Chapters
Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
First of all, it's good to be back in Chicago. It's not really so good to be back in Chicago. It's very cold here. I don't know how you survive here. It's wonderful to be in the neighborhood. But I came. It's like you have to have a slow yireva from Eretz Israel. So Eretz Israel to Los Angeles to Chicago. Tomorrow I'm going into New York. It's supposed to be snowing in New York tomorrow. This is a preparation for New York. They asked me last minute who was who suggested two bishvat. Whose fault is this? Who wants to take responsibility? This is your fault. I had a whole sheir prepared, but we changed it up last minute. I want to share tonight a tirah. We do a sheir and then question answer again, like we did last time. That's what the chaver wants. There's no bravery here. Nobody's going to say yes. We're just going to do the little knots.
Say over a shittikal tirah that I heard from my rebbe Yerzucker. Some of you know Rav Zucker from Yerushalayim. You've heard the name Shmuel Zucker. He's a tzaddik in Yerushalayim. So he said over a tir on Tu B'Shvat that I want to share with you. It's not my tir on any level. It's his. But I'll try to say it in my way a little bit. Tu B'Shvat, the whole onion of Tu B'Shvat we know is that's the Rosh Hashanah liwanos. Very often identified with the pasuk of Ki Adam Meitzada that man is a tree in the field. We look in Parsha Shavdim, so there's a smiches aparshios between Ki Adam Eitz Asada goes right into the Parsha of Eglar Rufa. So Shaila is, what's the relationship between the Eglar Rufa and the pasuk of Ki Adam Eitz Asada? What's one got to do with the other? Just to remind ourselves, what's Eglar Rufa? Eglar Rufa is if somebody gets murdered between two cities, so they go out and they measure which city he was murdered close to.
Read the full transcript
And then there's a whole procedure that they perform to atone for the fact that perhaps they weren't as careful as they should have been in moving this person out of the city, and perhaps on some level they're responsible for his death. Part of that procedure is that they take an egla bashnaso. They take an egla Welcome home. It's good to see you. I shouldn't interrupt the shir in the middle, but I feel such a warmth coming back to your home. I feel like I've been here before. I stayed here, so it's great to come back. Thank you for having me. As part of the procedure, they take an egla bashnasu, an egla that has not had children, an egla that's a year old. And they bring it to a nachal, specifically to a river that is not motzi peros, a place where nothing grows. And it's to atone. The gemara in Sota says it's to atone for somebody who can't be motzi peros. What does it mean that a person can't be motzi peros? The Gemara says, 'Eilema periav erivya.' If what it means is we're speaking about somebody who couldn't have children or now I'm saying who can't have children because they were killed.
So the Gemara says, 'Elameyata azakein vaasris hachanami the law of finan.' So then, what if we were dealing with an elderly person that was murdered, or what if we were dealing with somebody who wasn't able to have children because he's a eunuch? So would you have to do an egla arufa? Would you have to do that procedure for such a person? The whole reason why we bring this egel that's bashnaso, that's a year old, specifically to a nachal that can't grow anything, is to atone for someone who can't grow anything. If that meant they can't have children, then what would happen by azaken? What would happen by a siris? Those people can't have children, and we know that the halacha is that we do the procedure of eglar ruva even for a zakin or even for a sris. So the Gemara says what appears to be at first a frum thing, but as we'll soon see, it's a very deep thing. The Gemara says elamitzos.
What are we talking about? What does it mean that we bring the egel who can't who has not yet had children to a place that can't grow that can't grow peros? In order to atone for someone who can't grow payros, it means that they can no longer do mitzvos. That's what the Gemara says. In other words What is a person's payros? What is a person's contribution to the world? What do we grow? So the Gemara says, what we grow is mitzvos. Everybody, azake and asheres, a regular, every single person in the world is designed to bring out mitzvos into the world. Like I said, it sounds like a frum answer, but as we're going to see in a moment. This really is a tremendously deep thing. I want to share with you that the Maral in Beragola Maral has a beautiful drush over there, and the Maral says that the name Adam we know comes from the lashon of Adama, but that's a very unexpected thing.
