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The Question That Brings You Back to Yourself · Ayekah: Finding Your True Self with Rav Shlomo Katz

• Okay. Welcome everyone. B'siyata dishmaya, I'm very excited to start our new journey this morning. I just want to mention the sponsors for the month of Tishrei by the Reinitzes, לעילוי נשמת רב משה בן רב מנחם and ושמואל בן רב שלמה הכהן, anonymously sponsored for זיווג הגון for Esther bat Rachel, Chana Miriam bat Tina Pearl Yael, Raviah bat Chana Devorah, Re'aya bat Yehudit. The week is sponsored by my in-laws, Binyomin and Barb Wesselsky in honor of Emunah's Bat Mitzvah, and also I want to dedicate the shiur for the refuah shleimah of my father-in-law, he needs a refuah shleimah, Binyamin Ephraim ben Miriam Sarah. Okay, so I'd say this is like maybe five years ago, five years ago in the summer. We used to go in the summers, we used to go up to the Golan and spend a nice period of time usually in like מושב Yonatan. And one of the every summer I would go, I'd take like I would I would try at least to say, "Okay, this is going to be like the main sefer I'm going to hang out with." And then I I forgot that I have a bunch of little kids. But there was still a sefer next to the bed. There still was a sefer. There was a sefer next to the bed. And this had I think it had just come out around then, I'm not sure, this this beautiful sefer, Ayecha by Rav Reuven Sasson. And I was learning it throughout the summer, and for a while I was I was so moved. I was so moved. It spoke to me very, very much. And it was something that I've been wanting to learn with the chevra for a long, long time. And I had mixed up something on the schedule, told with the men, women's titles, everything, but this was the sefer that really I I really wanted to do. And I believe that it's such hashgachah peratit that we're starting this sefer this week because בעצם today is kind of like a פרשה שיעור. It's kind of a פרשה שיעור because in פרשת בראשית comes down the question of all questions, Ayecha, right? Ayecha. So, it works out. That's like a good סימן when you start off a series like this, it's very special. This is a very deep book. Not deep in the sense that it's hard to understand, but that it causes us to really all the years of our learning, Baruch Hashem, we've been learning for so many years, this is כאילו like the graduation, it's like, okay, so now עכשיו מה, you know, now what? The author is Rav Reuven Sasson, who we've learned from in the past, who be'ezrat Hashem, we're working on a date to bring him here to the shul this year for a Shabbos, which I'm very excited, and encouraging you all to just learn a little bit more Hebrew before he comes cuz he does he's Israeli. We're going to be having a lot more Israeli speakers this year, be'ezrat Hashem yitbarach. I'm happy to help people. Thank you. It's for many Listen, for many reasons. Someone said to me, I was I was I forget where I was, in some store before Rosh Hashanah, before Yom Kippur, before Sukkos, I don't remember anymore, and someone said, "I was in your shul this last Shabbos, and and you spoke a lot more Hebrew." And I wasn't sure what they were if they were saying like that was a good thing or a bad thing, I was like, "Yeah, אנחנו you know, אנחנו פה." And they were like, "What?" Meaning, I I answered in Hebrew and I realized they didn't they weren't following, so it was hard for them. I said, "Listen, you know, now in the shul we have I'm sure you noticed there's so much youth, Israeli youth. The the youth of Efrat, they're coming here every Shabbos and Yom Tov and during the week, and these are the Israeli kids, my children's ages, and they're leading the way, and they're going to be'ezrat Hashem going to be they're they're that this they're this is their place, it's for them. And and bichlal, it's going to be it's good, it's important, but you know, this type of Hebrew that we have here today in front of us, it's not that the Hebrew is so hard. It's that, baruch Hashem, we're learning things that are I believe things that our neshamot are waiting to be learning. I I daven over this all the time. Not enough, but all the time. And this sefer specifically is a sefer of a journey that access gives us access to Rav Kook in a way that our generation needs today. Can't say it any better. So, b'siyata dishmaya, what If someone just asked me right now like, "What's the What's this book about?", it's impossible to say. But you'll understand it based really in the mavo, in the מאמר מבוא that you have right in front of you. And this the ענין isn't like let's see if we can finish it or let's see how much we can get through. באמת כל שיעור is all about how much can this can this Torah get through us, b'emet get through us, and hopefully bring it back into our homes once we finish learning it in the classroom. And be'ezrat Hashem, this should bring a lot of נחת רוח to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, and to our families, and to all the ones that we love. So, as we know, this primordial question, this is the question of all questions: Eichah, Eichah. This is the question, the first question that man is asked from God. And it's not a one-time thing. This question Eichah didn't happen once as we learn the parashah, and we're like, "Oh, that's what happened to Adam." Obviously, if this is the first question that man was asked, that question is still being asked all the time. The only problem is that many people, when they grow up frum, they hear it as a shtoch. A shtoch, a shtoch is like a dig. A dig, a dig. Eichah, nu? Yeah, you can either hear it like, "nu, where are you holding?", which is not, that's not, doesn't make anyone feel like, "I can't wait to hear more of this conversation," you know? Eichah, you know, it's all about, obviously the tone and and and a lot more things, but Eichah is a hazmanah, is an invitation, it's a gift. It's mamash is a gift. It's an invitation to being faithful to ourselves, to being to being b'emet true to ourselves, and bichlal understanding what these concepts mean. In a certain level, this whole sefer is based