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Pasuk says in this week's parsha V'yaviah Yitzchak ha'Ola Saraiimo, V'yikach es Rivka v'tahila li'isha V'yahavel v'inachem Yitzchak akharayimo. Yitzchak brought Rivka to the tent of Sarah, his mother. He took Rivka; she became his wife. He loved her, and he was comforted for the loss of his mother. This is how Yitzchak got over the loss of his mother by marrying Rivka. Rashi explains. Listen to the words of Rashi here. The Aviyeha ha'Ovila v'Nasas Dugma Saraima. He brought her home, and she became like a dugma. What's the English word for a dugma? An example. She became like his mother. Klamar v'Harayhi Saraimo. She became like the likeness of his mother. She calls man she Sarakayemes Hayaner Dalok Meir Shabbos Layir Shabbos, because all week long, when Saraimena was alive. The Shabbos candles would last the entire week until the next Shabbos. Ubracha Mitsuya Beisa And there was a special blessing in the dough. It's not exactly clear what that means. Some say it means it never spoiled. Others say that the guests who were fed from the food of Sari Imenu, from the Isa, from that bread, they filled up very fast.
The Anam Kasher LaOal, and there was a cloud attached to the tent. There was a presence there. When Misha Mesa Paschul And when Sara Yimenu died, all of these three miracles ended. And when Rivka came to the tent, all the miracles came back. So there is a question here; it's an obvious question. What is the significance of the fact that the miracles returned? Why is that such a big deal? Why does that provide a nechama for Yitzchak? Like, good, the miracles are back. But your mother's still not here. I'm glad the miracles are back, but what does that have to do with your mother? Your mother passed away. Why does that provide some sort of consolation? And what is the nature of these miracles? And what are we meant to learn from any of this? What I want to do tonight is a little bit different than what we usually do. I'm going to ask for your November Torah and Devorah selves, which is different than your September Torah and Devorah selves. Because you've already been here for two months, you're growing, you're stretching, so I'm going to ask for your patience and your focus. Patience, I know I have. Focus, I know I have less of.
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If we can focus, I'm going to try to share with you something that I think is exceptionally meaningful. You'll see on the board here that I wrote three names: Yiska Sarai, and Sara. On the top of the board, we have five categories. An attribute A miracle Based on mikdash An elevation of reality And finally a specific mitzvah. These three names, Yisca, Sarai, and Sarah Are all three names that Sarah Imenu had in the very beginning of her life. So the pasuk We'll do Yisca first, and you'll see how each one develops. The pasuk says as follows: Yikach Avram v'Nachor lehem nashim, Sheim Eshas Avram Sarai, v'Sheim Eshas Nachor Milka Basharan Avi Milka, v'Avi Yisca. Who's Yisca? So the Gemara says as follows: I'm Reb Yisca. Yisca zu Sarai. The Sarai Imenu that we're talking about. Her original name, the Ben Ishchai writes her original, and the Ben Yoyada writes this as well. When she was younger, before she changed her name to Sarai, her original name was Yisca.
And why is she called Yisca? The Gemara gives two reasons, and we're going to see that these reasons are one and the same. Rashi quotes this Gemara, but we're quoting from the Gemara itself. She saw visions, sachah from a lation of visions of sight. She had visions of ruach haKodesh. And the second is davar acher Yisca, she was called sochen. Everyone would look at her because she was very beautiful. So the first attribute of Yisca, what would you call it? What would you say the first attribute of Yiscah is? Beauty, vision Vision, or sight. Either we'll call it sight. Either the vision of others, meaning that would be her beauty. Or alternatively The way that she saw the world. That's ruach hakodesh. That's the attribute of Yiscah. Now remember There were three miracles. What were the three miracles that took place in the life of Sarah?