Not because necessarily Adama is just ground and it seems to be something very coarse and very low to name a person after. The maral is bothered by the fact that an animal eats from the ground. And it's a very strange thing to identify a human being with something that an animal eats from. So the maral says a very beautiful thing. He says, "No" You shouldn't identify adama as something that animals eat from. You should identify adama as a place where things grow. Fundamentally, the neshama is not on its own capable of growing anything. Neshama and Shamayim can't do anything. It's not an impressive thing. The neshama comes down into this world into a body, and that's like a seed being planted in the ground. The ground is a fertile place for the neshama to grow to bring something into the world. I want to stop here for a second to unpack this idea and make sure we have it clear.
The yisurid of a person. Is to bring something out into reality. I'll explain what I mean. There's a certain level of depression that exists where a person is not capable of bringing anything from the world of potential into the world of actual. A person reaches a stage of depression, chas v'shalom, in their lives. You see how it manifests itself? They literally will tell you, "I can't get out of bed. I can't bring something into the world. I'm not capable of being in motion." It's a very high level of pain that a person's in, because the natural state of a person is to grow. The natural state of a person is to constantly evolve. And I don't just mean in the theory of evolution, but a person has to bring something real into the world. It has to manifest itself in some way. We see very often in yeshiva Sometimes a boy, especially if he feels no hatslacha in his learning.
We see sometimes that they don't grow at all from yeshiva, and they could grow tremendously when they leave yeshiva in a very short amount of time when they go out to work. I often wonder, you see these boys when they're eighteen, nineteen years old, and you think to yourself, this is going to be somebody's husband. You feel a little bit for these poor wives. I'm sure your husbands were all wonderful. I'm sure at eighteen or nineteen years old they were all superstars. But maybe one or two of you know somebody else who you're not married to, who was like eighteen or nineteen years old. You're looking at he's basically walking protoplasm. That's sometimes all you can say. And then they get married, and you're kind of wondering to yourself how this is going to work out. And then you see a short while later, not very long, two, three, four years later, all of a sudden he's an anderim and she's a different person.
What's the pshat? What changed? Taretz is he brought something into the world. He went out. He got a job. He pays bills. He has responsibilities. He had a child. He had a fight with his wife, and he had to learn how to say I'm sorry because it's pashut that he was wrong. And even if he wasn't wrong, he learned that he has to say I'm sorry because he has to learn that shalom bayis is more important than being right. The problem is that there's something very off about the educational system, because the educational system is not necessarily designed for a person to express themselves. That's why kids are so miserable in school. A good student likes school. Why does a good student like school? Because they're able to express a certain part of themselves. So it's like a gishmak that a person gets from getting a hundred on a test, getting a ninety-five on a test. That's why all little kids love school. You remember when you were little and you loved school? Like when I'm talking little, I mean like three or four years old.
A little three or four year old child comes home. What do they say, mommy, look what I made in school today? They show you the picture, and you're trying to figure out what it is. It's like a potato. It's like a. It all looks the same. It's just a bunch of scribble on a paper. You say, 'Wow, look what you made!' Because a child brings something into reality. They feel like a mensch. They feel like a person, a human being. A human being cannot show up to something and not know how to be productive. We take children who are not necessarily good at producing good tests, who are not necessarily going to be able to produce the answers that the teachers want. And then we see these kids getting antsy in class, and we say, 'Oh, Taka, you must be ADHD.' That's not all what's happening. This kid doesn't know how to self-actualize, and I don't mean self-actualize in the theory of it. I don't mean like a person sitting in like in therapy and working through their issues.
