Makas Tzfardea: Kiddush Hashem, V’chai Bahem, and Living with Mesiras Nefesh

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. In the parsha, we have the makkah of tzfardea. Tzfardea, besides for being a makkah, taught a big lesson in halacha. The Gemara tells us in Pesachim, daf nun gimmel, that Chananya, Mishael, v'Azarya was supposed to be thrown into the kivshan ha'esh, to the fire, Nevuchadnetzar wanted to throw them into the fire. And they hesitated: should we let ourselves be thrown into the fire? Amongst themselves, they made a kal vachomer, a lesson they took, and they said, Look at the tzfardea, who's not metzuvah, who has no command, not on Kiddush Hashem, not on any other mitzvah for that matter, and yet they jumped into the ovens, al Kiddush Shem Shamayim, because the Ribono Shel Olam wanted to send a makkah to the Mitzriyim to bring out His name, the glory of His name, and they jumped in for that. So we, who are metzuvah in Kiddush Shem Shamayim, of course we must jump into the oven. And so they let themselves be thrown into the oven, and the rest is history. We know that they survived. Chananya, Mishael, v'Azarya miraculously survived. The Marsha brings up a very strong question. The Marsha says he doesn't understand what the connection is between Chananya, Mishael, v'Azarya and the Tzfardea doesn't have the mitzvah of a chai bahem. There's nothing wrong if the tzfardea jumps into an oven. Chananya, Mishael, v'Azarya have a mitzvah that stops them from jumping into the oven, and that is that v'chai bahem, you must live. The Torah says that the mitzvahs were given for life. So how could you learn from a tzfardea? It's not in the same parshah. It's not in the same—it's different. A tzfardea is an animal. There's no mitzvah to live. So how could you make the kal vachomer? In lashon of the Rishonim, this is called a kal vachomer mufreches, a kal vachomer that has on it a question. How could you take a lesson from a case where the lesson is wrong? It's not true. A tzfardea has no problem of jumping into a fire, because there's no mitzvah to protect its life. It has no chiyuv to make sure that it lives, while we, Klal Yisrael, Chananya, Mishael, v'Azarya, they have a mitzvah of a chai bahem that they have to live. So asks the Marsha. The Shagas Aryeh... Asks the second question. Shagas Aryeh says the wording of the Gemara is very complexing. How could it say that a frog has no mitzvah? Of course it had a mitzvah. What did Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah say? Look, if the frog had no mitzvah and still jumped into the fire, we that have a mitzvah, of course they have a mitzvah. The mitzvah was that Hashem told them that you will jump into the fire. Just clearly, it'll go inside you. He was told, Pari, in you, in the ovens. So they had a tzivui, the Master of the world, the Ribono Shel Olam, told them to jump into the fire. What choice do they have? So how could the Gemara say that Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah said, Look at the tzfardea that had no mitzvah, and still they did it. They had a mitzvah. Answers the Shagas Aryeh that Hashem never commanded every tzfardea to jump in. He commanded that from the tzfardea there should be those that jump in and those that don't jump in. Not everyone jumped into the fire. Some of them went up.

