The Real Power of Shmini Atzeret & Simchat Torah. תורה צוה לנו משה Kabbalah Rabbi Yitzchok Minkowicz

Welcome to this week's class on we're going to be learning a beautiful discourse in the Reb. The name of the discourse is called the Reb said this discourse on the day of in the year 63 years ago. So again the discourse is based on the verse in this week's Torah portion that we read we finish the last week's Torah portion which is partial to so there it says The moenu has instructed us inheritance for the Jewish community of melik is when when God was king over the righteous people when every all everyone gathered together the heads of the people is all united what with the the the tribes of the Jewish people. That is the verse the few verses in the Torah portion this week of part we're going to be talking about as we know the points that are brought out in different discourses that on one hand he calls the Tory my it's an inheritance but on the other hand we know it says in reference to Torah you should prepare yourself to study Torah because it's not an inheritance it's not going to come into you automatically so why are we saying the Torah is an inheritance inheritance means you inherit it you don't have to do anything on the other hand Torah we know you have to learn Tory also how can we say that to inheritance but we know it's brought down based on the verse that it says that those that were here and those that weren't here that every single Jewish person from all future generations were standing at Mount Si when God gave the Torah so it's not an inheritance we were there we received it so what does it mean it's an inheritance Also we have to understand that in in in this verse it calls the Jewish people on three different titles. First it says so it calls the Jewish people of Jacob the of the children of Jacob. Then it says we called the name of Israel and then it says in the middle we call straight righteous. So the question is why do we have these three different titles Yakov, Jacob, Israel and then also what idea of Yeshua. Now in reference to Torah we find three different expressions on one hand tora is called an inheritance like it says command inheritance and tell us what does mean? It's a an inheritance. So that's one idea of Torah. On the other hand, we know Torah comes through work. Like it says, "Prepare yourself to learn Torah." And like it says clearly if you don't put the effort in you were successful and don't believe. So you see it requires effort. And then there's a third expression when it comes to which is the idea of what a gift and like it says clearly God gave God gave the Torah as a gift. And when we make the blessing when we receive the Torah, we say no to God gave us as a as a present. And the general idea of bringing down the Torah come down here is called Morra. So we see there's three components when it comes to Torah. One hand it's an inheritance. On one hand it's work and the other hand it's a gift. Now these three ideas of an inheritance and work and a gift there's three different ideals. What does that mean? Because when it comes to an inheritance you don't have to put any effort in. In other words, it comes from the one that's inheriting to the one that received the inheritance. And you don't even have to you don't have to have any knowledge on it. And the and the the person giving receiving, you don't you don't have to have any knowledge. Matter of fact, like we know that if a person says that one of my children should not have any part of my inheritance or one of my daughters shouldn't have any part part of inheritance with the brothers. It means nothing. Why? Because you're making a condition based on what says in the Torah. The Torah says clearly when someone passes away it goes over as an inheritance. You can't go ahead and and blot out and knock out the that the the requirement the Torah says that when someone passes away everything goes as inheritance. So that's means there's no effort not the giver not the receiver. It's something which God made it that when someone passes away whatever whatever belongs to you goes to your your inheritors. That's one component. It means you have to do anything. The other one says no you have to prepare yourself to study Torah. What does that mean? mean that you receive the Torah based on your effort and based on how much you effort that's what that's what you're going to be that's you're going to be connection to the Torah. That's the second idea. And the third idea is a gift that actually has to do based on the person giving it and also the person receiving it. Because why? Because nobody gives a person a gift for no reason just out of the blue. There's something that you've done that made a person say, "Oh, I like this person. I want to give them a present." Obviously, what you did compared to the present, the present's much bigger. It's not a it's not a payment. It's not it's not a salary. You're getting much more. But nevertheless, there's something that you did. So that's the case that we see that yusha on one hand, you have to do anything. It comes an inheritance not from the giver, not from receiver. Work, you have to put the work in and based on what you get, based on the effort, that's what you get. And a gift is something that yes you did a little something but but the reward is so much greater. So the question is why do we have these three expressions are seemingly contradictory one to another. So kazal tell us based on the verse that says that to tell the the words of hashem to the to to to to referring to the Jewish people as the called the statutes and the laws to Israel. Soazal teaches based on that verse that says the words of his statutes and his laws to the Jewish people which means whatever he instructs the Jewish people because he himself does it. So notice what do you see that just like down here Tyra has a three components it's an inheritance it's work and it's a gift obviously Hashem is doing it on the spiritual on high tora