in a time when there's so much good and we can think okay wow we have archistro we had you know 1948 1967 we have so much the land is thriving we have a you know the economy is good we have beautiful land we have all this Torah going on Israel we have so much right and we have it looks like things are going well right but then we have, you know, we have enemies and we have terror attacks and and we have October 7th and it's just always wars and it feels like but things are good but there's also so much disappointment you know and like even thinking about in the past couple years right it's like we had so many Nissim and you know okay we got so many hostages back with Barashem some didn't come back alive and we had so many great victories but then we have so many who are injured you know who were killed and it's like even like the Iran war amazing [clears throat] nim and then okay but people were killed people lost their homes like how do you deal with these two realities happening at the same time so I feel like this time period of Ezra is it's so relevant for our times because we're dealing with these two realities like great nim wow Hashem must be so happy with us he's giving us so much but it's like it's not what we really thought it was going to be it's not what we want how do we deal with this reality so I think the answer is going to be by looking at the nim him that come during this time period and they're going to give us the answer. It's going to be relevant I think to what you said and really seeing what's the message that and Zakaria but I'm going to mostly focus on Kagay today. What's the message that Kaga gives us that we can understand how to deal with that time because as I we say like the Tanak is not supposed to just be for that time but it's messages that can apply to all times and I think specifically because this problem seems to be so relevant. I think it's relevant for all times, but it seems so relevant and so applicable to our times because we're in our with a lot of these things leading toward what feels like gula and then we have all these disappointments happening alongside them. So what does Kagai say? Let's you remember Kagai? [laughter] [gasps] When did you a while ago, right? But it's good because you really have to you really should be learning Ezra with Kagai, right? So I mean I think it's only two pro a beautiful safe. So he starts off and he says in source number five the time has not come. It's not the time to build the house of Hashem. What what's going on? This is what the people are saying. Hashem is saying to this is what the people are saying. This is the mindset of the people. What is the mindset of the people? The mindset is that the Muslim explains they thought Hashem has to do great Nissim first. When Hashem does these great Nissim and we we get a sign from him. He gives us a sign then we'll know it's time to build. But we don't know ourselves. We need to have a n from Hashem. We need to have a sign from Hashem that it's time to do this, right? He's going to send the eagles to bring us over, right? Like it's going to do something for us and then then we'll know it's time. But we shouldn't be initiating it on our own. And the red explains that it wasn't so much that they had the the wrong, you know, philosophy, but what it was is they were just full of despair. They were poor. They didn't have a lot of money. The farms were not right. The crops were not growing the way they wanted them to. There were enemies against them. They didn't see the all these things that we listed here. And they just felt like we can't do it. It's too much. Right? And it really could be again as my teacher my trapper explained that the the despair could lead to the ideology that sometimes when you know when you just despair of something like think about the Jews who are in gullus you know for 2,000 years and they're just like h it's so hard to be in gullus we're never going to get back to so they can they can form an ideology which is oh we have to wait for Hashem to take us out on eagle's wings because that's the only way it's going to happen because you feel such despair from their situation right so ideology can sometimes come from a feeling feeling of hopelessness and despair. And that's what the people were feeling right now. They were there, they started, they laid the foundation, but it's like these three kings are going on and the kings are not letting us do it and nothing's happening. There's enemies and we're poor and it's not the right time to be building. So's goal and also Zakaria is to give them encouragement to get them. And what is the message that Kaga gives? It's lit his his vua to them right here is four words. And I think this is the foundation of the message from Kag and really for all of us. He's called a Malik Hashem, a messenger of Hashem. He comes as a messenger. He's literally like a Malik sending from Hashem saying Hashem. Four words is what he says. I am with you, says Hashem. And what he's saying is don't focus on your poverty. don't focus on. They were saying they were focusing on their own houses, right? On making sure your own house is set up. He focuses a lot on the house, which I'm not getting into now, but he talks a lot about how they were focused on their own houses, building their own bias, but focus on Hashem's bias. I'm with you. If you move forward and you do the right thing and you do what you have to do, just keep moving forward. Keep doing what you know you have to do. Build the base on Mikdash. Even though it's not great, even though it's not perfect, he says you're going to have you're not going to have the cedar trees from Lebanon. You're going to have maybe the lower grade trees that are around you. Maybe you're not going to have the gold and silver you had in bias reon. You're going to have a little bit less, but you have to just keep moving forward. Keep doing what you have to do. And I will be with you. You have to just push yourself and keep going and know even though you don't see it maybe, right? The same way you saw it in bias rishon, but know that I'm going to be with you. And what's amazing really about and Zakaria a few things are amazing about them but one thing is that the name of Hashem okay appears in the safer kagai proportionally more than any other safer in Tanakh meaning the amount of words in the safer and the proportion of the name of Hashem it's the highest proportion the highest percentage of the name of Hashem versus other words in in the safer of any other safer in Tanakh I don't remember the percentage I didn't write it down But like the name of Hashem appears a lot in Yerma Yahoo for example. It's like I think it's maybe third but there also a lot of other words. Okay. Whereas the name of Hashem is percentage- wise the highest percentage of any other safer is number two. Okay. If you look at if you read it's constantly rightem everywhere is hashem it's constantly mentioning the shame of hashem why is he doing this because they didn't see hashem externally they didn't feel that hashem was with them yahoo's time's time they knew hashem was there they had other issues as we know but they knew hashem was there they saw they had a bas mikdash they had nimm all over the place doing miracles, right? They had nim happening all the time and it wasn't like hard for them to feel like Hashem was with them in the same way. But in Zakaria's message