A person needs to be capable of bringing something out into the world. They can point to it. They can say, "Look, this is what I did today." Rabbi Yaakov Bender Shlitah, who was my Rosh Yeshiva growing up. He's the rosh yeshiva of yeshiva Darche Torah in the five towns. I assume some of you have heard of Darche. I want to tell you. I remember when Darche created the vocational program. Darche has a vocational program. It's an unbelievable program. They take these kids. I don't know exactly when it starts. If it starts at the end of elementary school or in high school, but they take these kids who are not going to be productive in class. That's not where they're going to make their mark. And instead of relegating them to giving them medicine and making them into walking zombies, Rabbi Bender found a way for these kids to be successful. So they have programs: electrician, plumbing, building kitchens. They have all these different programs for these kids to participate in, rather than sit in classes in places that they can't possibly be productive and can't possibly be successful. I remember when I was a kid in Darche The vocational program was started after my time. In the summers, I would work in Simcha Day Camp, which was Darche's camp.
And there was a guy; I think his name was Mittman, the electrician in Darche. Now Darche is like an airport; it's like a professional building. But back in the day, Darche was like a bunch of trailers. So this guy Mittman—he would be the electrician for Darche. And in the summer, you would see Mittman going around with these fourteen and fifteen-year-old kids, and they were doing all the electricity for Darche. And on the one hand, it was like a big joke because everyone was joking around, of course Darche's electricity is being handled by a bunch of fourteen, fifteen-year-old kids. That's why nothing works. But on the other hand, as you get older, you learned to appreciate the genius of it. These kids felt like a mensh. They felt like I'm producing something. I'm a human being. There's a story with the Rosh Hashanah Frayfeld Zecharzatik Levracha, the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Sharyoshev. Have you read the Rosh Hashanah Frayfeld biography?
Not good. Everybody here has a chiyuv to read, especially if you're a mother. You have a chiyuv to read the Shlomo Freifeld biography. It is a shulchan aruch for chinuch. It's an unbelievable sefer. Freifeld was a very special machanich. It happens to be my son is named after Freifeld. My son is called Shlomo. The Shlomo is after Shlomo Volbe and after Shlomo Freifeld. Shlomo Freifeld was doing chinuch in a way that today is standard, but back then was revolutionary. There's a story in the book. I believe I'm quoting the story right. Of one of the donors, one of the gvirim of Shaiyashov, walked into the beis medrash and he saw that there weren't so many bachrim there, and he said to Erfrifeld, "What am I putting my money in here for? If the kids aren't here." So Erfrifeld looked and said, "You see that chair?" You see that chair?" So the gvir said, "Yeah.
So he said, 'There was a bachur that came to us. He came from a very broken home. He came from a very broken place, and I sensed in him that he can't be successful in yeshiva until he has some money in his pocket.' He needs some money in his pocket. So we made a deal. He comes to shacharis in the morning. He learns a little bit after shacharis. Then he goes and he has a job. He comes back in the afternoon. He davenes mincha. He takes a break. He learns a little bit more. Davenes maariv and a little bit of night seder. But he feels like a mensh, and he's coming such a long way because now he's a productive person and he has a bit of money in his pocket. Soon, but Ezez Hashem will get to the beis medrash. But first, he needs to learn how to be productive. And Refreyel finished this with his kavir. He said to him, "He goes just because you can't see him in that chair doesn't mean he's not sitting there." This is such an important point that we put our children into a situation where they're not capable of being productive, and then they feel like losers.
The emphasis that even this doesn't really hit the point that we're trying to make today. A person is not designed to bring home a paycheck. That's not what a person is designed to do. The definition of a neshama is that the neshama only feels good when it brings into reality a mitzvah. It's not a from thing the Gemara was saying. It's not a from thing the Gemara was giving us a fundamental insight into the nature of what it means to be a neshama in this world. A neshama in this world does not feel good unless it does a mitzvah. It doesn't feel connected. It doesn't feel alive. It's not tapped into its essence. There's such a focus today, and it's a false focus. There's a focus today on that I don't do anything unless it's absolutely authentic. And we know as adults that that's not true. Authenticity comes not from saying this is what I authentically feel, but authenticity comes when I live up to the highest standard of who I am.