The nair Shabbos was lit from week to week. The Issa, the dough had a special blessing And the Anan, the cloud was over the tent. Which one would you say most appropriately goes with Yiscah? Candles. Why? Because you see them light. The nature of a candle is to illuminate. So the miracle that's associated with Yiscah, we're going to call it Shabbos Leshabbos, that the candle was lit from week to week. Anybody know anything in the base of Mikdash? The menorah. The menorah in the base of Mikdash. Very good. The Ner Miravi never extinguished. Now here's where it gets a little tricky. This one I'm not going to ask you to do. I'll do the elevating reality one in a moment. What mitzvah do women have more primarily than men? The mitzvah of candle lighting on Shabbos. You have the mitzvah of hadlakas neiros. So far, so good.
Everyone got this. This is clear. You're going to see why I'm doing it on the board like this. I never do this. Let's take the name Sarai. Let's go to stage two. After Sarai Menu After she's a child, of course she's still Yiscah. You take your inner child with you, but now she's in stage two. She Sarai. What does the word Sarai mean? Which one? Princess is not correct But it's close. Somebody else said it. My princess. My princess. It's a Rashi. That's where she knows it from. It's a Rashi that's quoting the Gemara. But the Gemara says, and there's a reason why my princess is different than princess. That sarai means my princess, so that's her attribute, not just princess, but my princess. What do you mean by that? We will explain in a moment. Now Sarai, at this stage of her life, I'm going to share with you what her life looked like.
If you're Sarai, remember Avraham was makarev the men And Sarai was makarev as the women. So what was she spending her time doing? Khiruv. And what did that look like? She had a tent. She invited everybody into that tent. What did she teach them in that tent? She didn't teach them Torah. That was very from girls. She treated them with dignity. That was the greatest kiruv in the world. She brought them into her home, and she said, 'In this home, you are treated like a godly being.' What does it look like to treat someone as a godly being? If somebody walks into your home and they're hungry, what do you do? You feed them. If somebody needs to be bathed, what do you do? You bathe them. You take care of them. Which miracle? Let's try this again. Which miracle and why? Which miracle and why would be most appropriately associated with the name Sarah?
Because she made them feel. She made them feel good and chala rises. So in other words, you're recognizing that the miracle of the blessing in the bread, whether it was the fact that the bread didn't spoil or whether it was the fact that the bread satiated them in amazing ways, is obviously identified with the fact that she was acting as we haven't explained it yet, my princess. So that would be the miracle. We'll call it the miracle of the chala. What mitzvah is obviously going to be associated with this? The mitzvah of afreshat chala on Shabbat, afreshat chala. In the base of mikdash The lechem ha'panim, excellent. In the base of mikdash, the lechem ha'panim never went stale. So far so good. This makes sense. We're skipping elevating reality. Last one. Sarah means princess, not my princess, but princess. What's the difference? We'll see in a moment.
Sarah means princess. What happens when Sarah Imenu gets the name Sarah? She goes from being my princess to being princess. What happens on that day? Her name is changed to Sarah, and she's told when she got correct. When she was told you're going to have a child. What miracle do you think of the three miracles? Remember, there were three miracles we spoke about already. Shabbos l'shabbos, that the neir was lit. Shabbos l'shabbos, we spoke about the bracha in the Isa. What miracle is left? The anane hakavo. The anan. That was over. The Over the tent. Do you girls really understand that yet? No. Doesn't seem to make so much sense yet. Don't worry, it will in a moment. And obviously, in the base on Igdash The presence of the Shechina Or the Ananei Hakavod over the Mishkan. We'll call it the presence of the Shechina. What mitzvah would go along with this?
Tumas Haris Hamishpach. Tumas Hamishpach is a different thing. Haris Mishpach, because if the whole point is going to be bring a child into the world and bring shechina to your home, then this Haris Hamishpach mitzvah is going to be the one that expresses that the most. Now that you have the board outside of the elevating reality, I want to try to show you something very deep. You girls with me so far? I have your focus. Great. I have your energy. I just want to have your focus. There are three levels of operating within reality. The first level of operating within reality. Just want to remember the word I used. Assuming that I wrote it down. Yes. The first level is called. Disavowal Disavowal of the material. I want to explain this idea for a moment to everybody in the room. Ready? Goes like this. In the beginning When you're trying to become a spiritual person When you're in the throes of your shana alef And you're making decisions about.