on like two or three paragraphs from Rav Kook's Orot HaKodesh, which we'll see inside, but there's this book is filled, filled with riches. And is this it's overwhelming. So I haven't been this overwhelmed over a sefer in a while, although we did start another sefer with the men this week that's also been really משהו אחר, עולם אחר. So all the hitchadshut that תשפ״ד is bringing down into the world should come, it already is at our doorstep, and now it's in time to internalize it all. Okay, let's let's start be'ezrat Hashem. מאמר מבוא. השאלה הקדמונית אשר שאל השם אלוקים את האדם: איכה היא השאלה העמוקה והמטלטלת המהדהדת בעומק נפש האדם מאז ועד היום. This question of Eichah, Eichah doesn't just mean where where are you, maybe even is more correct to say where are you at, which is a big distinction between the two. Where are you is one thing, where are you at is bichlal a different she'elah. This is the question. Rav Sasson opens up his sefer by saying that when you can afford to listen to that question, היא מטלטלת. You know what מטלטלת means? Shakes you up. Shakes you up. המטלטלת. And it's מהדהדת, it's echoing in the depth of the soul of man from that time that Hashem asked אדם in פרשת בראשית that we're in right now, עד היום. שאלה זו איננה שאלה פיזית. This is not a physical geographical location, drop a pin, tell me where you are, that's not what Hashem is asking. היכן נמצא האדם, or where are you located, אלא שאלת עומק. This is a very deep question. היכן הוא נמצא בחייו, where are you in life, במחשבותיו, what are you thinking about, ובמעמקי נפשו, and in the depth of your soul. One of the ways to to answer the question איכה is to ask yourself if you can figure out a way to monitor, and this is very hard, very hard, but to if you were able to monitor throughout our day, what are where are most of our thoughts? Where are most of our thoughts? Distracted. I don't believe that about you. You're impostering, you can't say that. Where are you in your thoughts? Zot omeret, throughout the day with all the מחשבות that I have, all the thoughts that I have, generally speaking, is there an underlying theme of most of the thoughts that I have in the day? Now, it's true, especially for parents to children, our thoughts, kamuvan, are very much centered around all the different scheduling, and those are that's a holy thing that's part of how we're going to answer this question. This doesn't, וזה לא סותר, it doesn't contradict at all. Because a person is in this world and there's tons of, think about this, what what time is it, 9:30? How many decisions did you have to make and choices did you have to make this morning? If you actually thought for a second, between from the moment you wake up or chose to wake up, what to eat, what to wear, when to go, should I go, should I not go, what does that kid need, what does he need to hear, כל מיני דברים, right? But in the bigger picture, איפה המחשבות שלי? That's a completely different thing. Kamuvan that the pulse of our kehillah is really A geulah consciousness growth-oriented movement towards living a life that my general state of thoughts are things I wouldn't be embarrassed to say back to God. Right? I wouldn't be embarrassed. No pressure, but you know what I mean. That's the but this question איכה is מהדהד it shakes the heavens and the earth, but it shakes us deep deep inside. It shakes us back inside fifth line. שאלה זו מציפה בירור עמוק עומק סביב זהותו האמיתית של האדם. The question is really causing בירור עומק. How in the world would you say that in English? בירור עומק. I shouldn't have asked that out loud. on the holiest level in the world, yeah. Zot omeret this is a question, מציפה it covers up and fills ourselves with a very deep, you know בירור, like הלכות בורר for instance. What is בורר? What's the actual word? It's sifting. Right? So בירור עומק, anyone that's learned with us Mei HaShiloach all these years, בירור, it's the Izbica's word over and over again, a בירור. It's a question that causes a sifting of everything that's happening with us to the depths to understand my real identity. זהותו האמיתית של האדם. זהות. This is not a plug right, this is not a political plug right now, but you understand what I'm saying. זהות האמיתית the real me. Yes. It's ironic that he says מציפה עומק. He's he's flooding the בירור of the depth. Correct. Correct. Now, when is man asked that question? Think about פרשת בראשית. When is man asked the question איכה? What happens right before man is asked the question איכה? Ah, so there was, so the question of איכה is not a question that man is asked when he's placed in Gan Eden and everything is fine. The question of איכה takes place after there's been some sort of separation. Because there's no need to ask איכה when there's no separation. Right? So separation takes place, something happens, which we're going to this hopefully in get get in the depths of it right now. And then the question איכה comes to place. הנחש, are there any more pages, by the way? Yes. Yeah, okay. I want to be able to look at it inside. הנחש הציג בפני האדם עולמות קסומים, שאיפות וחלומות ופיתה את האדם אחריו. What did the snake put on display before man? What did the What did the snake do? What did it show? What did it offer? So in Rav Sasson's beautiful language he says that the snake presented before man עולמות קסומים, magical worlds, aspirations, and dreams, and seduced man to go after it. Now, he's being very kind here because he he didn't seduce the man, he seduced the woman. That's as one of the reasons why I wanted to learn this shiur today, like with in this series, because the beginning was really through Chava. The beginning was through Chava. This seduction of going after something that separates you from yourself, he knew Adam is an easy one. If I get him, you know, she'll look at this is what I'm thinking, that the נחש would say to himself, "If I go after man, that's that's too easy. She'll look at him and she'll be like, 'Are you crazy? You're acting insane.' Get" You know, and she'll smack him silly. "What's wrong with you? Who do you think you are? This is not you." So who does he go after? He goes after