Trump Third Assassination Attempt and the Connection to Emor and Lag Bomer

Okay, so welcome everyone. Uh I'd like to dedicate this year today to a lovely young lady named Nessia, age 11 years old, who was tragically killed by the shrapnel from an Iranian missile sent all the way to Bnei Brak, Israel. And she finally succumbed to her wounds that were several weeks old. And I want to dedicate this year, L'ilui Nishmat her, her name Nessia means flag of Hashem, a sign of Hashem, okay? Literally a sign. And uh and I want to turn that into the theme of the recording. Uh as we shall see, this is a eighth very important shiur because we're going to go through some incredible concepts related to um the deep mystery of Lag BaOmer and its connection to the centrality to this month of Iyar that we have been discussing as a time of global importance for the Jewish people. I'm going to launch in by the first observation question. We saw the third um attempt on President Trump's life this week in the month of Iyar. There was this apparently very, very highly educated young man, uh which raises the question why someone that highly educated with so much opportunity would literally forfeit his life by and be willing to murder hundreds of people as he said in his um manifesto, uh in order to uh destroy President Trump's life. I don't um think that this is an incident that is random. It is now the third time that it's happened. In Jewish law, that's called a hazakah by all means. So, the question First question number one is what is going on? What is Hashem bringing this to our attention? The entire world, the entire world saw this event, literally. Billions of people. And that means that there's some impact to it. It's global. It's something important, some lesson that we need to pull away. And I like to look at it in the context of other things that are going on, uh both here in Israel and throughout the Jewish world, and most importantly, in our Torah, in our current Torah reading, and the in the magnificent uh literature about the key figure in La- in Lag B'Omer, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, writer of the Zohar. And what the Zohar has to do with the progress of the Jewish people forward, which is symbolized in the month of Iyar, as we had explained in previous shiurim. Uh where does Lag B'Omer fit into that picture? And the the uh the So, we're going to repeat the question. The question is this was a global event, the third attempt, which we mentioned is a concept of hazakah. In Jewish law, that means something that is literally a reality that must be reckoned with. Okay? That means if he's already been uh attacked three times, then this is a reality in the world. In other words, it could happen logically any number of times in the future because it's already manifested itself three times. Let me explain that that concept first. The idea of a hazaka as it appears in in Jewish law has two primary applications. Okay? The first application is the idea Hold on. Is the idea that's comes from the Torah itself. The Torah tells us the story of Yehuda and Tamar. Again, a story about the evolution of Mashiach. How does What happened in the story of Yehuda and his marriage? So, we know that after the sale of Yosef, after that bitter moment of ultimate sinat chinam, which ironically is what this period of the Sefirah is all about, the correction of unjustified or even justified hatred between brothers, and the fact that Yehuda advised his brothers to sell Yosef to captivity in Egypt was the beginning of the entire episode of the of the Egyptian exile, which is the really the paradigm of all Jewish exiles throughout history. So, so the the point is that that Yosef Yehuda went through a yerida. He went through a how should I say, they dispossessed him of his power. And then he he got married and produced three children, Er, Onan, and Shelah. And those names might be somewhat familiar to you. And they and his oldest son, Er, married a beautiful woman named Tamar. Tamar ironically is again resurfaces in the family of David and Melech. Number of places the name Tamar appears, but here it appears. And this is this woman who marries Yehudah's son. And Yehudah's son is so enamored of her, he doesn't want to have children with her. He doesn't want to relegate her to a life of of child-rearing. He wants her as a loving companion. Such was his love for her. So, he planned not to have children. Um the term onanism, by the way, comes from here, which means wasting of the seed. He did what they wasted seed because they didn't want her to They didn't want to lose her companionship, her company, her beauty. They didn't want to tax her with the rigors or or or or how shall I say, dangers of bearing children. And uh they each died. That means this woman's husbands, through no fault of her own, um both passed away. Now, the question came about marrying the third son because there was a tradition, a proto what we call proto levirate marriage. It wasn't yet levirate marriage, and it wasn't following the exact rules of levirate marriage, but it existed even in the pre-Sinai times. It was observed by the Avos, and really by by all rights, the right thing to do, uh Yehudah had determined would be to give her to his third son, uh Shelah. But there was a problem. Yehudah was afraid. He felt it was sakanas nefashos. It was a risk of life and death. So, hence came a principle in Halacha, uh a very tragic one, a very difficult one to consume, but again, its source is from the Torah itself, that if a woman's husbands If a woman marries two men and they both die, question is whether a third person should seek to marry her or to allow her to live her days, um outside the institution