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[00:00:00] Speaker A: Okay. Thank you so much for having me. And I said it many, many times.
It's true that I'm busy with BG cubes, but I say it openly. This is my favorite place to learn.
So I think I'm selfishly just shoving them along faster so that I can get there.
Thank you so much. And I hope that for all of these sponsorships that the learning tonight should be li' Eloi nishmas, everyone's loved ones.
And when I got the email, I feel like it's probably like a mass email that Andrea sends to a couple of different people of the theme for this year's Rosh Chodesh series. And I kind of first come, first serve. I don't think I've ever responded to an email so quickly in my life.
Not only was it. I don't even think I realized it was Kislev. All I said was, like, one day six. And then I realized that it's also Kislev. And Hashem just makes all of my favorite things together because Yomashishi and kiss leave. I'm super excited for tonight. So I know it's Sunday night. We get to learn our slippers. That's the good news. And here we go. I'm going to screen share. And obviously, here we go.
Okay, can everyone see?
No.
Good. Okay, here we go. Let me just move all these things. Yeah, we're good.
Okay, here we go. So we are very familiar with creation. It's actually so nice to do something that's familiar to all of us. But I often tell my students, let's come in with fresh eyes as if we've never seen it. So day six, you might wonder, like, why didn't I jump into day seven? Why not jump into Shabbos? So maybe just because Shabbos has too much to talk about, but so does day six, to be quite honest. And there are a lot of things that happen on day six. No shortage of drama.
I'm not even going to touch so much of what we could talk about, but I have a couple of questions, because as you know by now, I love, love questions. So first, let's just discuss what happens on day six. We obviously have the creation of Animas. Vayat elokem es chayas, Haaretz, V es Habema. We have the wild animals and the cattle, et cetera. And then vayvrah lokehem esaadam on the same day. I mean, we could have given animals yesterday, but we're gonna give them. We're going to share a Day with Adam. And then not only that, but of course we know that of all things, busy, you know, Erev Shabbos has to be busy. So let's just create Adam and Behemoth all on the same day, which is also Erev Shabbos. So of course my overarching question is going to be, why are all of these things on Erev Shabbos? But just to break down some of my questions, here we go. So, vayasa lokeheme as Chaya tsa aretz. Like we just said, Hashem created the wild animals and the domesticated animals on day six.
And vaya lokim kitov. And Hashem sees that it was good, similar to every other day, more or less. I know there are exceptions, but more or less, Hashem sees that these animals are good, and then Vayevra Alokem asa, Adam Bicalmau, etc. Hashem creates this Adam and it's radio silence. We do not hear vayalokim ki tov clearly. The animals had one up a point for the animal world.
We do not get a vayak yitov. And to make things even more upsetting for us, vayarokemes kolasherasavi nei tov meod. And Hashem saw everything that he made, and it was very good.
And the medrash jumps in and says, what is so good that Hashem looked at?
So there are some of that Hashem said, you know, now looking back at how everything that he made and how everything works together is so amazing and impressive. But the medrash has a different approach.
And the medrash says, hine y tov me' od zayitzer tovinei tov me' od zayitzer hara. The madras says, you know, what was so good that was created on day six? That was tov me' od. It's the yetzer hara.
So let's just keep things straight, animals, tov people, no comment yetzer hara tov meod. And we're like, wow, we must be that impressive that we don't get any comments with us. But the yetzer hara and the animals are getting all these beautiful commentaries and it's completely silent with regard to us. So obviously, what's tov about? And not only just tov tov od about the Itzahara and that Adam, who's created on this day gets no tov mention at all. There's nothing good about man. So why are these three on the same day?
Why are they on the sixth day?
Why is there no Kitov with Adam, I'm going to ask an obvious question, a classic question, but I can't glimpse over it, which of course, when Hashem says, let us make man, of course we want to know, who is Hashem talking to?
And while that might seem like okay, Hashem definitely does not need help. Did Hashem need to bring in, like, backup, you know, backup help here?
Why is Hashem calling in hell? But not only that, but we know the Gemara and Megillah tells us that Talmai had 72 zakinim translate the Torah. And there were two places where they had to all get extra si' ata deshmayah to do it correctly, even though they were all in separate places. And one of them was e' e se Adam, let me make man. Because to suggest that Hashem needed help or that we were made by more than one is truly to open up a can of worms of apicorsis. So, Naasa Adam, forget who are you calling in? Why would you open up this can of worms for other people to suggest that you needed help?
And my last question for today is Gemaran Avodazarasari, and it discusses one way to look at Erev Shabbos. Of course, we are on day six. It is eRev Shabbos. Like we said, we could have put animals on day five, given Adam, day six, gone into Shabbos, a little restful. Of course, a lot goes down in Ganeidan on day six.
