Snowed-In LIVE with Rabbi Shais Taub

Welcome to Welcome to our special uh travel ban snow day state of emergency live stream. This is for all those people who are uh locked down, stuck at home. Can't go out, but you have miracles of modern technology and we are connected through the live stream. Baruch Hashem. Want to welcome everyone from the regular Monday Tanya class. The uh Monday weekly women's Tanya Shiur in the Five Towns. We meet at the Levi Yitzchok Library on Central Avenue. Every week we've been learning for years. We've gone through Tanya a few times. And uh we're in the middle of Perek Mem Aleph, chapter 41 right now. So, I want to welcome primarily the members of that class because really I'm doing this as a uh consolation prize to those people. I I was actually seriously considering having the class. Uh I don't live that far from the library. It's really probably a block away. Um but it's really hard to walk even a block. Uh this morning I went to Chabad for Shacharis. I was actually there for both minyanim for the 6:20 and the 7:30. And just to get to Chabad, which is not even a block away, um yeah, took me took me 10 minutes to push through the knee-high snow. So, I would have also given the the class, the Tanya class today at the library, but um even if I would push through the snow and get there, I don't think anyone else would show up. So, instead I said, "You know what? Let me go live on YouTube." And then people will have it much easier to join and then also other people can join as well, people beyond the regular Tanya Shiur. Anyways, if you're from the regular Tanya Shiur, by the way, just drop a little hello in the in the chat just so I can see that you're here. >> [clears throat] >> That would be nice. You can tell other people to join, also. Okay. Um what are we going to do? I have I have a hard stop at 12:00 Eastern. Actually, I should stop a few minutes before 12:00 Eastern. I have a very interesting interview with German TV. Um a woman from German TV contacted me and asked if we could have a chat about some of the stuff that I'm doing. So, oh, I see in the chat. Thank you, Rabbi. Hello. Okay. Hello. I just see people's um >> [clears throat] >> YouTube usernames, so forgive me if I don't recognize who you are. Okay. Well, when your user you when your YouTube username is Devorah Ro- Rosensweig, then I know who you are. Yes, that's Devorah Rosensweig. Hi. And thank you, uh Devorah Rosensweig, because um yesterday your husband helped helped us make a minyan yesterday at the Solwertz's house. I was in Skokie, Illinois for a Shabbaton um for Shabbos, and I took the 6:00 a.m. flight out of O'Hare. Thank God I got out of there before all the East Coast flights were grounded. I landed at LaGuardia at 9:00 and my son Yisroel picked me up straight from LaGuardia, drove me straight to the Solwertz's house, just a half a block from the Ohel. We had a beautiful little minyan over there. Um and then we learned our weekly Likutei Sichos Shiur. Everyone's invited to that as well. That's we have men and women. We have seating for uh men and women. Sometimes I say there's a women's section, but actually sometimes there's a men's section, meaning to say sometimes there's more women than men and then the women just sit in the main area and the men sit off on the side. But at any rate, uh 10:30's on Sunday at the Solwertz's house, just a half a block from the Ohel, we have a Likutei Sichos Shiur. Okay, so here's what we're going to do. All right, and I'm assuming Lonnie Burger Where is Lonnie Burger? Okay, it's interesting people's Oh, Tanya Weisman. Okay, so it's interesting people's um YouTube usernames. Sometimes they're their actual names, and then sometimes they're like um my virtual AL. Like I don't know what that is. Right? Okay. >> [laughter] >> Okay. Um All right. And anyway, what are we going to do? And like I said, I have a hard stop at um 12:00 cuz I'm speaking to a German reporter. I I told her I don't speak German, but she said it's fine, we can speak in English. Okay. Um we're going to what we're going to do, just for fun, is we're going to learn >> [clears throat] >> the uh Hayom Yom the daily Tanya and the Sefer Hamitzvos. Okay? So, I wish I could share screen, but I'm going to chabad.org daily study. I'll share it in the in the in the um chat. I'm sharing it in the chat right here. We'll you can keep multiple tabs open. Okay? So, sharing it in the chat. Um Oh, Tanya Yala. Okay, very good. See, some people's usernames are their real names. Yeah. Okay, now I recognize their names. Okay. Um let's do Tanya for today. All