First clean up yr act than experience true bliss - Igeres haTeshuva 10a - Rabbi Chaim Dalfin

so good good day we're learninga the third section in Tanya we're on page we're on page sadic T which is the Hebrew 499 but actually it's across the numer numerical page 196 pedicute chapter 10 the alter until here has explained to us that the second idea of chuva which is the higher level called chuva the upper the superal level of chuva of returning to God is accessed through the study of Torah with love and fear for God this is what this is what we learned in chapter 8 and continuing in chapter nine yesterday and the Al said for that reason one has to should double their efforts when it comes to certain transgressions that they know they did you learn twice as much t with love and fear for God because you need to strengthen the knot that was torn was severed uh on the Rope as the verse uses that analogy for the bond between a Jew and God so when you sever a rope uh Moshe then you need to tie it back together and just making one regular knot won't do it you need two let's continue now is this CH Theus which consists of the cleaving the stus is the Aramaic word for cleaving D Like Glue the cleaving the connection attachment of spirit to Spirit now that's a lang that's words used in the zes and in particular it refers to you know in in and in in particular it's a reference to not because here you're not talking about just returning to the way that you were before you sinned butu and I want to make this clear is returning to the way your soul was before God breathed it into your into man's nostrils we have to make sure we we understand this means God gave me a soul I already have a soul and now I mess it up I I commit sins right so we say bring it back chuva return it to asem to a position in a way where it's prein but prein does not mean pre-existence you hear that when Hashem puts this into Adam where was the the coming from from God that's pre-existence and it's from pre-existence that he he he he blows it to quote the verse he blows it into the nostrils of Adam of man then there is once you're a man once you're already a creation and you and you do what and you mess and you mess up who you are you have to come back to who you were before as a man that's chuv that's the lower chuva so the lower chuva is and all the details of Chua all the details that we discussed in the beginning ofasa chuva are all accepting the premise that we exist we already have been formed we have a definition or to put it in simple words we are already in a box and my box is not your box is and is your box is not Mo box and Moes is not ABS we all have different boxes so when you need to when we need to clean up our act we need to clean up our box our situation and me cleaning up my box won't help M cleaning up his box because we're different people so that's the that's the basic level of Chua we call it Chua Tata lower chuva more straight forward forward Chua returning to God for your stuff for your issues but now we're in a discussion in chapters 8 n and L 10 about the higher level of chuva the higher level chuva we're looking to go back to our source before we we created the way our soul was in God preo predefinition pre-existence that's Transcendence we're looking to transcend and guess what for that cleaning up your act doesn't help for that you need to study Torah with the with the level with love and fear for God you have to connect to something that completely transcend transcends The Human Experience that is why the antidote for Chua law the higher Chua is not cleaning up your act because then you still remain a creature and a who's defined and limited we're looking to become the way we were pre creation we were Limitless because we came from God our souls came from God and Hashem is Limitless or better said Hashem is Transcendental this is what we're going to learn now in this chapter and how we attain that but to sum up the words that denote this concept the Z the holy zor quotes uses the words is is the cleaving of the spirit be in the spirit What Spirit are we talking about the cleaving of our soul as it is already a creation within the spirit of God as God is before creation and our soul Camp comes from there and we cleave to that how do we do that it's specifically is through the study of and a certain selfless kind of benevolent acts called [Music] who says the this experience you cannot generate Masha mute yourself please this experience you cannot create you can just be a benefactor how by preparing yourself that's why says here AB it is a level of of the drawing down from above to below so that the words of God should be in your mouth as it says I will place my words of in your mouth he will place the ti in our mouth and this gets to the idea the difference between and we need to talk about this for a minute between prayer and T study prayer is generated by the heart the Raam writes when you have a need pray to God say God help me when you want to thank God for the good things God I thank you my mother blessed memory would sometimes say God I thank you for the food guess what biblically she did she thank God she did the benching in her own few words okay now I know that the first BR of Bening is the and the other blessings of the grace after meals are Rabbi I'm not going into that discussion but surely when it comes to asking God help me with this or help me with that right right that surely the ramb writes is bibl IAL is the mitvah the biblical Commandment that is fulfilled for prayer to pray you don't need a sinner to pray you get it you don't it's nice to have a sinner this morning I was in SCH and I said out loud a verse and and the and the gab the whole sh says is he stops me is that the word I said yeah and he says well I thought it's this way I said I I guess that's why I use a text cuz by in the it's different than with one word I forget the I forget which word now the point being all of that are semantics important but it's it's that pray pray to Hashem and what if you don't have a sitter you're out in New Mexico on in a desert and and you have to die and it's time to to do Min and you don't know the afternoon prayer by heart what do you do you say God it's I'm thanking you it's the afternoon I'm thanking you for for giving such a wonderful afternoon and then you make your requests so prayer is generated by the heart that's the whole idea of prayer especially coming up of now with the high holy days a lot of praying pray pray pray pray pray read read read read take your time it's not a game name it's not a race and if you don't say everything but you say a little bit with kavana you've done better and I'm not the one saying it the code of Jewish law the K says it the concise edition of the code of Jewish law says it's better to pray a little with with intent and focus and concentration than to pray much with just saying words so remember that when you sit in Shool over there don't worry about the minions flying you have your your moer your special Yer uh prayer book you have a translation cuz a lot of hard words you don't know we don't know look at the translation I use I try to get every ker an English Mo in addition to my Hebrew so I can learn more words because there are many words I'm not familiar with and I've been daving you know all my life okay so it's not you know it's not a game I want to