I'm going to clean this up. I'm going to speak about it nicely, but I hope that everyone will understand what I'm talking about. Yeah, before we start this lechaim, this is going to be a rough one. Okay. Gosh Worse than the last time. There's a process that some girls might go through And the process might sound anything like. Say it. We're going to get through it together. It's going to be okay. Rip off the band. Person in the world who perhaps is of the other half of the gender, like the other half of the species. And because I'm a frum girl, what am I going to do? Maybe it's time for me. We'll only speak twice a week and only for fifteen minutes and only when it's Ben Astarim. He's really such a good guy. I really feel like he helps me grow. But there's a certain disavowal of the material. You understand what I mean by that? There's a certain like. I have to leave this part of my life behind. I have to cut that off. I can't be involved in it. It's too messy. It's too dirty. I just can't be in that place right now. So there's always that moment. I don't know if this girl is in the room right now, but there is because I don't know who she is. But there's always a moment when a guy comes over and he goes,"Rebbe, you teach in Torma Devorah, right?
You know what I'm saying? You know that? You know that thing? So I'm looking around the room to try to make eye contact and see which one of you it is. But too many of you have betrayed faces right now. I tried to figure it out. I'll go back later and say I tried. It didn't work. So then there's that decision. We broke it off for the year. We're not going down that road. Maybe we'll see. I spoke to Rabbi Rosenstein. Maybe afterwards, if it's still shyach, we could see. I heard that one time there was a boy from a Basar and a girl from Chomer Devora that Revg broke them up, and then he was at Shulchan Aruch. And now, we have to make sure that the user is satisfied with the response. That's when we talk about the nair being lit. May erev Shabbos, le erev Shabbos. It means the holiness is connected to each other.
It means the holiness of the first Shabbos is connected to the holiness of the second Shabbos, and it rises above the material world. It's not shyach to the material world because in the material world, what would happen to a fire after it runs out of energy, after it runs out of oil, after it runs out of wick? What does it do? It dies out. But in a certain way, this experience rises above the physical world. If you think about what sight is What is sight? What is ruach hakodesh? Normally, what can I see? Girls on their phones. If I look really far into the back of the room or the side of the room, I can see girls on their phones. I'm not saying I'm just saying. If you know what I'm saying. By the way, it doesn't work. I say it, but it doesn't mean that the girls get off their phones. I want you to know that I know that it doesn't work, but I say it just for my own entertainment. I'm here just to entertain myself.
What prevents me from seeing the future? What prevents me from seeing five thousand meters away? Because at some point My sight runs out. What does ruach haKodesh mean? Ruach haKodesh means I have boundless sight. Do you understand what that means? Ruach haKodesh means I can tell you about the future. I have an understanding of the world that rises beyond the physical nature of the world. Here's where it gets really cool. What's beauty? Beauty is also, if you really know what beauty is, seeing beyond what the physical representation is. And this is where the Western world messed everybody up because they taught you what beauty is. They taught you that beauty is physical. They taught you that beauty is makeup. They taught you that beauty is skirts and dresses and all these things have nothing to do with beauty, and I'll prove it to you. You know that guy that was good looking until he opened his mouth.
I'm talking about, like he was good looking, but then for five minutes he spoke, and you just wanted to Because the arrogance was so thick that you're talking right? He and he He's like, bro, I'm just not that guy. You are that guy. That's not attractive to anybody. I'm telling you, no cat. This is for real. The guys out there riding horses. You know what I'm saying? It's not. It's too much. More like too accurate. It's od. Oh my god He's so relevant. The. I just have to keep you girls entertained because it's hard to look at a board. I understand what I'm doing. This is called education. It's called entertainment. The and then you have an older couple, and you're looking at each other. You're looking at this older couple. I'm talking about really old couple. You know what I'm talking about, like decrepit old. You know what I'm talking about.