right. So, this is today's Tanya, if you are following the Hittas, going through the entire Tanya in the course of a year. And I just got a WhatsApp. It's Sippy, I think, saying "I'm on, but can't seem to type hello. LOL." Okay. Glad you got back safe and had a minyan. Baruch Hashem. Yes. Yeah, that's definitely that's that's Sippy. Okay, fine. All right. So, let's do today's Tanya. It's in the middle of Perek Lamed Aleph, chapter 31. And um we're talking about merirus. Uh merirus is bitterness. Like viyamareru es chayeihem, like we say in the Haggadah. Trigger warning, Pesach is in 2 months. Um not even. It's in like 6 weeks. Um bitterness. So, we said that bitterness is not depression. Depression incapacitates you. But bitterness, although it's not joy, uh it is a negative experience, but it's a negative experience that kind of >> [snorts] >> leads to positivity because it it has energy to it. Depression is the opposite of energy. It saps you of energy. It depletes you. But but bitterness can actually spur you on. Okay, so let's do today's Tanya Hittas. Va'achar kach yavi'u lidei simcha mitzvah. Now, after you experience the bitterness, you get frustrated with yourself, but then you emerge from that and you feel true joy. Dehaynu. What does that mean? That this is what you're going to put on your heart, meaning this is what you're going to contemplate, which will give you double comfort after um contemplating what we just said before regarding the the frustration that we feel about being in a body with an animal soul that's making it hard for us to serve Hashem. Okay, leima el libi. Libi. You're going to say to your heart. What does it mean say to your heart? This is a an an internal monologue. This is what you say to yourself. Okay, here's your script. Ready? Here's the script. Emes hu kein bli safek. It is undoubtedly true. She'ani rachok me'At Hashem betachlis hamushkach me'At Hashem chulu. That I am very far from Hashem. And I'm disgusting and abominable. And everyone from 2026 is saying, "Oh, no, don't. You're beating yourself up. Don't speak negative to yourself." It's okay. It's okay. Don't worry about this. Okay? Don't worry. Ach kol zeh hu ani levadi. But all of that, you know what? Maybe I'm going to back up to yesterday just to give more context cuz we have time. I'm going to actually back up to the beginning of Perek Lamed Aleph. I'm going to do yesterday's as well. Okay? It just gives a little bit more context. We have time. We're not rushing. Got at least 20 minutes here. All right. So, I'm I'm going to the beginning I'm going to yesterday's Hittas, the beginning of Perek Lamed Aleph. Vehinei af im kishya rachav el ha'am minyonam ani shkulam el kashosh u'shtayim le'eis bein mechasru ach ve'eilev nishbar yavi'u lidei atzvus gedolah leyo'chush. Even if you'll think about your deficiencies at length and it'll cause you to be very perturbed, uh don't worry about it. Va'af shatzos as him mitzad klipas nogah ve'eilev mitzad kedushah. Even though this like perturbed state is not kedushah, it is rather klipas nogah That's not good. because Because only joy only joy is kedusha. is kedushah. When you're speaking about kedusha, then it's only joy. The Shekinah only dwells amid joy. And also in order to arrive at the right halacha is only through joy. So then why are we saying it's okay to have this little stickle atzvus? But if it's the right type of um upsetness, meaning it's frustration over your spiritual failings, it may not be kedusha, it isn't kedusha. It is klipa, but it's klipa sitra achra. And it's tov shebe sitra achra. Brackets cos shafilu daigas al avinus ein ra ki im besha'as vidui. That's why the Arizal said that even worrying about serious sins should not be done except during the confession prayers, not during the rest of your prayer, not while you're learning Torah, because that has to be done in a state of holiness, which is joy. Nevertheless, there is a special method for subduing negativity with its own kind. Little little like a little homeopathic remedy here. Like like treats like. That's what he's going to say. From it itself comes the the the the the the handle for the axe that fells the tree. And or like a similar thing, he met up with his own kind. He got a taste of his own medicine. V'im masah. Okay, so what does it mean to give negativity a taste of its own medicine? It means to counter negative depression with frustration, merirus, which is not holy, cuz only joy is holiness, but it's not exactly useless, either. It's like sometimes when you're feeling negative emotions, you counter it with a productive version of negative