Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: It's Always Darkest Before The Dawn

Uh first of all, hi everybody. As you know, as Rabbi Posternak just said, uh we have been meeting remotely, actually in Or Sameach, because of the security reasons for the past few weeks. This is the first time uh since before Sukkot that we're back in person, and it's very nice to see faces instead of just talking into a camera, although Rabbi Posternak's face was always there, so I always had someone to look at. And again, thank you for coming, and uh needless to say, with God's help, all of our learning, all of our tefillot should be directed to bring a yeshua to all of Israel, and in particular, uh the soldiers should be safe, and the captives and the hostages should come out. I understand that there is a deal that's imminent. We'll see, but whatever it is, with God's help, everyone should be safe. And today's tonight's share is dedicated for a complete recovery uh for all of those whose health has been affected by the war, special prayer for success and release of the hostages, and similarly, for the souls of the departed, uh the same idea, all who were murdered or died defending the Jewish nation. Uh in addition, we wish Hadassah bat Rivka a complete recovery among the sick of Israel, and Bella bat Chaim on her fourth anniversary and she is the late mother of Zvi Hirsch Weisman, so thank you very much for the support of Torah. May it be for the elevation of her soul. Uh special thanks for all those who have already donated to the Citizens Fallen Fund. Uh Eban Na'eh has now sent 13 pairs of filling to the front lines. That's quite amazing. Four more five more are on the way. And tzitzis uh they literally cannot make fast enough to meet the demand. I could take heart that there was even a leniency, you know, the Ramah actually says that l'chatchila women should not make should not tie tzitzis. L'chatchila. B'dieved, if they do it, it's good, but I know Rav Moshe Feinstein paskens that to meet the amazingly high demand, this is considered to be an emergency situation, so he actually permitted women to go ahead and volunteer uh in the tying of the tzitzis. But again, before you do anything, ask your your rabbi for a for a decision. Uh finally, we have an anonymous sponsorship. And again, it's the same thing, but we pray over and over again Hashem should bring quickly and safely the return of all hostages with complete health to their in their homes. And the fast nitzachon of all of our soldiers, so they may all return home with health and victory soon. We merit the geulah uh now. Again, I think all of us all of us feel that in our hearts, and may Hashem uh listen to our tefilos. Um this parsha a lot quite a lot of things happened. Basically, the Jewish people are formed except for the tribe of Binyamin. And uh Yaakov had taken the brachos from Esav. And uh Yaakov now has to leave Eretz Canaan. And there are really two different reasons why he has to leave. One reason is because Esav wants to kill him. So, he better get out of town. The other reason is it's time for Yaakov to find a wife, and to base it on Avraham Avinu's idea that his family cannot intermarry with the Canaanite women. So, the same way that Eliezer was sent to find a wife for Yitzchak because Yitzchak could not leave Eretz Yisrael, Yaakov could. Yaakov is sent, as it were, to find a marriage partner. The base will leave you says this is the nice deal in the beginning of the parsha. Says by Yate say Yakov me bear shava. Yakov leaves bear shava by Yaye lech Harana and he goes to a destination that is Haran. So why does the Torah have to emphasize both where he's leaving from and where he's going to? Because sometimes when you go on a trip, the more important point is where you're going and sometimes the more important point is to get away from where you are. Yakov had both reasons. He leaves bear shava to get away from Esau, but that could have been anywhere. By Yaye lech Harana, he goes to Haran because that is where Laban's family is. So for Yakov both the etzia and the halicha, the leaving and the coming to are equally important and the Torah emphasizes. But Rashi makes a very intricate calculation and we don't have time to go over this, that there was actually a 14 year gap from the time that Yakov got the blessing till the time that he left to go to Haran. He took the blessings from Esau when he was 63 years old. From 63 to 77 he decided to take a break and study in the Yeshiva. He went to the Yeshiva of Shem the Ever. The Yeshiva that was founded actually by his great, great, great, great, great grandfather. Remember Shem is Abraham's ancestor. The word Semite comes from Shem, Shami. And he spent 14 years and only then did he decide to go to Haran. And again Rashi proves that you have to account for these 14 years and he also points out that for the 22 years that Yakov was separated from his father in Laban's house, Yakov was actually punished for not honoring his parents, and that's why Yosef was separated from Yakov from age 17 to age 39. Kibbud Av Va'em. Even though Yakov went by his father's command and his mother's command, but Yakov was not zocheh to be mekayem, to fulfill kibbud Av Va'em. So, for those 22 years, he was deprived of a kibbud Av Va'em from Yosef because he did not did not honor his father for 22 years. But if he was gone for 36 years, then mechibas Yosef should have been longer. And the answer is talmud Torah is so great, the study of Torah is so great, that it overrides kibbud Av Va'em. So, those 14 years are not in the calculation. But the question that people do ask is all of Yakov Avinu's life, he was learning whatever Torah means. Actually, it's actually not so pashut. Certainly, Torah was not He was not learning Gemara, Rashi, and Tosafos. I mean, that much I can tell you was not the agenda. But godliness, the chachmah of of God, of understanding Hashem, may have been very The curriculum may have been very close to Kabbalah, actually, on some level. So, Yakov Avinu's whole year whole life was spent yoshev ohalim, a dweller in the tents of divine study. So, why does he need 14 years in the yeshiva of Shem and Ever? What would he get in the yeshiva of Shem and Ever that he didn't already get in the yeshiva of Yitzchak Avinu? And earlier than Avraham Avinu. What was unique? So, Rav Hutner used to say a A very beautiful thought. And