Elsewhere. So who decided, meaning which frog decided to go where? You know, each frog could have told the other one, I'll take the desk job, you go to the front line. You stand in front of the office, and I'll sit behind the desk and I'll answer phone calls. You know, why did this tzfardea jump in while another didn't? It's not that Hashem said all of them jump in, or He told which ones to jump in. He told there will be tzfardea to jump in. And yet there are those tzfardea that chose to jump in. So that's called that they were not mitzuvim, and they chose. So, Chanan, you learned from that, I'm going to choose to jump in also. The question was, how could you come and learn from the tzfardea? The tzfardea also had a command. And the answer is, not true. Not all of them had command to jump in. There were supposed to be tzfardea to jump in. Who volunteered? From that, Chanan, you learned a lesson from the volunteers, that if they volunteered, so kol shekein we should jump in. You know what the problem with this pshat? It comes out that if tzfardea has bechirah, it's free will. But the tzfardea decided yet to jump, not to jump. I mean, what kind of bechirah? One has a decision, I'll do the mitzvah, I won't do the mitzvah. I mean, how is there a — which is a question the Rishonim discuss, Rambam, Moreh Nevuchim. Does an animal have choice, free will to do or to—? No, probably not, right? So how could the Shagas Aryeh explain that they had to jump in, and there were those that chose to jump in? Those tzaddikim that chose to jump in were the lesson to Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah. You can't choose. Could a frog make a choice? The Maril Diskin gives a different answer to the question of the Shagas Aryeh. You know what the Maril Diskin says? Actually, none of them were commanded to go into the ovens. When Moshe Rabbeinu tells Pari they will, it's just telling him b'nevuah what will happen. None of the tzaddikim were told that they have to go into the oven. And so there was never a tzivui, a commandment, on the tzaddikim to jump into the oven. And yet they did. This is where Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah took their lesson. So again, let's repeat over the information that we're processing about the tzfardea, because it comes out that the tzfardea is making big choices. The first question we asked was from the Marsha, that the tzfardea has no mitzvah of a chiyuv by him. So you can't learn out, you, the Jew who must protect his life, can't learn out from the tzfardea that—what's wrong with the tzfardea? Let him jump into the fire, who cares? There's no aveirah for him to jump into the fire. While a Jew, it's an aveirah to give up his life where he's not supposed to. So how could you learn from the frog? That's the question of the Maharsha. The Shagas Aryeh's question is, how could you tell me that he wasn't commanded, the frog? Of course there's a commandment. He was told to go into the fire. Animals, briah has to listen to Hashem. They have to listen to the ratzon, the will of Hashem, and the will of Hashem was to go into the fire. So what are you proving? That look at the chardei who had no command. Of course they were commanded. Answers the Shagas Aryeh, they were not commanded. They were just a few were told. And who would be the ones to go was a decision made by the tzfardea themselves. And that's what Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah were learning from. There'd be such a thing that an animal makes a choice to be mekadesh Shem Shamayim? What does that mean? How can an animal make a decision? What decision process is there? If there's a tzivui, ratzon Hashem, it's the will of Hashem. The briah, the creation, listens to the will of Hashem. But you can't say he left it up to the tzfardea and it made a decision. And the Maharil Diskin says even further, they were never metzuvah. So what means on their own they did it? They made a calculation? I mean, what does it mean?

Tzvardea makes such a calculation. You know, I think the answer, rabosai, is such. Tosfos asks a nice question: Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah have to learn from a frog to be mekadeish shem Shamayim? It's a mitzvah in the Torah: yehareg v'al yaavor, the three mitzvos, the three aveiros that one must give up his life, and one of them is avodah zarah. Tosfos teretz. But this is what Tosfos asks: Why are they taking a lesson from a tzfardea? So truthfully, we could say, you know, they didn't take a lesson; they took chizuk, maybe. Of course they knew that there was a mitzvah of yehareg v'al yaavor, but it was a chizuk. Look at the tzfardea. Like the Gemara says, go—a person who's lazy should go to an ant; a person wants to learn tznius, he should go to a cat. So all Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah were saying, you know what? Let's learn kiddush Hashem from the frog. But not that the frog is the mekor, is the reason why we're doing. We're doing because the Torah says to do it. But could be they took a lesson of strength, of chizuk. Look at the frog. If the frog could do it, we surely can do it. But you see, Tosfos didn't like that teretz. Tosfos gives two other answers. One answer Tosfos says that they were able to run away. They were able to run away, and their question was, should they anyway give up their lives? They were able to not do the aveirah if they wanted. They were able to get away with it. The question is, should they offer their lives? It's interesting, very much like what we're speaking here. They weren't mitzuvah. They weren't mitzuvah. The frog was not mitzuvah, and yet it offered to give up its life al kiddush Hashem. Very, very much similar to the story of the Tzfardea. A second answer says, Tosfos, it wasn't really avodah zarah. It was a statue of the king, and so to bow down wouldn't be a problem of avodah zarah. It's just a statue of a king. But what? People would look at it and say, Look, it looks like avodah zarah. There would be a chilul Hashem. It smelled bad, but it wasn't really avodah zarah. It had the, in Yiddish, a shmek. It smelled from avodah zarah. It would have given a foul taste among the people. Look at Chananiah, Mishael, Azariah bowing down to the statue. But it wasn't really avodah zarah. So then what's the connection to the Tzfardea? What are we seeing in the Tzfardea? What's the lesson from the Tzfardea if it wasn't really a mitzvah of yahareg v'al ya'avor because it wasn't really avodah zarah? So what lesson do you take if there is, like the Maharsha says, a mitzvah of a chayavah? Why is there not a question on the Tzfardea? The Tzfardea doesn't have the mitzvah of a chayavah. There's no mitzvah of a chayavah by the Tzfardea. But the Jew has a chayavah. So why is he giving up his life for something which is not avodah zarah? I mean, how could you learn from the Tzfardea? I'll tell you what I think the answer to all of the questions is. What does it mean, v'chai bahem? What does it mean to live? Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah was learning and understanding a new interpretation of what it means for a Jew, v'chai bahem, to live. You know, a Tzfardea has no decision, like what I'm telling you. He can't make a decision. What governs, what dictates by the Tzfardea? Instinct. The instinct of life, to want to live. That's all it is. So Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah say, wait a minute. Animal like a Tzfardea, that its entire instinct is just to live, how was it able to go into a fire, into an oven, against the instinct to live? That was Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah's lesson. That's what the point that they learned from the frog. How could it be that an animal...