the עקרת הבית, he goes after the leader of the רוח of the home, and he says, "If I could get at If I could get that, then the then there then there could be a חורבן of the whole בית. If I just go after the man, she'll smack him silly." What But But what is the snake do? He comes to he comes to the to Adam and Chava and what is he offering? Basically, if we had to translate that into today, what is he offering? What is he telling Adam and Chava? He's telling them, I want to, he's showing them, he's like, "Do you Do you see Look at this." And what's greater than saying to someone, "You could be like God"? Because that's what he says. והייתם כאלה, right? You could be like God. He's offering them an alternative. Well, it's much more than just aa geulah consciousness growth-oriented movement towards living a life that my general state of thoughts are things I wouldn't be embarrassed to say back to God. Right? I wouldn't be embarrassed. No pressure, but you know what I mean. That's the but this question איכה is מהדהד it shakes the heavens and the earth, but it shakes us deep deep inside. It shakes us back inside fifth line. שאלה זו מציפה בירור עמוק עומק סביב זהותו האמיתית של האדם. The question is really causing בירור עומק. How in the world would you say that in English? בירור עומק. I shouldn't have asked that out loud. on the holiest level in the world, yeah. זאת אומרת this is a question, מציפה it covers up and fills ourselves with a very deep, you know בירור, like הלכות בורר for instance. What is borer? What's the actual word? It's sifting. Right? So בירור עומק, anyone that's learned with us Mei Hashiloach all these years, בירור, it's the Izhbitza's word over and over again, a בירור. It's a question that causes a sifting of everything that's happening with us to the depths to understand my real identity. זהותו האמיתית של האדם. זהות. This is not a plug right, this is not a political plug right now, but you understand what I'm saying. זהות האמיתית the real me. Yes. It's ironic that he says מציפה עומק. He's he's flooding the בירור of the depth. Correct. Correct. Now, when is man asked that question? Think about Parshat Bereishit. When is man asked the question איכה? What happens right before man is asked the question איכה? Ah, so there was, so the question of איכה is not a question that man is asked when he's placed in Gan Eden and everything is fine. The question of איכה takes place after there's been some sort of separation. Because there's no need to ask איכה when there's no separation. Right? So separation takes place, something happens, which we're going to this hopefully in get get in the depths of it right now. And then the question איכה comes to place. הנחש, are there any more pages, by the way? Yes. Yeah, okay. I want to be able to look at it inside. הנחש הציג בפני האדם עולמות קסומים, שאיפות וחלומות ופיתה את האדם אחריו. What did the snake put on display before man? What did the What did the snake do? What did it show? What did it offer? So in Rav Sasson's beautiful language he says that the snake presented before man עולמות קסומים, magical worlds, aspirations, and dreams, and seduced man to go after it. Now, he's being very kind here because he he didn't seduce the man, he seduced the woman. That's as one of the reasons why I wanted to learn this shiur today, like with in this series, because the beginning was really through Chava. The beginning was through Chava. This seduction of going after something that separates you from yourself, he knew Adam is an easy one. If I get him, you know, she'll look at this is what I'm thinking, that the נחש would say to himself, "If I go after man, that's that's too easy. She'll look at him and she'll be like, 'Are you crazy? You're acting insane.' Get" You know, and she'll smack him silly. "What's wrong with you? Who do you think you are? This is not you." So who does he go after? He goes after the עקרת הבית, he goes after the leader of the ruach of the home, and he says, "If I could get at If I could get that, then the then there then there could be a churban of the whole Bayit. If I just go after the man, she'll smack him silly." What But But what is the snake do? He comes to he comes to the to Adam and Chava and what is he offering? Basically, if we had to translate that into today, what is he offering? What is he telling Adam and Chava? He's telling them, I want to, he's showing them, he's like, "Do you Do you see Look at this." And what's greater than saying to someone, "You could be like God"? Because that's what he says. והייתם כאלה, right? You could be like God. He's offering them an alternative. Well, it's much more than just a an alternative, it's a complete It's almost like saying, you think this is life? I'm gonna show you. Oh, I'm gonna show you what, you know, what what you could do, what you could achieve, and where and what you could aspire to, and how you could reach it. אך באמת, truthfully, עולמות אלו זרים הם לרוחו של האדם. These worlds that the snake offered, and continues to offer every single day in our lives today, are truly foreign to who we are. נוכריים, נוכרי לעצמיותו. They are foreign to my essence, to my identity. לא טובה וברכה יבואו לאדם אם ינהה אחר קסמי שווא אלו. Nothing good, no blessing will come to a person when they get carried up in all of these magical temptations that are presented before, even if in the beginning it feels gevald. And even if you start making a lot of money, and even if you start getting a lot of followers, if your thing is social media, which is basically, like so amazing that this is so strong in the world right now, so that it could help us understand, because it's going to help us understand a lot of this sefer. לא עונג ולא אושר, not pleasure and not happiness. אלא, all these things that are offered to us that separate us from who we truly are, put us into one place: שעבוד וריקנות. What's שעבוד? Enslavement. And ריקנות, emptiness. Even though while I'm feeding into the temptation of the snake, I want I want you to know, you're not going to It feels great. It feels so good. It's so kivayachol fulfilling. But in the פנימיות הדברים, it takes you to a