emotions, which is merirus, frustration, bitterness. And as we're going to explain that after this state of frustration, you experience joy. And anyway, says the Alter Rebbe it's not really called atzvus. Atzvus is when your heart is plugged up like a stone. Av merirus, but this is merirus, bitterness. V'lev nishbar, a broken heart. Ad rabba, that's the opposite. How do yesh chayus belibo l'hispollel l'smacheah? Then you have actual life in your heart. The only difference is happiness is from chesed and this merirus is from gevurah, but the heart has both. It has chesed and gevurah. Now, sometimes you have to arouse these holy gevurahs to sweeten the judgments. Like we said, a taste of its own medicine. You use gevurah to treat gevurah. The negative gevurah is the depression, but the the positive gevurah is the frustration. So you use the the gevurah itself to to to treat itself. Because dinim, which means harsh judgments, which is a product of gevurah, can only be sweetened in their source. Meaning you have to take it back to its own source. And that's why our sages say you should always incite your yetzer tov to rage against your yetzer hara anytime that you need to. The best time for it is when when you're when you're anyways upset over material matters or when you're stam as I just for no reason, randomly, you're upset. Then he what you should do is be a master of accounts. That means to take a very fearless thorough moral inventory. What happens is you get frustrated over your your negative spiritual state and that alleviates your depression over your lacking in your material state. Okay, so that was yesterday. Now, let's go to today. Going to today. Okay. Oh, there's the person who always says always trust the beard. So Renewstruck, I have a question for you. You always comment always trust the beard on all my videos. So my question is I'm saying this not to be funny. I'm saying this completely seriously. Um first of all, do you write that on anyone else's videos? Because there's a lot of rabbis with beards who put out content. So I just want to know, do you only write it on mine or do you write it on all content of rabbis that you like to watch who have beards? So that's my first question. My second question is is it a form of I don't know what it's called in the written form, but like if you do it verbally, it's called echolalia, which means like there's a certain thing you like to say and you just say it a lot. You don't even like to say it, you just end up saying it. Um there's certain phrases that I walk around the house saying. You can ask my kids, they all know the certain phrases I say. Some of them are nonsensical and they're certainly often non sequiturs because they're out of context. They just say them a lot, kind of like almost a reflex. I'm just wondering, is the always trust the beard like sort of like a written echolalia? Okay. Uh Yureh De'ah Letzeis Chulia is also Pesach. >> [snorts] >> Uh Tomorrow, what is this? Yitzy7505, maybe? Happy morning from Southern California. Hi. Okay. Thank you, Rabbi, for hospital help. What hospital help? Did I help somebody in the hospital? I can't remember that. Oh my goodness. Okay, that So anyways, we have the context now. Let's do today's Tanya Chitas. Up I'm going to put in the link in again for the for the the daily study. Put it right in the chat. All right. Uh yeah. All right. There. All right. So now let's do today's. Um Okay, so we said before what are we going to do? We're going to say our little internal script. This is our monologue that we're going to say to ourselves. Quote, I'm speaking to myself right now. It is undoubtedly true. I am so far from Hashem and I am disgusting and I am abominable. Ah, however, however, kol zeh hu ani l'vadi. All of that, that's just me. Just my body and its animating soul. But nevertheless, yesh be kirbi chelek Hashem mamash, there is a portion of God in me. And what is that portion of God? It is the godly spark that is in every Jew, even the lowest ones. And it is enlivened it is in it is it is the godly spark that is invested within me to enliven me, to give me life, but it is in a state of exile, meaning it's not in control, cuz it's caught up inside of the body and the animating soul. And [snorts] if this is the case, and it is the case, ad rabba, to the contrary, the more abominable and lowly and disgusting I am, that means that my beautiful, sweet, awesome godly soul is even more in a worse state of exile. And it's even a greater rachmanus. You understand? First I'm starting off and I'm like, oh, heartbroken. Oh my gosh, I'm so abominable. But