Frog, an insect, so to speak. Okay, I know it's a reptile, but an insect, nevertheless. Frog, all it knows is to live. How is it able to make a move into a fire to die? And the answer is because when it comes to Kiddush Shem Shamayim, that's called living. In the briah, in the creation of the world, if it comes to the honor and glory of the Ribono Shel Olam, giving up the life is called living. It's not a calculation. It's not a Sefer HaMitzvos, one of the mitzv... It doesn't come from a mitzvah. It comes from instinct, because that's all an animal has is instinct. Life, to live, means to glorify the name of the Ribono Shel Olam. And so it answers all the questions. Marsha asks, but they have a mitzvah of v'chai bahem, Chanani, Mishael, Azariah. Yes, but they were understanding what does it mean, v'chai bahem. If there's going to be a chilul Hashem, it's not v'chai bahem. If there's going to be a Kiddush Hashem, that's called v'chai bahem. That's called living. The tzfardea is able to jump into a fire, that's called living. It has to be, because all it has is an instinct to live. Our question was, Hashem gave it tivui. It has nothing to do with tivui. We asked the question, how can a frog make a decision? You're right, it's not a calculation in the mind, so to speak. It's in the instinct of life. And what is called life in this world? Kiddush Shem Shamayim. That's called life. You understand? And that's what Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah take. And you're right, it wasn't a din of avodah zarah. Had it been regular avodah zarah, you don't need to learn from a frog anything. There's a mitzvah. You got to give up your life, you give up your life. You don't learn from a frog. Because it wasn't really an avodah zarah. It was a heichi timtza. It was a scenario where they were able to be mekadesh Shem Shamayim. It wasn't yehareg v'al ya'avor avodah zarah. We're not talking about issur like Tosafos says. It was an opportunity to glorify the name of the Eibishter. Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah says, Vechai bahem tells me that I should go give up my life in this also. Vechai bahem, which tells me not to give up my life. No, no, no. I learned from the Tzfardea that that means I should give up my life. That's called vechai. By a Jew, someone who lives in the world of the Ribono Shel Olam, vechai bahem means to give up one's life. I want to tell you something very interesting. The Baal HaTurim tells us, you notice in the pasuk it says that the frogs died. They went into the יאר, the יאר started to smell. Says the Baal HaTurim, you know which ones died? Only the ones that didn't go into the ovens. The ones that went into the ovens actually lived. You hear about the Turim? The ones that jumped into the ovens lived, survived. The ones that didn't jump into the oven, they died. And you know why? According to the way we're explaining, it's beautiful. It was the lesson of the Tzfardeah, what's called life: to jump into the fire, that's called life. Not to jump into the fire, that's called not necessarily life. That could be death. Those died; these lived. You thought you threw into a fire, that's called dying. No. Like Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah. They were thrown into the fire and they lived. The Torah was teaching what's called life. You think you're dying if you're thrown into the fire. No. That's why the Tzfardeah, which was about teaching v'chai bahem, you hear? The Tzfardeah was supposed to teach what's called life. And so when it jumps into the fire, it lives. Those that didn't jump into the fire, they didn't make it. I want to tell you one step further. The dam and the Tzfardeah, Klal Yisrael was represented in the Tzfardeah. The Rishonim tell us.