of marriage. So, the Halacha is, as brought in Shulchan Aruch, that we learn from Yehuda, that no, it's considered a secret nefesh. We are concerned that even two establishes a pattern, but three certainly establishes a pattern known as a chazaka, and therefore, the halacha is should not marry her, but if she met Of course, if a person wouldn't marry her, the marriage would stand. It's not invalidated, it's just a halachic injunction because we are concerned that there may be some, how should I say, reasons behind the disappearance of the of her first two husbands. Uh perhaps through no fault of her own, but that's her mazel, let's say, and therefore, um it's not kedai to test it. The other frame of chazaka in monetary cases is really the full three, like President Trump's third attempt here. And three means that is a significant, we say, um as as Chazal tell as it says in Tanakh, chut hamshulash b'meheira lo yinatek. The wise old man, King Solomon, said, "A threefold rope is not easily broken." Meaning, it's established a pattern, it's it's established a reality in the world, and now, sadly, you might think of it this way, every meshugana who wants to make a name for themselves um will say, "Well, if it already happened three times and they failed, maybe I'll get it right this time." So, it's like open season on President Trump. Why? Because it's not unheard of, it's not verboten. Adaraba, just the opposite. Everybody's doing it, so I'll do it, too. So, creates a a situation where the most twisted of our mi- of of minds out there, even the most brilliant as this past fellow was, um might might assume some sort of um thinking that he's the savior of the world, and he's going to save the world from from evil, or whatever his opinions are, and take that on. Three times is a hazakah in monetary, only two is already a hazakah in life and death. So, Trump has passed that. Trump has passed into a higher zone of hazakah. I'll give you an example of what a hazakah is. If a person uh is living on a property and they have a claim that the property is theirs. They say if they they claim they bought it or they were given it as a gift. All right? And they're living on that property for three consecutive years. And no one bothers them. No one takes them to court. And then all of a sudden someone appears and said "Hey, I'm a long-lost son of the person who's who's sold you that property. Uh you know, and it was and um Excuse me. Um the long-lost son and you just took my father's property from me. I'm the proper inheritor." And so, after 3 years the point is is that you you um you would have to bring we we assume that that person has a legit claim in order to it doesn't have to exit the field automatically. He He can stay there until it's proven otherwise. Uh until it's proven otherwise. Why? Because it's already been quite established that this is his uh that this is his residence because truthfully um he's been there for quite a while. And as long as he has a legitimate uh excuse for being there then we allow him to stay and the burden of proof will go on the other person to prove otherwise. So, that's 3 years for um for a homestead. For a fertile field that you're growing things on um that might be as little as three harvests. For example, uh orchards, uh olive trees, the mission that gives the example in Bava Metzia. You pick three crops and already that's considered a hazakah and it and it may not be three calendar years of 36 months. It might be as little as 18 or 14 months based on Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Akiva's debate in that Mishnah in Bava Metzia. So, so Trump is in trouble and and we have to understand what what what is this? What what why would it be that the most powerful man in the world, President of the United States, doesn't have seemingly an aura of protection around him, an aura of decency and respect or shall we say fear? There and more importantly, the the virulent hatred there's such virulent hatred surrounding this man. What's it all about? The two most hated figures in the world today, without question, without question, um are Bibi Netanyahu, the leader of Israel, President Trump, the leader of America, and their partnership uh specifically. Those are the the In In that's something that needs an explanation because it's just not logical, okay? They're they're not that insidious. Why is the world consider them as if it was Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin combined? It doesn't make sense, okay? So, I want to understand this. I'm going to widen out our conversation about the month of Iyar. We had said previously, based on the Midrash Rabbah, that the day that the Jewish people uh donated their money for the first and were counted for the first day of Iyar in the second year of the of the um Exodus from Egypt was the day the Jewish people rose to prominence. They locked in to the structure of the Mishkan, which is a recreation of Sinai, but also a future model of the third temple, of the first and second and third temple for that matter, and the place where the divine presence could descend into the world, Hashem's corner of the world, which would then spread outwards and and uh be a nes ya, be a flag of Hashem to the world. And they contributed their coins, their half-shekel coins to to to pay for the daily sacrifices, and therefore they became part of the Shekinah structure. Now that they're part, they're ready to do the next thing, which is completely mobilized, which is why they were counted, and go to their place of highly effective destiny, which is the land of Israel. Cuz out of the land of Israel, when you connect the Jewish people, the land of Israel, the divine presence through