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We're holding now by Arab Shabbos Shuvah. Just a couple of days away from Yom Kippur Rosh Hashanah and Yeshiva was so beautiful. I can't imagine what Yom Kippur is going to be like. The Gemara in Yuma says, "Amr of Levi" Gedoy le tshuvah shemagas ad kisei hakaver. The greatness of tshuva is that it reaches all the way to Kisei Hakavod. Shenemar tshuva Yisrael ad Hashem ala kecha. Pasuk says, 'Return Yisrael all the way to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, all the way, the haynu to the Kisei Hakavod.' It's such an interesting thing This lashon of that tshuva brings us all the way to Kisei Hakavod. What about everything else in Yiddishkeit? Tefillah doesn't bring us to Kisei Hakavod. Tefillin doesn't bring us to Kisei Hakavod. Sitzes doesn't bring us to Kisei Hakavod. The greatness of Tshuva is Tshuva brings us to Kisei Hakavod. Shaila, what do Chazal mean by this?
My Hasidim Hasidim tell stories to communicate truths. That are otherwise too large to tell just in straight formulas. So I'm going to tell you a Hasidic story. There was a great tzaddik who lived many years ago, whose name was Rav Pinchas Karitzer, Zechus Yagen Aleinu. Rav Pinchas Karitzer had a chassid whose name was Rav David And Rav David didn't live in the town of Karitz. But he would go to Karitz every Yom Kippur to be by the Rebbe. How else could a chassid have a Yom Kippur, if not by his rebbe? So since this Chassid, Reb David, was traveling to Karitz for Yom Kippur Very often he would bring chevrah from the town that he was from to Karitz to see what it was like at the court of Reb Pinchas Karitzer. So one year there was a bachur who decided to go for the ride. They may as well have a chavaya.
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Have an experience to go see the great tzaddik. They arrived in Karitz. On Eruv Yom Kippur They sat down to have a sudom avsekes. And this young man In addition to eating sudom avsekes, he also started to make a couple of lachaims. One lachaim, two lachaims. At some point, he made way too many lachaims. And he was feeling a little tipsy on Yom Kippur. So he decided to go to his host to rest for a short nap. 20 minutes, half an hour, sleep it off, so that he could come and have a meaningful Yom Kippur. He goes to sleep. He wakes up. Everybody in the house is already gone. Says, "Ivei, I must be late." He's walking through the town of Karatz. He's walking to the shtible of Rav Pinchos Karitzer. There's nobody in the streets. It's Yom Kippur, of course. Everyone's going to be in the shtible by Rav Pinchos Karitzer.
He walks into the shul and he hears the chazan. Starting the Eloh He didn't sleep for twenty minutes. He didn't sleep for half an hour. He slept for twenty-four hours. He was much more drunk than he realized. And now he's standing right at the precipice of the shtiebel of the great shtiebel of Repinches Karitzer, and he has a choice to make. Obviously, he's mortified that he slept through Yom Kippur. He's mortified to sleep through Yom Kippur. What type of Jew sleeps through Yom Kippur? But even more than that, if he walks in The entire town is going to know that he slept through Yom Kippur. Because there was no other place to daven in Karatz. So if you weren't there the entire time, it's not like you could say, 'Oh, I was davening in a different minyan. I'm Svardi. I davened by the Svardi minyan. I davened Vasiken.' There was only one minyan in Karatz.
But on the other hand, he traveled all this way to be by the tzaddik and at least to have the last irus of Yom Kippur. So this young chassid He decided to make the very courageous decision to walk into shul. And perhaps I don't know exactly how the story goes. Perhaps when he went to take his seat in the shtible, perhaps there were yidden there that looked at him and they were like in their head. Perhaps they were looking at him and going "I wonder where he's been." I'm sure nobody was judgmental. I'm sure nobody was looking down on him But I imagine he was very embarrassed. And as he takes his seat. He decides this is going to be the ni'ila of his life because he has all this energy. Some people show up to ni'ila and it's hard to have a geshmack in ni'ila. You've been fasting the entire time to really get yourself like those last ounces of energy by ni'ila. Sometimes you're running on empty by the time ni'ila comes. This guy was well rested. He mamish. He missed Yom Kippur.
His ni'ila was so powerful. A combination of the fact of the courage that it took to walk into the room And the strength that he had from sleeping all of Yom Kippur, and knowing that his only shot at having a meaningful Yom Kippur was this neilah, he mamish poured his heart and soul into this neilah, and he was screaming and crying every word of neilah. And then Yom Kippur was over; they had their breakfast. And Rav Pinchas Karitzer he sent word to this Rav David his chassid. And he said, 'Bring me that young man that you brought from your town. I need to speak to him.' So the young man is being called in by Rav Pinchas Karitzer, and he thinks to himself, 'I'm being called in because I literally missed Yom Kippur, and the Rebbe is going to chew me out.' And he was brought into the private room of Rav Pinchas Karitzer for yichudus. Nobody else was in the room.