that is Avraham Avinu did indeed start his search for God in a state of isolation. Nobody else was into that. But in the course of time, Avraham Avinu built up a huge community of people who believed in Hashem. And Yitzchak continued that idea. So Yaakov was raised in what you might call a religious society. Although he was in Canaan, but Yaakov was raised in a large society of talmidim, of chareidim, of religious people. I I'm using chareidim not in the modern term, but chareidim mitzvot Hashem, those who tremble to keep the will of God. So Yaakov always had what you might call peer support. Yaakov always had a community. But now Yaakov is going to a place where he will be alone. He will be the only one. He's going to a place of avodah zarah. He's going to a place of uh cheating and lying and and all sorts of things that are against the idea of kedushah. Yaakov is going to be alone just as Yosef will later be alone in Mitzrayim. And because that's the situation, Yaakov needs to learn the Torah that is unique to galus. Galus in the sense of not only being outside of the land of Israel, but to be in a place without a support system. That already was not the Torah of Yitzchak Avinu because the Torah of Yitzchak always presupposed such a system. But Shem Shem remembers a world that was even more devoid of kedushah than the world that Yaakov was going to experience. Shem lived in the world prior to the flood in which the entire world was corrupt and evil and degenerate except for Noach. And Shem therefore was able to pass down something that even Yitzchak could not give Yaakov. How to survive when you're the only one. And therefore Yaakov needed 14 years before he was spiritually ready to confront the galus of Lavan. The galus of Lavan was very, very difficult. One could imagine how frightened Yaakov was. In a sense, he was going from the frying pan to the fire because if it is the Esau that is scaring him in terms of the body, the Lavan is scaring him in terms of his soul. The death of the soul is even more devastating than the death of the body. That's why a Jew is willing to die and is sometimes obligated to die al kiddush Hashem. I will keep my soul pure even if that means my body is going to be gone or my body will be separated from my soul. So, the Putney said, this was the uniqueness of the of the um yeshiva of Shem and Ever. How to maintain kedusha in a world of darkness, a world of isolation, a world where you're the only one who stands for holiness and kedusha and right and goodness. So, Yaakov is traveling and all sorts of things happen. He's on his way to Charan and vayifga bamakom, he encounters a place. Vayalon sham, he decides to sleep there ki va shemesh because the sun set all of a sudden. And Rashi explains that God wanted him to stop where he stopped. Some say it was the Temple Mount. Others say Hashem brought the Temple Mount to where he was. So, it is the Har Habayit, but the question is was he Yerushalayim or was it Yerushalayim moved to Bet-El? But whatever it was, Hashem wanted him to stop and as a result, the sun set early, prematurely. And Yaakov takes stones to make a little protection around himself. And Yaakov has the glorious dream of a ladder whose feet are on the ground, and it goes all the way to Shamayim. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu is on top of the ladder. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu promises Yaakov, I will be with you. I will sustain you. I will protect you. I will always be there. And Yaakov makes a vow that if Hashem fulfills all these brachos, I will give him maaser. I will give him 10%. It's one of the sources of giving maaser from your assets and the like. The vision of Jacob's ladder, the vision of Yaakov's ladder is infinitely fascinating because, you know, we say every part of the Torah, shiv'im panim laTorah, there are 70 interpretations of Torah. I think when it comes to the ladder, you have more than 70 interpretations of what the ladder means. The ladder which goes to Shamayim, but its feet, the legs of the ladder are on earth. That itself is the whole role of a Jewish mission, to kind of we're on earth and we're reaching up to Shamayim. And the angels of God are going up and down. As I say, there are so many interpretations. I just want to offer two interpretations very, very quickly. It's not even the main thing I want to talk about tonight. Interpretation one is based on the Medrash. The Medrash posits that there were four angels going up and going down. Or three of them were going up and down, one angel was going up and not going down. And the Medrash Rabbah says, this connects to the four exiles that the Jewish people go through. The first and this is after Mitzrayim. I mean, Mitzrayim didn't happen yet, but Yaakov is getting a vision of the Jewish people being exiled after they get to Eretz Yisrael. We have the Babylonian exile. And then Babylon was conquered by Persia, story of Purim, and then by Greece, Yavan, and then eventually Rome. Now, all of the other exiles were very short. The Babylonian exile from the time of the Churban Beis Hamikdash till the rebuilding of the second Beis Hamikdash was only 70 years. So, Galus Bavel is 70 years. There's something in your pocket. Second, one second. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. So, Galus Bavel was 70 years. The Persian rule over Eretz Yisrael until Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire was around 52 years. The rule of the Yevanim was kind of 150 years. So, the three goliyos were very, very quick. And that's the remez olim, they ascend, ve yordim, and they go down. That Yaakov is being told that three of the four goliyos will have an ascent, and they will have a descent. But the fourth exile is called the exile of Rome, the exile of Edom, because Chazal believed that Rome, the Roman uh empire, or the Romans, were descended from Esau. That goes up, up, up, up, up, and it never seems to end. The Romans destroyed the Beis Hamikdash in the year 70. And although it's true that the Roman Empire is long gone, the golus they perpetuated is still with us. Moreover, Roman civilization became Western civilization. And Roman civilization also became Christianity. And that became the ascent that ruled over the Jewish people. For centuries and centuries and even today, the vast majority of the Jewish people are under the domination of