But why all of this on day six? And the Gemara says something very seemingly not so insightful. The Gemara says, misha tarach be' erev Shabbos, yocha b'. Shabbos. I am sure this is a statement that many of us have heard before, which is, those who work hard or prepare on Arab Shabbos, they will eat on Shabbos.
Now, to be quite honest, I've heard this.
I probably first learned it in high school. And once I stopped to think about it, I'm a little bit confused what the depth is. I mean, correct. If you make a sourdough on Arab Shabbos, you eat it on Shabbos. If you make delirule Arab Shabbos, that's what you eat on Shabbos. What I don't prepare, I don't take. Like, it's not like Chazal are going to come along and tell me something I don't know.
So what is it that Chazal feel is the insight and the chachma here, that whatever you prepare is what you enjoy, like, obviously. Okay, so you like what's, what's, what's the chachma here?
So again, why animals, people and Erev Shabbos all on the same day? Why does Adam not get any Kitov? Animals are getting Kitov, Yitzer Harods are getting tov me' od.
Why NASA, Adam, who are we talking to? Who is Hashem talking to? And what's the chachma of Chazal to say to whatever you prepare on Erev? Shabbos is what you enjoy on Shabbos. Obviously I don't need Chazal necessarily. I mean, I would think a 4 year old can tell you, did we make brownies? And if I say no, they say, aw, that's such shucks right now. We won't get brownies for Shabbos. Like, why is Chazal coming along and telling me this? So come with me to the Ramban. And the Ramban. While there are so many approaches of who Hashem was talking to, I literally am mid teaching this in my Chumash class. And right now I was super pumped to tell them that we're going to be doing this tonight.
So I'm not going to bring all of the approaches, but I'm going to zone in tonight in the Ramban.
And the Ramban says, who was Hashem talking to?
Hashem was actually just talking to the land when he made the animals.
So that's who he's in the middle of a conversation with. So he's picking up where the conversation last left off. And when he says, come, let us make man, he means, come, we're going to make one more thing together. And that is, Adam, That the land is going to provide us with our Guf, our outfit that's going to accompany us in this world.
That's exactly what it also gave the animal world. So in that sense, we and animals are quite similar.
But we know.
But Naasak, Hamlet, us, we're both going together, create this Adam you are going to provide for the Guf will give what he's calling here haruach mi PI', alyon, which of course you and I call our neshama, that with every single person, this is not just Jews, every single human being, beginning with the very first one, has a piece of the ribbon, Hash' Olim himself inside of us. And so some parts of us, our Guf is literally made up as the same fabric as the animals. But there was a little extra something, something that Adam got, and that is a piece of the ribbon of Hashem himself inside of us.
That Hashem blew into us A piece of himself, and that is NASA. Let us create this man together.
And I really think that this Ramban explains everything on so many levels of what it means to be human. Of course, Hashem is creating humanity. And when he's describing the creation of humanity, he's describing what it means to be human. What will the human experience, experience be? And the Ramban is explaining, you have to understand that man is going to be comprised of these dual parts that on the one hand, he's going to have what's literally he shares with the animal world, right? His. His guf. And on the other hand, which is made from the Adama. And on the other hand, Adama. Adam. He's called Adam because he's from Adama. How depressing.
But the same, the same words. Adama could be adamant. You can be like Hashem that you have the choice here of how you're going to behave and how you're going to act. Will I act more like my guf or will I associate myself and define myself more like the Hashem who's inside of me? The way that I say to my teenage girls who I heard from my teachers is do we view ourselves as a guaf who happens to have an ashama, or am I Neshama who's sleping around a gulf?
How do I first and foremost define myself and see myself? And that will impact my choices and those. And I think every single day you and I can relate to that tension between the Aretz, the Adama and the Adama.
I certainly, on a good winter morning, when I'm in my bed and my alarm goes off, all of the Adama parts of me wants to stay in for another two hours, snooze and let's go. And the Adama starts to tell me all the things I have to do today.
And that tension that we hold all the time of I want to, but I should.
It's this Ramban of the guf part of me and then the higher expectation of me. And the Abarbanel says.
When we're saying zetov me o it is the yetzer hara. Yes, it is so good.
Rotze lomasha kultuvo vashli musso shel adzim hayabhe matias habachira vayecholas alatov al arakafi yotzro.
What makes man amazing, what makes him so tov meod is that Hashem wired us with this capacity to choose and that choice of those moments to moments, those micro moment decisions, not just the big where should we go on vacation. The big what shul should we daven? The big who should our rav be? But it's also the micro moments. The yes. Am I getting out of bed now or not? Those microchoices is the yetzer hara and the yetzer tovah at play. And the yetzer hara is on Hashem's team, and the yetzer hara is there to have us be in the driver's seat of choice.
