Mishpatim - Nezikin: A Journey in History, a Journey towards Hashem

2:40 And I just want to highlight for a moment that this is very important And it's going to be. As I mentioned to you, I think I've only done this once before, and I think it's the second time in Torah Devaro that I've ever done this. Of writing this out on the board the way we have it, and we'll go through each step. But it's not a hard concept, but it's not an easy concept because what we're going to try to show And again, I just want to try to be mizariz, try to inspire those who are here but not here. And Baruch Hashem, I see that most of you are here, but there are those of you that are here but not here. This is not the type of share that you can dip in and dip out. It's not the type of share that you hear a line and then it's like you got the line. There's a theme that's going to flow through this entire thing And that theme is not difficult to understand, but you have to understand every single step, which is why I wrote it out.

3:36 Nezikin in Shas and Gemara is made up of three mesechtas, mesechtas that you may have heard of before. They're called the three gates. Baba kama, baba metzia e baba basra. Baba Kama is the first gate. Baba Metzia is the second gate, or the middle gate, and Baba Basra is the third gate, the final gate. And each one of them, as we'll see, has different themes. Has different first lines of the Masechta that introduce the Masechta, and everything that's in the introduction contains the entirety of the Masechta. There are different historical developments, as we'll see. The history of all of human society is based on these three mesechtas, and ultimately is what we see as Bein Adam LaMakom. How these things and the knowledge of these things is seen in our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I'm going to go through each one, and I'm just going to go through first the theme of each one and the first line, and then we'll get to Ultimately, how this develops in history and the Menadim l'Makom. The first gate is called Baba Kama.

4:47 The theme of Baba Kama is criminal or violent attacks on property, on a person's property, or on a person themselves. And this obviously represents a certain barbaric state of disharmony. When you have somebody who's acting in a violent way towards another person's property, that's a violent state. The first line of the Mesech deals with the four primary damages that we see in the Torah, which are namely shor, bar, mava, and ish. Shor bar mava and ish. Shor literally means ox. In this case, it would be a person's ox goring his neighbor's ox. For those who have brothers, perhaps you heard your brothers talking about if one shor gores or stoeses in Yiddish another person's ox. This is talking about damage that's inflicted by a person's property. If my property damages your property, the second case is called bor. Bor means damages that are placed in a public domain.

6:08 For example, if I dig a hole in the middle of the street and you fall into that hole, who's responsible? I'm responsible. Why? Because I created a danger in the middle of the street. Then there's something called mave. Mave means damages inflicted by a person themselves. And finally, there's aish. Aish means I started a fire on my own property, and it spread to my neighbor's property. Since I failed to prevent this aish from impacting somebody else, I'm responsible. So those are the four categories. I'll repeat them very quickly. These are the four categories that are spoken about in the beginning of Bava Kama, and as we'll see, they are mission critical to understanding the first gate of human history. And our relationship with Hashem. Shor is when my property damages another person's property. Bar is when my damager was put in a public domain. Mave is when I myself damaged somebody else.

7:15 And Aish is I started a fire on my property, and that fire spread to somebody else's property. The reason I'm liable for that is because I failed to prevent the damager from creating a potentially dangerous situation. Other topics in the Masechta include Gneva and Gzeila. That is Baba Kama. That is the first line of Baba Kama and the theme of the Masechta. Moving on to Baba Mitzia. Baba Mitzia is the second gate. Second gate. The theme is different than in Baba Kama. In Baba Kama, we were talking about violent and or criminal acts, and in Bava Metzia, it's not that way. There's no overtly criminal acts, but what we have is day to day disagreements. Each party thinks they're in the right. Each party has a claim, and they both have a certain way of seeing this reality. The first line in the Masechta, again, a very famous line for boys learning in yeshiva. Almost every boy will know this line. It's called Shnayim Ochsim B'Talis. If two people are holding on to a talis, one says it's my talis, the other person says it's my talis. The question is, what do you do? The topics in this Masechta are return of lost objects.