We have to teach our children that when they do a mitzvah, this is the best version of themselves, and that's what it means to be authentic. To be authentic doesn't mean to pander to your lowest self. You have so many people today who say, 'What? I'm being authentic.' First of all, hold your authenticity. Nobody's necessarily interested in hearing those things. Imagine a husband comes home and just berates his wife because this is what I'm authentically feeling. That's what you're authentically feeling, but that's not your authentic self. That's feeling those things. That's not your highest self. Teaching a person that they have a higher self and bringing that higher self into reality helps. It helps our children. It helps ourselves grow into the person that we want to be. The Rambam writes that it's better to give tzedakah many times over in small amounts than make large donations. Why? Because it makes you regular, it accustoms you to behaving in a certain way, it changes who you are.
The nature of a neshama is that it must do a mitzvah, and neshama comes down into the adamah of the body in order to bring a mitzvah into the world. The neshama, even though it comes down into this world against its will, also leaves against its will. Once the neshama is down here doing a mitzvah, it says, "Why would I ever want to leave such an environment? I feel self-actualized. I feel productive. To go back to Shamayim might be comfortable." But the neshama is not interested in comfort. It's like a child. Sometimes you have, again, I'm sure it's with girls also, but sometimes you have guys in yeshiva that go, 'Rebbe, my bed is so comfortable.' 'What they mean is not my bed is comfortable. Their bed is a miserable place. The bed is a miserable place to be. If you speak to somebody and they're in bed all day, that's a miserable state of existence. It's not true comfort. What it is the lack of capacity to be vulnerable. If I get up out of my bed, I have to engage the world. And what if I can't? What if I have nothing to contribute?
What it sounds like when you're leaving yeshiva at eighteen or nineteen years old, and a guy says, 'Okay, Rabbi, I'm going to college now, but I cheated my brains off for the last twelve years of my educational career.' What if I fail when I go to college? I've gotten that question many times. Unfortunately, there's a culture of cheating. There's a culture of cheating that exists today. Rav Shechter, I don't know if you saw this. It went pretty viral. Rav Shechter from YU, a couple of weeks before finals, posted a flyer outside of the YU beis medrash. And he said, 'Finals time is coming. Make sure to prepare yourself now, so that when finals come, you won't be in a position where Chas v'Shalom you have to act dishonestly.' It was such a first of all, such a brilliant move, such a brilliant chinuch move. But also, what a great chinuch message, of course, to the boys. How crazy is that we have to say that?
How crazy we have to say to people, don't cheat, because unfortunately there is a culture of cheating that exists in the community. I can't tell you that I was innocent in high school. Far from it. I was definitely this kid that was nervous when he was starting off in college. Can I actually pass a test? But what do people really mean when they say that? What if I can't? What if I have nothing to contribute? What if I have nothing to offer? We have what to offer. Every human being has what to offer, and it has to come lemaisa. It can't come in a way where it's like in theory. A lot of people. You ever see people? They talk about it. They like talk a lot about what they're going to do, but they don't actually do anything. It's very frustrating to be with those people. This time, Rabbi, I'm really going to start my star. I'm really going to show up to minion. And I'm really going to.
And you see that they're just suffering. They're stuck. They have the right hashkafa. They could say the right thing to bring it out into reality. They don't have the courage to do it. The notion of failure, the vulnerability of failure, is so deep because if I can't do it, I'm a nothing. It's a very big thing. I'm nothing. To be able to like, what if I can't? That's not a small thing. It means that the definition of my humanity is under attack. This is really why the first mitzvah in the Torah is piri v'irivia. Piri v'irivia means I have something to contribute to the world. There's a woman in my neighborhood. It could be you heard this story. There's a woman in my neighborhood. When I say my neighbor, I mean in my neighborhood. I mean she lived five houses down from me. She was not zayecha to have children for over twenty years. We can imagine the pain of not having children for twenty years, especially in a culture. I don't know how it is here in Chicago, but in Ramat Echamesh, everybody lives in the parks. We don't have backyards and we don't have big homes. Baruch Hashem We have beautiful schools, we have beautiful yeshivas, and our homes are very bright and very vibrant, but not necessarily big enough that you want your kids indoors all day. Shabbos afternoon, the parks are packed.