has also those three components as we see because sometimes it says whoever goes ahead and sits and learns you sit and you learn and you repeat the so Hashem is learning with you so that means you're learning and Hashem is learning with you on On the other hand, it says in the Talmud that the first three hours of the day, Hashem is sitting and learning Torah without you learn without you doing anything. In other words, seemingly they're they're contradictory. Why? Because when it says whoever learns to so what why is Hashem learning? Because we are learning to and what Hashem is learning based on the the amount of effort that we put in our learning. And that's why he says you sit and learn for an hour, Hashem learns for an hour. You put your effort in, Hashem puts his effort in. But on the other hand, when we say the first three hours, Hashem is learning Tory, that's Hashem is doing it. That's a flow from above without our our effort. And obviously, when Hashem is learning Torah, it's much more powerful than when we put the effort in. And that's why it says the first three hours, it's not only three hours in time, but obviously we're talking on a qualitative level at first three hours. Now, we're going to go a step further deeper into it. seemingly what does it mean when it says the first three hours Hashem is sitting and learning Tory in other words and and at that time Hashem is learning Torah no one's learning Torah but the fact is anytime someone learns to Hashem is learning Torah so it's not possible since people live all around the world and in every single time zone there's someone awake and there's someone always learning Torah so if there's someone always learning Torah Hashem is learning Torah why because we're learning Torah Torah down here. So therefore, those three hours, the first three hours whenever they are that Hashem is so to speak learning Torah, why is he learning Torah? Not because Hashem is just learning Torah. Because someone somewhere in the world is learning Torah. And if someone's learning Torah, so Hashem is learning, it's based on the effort that we're putting into it. And this that we're saying that Hashem is learning. It's not based on anyone's efforts. How did the two go together? So know when we say the first three hours Hashem is learning Tory. So we go into a spiritual journey. We know that the first three hours represents the first three spir. What's the first three which is higher than the worlds. Why? Because emotions are connected to the worlds. Like it says clearly Hashem created the world with emotions. So emotions are connected to the world. And we know that the is the first of the emotions. However, intellect is above the worlds and and and and like tell us that which is the thee which is intellectum came before the world. So my emotions are connected to the world and intellect is above the world. But however even in there's two levels. What mean there's two levels? You have the lower level of terra the way intellect is connected to the emotions and that's the part of which is basically gets enclosed in the world which means in our physical intellect and even in arguments which are false and then there's the higher level of terra which is called on its own right which is called intellect which is above being able to come into the emotions. Now these two components of the way Torah gets involved in the world and the way Torah is above the world that's generally connected to the revealed part of the Torah and the concealed part of the Torah because the revealed part of Torah is what Torah got involved in the darkness of the world to transform the world and like it says clearly where do we find unfortunately into the darkness and what is that referring to that's called that's called the Babylonian Talmud and therefore because it gets involved in the world the way the Babylonian Talmud is studied there's questions and answers and because we know that a question is comes from a place of darkness and concealment why do you have a question because you don't have clarity so questions and answers comes from a place of darkness and even the answer that comes after the question is also darkness and concealment because why you have an answer you have an answer because you had a question which is darkness and that's why in the Babylonian time there's a bunch of questions and It's not becoming because God forbid it's anything less or something. On the contrary, if the greater and the smarter you are, you're going to be able to have greater questions and greater answers. And that's the way you study. That's the way it's studied. And like like Khazal tell us that after he was in the cave for 13 years and he added he added more wisdom. So what happened then was he had much more questions um because that's that's the that's the way that's the way you learn in revealed part of Torah. However, when it comes to the concealed part of the Torah, so we know it says in Mahna from the Zor and it's also explained in Gaidesh that over there there's no questions. There's no questions. There's no arguments in the concealed part of Torah. And the same thing also implies the difference between the Babylonian Tal and Jerusalem Talment which is like the difference between cababalistic term. It's called a light that returns and a straight light. And those are basically the is the the light that goes through darkness and is the the straight light. And that's a difference. Now we're going to bring it back full circle. That's between the first three hours Hashem is learning to on his own compared to when Hashem is learning based on what we learn. In other words, that but that when Hashem is learning on is basically on the level of Torah on its own, not the way it gets involved in the world. Now, so based on this, we'll understand the three ideas of Torah. This that we say a person has to prepare himself to learn Tyra. That is our effort that you have to put in when you learn Tyra and know you have to literally put in a