Western civilization. And although it's true that in some circles and in some settings, Western civilization has been relatively benign, that's certainly not universally the case. We had the Holocaust coming out of Germany. And today, in light of what is going on in Eretz Yisrael, we see the anti-Semitism of Esau, not just Ishmael. I'll talk about Ishmael in a minute. The anti-Semitism of Esau, which we thought maybe we were beyond a little bit, is very, very much here. When you hear about the scenes of Jewish college students in Columbia or Cooper Union having to hide uh in a hallway or hide in a room in a library because of the crowds, right? They come in, they want protection. So, you just go into this room. You know, scenes that are kind of reminiscent of what Jews in the Holocaust have to go through. So, uh the galus of Edom, even in terms of anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews, is still very powerful. And of course, the galus of Edom also connotes assimilation and the like, which even under benign conditions continues to estrange millions of Jews from their heritage and the like. So, Yakov's vision was that the three go four angels, three angels up, down, up, down, meaning they go up and they rapidly go down. And that's a great comfort. But the angel of Esau keeps on going and going and going and going. And Yakov wonders, when will it end? When will he descend? And Hashem says, "Hinei Hashem nisav alav." God assures Yakov that no matter how high Asav ascends, he will have his downfall. Now, based on this idea that the ladder, Yakov's vision of the ladder, involved four angels going up going up down and the angel of Asav just going up, uh the one omission, of course, is Yishmael. Yishmael is not folded into that vision. And indeed, Chazal did not talk a lot in the Medrash, not too much, about the galus of Yishmael because they, based on Daniel and the like, they always talked about the four exiles, Babylon, Persia, Greece, and Rome. Remember, the Talmud was written and Talmud and the Medrash were written before the creation of Islam. There was no Islamic empire, there was no Arab empire. Arabs before Islam were simply nomadic Bedouins who were pagans. They they were they were not particularly powerful in any particular way. The idea, though, of the last galus being galus Edom, to be sure, but kind of a version galus Edom uh 1.2, that is augmented with galus Yishmael, is developed much later. It is in the Medrash Pirkei De Rabbi Eliezer, and it is developed by Rabbi Chaim Vital, the great comment of the Ari, who does say that the final stage of galus Edom, in which Jews are still living primarily under Western civilization, will be the confrontation with Yishmael. And that is the most dangerous of all because Yishmael has certain spiritual merits, whether it's circumcision, whether it's prayer, whether it's tznius, and as a result, and they're the only other nation besides Yisrael that has God's name in their identity and therefore they are extraordinarily dangerous. And if Asaph can be defeated by brute force because Asaph represents your dying physical might Ishmael can only be defeated although we have to have an army and we're very grateful for the army. But Ishmael can only be defeated by spiritual means. Because they too have a little bit of the coal, a little bit of the power of prayer and and and and alike. So again we've talked about this before and we'll be talking about it again different partials uh the notion that Galut Ishmael is not a separate Galut. Galut Ishmael is the tail end of a larger phenomenon that's called the Galut of Edom. That the Galut of Edom will culminate in a Galut of Ish- of Ishmael. And that's really what we are seeing in the world uh today. Uh to make it scary uh there are a number of late Midrashic references to the you- to the connection between Ishmael and Paras. Ishmael are the Arabs. Paras, Persia, is Iran. And it's important to know that although the Iranians are are Mus- Muslim, they are not Arab. They're non-Arabic Muslims. And therefore in our typology we do not consider uh Iran or Persia or Paras to be Ishmael. We consider them to be Paras. So Maharal says that Paras of course was always into Jewish genocide going back to Haman connected to Amalek and Paras. And therefore the Maharal says that in the Galut Ishmael there will be an unholy alliance between Bene Ishmael and Paras in which they will attempt to destroy the Jews, hence Hamas and Iran. Hamas and Iran is Yishmael and Paras. Right, in fact, Iran in many ways is the source of everything in the sense of the weapons and the funding and the like. But then, there's an opposite midrash that actually says that there will be a war between not just Jews, Yishmael and Paras. Or Arvia, it says Arvia. Arvia is Arabia, Saudi Arabia and Paras. And that itself is also very What type of war between Iran and Saudi Arabia? What what does that have to do with anything? Well, in truth, like I don't want to be too much of a prognosticator, but in truth, you know, Trump had started this process, the Abrahamic Accords, where the Emirates and Dubai, you know, tried to make relations with Israel. Well, Saudi Arabia was relatively close to actually doing so. And some say that at least the political motivations for Hamas to strike at this particular time is they wanted to undermine any overtures by Saudi Arabia to make a relationship with Israel. And that's what the midrash says, the milchama of Paras against Arvia. Quite amazing. And once again, the whole Abrahamic Accords was very interesting because we have a teaching in Chazal that we know Yishmael as an individual did shuva before he died. Right, that is before because that is why when they he and Yitzchak buried Avraham, Yishmael gave kavod to Yitzchak to be the head person. And Rashi says Yishmael did shuva. So, the midrash says that since everything that the avos do is a sign for the future, just as Yishmael the person did shuva, the nations of Yishmael will do shuva be'acharit hayamim. So, you have two different contradictory visions here. You have the vision of the last galus being Yishmael, which will try to destroy us. Then you have the vision of Yishmael doing shuva. But the truth of the matter is, you see both of these things going on at the same time. You see Hamas, uh etc., and its alliance with Iran, which is Persia, uh which is trying to destroy. And