Vayeitzei: Yaakov’s Ladder, Step-by-Step Growth, and Bitachon in the World of Parnassah

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Parshas Vayeitzei. Vayeitzei. So what do you want to say? In Parshas Vayeitzei, we have the history, the story of Yaakov Avinu galut, where he leaves his father's house. He goes to Beit Shem v'Ever. He's there tamun. He's there in the limud 14 years, 14 years b'Beit Shem v'Ever. And then he leaves on his way to the house of Lavan, kmo she'omrim, la'asot chayim, to make a life, married, money. Chazal tell us that he passes by Makom HaMikdash, and he didn't think of stopping. HaKadosh Baruch Hu said, You lo yahiv da'atei. He wasn't interested in stopping. We're not going to stop him. Then all of a sudden he thought to himself, Oh, I passed Makom shehitpallu avotai v'lo hitpalalti, I'm going back. Oh, once he decided to go back, there was kfitzat haderech. They helped him to go back. Why in taka, why lemaaseh, Yaakov Avinu didn't think of stopping? As they say, me'ikara mai kasavar, u'levsof mai kasavar. Why did he think not to stop? And then he changed his mind, yes to stop. What was the reason not to stop? And what was the chazarah, the change of heart to stop? So you could say simply, kipshuto, he doesn't have to have a cheshbon. Lo yahiv da'atei. It wasn't on his mind to stop. He didn't think of it. Didn't think of it. And because he didn't think of it, so from Shamayim they said, You don't think of it doesn't mean we're going to think for you. If you don't think on your own, we're not going to think for you. But it doesn't have to mean that there was a cheshbon, that there was a reason for him not to stop. You could say that. You could say that the point is that there was a complaint of him not stopping, even though it wasn't with a cheshbon that he didn't stop. The fact that he didn't think of stopping, shelo al da'ato, it wasn't something that he thought of on his own, that's already a complaint, but not that he had a cheshbon meyuchad that we have to explain, me'ikara mai kasavar, and then why did he change his mind? Or maybe, or maybe we could say, yes, that there was a cheshbon. He didn't, with thought, decide, I don't need to stop, and then all of a sudden he decided to go back to stop. What was the cheshbon? What was the cheshbon not to stop? Why not? Makom shehitpallu avotai. You know, today it's a whole business, makom shehitpallu avotai. Everybody's going, right? They're running to the kevarim and to all the different batei knessiyot from the different little cities and towns. Why would Yaakov Avinu not understand this on his own? I'd like to answer this question with understanding the entire parsha of Parshas Vayeitzei. I think we have to understand well the entire parsha, Parshas Vayeitzei. Parshas Vayeitzei is the parsha where Yaakov Avinu, the ben Torah, Yaakov is the semel of Torah, is going to go out to the world. He's going out to the olam hanisyonot. It's very easy to live in the house of Yitzchak and be a lomed Torah. It's even easier to sit in Shem v'Ever and be a yoshev v'lomed Torah. But now he's going out into the real world, so to speak, quote unquote, the real world. And the meilah, the entire parshas Vayeitzei, which is interesting, is the name of the parsha, Vayeitzei. He went out. Here Yaakov Avinu is going from lihyot habachur yeshiva, Vayeitzei. He's going out into the world. He's going out.