8:41 Certain disputes that come about because of loans or sales or various levels of employment. What's going to be very important for our purposes is called the Arba Shomrim, the four different types of people that watch people's objects. Those four Shomrim, the Arba Shomrim, are I'm saying them out now. They're not on the board. Was called a Shomer Sacher. A Shomer Sacher is somebody who is paid to watch an object. A shomer chinam is somebody who is not paid, but they are responsible for watching your object. A shouel is a borrower. I'll repeat it in a moment. And a sachar who is a renter. Again, four types of shomerim. If I give my object to you, there are four ways So to speak, taking ownership for it. Shomer sachar is I am paid to watch your object. Shomer chinam is I am unpaid, but I have taken responsibility for watching your object.

9:42 A sachar is someone who rents your object, and a shawel is someone who borrows your object. All four of those cases. A sachar is somebody who rents the object. A shawel is somebody who borrows the object. Those are the four ways that a person can take responsibility for your object. Moving on to Baba Basra, you'll see girls every. I know these details might be tedious at first, but they're going to be necessary to understanding the punchline of this year. Moving on, we have Baba Basra. Baba Basra is very different than Baba Kama and Baba Mitzia. In Baba Kama, we dealt with criminal acts, violent acts. In Baba Mitzia, we dealt with day-to-day disagreements. And in Baba Basra, we're dealing with the ideal laws that are not designed to settle arguments, but to create a harmonious existence between a man and his fellow man. For example, the first line that we see in Baba Basra is where you have people who are partners in a courtyard.

10:50 And they want to divide the courtyard by building a wall in the middle. And the Gemara says that in everything they do, they should follow the local customs. And if they build with uncut stones, then they should give a space of three hand breaths. And if they build with bricks, then each one should give a space of one and a half hand breaths. And therefore, the wall belongs equally to both of them. The idea here, just to be very clear about this, is as follows: We're not coming to punish criminals. We're not coming to settle disputes. We're coming to teach a person how to live in harmony with their fellow. So now, just to review very quickly, make sure everyone has the details, and then we can get into the Pnimiyas Hatayra. We have here in Nezikin three separate movements. Movement number one is the movement of criminal.

11:49 Somebody attacks somebody else. In that case, we're told what to do. It depends on the type of damager. There are four damagers. We have Bava Metzia. It's not criminal, but there is an argument. We need to know how to settle the argument. There we spoke at length about the Arba Shomrim. Depends on who the person watching the object is, what is their title. And finally, not only is it not criminal, and not only is there no dispute, but in Bava Basra we're speaking about, in the ideal, how do we live in a harmonious existence? How do we build boundaries where each one of us, as a chilek, has a share in those boundaries? And now let's move on to the penimiyas ha'tayra to see how all of these things are baked in to the history of society And how each one of these things ultimately becomes about our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

12:49 One of the things that we don't think about. Because Baruch Hashem, we're living for the most part in a civilized society. We don't realize that for much of human history, society was barbaric. You come, and you should be very proud to know this. You come from a long line of people, a nation whose design it was to bring godliness to a barbaric world. We don't really think about that in terms of having Jewish pride. Many of us think to ourselves, "What is Judaism contributing to society today?" And we look around and we see, for the most part, society is civilized. But if you learn your history, if you read, for example, about Genghis Khan If you learn about what barbaric people did back in the day, if you learn about human sacrifice, you will learn very quickly that our world, historically speaking, has not been the civilized world that we live in today.

13:53 For the most part, and this is still to some degree true, for the most part society has been civilized. People in general today don't go around for no purpose at all, just smashing into other people. For the most part, society has become civilized. The beginning of history is people learning to behave in a godly way. And I want to be very clear about this. To be godly means to protect other people's property from yourself. When we think about the world It's a very small place, and we all occupy it together. For example In the dorms, you may not realize what a small space you are living in. And it is quite possible to be in the dorms and to be bumping into each other. Bumping into each other might mean that you're acting in a way that you may not realize it, but in a certain way, I'm going to use a strong word. It's barbaric. It's certainly true in yeshivas. I'm sure it's true here in seminaries as well.