lot of effort with external powers of what? Of being of being God-fearing for Hashem to be to be to be God-fearing. In other words, what does that mean? A person has to become in a place where he's total of acceptance and get rid of his own ego. And like it says clearly that when they would teach they would put in some kind of a um uh fear in the students and like and like the say the mouth would drip with fear. Why? Because in order to really really learn Tory and to be connected to Torah, you have to prepare yourself. And like it says clearly before you learn that my soul should be like like the dust of the earth. And when after a person's soul is like the dust of the earth then you're able to open up your heart to learning because after you put in the work and what type of work work with with acceptance and which basically means um not not not not getting not not being um egotistical then you can go ahead and say you got to you put the effort in and then when you put the effort in then what's then you find you find it know what happens is your heart gets opened up to learning Tory. Now when a person puts their effort into learning Torah, then you reach what level? You reach the level of the inheritance of Torah. After you put your effort in, then you reach level inheritance. What is what what is the what does the inheritance mean? Like it says in in the in the chapter in the in the discussion about Mat was given in the in the Talmud in Shabbat. So it says the reason why that tur was given down here because the angel said hey give us the ter no I'm giving it to the to the Jewish people. Why? Because we went down to Egypt and we have an an evil inclation within us. In other words the idea of terror is to go ahead and transform the sparks that fell down into what we call kipot noa shell which is neutral and also sadly into the forbidden three impure kipot. And when we go ahead and we transform it through learning terra because we know there's two different types of transformation. One is transforming of kipat no which is basically a shell which is neutral and the second one which is the gim to the three impure kipot and let's explain elsewhere the difference. So what happens is we go ahead and we inherit the lights of toyu when we do the transformation we inherit the lights of toyu and that came down when the when you had the breaking of the vessels and all these sparks came into this world and whether they fell into the three um uh impure kipot or in the kipot noa we go ahead and and elevate it and we transform it that becomes our inheritance and like it says that the fact is as yakob they're brothers the fact we're brothers. As Yak brothers and we know that Asf and Yakov represents like the world of Toyu. As was toyu the powerful light and Yakov was taken the part the light that was that was fixed and was stable and since we know that in the world of toyu there's no children. to therefore who inherits the a the lights of as the lights of so then the the inheritance if if to doesn't have children so taking an inheritance and by way of going ahead and doing and transforming the sparks so yakov inherits the lights of and we know when it comes to an inheritance that when someone inherits you inherit fully you literally stand in the place of the person that you're receiving the inheritance from What does that mean? When YaKob goes ahead and transforms the sparks and heer inherits the light of tou. So he not doesn't only inherit the spark but he actually inherits tou from its source. And as we know the the lights of tou are huge lights. And when when you go ahead and you transform it, you actually bring into the vessels of tikun the lights of the way they are in its source. And that's the power of inheritance versus just doing your work. Because when you go ahead and you transform the sparks of the kip of noa and also the impure kipot up to the point that someone god forbid sinned. So if someone sins so you did a sin but when you do chuva what happens as we know the highest level of chuva is that sin that once was wow it's a terrible sin that sin turns magically into a mitzvah. So when you go ahead and transform that sin and you turn it the the sin into a mitzvah you're literally bringing in and elevating the lights of tou and that's the real power of yusha inheritance. You're inheriting something which you can't receive when you do your work. When you do your work, fine. Whatever you did, you elevated. But when you're able to ele elevate the sparks of tou and you're able to inherit that, you're elevate. You're inheriting something that no one can ever reach. And that's what is explained in many many places the super quality of the work the spiritual your whole heart which is explained. It doesn't say one heart, two hearts, which is your two hearts that when you go ahead and transform the evil inclination, you actually reach a higher level because as we know it says there's many many powers in the in the in in the in the power of of of the axe. What does that mean? Because you're able to inherit the light of and when a person does their work which means you work hard in learning to in in as in you learn part that's the first level and then you learn in a way that you comes to doing action which means you go ahead and you're transforming the sparks in the physical world and you inherit the lights of then you fulfill the will of Hashem and you cause Hashem to be very happy in it's called you causing a pleasing fragrance for Hashem and like it says clearly in the Torah it's a pleading fragrance cuz I said and what I said came to be so because of the that you're creating you you Hashem gives you a gift and then you receive the gift from higher which is basically from the level of so we see over here there's three levels there's the first level is you do your work and based on your work that's what you get then you have the inheritance that you receive once you do transform the sparks and then afterwards Hashem decides oh my gosh he