pray I want to feel I want to connect prayers all from the heart we generate what about Torah study Torah study God gives a Torah here Genesis Exodus Leviticus B sh here here is here's a gift use your brains study it the Torah doesn't change whether we understand or we don't understand the t is there you want to be smart you want to you want to you want to then learn and study and figure out how to understand this Tyra so the the whole idea of is what we call from above to below is just the opposite coming up from me I generate the feeling I'm below causing the prayers to ascend on high back to the text over here says that this Torah study that is the exper experience of is given to us by God the Creator now surely if we don't prepare ourselves and we haven't wiped away our sins and transgressions and improved ourselves VAV the lower level of Chu we're not getting CH I want to make that clear this level of Chu the higher level of chuva you only Merit and experience when you've already done the basic rudimentary idea of chuv once you've done chuv and you've excelled in chuv and you've improved your ways then you can appreciate the experience that takes place when you study Torah now I want to say also doesn't mean you shouldn't study T while you're still involved in the lower level of Chua we do that every day we're doing chuv we're working at CH and at the same time we're supposed to learn Torah I understand but we're talking about reaching the peak Zenith experience of Torah which is called that only comes after you've completely excelled in TR in in one particular area want to make that clear too in other words if you excel in one area in chuv and not in other areas for that one particular area you're a candidate for Chu what if in other areas of my life I'm still struggling with chv the lower level cleaning up my act in those areas you're not a you're not a candidate for True VW but in in the area that you excelled you are a candidate let's continue inside the verse says and God's right more and and morally speaking God's right hand Embraces me like a hug through acts of kindness and benevolence it says in that the right hand of God the right the right hand of God is symbolizes so when we give Moshe when we loan someone money or we help someone with a ride or we slap someone to a faan you're doing Aid you're doing a kindness you're doing an act of and God says I embrace you with my right hand an Embrace is wonderful but it's not like digesting food so that's why he uses the analogy of um of I place the words of Torah into your mouth as though you're eating up Torah it's a digestion that's because when you study Torah you understand it you digest it whereas when you do a Mitzvah in this in particularly this Mitzvah it's wonderful but it's not digesting it's the feeling that's created through helping someone in other words Moshe when you give someone a ride it doesn't mean he knows you any better and you know him any better you've done him a favor a great favor and God says I'll put my right hand around you and I hug you for that it's all true but it's not digestion digestion is through study understanding so that's why since he uses both ideas of Torah study and he uses um he says there for both ideas let's continue but a person below here on Earth must go slowly from level to level From Below to above here he says but man on Earth his experience of true V comes Vis prayer this is so beautiful until now we thought of prayer as the as the recept as the method for says no prayer too is a method for why because you need to begin gradually you cannot begin jumping the gun and going for broke you will fall flat on your face you knowa there's exciting things in life oh I would love the have this I'm going to go for it and and and and there's something to that drive and ambition but if you don't if you don't have if you're not prepared inside you're going to fall you are going to fall and when you fall it hurts it's uncomfortable so Dr says if you want to experience the highest level of of the cleaving and attachment soul to soul Spirit to Spirit to to become one with God the way you were before you were created for that you have to go gradual gradual is through prayer with intent with kavana let's go further and he says especially to have great when you say the and its blessings before and after in the morning and in the evening so that when you say and I and you shall love God your God with with all your hearts all your heart both hearts and the good inclination bad all your soul it should be truthful it's not just be once it says truth of truth it's really the next section of the the second section and these words shall be upon you it says you shall speak in them in the words of so that the words of God are truthfully in your mouth and the ultimate truth is to fulfill all which which we say the text for the blessing is that you have Sanctified us with your mitzvah for example what's this language would you say what do you mean you why why do we say here the word what to be set apart when when we give the when the when the group gives the col the the ring he says you are Sanctified to me what does that mean only to me to no one else you now become you know my domain my property in in a positive way not in God forbid in a negative way but that means you you can't be with anyone else you're mine I own you right so what do we see that the word mikesh is kados doesn't mean doesn't just mean holy it means you're Holy by being separate from everyone else Moshe very important Point here to be holy for a Jew means to be separate to be different it doesn't mean to be better but we're different everyone is nice everyone's good everyone looks the same but the Jewish the Jewish soul that we have it makes us kados holy how does it make it because God chose the Jewish soul to do what he wants of the Jewish people God wants other things from Gentiles seven universal laws Humanity prepping the world making good cell phones Moshe so that you can make good business with Dubai and here and there right hm wants that but Hashem doesn't want of the Gentile in Dubai to put on fill to keep shabas to keep kosher to to to to to you know to to fast on you Kipper no on the contrary if a non-w does that it's wrong they're supposed to be active 365 days a year 7 24/7 in a way that brings the awareness of God more to the world so that's why we say the word that you have holfi us you've made us holy through your Commandments in a way that separates us like from just like the groom when he when he marries when he puts the ring on the kala on the on the bride he now separates her from the rest of the world it belongs to him she belongs to him she cannot the next day go to someone else you're mine says the last line on page please look inside who he this refers to the holy superal Holiness this is this is associated with the term like is said separation and havalah right we make havalah at the end of the Sabbath the end of chabas that means we are separating the holy Sabbath from the weekday the word hav means separation let's go on to the next page page 198 why is this energy separate because it cannot fill and pervade the worlds the world because this experience in this from this perspective from this experience all is is not compared to God the only way we have access to it is what we call in a way that accomplishes hold on hold on