15:05 For example If your property damages another person's property in the dorms You are responsible for that. If you leave something out in the middle of the floor and somebody trips on that, you're responsible for that. The sensitive, godly person, Baba Kama, their first move. I'm just talking about in society, in the dorms, in your life. The first thing that every one of us needs to understand is a human being is a damager. That's what we are. We have the capacity to hurt people. What's the doctor's creed? Do no harm. Why is do no harm so important? Because by definition If somebody gives themselves over to your care as a doctor, what do you have the capacity to do? To harm them. So what does the doctor's creed have to be? If somebody comes to you in a state of vulnerability and they say to you, "Take care of me" You have the capacity because they've given themselves over to you to do what?

16:12 You have the capacity to hurt them. Every single person in this room, to some degree, is a doctor. The Torah teaches us that you have the capacity to damage somebody else because the world is a vulnerable place. And becoming a person who's sensitive to the barbaric nature of society and says we need laws in order to civilize society. That's what a law is at its most rudimentary level. Even though you'll see that there's two higher levels, at the most rudimentary, basic level, that's what law is. Law is to civilize animals. That's what is. What would a society look like without laws? By the way, you see this happening in the world today Because there are certain places, and I don't want to make this into a big conversation, and please don't make this into a tomer d'vor moment. There are certain places now that they're pulling back the laws in the name of "quote unquote" morality, which is obviously sick.

17:21 And we see what's happening. For example, in Los Angeles, in California, there's a law that you cannot be prosecuted for stealing under a thousand dollars. So what are people doing? Because again, in a non-civilized, barbaric society, people will walk into a store. They'll walk into a CVS. They clear out the shelves and take $999 worth of stuff, and there's nothing you can do. They walk right out because the laws are not in place to civilize society. I saw in the news one store, very brilliant, marked everything in the store over a thousand dollars. Everything in the store is marked over a thousand dollars. When you get to the register, they discount the price. It's like one of those special deals, like the blue light special or whatever it is. So they knock it down to its regular price. But why do they have to do that? Because if you walk out of that CVS with a deodorant, you're stealing over a thousand dollars, and therefore you could be prosecuted.

18:21 When we don't have laws in place to civilize society, what happens? People can because we're not yet in the godly world that we need to be. People can resort. To their baseline barbaric self A Jew has to understand that every one of us has a nefesh abrahamis. The world has the capacity to be an animalistic, selfish place, and without laws, that's what happens. You look around and you see murder and you see wanton looting and things that happen all in the names of a cause. People can be barbaric. Look no further than what happened on Simchas Torah when we don't have laws. People tend to fall to the lowest common denominator. So historically speaking The purpose of a law is to civilize society. That is step one. Step two In Baba Mitzia. Now we're getting to again not the Bein Adam LaNakum, but the history of Bein Adam. Of Bein Adam. I'm sorry, Bein Adam. Bein Adam LaChaveru. In history In step two, we move from criminal.

19:31 To non-malicious conflict After society has basically recognized that a criminal society will not work And by the way, that's what does happen eventually. Eventually, people realize, and this is the democracy that we're living in today. That we need laws to protect each other from each other because it doesn't really work to live in a society of criminals. Does that make sense? There's nobody who wants to live. For example, if you speed. Let's just take this for example. If you speed And you might say, "But I'm safe." But what happens to the next person who speeds? If we lived in a society where everybody who drives is speeding, what would you say is going to happen? People are going to die. Speeding is exceptionally dangerous. If you run a red light, they say when you're in driver's ed, they teach you a yellow light means slow down. But we all know what a yellow light means? Hurry up. Nobody wants to miss the red, right?

