Sparks of Alshich: Holiness Isn’t What You Think - Rabbi Shmuel Wagshal

Okay, guys. Baruch Hashem, another Alshich Shiur, back to the weekly Alshich. And um this week the Shiur is dedicated l'ilui nishmas my wife's grandmother, Dina bas Yehuda Leib, a wonderful woman who spent her life in Torah and mitzvos and raising a beautiful family. And her neshama should have an aliyah. So this week we want to discuss a very famous idea and a very basic idea and a very important idea. The mitzvah of Kedoshim tihiyu, you shall be holy. What exactly does that mean for one to be holy? And really, what is the purpose and what is the man's goal in this world? So what is holiness? And what is a man's purpose? And ideal being in this world. So the Alshich starts off by saying that the mitzvah of being holy cannot mean just to refrain from sin or refrain from doing impure things because that is a negative. That is saying what you shouldn't do. But it seems that there is a positive mitzvah, you shall be holy. So what does that entail? What does that mean, you shall be holy? So the Alshich explains a very fundamental idea. And he says that everything in this world is made from a chomer and a tzurah. What does that mean? Very simply, from physical a physical being, that's what we see. Everything we see is physical. And inside of it is its spiritual, the tzurah. The spiritual vitality that allows it to exist. And especially human being, right? So we have a body and a soul. And the soul is the spiritual vitality and the essence of what a man is. But really, he says a person has a choice. A person has a choice in this world to make and take the physical and make that the primary aspect of what he is. And then that overcomes the spiritual. Of course, the spiritual is still there, but the main aspect of what he is is physical. And in that way, even the spiritual spirituality that you have that you have in you becomes a little bit more diminished and it turns into more physical. But of course, the purpose is for the opposite. For a person to make his essence and who he is and his spiritual being the main primary aspect of what he is. And to mis'hapech, to turn even his physical being into a spiritual into a spiritual entity. And a person has a choice to do either one, but the purpose of man and the purpose of human being and a Jew in this world is to make sure that the primary being and this primary value in this world is a spirituality. This is what we call kedusha. This is what we call holiness. Why? Because holiness means to dedicate. It means to dedicate, separate. To dedicate and separate yourself from a life of physicality, what you see around you. And to see everything in the eyes of holiness. And to see yourself in the eyes of holiness. And to act and be strong in connecting to that part of yourself, your neshama. And by doing this, by doing this, you will The Alshich says that a person really starts with a simple neshama, which we call the nefesh. But the more that a person makes himself spiritual and the more that a person builds his nefesh, he then attains a higher level called the ruach. And then the more the person builds that and fix and and makes that stronger, he then builds himself and creates a vessel for him to accept his third neshama, which is actually called the neshama. So the idea is not to stay with the soul that you have, but to strengthen it and work it out and make it strong and make it the primary focus of your life. And in that way you will build yourself a soul that has a vessel to receive more a more holier soul and more holier soul. And really that's an idea of connecting more to Hashem. Because the of course the soul is the most Everything is Hashem really, the body is also from Hashem. But the highest way that a person can connect to Hashem is through his neshama. And if a person builds his neshama and strengthens his neshama, he is now connecting more to Hashem. Now what is the primary way to do that? What is the main way to do that? How does one do that? Of course, says the Alshich, and this is the essence of the mitzvah This is the essence of the mitzvah Kedoshim tihiyu, to make yourself holy by acting more godly. And how does one act more godly? By doing Torah and mitzvos, of course. Hashem says that the way I want to connect to you is by you doing Torah and mitzvos. And by you doing Torah and mitzvos, the more Torah you do and the more mitzvos you do and the more effort you put into it, the more godly you are. And the more godly you become, then of course the more connected you become to Hashem. And this is really This is the mitzvah Kedoshim tihiyu, to make yourself a vessel that is that is that is more and more connected to Hashem. Every day, every moment, find a way to connect more to Hashem by doing more Torah and doing more mitzvos and serving Hashem better. And this is really the way Hashem chooses to connect us. Because really Hashem can connect us in many ways. Hashem can connect us in any way he wants. But since Hashem is primarily spirit is is his main essence of God of course is spiritual, he wants to connect us specifically to our spirituality and not through our physicality. And not only that, he wants us to take our physicality and uplift it to make that also into a spiritual entity. This is what he explains is the We know that there is the formula of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair. The book Mesillas Yesharim is a sefer that was written with the formula of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair for a person to go through different steps on a ladder. And the top of the ladder is what? Is nevu'ah. Become a