then you have the Abrahamic Accords. Now, I know that some people will say, "Well, Abrahamic Accords are not shuva. It's really being done for economic reasons. Being done for money. It's being done for commerce. Uh you know, having uh a good relationship with Israel is just good for the economy of all of these nations." That may be true, but once again, we acknowledge in our tradition that even a shalo lishmah, even if the motive is not totally pure, uh it can still constitute a form of of shuva. Now, it's interesting, the Meshech Chochmah actually says, this is uh quite astounding, that the very first stage of Yishmael doing shuva goes back to the conversion to Islam. All the way back, in which the pagans renounced their paganism. And they adopted monotheism. That was a step in the shuva of Bnei Yishmael. And I would think that the Abrahamic Accords, in which they want to have a good connection with the Jewish people, might be a a a second step. So, all of this is nichlal in the midrashic understanding that the ladder of Yaakov represents the different galuyos that we're going through. But let me mention quickly a second explanation cuz I had said I wanted to give you two explanations for the idea of the ladder. And that is it represents different levels of the worlds by which we connect to God ultimately. And this is Kabbalistic. The Shulchan Aruch brings this idea from the Arizal. And that is we know that in Kabbalah uh God, the Ein Sof, the one without limit created physical reality from his spiritual essence. But that essence had to go through four transformations till it resulted in a tangible physical reality. And these are called the four worlds, four different levels of existence, each one getting more physically concretized and in which the essence of God is more concealed, meaning the more physical the world, the greater the ultimate concealment of divinity within the world. The highest world, which is the direct world that emanates from God, is called the world of Atzilut. That's the world of emanation, a purely spiritual world. Then it goes from Atzilut to Beriah, creation, Beriah to Yetzirah, formation. Those two worlds are the worlds of angels. Angels themselves have different levels. The highest angels are in Beriah. The lower angels are in Yetzirah. And then we have physical reality that is called Assiah. So the ladder whose feet are on the ground uh the the raglayim represent the Olam Assiah. And then the Shulchan says there are formally four rungs on the ladder, four rungs on the ladder, and that represents going up Assiah, Yetzirah, Beriah, Atzilut. That's often abbreviated uh in Kabbalah's forum as ABYA, Alef, Bet, Yud, Ayin. Atzilus, Briah, Yetzirah, Asiyah. Obviously, the total meaning of this is is a little little beyond us. I'll just tell you a a little a humorous story about Atzilus. One wouldn't think one wouldn't joke about it normally. They say that the great Rav Chaim Soloveitchik one of the great great Chassidisha Rebbes Soloveitchik Rav Chaim Soloveitchik in the 19th century uh was speaking to the Shulichets and he felt he was connecting to the highest worlds. He was connecting to God not on the level of this lowly world, but he had elevated himself to be connecting at a higher level. And as he was darshening, he was almost in a trance, he had a tremendous hacking cough. So, his son brought him a cup of tea and he tapped him and he said, "Have the tea." And Rav Chaim got very upset. He says, "I'm in the Olam Ha'Atzilus. In the Olam Ha'Atzilus, you don't need tea." And his son said, "But Tati, in the Olam Ha'Atzilus, we don't cough either, you know." So, so apparently, you're still in the Olam Ha'Asiyah even though your mind might be in the Olam Ha'Atzilus. Now, the Shulchan Aruch makes a very fascinating point and this deserves a a really a shiur of its own, but I'm just going to say it very quickly so you have something to think about. You know, you could think about this and develop it further. He says that davening itself, Shacharis, can be divided into four sections. And each section is connecting yourself to a world. You start davening the Olam Ha'Asiyah and you lift your soul higher and higher and higher and higher till you reach the Olam of Atzilus. That's the progression of davening. So, he says, "The first part of davening, the morning brachos, and the korbanos, if you say korbanos, which means apparently under this typology, it might be especially important to say carbonas because it really encompasses the world that you're in. That's the world of Asia. That is the world of practicality in which I try to rectify my actions, my deeds, my behaviors. The world of action. That's the carbonas. The second part of davening are the psukei dezimra, the psalms. That is already elevating you to the world of yetzirah and that is sometimes defined as the world of emotion and feeling. So that the hillim number one arouse your emotion. But also the point is that it's not enough in Judaism just to correct your behaviors as important as that is. You want to get to the root causes. Your emotions, your feelings, your thoughts. Right? So the psukei dezimra is focusing on purifying your heart. Now we then the third part of davening yishtabach onwards is when you're saying shema and the brochos of kriah shema. That's the olam of briah and there the concept is you try to nullify yourself in the presence of God. So you're no longer perfecting yourself. You're trying so to speak to nullify your ego and become one with God. Atzilut is when you achieve the unity with God. So we go from correcting action to correcting emotion to nullifying the self to complete union with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. This is obviously a very, very high level. But the four levels of tfila do correspond with elevating yourself. Now then we go the opposite way because you need decompression because ultimately you're going to go back to the olam Asia. So the same way you have four steps going up from uh from Asia to uh yetzirah to briah to atzilut, you got to have four steps going or least three steps going down. You're at a sea level, so you got to go down and therefore they trace Ashrei, Tachanun, all of these things are in the nature of decompression, so you'll be able to then, after you hit that sea level, you got to be able to come back into the world. Otherwise, you die, basically. If