20:27 But if chas v'shalom. Somebody you loved was crossing the street And somebody sees a yellow light And they say to themselves, "Speed up, chas v'shalom." The results could be disastrous. In other words, eventually we all come to the understanding that in a civilized society, everyone needs to follow the law; otherwise, we're going to hurt each other. After that, the next step is as follows: We're human beings. Even if we're not acting violently, even if we're not acting negligently or criminally, we're going to have what? Normal, everyday, run-of-the-mill machlokus. Whose turn is it to do the dishes? Who left the towel on the bathroom floor? Who didn't put their whatever away? Natural human conflict. Nobody's malicious, but eventually, if two people live together, what happens? Eventually, when two people live together It starts to deteriorate. Eventually, when two people live together, like in every single marriage, there's conflict.

21:36 What does Baba Mitzya teach us? Baba Mitzya, do me a favor, please, if you don't mind, just close the back door, if you don't mind. Baba Mitzya teaches us that normal human everyday conflict. Is to be expected, and our responsibility is to do what? Our responsibility is to settle conflict. That's not an easy thing to do. There's a line from the Gottman Institute. I don't know if you know this. The Gottman Institute. The Gottman Institute runs something called the Love Lab And they basically deal with marriages and what makes marriages fall apart. So there's a concept called rupture and repair. Rupture and repair means as follows: in every relationship there will be ruptures, in every relationship there will be fractures. And in every relationship, the success of the relationship has nothing to do with the rupture of the relationship. It has to do with how well the couple stays in repair.

22:40 Step two of the natural world that we live in is we're moving away from the barbaric. It's true. We are much more civilized than they were 2,000 years ago. But we still need courts to adjudicate regular conflict. In step one, what is the purpose of a law? The purpose of a law is to civilize society. In step two, laws don't just civilize society. What do they do? Laws teach us how to maintain harmony when there is rupture, when there is fracture, when things are falling apart. E finalmente, a Baba B'astro. Remember the case of Baba Basra. We have a courtyard. We share that courtyard. We want to build a wall. How do we build that wall in a way that we can share that wall? In a way that we each give up a little bit so that we share the wall. This is the ideal state of law that a person is supposed to live with. In the ideal state of law Law is not meant just to civilize society or to adjudicate conflict. Laws are meant to create harmony.

23:49 Now I know that's a very hard concept to swallow, so I want you to listen carefully. Most of the time, we think of rules as annoying or obnoxious. Remember when you were in school growing up And a rule was like, "Why do they have all these stupid rules? You remember that? Especially if those laws that they had in the schools touched specific triggers that you may have had. I'm saying something very specific. If you know what I mean. You'll figure it out if you don't know what I mean. Just think about the thing inside of you that you hated when you were growing up. That's the thing I mean. So that rule As you were young, it was annoying because you're like, it's trying to civilize me, and I don't want to be civilized. You get a little older, and you go I understand. The rules are there to prevent conflict.

24:41 You get a little older, and you realize rules create healthy boundaries. Boundaries are designed to keep people in, not push people out. Today, boundaries is used as a cudgel in relationships. I'm making healthy boundaries. That's not healthy boundaries. That's using the word boundaries in an unhealthy way. Boundaries are. These are the rules of what it looks like to be in a relationship with me. And because I care about you. I'm letting you know what the rules are, so that we can each follow the rules together. Good rules, good laws, not bad laws. Good laws create harmony. Good laws create harmony. When you are decided, you have a shared courtyard. This is life. You all have a shared courtyard in your life. And sometimes you're going to want to build a wall in that courtyard so that you can have some private space and the other person can have some private space.

25:41 In a good law. Each one of you contributes to that wall. So that the wall will be a shared wall, not a wall that divides you, but a wall that unites you. And here, I'll tell you very quickly the story of my favorite wall in the entire world. And no, it's not the Kotel. Not that I don't like the Kotel. This is not a commentary on the Kotel. But there's a very special wall, and that wall is in Los Angeles. And it's in Yula for boys. Yula for boys on the walls of the building they have gedolim pictures And on the gedolim pictures in Yula they have right next to each other Rav Shach Zeichet Zadik Levracha, the Rosh Yeshiva of Panovich, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe Zeichet Zadik Levracha. The Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rav Shach had differing opinions on how to see the world. And those who were the Talmidim of Rav Shach and those who were the Chassidim of the Lubavitcher Rebbe did not always see eye to eye on things.