And who is it? There's benches, and it's all the mothers on the benches, and all the children running around. This woman was never seen in the park. It was too painful. How do you go out? Can you imagine? How do you go out into the park? And not have anything to? You can't talk about your kid. You can't like you have nothing to say. And what did she do for a living? She was a ganene. She's a ganene, and a very popular ganene. Why is she such a popular ganene? Two reasons. One, she's very good with kids, and two, because she could keep the kids until very late. Which shouldn't have kids of her own So if you're working, it's geshmak to have a babysitter who can keep the kid till three or four o'clock in the afternoon. So she was very popular. One can't even begin to imagine the pain of the disappointment month after month, year after year.
As a crazy maysa, my neighbor is a fellow. His name is Rupessin. I hear Rupessin. He's become big in America a bit. And Rupessin took the father. Teruv Chaim Kanievsky and Chaim Kanievsky said, "Build a mikvah in a community that doesn't have a mikvah." They built a mikvah. Literally a year later, they had a child. When they brought home this child, the entire community—there are beautiful videos of this. The entire community went out into the street to greet them with music, with balloons. It was the whole neighborhood that had been davening for her for 20 years. It was unbelievable, unbelievable simcha. And now, whenever I see them walking around with their little girl, I can't help but smile. I don't know how they feel about the fact that everyone is smiling at them whenever they see their one kid. Could be they feel super awkward about it, but for us It's like you were able to self-actualize in a tangible way. You could touch it. You could point to it. There it is. That's your kid.
You can't imagine the pain of a person that goes through that. And even sometimes, if a person has trouble having children for a couple of years, it's painful. Imagine twenty years. It's a crazy thing. So the notion that the first mitzvah in the Torah is the mitzvah of Periyavirivios, because the nature of Torah is that it's designed to bring something out into the world. That's why the mitzvah of Bikurim we bring Bikurim. When do we bring Bikurim on Shavuos? Because Torah is the theory, and of course it's a tremendous mitzvah. But the nature of Torah is to bring mitzvoys out of Torah. A person sits and learns in beis medrash. That's a beautiful, wonderful thing. Chassidishon to be mezazel in that in any way. But there's a certain frustration we have when we see a person learning but not acting in a way that's in accordance with their learning, because we know that the nature of Torah is that it's meant to bring out a mitzvah into the world. That's why it says in Buchkosai Telechu, Mitzvaytsai TeShmairu. What does it mean in Mitzvaytsai TeShmairu? Rashi says the purpose of learning Torah is in order to bring a mitzvah out into the world.
That's why Va'yikra, which is all about the avodah, the base of mikdash, begins with Adam ki yakrev mikem. That we're supposed to bring ourselves, we're supposed to bring from our own person into the world. The nature of Teshuvah le'Pes, the nature of Teshuvah b'chsav, is to bring out Teshuvah le'Pes. I just want to say one more very small thing. That Yosef HaTzaddik, we know that the last thing that he learns with his father before he goes down into Golus Mitzrayim is Eglar Rufa. It's not an accident that Yaakov Avinu Beruch Kadosh understood that this was the last time he was going to be seeing Yosef, and he needed to learn the sugya of Eglah Rufa. There's many, many, many beautiful pshatim about why he specifically learned the sugya of Eglah Rufa. But I want to share with you one very simple pshat, which I think is mamish emes.
Because you're going down into Galus. Mitzrayim is a state that all of us can identify with. It's a state where we're feeling very constricted. We have no capacity to express ourselves. So Yaakov Avinu is telling Yosef HaTzaddik, the secret to survival in Gollas is to create things within Gollas. That's the nature of what Gollas is meant to do. Gollas is meant to bring out parts of ourselves that we're otherwise not capable of generating. We often think that if I'm in a tough situation, I'm in a challenging place, and therefore I can't bring anything out. You hear this all the time. People go, 'I really wanted to, but things were so hard, I couldn't.' It's the opposite. I'm in such a difficult place. The opportunities now to bring something out into myself are so enormous. There's a level of self actualization that exists specifically in the state of Golah, specifically when a person goes into Mitzrayim.