Then it was one frog, and they kept on hitting the frog, and more and more. Say the Rishonim, because by Klal Yisroel, that's what Pari did. He was hitting them, v'chashyanu oisoi, kein yirbeh v'chein yifrotz. The more he hit them, the bigger they got. So the Tzfardea represents, Pari, you're trying to kill Klal Yisroel. You're trying to destroy. You're trying to annihilate. And yet they grow and grow and get bigger and bigger. And so I believe that that's the lesson of the Kiddush Hashem Shamayim here too. You think you're throwing the Yid into the oven. You think the Jew gets thrown into the oven and he's dying. No, the opposite. He's going to live. That's called v'chai bahem. The more you hit it, the more you make it suffer, the bigger it grows. And this was after the makkah of dam. Dam was supposed to represent the blood that was spilled. Rishonim tell us the blood of the Jew is represented in dam. Teaches the Rabbeinu Shalom with the next makkah, Tzfardea, don't think you're killing them. The blood is getting spilled, but Tzfardea, v'chai bahem, they're actually living that way. The pasuk says that Hashem goes down to Mitzrayim and He sees blood, v'erech mizboseses b'damayich, v'omar lach, and I tell you, b'damayich chayi, b'damayich, you live through the blood. Pari thinks he's spilling Jewish blood. He's not spilling Jewish blood. He's making life from Holocaust comes of flourishing. Of Klal Yisroel. The creation of a Klal Yisroel after a Holocaust is b'damayich chayi, b'damayich chayi. You throw the Jew into the oven, the next generation, it grows and grows and flourishes to a whole new level that it never reached before. Tzfardea. The makka of tzfardea is to teach, dumb, you're spilling Jewish blood. You think you're spilling Jewish blood. No, tzfardea. The more you hit it, the more it grows. The more you hit it, the more it gets bigger. It jumps into the ovens, it lives. B'damayich chayi, b'damayich chayi, ki'dei shem Shamayim. When the Jew lives for the Ribono Shel Olam, there's no way to annihilate it. It lives on. It's interesting. The Mitzrim died by tzfardea. It says clearly that they were dying in the pasuk, and the Rishonim wonder, how did they die? What exactly caused them to die here? Tzfardea, they're just frogs. So now we know in science, you go to the zoo, and the reptiles, they have the poisonous frog. So maybe they were poisonous frogs. You know, there's a frog, there's a poisonous frog. A poisonous frog in Brazil, yeah. So maybe this is the tzfardea in Mitzrayim. They were killing them. They were poisonous. Possibly. Listen, a frog goes into your intestines. Maybe that's how you die, listen. Unless you're French, you don't want to eat—you don't want to have in your intestines frogs, right? Maybe that was killing them. They couldn't digest it. Many Rishonim, and Reb Shamshon Fol Hirsch talks about it, learned that the Tzfardea was a crocodile. The crocodiles. Tzfardea came up from the river. It was a crocodile. It's one big croc. In America we call it an alligator, but in Australia they call it a croc. So the croc came, the big croc, and he hit it, and little crocodiles came out of it. And that was killing them. A crocodile could kill. Reb Shamshon Fol Hirsch doesn't like the pshat. It's a discussion. The Baal HaTurim says a different pshat. The Baal HaTurim says that besides for the Tzfardea, nechashim, snakes came, and the snakes were killing them. So I always wondered, if the makkah is Tzfardea, why are you sending nechashim to kill them? What's the idea of the nachash in the makkah of Tzfardea?