your neshama simply leaves the world of Asiyah, that's another way of saying you're not here anymore. That that's a that's literally an out-of-body experience. Now, if none of you have ever experienced this, I you know, join join the club. I I cannot say if I've experienced it either, but this is literally a description of an out-of-body experience in prayer that your neshama so much connects to God, it is literally no longer in this world. And that's why you need a decompression ritual to put you back because it's God's will. But the Baal HaTanya has it very beautiful and you know, he even writes, I can't explain I mean, the Baal HaTanya didn't mince words. I mean, he he commonly tries to explain things at great length, but at one point he actually says in the Tanya, "I can't explain this if you haven't lived it." And he's describing the idea that for for certain levels of tzaddikim, living in this world is actually a sacrifice. You have to consciously will yourself to stay in this world because your neshama has such a yearning to be with God. And you remain in this world only because it's God's will that you give him a dirah, you give him a place to live in this lowly world. So, he says, "I stay in this world out of my love for Hashem because Hashem wants me to be here. I don't want to be here. Hashem wants me to be here. I got a job. I love Hashem and I'm loyal to Hashem. I'm going to do my job. It's an amazing idea, not instead of the idea that we commonly think, I want to live so I pray to God to let me live. It's kind of the other way. He really said, I would prefer to be out of here. But, Hashem wants me here, so I'm going to be here as an act of love and an act of obedience and an act of commitment. It's quite amazing. And and you can see that this is obviously the Baal HaTanya is being very personal here. Because he even says, I can't fully explain it. He says this is this is what it is. So, again, very very remarkable. So, we have these two visions of Yaakov's ladder. One is is the four galusos, the other is the four spiritual worlds and the four spiritual worlds correspond to the four parts of our tefilos. And if you look if you look at the siddur of Rabbi Yaakov Emden, which is a very very interesting siddur, uh you'll see at the top of each page uh this part of davening is Olam HaAsiyah. And the next part of davening is Olam HaYetzirah. The third part of davening is Olam HaBriah. And the Amidah is Olam HaAtzilus. This is actually done in a number of siddurim. We'll label the halakim of davening based on this uh kind of kind of hierarchy. Okay. Uh before I leave that though, let me just comment uh let me just quote something from the Ariza that's very very fascinating. Obviously, the Ariza created this very intricate structure and we just talked the tikun haolam just a drop from the ocean. Intricate intricate intricate complicated. But, the Ariza once said that the purpose of all of my intricacies and all of my complications is that I should be able to pray to Hashem the way a 3-year-old asks for his mother. That the ultimate goal is not to be so involved in these complicated calculations, but to have the simplicity of a child, and in a way that's kind of maybe the curse of adulthood. And that is we've made life so complicated that we got to go through complications to be childlike. That which was natural, that's which was instinctive, that which is just the way a a normal person behaves, we have to kind of relearn that behavior by sometimes very complicated and convoluted structures. So, the Arizal is making an important point that it's important not to kind of get caught up in the complications without understanding the ultimate goal of all of this. The ultimate goal is actually simplicity. In fact, that actually may explain something. People ask the question, again, I'm getting far afield, you know, uh Kabbalah. Kabbalah was developed, I mean, it always existed, but the Arizal developed many, many ideas in Kabbalah. Now, what's going on? The earlier generations didn't have it. Was the Arizal greater than the earlier generations? How is it possible uh that uh you know, great, great David and David and Melech have the Kabbalah of the Ari? But the short answer is they didn't need those particular keys. They had this relationship with God that didn't require all of the complexities that were introduced. In other words, complexity and even in-depth analysis of your relationship to God is not necessary when the relationship is inherent. It's necessary when you need to reconstruct it. You need to rebuild it. You need to create it. So, then you need a blueprint. You need a structure. When you have that structure, you don't need to go through all of the steps. And therefore, yeah, it could very well be that the earlier generations didn't need all of this stuff because the relationship was there. But as we lost that, we then have to try to recreate it. So we have to understand kind of reverse engineering like how do you get that relationship with God by all of these different components. Okay, so that was one point I wanted to share with you the understanding of the ladders, Jacob's ladders and what it represented. But now let's go backwards a little bit. When Jacob comes because the sun sets all of a sudden, so the Torah says by Yifka Bamakain by Yalan Sham. Jacob encountered the place and he decided to dwell there. The Gemara in Berakhot says that the word by Yifka encountered is another word for prayer. Jacob Avinu invented the idea that you pray to God at night. Now we know Abraham was Metaken to pray to Hashem in the morning. So Abraham enacted Davening Shacharis. Yitzchak enacted Davening Mincha. And Jacob enacted the practice of Davening Maariv. Now of course, be sure you understand we don't mean the text of the Amidah, the text of the Shmoneh Esrei. That was not written until much much later. Before that, people would pray in their own words. It could be as long or as short as they wanted. So we're not talking about Nusach. We're not talking about text. But the idea of Shacharis, Mincha, Maariv, this comes down to us from Abraham, Yitzchak, and Jacob. Abraham invented Shacharis and that was taken on by his children. Yitzchak added Mincha and that was taken on by his children. And Yaakov added Arvit. And that was taken on by his children. That's an addition to the Shema. That that's a separate mitzvah. But