the giving of the Torah and divine protection, prayer and service, that's the power which will ignite the world. There is nothing more being more resisted in the world today than that reality. The return of Jewish people to their homeland has been incredibly resisted, denied, um subject to every um hatred and accusation, and it's only getting worse. Uh and that's like with the land of Israel, let alone Jerusalem, and let alone the Temple Mount. And let alone on the Temple Mount to build a synagogue, and let alone on the Temple Mount to build the third temple. This is the ultimate ultimate uh item that's being resisted. So, we need to understand uh that that that's what's at stake here, and that's what is going to happen, but the question is at what cost, at what price, at what level of suffering? So, if we know that ER is that time, one of the most powerful days of the month of ER is coming up next week, a week from today, which is Lag B'Omer, the 33rd day of the Omer, which is commonly associated as the Yahrtzeit of the great Tannaic figure, student of Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, author of the holy Zohar. Now, he's he is a figure was one of the five primary talmidim of Rabbi Akiva. He's buried in Meron, Israel. That's in the north, not far from the holy city of Tzfat. He and his son, who as the Talmud reports in Shabbos 33, ironically Lag B'Omer on page 33 in the Talmud Shabbos, that they, of course, were were fleeing Roman persecution, who didn't want Torah, Torah, who didn't want opposition to their brutal repression of Judaism in general. And and they hid in a cave and they studied and and they and they were granted the wisdom of the deepest and most deepest insights of the Torah, what I would call the 48th level of Torah knowledge. Cuz Torah can be studied on a very surface level. We know that there are four dimensions to Torah. P'shat, Remez, Drash, and Sod. P'shat is the simple P'shat is the meaning of the text. Remez is hidden references in the text. Drash is how you draw out of the text various halachos, laws, teachings, messages, Kabbalistic wisdom. And then Sod is the real deep dive into the Kabbalistic wisdom, the inner workings of the world, how we get to understand what Hashem is all about, and how we operates this world, which is not blatantly open in the text of the Torah itself. We see We see various parts of it revealed in in the prophets. For example, Ezekiel's vision of the divine chariot. These are things that when focused on on a deeper level, we have an oral tradition very very slowly and meticulously disseminated to very few people who were holding on that advanced advanced level of Torah. Every Jew needs to read the scriptures. Every Jew needs to recite Shema twice a day. I'm talking about the men are obligated to pray. The women of course obligated to pray once a day. Um and and therefore that's the starters level. You should know and you need to know the mission which is the oral law and then the dress shows of how they how they how they both evolved but also the context and and then beyond that there's this which they say you're not even supposed to study. There are guidelines maybe till you're 40 years old, maybe till you've gained wisdom, maybe from a master who who guide you with subtle hints and not anything open. It's very very hidden. I'm going to call it the 48th level of wisdom cuz most of achieved the 49th level of wisdom. Nobody who's alive and who knows maybe will reach the full knowledge of Torah represented by the number 50 which is of course what we what it represents the count between and the giving of the Torah. We reach the 50th day. We don't count anymore day 50 because that's reaching the end of the line. 49 is about as far as a human being could ever go and has ever gone and that was most of them. So let's look at this on a deeper level. The most important point here is that added by reaching the 48th level was that he was able to capture he was the first person in history who was able to capture the Zohar the hidden teachings of the Torah and commit them to a verbal format. They were later written down by his student Rabbi Abba and he was commanded to do so and then passed down generations to generation and I'm not going through the history of the Zohar today. That's not what my focus is. But the funny thing about it and about Lag BaOmer is that it does become the centerpiece of a national holiday that has a deep mystical significance that many people fail to appreciate. So the importance of the day is not a day, you know, if you open my door outside to Beit Shean, you will see massive wooden bonfires already ready for the day where they're going to light them. Uh which is associated with the fire that was experienced on the day that Shimon bar Yochai's passing, which was on originally as we say on Lag BaOmer. Um and um this these fires have a symbolism of the or the inner dimensional light of Torah. Why what what's going on? Why is this an important thing for Shimon bar Yochai and Lag BaOmer? Why is it important to us so important to us today? Okay. Particularly at this time of year in Iyar. So we said Iyar is the rise of Judaism of Jews to greatness. It's the ultimate day in which we will separate between good and evil in the world. The assassinations attempts on on Trump are as because there's a bill board. There's a tremendous mix-up on identifying what is good and what is evil. In fact, there was an interview with Trump where this this brilliant person, a Caltech scientist, that I understand became enraged with Trump because he believed accusations that he was a rapist, a pedophile, this every bad thing in the world, every ultimate evil. And he got therefore he said