It's interesting that in every makkah—I'm sorry, in the siman, the os was about a snake. Why a snake? The stick turns into the snake. Does anybody have an explanation why it has to be about snakes? Unless snake is a scary thing and you have to scare Paro. Maybe, could be. Maybe you want to scare Paro. All of a sudden, our king cobra gets born in front of Paro. You know, get me out of here. Maybe. Or maybe we could say that there's a deep understanding here. You know, the snake resembles death. When you want to have Satan, that picture of... it's always with the snake in there, right? It also represents life. You know, the sign of a doctor is the snake, medical throughout the world. Is it a meimis or is it a mechayeh? And the truth is, it's from the Torah, nachash and a chayos. The snake bit them, yet when they looked at the snake, it healed them. Is a snake a... You know, there's a famous rule in the Gemara: ein keteger na'aseh saneger. So which one is it? Is it this or is it this? Ein keteger na'aseh saneger. So which one is it? Does he kill or does he...? And the answer is, the nachash is a tremendous lesson. Yes, it's the most venomous to kill, but the truth is, if you have bitachon... You look up to Shamayim and you trust Hashem, the snake can't do anything to you. Ein nachash meimis ela chet meimis. The Gemara brings the tanna who put his foot on the snake and nothing happened. And the Gemara says the opposite: woe to the snake that if this tanna comes in his contact. P'ninah mindoiser. What's the pshat, rabosai? Pshat's like this: the snake will kill you, but if you live with Hashem, all the snakes in the world could bite you and nothing will happen. By Parah, it's a snake. By Moshe Rabbeinu, it's mateh Elokim, that he does all the miracles to save Klal Yisrael. Parah, you think you're biting the Jew and you're killing him. I'll take the snake in my hand, and you know what I'll show you? It becomes mateh Elokim. And with this mateh Elokim, not only I don't destroy Klal Yisrael, I save Klal Yisrael. Klal Yisrael's entire geulah, redemption, its rebirth to life came from this mateh. The snake turns into the mateh Elokim. It all depends what and whose hands is it. You hear, rabosai? So tzfardea is the lesson of what? You think you're killing the Yid. No, the opposite. You're healing the Jew. You're taking him and you're giving him cura barzel. You're giving him an overworkout, and he gets bigger and stronger from you. The more you hit it, the more yisurim you give it, the greater it becomes, the healthier it becomes, colleagues. Just like salt sweetens the meat, says the Gemara, the yisurim strengthen the person, strengthen the Jew. So together with tzfardea, the Eibishter sends the nachash. Nachash, which is a representation of death and the opposite, miraculous healing. Death and miraculous healing. You hear? Death and miraculous healing. Pari, you think you're biting the Jew. The truth is, no, you're not. No, you're not. They look up to Shamayim, and the nachash, the nachoshes heals them. This, rabosai, was makas tzfardea v'chai. To teach me, to teach, to teach what's called life and what's called death. What's called life and what's called death. The idea of the tzfardea.

People think, mistakenly, that if a person learns a lot, or he wakes up early and goes to sleep late because he's doing mitzvahs and davening, he's going to burn out and get sick. People think that. You need a vacation. A person needs a break. Otherwise, not going to be able to handle it. Too much. Says the Chazon Ish in his Igros, it's not true. No one ever got sick. No one ever died because he overlearned or davened too much. No such thing. He says Torah and mitzvahs cannot be a catalyst for someone to not feel good. It's not true. Yeah, but what do you mean? My body, I'm working hard. Stress. Early, late, running. Where's my life? I have no life. A goy. If you gave a goy such Torah and mitzvahs, like the Gemara says by Sukkah, they gave him the mitzvah of Sukkah, and all of a sudden the heat comes out. So what do they do? They kick the sukkah. Gemara in Avodah Zarah says that when Mashiach comes, the goyim will complain, Give us a mitzvah, you didn't force us. Hashem will give them the mitzvah of Sukkah. The sun will come out. Hashem will bring out the sun. It'll be so hot they'll leave. And when they leave, they kick the sukkah. Everybody asks, but a Jew is also patur. When you're hot and you can't take it, a Jew is also patur. And you know what the answer, rabosai, I think is? The minute the goy gets a little bit, he's out. You know why? Because he's a mitzta'er, he can't take it. The minute it gets a little difficult, the mitzvah, he can't take it. For a Yid to leave a sukkah, he's got to really be a mitzta'er. He's got to really not—he really can't take it anymore. Because by a Jew, a mitzvah is not a tzaar. They don't feel it. They feel good when they're in the sukkah. Ah, it's boiling hot. The tachunah of a Yid is to take a mitzvah, and even though it's stress and it's difficult, and a goy would burst already, Where? I have no life. Look what you're making me, day and night. That's why they do Christianity. You know, Christianity? Easy. It's once a week. You go to church with your kids. Everybody's wearing a nice suit with a beautiful hat, you know. It's got to be