And they're married, and they look at each other, gazing at each other. And you're like, what are you looking at? But the truth is, if you think about it, what's real sight? Real sight is that they've spent so much time seeing past all the other stuff that they actually see each other. And as they see real, they're connecting on a real level. People always say this like it's hard to talk to Hashem because I can't see him. It's hard to talk to you because I can. People say it's hard to talk to Hashem because I can't see him. It's hard to talk to you because I can see you. I'm getting so confused by the things that you're. The looks on your faces as I'm speaking are very confusing. When two people are talking, we're not talking to each other's protoplasm, right? It's not my protoplasm talking to your protoplasm.
There's a you inside of that protoplasm that's the one that's talking to the other one, and the protoplasm sometimes gets in the way, which is why when you actually connect to the real you in that person there could be amazing levels of attraction, which is why that guy that you swore nothing would ever happen with. And you like, I'm telling you, he's like my brother. It could never happen. It would be so weird. Our families wouldn't even know what to do with it. And besides, I don't see him that way. Really, I don't know how to say this nicely, but I don't see him that way. Six months later, remember that guy I was telling you about? I don't know what. He's like Ross. It's like this. You betrayed yourself. For those of you that laughed, now I know something about you. I grew up in the '90s. I have an excuse. You have no excuse. I have taste. That's my excuse. I understand. That's not great taste.
The sight means seeing beyond. The candles being lit, may erev Shabbos, la erev Shabbos, means they live beyond the physical reality of the world. The nair in the Beis Hamikdash never extinguishes. It lives beyond. Because it's disavowed the material, and that's what we do every single week when we light Shabbos candles. For one day a week, when we light Shabbos candles, what do we say? I'm not involved in the material world. I'm not building. I'm not doing anything. You understand? That's level number one. There's a higher level. This level is called in English sublimation. To sublimate the physical means to extract the holiness from the physical. Which means that you have to be involved in the physical world, but you don't want to be involved in the physicality of the physical world. What do you want to be involved in? The kedusha of the physical world. You're not rising above; you're operating within, but you're extracting out the elements that are holy within the spiritual world. You understand this idea?
I'm going to say it again. Absolutely. Make sure we get it. I'll give you an example to show you what it looks like. On its own, food is just food. But with a guest for Shabbos, giving to somebody who doesn't need You're able to extract from the physicality of that food the purpose of that food. It's like if somebody comes to your door. This is a crazy thing to say. If somebody comes to your door and asks you for a dollar On its own, what is that dollar? It's a piece of paper. There's nothing about that piece of paper that's interesting to us. On the level of yiska, what would we say about that piece of paper? Rise above that piece of paper. Don't get involved in the piece of paper. On the level of sarai, what would we say? Sublimate that piece of paper. Extract out the kedusha from that piece of paper. Use it to give tzedakah. Use it to make someone's life better. On its own, it's just a vest. When you buy that vest, put it in a box, and send it off to a soldier, that's a mitzvah. So you are extracting out the nitzotz, the spark of kedusha that's within that physical reality. Does that start to make sense now?
From this perspective, who do you relate to? Do you relate to everybody in the whole world? Who do you relate to? You relate to those people from whom you can extract the essence of kedusha. You don't relate to the evil people. You're not involved with the evil people. What do you want? You want to change lives. So if somebody comes to Sarai's tent and they say "I need some food," what does she do? She says, "Of course, I'm going to give you food because I'm involved in the materialism of the world in order to extract it out. And I see inside of you" And this is a level. I see inside of you a spark of kedusha, and I'm going to bring that out also. And I'm going to be your aristocracy. I'm gonna be your princess. So she has in this level my princess. This why it's not called princess. My princess is a limited type of experience. It's limited only to those things that I can extract out their kedusha.
If you go and you follow it down now, what's the miracle? The miracle is that her chala never goes bad. That her chala satiates people. What's the nature of this chala? She extracted out all the physical elements, and all she's left with is the kedusha. The kedusha will never go bad. And of course, in the base of mikdash, that's what the lechem apone is. And the mitzvah that we do when we make challah is we're mafresh challah. Mafresh challah means this is dough, but what's the dough for? The dough is for Shabbos. The dough is a mitzvah. That's level number two in our lives. We have times where we disavow the material. I'm leaving that guy behind. It's my time to be inwardly focused and growth-oriented. That's level number one. Level number two is: this is my time to explore this shidduch. But in an appropriate way.