this evil has to be destroyed." It was a complete mix-up. Okay? When people are are are are are lauding things which are inherently evil, for example, those who want to wear uh you know, want to support uh terrorist groups and help them achieve their goals to eradicate Israel, to destroy Israel, to destroy the representatives of Israel, to destroy the Jewish people, to cast us as evil, those things are a distortion of tov ra. Now, remember that in Gan Eden, in the beginning of creation, there were two trees that the Torah describes. The tree of good and evil, etz hada'at tov v'ra, of which Adam and Hava, Adam Eve and the and the nachash, the primordial snake, partook of or were involved with, and then comes the etz hachaim, another tree called the tree of life. The tree of life is associated more with Torah. As we say, etz chaim hi l'amachazikim bah. The wisdom and knowledge, the light of Torah is the or chaim, is the is the Actually, it's the source of life. Um and one might even argue on a simple biological level. We all know that the brain has electro uh electric activity. When you measure whether a person's alive or dead, one of the things that they look for are brain waves, which are essentially electrical impulses that send messages from the brain to various parts of the body. Somehow, through the miracles of God, it tells us to do this, to put the thumb up or a thumb down, or hold your hands like this, or speak, or select words. Impossible to truly understand the greatness of this. But the fact is that those electric impulses, that light is life. That is life. Uh first thing Hashem created, vayehi or. Without that light uh energy, there is not there is no world. And uh and and light has very unusual rules to it that we're still trying to understand. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. No one understands why. Maybe in certain conditions they're trying to find it. But it's been a principle of physics as long as we as up until this very day that if you try to travel faster than the speed of light you will slow down to just below the speed of light. And that says God's imprint. That's the nest. Yeah, that's a a sign that Hashem is pointing himself out into the world. This is by the way magnified by the findings of the new telescope which is finding things that are flipping um our our knowledge of the heavens into complete disarray. All the assumptions and calculations are being challenged by new data, new information regarding the age of the stars, age of universe, the speed of the universe expansion just came under that was a constant was considered a constant by by the greatest physicists of the last of the last of the 19th century, of the 20th century. And all of a sudden now in the 21st century they're questioning what was known as the Hubble constant. How fast the universe is expanding. They said it was 67 something billion light years per second. No, no more. Depends on this, it depends on that. Gravity, magnetism, electromagnetism, nuclear power. All these things which this this third attempt at assassin really was very highly involved in and he still could not distinguish between good and evil. Okay? So or relates not only to the concept of good and evil, but it goes even further. It goes beyond that into the realm of the divine. So what I want to what I want to suggest here is as follows. ER is the time of clarity of good and evil. We understand that even the students of Rabbi Akiva, because they these these elite scholars, high-level people, brilliant brilliant repositories of Torah, expositors of Torah, they had a problem that they didn't see the other person next to them as necessarily fully good. They couldn't They They They spotted the evil in the other person. And this was their tragic mistake that they didn't honor each other, whatever their cause was, and it caused the death of 24,000 students. So, now I want to explain something to you. And it's a incredible secret about the 24,000 and about the the the numbers associated with Lag BaOmer, which happens to be the 48th day, okay? It's the 48th day since the beginning of the previous month of miracles, Nissan. So, if you take Nissan's 30 days and 18 days of Iyar, which is what it is, the 18th day of Iyar, it will total 48 days. Says the Chasam Sofer, brilliant um Romanian Hungarian uh scholar from the uh previous centuries, 18th century actually, that he he said the future temple, the one that's associated with the tree of life, not the one that's associated with the tree of good and evil, which we are suffering through the final throes of sorting out what's good and evil in the world, which people are so struggling with, so struggling with. And we say about Torah, "Ki lekach tov nasati lachem, Torati al tazovu." The tree of life is the remedy for the tree of good and evil. In the context of both, when one is trying to master being good and uses the tree of life, i.e. um the Torah itself, then you can sort through what is good and evil. They have to work together. Ironically, if you remember the first murder and the greatest attack on Jews especially in the synagogue in United States history occurred at a synagogue that was called the Tree of Life, interestingly enough. 