enjoyable, otherwise. Then you tell them stories about angels and gods—beautiful stories. Imagine if I had to come and say stories all day about angels. I'd have a packed chair. You'd have 500 people sitting here, malachim and God and Hashem wants this, Hashem loves you. Great, it would be unbelievable. A Yid is not looking for that. A Yid is looking for shibud. A Jew looks, Yes, give me mitzvahs. Ratz HaKadosh Baruch Hu l'zakos es Yisrael. V'kach hirbeh lahem Torah u'mitzvos. That's l'zakos es Yisrael. That's l'zakos. You don't leave me alone for a second, from the morning to night. Mitzvahs and more mitzvahs and more mitzvahs and more mitzvahs. What are you doing to me? And the answer is, only a Jew understands l'zakos, that this is a zechus. You're right, a guy can't handle this. I think that's what the Chazon Ish means, that a Jew doesn't get sick from mitzvahs. It doesn't happen. Ah, it's stressful. You ever see a yeshiva boy looking for a lulav and esrog? The stress, the lulav, the esrog. All day long he's busy. Another guy would burst from it. I can't take it. You're making me crazy. What are you making me crazy for? HaKadosh Baruch Hu l'zakos Yisrael, and I think that's the pshat: Ki heim chayeinu v'orech yameinu. What does it mean, ki heim chayeinu? Torah u'mitzvos is our life, and it's also orech yameinu. We don't die young, so to speak, because we learn Torah and mitzvos. It's orech yameinu. We can live the opposite. It's our health, the best thing for our health and our longevity. You know, today they put out magazines for longevity. You eat this berry and you... this mixture with this... You know, together. You ever see what a guy is busy with? All day long he's busy with his longevity, to make himself live long. You hear?

If he takes the acuberry together with this herb, and together, and he puts it, and he mixes it, and he blends it, and he drinks this, and he goes here, and he sits like this, the whole day long he's busy with it. And at the end, they don't live long anyway. Either they get run over by a car as they're buying the stuff from the health food store, or they get AIDS from doing tremendous aveiros. You can eat all the berries in the world, you'll do aveiros, you'll still get AIDS. It's not going to help you from AIDS, you know what I mean? Overdosing with, with, with... You can eat all your berries you want, it's not going to help you. By Klal Yisroel, tihei chayeinu. You know the ingredient? U'vahem nehgeh yomam valaylah. Oirech yameinu comes from u'vahem nehgeh. You know what nehgeh means? To toil, to work hard. Yomam valaylah, we work day and night. Another guy says, You're going to crack up. Not a Yid. A Jew doesn't crack up from that. He cracks up from not learning. I never saw a Yid crack up because he learned too much. It never happens. Now, we have younger boys sometimes that they overdo it. We're not discussing lefi the dargah, but it wasn't from overwork. Sometimes a person jumps further than his koiches. I'm not discussing that. But if a person, a mature person, learns day and night, he's fine. He doesn't need no vacations in Hawaii and in Florida. He's fine learning the way he is. Ki heim chayeinu v'orech yameinu, uvohem nehgeh yomam valaylah. This is makas Sefardea. Makas Sefardea is to teach us that a person, that a person, a Yid, what is mechayeh him. I found a mekor for all this that we're speaking, a good point where I learned this from. There's a sefer, Meirosh Amanah, which is the sichos, shmuzen of Rav Shach, zecher tzaddik livrachah. And it's a very nice sefer because it quotes word for word from the shmues, from the sichah. So you really get the language. When you read it, you start to feel almost like Rav Shach is sitting and talking in front of you. At one of the knessiyah gedolahs, Rav Shach got up and he said a story, told over a story, told over a story about a group of Yidden that were being led to the furnaces in the Holocaust. Amongst themselves, they're talking that it's Simchas Torah. Today is Simchas Torah. They don't have a sefer Torah to dance hakafos, to dance around with the Torah. What do we do? This is the mitzvah of the day, our final mitzvah maybe, and we don't have the sefer Torah to dance. So they said amongst themselves that they have an idea. It's true they don't have a Sefer Torah, but they have themselves that they're Yidden. We'll dance with each other, and we'll hold each other. This will be like we're dancing with a Sefer Torah. So brings Rav Shach's story. It's a beautiful story, the way a Yid appreciates that he's a Jew. We'll dance with ourselves. We don't have the Sefer Torah, but we have our... we're Yidden. We'll dance with ourselves. We'll hold each other. We'll dance. Rav Shach says in this frumkenesiah gedolah, in front of thousands of people, he says, I don't know what you're thinking when you hear a story like this, but I'll tell you what I'm thinking. I would give up all my years of what I've learned in davening, I'd give it all up just to be part of that group of Yidden. Don't you forget, mind you, as they say, Rav Shach was marbitz Torah eighty, ninety, unbelievable amounts of years of teaching Torah. The world stood up, his habatzas Torah, and he says, I'm ready to give it all up. Here, he says, I'm ready to give up just to be part of that group, because they experienced true life.