the idea of prayer to God at night. Now, there is a big question here. The Gemara says in Maseches Brachos that davening Shacharis and davening Mincha is an obligation. It is a chova. You are obligated to daven Shacharis and Mincha. The davening of Arvit is optional. Now, yeah, let me clarify that. All of the poskim say that because it was a minhag that was accepted by generations of Jews, now Arvit is just as obligatory as Shacharis and Mincha because of minhag. But in terms of the actual halacha, the actual din, Arvit is a reshus. That is why for women, many many women, probably most women and even if a woman does a full davening, uh typically she will only do Shacharis and Mincha. Very very I mean uh some women do Maariv, but very few women do Maariv. And the Orach Chaim explains that since even for a man Arvit was optional, not obligatory, so women never took it on. Women did what is obligatory. They didn't do what was optional because they had other responsibilities in the home. So we actually pasken this way. Now, Krias Shema is the right thing. That's not a question. But the Amidah of Arvit is minhag. It's called a reshus. Reshus means optional prayer. So the question is very obvious. If Avraham did Shacharis and Yitzchak did Mincha and Yaakov did Arvit, why should the prayer of Yaakov be inferior to the prayer of Avraham and Yitzchak. Abraham's prayer here obligatory. Yitzchak's prayer obligatory. Jacob's prayer optional? In many ways Jacob is considered to be the greatest of the others all be it because he's standing on the shoulders of his predecessors. Abraham had Ishmael and Yitzchak had Esau. Only Jacob all of his children are the Jewish people. We are told on Hashem's Kisei Hakavod the divine throne of glory there is engraved the face of Jacob Avinu. Yechazkel says there's the face of a man. Chazal say that man is Jacob Avinu. So why should Jacob's prayer be inferior? So actually someone would say the derech drash that when Jacob stopped to daven the sun was still up. It set very suddenly. So Jacob didn't mean to do maariv. Jacob meant to do mincha. So it turned into maariv but Jacob didn't mean to make it an obligation because he was planning on davening mincha. So that's a cute answer that Jacob was mechaven for mincha not for maariv. It became maariv because Hashem made the sun made the sunset. But the a more deeper answer that I want to share with you is from the great Rav Tzadok of Lublin the one of the great profound Chassidic thinkers died in 1900 and Rav Tzadok says that although we daven the same Shmoneh Esrei or the same Amidah Shacharis, Mincha, Maariv each prayer correlates with a time of day and is supposed to evoke a different emotional connection with Hashem. Now in many many ways electricity has taken away that that symbolism. You know day night is all the same. In fact people don't realize there actually books secular books written about this how the nature of night has totally changed. You know, night used to be literally kind of the end of things. Even if you had candles, whatever it would be. Once you have electric lights, so night, day, you know, nothing makes much of a difference any anymore. But night used to be a very significant demarcation point. You can actually Google uh books on the changing nature of evening, the changing nature of nightfall. It's actually very significant sociologically. So, Reb Tzadok says, the fact that the tefillot are correlated to morning, afternoon, night is because each tefillah has a unique emotional resonance, which focuses on a different facet of my relationship to God. Morning, the dominant emotion is one of gratitude, joy, optimism, and hope. First one wakes up in the morning. So, even if they had a very rough time, at least maybe for the first 5 seconds, there's a sense of of this will be a good day. You know, sometimes we get depressed right away, but there's always that notion, even the birds singing has a symbolic meaning. They're kind of saying, "Things will be good. Things can be good." So, morning Shacharit is the prayer of hope, optimism, faith in Hashem, emunah, that things will be good. But but in a positive way. That's why the halakha is for bikur cholim, when you visit a sick person, chazal actually give a rule, do not visit a sick person in the first 3 hours of the day. Why? Because he'll look so good that you're not going to daven for him. Don't visit him the last 3 hours of the day because he'll look so bad and exhausted, you're going to figure, "Ah, there's no hope, you know, he's a goner." You visit him in the middle of the day. By the way, Reb Moshe Heinemann is madayak in the result say that Bikur Cholim is so important that uh even if you need have to visit somebody a hundred times a day, you can do so. So, Reb Heinemann was madayak, if you're not supposed to visit first 3 hours and last 3 hours, there's only 6 hours to visit. So, if you divide 6 hours, which is 360 minutes, by a hundred, so that gives you a what? 3.6 minutes. So, he proved from there that you're yotzei Bikur Cholim with a 3 and a half uh minute or 3.6 minute visit. He was making the point that sometimes there's no mitzvah to have a long visit, which is actually very, very interesting. It's something to keep in mind. You know, sometimes we visit uh people who are sick and we just stay and stay and stay and stay, and the choleh wants to rest, but the choleh feels a responsibility to entertain you. And that's kind of defeating the purpose of Bikur Cholim. So, Reb Heinemann was actually saying, sometimes a short visit would be good, and he gave this mathematical proof that Bikur Cholim you're yotzei with a 3.6 minute uh visit. But, okay. But, be it as it may, you see the fact that Chazal discourage us from visiting in the morning hours because people look better in the morning and they usually feel better in the morning. So, Shacharis is the prayer of gratitude and hope and optimism. That corresponds to Avraham Avinu's relationship with God. Avraham Avinu's relationship with God was based on Avraham perceiving God God's benevolence, God's compassion, God's goodness. The reason why? Well, you may say it's a chicken and egg problem. Meaning, we know that Avraham himself represents the pillar of loving kindness. The question is which came first? Did he perceive God's kindness because he was the man of kindness. Or did he become the man of kind man of