26:41 And in Yula, they put those two pictures right next to each other. And I was visiting Yula many years ago as I try to do every year. And I'm walking with Rabbi Shriver, who's the principal of Yula. And I said to him, "How ironic to put a picture of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Rosh Hashanah right next to each other." And Rabbi Shriver looked at me, and if you know him in only the way he can, Rabbi Shriver looks at me and he goes "It's exactly where they should be placed. Everywhere else in the world, the walls divide us." And in Yula, we want our walls to unite us. And I love that line because that's what walls are meant to do. Great boundaries create connections, not disconnections. If we have boundaries that we are creating in society, it's so that we can be connected to every single other person. If we have boundaries that we create within Yiddishkeit, it's so that we can be connected to every single person. As we see in history, the development of three things. Laws are meant to civilize.

27:41 Laws move not just to civilize us, but to adjudicate conflict because that's natural. And finally, our laws create unity. And now, let us examine one last fell swoop: the Bein Adam LaMakom. How do these three Babas, these three Mesechtas Teach us how to relate to Hakadosh Baruch Hu? The first step. Of our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu has to be to contend with the negative forces, the damages of our life. We have four primary damages in our life: Shor, Bor, Mava, and Eish. Shor is an ox. It represents the animal lusts and desires that we have in this world. Bor represents the passive. Type of person that we are. A bore is just a pit. You ever have a feeling of laziness or lethargy, of just feeling like a total? I don't mean this in a chemical way, but just totally depressed. I don't want to do anything in my life. That's a negative force. That's a damager. Sometimes we don't think about it like that. Being lazy, while it's understandable and it's a protective part of ourselves, being lazy is damaging. Nobody here wants to marry a lazy guy.

29:02 You don't want to marry a guy that can't wake up in the morning. Imagine a husband who's not capable of waking up in the morning. How's he going to be capable of being a man, of taking care of business? You don't want to marry somebody who is animalistic. You don't want to marry somebody who's got that bull in a china shop type of mentality. You also don't want to marry somebody who's just like a bar. He's just there. He just sits there in the middle, damaging, doing nothing. Mave Mave means we all have these. We'll call it sophisticated parts of ourselves. This is our capacity to damage another, our ego, so to speak. It's very sophisticated, but it's used in a way to twist reality. So if number one, you don't want to marry an animalistic person. Number two, you don't want to marry a bore. You don't want to marry just like a depressed guy who doesn't wake up in the morning, a lazy guy who just sits there and drinks a beer and watches the game.

30:02 Number three, nobody here wants to marry an egomaniac. Nobody wants to marry a sophisticated guy who's very opinionated and can't listen to somebody else. He's a man, but in a certain sense, he takes up all the space. There are certain people who just take up all the space. The part of becoming a human being serving Hakadosh Baruch Hu is learning to contend with our mava, learning to contend with the sophisticated parts of ourselves. And finally, ash, which is anger and other violent emotions. Anger is a very almost impossible. It's almost anyone here ever see somebody get really angry and gets scared by their anger. Anger is a terrifying thing. You could be a bull in a china shop and not be angry. It doesn't mean you're smashing things out of anger. Anger is a whole different animal. When we speak about ash, it's so unsafe.

30:58 If you want to relate to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and you're talking about these four things. These are four ways, four things that you must start off. Baba Kama. These are the beginnings of your relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. You cannot be an animalistic person, just doing whatever you want. You cannot be a lazy guy or a lazy girl, just sitting there doing nothing with your life. You have to check in on your sophisticated ego that you use to justify your actions and to take up all the space. And finally, your anger is nobody else's problem. You're not allowed to pour out your anger on everybody else. We move from there, and this gets a little bit more complicated now. We move from there to Ben Adam La Makom of Baba Metsia. Where we encountered the Arba Shomrim. The Arba Shomrim. First of all, before we deal with the Arba Shomrim, let's just deal with the lost objects. The Gemara in Chagiga tells us what is a fool. Who is a fool? Somebody who destroys everything that is given to him. In chassidus, listen to how they translate those words: zaham abed kol ma.