place of enslavement and emptiness. So God, in His infinite compassion, what does He do right after man starts to taste this world that the snake is offering him? Right away, He asks him a question which I believe is the most compassionate question to ask man. Because it's setting It's It's realignment right away, and He's saying to him, איכה, where Where are you? Not where did you go, or what did you do. God doesn't say to Adam, מה עשית? למה עשית את זה? It's not the question. The question wasn't why are you doing this, or why aren't you doing this, because we we're going to make mistakes all the time. The greater question, the more important question is, where are you at? איכה. אם האדם היה יצור חלול, if a person was a an empty creature, חסר זהות ועצמיות, that lacks identity and עצמיות, which is this is a very important word. עצמיות comes up a lot. עצמי doesn't mean selfish. It means your inner real being. If that's if man didn't have that that that that characteristic trait, אולי היה אולי יכול היה לייבא את זהותו מעולמות אחרים, then maybe man could import, you know, it's amazing. You could import almost every body part that exists, right? Besides one, besides, you know, obviously, not actually, no, every body part you could you could probably import from other places to put into you, and medical research is developing like, you know, like meshuga, right? But what can't you import? Like what can't you bring from the outside? Your זהות. Your your your What's that? Your your your עצמי, yeah. That you can't import from any There's nothing you can't go and take it in from somewhere else. That is something that is the greatest gift that Hashem places within us, brings us down to this world and says, make sure you spend your life figuring out that which you already have inside of you that you can't get anywhere else. That's what it is. It's a gevald. It's a I mean, we're saying deep, deep things very simply right now. אי אפשר, He says, אולי if if man was was like an empty, hollow creature, then maybe he could import his his זהות from other worlds. אך האדם יקר הוא מאוד. יהלום של קודש. Man is very precious, mamash a a diamond of of of holiness, שיש בקרבו עצמיות אדירה. There's something so big inside of you, מלאה תוכן חיים, filled with life, עושר אין סופי. I know, you're thinking, I didn't I check my bank account, that doesn't you know, עושר אין סופי, endless money? I don't know. אושר, the type of אושר we're really looking. for. Real wealth. You know the famous Torah, it says by Yaakov Avinu and Esav, when when it says Esav when they when they separated finally in Parashat Vayishlach, it says Esav went to Har Seir, and then it says יעקב ובניו continued together traveling. So the vort was, if you ask Esav, "Are you rich?" He says, "Did you see my real estate in the in the in the mountains of Seir? I have so much real estate! Look how rich I am." You ask Yankele, Yaakov Avinu, "Are you rich?" He's like, "I'm the richest man in the world. I'm the I'm the richest, richest man in the world." Why? "Me and my kinderlach." עושר אין סופי, we have so many things that we haven't yet labeled as riches. That's that's that's the point here. We already have a lot of things, not things we have to get. יש לנו אותם כבר. We have a lot of things that we just haven't given it its name of what it really is, and it re- it is wealth שבwealth. עושר, he calls it עושר אין סופי. He continues, "What else do we have in in us? אוצרות מלכים, treasuries of kingdom, וסגולת קדושת אלוקים, whatever that means, the segulah of of holiness of God which I'm not going to get into right now. All a person has to do, and this is what this sefer is going to make us do, צריך הוא האדם להסתכל פנימה אל תוכיות חייו. You have to learn how to look inward." Rabbi David Aaron had a great program once. I don't I don't think it's been around for a while, but in in one of his programs in Israel, right, there was a program that was called Inward Bound. What did the chevra sing? What was their song, the yidishe, those Jewish boys in the '60s? Homeward Bound. Homeward Bound! Thank you, yeah, Homeward Bound. Maybe maybe maybe it's maybe it's a shtikel, yeah, they're yidden, I mean. I wish I was Homeward Bound, but this Inward Bound, like what he's saying over here is, צריך צריך האדם להסתכל פנימה, you got to go in, אל תוכיות חייו, ולממש את האור שבו. It's not enough just to notice what you have. מימוש, מימוש means using, being proactive. לממש means to make something mamash, actually, באמת, that's what it means, like make something a mamash, like לממש to make use of all those things that you're going to discover when you learn how to look inward bound, when you a new way of of understanding what deep eyesight was for, or bichlal life. Sometimes you meet people that at a certain stage in life, maybe 40, 35, sometimes later, 60, 70, that there's something switched in them. And it's not the like normal like frum attack, and now they're let's say if it's a woman, now she's starting to cover her hair, or not not those things, but they they they they somehow changed the gaze of how they live their life, like משהו משהו השתנה. And you could ask like, "What what is it? What are you going through?" They can't really tell you. I'm going to lower the air. Sorry, I see the chevreh starting to shake. I did not put it on. Okay. You see them and it's like they look like something something shifted in them. They can't put their finger on it, and you can't put their finger on it, but what's really happening is that they figured out a way to start looking at all that which already exists inside differently, appreciating it, being thankful for it, and using it. That's the keyword: and using it. U'lemamesh et ha'or shebo. Which is the exact opposite of the nachash. The nachash knows the second that I get access and understand what I'm made out of, he's done. They're done. They have no hold over us. Nothing. הליכת האדם אחר הנחש, second to bottom line, man going after the snake, היא התכחשות לכל האור שבו, is a denial of all the light that I have inside of me. התעמרות ובגידה בעצמיותו, I'm cheating on myself, בחיים האמיתיים הנכונים לו, for