works so hard I'm giving you a bonus I'm giving you a gift and that's why it says what does that mean that the inheritance of which comes through transforming the sparks of the physical world that is something that every single Jewish person has the power to create that and that's the reason why the soul came down to this world from the highest level to the lowest level because the goal Reason for the going down is to create the elevation. And this elevation comes through transforming the the sparks that you elevate your body and your animal soul and you elevate the world. Three things your physical body, your animal soul and you elevate the world. And that's why it says the the the community of Yakov and he uses the term Kahila. What is Kila? Kila means from gathering. And what you basically are gathering all the sparks of the world. And when you when you gather the sparks and you gather your soul and as you gather your thoughts and you gather your speech and you gather your action, what does that mean? You gather it together. All our thoughts, all our speech, all our action should be to serve Hashem. And then you create a kilos and you create a gathering. Jacob gathers all the arcs and then my rush. That's when you inherit you inherit the lights of and then after you do your part of inheriting the lights of you come to a higher level and that what's the higher level it says the difference between like we know the explains to based on the verse where it says because is the part that does the work transforming the the sparks that we do six days a week and we know that whoever works and right before Shabbat receives the word in Shabbat And we re receive what? We receive the level of of peace and calm which is higher than that than than the work we we reach level. And that's the idea of what after we do in other words in the beginning we're transforming sparks that we're gathering all the sparks from from in the world and also the powers in our soul. We're gathering it and then we come to a higher level becomes and we do our work on these both on the both of these levels of Yakov which basically you're gathering spark and then you reach the level of is then Hashem gives us the gift on high and that's where it says like what is the idea of of of straight that's referring to the level of the infinite part of ble of the soul and we know that comes from The idea also of Shir of a song and a tabas a ring um the idea of singing a song and um and the ring is represents idea of the infinite part which basically a ring doesn't end it's it's infinite and it has no end because the fact is any ring where does the ring start it doesn't it's it's infinite and the same thing also when you sing a song because what's the whole idea of singing a song we know in the world of cabala singing is very very powerful it's to elevate elevate the sparks of the soul and like we see the fact is when person sings, it elevates them. And we know that the prophets before they would they prophesize, they would they would sing because when in order to to to receive prophecy, you have to disconnect from the physical reality. And the fact is that singing is like is like is is like a ring where it basically goes infinite and it creates that infinite experience. And then when you finish a song, what happens? You don't just finish, you sing it again and again and again. And that's like the it keeps on going like a ring and like a song. keeps going round and round which is referring to the infinite part of the soul and that's why he says which basically mel is referring to the idea we make god as our king which happens in um the idea of making god the king is referring to the infinite product of the the essence of now everything that we learned before these three ideas of doing our work and yusha inheritance and the gift it's explained many places in but based in says One second. What are we saying? That toyra is called an inheritance. What does that mean? After you do your work in tora, then you get the inheritance. So what are we saying? That toyra is not an inheritance. Tory is like a by the inheritance part is a byproduct. And those after you learn the you get an inheritance. Why? Because we know that learning to [clears throat] um will cause you to to to do mitzvah. And by doing the transformation we we we receive the sparks of but the fact is that the the the the verse doesn't go out of its literal interpretation. And what does the literal mean is referring to itself that itself is a level of here? We're saying no the first level is do your work learning and then when you do the mitz you elevate the sparks and gives you a gift. But we know terra itself is inheritance. What does that mean? And we know also that kazal tell us that a nonju that learns tyra he's he he has to receive the death penalty. Why? Either because we know there's something which is called gileoy there's a forbidden relationship and the fact is the is is the bond that bonds with hashem that's our marriage contract. So how can you go ahead and learn TRA or because of stealing because the fact is the Torah is an inheritance our inheritance and if and if it's our inheritance so how can you go ahead and and learn TRA and not only that whoever it says that whoever holds back someone from learning Tor is stealing from him and from inheritance that he has so what do we see that terra itself is an inheritance but based on we learned before we said no ter is not an inheritance it only brings to an inheritance so reb can also explain the idea of an inheritance based on this we understand um which is the connection also which the holiday we're coming up to the holiday as we know what happens on everything gets gathered in together what what gets gathered in together the whole month of tishuva yipper sukkot everything gets gathered in onyades And like says it comes all together and we know that also and it's the same idea. Everything we did in what's the difference? One big difference. The way to achieve the