32:09 The one who destroys his ma that was given to him. What is ma? Ma is like Moshe Rabbeinu said: v'nachnu ma. What are we? Abraham Avinu said, 'Anochi offer ve'efir.' That was very humble. He said, 'He's but dust and ashes.' Moshe Rabbeinu was even a little bit more humble than that. He said, 'V'nachnuma, what are we? All we are is an expression of Hashem in this world.' You know who a fool is? Somebody who loses his capacity for humility. He loses his capacity for self-abnegation. When we speak about lost objects in the Gemara, we're speaking about someone who lost themselves. They lost their connection to Hashem. If you want to build after you've been civilized and you're no longer the animal that we spoke about in Baba Kama, the first thing you need to do is return a lost object. By the way, if you think about it, even what does it mean to return a lost object? If you find something, what do they say in the world? Finders keepers, losers weepers.

33:08 What is that in a certain sense? It's a very arrogant thing. That thing that you had is now mine. What do we say in the Torah? That thing that you had, Hashem wanted you to have it. And if I find it and I can return it to you because there's a siman, what does humility dictate? Humility says I better give it back to you. Lost objects is such an important feature of our relationship with Hashem. That's why, by the way, the minig and klayesrul. Not everybody does this, but many, many, many do this. The minig and klayesrul. When your sons start to learn Gemara, you know which parak they're going to learn first. Elu mitsias. You know what elu mitsias is about? Returning lost objects. You know why we do that? Because the first thing that children should learn is that some things are yours and some things are not.

33:56 And if you find something that's not yours, give it back to somebody else. It's a posture of humility. We move from there to the four guardians, the Arba Shomrim. The Arba Shomrim, they all have levels to them. The highest level. I'm moving through this a little bit quickly. It's difficult. If you don't understand it, it's fine. You can hear it on the recording, but I want to get through it because it's such an important idea. This is an idea based on the Shlach Kadosh. The first type and the highest level of a Shomer is called a Shomer Chinam. He's unpaid. The Gemara in Kedushin says, "Eini nevresi el l'shamis eskoni." The highest level of serving Hashem in Baba Metzia, in the second stage, is "I was only created to serve my master." A shomer chinam sees life as divine. Girls, I'm going to say something to you. You may not like this.

34:53 It's not your life. It's not yours. You know how I know it's not yours? Because you didn't build it. You didn't create it. It was gifted to you, but it was gifted to you in order to do something with it. It doesn't belong to you. You are born against your will, as the Mishnah Avot says, and you will die against your will because life does not belong to us. How many times do we say? And I'm sure many of you have said this. I know I've said this. But it's my life. How often do you say that to your parents? It's my life. And what does a parent say? I brought you into this world, and I will take you out. It's not your life. This life belongs to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. At the highest level of service to Hashem, we say, "Einivresi el l'sham mishasconi." I'm unpaid. I seek no reward, like the Mishnah Avot says. Not interested in schar.

35:45 Imagine if you actually said out loud the things that we say in Judaism. It would be so uncomfortable. For example, people say, "What's the reward if I do a mitzvah?" Could you imagine people saying that out loud? It sounds horrible. If your husband asks you to do something, you go, 'What do I get?' What do you mean? You get to be in the relationship. How awesome is that? To be, if your husband says to you You want me to take out the garbage? What do I get? What's wrong with you, man? Just take out the garbage. This is not that big a deal. Unless you live in a ramapi chamish, and then you have to take it out like two blocks. But in a regular scenario, taking out the garbage is not that big a deal. If you have to ask somebody what the reward is, it means there's something not so great in the relationship. A shomer chinam is somebody who understands it's not my property. I'm just holding on to it.