Lemarchal, a person is in a difficult marriage. This person says, "I'm in such a difficult marriage. I can't bring myself to fill in the blank." It's exactly the opposite. You're in such a difficult marriage. This is the opportunity to bring out parts of yourself that never existed before. And it could be that the reason you're in this marriage, specifically this marriage, is in order to bring out these parts, in order to bring out whatever it is that a person needs to work on. It's not the challenges of our lives. They're not bugs. They're features, and it changes the way that we see our own exiles. L'marshal, a person is having trouble with their children. There's a notion in parenting, a psychological notion in parenting, that really, when you're parenting, you're supposed to be parenting yourself. That every time your kid does something, and it's triggering you Stop focusing on the kid. Focus on the trigger. The trigger was designed to come up, and if you work on the trigger, the kid will notice it.
It's an unbelievable thing. You speak to people who have very growth-oriented parents. You speak to the kids; they're highly aware. I did this, and my parents went to work on this. My father used to be an angry person, and I saw over the years how he calmed down. He deals with me so much differently now than he did with me when I was five, six, seven years old. The kids are aware of it, and it's the single most inspirational thing. Very often, as parents, the things that we say or the discipline that we do is not nearly as effective as the growth that we have in those spaces. It changes who we are as people. That's the whole avoda to stop being a victim. We live in a victimhood culture. Again, perhaps things are changing, but we see for sure in America. I try never to say anything political, but I'm going to say just this. You can read into it what you want.
But it could be that we just saw a major turning point in American culture Because people are tired of victims. As a country, people are like we're so sick of this victim rhetoric. It's enough already. People need to take responsibility, and they want politicians to take responsibility. They want politicians. That's why President Trump keeps saying, 'Here's what I did. This is what I accomplished.' And my first 24 hours in office, this is what I again. I don't think highly of Trump, with you. I don't think this is a person that we should look up to. And there's a sh'tikla avaydazara that's going on with him in the Jewish community. That's for a different time. I'm just saying a small thing. People like people who take action. And they're not victims, and they take responsibility for their lives. Yosef HaTzaddik was being told by Yaakov Avinu, 'You're going to go down to Mitzrayim. There's going to be a part of you that wants to feel like a victim.'
" The Kachava, by the way He goes down, he rises to power. What was I supposed to do? Aishas Potifar kept coming for me. He goes into the jail, and even then, he has to wait. Nacha, two years before he can come out because he made one mistake. Because Sadik the Amunah so Yechia, and because he wasn't on the highest level of Amunah, he has to wait in jail for more time. Could be that Yosef HaTzadik would feel very much like a victim, and yet we see when he finally tells his brothers, "I need Yosef HaArovi Chai." What does he say? He says, "It wasn't you guys that sent me down here. It was Hashem." As I'm not a victim, I was here to grow, and I wouldn't have become Yosef HaTzadik, and we would not be prepared to come down to Mitzrayim if it wasn't for this plan that the Kadosh Baruch Hu had. I say this by way of going back to our original point, which is the avoda of tubahvat is ki adam eitzasade.
It's next to Egla Rafa because Egla Rafa teaches us a neshama comes down into this world to be productive to bring a mitzvah into the world. If we're self-actualizing in a way that's I'm good in business, I'm a good mother, I'm a good wife. That's all wonderful. That's all beautiful. Of course, those can be different expressions of our Yiddishkeit, and they should be. They should be different. B'chol derachachadayehu means in every single way, in every single fashion in our lives, we should bring our neshama into all of those things. But ultimately, it's not necessarily a mitzvah. There has to be a mitzvah that we do. There has to be something that we point to and say My neshama was fed today by self-actualizing in the following way, and whatever that is. I was just on the phone with somebody today. This person told me, 'He said I'm very distant from learning a sefer.'