11 Jews 11 Jews murdered there, okay? And that was in a in a highly Jewish neighborhood called Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh, one of the most Jewish places in the entire United States. And as uh the Hatam Sofer revealed an incredible thing. He said, "See those 48 days? They represent the date of the ultimate resolution of the good and evil in the world with the rebuilding of the third temple in Jerusalem. It'll be built and I guess dedicated on Lag BaOmer. Why? Cuz he says as follows. He says each one of the 12 tribes in the original Mishkan okay, brought one day's worth of sacrifices. Okay, that took up one day of Nissan and as we had mentioned previously, they kind of sponsored the entire month of Nissan even though they only were around one one day each, 12 consecutive days starting with the tribe of Judah first. But that's not going to be the end game. In the future in the future dedication of the third temple in Jerusalem, says the Hatam Sofer in his drashos it'll be four days per tribe. Hm, interesting. Four days per tribe. Well, 12 * 4 = 48. He brings a proof because it's a reference to the to the the people who will come from from the diaspora speaks about that indicates about four different individuals. So, as the 12 tribes come out come back, they come back like four at a time, so to speak, with four representatives at a time. Okay, fine. However, the Hasam Sofer got it. But, here's the interesting number. 48 is is exactly the amount 48 is the number of students the thousands of students that Rebbi Akiva had. Why? Cuz it says they had 24,000 pairs. That totals 48,000. Uh-huh. Rebbi Akiva and his students, who were experts in the hidden aspects of Torah, certainly were equipped to complete the task of revealing the secret Torah to the world, which eventually Rebbi Akiva's Talmud Rebbi Shimon, one of the five great Tannaim, eventually did. And we know that Hazal tell us in the Zohar itself an amazing thing. Says that the study of the Zohar and the hidden secrets of the Torah, let's put it that way, hidden wisdom of the Torah, hidden light of the Torah, um as it extends outward to the world through knowledge and communal study, will actually advance the cause of that third temple being redeemed. So, you could say the students that died till till Lag Baomer was a failed attempt to bring the end, to bring us to that 48th level of Torah knowledge, if you follow me, that would then go one step forward and we'd have the final the final stage of the world's evolution through the eight Sefirot, which is the Torah itself, through the revelation of the of the Zohar. And I say this not stam, not stam, because that's what the Zohar says. The Zohar says with and it's an episode that's actually recorded in the in the in the Talmud and it forms actually an introduction to the book of to Rebbe Nachman's book which kind of gives you a hint to Rebbe Nachman's Tikan Likutei Moharan what he was after. He wrote a very esoteric book filled with Kabbalistic concepts almost inaccessible to the average reader. Till today people say this is a great book of light but I don't know if I can interpret or understand. I heard from the great Rav Gedaliah Ken Gedaliah Ken's son Reb Elimelech Ken and great Sadiq from Safed he said you could read a a piece of Torah from from Rebbe Nachman one day come back later and see it in completely different light. It's a miraculous text. It's another worldly text. It's kind of like the something that's a taste of the future Torah. And that's what he really wanted. He said I'm going to reveal things that will help us bridge through the gap to the full revelation of the Etz Chaim of Torah. Not just the Mishna, not not just the Psukim, not just the Tanakh, not just the Mishna, not just the Talmud but all of the Zohar and all the related traditions. Hasidism as it evolved the Sephardic Mekubalim it all evolves and evolves but what happened was this. Shimon bar Yochai who would author go on to author the Zohar to teach us the Zohar came to Rebbe Yochanan ben Zakkai who was the leader and not not Rebbe Yochanan ben Zakkai came to the to the Yeshiva of Yavneh which was the surviving academy after the Romans destroyed the first Beit Hamikdash the the second Beit Hamikdash and he said I can guarantee that the Torah will never be forgotten from the Jewish people. Gemorrah in Shabbos Klif Lamed Chet Amud Bet. How and how can you do that? And the Rabbis were been bewailing the Jewish fate of assimilation. I saw yesterday an interview with a kid who's Jewish wearing a Palestinian necklace. And somebody tried to talk to him and and he was just like oblivious to what it really represented and what it meant and how it how tragic it was that a Jewish boy would be wearing this. Anyway, Atida Torah should be stuck off Israel. What's there's going to be a forgotten and if you forget the Torah, that's it. There's no progress to the 49th level. There's no end game. Kilo to Shaka me P Zaro. I'll make sure. As it says in the Zohar, the high this is in the mid bar Nassau Dof Kuf Kuf Dof base. It says in the Zohar Hakadosh E the EU safer Zohar Yif Koon Bay Mingalusa. This book, the study of Zohar will get us out of will get will redeem us. How? How does a book redeem anything? It's a book. It's a teaching. Homish is a book. Doesn't say that the Homish is bringing us out of exile. Talmud is a book. And it doesn't say that the Talmud is bringing us out of exile. For all the power or magnificence of Torah and its eternity, doesn't say it's going to bring us out of the out of the gallus, but Zohar yes. But at the bow ray of a close to the store show to say Hakadosh he says it's hinted at in the Torah cuz it says in the Torah Kilo to Shaka me P Zaro. The children of Israel will never should not forget Torah ever. Will not happen historically. Because through the children of Yochai, which is Shimon Yochai, right? He will make sure. He's by by issuing forth the Zohar and its subsequent magnified study at the end of days, which we are in. He says low key then letter Yud, low and letter Aleph, Tishaka forgotten and letter Chet, me P from the mouth of and letter Yud, Zaro and letter Vav, the seed is Osios Yohai. Yohai, the father of Shim