the true life that's waiting for me. Lehit'amer is also, it's like a lashon of being unfaithful. of like livgod, you know, it's another way, but it means it even more charif. Yeah, I'm with you. But Adam Harishon had all these tuvnot to begin with? I think that he was a little bit maybe empty, and that's because the nachash was muchashi. Mhm. How old was he? Well, I mean, let's Everybody was made an adult. How yeah, but how how long was he alive for? A day? Not even. Maybe an hour? But what you But you're actually saying something very strong. What's Say your question a bit more a Yekke'ish. That's going to be the new terminology here, a Yekke'ish. There is a level Well, he was made an adult, so he wasn't like an infant, although he was an infant on some level, which we're not Nobody was taught that ever. Obviously we are. Right. And he's tested with a nachash Right. who can't be beat. Why not? Because I mean, that's the way Hashem wanted it, but what is this? Give me Give me Give me something to hold onto. He couldn't pass. Why not? Because he didn't know any better? That's right. Ah, so that's the way Hashem designed it? Well, he didn't know any better. Nora alila. I have to tell you, like you're not going to let, I mean, you're dragging out a Torah I try not to say in women's shiurim, but I'm going to say it. When Hashem comes to Adam and Adam and says, "What what in the world did you do over here, right?" So everyone goes to the the cynical joke, right? "It's her fault, האשה אשר נתתה עמדי." We've learned this so many times, the deeper deeper what what Adam Harishon is really telling Hashem, is he's saying, "האשה אשר נתתה עמדי", my wife got seduced, and she started to taste death in the world, she started to taste separation, and she came to me. I I can't imagine that you created the concept of soulmates for me to stay holy and high while I see my wife be so low. So of course I ate it also, because I'm not going to let her die alone. That's to me a pretty prog- that's a pretty advanced state of internalization of one That's depth that we're not getting on the first page, in my opinion. עוד לא ה- rak hitchalnu, I mean, the first page, chaki. We we we read two minutes, chaki. But what he's trying to do for us is to explain to us what the We're always trying to do תיקון עץ הדעת. What what is How do we fix? How do we go back to Gan Eden? We go back to Gan Eden really trying to understand how things unfolded and how we could hopefully repair it on our level, in each level, each generation. I'm sure many of people have fixed it on their levels, on our level how we could repair it and fix it. So now he explains even deeper what this חטא הקדמוני really was. Next page, "זהו החטא הקדמוני", this is the primordial sin, "שניתק את האדם מחייו העצמיים", that separated person from his real, essential being, his life, "והוציאו אל מחוץ לגן העדן". This took you This took him out of Gan Eden. And he calls Gan Eden here, "מקום החיים האמיתיים", the place of real living, of real life. If someone asks you like, how is davenen? So someone will say, "Oh, it's Gan Eden." What what do they mean by that? That I really felt alive. That was real מקום החיים האמיתיים. What we're trying to do with the piece, the puzzle of our lives, and create many more מקומות of חיים אמיתיים throughout the day, not just when we daven. Be'emet, if you're sitting and you have a moment of deep chinuch with your children, and it's hard, but you you the there's patience somehow. Maybe there wasn't patience, but there was teshuvah and going back and forth, that place, if you could say about this, this experience was was was מקום of חיים אמיתיים, real life was happening over here, where did you go back to? You went back to Gan Eden at that place, at that moment. And look at, "זה אושר אין סופי, זה חיים אמיתיים", that's real life. I think Mindy, what you're asking is obviously very I mean, maybe maybe not, but obviously it's a it's a philosophical question that many of us have asked all the time. "Man, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, if you didn't want us to sin and if you didn't, right, then why in the world did you put the snake in the Garden of Eden in the first place?" Right? And someone can say like this: "Hashem, if you didn't want me to sin and like lose myself, then why did you create me in an era where there's so much socially accepted substance" substances that are being used all the time. It's all the it's the same thing. It's the same question. So in each person's level in discovery of who they really are, it's basically Hashem saying, "איכה? I want you to want to come back to Gan Eden, but this time that you put yourself back in Gan Eden, and not just that I dropped you there and placed you there." That's a much deeper experience of being in Gan Eden. Much deeper. Listen, a person that's, let's put it like this, sober their whole life. I'm just I'm so inspired by the Chevra that meet here, I've been talking about it a lot, the AA meetings that we have in the shul on Monday nights at 7:00 p.m. upstairs, it's it took the everything we've ever tried to do here and took it to to places that אין מילים, אין מילים. But it's like saying to a person to experience sobriety before they were ever seduced, and then by anything, "How does it feel to be sober?" "Well, I don't know what not being sober is," right? As opposed to knowing what it's like to be disconnected from my עצמי and then getting it afterwards? That can and that that that restoration to that place comes about through Hashem, hearing Hashem say, "איכה," and then doing the work. It's discovering light and מימוש, activating, using that light that's found. זהו החטא הקדמוני שניתק את האדם מחייו העצמיים והוציאו אל מחוץ לגן העדן, מקום החיים האמיתיים. התוצאה המרה של ההתמכרות לעולמו של הנחש the bitter result of becoming מכור, what does מכור mean? Addicted. Addicted to the world of the snake היא אובדן העצמיות והזהות הפנימית is a loss of myself and my true deep identity. By the way, you don't need mind-altering substances to be falling into this thing at all. In fact, I think that it's just as dangerous. Plenty of other