What are you going to choose now?
You make yourself who's in the driver's seat of your life?
You.
Your choices make you you. And that is tov ma'. Od.
Perhaps that is why after the creation of Adam, it does not say vayalokim ki tov, because that is the one creation that we do not know.
Because who is going to decide if Adam is tov?
Each one of us are going to be in the driver's seat of the choices that we make that will ultimately decide.
I hope. At the end of 120, Hashem looks at us and says, taqah vayaki tov.
But it's each of our micro moments that tovma. Oh, the fact that we have the push and the pull within us, it's not so easy. It's not so simple. I do want to say that piece. It's so juicy, it's so interesting. My friends will find it fascinating, but I know I shouldn't. I told them I wouldn't repeat it, but that tension between those two is what builds our greatness, choosing to be better over what we want to be.
And I recently saw this piece by Ravolvi, who explains, what is it to become a developed person. When I read this piece, I literally thought of Rabbi Hauer. I shared it in my class. I was like, this is a BAAL Musser, a person who lives a life, an elevated life. This is what he is. And he says here, hainu she mechab seme semes b' omik lev omik hasekel.
To be a developed person means I don't just know things intellectually and I don't just talk the talk, but I become that person. I live my values, I internalize, I become them, I breathe them, I live them, I act them. That when I look at you, you don't even have to tell me what your values are, because your choices reflect them to me. And that is a truly developed a Ben Adam. A Ben Adam par excellence. I really feel like we were so zochi here to have a Rabbi Hauer who we could look to and say that was a developed person who lived such a values driven life, who made hard choices, but choices that were values driven.
I saw this quote by Adam Grant. He's not Jewish, but I love his writings very much. And I think this is exactly what Revolvi is trying to say.
Authenticity means erasing the gap between what you firmly believe inside and what you reveal to the outside world.
Meaning we can believe a lot of things and have a lot of beliefs in life and a lot of values.
But I'm not Toko Kevaro. That's not what I show the world. That's not how I show up. That's not the choices I make. That's not how I live. And authenticity means creating more of a consistent narrative between what I believe and how I live.
And that's the godless of Adam. The greatness of man is that it's not always easy to show up on a value. With my values, it's sometimes not so easy. And that is the greatness of man.
You know what? I'm going to make it a little hard. Not because I'm trying to be hard on you, but because I believe in you. And greatness is by choosing. And that's of course Rabbi AJ Tourski and I believe he's quoting the Baalshem here is saying, really, it's not mutually exclusive. Who is Hashem talking to? Hashem is talking to you and me. Let us make man, Adam. I will give you all the capacities. I will give you all the potentials. I will give you the strengths. It will give you life circumstances. It will give you everything that you need to make yourself. But Adam, NASA, we need to be partners in the making of man. Now. You need to go actualize your potential. You need to go make yourself.
And that's exactly what we said. That's why it's missing the Vayarchi Tov. Because it's up to us to decide. Or will we be partners in the creation of ourselves?
But let's go a tiny bit deeper.
So what is so meaningful? What is so significant about us needing to be in the driver's seat of choice? Why is that so significant?
And I really have to tremendously thank Ravaimski for a mahara. That's going to come soon. That really helps me understand all of these other mepharashim and they put them into place.
The medrash tells us that one of the nases that Hashem was talking to were the Malachim. I'm not going to go into the Rashi now.
But it turns out the Malachim were going to look at us and feel jealous.
Feel jealous. You stand in front of Hashem all day. You have 2020 clarity vision. You literally sing songs to Hashem. You don't seem to have issues or stress or, you know, how you're going to pay the bills, you know, the tuition. Like, what? What are you jealous of?
We have enough Tzarus in here. Like, what are you jealous of?
And the medj says Adam Zesha Anime Mevakesh Levraus.
It turns out that Hashem and the Malachim both under understood that this Adam that I'm creating, they're higher on a higher level than the Malachim. How could that be? How could it possibly be?
So come with me to this ma' ra that I told you that I was first exposed to by Ravaron Lopianski. That is so amazing.
I really enjoy listening to Ravaron Lopiansky, especially his Q&As. There are many, many of them.
And I feel like a question that gets asked a lot to panelists, especially of such, you know, impressive stature, who see a lot and deal with a lot. They often are asked, what do you think is the challenge of our generation? You know, as if, like, you know, what's like, give us in one stamp, like, what's our generation's problem?
And we've heard people say technology or this, that. He says he doesn't believe that any of those things are the thing. He thinks that the following thing is nothing. And all of those things are just like roots, like branches off of this thing. And I'm going to bring it through Mishneh Perke Avos to explain to you what he feels is the thing.