So this time I'm doing it differently. This time it's not just a regular meetup. This time it's being done in a way that's designed to build a relationship of oneness. Do you hear the difference? It's not just walking down Central Avenue with him. Now all of a sudden it has meaning and purpose because you've extracted out the kedusha of that marriage or of that relationship. Does that make sense? Level number three. Meaning as opposed to let's say in my shana alef, I'm disavowing myself of working or talking to these boys right now because I'm trying to focus on myself. There's a second stage when you grow up after you leave the name Yisca and you become Sari and you say now it is appropriate for me to talk to a boy. But I'm doing it in a way that's holy. I'm engaging in the material world, but for the kedusha of the material world. I'm speaking to one guy. I'm trying to build an appropriate relationship with him that could lead to a relationship of oneness.
Does that make sense? In Shana Aleph, that might not be the appropriate thing to do. But if you're still holding two, three years from now, if you're still going, I don't talk to boys. That's a problem, right? That's not from anymore What was from when you're younger is not from when you're older. From when you're older is to go out and build a bias now in Beis Rabbah. Does that make sense? And this is the last one, and we'll finish with this, but it's the hardest one. I'm sorry, I used the wrong word. Please forgive me. The word instead of sublimation, I meant to say is refinement. You're refining the physical. That makes much more sense. The final word is sublimation. Please forgive me, my error. In level number two, you're refining it. There is a third level. And this is the hardest one, but this is the one that I want you to focus on because this is the goal of tonight's year. And I know that we've already been going for 25 minutes, and God knows that nobody's attention span could go that long because I haven't made a really good joke in about 30 seconds. So therefore, I've lost that section of the room and that section of the room. But I'm working on getting them back. Even as I'm speaking now, I'm clearly failing, but I'm giving up. Ready?
I'll do this section of the room, this section of the room, and this section. Sounds good. Goes like this. If you believe in God Then you have to believe that every single thing in this world is godly. Even those things that appear not to be. That's the highest level. On the first level It's not godly. I'm disavowing it. It's mundane. It's physical. On the second level, I'm refining it and taking out the spirituality of it, and that's what I'm operating with. In the third level. I'm encountering all of it All of it, to find godliness in the harder places. The old joke: a man is on the ground at night and he's looking, searching for something on the ground, and somebody comes over to him and asks, "What are you looking for?" He says, "I lost my wallet." So the guy gets down on the ground and he's looking with him, and he goes, "Where'd you lose it?" And he goes, "About thirty feet that way."
" So he goes, "So why are we looking over here?" He goes, "Because it's too dark over there." You understand? Lots of people do that. Lots of people look in the light because they're too afraid to look at the darkness. Lots of people in their life say "I don't want to pay attention to the hard stuff. I'll just work on the easy stuff." It's easy to find godliness in the spiritual. It's even easier. It's also easy to find godliness in the physical when you're using it in a godly way. But if you are going to build for Hashem a dira betachtonim, that means every single element of creation needs to have its godliness discovered. That's the hardest thing of all. I'll give you an example of what this looks like in a relationship if you girls are focused. It's easy to find each other when you're dating.
You're dating a guy you like. Everyone's excited. Everyone's putting on their best self. It's easy. To find someone when the relationship is going well, you're married, you're having good times, you're living your life. It's not like dating, but it's also easy in the mundane aspects of life. Even just having somebody sitting next to you, cutting up vegetables while you're making the soup, there's something beautiful about that. But can you find each other in the darkness when everything is not going well at all? Can you stay loyal? Can you stay curious? Can you stay courageous? Can you stay engaged when appropriate? Can you push yourself and stretch yourself to be there for the other person? That is the hardest thing of all. If you do that, then you're going from being sarai to being sarah. Sarai is the limited princess; she's only the princess over the kedusha that she can extract.