prophet. So you start building yourself up. You start building yourself up being careful about certain things and then having alacrity and having purity and having holiness. And as you build yourself up into the ladder, the highest goal is nevu'ah. What exactly is nevu'ah? What exactly does it mean to be a prophet? A prophet is a person, he Alshich says, who has totally transformed his entire being and his entire essence into holiness. And in that way Hashem can connect to him and literally rest himself upon that person. A regular person, Hashem does not feel like he could rest himself upon him directly. But a navi is a person who Hashem, of course, in a in a certain level, could literally rest himself upon that person. Because he has metahar himself, he purified his body so much that Hashem says, "This is a person that I can rest myself upon and give him direct inspiration." And in that way, the person receives prophecy. Pure prophecy. Now he says that there is different There's nevu'ah, there's ruach hakodesh. There's There's different levels of prophecy. But the highest level of prophecy, which is really called nevu'ah, is is this idea where Hashem rests himself upon the person directly. Only because of his holy deeds and his only almost Of course, he's not a He's not a malach and he's not Hashem, but his he has turned himself into a vessel of almost complete purity and holiness. In this way God can rest himself upon him and give him direct messages and of course whatever other things that Hashem feels fit to give him directly. So this is what he explains the mitzvah Kedoshim tihiyu is. The mitzvah Kedoshim tihiyu is for a person to work on himself and to have a focus to basically in the end make himself a navi. But of course, the purpose is not so that we could see the future or that we could have this special title of navi. And of course, the Gemara says that there is no more that level of nevu'ah ended by Zecharya and and and at that point in history. But whatever it is, at the end of the day our job is to focus and to try to bring ourselves to that level. Now he says, the pasuk says Ki Kedosh Ani Hashem Elokeichem, cuz I Hashem am holy. And really the question is twofold. Like we just said, if you're never If you If you're not going to really be able to receive nevu'ah, it doesn't really exist. Maybe it's possible, but it's probably not likely. And even if you receive nevu'ah, cuz I am cuz I am holy, what's the idea cuz I am holy? God is holy. Am I ever going to attain that level of holiness? Am I Like it's as if the pasuk is saying, Be you shall be holy cuz I am holy. Am I ever going to be exactly like you? Am I ever going to be able to get to the levels of holiness of Hashem? Of course not. So what's the purpose of this? So the Alshich explains that our purpose in this world and really the essence of spirituality is not to become chas v'shalom a God. We're not going to become a God. But as the Gemara says, Mahu rachum, just as he is compassionate, af ata rachum, you should also be compassionate. Just as he is gracious, you should also be gracious. Are we going to leave to be able to be on the level of compassionateness of God? Are we going to be as compassionate of God? Of course not. But that's exactly the point. Our job in this world is to create ourselves and place put ourselves in a place that as much as possible we shall be holy. As much as possible we should be similar to God in everything that we we We should look at ourselves and say literally how would what would God want from us and how would God behave as if behave in this in this situation? So, it's not that we are trying to become a God, but it is that we are trying in the best of our ability to be as godly as possible. And every mitzvah that Hashem gives us and every good meter, every good attribute, and every good action that we do in this world and every time by the way that we stay away from bad. And every action of purity that we do in this world and make ourselves holy and pure, we are becoming more godly. And that is the essence of the mitzvah Kadoshim Tihiyu. Because I am Hashem your God. What does that mean Hashem Elokeichem? I am Hashem your God. I want to have a relationship with you, it says Hashem. I want to be able to connect to you. I created you for a purpose. My purpose is to be connected to you. I could connect you in any Hashem could have chosen to connect you in a million ways, I don't know. But he chose to connect us in the way that he is most like. And what this means is that just as I behave, I want you to behave. And this will build up the muscles like we said earlier of your soul. And this will allow me to come and be with you more stronger and stronger by giving you more neshama, by giving you levels higher to ruach and neshama, and in this way I could dwell within you and I could be more connected to you. And that is the entire purpose of man. When we sin chas v'shalom, we are actually doing the exact opposite. We are impurifying ourselves and we are distancing ourselves from Hashem. And this way Hashem of course he's still connected to us, you know, you're never dis- totally disconnected from Hashem, but you are limiting your connection with Hashem. You're cutting yourself off a little bit more from Hashem each sin that we do. And of course when we do teshuvah, we bring it back. So, the idea the also is saying is that it's it's a very basic idea, but it's a fundamental idea. That what is the purpose of this world? To connect to Hashem. Ki Kadosh Ani Hashem Elokeichem. The way I want you to connect to me is through this formula. To acting like me, to behaving like me, to following my