Ezehu Asher Hasamech Bechalko Ask most kindergarten kids, first grade, third grade, who is the wealthy person? From Chazal's perspective, it's not the person with the largest bank account.
It's the person who is happy with whatever bank account they currently have, whatever they have that's considered a wealthy person.
Now, this can seem like a consolation prize, right? Everybody at the end of the summer is going to go home with best camper award, right? It's not.
You may not have won Kalawar, but you played great, you know, like, you know, is that really the wealthy person?
What's it saying here? And then he quotes a posse from Tehillim and this I've heard of. Arnold Pjansky quotes a posse so many times.
And he says.
That wealth to be a Simchatika person to be a person who truly adds wealth is a person who works hard and enjoys their hard work.
When you work hard and you could eat ashrach of a tov lach such as, that's a happy, lucky person who works hard and enjoys the fruits of their labor. And says the Maharal in his sefer derechaim, and I'll say it outside, and he essentially says, imagine for a moment we got a phone call, all of us, some random person. They said, you know what?
I actually, I wanna, before I, you know, give away all my various monies, you've meant a lot to me in my life. I want to give you a million dollars. Just FYI, when you wake up tomorrow morning and you see it in your bank account, go, it's not a scam. It's me. I love you, and I'm putting it in. Hashem by all of us, I ask you, would we be very happy? I can speak for myself. We're on zoom. I would be very, very happy. Emeritz Hashem. I'll take it. I'll take that.
But says the mahara, are we proud of that money?
Is it money that we feel a sense of, like, ownership, pride? Like, I worked hard for that.
So the example that I give to my students, because this is more relatable to them, is I said, if I walked into class, Chumash test, they all studied very, very hard. They're very studious students. They need to do well.
I said, if I came in and I gave you, like, you know, a super easy, like, easy answers test, almost like, what's your name? What Chumash are we learning? Who is this about? Would you be happy? They said, Mrs. Hova, we promise you we'd be so, so happy. I said, okay, great. So imagine you each got a 10 out of 10 on the test.
How geshmack do you feel? How proud of yourself do you feel that you got a 10 out of 10.
Like, okay, but we'd be happy. I was like, I know you might feel, like, relieved, but you don't feel a sense of self. You don't feel a sense of accomplishment. You don't feel a sense of pride. You don't feel a sense of ownership that I worked hard and I'm capable.
You know that. I remember when I was a little girl and I used to sell lemonade on Edward Avenue and Woodmere, New York, with some of my friends, and we would bring in those quarters after quarters, and I remember, like, we would watch it accrue and where I grew up There was like a legit ice cream truck and it would come around once a day. And I remember the first time that we raised enough money for each of us to buy and afford our own ice cream. I can literally remember I was barefoot. I still remember the feeling of the street running down the street for that ice cream truck and each of us holding that ice cream with like, the utmost of pride. Like, we paid for this, right? It's not that on other days, maybe a parent would have given us a dollar, Gojo ate an ice cream.
But the fact that we worked hard for this and we earned it, there's something unbelievable for a person to feel like I earned that. I became that. He says that's Hasamech Bechelko. Notice it's Bechelko. Of course, wealth in a bank we'll all enjoy.
But what makes a person truly happy is that which we worked hard to make. Who it is that we became, what we work hard for. That's truly the simcha of a lifetime. And that's what Rev Arno Bjonski he feels that we're missing that sense of rolling up our sleeves and putting an effort and working hard, that the bike that we bought today, it broke. We'll buy a new one on Amazon tomorrow.
And that we're not willing to.
We're living in an easy hodul hashem again. We're happy to have conveniences, but it's coming at the risk of feeling a sense of inner accomplishment, of inner hard work.
Rav Weeder Blank said so beautifully. You know, reward in this world can be natural or artificial.
For example, when a person promises his daughter a lollipop for cleaning their room, right? It's an artificial prize. There is no inherent connection between the thing that they did and the reward.
On the other hand, if they find a missing toy while cleaning and also enjoy the sight of a clean room, they are enjoying the natural concepts of that. So what kinds of reward is Olam Haba? Listen carefully. And that's what he's saying.
The Rambam writes that the Torah's material blessings are not rewards for choosing the right path.
I think I left out what I want to what I want. What he brings later is he says the following.
He says, she's going to clean her room. She cleans her room.
She cleans her room to get a lollipop. But means when you clean your room, the reward is your clean room.