of Shim of Rebbe Shimon bar Yochai, the Tanna. He says, "My seed, my my children will create will be a factor in the Jewish people never forgetting the Torah." That's a remez, that's a hint inside the Torah itself. Okay. So, let's go a little further. What does Lag BaOmer have to do with this? Well, Lag BaOmer is therefore that day in which the permanence of the of the future redemption is always secure. It's a day of redemptions. It's a day people getting healed. It's a day of people uh literally experiencing resurrection from life and death. There are stories, historical stories in Meron, of people uh woman who lost a son and she had brought him to Meron. She wailed and cried over his death, placed him by Rebbe Rebbe Shimon's grave, and then this is a highly documented story, eventually he revived. Um it's a place where the line between life and death is flimsy. Is has like flexibility, how should I say? And this is mirrored in a concept in the parsha, Hashavua. Remember that Lag BaOmer is famously the day of the Omer known as Hod she baHod. We go through each of the seven divine midos or qualities or powers that a person is supposed to utilize and and and uh demonstrate, okay, emulate in their life. And our seven great shepherds did emulate those great midos. So, for example, the mida of kindness, that's associated with Avraham. The mida of strength Gevurah associated with Yitzchak. Tiferet, splendor, associated with Yaakov. All right. Um Netzach is Moses. That's That's eternal power cuz the Torah is eternal. But Aaron, his brother, is Hod. Hod is a a a language of praise. Of praising people, praising each other, praising Hashem, singing God's praises. That's the ultimate level. That's what the temple with the Beit Hamikdash is really about. Place where the Leviim sing praises to Hashem. We offer sacrifices to Hashem. And we And we thank him and we sing to him for for all the greatness and kindness that he bestows upon us, that he gives us life. We know life is not is not automatic. We know life is a gift. So Aaron was that person who had the singular permission to go in on Yom Kippur into the Holy of Holies. Okay. And bring a reprieve from death for the Jewish people. Fact, he'd say a little prayer. He'd say, "Look, there were sins. I'll alleviate the sins which are causing harsh judgments on the Jewish people. We'll get rid of the judgments." The The Hoch of Hod is the ultimate day of taking away from the point of Torah, which is to create judgment. How did we use our judgment? And what reward or punishment do we deserve based on our choices? Uh Yom Kippur comes in a light above that and obliterates that that mechanism of of din. That's the power of Aaron, that great tzaddik, who always was what? He taught us, "Oh, have shalom, rodef shalom." Ohev et habriyot u'mekarvan laTorah. Love everyone. Don't judge anyone. Bring people together. Even if that's tell a white lie. Aaron famously used to tell the husband, "Oh, your wife is really feeling bad about the harsh words you said about you." And the wife would say, "The husband feels bad about what he did to you. And I want you to get together again, and he really wants to get together with you." And he would bring people back together. He would do shalom bayit. He did marriage counseling. He did stam counseling. He lifted the spirits of people. And for that, he was given a special charge that he should never leave the temple, not even for the funeral of his father or mother. Wow, why not? Says, "Because he has the power to stand in the face of the angel of death and beat him back." We saw this literally in the Torah, in which after there was a plague that broke out among the Jewish people, Moshe told Aaron, "Take your sensor, take your pan, put on ketoret, that's the sweet sweet fragrance that we give to Hashem." Again, inside the inner chamber chambers of the Mishkan and Beit Hamikdash. That's an intimate place. It's a re'ach nicho'ach. Go there and stop the angel of death in his tracks. Isn't that what Trump wants? The angel of death seems to be lurking around this man. Okay? And he keeps getting reprieve after reprieve and almost a supernatural fashion. Uh not so simple. The The thing The thing that the person or the figure who can stand in the way of divine judgment. If the judgment of God is that this man should be killed, there's nothing we can do except Aaron and the tzaddikim who stand in there and stand as a merit in the heavenly court to dissolve all bad judgments against us that even by right and by law, by virtue of understanding what's good and evil. Somebody does a terrible act of evil, they deserve punishment. Doesn't matter. There's something that goes above that. That's the tree of life. That is the tree of life. We are we say we're now in a world in which you don't need to make choices anymore cuz you're with Hashem. The choices are made in this lower world. But in the upper worlds, there's no more choices. There's no more activities that you have to decide between this and this. Although again, there's margin for discussion about that regarding the free will of angels. I'm not discussing that. But get though, generally speaking, so so you Lag BaOmer is that day and we reach that one point for the key between the life and the death of the Jewish people, which is their connection to Torah, and it's restored by Aaron and Kohain and figures like Shimon bar Yochai who gave us the holy Zohar, which is that light which overpowers evil and judgment and death, literally death. When Aaron comes out of the Kodesh Kadashim, hold your breath out again, he prays, "Don't let the people of Sharon have the floods that will bury them in their houses. Let the weather be good. Nobody should suffer