during the time of Shiv and Sheni is very much that even though you don't see Hashem or feel Hashem externally the same way, Hashem is with you. Hashem is with you. Hashem is speaking. He's constantly telling them that I am with you. has to be the focus of them that Hashem is with them even though they don't see him clearly. And what's actually amazing is that when both Kagai and Zakaria tell the people just move forward, keep building even though it's hard and I'm with you. You know what happens? They actually do. They actually say, "Okay, you're right. Hashem's with us." And they take the next step and they move forward. And Zakari even says, "Don't be like your fathers who didn't listen." Meaning the ones in the times of Yeryah Yahoo and the other Naveim who didn't listen. Don't be like them, but listen to me and realize that Hashem is with you. Do I need to end soon? >> Five, six minutes. >> Okay. Oh, wow. Okay. All right. Um, good. I I could probably end soon. Okay. Five, six minutes. Perfect. Okay. So, the point is that Hashem is with you. And what was I saying? >> Even though you don't see him, >> you don't see him. Oh, great. And it's interesting because we always think to ourselves that, oh, if we just had a naz from Hashem, he just came down and we had a sign that he's here, then we listen to him. But it's actually the opposite. We see that that when Hashem is obvious, they didn't listen. But here, when they they really internalized, it came from their own internal amuna and they were able to realize it without the external signs. That's when they listened. And that's so parallel to our times because we don't always have the external, we have a lot of nissim, right, happening. We don't always necessarily see them as external signs that Hashem is with us. But sometimes if it just comes from reading the signs, from reading the natural miracles that happen and bringing it internally, that's what's going to cause us very often to be able to listen and to move forward and do what we have to do. And that's exactly the message of Zakaria as well, right? And he says in source number six, listen to this one. He says, Aram and Harishon Amar Hashem's fakos. Now the farm of course discussed what this means because Bisheni was not greater necessarily although Herod's was maybe more beautiful than any other one but in terms of the cavode we think of cavode as aina but hopefully Faram saying especially the rad that this could be talking about the future bias or the potential to be that which was not fulfilled yet and we're hoping for in the future. Shalom. And he says, "Pay attention. Put your hearts on this." Right. From this day onward, right now is the 24th of the 9th month, which is from this day onward, meaning tomorrow, you're going to lay you're going to lay the foundation. You're going to start building. Okay. You're gonna start building bye. Is that the familiar everyone? Pay attention. And he says, "Tomorrow you're going to start building the mikdash. Right now the the crops are not growing. You feel like you're poor and things are not going well. From this day onward, starting tomorrow, I will bless you. So tomorrow, you're going to start building the bdash." It's excellent when they did. That's when they started building bayini on many years before Kaneka and from that day onward Hashem you'll feel Hashem with you. You'll feel his bra with you because if you move forward you just keep doing what you have to do even though you don't see the obvious nim and you keep moving forward right then you'll see Hashem with you even though you don't feel it right now but you'll know Hashem's going to be with you. You just have to do what you have to keep doing even though you may not see it directly. And I think that's so relevant for our times. And it's not coincidental that they started building Baosheni on the same day as Kaneka years later, right? Because Kaneka really was all about that in many ways. We always think you know the hashim, right? They went and they did this big battle. But what did they have to go on? They did not have no in their time. It was also very very similar to our times. They had these that we're looking at right now. They had Zakaria and they were saying, "You know what? We don't know if Hashem's with us, right? We don't know what's going on. We have we have our land. Things seem okay, but the BJ is defiled. We're having all these gazeros on us. What should we do?" But they had the same of who's saying move forward. You have just keep going. Keep going with your battle. Keep doing what you have to do and then I will be with you. And they had that mindset. Just keep fighting, keep pushing forward, keeping the mitzvah, keep connecting to Hashem and the Torah and do what you have to do and then Hashem will bless your efforts and be with you. And that message was so relevant for Kaneka and they they were they were able to I mean again it wasn't like the perfect time period. We know it wasn't like everything was perfect afterwards. There wasn't a complete kua but they kept moving forward and they saw that hashem blessed their efforts and you know the miracle of the oil happened on kislave and I'm sure they recognized the significance of that day and saw this is a special day this is a day that we realize that just like the people listened to kag and they started building the basan mikdash and they did their efforts and they felt hashem was with them and they moved forward we also have that and the miracle of the oil was not a necessary very miracle, right? We all know that that they could have used other oil. It wasn't like there was really no oil for them, but it was Hashem just giving them, you know, a message that here I am with you and I'm blessing your efforts and I'm showing you that if you just move forward even when things are difficult that I will be with you and you'll feel my presence with you. And I think that's so relevant for our times just to even though we we have this this dual feeling that like things are really good but things are also really hard to hashem like you said Hashem's still with us even though we may not have the external feeling of Hashem with us. We find those small and we find not small we look for him and we feel he's with us and just keep pushing forward and doing what you have to do with the muna that he's going to be with us. I just want to say one I have time for one last thing. Okay, one last epilogue to this I think is so important and relevant um for our times as well and if you noticed I didn't quote all but Kak keeps saying the words which means pay attention right that's like right but the M has a beautiful idea on that that he's talking about that time and again relevance for all times mamm says last source make sure your heart is found in theem but don't just make your building a physical bodily action when you build the bias when you build up when you go and we do anything physically in this land right we do it with the le and the nephesh and that's what Hashem wants from us and that's what Kaga's message really is to the people that go forward and do what you have to do your message do your mission and do it with your leave. If you're connected to Hashem and you are doing it the full heart and you feel Hashem is with you, then Hashem will be with you and will hopefully Ezra Hashem bless their efforts. >> Okay. Thank you so much. So great to learn with everyone.