That which you worked hard for is the gishmach that you come in. And it's not just yay the cleaning lady came today. That feels amazing. But look, it feels so good. I feel like every Sunday growing up, I watched my parents clean the garage. It's like, like, how much could there be? So clean. But there is a geshmak feeling at the end, especially of a Sunday, which can sometimes just go and feeling like we did something today, we accomplished. Looked. Look at this room and look how we did it.
And so let's come back to the making of man.
Adam gets created tov me' od with this very complicated yetzer hara. And we know that the yetzer hara is successful right away.
By the time that day six is over, Adam is already kicked out of Ganeidin. I mean, what a tov meod this was for us.
But here is the. Here's the nechama. There are six things, says the Gemara, that were created before the creation of the world. Before sun, before moon, before light, before birds, before Adam. There were seven things that were created.
Torah is one of them. Ganeyden is one of them.
But what is one of them that I want to focus on today? Teshuvah is one of them.
Why is that so significant that Teshuva precedes the creation of the world and precedes the creation of Adam.
And not only that, but says the Gemara and Sanhedrin that when does Adam sin? You and Ayn both know the Chait Adam happens on day six. I ask you, is day six still part of creation?
Day six is still creation.
We're not done with creating yet. Adam's alvira is part and parcel of creation.
Which means to say that yes, we are going to create NASA Adama Neshama, come.
But I am telling you now, it's not if you'll mess up, but when you'll mess up. And Teshuvah is already there for you in place.
Because you will need this.
Because yes, you might get kicked out of gane, but it's up to you to bring yourself back.
It's up to you, your. Your current state and the future is up to you. I am giving you the tool that you need to rectify the story.
So now let's get to Erev Shabbos.
So just to bring us afar, why are animals and Adam created on the same day?
To show you that we're both so potentially similar.
We're both made of the same, from the same cloth. Mamish.
We could easily live a behemoth type of life. And I am sure we can all think of things in the world and people who live that type.
But Hashem said, no na Sa Adam, I'm giving you something that it's going to be called being a human being. And this is not just. I say to my students, this is an every human being thing. Every human has the potential to live a godly life.
But it's by the small, bit by bit choices that we make. And yes, just like Adar on day six, it's not if we'll mess up, but when.
But what precedes the world is teshuvah. And that cannot get in the way of anyone's creating of themselves.
While you are creating of yourself, please remember that in your briefcase it's this thing called teshuvah. So while you use the different tools that are in your particular briefcase to make you you, maybe it's your memory, maybe you have a particularly great memory and that's what you need for your particular task. Maybe you get passionate, or maybe you're musically inclined. I don't know what it is for you that's in your particular briefcase.
But what's in all of our briefcases B.V. adai is Teshuvah. Because in the process of making ourselves, we will mess up.
But now let's come to Erev Shabbos.
I read this piece when I was in high school.
I don't think I've ever thought of Shabbos in the same way since Baruch Hashem. There's a lot of Torah on Shabbos, and this one is hands down my personal favorite.
So why is Adam Davka created on Erev Shabbos? Like we said, Erev Shabbos. It's almost like it was wired into creation for it to be hectic, you know, because.
So why Adafka and Erev Shabbos?
So here we go.
There is very little.
There is very little that you and I know about Olam Haba.
We know on Shabbos we sing, right? That Shabbos is mein Olam Haba. It's a glimpse, it's a taste of Olam Haba. There's very little that we know about Olam Haba. There's a lot that we know about Mashiach. You can read Yeshayahu, you could read Yechezkel, you could read the Rambams. There's a lot out there on Mashiach. But Olam Haba, the Takufa, the time period after Mashiach, we don't know so much about.
But what we do know, what Chazal tell us, is if you want a taste, a glimpse into that Ulam Haba experience.
I'll give you Shabbos.
Shabbos is a tiny glimpse into that experience.
Now, it's not a full picture. It's a glimpse. How much of a glimpse? Well, I'll tell you exactly how much of a glimpse, says the gemara and Brachos. It's actually a 60th.
It's a 60th of a glimpse. In fact, there are other things that are a 60th.
So, for example, da Vash, if you see here, da vash, honey is the 60th of what man was. Does that mean in taste, in consistency, in sweetness, in kids liking it, in adults liking it? I don't know exactly. We'd have to look it up.
But each of these things, sleep is a 60th of death, dreams a 60th of Nabuah. We have to go into each one and understand what that means.
But a 60th of Olam Haba, I'll give you Shabbos.
So what are we talking about?
So says Rabbi Akiva Tat, there are many parallels between Shabbos and olam Haba. You know what? I'm not going to read it yet. I'm just going to say it to you outside first, and then I'll pick a line or two.
He says, think about a particular week for you.
