Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
And the Gemar in Megillah, Amara'elif Amara'elif, says B'makam sh'ata m'aytsig dul'asay, sh'ala Kadosh Baruch Hu sham, ata m'aytsig vastusu. In the place that we find Hakadosh Baruchu's greatness, that's where we find Hakadosh Baruchu's humility. What's the inner meaning of this Gemara? So, a piaseczidus, it's explained that the gdula of Hakadosh Baruch Hu represents the capacity to create the world Yeshmeyayim. And this to us seems like gdula, seems to us to be extraordinary. On two levels. On the first level is that we cannot create. In our world, we can only refashion and repurpose what already exists into a new form of existence. But the notion of creating something Yeshme'ayin is not within our domain, it's not within our capacity. On another level, we don't even have the capacity to understand what Yeshme'ayin means. There's no mitzias of iron in our world. There's no mitzias of nothing. Everything is something in this world.
And so even the notion of creating something Yeshme'ayin is beyond human capacity to understand. And therefore, when we think about creation from the perspective of humanity, we see Hakadosh Baruch Hu's Gedula. We see this exceptional greatness that He can create something Yeshme'ayin, that He does understand the world of Ayan that we cannot even begin to touch. And yet for Hakadosh Baruch Hu Chazal is not greatness at all says the Gemara, this is humility. What does that mean? The concept here is a concept called symptom. The Rakadosh Baruch Hu retracts himself, so to speak, in order to create space for us. What can this be compared to? Imagine you had an amazing professor teaching the highest level mathematics that exists. And he tells his students that next week he's not going to be in class because he's going I was going to his grandson's second grade class to make a presentation in math.
Read the full transcript
So of course, he says, all of you are invited, but I expect none of you will come. And one student comes. One student shows up to the class. And afterwards he comes back to his college class, to his university class, and he says, that was the greatest class I've ever seen. And the students say why. He was teaching elementary school mathematics. We're used to thinking about, you know, the highest level of mathematics that exists. Why was it so impressive? So he said, because I saw the love of our professor, to take away all of the things that he knew, to distill himself down to his basic essence, to the barest bones of the truth, Sot he could communicate to something that was so beneath himself, which is of course a very uncomfortable process. It's like if you ever have the opportunity to speak to a great genius, sometimes you feel like they're speaking in footnotes.
Like you're not actually speaking to them because everything they're giving you is just like a little bit of a glimpse into this larger thing that they know. And it's hard for them to just start from the very basics. And this is true when it comes to creation. Creation is not difficult for Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is infinite. What creation is to Hakadosh Baruch Hu is humbling. It's pulling Himself back. It's lowering Himself for us. So that we could exist. So that we could experience Him. And this humility is an act of love. So when we think about the Beis Hamikdash, sometimes we make the mistake of thinking about the Beis Hamikdash as there was a Beis Hamikdash and then there was Hasher HaShashchina and then we did an Avera and Hakadosh Baruch Hu removed Hasher HaShashchina. But this kina tells us that that's not true. There is truly no place in this world that can hold HaShashashchina.
As Chazal say, He is the place. He is not in the place. That's why one of our Kaddush Baruch's name is Amakom. And since there is no place that can contain our Kaddush Baruch Hu, how should we see the existence of the Beyse Hamikdash? The Terreitz is that the Beyse Hamikdash did not exist independently and separately from our Kaddush Baruch Hu. Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves us, because of his humility, he creates the Beis Hamik Dosh so that he can be seen. And then, when that reality of his love is no longer apparent in our world, M'Mehmeilu the Beis Hamik Dosh no longer exists. The Beis Hamik Dosh cannot be seen as an independent entity from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's Hainu Haqh. It is the ultimate expression of His manifestation in this world. And therefore the loss of the Beisam Iqdash is not merely the loss of brick and mortar, and it's not merely the loss of a national center that Klal Yisrael would gather in to serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but it's the fundamental break in the relationship itself.
It's the expression that Hakadosh Baruch Hu's love is withheld from us. And that is the most painful feeling in the world. To know that the person that we love most in the world doesn't love us, or has concealed their love for us, or is no longer revealing their love to us in a way that we can experience it, it leaves us feeling alone, it leaves us feeling terrified, it leaves us feeling anxious And this is the feeling that comes along with the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash. We don't mourn the loss of a building, we mourn the loss of God's love. And therefore we ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu to love us again. And we ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu to remove all of the idols, all of those things that were in our relationship that caused Hakadosh Baruch Hu to conceal his love. And that we are in our relationship that caused Hakadosh Baruch Hu to conceal His love from us So that there is not a place in the world that we can go to feel safe So that there is not a place in the world that we can call our special relationship of Hakadosh Baruch Hu So that we can once again have a home And so this Kinnah is at once exceptionally sad and exceptionally inspiring And on the one hand it's exceptionally sad because where has the love for Hakadosh Baruch Hu gone?
But on the other hand, it's exceptionally inspiring because we know that as long as creation exists on some dimension, even if it's not the dimension that we would want, even if it's not the dimension of Yom A'isom Mashiach Nelem Abba, it means that Hakadosh Baruch's love for us is still extant, that he continues to humble himself to allow for the Bria to exist. And we ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu to take that into the next step, to reveal His love in a way that we can experience it, that we can once again have a home.
Is this shiur filed in the wrong place? Let us know.