And Rav Pinchas Karitzer looks at him and he says I'm not sure I understand what happened. But you should know, there was a gzar din in Shamayim, and it wasn't going to be a good year for Klal Yisrael. There were things that were happening. The Satan was being metatrig in a very big way. There were things, real things, that were happening in Shamayim. And I was davening my heart out all Yom Kippur to be able to break this gzar din, and I wasn't being matsliach. And now we were by niila, and I knew we had moments left, moments that were going to break the gzar din. And then you walked into the room, and everything changed. Reb Pinchas Karsher says, "I don't know who you are, and I don't know what happened" But I want you to know it was you and the Eila that was able to break this gezar din in Shamayim. It was you and the Eila that was able to change the entire game.
Shaila is for us. What is this story trying to teach us? What was it about this Chassid, this young Chassid who missed all of Yom Kippur? What was it about his ne'ilah that was able to break the xayah din in Shamayim? We know the Gemara in Chagiga tells us it was a great tzaddik whose name was Elisha ben Avuya. He was a Tana. He was the Rebbe of Rav Meir. And the Gemara in Chagiga this year, some of you have the opportunity to learn with Rav Steiner. Rav Steiner has unbelievable insights into this Gemara in Chagiga. The Gemara tells us that Elisha ben Avuya ascended to Shamayim. What that means, I don't know. But he went up. He went up to Shamayim. And in Shamayim he saw the Malach Matat And the Malach Matat was sitting. And the Malach Matat was a sofer. The Malach Matat was writing all of the different deeds that Klal Yisrael does over the year in a book.
And Elisha ben Avuya, whatever this means, he understood. He was looking at this Malach Matat. And he said, "It must be that there's shtei rishuyos" Not that there's two gods. Eliezer ben Avuya understood that Yiddishkeit is that there's only one power in this world. All there is the Rebbeinu Sholom, and it appeared to him in this level in Shamayim that there was actually another power in the world outside of the Rebbeinu Sholom. That the Malach Matat had his own individualized power And he was a heretic for thinking that. And the Gemara says that the Malch Matat whipped him with sixty lashes of fire, and a Bas Kol came out and said, 'Shuvu banim shayvavim, chutz me'achim.' Return my children, return. Everybody can do tshuva except for Eliezer ben Avuya. He can't do tshuva. It's a machlokes in Ge'rsa and the Gemara Yerushalmi, Bably. If it says Acher, Elisha ben Avuya, but for now we're not getting into that. This beautiful pshatim on what's the difference in the Ge'rsa. For now, we're just saying a simple thing. A Baskel came out and said everybody in the world can do tshuva except for you, Elisha ben Avuya.
And Elisha ben Avuya said, If I have no olam haba, I may as well have a good time in olam hazeh. And the Gemara says that he went off to Tarbesra. He went off to go off the derech. That's the story of how Elisha ben Abuya became Achim. A famous Shaila is What did we want from him? He went to Shamayim. He made some sort of mistake. What exactly the mistake was, I don't know. I'm not a Kabbalist. I don't understand what it means that in Shamayim he saw Shtei Rishuyos. But I know one thing: if a Baskel came out of Shamayim and said Shuvu barim shayvavim, chutz mi Berg. Everybody can come back. Berg, you're out. I'm probably going to do the same thing Elisha and Avuya did. What do we want? Hashem Baruch Hu sends a baskal that says you're not going to be able to do tshuva. What do we want from the guy?
Of course he went off to Tarvisarot. Of course he said I don't have an olam haba. I may as well have a good olam hazeh. It makes sense. What do we want from him? So I want to tell you an unbelievable Vilna Gaon. An unbelievable Vilna Gaon. Vilna Gaon says this. Is 955 psukim in Sefer Devarim. 955 psukim in Sefer Devarim. 955 begematria hanetz, which is the breaking of the dawn. 955 begematria hashamayim. If you're doing the math and you're saying, wait a second, that makes no sense. A mem sofii and a tzadi sofii are worth much more than a regular mem and a regular tzadi. Trust me, the gematria works out. And even if it doesn't, it's gematria. But if the girl says it, it's a real thing. It's be gematria hashemayim. It's be gematria hanis. The girl explains why there were 955 sukkim and sefer dvarim.