So let's choose a week where maybe we're expecting company. This Shabbos. So already on Sunday, maybe you're thinking about your menu. Maybe on Monday you're already making sure the beds are made. On Tuesday, maybe you're starting to, you know, bring in drinks. For sure, by Wednesday, Thursday, you've already stocked up on all of your groceries. You're already knee deep in the cooking and the shopping.
And of course, no matter what comes our Shabbos, no matter how much we prepared beforehand, it's always going to be a little bit busy, a little hectic.
Now what happens comes erev Shabbos. And we're busy because we know.
We know that as soon as shkiya hits zehu, whatever you've prepared is what you've prepared. Whatever you didn't prepare is what you didn't get to prepare.
So imagine, like I said before, I'm hectic in the kitchen and I have company coming in. And one of my kids says, well, did you make the brownies?
And if I say no, then they know, oh, man.
Then no brownies for Shabbos. And if I say no, no, but I made the Duncan Hines yellow cake. We got to enjoy that, right?
Whatever I do From Sunday to erev Shabbos at Shkia is what I get to enjoy on Shabbos. If you've ever had that feeling of, you know, you cut your nails and you go into Shabbos and you realize, I forgot that one fingernail, and you're like, yeah, it's going to be 25 hours. Okay, I know havdala will come, right? But, like, that feeling of, like, okay, too late, you know, it is what it is.
Oh, says Rabbi Akiva Tat, is that not a glimpse into Olam haba?
We prepare for Shabbos on Arab Shabbos in very similar ways, right? What's. What's the depth? Kam Shabbos could have, would have, should have. Whatever I prepared for Shabbos is what I take with me. And whatever I didn't, I didn't.
And desire be kiva tat. There's going to come a time called Mein Olam haba that hashem and Mert hashem will bring the ultimate Shabbos on the whole world.
And we're going to say, no, wait, wait. But I could have. I should have. I wanted to. I had plans to the proverbial brownies. I wanted to fix that relationship. I actually wanted to work on my Midos. I really. I really meant to. I wanted to do that mitzvah. I just. I was waiting.
And he says, shkiya's hit.
Shkiya on life has hit.
And whatever you prepared and whatever you became is what you take with you.
On Shabbos, creative activity in the physical sphere is frozen. The message is, after that final transition from this world to the next, there's no more building or preparing can be done in the next world. The neshama must remain at the level which was attained during his life.
Of course, we know that people do this whole shira is.
But that first, the ecstasy, the ecstasy of that existence is the sense of being which has resulted from a lifetime of work.
The joy of Olam Hava is, look who I've become. Look how hard I've worked to become me. As a song that just came out and it talks about. I mean, it's an. It's a. It's a cliche, you know, this idea. But, you know, when Hashem comes to Shemayim and a screen comes down and the song says, we never want to hear the words, this could have been you.
Then in mirz Hashem, after 120, the screen should come down and Hashem will say, I am so proud of you. I am so proud of you. That we feel so proud of ourselves, of all the hard work and the effort that we put in.
And there one exists, face to face, as it were, with one's own genuine personality. No illusions, no facade.
In this world we can like, you know, but there, what we worked hard is what we take with us.
And that is the great Chavez activity frozen. A sense of the results of a lifetime made clear. What was prepared is now real.
What was not prepared is forever lost. The world is an ocean voyage. Provisions taken along are available enjoyed. Provisions not taken are simply not available.
I know it's intense, but Shabbos comes once a week to remind us of what?
Why is Adam created on Erev Shabbos? Because. What's Erev Shabbos all about? Misha Tarach B' Erev Shabbos.
Whatever you prepare on Erev Shabbos, it's not just talking about your deli roll, your brownies and your challah. It's talking about you, Nasir. Adam, you have one life to live.
Make yourselves an Erev Shabbos. Whatever you prepare on Erev Shabbos, the ultimate Erev Shabbos, Yochel B' Shabbos is that which you take with you to the ultimate Shabbos.
You are the brownies, you are the challah, you are it.
You are what you work hard on and what you make of yourself. You with the recipe, the ingredients, the hard work that you put into yourself is what you get to take with you into that ultimate Shabbos.
Now, what does any of this have to do with Hanukkah? So I know there were no rules that I have to connect it to Hanukkah, but I felt like it's a very easy one.
To be clear, so far, so obvious now why Azzam has to be created on Erev Shabbos. Erev Shabbos is the ultimate message of Yallah. Let's go.
Let's make ourselves. Let's prepare ourselves. As we're preparing for Shabbos, for one moment, say, am I preparing myself? Am I making myself? Am I readying myself?
I tell my students that we should come into. We come into Shabbos with light candle and we go out with the candle.
With one candle, we could ask ourselves, what am I proud of? Of last week?