hold on, that's just me. Meaning my my my body, my animal soul, which I call it me because that's what I relate to, right? But inside of me, the real real me, is the godly soul and it is experiencing a a condition of galus, of exile. And so the worst state I'm in physically, you know, being drawn after my my temptations and desires and distractions of this world, then the greater the rachmanus I have to have, the greater the compassion, the pity, the mercy that we have to have for this pure, sweet little godly soul who's trapped in this whole situation. Okay, rachmanus al ach gadol me'od. >> [snorts] >> and therefore I will devote my entire being my whole life to this lady Sia to take her out. Who's her? Little pure little princess, the godly soul. La'aleisa and to bring her out to elevate her migalut zeh from this state of exile la'ashiva el beis aviha k'neura'ah and to bring her back to her father's palace as in her youth. Isn't this a beautiful little parable? This little princess, she's trapped in this yucky swamp. I don't know if it's a swamp, but in a yucky situation and I'm going to bring her back to her father's palace just as she was before she was invested in my body. She I said that over there she was she was subsumed within the light of Hashem. She was one with him in the ultimate sense. The gam but even now I can make that be again. I can make her again be absorbed within Hashem and united with Hashem. How? How can I do it? Pray tell. When I exert my entire being toward Torah and mitzvahs when I apply all of my 10 soul powers into Torah and mitzvahs but mitzvahs too especially the mitzvah of prayer to cry out to God but when I cry out to Hashem specifically over the pain that I feel on behalf of my pure little godly soul being tortured in galus la'atzi'ah to bring her out of her imprisonment to cleave to Hashem. That's what I'm going to say. That's my little monologue, my soliloquy. And this is teshuvah u'ma'asim tovim. Teshuvah u'ma'asim tovim is a common of our sages. Teshuvah return, u'ma'asim tovim good deeds. But listen how the Alter Rebbe explains it teshuvah u'ma'asim tovim that u'ma'asim tovim are teshuvah. When you do good deeds you're doing teshuvah meaning you're returning. Teshuvah means return. So by doing good deeds you're returning the princess to her castle, to her father's home. That means you do good deeds to return the portion of God within you to its source. Beautiful. Want to check in with the chat see how everyone's doing. Um I missed my yesterday so I'm glad I got to hear you go over that first. Blessings from Chaim in Highland Park. Oh great. You know I was in Highland Park uh a little less than two months ago for uh first couple days of shiva for my mother. Abominable snowman today. Yeah. Sasquatch, abominable snowman. You know about my brother David and I went to the cryptozoology museum in Venice, California probably about 30 years ago. Close to 30 years ago. Anyways, we went there and we asked the curator we said um have you ever seen the Yeti? Has anyone ever seen the Yeti? And he said the Yeti has Yeti to be discovered. Okay. Let's continue here. Okay, I'm going to pull up the where is it? I'm just grabbing the >> [snorts] >> the link. Okay, I'm pasting it into the chat. All right, let's go take a look at the Hayom Yom. Hayom Yom Vov Adar Rishon. We're going to do the Hayom Yom for the Adar Rishon and Adar Beis even though this year there's only one Adar. Hayom Yom Vov Adar Rishon. Sichos Adoneinu Ovi Melech Ha'olam. The sichos of my father. This is the Frierdiker Rebbe speaking about his father meaning the Rebbe Rashab. >> [clears throat] >> It is a magnificent gift of Hashem to merit that a person merits an innate sense, a feel for doing kindness to another to derive pleasure from it. Until the other becomes more precious to him than himself. Because for himself he could find excuses why not necessarily does he deserve everything good. Like for yourself yeah, you know what? It's a kaparah, it's an atonement. I know I'm not perfect, you know I I I'm certainly not entitled to to I know my deficiencies. But for the other person he cannot possibly find any excuses why the other should have to suffer. For me, for my suffering I could always find reasons why. Okay, yeah I get it, you know I don't want to suffer but I get it why I have to go through this. But for somebody else no no no no can never come up with a explanation for it. It's a tragedy, it's a travesty. That has to be the attitude. You understand? I can always look at myself and see how I'm coming up short and then sort of make peace with the difficulties