So we know Sefer Devarim is from Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu had a desire. His desire was I want to be able to see Hakadosh Baruch Hu bechvayydo ve'atzmoi. I want to be able to journey through all of the levels of Shamayim to be able to see. Baruch Hu The Vilna Gaon says, how many levels are there in Shamayim? Nine hundred and fifty-five, the Gematria Hashemayim. And the Gra explains. It's a wild Gra. The Gra explains the first nine hundred levels in Shamayim. There's lots of malachim. Lots of things are going on in Shamayim. People are running around. They're doing all sorts of things. Again, I don't know what this means. I'm not a makubal. I'm not on the level of the gro or the balshemtov or any of the tzaddikim to understand what these things mean. But the first 900 levels, it's very busy. But the last 55 levels, from 901 to 955 All it is kulo Hashem.
And if you look, says the Vilna Gaon What's the 901st pasuk in Sefer Devarim? It's a pasuk in our parsha. The pasuk says, "Roo ato ki ani anihu." Look, Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'See, it's me, it's I. I'm the only one. The ain ala kimimadi. There are no other gods. Ani m'sve'achia. I'm the one who makes you live or die.' Machatzti banir pe. I'm the one that causes illness, and I'm the one that heals. The ain miadi matzil, and no one can rescue you from my hand. Meaning, starting at the 901st pasuk in Sefer Devarim, all it is Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's literally what the pasuk says. But what's the 955th pasuk in Sefer Devarim? What's the highest possible level of Kulo Hakadosh Baruch Hu? It's the very last pasuk in the Torah. And the strong hand and the great sight. That Moshe Rabbeinu performed before the eyes of Klal Yisrael. What was the unbelievable thing that we saw Moshe Rabbeinu do? What does Rashi tell us?
As Hashem, all of you guys are going to finish Chumash with Rashi this year. Shnayim Mikra, very important. The very last Rashi and Chumash. La'enei Kol Yisrael Sheniso libo lishbar aluchos. What was the unbelievable thing that Moshe Rabbeinu did? His heart stirred and he broke the luchos le'inehim in front of the eyes of Klal Yisrael. Shenemar v'ashber v'ashber im le'inehim that he broke the luchos in front of our eyes. V'hiskima das Hakadosh Baruch Hu ladaito, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu was masking. Hakadosh Baruch Hu agreed with Moshe Rabbeinu that he broke the luchos. Shenemar asher shibarta yasher kayach shibarta. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu yasher kayach that you broke the luchos. Chaver, this is a pillar. The 955th level, the highest level of Shamayim, according to the Vilna Gaon, is the level of Meisher Abenu breaking the luchos and Hakadosh Baruch Hu saying, 'Yashar Kaya, Mamish, you broke the luchos. Thank you so much for breaking the luchos. What's going on over here?'
So I want to share with you the deepest secret. The secret is like this Chevra. Remember the Gemara in Yoma said, 'Gedolus shuva shemagaz ad kiseh akavod.' What's the greatness of shuva that it goes all the way to kiseh akavod? The chiddush is: if you get to the 955th level, if you're a Moshe Rabbeinu and you're wading through every single level of Shamayim, one pasuk at a time, and you finally arrive at the highest possible level, you know what you find? You find the kisei akavu. That's the highest level. That's what's at the 955th level. It's the kisei akavu. It's the rabbi mishlolem bechvayu deyuvatzei, the highest possible level. Something we in our lifetimes will never understand. And you know what's there at the 955th level? The breaking of the luchos. Why? Because the greatness of the breaking of the luchos gave us the opportunity to have the first Yom Kippur.
Tshuva is what exists at the 955th level. Gedayla tshuva shemadas at kiseh akavod. Chaver tefila is an unbelievable thing. We should be zayecha this year to learn how to daven. May ampus aleiv that we have an unbelievable ability to call out to the Rebbeinu Sholom. Tzitzis is an unbelievable mitzvah. Chazal extol the virtues of tzitzis. Tefillin is an unbelievable mitzvah. None of those things, and not to chas vamimizalza. They're huge. But at the 955th level, you know what there is? There's tshuva. And in order to get to that level of the 955th level, you need to do? You need to go through the breaking of the luchos. That means there are points in your life where you're at the highest level. And you fall. Chazal tell us that Klal Yisrael at Matan Torah was at the highest possible level. They rectified the sin of Adam Harishon. The Ramchal says.