And with the second council, we could say, what do I hope to accomplish for this coming week? Because there's something interesting in Havdala that we have Bismim, which means, I'm so depressed. I'm so sad. Shabbos is leaving, but we have Wine. Which means I'm so happy. Am I sad or am I happy? I'm so confused. And of course, as a typical Jewish answer, we are both. Because this 25 hour mein olam haba experience is over. But hodu la hashem. I'm not at the real one yet. This was a practice round.
This was a wake up call. It's my weekly check in of life.
That's why Shabbos, Hanukkah. I only need once a year. Pesach wants here. But Shabbos every week. Because it's you.
It's a reminder of you.
And the reason why I drink a little wine is to say hodula hashem that I'm not the final one yet. Because I still have another week to make myself better. So let's bring it to Hanukkah and then I want to share one last beautiful idea on Arif Shabbos.
Why do I need this idea on Hanukkah?
What the Greeks wanted to do to a Jew was to think there is no Boreholam, there is no God.
And if there is no God, there is no Hashkacha process. Or he created the world and he left it. But he's certainly not invested in you. And if there is no Hashkacha process, it means you don't have a purpose and a mission. And that is the greatest darkness possible. We discussed this in ell. I quoted this piece there. But it really belongs in Hanukkah that the greatest darkness possible is to think that I don't have a reason to be here. And that's Choshach is Moshrum Shachak. The greatest darkness is to forget. To forget why I'm here, to forget why I'm at, or to forget where I'm going to be so busy that I forget.
And of course, that is the very shoresh of Hanukkah. Hanukkah. It's chinuch potential. Rashi says, I'm not going to go into the whole thing. But means to recognize Hanukkah Sabayesh.
It means to recognize the potential in someone or something and to bring it out.
That is Hanukkah. NASA, Adam.
Specifically in Hanukkah, you have so much potential. Do not Shachach. No. Choshach. No dark. The Greeks brought so much darkness by making us forget who we can be and who we can become.
Potential. There's so much that we can become, but it's us to us, not to Adam. Ya'llah.
I can give you all of the tools. I can give you all the capabilities I can give you, the strengths, the talents, the passions.
But you have to go make yourself.
That's why we light a new candle every night.
Because a person has to constantly recognize with every day that I'm here, there's more to accomplish, more to do.
Whether inside of me or outside of me, whether in my own micro world or in the macro world, there's always more to do.
So before I close with my last final thought on Erev Shabbos, just to recap, animals, people, all on Arif Shabbos, animals are ki tov yitzerhara's tov me' od man gets no ki tov. I hope it all comes together now.
Adan S tov me ot is the yetzer hara.
Because the greatness of being a person is choosing to be great by remem. Remember what we said by closing the gap between who I want to be and who I actually am, by the values that I know I hold dear and by the values that I actually live.
And that's why Hashem cannot say vayarki tov.
Because we. Hashem is talking to us. You have to create yourself. Yes, I gave you a shtickle challenge. You have the Adama. You can be Adama. But that is the greatness. The greatness is the fact that you're going to work hard. And after 120, you're going to look back and say, it feels so geishma. Because I worked so hard. Because I worked so hard. And I'm so proud.
I'm so proud. And. And that's Hanukkah. When we look at our candles each day with more fire, with more to accomplish, with more warmth to bring into the world, to recognize Chanukh is potential. The potential inside of me, the potential in my neshama.
And that's really what Erev Shabbos is. Adam. NASA Adam.
But I want to end with one final piece of Torah on the concept of Erev Shabbos.
Rabbi JD Schachter quoted Russell Lechik that one year he was giving a teshuva drasha. This is post, you know, the war. And he was giving a chuvadrasha. And he said that he was very relieved and happy to see that there were in America people are keeping Shabbos.
He was relieved there are Shomri Shabbos Jews in America. But he said, what I miss is that there's no Arab Shabbos Jews in America.
We're missing the Erev Shabbos Jew. So what does the Erev Shabbos Jew mean, so I want to share this with you and I'll end with a Mashal. And then he says, and this is by the.
I think, Amshnarov, if I mess that up, I'll correct myself.
He says, what does it mean to be a Shomer Shabbos?
He says, you know what it means to be a Shomer Shabbos. Who in Tanakh was a Shomer?
Who in Tanakh was Shomer?
So in voracious, we are told, after Yosef, there's a lot of drama. And Yosef tells the dreams over to his brothers, and there's a lot of emotions and feelings.
And Yaakov understandably sees some of the dynamics going on. And the posse tells us the brothers are jealous of Yosef Vaviv shamar as Hadavar Yaakov watched the matter. Now, we might on a peshat level, think that it means that Yaakov kept his eye on this brotherly dynamic. Kept his eye.