things that make us being seduced, substances that are not mind-altering, that have completely disconnected man from who he really is. And to get out of that is much more difficult, you know why? Because no one said it's asur. No one said it's wrong. You understand what I'm saying right now? What's an example? Chocolate is I mean, chocolate Say that, chocolate. Listen, with listen let's let's let's call it for what it is. Any any over-usage of social media is exactly this. What does it have to do with me? I'm learning and hearing about what so many people think about so many things that have nothing to do with me. So how much could I be connected to זהות הפנימית to my inner identity? Isn't it more interesting to figure out why I came to this world? As much as I love you and care about you, I hope you figure out why you came to this world, but I hope that I figure out why I came to this world, and and what what do I have in store over here. That's much more interesting and intriguing to me than anything else. So it's not just mind-altering substances, it's all types of substances. A substance that I have to call out and see, does this actually have anything to do with my זהות פנימית אמיתית, with my real identity? It could be anything. Well, I have to learn but I have to learn איך לממש, like that's the that's a big avodah of this sefer. So once I once I once I I I I learned a bit more about me and what Hashem thought about when He created me, I still need the tools to develop how to extract that and get to work. Right, but what about what does the snake Yeah, but what does the snake sound like? Davka with about like Chava is going to have an עימות with the snake, right? And you said you just said, "Listen, all these things that I I can't לממש אותם. I can't I'm watching someone else, I'm listening to someone else." But what does the snake say? What does he Come on. You can do it. Or you can do it, or what else? It's good for you. Why? It makes you smart. It makes you worldly. It it it'll enlighten You'll be able to relate to people better. You'll I hear that all the time, rabbis in conferences, that's what they always speak about, "How much should we know about what's going on in the world?" And it's all in the name of you'll be able to relate to people more, right? How much of that is actually true? Be'emet. To a certain extent it is. To a certain extent it is, meaning, of course, like I want to be able to feel like a person can talk to me, not that I'm an alien, but צריכים, it's got to you got to go up, you know, at a certain point, just being able to to to to quote '80s sitcoms gets you to עד, עד גבול מסוים. Then it has to, you know, צריך לעלות. Yeah, Sharon. I think that also like you don't realize how much it influences you and your own behavior, so maybe it's not directly להשתמש בזה, but it's that it's it is mimush, like enough that you're in your own echo chamber of your own algorithm, and you're watching it, so it just reinforces certain egoic things that then your behavior is indirectly the the substance that comes out of it of what you're doing. And I think the other thing that also with the ego with the what you can be addicted to, I think it much more subtly or slyly is like after you deal with the substances and the chocolate and the sugar, it's like your own ego, like a place that's not connected to your highest self, but just keeps reinforcing why I'm going to snap at my kids, or why I'm not going to make that connection, or why I'm not going to do this thing, and you're like, "I'm justified, I'm right." But I think that your essence is to you could be very easily seduced by your own, you know, false self. Yeah, false self, the construction of your habits and What's called a זהות שווא, false identity, correct. It's a false identity, nachon. The news is as much crack though, isn't it? Because, I don't know about anybody else, I found myself glued to all these horrible videos about October 7th, and I almost felt like an obligation. It wasn't I know what I don't know, no, no, no, Baruch Hashem, but I felt like, "Oh, I have to watch this one because they suffered, and I have to watch that one." One would have been enough. And it was just like it so pulls you in, especially when it says trigger warning. You're pulling me in right now to a place I'm I'm I'm itching to rage on, but I'm not, and I'm not, 'cause I think that it zehu. I'm a disciplined person, zehu. Fourth line. You're mamash like What's that? You answered your own question. How? One would have been enough. Right. It's the same thing that you've always said, "Is this bringing me closer to Hashem, or is it not?" That's it. זה השאלה. in every moment. זה השאלה. answered that, so. Wait. Even if those videos are actually bringing you closer in a way, I don't know, that it causes some sort of action, and you end up creating some sort of כיבוש, גירוש, התיישבות? Yes! Thank you. Which is Okay, zehu, you won. Every everyone in עם ישראל, כמעט everyone, aside from people that suffer from be'emet mental instabilities with these things, should watch, in my humble opinion, every single video that came out, 'cause if we did, there's no way in the world that 3 years later there'd be anything that looks like it does right now. But if it came to mimush, like that's what you're זה הנקודה. So okay, on the one hand, does it bring me closer to Hashem? It could bring me closer to Hashem if it leads to to action, to being proactive about something, זה כן, נכון, yeah. Even with davenning, I think, as long as you get, you know, what you need out of it, but you don't go vayter. I I agree. Meaning, this is a debate saying, "Okay, but you don't you're not there's no there's no halachic chovah to then get something out of davenning. What's the halachic chovah? To daven, right?" But we're saying we're trying to לצאת ידי חובת הנשמה, not חובת הגוף only. We're trying And to לצאת ידי חובת הנשמה means that I daven, I do what I'm supposed to be doing, but then I go vayter, then then I take it, and I and I and I get proactive about something. And the and when it comes to man's discovery of self, it's not enough