Cheres mi malacham aves, cheres mi yitzhara. There was no more malacham aves by Arsinai. There was no more yitzhara. Everything was rectified, and then Klal Yisrael did the chet ha'egel. You'll ask, how is it possible that they did the chet ha'egel if they were at that level? It's a good question. But one thing for sure, when you're at the highest possible level, you know what it's possible to do. It's possible to fall. But you know what happens when you fall? In Yiddishkeit, we have the exact opposite theory of the world. The world says what goes up must come down, and in Yiddishkeit we say what goes down must come up. It's the trampoline theory of Judaism. A yid fell from so high. How many times do we have a moment, a streak Where we're doing so great, and then we fall? We look somewhere we shouldn't look. We go somewhere we shouldn't go. We do a funny thing, and all of a sudden we find ourselves down in the mud.
A yid has to know with complete emuna. This moment of my greatest falling, this my greatness. This my opportunity to reach a level that I would never otherwise be able to reach. I would never be able to reach the 955th level if I didn't do that avera. I didn't want to do the avera. I'm not proud of the fact that I did the avera. But I fell. Falling is an opportunity to get back up, and not just get back up, to go higher than you ever went before. Chaver, you know what the mistake of Eliezer ben Avuya was? The mistake is that he didn't know how to fall. There's an avoda of learning how to fall. There's a place in a person's life to be able to say it's true. I fell. I'm not proud of it. I regret it. I want to change. Some people when they fall, they're like that's it. I fell. It's over.
I'm never going to be able to undo what I did. I can't. How could I possibly go back, Rebbe? You don't understand that avodah. It's not just a stain on my soul. It's a stain on me. I'm never going to be able to see myself the same way. That's because you don't know how to do an avero. There's an avaida to doing an avero. Obviously, the avaida is not to do the avero. But if you did the avero, you have to know tshuva is embedded in the avero. The 950th level is available to those that have to do tshuva. Belisha ben Avuya was up in Shamayim. He was somewhere in the 900 levels. He saw matat. And he saw Matat, and it looked to him like there were shtei rishuyos. Again, I don't know what it means, but it wasn't the level of just Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It was the level where it was possible to see something else outside of the Eynod Malvado, and he did.
And a Bas Kol came out and said, 'Shuvu banim shayvavim chutz me'aliya benavuya. You're not allowed back.' And all the svarim say this. The shlah quotes from the Rishis Chachma, and not only in the Kabbalistic svarim, even in the Rishayim, the Rabeinu Chananel says this. The Marsha says this. Everybody gives the same answer. If you hear a baskal that comes out from Shamayim and says, "Don't come back," your responses will be epic. I'm coming back, and you can't even imagine what it's going to look like. And that voice. Because there's a Bas Kol inside of every one of us that says it's not possible for me to do tshuva. That voice is the voice that's going to propel you to the highest level of tshuva. There was a young man who came to speak to me last year in yeshiva. And this young man You should know, he's from our best in yeshiva.
He's from our best And he's a guy who stieg tremendously. He's an inspiration to me. I call him my rebbe. I really do. He's my rebbe in so many ways. And he came to me last year to tell me about an aveira that he had done. He wasn't proud of it. In fact, not only was he not proud of it, he was devastated by it. He couldn't believe that he had done such an aveira. And he came to me. He said, 'I can't ever do it again. I can't ever do it again.' And I saw that there was an angst inside of him. Rabbi, if I do the avera again, you don't. I just can't. I can't ever go back there. I saw that the avera was mamish tearing him apart. And I don't remember exactly what I said to him, if I'm being honest with you.
But I'll tell you what I want to say to him tonight, and I'm saying it to really everyone in this room, and mostly I'm saying it to myself because I mean that sincerely. I also struggle with this. I also have the voice inside of me that says, Shuvu banim shayvavim chutz meberg. I also have my averas. I also have things that I'm embarrassed of. That voice that says you don't come back, that voice that says you messed up too bad to come back That voice is your superpower. That voice, if you know how to harness its power, the voice that puts up a blockage in front of you That's the voice you have to tear down. That's the voice you have to understand. That voice is going to be the voice that propels you to your greatest heights. Because you hear that voice and you go, 'Oh, you think I'm not coming back?'
I'm coming back. And the Reshus Chachma says an unbelievable thing. You know why that voice is so profound and so powerful? Because the inner Ratzon of that Bas Kol, the inner Ratzon of that voice, I'm only saying don't come back in order to get you to say how badly you want to come back. I'm only saying, don't come back, so that you can hear that voice from inside of you that says, "Oh, I'm coming back." Because a yid who says there's something in front of me that says I can't come close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu That's a dangerous yid. Watch the power of that yid. He's gonna smash through barriers. And that's why b'makom shabali tuvim oimdim ein sadikim gemurim oimdim. A tzaddik who never fell, a tzaddik who's living on that plane of existence where he's living beyond the world of avirah. He doesn't have access to the power of that bascall that tells him that he's a nobody.