kindness because that was the prism through which he perceived God? Meaning, did he model his personality on his perception of God? Or did he model his perception of God on his base personality? I don't know. It could go either way. But, be as it may, if Avraham Avinu perceived God in terms of benevolence, compassion, love, then Avraham Avinu has a connection to Shacharit. The time where we feel the compassion of God, where we have the sense of renewal, a sense of a new day, of new opportunities. And Avraham in his own life went through that. Although Avraham Avinu had many Nisyonos at 10 trials, but eventually, he was successful. He was successful materially, wealthy, respected, loved, admired. At the age of 100, he had an heir, Yitzchak. Yes, his beloved Sarah left him, but she was 127. It's not like she left prematurely. And even Yishmael, the wayward son, returned to Avraham. As Chazal say, Esau did not become a rasha until Avraham died. The lentils The story was when Avraham died, that's why Yitzchak was making lentils to cuz you give lentils to a mourner. So, Avraham Avinu, in his whole life, is represented through loving kindness of God. So, that is what Shacharit represents, feeling the chesed of God, and being filled with gratitude and hope and optimism. If Shacharit is the prayer of hope and optimism, Mincha is the prayer of panic. And in truth, even uh logistically, Mincha is a panicky prayer. And maybe less so in Eretz Yisrael because certainly in Yerushalayim, if you're really really stuck for Mincha, so you just stop in the street and nobody's going to look at you. So, you know, but you know, I still remember the United States. You know, Shacharis you daven before you go to work. And Maariv you can daven when you get home. But Mincha has a very narrow window and you're often stuck in meetings or you're stuck in your office. You may not have a place to daven. I remember in the olden days, before cell phones, if you would be in Penn Station in the Manhattan uh in the afternoon, you would see all of the pay phones were taken by uh usually men in hats, Orthodox Jews, who were making believe they were making a phone call when in fact they were davening Mincha cuz they had to find a way to daven Mincha. Uh of course they were calling Hashem. Uh they need to know that in Manhattan it's a long-distance call. Uh in Yerushalayim, you know, we have local. It's it's not much cheaper here uh to call Hashem cuz all tefillos, they say, first come here. It's very interesting. That the tefillos do not go straight up. The tefillos cross the Atlantic, come to Yerushalayim, and then go up. That's what Yaakov means when he said, "This is the gate of heaven. This is Sha'arei Shamayim." All tefillos, anywhere in the world, come to Yerushalayim, and then go up. We don't always realize, you know, we we take Yerushalayim for granted. What what a zechus it is to be in Yerushalayim Eretz Hakodesh. You know, every morning we should pinch ourselves. I am not in that in that way. So, Mincha is kind of panicky. But remember too that the ideal time to daven Shacharis is right when the sun rises, the new day. The ideal time to daven Mincha, the ideal time is right before the sun sets. You do it before the sun sets, but right before the sun sets. Meaning it's still daytime, but you're being plunged into the night. You have the shadows of darkness. The shadows of darkness. The sun is already in the trees. It's getting dark. Panic. This fits Yitzchak perfectly. Yitzchak on one hand lived in Eretz Yisrael. Yitzchak never went to Chutz La'aretz. But remember that the 400 years of galut that was decreed on the Jewish people, even though we were only in Mitzrayim for 210 years. So, Rashi explains the 400 years starts from the birth of Yitzchak. Now, that's from the birth of Yitzchak until the Exodus from Egypt is 400 years. Now, why are you counting those years as galus years? Because although Yitzchak was living in Eretz Yisrael, he was actually in a state of exile. There was harassment from the Philistines. They were filling up his wells. He was given the impression, "You're not welcome here. This is not really your land." This is what he's hearing all the time, although he knows it's not true. Something somewhat to what we sometimes go through with uh people who say, "We don't have You know, this is not our land." So, if Shacharis is the prayer of optimism and joy, Mincha is the prayer of panic that when you're at You're still living in light. You're still living in light, but it's getting dark, and you're afraid, and you ask Hashem, "Please, Hashem, let me hold on to the light a little bit longer." Panic. Now, we come to Maariv. So, Shacharis is prayed as the sun goes up. Mincha is prayed as the sun is about to go down. Maariv is prayed ideal ideally of course halakha does accommodate early later but ideally Maariv is laid when it's already dark. It's already dark. Maariv is total darkness. This is Yaakov Avinu's situation. Yaakov Avinu is 63 years old. He is not married. He has no children. His brother wants to kill him. He is leaving Eretz Yisrael. He thinks he will never see his father again although he does. And he thinks he will never see his mother again and he doesn't. He never sees Rivka again. Penniless, childless, without a wife, people want to kill him. And he's running to Laban's house which is as I said before from the frying pan to the fire. Because if Esau is going to destroy his body, Laban may very well destroy his soul. Yaakov does not see any hope in this situation. The darkness that the sun sets all of a sudden is really an externalization of a man who no longer has any hope. He's plunged into darkness. He can't have the prayer of Abraham which is the joy of the new day. And he can't even have the prayer of Yitzchak in which you still have the light even though things are going tough. Rather, what is Yaakov left with? Emunah. Emunah is what you have when everything else is gone. No matter how dark the world, you believe in Hakadosh Baruch Hu. You say Hashem will take care of me. So, Shacharit's the prayer of hope, Mincha the prayer of panic, Arvit is the prayer of Emunah. That even when you're in total darkness, you know I shall be with you. And it represents a madriga where you see the light in the darkness. So again, it's not the metaphor. We commonly use the metaphor there is light at the end of the tunnel. But in the