What does it mean to live? He says, You think they were thrown into the ovens to die, but actually they were living in the ovens al kiddush Hashem Shamayim. I learned from that sicha everything I just told you, all the above shmooze, all the above mussar. The Tzaddik taught the same thing. What is v'chai bahem? Chananya, Mishael, and Azariah didn't take out to die al kiddush Hashem. They took out a lesson: what does it mean, life? How would Jews use v'chai bahem? V'chai bahem means I could be thrown into an oven. If it's kiddush Hashem Shamayim, I experience life with it. A goy has no clue, has no understanding of all this. But a Yid, a Yid, a Jew, learns and lives v'chai bahem through kiddush Hashem Shamayim. The Beis Yosef asked the Maggid that came to teach him, How can we never die al kiddush Hashem? He's davening all his life that he should die al kiddush Hashem. How come he doesn't die al kiddush Hashem? The Maggid answers him that you have a greater lot in life. Your avodah and tafkid is bigger than dying al kiddush Hashem. And what is that? That's to live al kiddush Hashem. To live al kiddush Hashem is greater. It's even more difficult than to die al kiddush Hashem. And so, Bais Yosef lived, and he wrote the Beis Yosef, which from that we have all the Shulchan Aruch. Even till today, keep Torah and mitzvahs, halacha, because of the Beis Yosef, because of the Shulchan Aruch. So the tafkid was living al Kiddush Hashem. They say there's the difference between Avraham and Yitzchak, that Avraham had to live after the Akedah, so he was going to live al Kiddush Hashem, which was harder than Yitzchak giving up in one moment his life al Kiddush Hashem, and that's why it's called Akedah of Avraham, Zar'i shel Avraham b'rachamim tizkor, because Avraham's credit in the Akedah is bigger than Yitzchak's. Many mefarshim say, as a matter of fact, that's even the pshat in Yitzchak, that Yitzchak was supposed to be a korban; he was a korban, and he became a korban mechayim, that in his life he lived the life of korban, a life of sacrifice. You know, rabosai, we also have mesiras nefesh. Now, the generations before us had mesiras nefesh that they were taken and thrown into ovens. Our mesiras nefesh is a different mesiras nefesh. From within, we have tremendous tests. We have tremendous difficulties. Society, society, the days that we live in, the nisyonos that we have to go through on a constant basis is mesiras nefesh. We have to go through our Kiddush Hashem Shamayim through this mesiras nefesh, and we have to learn v'chai bahem. The Jew feels and experiences life only with mesiras nefesh. If it means that we come to learn when we're supposed to learn, even though we have difficulty, the day is difficult, we still come to learn. And even in bein adam l'chaveiro, you think it's easy to bend? You think it's easy to not exist, so to speak, when it comes to friends? Me, you did to me. Ma avar al middosav. What does the Gemara say about ma avar al middosav? He gets arichas yamim. Harotzeh l'hachyos, yamis atzmo, says the Gemara. There's a different type of mesiras nefesh required of us today, and that is to mimoser us ourselves for avodah, for chesed, for middos tovos. That's also mesiras nefesh. It's sacrificing yourself. You're sacrificing yourself. There was a time when we sacrificed by being thrown into an oven. That's true. That was previous generation. Our sacrifice is self-sacrifice: to learn, to daven, to do chesed, and not to make machloikes. Harotzeh l'hachyos, yamis atzmo. This, rabosai.

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