connection with is through bitterness. And it's through joy and celebration. And just like when it comes to it says Hashem chose us as an as his inherit as inheritance who as Yakov the Jewish people in other words the fact that Hashem with with freedom of choice chose specifically the Yakov and who did he choose he didn't choose the name Yak is he he choose the ch Yak why is that because it's coming from Yakov represents the simple faith that we have in Hashem and the choosing comes in in physical things and like the tum says as go what is the going to so the tum said what's going it's the bet mikdash so hashem is choosing and the physical part the bas mikdash what's the idea of the bet mikdash the temple that's the idea of making a dwelling place down for hashem here in this physical world and we explain that what gets drawn down on rasha is Look, we're making God our king over us, which is actually the king is higher than the source of mitzvah. And like tell us, except accept my kingdom and then I'll give you mitzvah. And that's what what happens in we're building malus. We're building God as our king. that we we're drawing in from the essence of God, the the God's free choice that he's choosing the Jewish people because the fact is throughout the year there's no thing as a righteous person that will do good and is not going to sin. In other words, what does that mean? There's no righteous person that's not lacking anything in the in in the in the in the commandments of Hashem. And what happens in rash is we draw in from the level of that God becomes king over us. the essence of God which is higher than any revelation and this powerful idea that happens we make God a king over us that comes down in the level of what in the inheritance of and like it's explained in based on what it says in the the classical works of that when someone inherits you're standing in the place of the person that's giving you inheritance so what does it that you're you're actually drawing down the way it's connected in the infinite part of so is explaining over here. So till now we learned that's a after you learn you learn to and then you get the you do the mitzvah and then that's an inheritance. So no no toyra itself is an inheritance because tora is is goes much higher. It's the essence of and we inherit the itself just like we we make god a king over us. We draw down the to us. What does that mean? throughout the year what comes down to is only array and like it says clearly and we know is only is only a however then what happens is it's the Jewish people and hem just were just one and like what it says Hashem says let's have a private party me and you in other words because ones we don't have the people that love us and we don't have the friends. The only one that's existing is God and the people who love himself which is basically you there's no one else there. It's just us and Hashem and that's the real inheritance that the essence of our soul which is sourced in the essence of Hashem. We take the essence of the Torah. So in teras we're connecting to the essence our soul with the essence of hem with the essence of and then you have the powerful three link of the Jewish people and become all one and this comes down to who to just like it says going also and that's why the mitzvah of the day of is basically by being happy. being happy. How literally physically dancing with our external organs not by sitting and meditating and discussing and learning are the level and that's called that's the level of Israel li we have a head and because when it comes to the head there's different levels there's the the wiser people there's the simple people there's the wood choppers the water carriers but no the heel and for the level of everybody's equal just like when it says we're standing all together literally all as one and that's why he says may Russia inheritance heal us because when we do the work of Jac specifically the heel of our feet and that we're all equal and we gather it all together means everyone gets gathered together and how how do we gather together from the essence of our soul and all the Jewish people are happy in in the fact that we have the Tory in the essence of the Torah that creates the real inheritance because we take the entra not based on we we comprehend it we take the Torah as an inheritance. It means we bring down the essence of the Torah. And from here we have the second insight into that we become one with the person that's inheriting and like it says very the Jewish people were all one and this comes down specifically like the says what is the idea of comes from from fat good that basically ones it's the shamunius it's the best part of from all the revelations of the month of tish says is is that's that's the best part the fattiest part and from doesn't stay there we we receive enough to bring it throughout the whole year that we should have a year of joy with learning to without anything stopping us from learning to and like the Rama writes invo that's what all the wise pe people what did they pray for they prayed for mashia to come wise they can learn to in peace and in calm with nothing bothering us up to the point we're going to have the ultimate goal. The whole world will fill with the knowledge of God just like water covers all covers covers o over everything and the whole world will have that knowledge of Hashem. So here we have a beautiful class in honor of general idea of that we have the power and this yam to connect our soul with hashem with the essence of the yush of and by connecting to that we will bring down the greatest blessings for ourselves to be connected to hashem through that will last us a whole year and we'll have a beautiful life of and let's hope and pray that we have the coming of msiah Her next class will be in your have a great week and we should all have the we need for for to to celebrate the Torah and to celebrate throughout the whole year the tremendous gift that God gives us of the Torah.