in my life in that context. But I can never look into somebody else's moral inventory and see how they're coming up short and therefore they don't deserve everything good. No, God forbid we don't do that. Never never never. Okay. Um Vov Adar Sheini. Hayom Yom for Vov Adar Sheini. Mekubal etzel ziknei Anash it is accepted, a tradition among the elders of the Chassidic brotherhood that what? A little history here. Tanya is a compilation essentially of conversations that were had in yechidus in one-on-one audiences between the Alter Rebbe and the Chassidim in the years um 1780 through 1790. Then a couple years later in the summer of 1792 the Alter Rebbe started to arrange these conversations into the form of Tanya that we as we know it today. And then the following year, 1793 uh there were already many many versions like copies of Tanya. Handwritten manuscripts. This is before the printing. But then there were falsified corruptions some some unintentional some intentional. Um Yeah, there were counterfeit versions of Tanya. My time for that very reason that's why the Alter Rebbe handed over to be printed at have a an official printing of it. There's another version of this history that the Alter Rebbe spent 20 years writing or compiling Tanya and he was precise in every single letter, word. Shnas Hey Adar Rishon was refined by Shnas Hey 1795 it was already refined, the text was already refined. Then he gave permission to copy it. But then when there were corruptions of the text that's when he gave it over to be printed. The Tzemach Tzedek said in the first Rosh Hashanah of his life meaning when he was a baby the Alter Rebbe said a ma'amar it starts with the words uh mashpi'a tzedek which we all know is from the first line of Tanya. shall Seder Tanya and that ma'amar was the basis for the first three chapters of Tanya. Okay. And let me just go look in the chat see if I'm missing anything. Uh Uh, boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, boo boo boo boo, boo, boo, boo, boo, Yeah, oh, warm regards from the Holy Land. Thank you. Mhm. Can you tell us a story? I don't have time. I we're in a I have to go on a German TV in like 3 minutes. I'm going to be interviewed by German television. Um, so I'm going to do now the Rambam safer mitzvahs and then we're going to be done. I'm sorry. We could do this again later. Maybe we'll do it again later today. I'm going to put it in the chat. Hi from the Chicago burbs. Hi, which burb are you from? All right, let's do the safer mitzvahs. Um, yeah. A mitzvah, I see this the 10th mitzvah the commandment we were commanded that means a positive commandment. Lekri krishma bakhol yam. Arvit v'shacharit, to recite the shma every day, twice a day indeed. Night and morning. Like it says when you lie down and when you get up. A mitzvah chamishis, the fifth mitzvah. You're going to say why are you going jumping around? The 10th and the fifth cuz we're not going in order of how it's written in safer mitzvahs. We're going in order of which mitzvahs correspond to the halachas that are being studied in the three chapters a day of Mishneh Torah. And right now in Mishneh Torah, three chapters a day of Mishneh Torah, we just started Hilchos Keriat Shema, the laws of Shema. Okay. Um, a mitzvah chamishis. La'avdei Yisrael, the mitzvah to serve Hashem. Va'avadetem es Hashem Elokeichem, you should serve the Lord your God. What does it mean to serve him? Means a lot of things, but says the Rambam, Harei yesh ba'yichud ki hu tzivah al tefillah. Specifically it's talking about davening. It's a mitzvah to daven. La'avdei zu tefillah, to serve Hashem that means to uh, to daven. Okay. Those are the mitzvahs today. Please livestream Tanya weekly. Um, maybe. Maybe. Maybe we will. Were you the one who called the Igros the Tanya of the Rebbe? I mentioned that the Igros are the Tanya of the Rebbe. I'm not the one who made that up. Uh, Shalom Ber Levin, the one who compiled the Igros, works in the library and he compiled the Igros. He said that and then actually the Rebbe told him to include it in the introduction to I think it was volume 11 of Igros. So it is it's not me that made that up. But yeah, it is a thing. The the Igros is like the Alter like the Alter Rebbe's Yechidus is on paper is through Tanya, so too the Rebbe through the Igros. Okay, I got to jump because like I said, I got this appointment. This lady from Germany. I forgot which city she's from, but anyways, I got to go to that. It's been amazing. It's been so fun. Got to do it again. Yeah, if we're snowed in, I'll go I'll go live again. Maybe I'll go live again later today.