Because if you hear the voice that you're a nobody and you say, "Oh, I am a somebody," that's a dangerous man. Don't stand in the way of that man. Chazal say, 'Ein ha'davar oimed b'bfnei tshuva.' There's nothing that stands in the way of tshuva. That doesn't just mean that tshuva is more powerful than any aveira you've done, because tshuva reaches all the way to the kisei hakavod. It means tshuva is a power unlike any other to transform a person completely. Because a person who reaches into the recesses of their soul and says, 'I want to be close to the Rebbeinu Sholom,' oh, nothing's going to stop him. One sincere, one honest moment where a yid says, 'It's true. I made mistakes in my life.' And it's true. I heard the bas kol. Shuvu banum shayvavim chutz me'alisha. Doesn't matter. There is no door that's closed to us.
the godless of that chassid of Repinches Karitzer. That kid He didn't have the best ne'ilah because he screams. He didn't have the. It's true. He had unbelievable kiyah. He slept for twenty four hours. He was rested and ready to go. You know why that chassid had unbelievable kiyach? Because he chose to walk into the shtible. Because he chose to have people looking at him Where's this kid been? And it didn't matter because nothing was going to stand in the way of him having that neilah. And it didn't matter if people were going to be sitting on the side and judging him and going, "Who's this guy to have such a neilah?" A couple nights ago he was in the shul. A couple nights ago he was. That's what the sultan says. A couple nights ago, you should know where he was. You should know what he was doing.
A couple of nights ago, when nobody was looking, you should know who he was. All of us, right before the ne'ilah, we have a little bit of that Satan inside of us that comes up. Really, you're gonna sing, you're gonna scream, Hashem u'elokim. When the rosh is losing his voice, you should know in this yeshiva, the rosh yeshiva's ne'ilah is unbelievably powerful. And he's standing there screaming from the depths of his being. It's unbelievably inspirational, and you might be sitting there at the very end of ne'ilah. Who am I to scream out to the Rebbeinu Sholom? I know where I was. I know what I've done this year. All of us have that moment of that Chassid standing outside of the shtibel, and we have a choice: walk into the shtibel or walk out of the shtibel. The greatness of this Chassid is he leaned in, and he said, "I don't care what anyone thinks of me, and I don't care what type of doors appear to be closed in front of me. I have no doubt that Chassid heard the voice of Elisha ben Avuya."
That Bas Kol that wells up inside of us. Chutz Shuvu banim shayvavim chutz mei. You who slept through Yom Kippur You slept through Yom Kippur. You think you're going to have a ne'ilah? You know what that chassid said? I'm going to have the greatest ne'ilah that anybody's ever had. Don't listen to the voice of the satan that tells you the gates are locked. The gates are never locked for a yid. Lebavitchi rebis chosiyagan aleinu says the gates of ne'ilah. They close and now we're in the cheder yichud with the rebbeinu shalom. It's the fifth Tefillah. Now we've reached the highest dimension of the soul, the yichud shabenafsh. It's just us and the rebbeinu shalom. Bez Hashem, in just a couple of days from now We're going to be holding not just at Yom Kippur but at the end of Yom Kippur. And there's going to be guys in the yeshiva that are going to be tired. There's going to be guys in the yeshiva. One guy told me he was so proud of him. One guy told me he said he's used to davening in a shul that on Rosh Hashanah davening is like a three and a half hour davening, and he's like but in yeshiva it went so fast. I said to ask you a question, do you know how long davening was in yeshiva? He's like how long? I said it was six and a half hours.
He looked at me, he was like, was that really six and a half hours? He was so into it, it flew by. Yom Kippur is going to be unbelievable. We're gonna have a small break, maybe forty five minutes, maybe an hour. And before Neila, you're going to be thinking to yourself that the Satan's going to come for you. Remember, the Satan always comes in your biggest moments. Really, you? Come on, you know it's going to be a couple days later. You're not going to be perfect. You're going to have a Neila. You know what our response is to Satan? It's going to be a Neila like you've ever seen. And I want to thank you for coming to me with your voice. I want to thank you for coming to me and saying it's a fake. You're a fake. You're a fake. I know where you're going to be in a couple of days. You already rented an Airbnb. I know we're going to be a couple of days from then. You're the fake. Thank you for putting the stumbling block in my way. Now I'm going to go farther than you've ever seen before. Bez Hashem, we're going to have a gemar chesim atayv and a good gebechtiyav.
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