or die because of bad weather and bad crop." He's talking about life and death. And these are issues of life and death. The good news is there's a day called Lag BaOmer in which even those who are most under the midas of din, like a President Trump, like a Bibi Netanyahu, literally I mean he sits in prisons and court every day. It's just the most pathetic pathetic thing. What has happened what they what they want to do this man and and how they still plotting to get rid of him as soon as possible. These men under tremendous amount of din. But let's hope that Lag BaOmer and for them and for the Jewish people in general should be an alleviation of the din. And at that works through studying Zohar. How? How does that work through studying Zohar? So there were five opinions given in the experts of Kabbalah about why the Zohar is that key life and death factor. Again, cuz it represents eight time, but let's go a little deeper. The Tikunei Zohar says because it creates and evokes rahamim. In other words, we're not going to come when we move from judgment to mercy. So, since we move from the divine mareh, the divine system of judging good and evil, and we move to the world of rahamim, so then the Jews will come out with rahamim. The Jews will come to Israel not because there was a Holocaust. The Jews will come to Israel not because there's rampant anti-Semitism, but they'll come with love and rahamim because they choose to, because they want to. Big challenge today. All right, by the way, I I looked a little bit today at the demographics of the Jewish communities around the world, and particularly the Orthodox Jewish communities, those are closer to Torah mitzvahs. The two fastest the uh the the the city of Lakewood and the areas in Monsey and the Hasidic communities Square and there's another one there that's business are the fastest growing demographically Jewish populations in the world outside of Israel. They're massive. And Lakewood expands like Yerushalayim expands to Beit Shemesh. It's an unbelievable thing. That's the power of Torah. The Torah has an enormous power. It has enormous life to it. It's an eight time e. Whether you're an Orthodox or Hasidic, so I'm not here to debate you know, what's better and and and what's more effective and certainly would seem that it's a boon to have both. And that hopefully everything will will be here. But, um there's tremendous tremendous growth in certain areas. Uh South Florida the um is exploding with with Torah life. Five Towns, where I made all the important exploding with Jewish Jewish life. Um and there are places like Baltimore and there are places like we said Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, which is still big. And there was the Pittsburgher Rebbe by the way from there who was powerful person. Uh what Torah can do is create life. You know that the the average age in Kiryas Joel of the population is 11 years old. That's a lot of life. That's a lot of future. And kal vachomer ben binasha kal vachomer here in Israel. Where we've already reached a crescendo of 7 million Jews with the estimate that at least 1.5 million are in the religious religious demographic and who have the highest birth rate and who are really the ones that showing the greatest koach hachaim inside the land of Israel, which is amazing. Um and of course the rest of Israel, which is incredible that it's the only country in the OECD of developed countries that actually has a birth rate well above the replacement. Has one of the highest birth rates in the world. That's I'm talking I'm not talking about Torah observant Jews. I'm talking about Jews that live in the land of Israel. Have a great happiness and have great uh amounts of children. Average of three. That's just because they're in Eretz Israel and they're Jewish. There's tremendous chiyus and life here. Okay? So that that's what it meant. But how does it specifically connect to the Zohar? So we said that the Kunei Zohar is that it turns the world from din to rachamim. The Ari Hakadosh himself from Tzfat, he says, it turns the Torah from a body, a guf, into an neshama chaya. It makes the Torah alive. Not an intellectual thing, not a book on a shelf, but children, communities, day schools, kollelim, mikvahs, young couples, it turns it into life. Life. Uh it gives the chiyus to the Torah. And many people may not appreciate that or understand it even. But that's what's driving it. And the Or HaChaim HaKadosh, the great sage from Morocco who arrived in Israel just at the turn of the beginning of what we call the Messianic era in 1740, he said it it's it's there is a a tenai that Mashiach must be will only come by expanding the full boundaries of the Torah. Now you understand what what what we're saying here. The Torah is like a scroll. You have to roll it out. You have to roll out the whole thing. It's got to be present in the world. If you don't bring it out, it's not in the world. If it's not in the world, the world hasn't experienced the the eight side. And he fully It's our job. And by the way, the Vilna Gaon was very involved in this. And he wrote books on Kabbalah. Chassidus is involved in this. The Baal Shem Tov was involved in it. Rebbe Nachman's involved in it saying, "Get it out there. It has to go out there." I'd like to suggest that we devote a certain amount of time to studying the pnimiyus of Torah, the actual best texts, whether it's the Tanya, whether it's the Likutei Moharan, whether it's the actual Zohar, whether it's the works of the Or HaChaim HaKadosh or various authors. Um because it it it actually helps bring Mashiach. That's that's what we're saying. And the and the the the signal of the connection to Lag BaOmer, as we said, 48 days is is