36:36 And I'm doing it for free. I'm not doing it for any reason. The next thing is a borrower. Why do we borrow? We borrow for our own benefit. These are people who go. The purpose of life is self-fulfillment. Do you hear how ego, how egotistical that can be? The purpose of life is for me to become the best version of myself. And again He doesn't owe anyone anything. I'm just borrowing it. He doesn't. I don't owe you anything. I don't owe you anything for bar. I'm not paying for this. I don't owe you anything for life's benefit. After that, we have the renter, the sachar. The renter is somebody. In a certain sense, he's like the borrower. He's like the shol. But he says the purpose of life is self-fulfillment, but also to serve Hashem. The best way of explaining this is the people who turn Judaism into a self help book.

37:33 You know what I'm talking about? Every shear they give is about improvement of the self. And then like Agav, they mention and that's how you serve Hashem Right? Like it's a throw in At the highest level, you're serving Hashem. Why? Because He created me. It's His life. I do it for no reward. I do it because He gave me this life. A borrower is the exact opposite. It's my life. I become. I borrow. I'm not doing. I'm the one reaping all the benefit. A renter is like a little bit of both. He rents it, so he gets the life. He's using it for himself, but because he rented it, he paid for it a little bit. So fine. I'll also give something to Hashem. And finally, we have the shomer sacher, the one who gets paid. To be a guardian, and he says as follows: the purpose of life is to fulfill Hashem's will.

38:26 But it's also my life. It's also my life, and I'm using it in the employ of Hashem. I want to be paid. I want my reward. You understand the difference? Of these levels, which one is the highest? Obviously, the Shomer Chinam is going to be the highest because he serves Hashem for no other reason. Then there's the people that borrow, that's egotistical. The people that rent, a little less egotistical, and the people that actually pay to be a shomer, that's even a little less egotistical. Let me just finish up. You can ask me afterwards. And let's finally get to Baba Basra. Baba Basra, and we'll finish with this. Baba Basra sees life as a joint creation between man and Hashem. And this is when Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, "Come, let us make man." The Baal Shem Tov says he's not speaking to the Malachim. Who is he speaking to?

39:19 To man himself. Let's create this world together. Hashem in Baba Metzia gave us a life, and we use it for Him. But what does Hashem desire ultimately? Hashem desires that we participate in it. And remember, in the Mishnah, spoke about two types of stones: uncut stones and bricks. Uncut stones, you give this amount. Bricks, you give this amount. There's two types of things in this world. There's the uncut stones; those are like things from Hashem, just like a giant uncut stone. What are things from Hashem? A safer Torah, Shabbos, Tefillin Yomim Tovim. Those are things from Hashem. We join with Hashem in His special days and with His special objects. But there's also bricks. The things in life that are of this world that we shape Hakadosh Baruch Hu puts us into this world, and He says, "Make my world into a godly place," and only You can do that.

40:17 And that has to be a partnership between man and Hashem. We make boundaries in this world, and we say, 'This godly, this non-godly, and this in the middle can be elevated to godliness,' and that is ultimately the Tachlis Habriya, not only to follow Hashem's laws, but to be a partner with Hakadosh Baruch Hu in creation. In summary, if you follow this entire amazing piece It goes as follows: baba kama, baba mitzia, baba basra. In Baba Kama Were animals that need to be civilized. That's in human history, and it's even within ourselves. We have to tame the animal within ourselves in order to serve Hashem. In Baba Mitzia, we're not animals, but we're in conflict. And we need laws to mediate those conflicts. We see that in history. We also see that in our relationship with our Kadosh Baruch Hu. We have the Arba Shomrim. We have to serve Hashem. Our life cannot be a conflict with God's. We have to give our life over to Hashem. And in stage three, we're living in the ideal of human history. In the ideal of human history, not only are we not in conflict with Hashem, but we're actually partners with our Kadosh Baruch Hu in His creation.