Zohar, there's a deeper iteration of that. It is not light at the end of the tunnel. It is a light within the tunnel itself. The Zohar has a lotion, a staggering lotion, butsina de cardenusa, which is Aramaic for the black light. The light of darkness. The light of darkness. You know, there are obviously all sorts of spectrums of light that the naked eye cannot see. We only can see a relatively small spectrum. There's infrared and ultraviolet, all sorts of light that you only see with special goggles or special machinery. So too, there's an amuna light. There is a light in the blackness of life that often you're not able to see unless you have a certain orientation. Butsina de cardenusa. So now, let's go back to the original question. The original question is that Avram did Shacharit and Yitzchak did Mincha and Yaakov did Maariv. Okay? And yet the Halakha says davening Maariv is optional. And our question was, the Seder question was, why should the prayer of Yaakov be inferior to the prayer of Avram and Yitzchak? If Shacharit and Mincha are obligation, why not Arvit? Says Rav Seder, you're making a mistake. The optionality of something is not because it's inferior, but it's because it represents a sublime, elevated, spiritual level that not everybody is able to reach, but they should aspire to. So, Shacharit, which is gratitude for the chesed Hashem, of course you have to do that. The navi Yeshayahu says even an animal feels appreciation. Right? Yada Shor Kineyo, the ox knows its owner. Vachamora vo's palo, the donkey knows the trough of the feeder. So, Shacharit is a chiyuv because I could tell every 13-year-old boy and every 12-year-old girl, you got to say thank you for what Hashem has given you. So, Shacharit is a chiyuv because it represents something that Hashem can reasonably expect of every person. Not that he always gets it, but it's gratitude. Mincha? Panic? Well, that's the old saying, there are no atheists in foxholes. People intuitively turn to God when they're in trouble. But the prayer of Yaakov is a much deeper prayer. It's the prayer of the person who hit rock bottom. He's not falling anymore. He hit rock bottom. There is no apparent hope. There is no way out. You're beyond even the panic of of feeling something could change because it actually looks like nothing will change. And that's where emunah comes in. So, the reason it's optional, says Rav Tzadok, this is Rav Tzadok's chiddush, is not, as you might assume, because it's a less important idea, but it's so spiritually high to have emunah in Auschwitz, to have emunah in the concentration camps. And I can imagine, although, you know, feeling for them, that this is the amuna that the people in captivity now have to have. In which literally every second, every It's painful to think about. Every single second their life is in danger. But even more than that, you know, I I I heard this more than once and every time I hear it, it grips my my heart. In which when they find dead, you know, they find some hostages who are dead. Whatever Hamas makes the story the Israelis, you know, whatever they make up the Israeli bombing killed them, but you know, we know we know what happened. But I heard more than once parents who lost children who were dead, they said Baruch Hashem my child is dead because at least I know they're not being tortured. Can you imagine? Can you imagine this that they said they are grateful. I know as a father of a little girl said, I am grateful that she is dead. Because I know that worst things are not being done to her. I mean, can you can you imagine what this is going on? So to have amuna under those circumstances is like a superhuman aveda. So the optionality of arvit does Reb Tzadok is not because it's less important. It's because it is so elevated that we can aspire, we work to reach that goal. But it's not going to be self-evident. It's not going to be self-evident. And that is why after the Kriyat Shema of the morning we say emet veyatziv. God's truth is firm and under you know, and standing up. Meaning it's obvious. I see God's truth. At night emes ve'emuna. I have faith in God's truth even though I don't see it. Even though I don't see it. And we have the famous Hasidic interpretation that you I'm sure you've heard before. In Dom Melech in in the Tehillim tzaddik base which is mizmor shir leyom hashabbos. This is the song for Shabbos. La'hagid baboker chasdecha ve'emunasecha baleilos. In the morning, I declare your loving kindness and your faithfulness in the nights. So, among the Hasidim, they say morning and night refer to different parts of life. There are mornings of life and there are dark evenings of life. Mornings are times of joy, times of simcha, times when good things are happening. In the boker of my life, I declare the loving kindness of God. But then there are moments of darkness, moments of suffering, moments that seem hopeless. It's hard for me in those moments to see the chesed of Hashem. I can't see it at that point. Emunasecha, the emunah I have in you, I will carry will carry me through even in the darkness. Emunasecha baleilos. Now, uh this is the month of course of Chanukah. And Chanukah symbolically does represent the light that can exist even within the darkness. And as Klal Yisrael is going through very dark times, particularly the hostages and the hostage families are going through such difficult times, and I mean, so far Israel, you know, we've been relatively spared uh in terms of our own individual lives, and God willing, that should continue. Uh but, you know, but we're also afraid about the future. Meaning, in addition to the grieving and the suffering of those who are already suffering, which is great, we have a pachad as to what can happen in the future. You know, you never know. But, this is where a moon comes in. And may it be a sham's will that just as we declare the headset of a sham in the good times in the mornings of life may we have a moon in the dark moments of life. And from the moon in the dark moments may we once again have the headset of a sham in the mornings. May be by the evening by the morning. Right? That says there was evening and the evening is followed with a morning. And that passage in Thomas braces in Thomas braces is a biggest sod in life that after the night will come the dawn. Will come the day. May as a sham may we be so good to that day and may we have a made it.