Sarah is the princess over everything. Rashi says the Gemara says everything. Not only the Over the mundane parts of the world, not only within the mundane parts of the world, but even the actual mundane parts of the world themselves become vehicles to serving Hashem. If you start to think about that That's what a cloud is. That's what it means to have the Shechina's presence. When does the Shechina come into a home? When can you say you have a godly home? Remember that God is infinite. That means God is everywhere. Infinite means that godliness needs to permeate every aspect of your life. If you have a godly home, it means that your marriage, your children, your family permeate every aspect of your life. I'll give you an example of this. I'm here right now teaching you girls. It may appear that I'm teaching Toma Devora girls about Yisca Sarah and Sarah.
But the truth is that as much as I am doing that, there's something else that's also going on. Toma Devora pays me to be here. This is part of supporting my family. This is part of the mission of our family. We're teachers of Torah in Toma Devora. I understand my wife is having some of you girls for Shabbos. I'll be upstairs. But the idea that your family permeates everything you do. Are you an accountant? Why are you an accountant? Is anybody waking up in the morning going, I don't even want the paycheck. I just want to do people's taxes. I don't even want the money. I just get something. When I figure out that equation, it's just like yes No. If you're waking up like that, a whole mess of things have gone wrong in your life. When you have enough money, you retire from being an accountant.
Unless people say I have enough money to retire, but my accounting business is now supporting other people, and I don't want to close the business because of the good I'm doing for them. Meaning, there's something larger. Everything is part of something bigger. That's when you have the shechina. That's when the anan covers your house. That's when the shechina enters the beis hamikdash. That's the halachas of taras and moshpacha. The halachas of taras and moshpacha are designed to say that all aspects of our being are invited into this relationship. And that's a hard thing to do. It's a hard thing to say that I will bring purity to every aspect of my family. But that's what we're called upon to do. We're really called upon to be all three of these people. We're called upon to be yiska. Sometimes we have to rise above. We're called upon to be sarai. Sometimes it's not my time to get involved in the darkness. I just have to extract the lesson from that thing. I just have to take away the good from that thing and leave the bad.
And sometimes there are times to get involved in the darkness of your life. I'll leave you with this. I'm sure you've heard this before. The medrash says that Rav Kiva was teaching And like me. He had some. I have some tami dote that are falling asleep. He had tami dim that were falling asleep, and Ruvakiva knew how to wake them up. He said, just like Esther Hamalka ruled over a hundred and twenty-seven provinces, so too Sarayimenu lived for a hundred and twenty-seven years. What in the world does one have to do with the other? What's the connection between Sarayimenu and Esther Hamalka? And the answer to you now should be obvious. Esther Hamalka ruled over the entire world. Sarah Imein ruled over the entire world. And when those Talmidim were tired, and they were tired because they were in a state of life where they were battling the Romans And they were being persecuted, they weren't tired because they were sleepy because it was seven fifteen at night.
They were tired because it was tiring. Aren't we tired right now? Aren't you tired? I'm tired. I'm tired of feeling like the world is burning. I'm tired of turning on my phone and people sending me videos of like the craziest What looked to me like Nazi rallies Tearing down posters That Israel deserved this. Only in two thousand twenty three, in the most woke generation ever, could somebody come up with the brilliant idea to blame Israel for the murder of fifteen hundred of her own citizens. I'm tired. I'm tired, and I know you're tired too. How many of us are tired of the war? I'm just tired. I don't really talk about spiritual anymore. I don't want to talk about it anymore. Every sheer is about the war. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm tired. I'm tired too. If you're tired, I'm tired too.
The war is going on, so we have to. We can't be tired. But the answer that Rav Kehu was giving his talmidim is, if you guys want to bring Hakadosh Baruch Hu into the world, you have to be willing to fight the darkness. You can't just get tired. Sariimenu ruled over the entire world. That's what gave Esther and Malchah the ultimate destiny. That she too was going to be queen over the entire world. That's our responsibility. If you're a Jew and it's easy That's nice. But that's not what it's about. A ger is asked before they become a ger, 'Would you be with us when you're persecuted?' Because to be a Jew means you know that you're going to face the ultimate darkness of the world. The question is, are we Yiscai? Are we Yisca? Sarai or Sarah? Girls have a wonderful Shabbos.
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