what Rav the Chasam Sofer says. Each tribe times four. What's four? Why four? Four types of Torah study. Four faces on the divine chariot. Don't have to go further than that. And you those who understand can understand. This is the full rolling out of the Torah. You need that 48 because 48 is about as high as we can go without Moshe Rabbeinu. That's the game plan. As Torah is rolled out more powerfully, more powerfully, it's it's it seeps and steeps us in more and more heels. And moving it further away from me to the day. Then finally, the Baal Shem Tov had said, it's described it as as the as the fountains moving outwards. And this is a this is a precondition of the Geulah. All the Torah's got to come out. It's got to pour forth and we got to bathe in it and wash it and understand it. The Baal HaSulam, one of the great commentators, said, "Shimmush Bezoar Kli Lishinui HaTeva Anoshi Le'ahavat Zulas." What it does is it negate it negates judgment and promotes love. Love for fellow Jew. It's famous that in the Gemara Shabbos, when when Shimon bar Yochai came out of his came out of his cave, and he saw people just plowing and doing their thing, he was disappointed. What's going to be with the Geulah? We got to have the advanced concepts of the Zohar. And then he saw a Jew holding two hadas branches, zachor v'shamor, because of love of Shabbos. And he said, "That's it. That's it. A Jew that loves Shabbos. To keep both the zachor and the shamor. Both the laws, the prohibitions, but also the love of Shabbos, kiddush. Uh that's that's the That's the ticket. That's the ticket to ahavat Yisrael. We I'll conclude with this. We have seen through the good offices of President Trump and his family the innovation of the Abraham Accords. What's that? That's the a bris between Ishmaelic nations who have made peace with Israel. And we know we can predict that it'll be more expanded. Then, President of Argentina, Milei, he says, "I'm part of the Isaac Accords." Well, what's that? Isaac had two children, Esau and Jacob. Esau is the Christian world. Jacob is the Jewish world. He said, "I'm an Argentinian Christian and I love the Jewish people." Trump is a Christian, loves the Jewish people, loves Israel, trying to help Israel, trying to protect Israel. He said that the reason why he talked to Iran was because of October 7th, not because Bibi Netanyahu, his quote-unquote brother, told him, but because he saw the suffering of the Jewish people. That's That's remarkable. But now we need the Jacob Accords. What are the Jacob Accords? Jacob's two primary children, Judah and Joseph, Judah and Ephraim. The Torah world, which is Judah, the Harish of God Gush Etzion, that's the what we call the Orthodox world, the world of Jerusalem, which is has the biggest Orthodox community in the world, even bigger than Lakewood, even bigger than Flatbush, even bigger than Williamsburg, double the size, uh of Jews and of of observant Jews, has to make peace with Ephraim, the Jews who are here because they love Israel and they love life and they want to make a positive contribution to the world and they love Israel and they have love for their fellow Jews and all that's going to come together. And sadly, sadly, today, injunctions were placed by the Supreme Court, which represents what I call all the Ephraim world, or the Joseph world, the world that interacts with the global values and business of the world. And the world of Judah, which is the world of Torah studying colleges, to put economic sanctions on those who don't go to the army. There's a better way to fix this problem. That's not demonstrating any love. There's ways to do this. You don't have to take away child care money from needy families who are who are living their life with serious devotion to her. I don't care what you think, but to to give them punishments that are more severe than the Arabs who don't who want to who don't want to who are not allowed to serve in the army because we don't trust them them from not killing us from within the army. deserve what they get what they get should at least be given to the other Jews who even if you don't understand. So, our prayer is ER, once again, we find that President Trump was saved from the specter of the of the Malachim office the angel of death. May that continue. We pray that it continues even though there's a hazakah that these attempts may never stop. But they should have divine protection so that love between the Isaac Accords, the Christian world and Jewish world should sincerely progress. We saw that miraculous visit and you know that President Milay went to Yeshiva named Chevron. To me, that's it. That was like the emperor of Rome going to see Rabbi who was the head of the Yeshiva. If Milay went to Chevron Yeshiva, I can't begin to tell you the significance of that. And similarly, we pray for the Jacob Accords. Maybe maybe this Lag BaOmer we'll see the Jacob Accords a little bit of a breakthrough in the love and understanding in the Jewish people. That's the hardest step of all. That's the hardest accord to achieve. We must work on achieving it. In summary, I wish you and everyone a a spiritual lift for this Lag BaOmer. Let's all delve into a little Hasidus, a little Zohar, and transform our judgments into love of the Jewish people and one another. Spread the good word, spread the good energy, spread the happiness, spread the joy of being connected to Hashem with Emunah, which we so desperately need the joy and the Emunah to put up with the massive sufferings of the loss of Nesiyah, the Nesiyahs of the world. And Hashem's flag should raise upon us with love. And then we should be able to celebrate together a real world of Torah Chaim v'ahavat chesed. Have a wonderful