And I try to impress upon this person: you feel very distant from a sefer right now. In truth, it's not that way at all. The Alter Rebbe in Tanya is miyaseh the entire Tanya and kikara veilecha hadavar ma'od baficha ubaval chalasoso. It's very close to us. It's very close to be able to open a sefer. It's very close to be able to daven. I could barely keep my eyes open. I'm exhausted. My kids could be driving me crazy. I'm so tired. I'm trying to hold it together for a million different people and do a million different things. Of course. But if we don't self actualize, if we don't express the deepest parts of our neshama, we feel a sense of dryness in our life. We don't feel good about ourselves, and then it becomes a vicious cycle. I feel dry, so I'm a male. The more I don't do, the more dry I feel. It's the secret of success here; it's a very simple thing.
He amaisa hu haiker. We have to bring our truest self into reality, and that's the avodah of Tu B'Shevat, and that's why Tu B'Shevat comes. We'll finish with this one month before Purim. We know shloishim yom called the lachag, thirty days before a yantef. You're supposed to prepare. Tu B'Shevat is all about the reality that I'm bringing into the world. Says, what is the purpose of doing anything? One day you're going to die. That's why Amale comes from Esav. What does Esav say? Why do I need the bracha? Why do I need the bracha of Yitzchak? I'm going to die. There's no purpose in self-actualization. It's a very nihilistic way of looking at the world. I don't have to bring anything out into the world because nothing has a purpose. What's Purim? Purim is the defeat of the notion that I don't have to create. That's why Purim we're busy with mitzvos the entire day. We're running around with mitzvos the entire day. That's why sometimes you see I don't know do they have it here in Chicago? This notion of yeshivas Mordechai HaTzaddik.
Sometimes you see they have a place like where there's a little bit of learning in the morning because otherwise you're running around. You're running around giving shalosh manas. You're running around with the suddah. There's a million different things going on Purim. Purim is the destruction. It's the defeat of Haman. Like life has a purpose. And I have to bring something out into the world. So we have to start already on Tu B'Shvat, Shloshim Yom Kaddish Hagad, preparing ourselves for the Yontif of Purim. I'm bringing something out into the world, and then, Bez Hashem, the Yontif of Purim we know is the Yontif of Geula. We are most definitely living in Messianic times. Every I want you to know, and I'm not saying this is it. And I don't like to point to history and say, this Mashiach. That's not the way Mashiach goes. I want you to know that when that press conference happened Everybody, everybody who I know was like, "What in the world is going on over here?"
What in the world is going on? I don't want to read too much into anything. You never know how anything could go down, but the idea that it's like an achashverosh stickle story, no? Trump is—he's like a stickle achashverosh. Trump. We don't know if he's smart or stupid. Maybe he's both. Half the times the things he says are nuts, but maybe he's a stickle brilliant. And now he's talking about creating an international community in Eretz Yisrael. Dov Nemele said that he is based on the halachah. The notion of Eretz Yisrael is, of course, supposed to be a country that's led by halacha, but that ultimately there'll be a base of mikdash, and ultimately it will be a place for the entire world to be nene from. And the notion that this whole October seventh on Simchas Torah Which is the craziest time for something to go wrong, bringing us into this place now where Hamas was destroyed, and Hezbollah and Assad in Syria, and the only thing that's left is Iran, which is crazy. And even Iran, it doesn't seem to be much of a threat these days. Baruch Hashem, it's scary sometimes when they send ballistic missiles towards my house. But other than that, I don't think you have that so much here in Chicago. We're living in crazy messianic times.
And we don't know. We don't know the Geulah could come at any minute. So the Rambam says a person has to believe that the entire world hangs in a balance. And that one mitzvah, one maysa tshuva, could tip the entire world to geula. We could be. We don't even know. Obviously, we know we're not even seconds. We're moments away from Mashiach. But we have to live with the Mashiach consciousness that we're so close. And who knows which maysa, which mitzvah that we do? Who knows what that could do in the world? Who knows if our mitzvah could be the one that tips the scales? I think that's a fair two bishvatira. And I know we the Q and A is the best part of these this year. You can ask. Think of any question.
Is this shiur filed in the wrong place? Let us know.