to daven. The equivalency of davenning here is finding out who I am. If there's no And then, and then once I find out a bit more about what Hashem thought about when He created me, then, and you know what happens to us when we find out a little bit who we are, but it doesn't lead to action? You start going into deep denial and regret that you even started this journey in the first place. You feel so suffocated, excuse me for saying this, spiritually constipated, mamash, because nothing that you discovered, you know it's all there, אבל זה לא ממומש, it's nothing is coming out to be. So the נחש, it's interesting, I don't know at what the נחש is like, you're right, he's so crafty that sometimes he's like, "You know what? I'm going to actually show you what you could be, or a bit more of what you could be, but I'm kind of like going to say it in a way that's going to not really enable you to be proactive, to do anything about it." And that's murder for a person. That's, then you start saying, "Man, this whole religious trip, this whole thing, I'm just אין לי כח לזה. It's torturous. It's torturous for my soul. It's torturous for my experience of being in this world. I'd rather bichlal the whole thing done. תן לי חיים פשוטים, קלים, לא מסובכים. Even if it's hard, I'd rather a hard life that I have to work hard to make money, to make sure my family's okay, and not any of this other stuff." So the נחש comes out, I think he comes davka in a place where it's like there's potential, and davka there he puts the dagger in saying, "Maybe right before you discover your real זהות, I'm going to take you away from that. Or he comes again right after you discovered a bit more of your real identity, and he says, 'This is where it stops. This is where it stops.'" Okay, let's go on just a bit more. מושגי, we're in the fourth line, מושגי החיים של הנחש, the concepts of life based on the נחש, חלחלו לעומק הלב והדעת של האדם. לחלחל means it seeped through, like it really got so deep into the depth of the heart and the mind of a person. אל זר חדר אל גופו, a foreign god has infiltrated our bodies, so much so, עד שקולו הפנימי האמיתי כמעט ונדם. So much so, till man's inner voice has almost, almost gone schluffy, נדם, went to sleep. ובכך שכח את עצמו, עד שלא ידע לענות תשובה ברורה אל השאלה האלוקית: "איכה?" So much so that when God asks you, "איכה?", and you hear a real question like that, you actually, sometimes you don't even know what to say. You don't even know what the answer is. You have no idea, actually. "איכה? Hashem, I actually Like a real, honest answer would be אין לי מושג. Remember the vort on Rosh Hashanah, on שלוש רגלים we say, we just said it now, "מלך רחמן, רחם עלינו, טוב ומטיב, הדרש לנו, שובה אלינו בהמון רחמיך." The way that I learned this from Rav Shlomo, he said like this, that he once saw a girl, a little, like six-year-old kid, a girl crying hysterically on the street in Los Angeles, and obviously she was lost. She didn't know her way back home, I don't know what the story was exactly, but she was lost. And some cops were there, and they found her, and they got her phone number, home number out of her, and they went to a payphone, I mean just the context you could see what year this is, they went to a payphone and took out a nickel, and they called home. When I was a kid it was already a dime. It was a nickel, a nickel. And the girl said to the mother, "Mommy, Mommy, I'm lost! I'm lost! Come get me." So the mother said, "Sweetest, like, I'm so glad We've been so worried sick about you. Where are you?" And the kid said, "I have no idea where I am, but you better come and get me right now." That's the Listen, that's an answer of איכה. Most of us are too petrified to ever say that because we're frum. You understand? How could a frum person say, "I don't know where I am. I'm doing all the things right." But on a deeper level, איכה, the question of איכה over here is basically An invitation to say, Hashem is saying, "איכה, the way out, or the way towards, is by checking in and saying, 'Are the things that I'm doing in my life really קשור אלי ואליך? Are they really קשור אלי ואליך?'" That's why Rav Chaim Kramer's answer to if I, "Should I go to Uman or not?" is like my favorite answer. Of course, he never tells someone not to go for Rosh Hashanah, right? Never. But he says to a person, when they have the question, "Should I go or should I not go?", the answer that I've heard has been, "If if it brings you closer to Hashem, you should go." And then he basically will spend like five hours explaining to you how it does bring you closer to Hashem, right? But our lives our lives has to they have to be like that, like a, you know, that that's that's the goal of how the the outline of our lives. איכה is saying, are you asking these questions? איכה is basically like אחרי החטא, because that's when it was asked. After the sin, now what, right? Now what, not before the sin. Now what? איכה. So now let's just learn these these four lines from Rav Kook. Okay, you'll see that this was all a peirush on these four lines from Rav Kook. This is from Orot HaKodesh. חטא אדם הראשון. What was this sin of man? What was it? שנתנכר לעצמיותו. That's a sin. Do you know what it means להתנכר לעצמיותך? That you're not faithful to yourself. That's the sin, that you're not faithful to yourself. שפנה לדעתו של נחש, that he turned his דעת to נחש, to the snake, ואבד את עצמו, and then he and then he lost himself. And he couldn't answer, לא ידע להשיב תשובה ברורה על שאלת איכה. He couldn't answer. What what does the Torah tell us when when when God asks him איכה? What does Adam answer back? What's that? האשה אשר נתת עמדי. He goes into blame games. He goes into everything but the actual question. מפני שלא ידע את נפשו, because he didn't know his own soul yet. Maybe this does connect, Mindy, to what you were saying before about Adam HaRishon. Like, he didn't know he didn't he didn't know his own he didn't הוא לא הכיר את עצמו. The truth is, you know who starts to teach him who he is? Who who starts to teach Adam HaRishon who he is, actually? His son. After sitting for 130 years in a fast, after what he