But that's not what Rashi says. What does it mean to be a Shomer Shabbos? What does it mean that Yaakov was a Shomer? Says Rashi, Shomer es hadavar means haya mam tin umitzapeh masa yavo. To be a Shomer means to anxiously anticipate. Yaakov believed in the dreams.
Yaqu believed in the dreams. And he anticipated and waited. How is it all going to unfold?
To be a Shomer Shabbos is to be Mamtin u mitzapah, to anxiously await the Shabbos. Ironically, to be a Shomer Shabbos is not necessarily. It's not just to keep the Shabbos. It's to be someone who longs for Shabbos, who waits for Shabbos, who's anxiously excited for Shabbos to come.
I'm waiting and I'm longing for Shabbos.
So Dafuka Hashomer Shabbos is the Erev Shabbos Jew. It's what do you look like on Erev Shabbos? Am I so excited for Shabbos to come? So I want to end with the following. Masha, you have a chasan and a kalah, and the call is coming to visit the Chasin for Shabbos. She's never been by his family before, and she's very nervous, as you can imagine.
And, you know, week leading up, she's already picking out what she's wearing. She made her hair appointment for Eiroshabis, you know, on Wednesday, she's Going to pick out the gift for her future mother in law. She's very, very nervous and she doesn't live in the same neighborhood as her Hassan. And in this drive to his house, she's like thinking about all, you know, what are we going to talk about? What am I going to do when he goes to shul Friday night? I'm going to sit with my future mother in law. What are we going to talk about? And she's obviously preparing all the conversations in her head of what talk about?
And finally she gets to her destination. She's nervous, she's excited, her hair is done, the gift in hand, her suitcase in the other.
And she gets to the door and she knocks at the door and no one's answering the door.
And finally a window on the second floor pops open and it's her chasin. And he's like, chyla, welcome. So excited that you're here. I'm actually, I just have to go shave, but if you could just wait for me for like a couple of minutes. I'm calming down. We're so excited that you're here. Just wait for me. And she's like, okay, sure. I mean, I have to behave here. Like, I am the kala. So she holds herself together and she waits anxiously by the door. And it's getting a little cold and a little uncomfortable. She's not from here.
And she waits. And okay, after like, what feels like an hour, but it was all of 10 minutes, she knocks on the door again. And she waits again. And this time his mother, she's like, oh, Chaya, we're so happy you're here. You know what? David actually went into the shower. But you know what? The front door is open. Let yourself in, sit on the couch. We're all going to be down in a minute. Just let yourself in. Excuse the mess, but come on in.
And she's like, okay. So she, it is unlocked. She goes in, she brings her wheelie, she has her gifts. She sits down on the couch. It does not look like the neat house that her house would look like. If the chasm were coming, her mother would have. It would be neat and there would be a fruit and the coffee.
And at this point, she was sitting on the couch and she's thinking, I'm not only confused, I'm actually really hurt.
Because we prepare when we know that a special guest is coming. And you knew I was coming, so why didn't you prepare for my arrival?
Boi Kala. We know that the kala is coming, and it's not just showing up on Shabbos morning and getting into it. It's Dafka. Erev Shabbos. Are we anxiously awaiting the Shabbos? Are we anxiously waiting for this Kala, this special guest to come? Or are we, like, wait, someone earn the this, the that quickly go and like, just let yourself in. We'll be there with you for a fair minute. And we're hectically letting her in. Are we saying no, we knew you were coming and we are Shomar Shabbos.
We were actually anxiously awaiting your arrival all week. Come, let's sit on the couch. I can't wait to talk to you for the next 25 hours. And to realize especially that when she comes in and she sits on our couch and to realize that that conversation with Shabbos is really a conversation with ourselves. Remember that Shabbos, that transition from Erev Shabbos to Shabbos is probably one of the most holiest transitions because it's that transition of what did I do to prepare and what is it that I'm taking in with me, which is ultimately going to be me in my life.
So Adam has to be on Erev Shabbos because that really Erev Shabbos is a muscle for our life.
And Mirza Hashem, maybe all after 120. And when the screen pulls down, I say the biggest brach is that we should feel like we're looking in a mirror in Mirza.
[00:46:08] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Jacqueline. Of course you were able to tie to Phonica 1 above and beyond the assignment, so I love that.
Thank you so, so much. If there are any questions, we can take a question or you can write it in the chat. Otherwise, I will say thank you and wish everybody a wonderful, wonderful night.
[00:46:29] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
Thank you so much, Jacqueline. It was really very inspirational.
Thank you.
[00:46:37] Speaker B: It was beautiful.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Beautiful.
[00:46:43] Speaker B: Have a good night, everybody.
Thank you.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Thank you.