commandments. Not just because these commandments are random things that I want you to do to keep yourself busy, shake a lulav, put on tefillin. These are the the the vessels and the receptacles that I use to connect to you. And the more you do it, the more you connect to Hashem. And the more you behave like Hashem, the more godly you are acting. And in this way Hashem feels that he could This is the way Hashem wants to connect us. And in this way we receive more soul, we receive more holiness, and then Hashem is with us more. Ki Kadosh Ani Hashem Elokeichem. Now I am Hashem your God. I want to have a relationship with you. This is the way I want to do it. It's your choice. Like the also said in the beginning, it's your choice. You could choose to be more physical and more disconnected from me and have less of me connected to you and have less of relationship with me. That's up to you. God gave us choice. But the purpose of man is to try to attain as much as possible that relationship with Hashem. Like Ki Kadosh Ani Hashem Elokeichem. Because I behave this way, this is the way that I want you to behave. And the way you behave is going to directly affect how I am going to connect to you. And he says two things at the end. He says specifically in this parsha it says "Daber el kol adas Bnei Yisrael." Speak to all the congregation of the Jewish people. Why specifically in this case does it say "kol adas"? The entire congregation of the Jewish people. Every other mitzvah says "Daber el Yisrael." Speak to the Jewish people. Why in this specific case does it say "collect the whole masses, everybody"? So, the also says according to this is very obvious because this mitzvah a lot of people could say "Listen, I'll do Torah, I'll do mitzvahs, but to be living in with this consciousness that I am trying to connect to Hashem, to be constantly be living with this awareness that I am trying to build myself up to the level and build myself and walk up the ladder to of nevuah, who am I fooling? Who am I fooling? I'm never going to get there. I'm not that holy. I'm just a regular guy. I'm never going to get to the level of prophecy or to the great tzaddikim or to the malachim. I'm never going to be that. So, let me live my simple life. I'll do the mitzvahs like a lot of people live. I'll just do what I have to do and leave me alone. I don't need the the relationship aspect in this deep deep value in having Hashem rest upon me is very heavy for a lot of people. It's like I'm born a Jew. I want to live a basic life. I'll do what I got to do and then that's it. Leave me alone. Let me live my life. But the also is saying specifically not. That the mitzvah Kadoshim Tihiyu is specifically to live with that mindset, to live with that consciousness. So, people might lose hope or they might say this is not for me or they might say this is not even possible for me. This is why Hashem specifically tells Moshe Rabbeinu "Daber el kol adas Bnei Yisrael." Take everybody. Make sure that they understand that every single person can reach this level and every single person has the ability to attain levels of holiness and to attain their nefesh and to retain their neshama. And to have God be close to them and to have that relationship. And he says how? The pasuk ends off Ani Hashem Elokeichem. Because I am Hashem your God. You're not in this alone. I'm with you in this. I want you to be here. I want to help you. I want to be part of that. The relationship is not just you come to me and and I'll I'll decide. I'm going to be with you every step of the way. You're not in this alone. Ki Kadosh Ani. I am also holy and I will help you. I will give you the tools. I will give you the vessels. You have to want it. You have to work for it. But I'm with you. A person shouldn't say to himself "I'm I not alone? It's not possible. I know my sins. I know You know, as Dovid Hamelech says, I know the the bitterness of my heart. I know what I've done. Myself, I know what I've done wrong in my life and who am I fooling?" Hashem knows too. But Hashem says "Hashem Elokeichem. I am Hashem your God. I want to have I want to be with you. I want to help you. I want to help you up that ladder. And every single person, man, woman, and children should know that they could attain this level. And this is the mitzvah of Kadoshim Tihiyu. To be aware of your abilities, to be aware of your capabilities, to be aware at this that to live with this consciousness of holiness and this desire to connect to Hashem is not only a theoretical possibility, but it's what Hashem wants from us and it's what we could do it. And when we live with this consciousness, just by living with this consciousness and doing a mitzvah with this awareness that we want to connect to Hashem and we want to be more godly and by this way we're building our neshama and we're strengthening our neshama and we're destroying our physicality. That is the mitzvah. That is the mitzvah. And it's not If you really think about it, it's not necessarily easy. But of course it's the purpose of man to be a holy person. And this is what it means for one to be a holy person. To separate himself and dedicate himself to the desire to connect to Hashem in a real way, to have a relationship with Hashem in a real way, but of course in the way that Hashem told us to have a relationship with him, which is through Torah, mitzvahs, behaving properly, and behaving in every situation how would God want me to behave? And in that way God is now going to feel um more available to connect to the person. And that way we will of course build ourselves up and become holier, stronger, and better people. Amen. Amen.