did, he sees his son, who just killed his brother, and he's like, you know, figuring out life, and he says, "How how come you didn't give up on life? You just were told you're going to be banished from everything and you killed your brother." He's like, "No, there's this thing called teshuvah." And then he and then he's like, "Oh, really?" And then he discovers himself, and the Midrash says he's the one that said, מזמור שיר ליום השבת, טוב להודות להשם ולזמר לשמך עליון. It's it's a beautiful chasidishe twist, what you just said, but it doesn't work with the peshat of the word איכה. If it would be yud and heh at the end, then yeah, but it's with a kaf, because that means it's referring to the man. But it Oh, it's okay. ברוך שכיוונת. מפני שלא ידע את נפשו. What's that? פה? כה? That could, yeah. That's איכה, כה, yeah, like this, thus, yeah, that's good. מפני שלא ידע את נפשו, he didn't know his own soul, מפני שהאניות האמיתית נאבדה ממנו. This is what Rav Kook says. אניות, his אני, his אני. It's an interesting word. האניות, Rav Kook is saying, האניות האמיתית נאבדה הימנו. You know what's so strange is that this is our introduction to the Torah. This is our introduction to humanity, which should give us all the koach in the world. Why? Cuz this happens to us all day long. We we have this all day long. This story happens all day long. If you have good ears, you could actually hear איכה. And if you have good memory, you can remember, well, the Torah showed me how not to answer God back, right? Like, so we're we're Be'ezrat Hashem going to try to discover in this shiur one thing: how to hear איכה, and how to answer אַיֶּכָּה, that's what the whole zach is, cuz everything else in life will fall into place once we do תיקון עץ הדעת, that everything else will fall into place. And then, hopefully, learn how to how to be nourished from עץ החיים, and all the sefarim that we have and all the rebbe's and all the tzadikim, everything that we have, will just are always just helps and guides to really know how to hear אַיֶּכָּה and how to answer אַיֶּכָּה, you know? Rav Nachman would tell you already right now, it's a little bit of holy chutzpah, but it's not that he's I'm paraphrasing, but you know, a God asks us a question, "אַיֶּכָּה?" You ever notice in shul on Mussaf on Shabbos and Yom Tov, there's one word that like there's like 5 to 10 guys, on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur there's like 80 guys scream, "אַיֵּה!" You want to know where I am? "אַיֵּה!" right? Where are you? But that that's that that's not the mahalach. You didn't hear that at all. That's I've I have. Yeah, sound was off. I'm I'm I'm still sort of dealing a few sentences prior with what is this essence of the seduction of the נחש, and it sounds like it's a lot like like the נחש is saying you in your essence don't have what it takes to to be close to Hashem or to be enlightened. Enlightened, who knows? To be enlightened, yeah. In order to in order to fix this um uh this lack, because you don't really have what it takes. You can't possibly, on your own, get anywhere. You have to seek something from the outside that is beyond you. Mhm. And um uh and I think this is so repeated in all of, you know, you see it in history all the time and the enlight- you know, movement. Sure. Sure, נכון. And uh and today especially, you know, with the flooding in social media. בטח. Yeah. No, listen, it's easy to call this out, this behavior out, when it's things that are bad. But what about when I fill my thing myself with things that are good, thinking that that's answering the calling of אַיֶּכָּה? That gets more dangerous. Mhm. Do you understand what we just said? Mhm. Thank you for saying no, באמת. Cuz I want to explain it better. I mean like this: You're bringing up a concept where I have to fill myself with I'm lacking. I need to fill myself with something, right? So, it's easy to detect that that's wrong when I'm filling myself up with things that are that are clearly bad. But the Tanya, the whole ספר of the Tanya is called ספר של בינונים. What's a בינוני? He's always kind of like doing a בירור on what's called קליפת נוגה, which means the things that could be good or bad. Listen, there are certain times where people ask for certain עצה's and things to take on, Yiddishkeit-wise, where they're shocked that the answer is absolutely not, "Do not do this right now." Why? Because you're trying to fill You're messing with You're taking holiness and you're using it as a um crutch, yeah, or as a supplement or something. The חכמה אלוקית, godly wisdom is by not using holiness, not by in uh you know taking this and putting it in here and finish. You know לכל זמן ועת there's a time and place for everything. So, this art of filling in something cuz I'm lacking has to be dealt with with That's what's called בירור. That's the word he used before, בירור עומק. בירור עומק means not just to make sure that I'm not filling stopping to fill myself with things that are bad for me. It's also stopping to fill myself at all, and discover what's already there. Even that word "filling" means, "I lack." Right? Even that word itself is problematic. Once I'm not taking in kedushah to fill in lacks and יש לי זהות, I have an identity, I'm back to אני עצמי, then all the kedushah that then comes into my life afterwards finds its way in me in such a harmonious way, such a peaceful way, and then it completes the whole picture, but not as fillers cuz I'm lacking something. Integrated. Cultivated, integrated, all the nice words to make us feel sophisticated, you know. And the נחש is always lack. The yetzer hara is lack. If you don't feel lack, then you're fine. You could do the That's why, what's גימטריא נחש? Mashiach. Mashiach, because it's the counter. Of course, because the world of Mashiach is the exact counter to that feeling of lack. That's why Mashiach, the days of Mashiach is ומלאה, מלאה הארץ דעה את ה׳. What's the name of Rav Reuven Sasson's whole געשעפט? מלאה הארץ דעה. Yeah, the filling of the lack, but in a way that we all long for, be'ezrat Hashem. We'll continue this be'ezrat Hashem Thursday. Yishar koach, everyone.