Added to the olam hanisyonot, olam shel shiduchim, ve'olam shel parnasa, ve'olam shel boss, ve'olam shel father-in-law, oh, nisyonot nifla'im, kemo shenikra, like we're going to read in the pesukim. He thought he was ready for it all. Why? V'hu yashav v'lamad b'yeshiva arba esrei shanah. He's ready. He's ready. So he thought, now I have to go first. I took off 14 years. The mefarshim tell us that these 14 years, what right did he have to sit 14 years? His father sent him to Lavan's house to make shidduch. So what right did he have to stop 14 years? So the mefarshim say because he had to prepare himself. You know, he's going out to Lavan, he had to prepare himself. So we could explain and add, we could add and explain that he thought it was enough. He thought that the fact that he learned 14 years, that itself was hachanah, that itself was the preparation. So what did they tell him? You need more. Not enough to just sit and learn. A person sometimes thinks he's ready for the world and the nisyonot and the milchamot of the yetzer hara by sitting and learning. And the truth is, if you learn Chovot HaLevavot, it seems that it's not enough just to sit and learn. You also need tachsisei milchamah. A person needs to make a plan how to fight the yetzer hara. The wars are difficult with the yetzer hara. So some of those plans and some of those eitzot. is going to be given to Yaakov Avinu at the beginning of this week's parsha, and that is tefillah. He thought he didn't need to daven. That's what it means, his cheshbon of not going lemakom hitpallu avotai. He thought he's good, he's already prepared. He sat and learned 14 years. So they tell him, no, no, no, no, you still have to go back to daven. When you go out into the real world, tefillah, tefillah, tefillah. You must daven to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that HaKadosh Baruch Hu should protect you and help you. שמרני בדרך הזה אשר אנכי הולך עליה. You need protection. You need protection. So what happens? ויירא דעתיה. All of a sudden it hit him, you know what? Maybe I need to pray. I need to be mitpalel. It's not enough just that I sat in the yeshiva. He decided to go back, and they helped him go back. And the second preparation was the chalom, the dream that he had. הסולם מוצב ארצה וראשו מגיע השמימה. Why? Don't forget, the chalom was a lesson, was a mussar sichah for him. It was to teach him. And that teaching, that lesson, was to prepare him for the chayim ahead, for the life ahead, the life in the household, Lavan, where he has to be in the olam hanisyonot. And I'll prove it to you. Sulam, says the Baal HaTurim, גימטריא ממון. They were teaching him. What were they teaching him? This sulam. Is the sulam, as Reb Chaim Volozhin there explains in Ruach Chaim, all the Rishonim and Acharonim discussed the great remazim, the great lessons that the sulam is there to teach, explains Reb Chaim Volozhin. Malachei Elokim olim v'yordim bo. Where were they going up and down, on the ladder? No. The Zohar says, olim v'yordim bo b'Yaakov. They were coming from within Yaakov Avinu, the malachim. They were going the ladder, but the ladder was just a symbol of how they were going through Yaakov, up and down. Malachei Elokim olim v'yordim. And I want to point out in dikduk it's correct, because if you want to say you go on a ladder, you don't say olim bo. You say olim aleha, or maybe even olim ba. The keva. Why does it say bo? Bo b'Yaakov. It's in Yaakov Avinu. The malachim are olim v'yordim bo. And the siman, and the lesson, and the idea.

The idea that he was supposed to take with is that a person is an oleh v'yored. In each of his ma'asim, Chazal tell us, malachim are created. Oseh mitzvah achad, he creates a mitzvah. So the malachim of his actions are olim v'yordim: good malachim, bad malachim, good malachim, bad malachim, olim v'yordim. We're bo in Yaakov Avinu. This was to prepare him for the future world ahead, the olam hanisyonot, the olam haparnasa, the world of forty seconds, since forty-seventh, of diamonds and then, chas v'shalom, lawyer, doctor, you know, big nisyonot out there. There's big tests and trials and tribulations. So he had to be prepared for it. So they were teaching him, A, aleph, tefillah. A person must daven to HaKadosh Baruch Hu. And B, they were teaching him the yesodot of sulam: malachei Elokim olim v'yordim bo. So what are the simanim? What are the lessons? What is the idea of the sulam? Now it's interesting, if you take a look at the end of the parsha, Yaakov Avinu also sees malachim. כאשר ראה מחנה אלוקים זה, ויקרא שם המקום מחניים. He calls it Machanaim. Rashi says here that the malachim of Chutz La'aretz were going up, and the malachim of Eretz Yisrael were coming down. I'm sorry, the malachim of Eretz Yisrael were going up and the malachim of Chutz La'aretz were coming down. Truthfully, at the end of the parsha, it's the same thing, that they also switched. But there wasn't a chalom. They didn't show it to him with a chalom, nor did they show it to him as olim v'yordim. It just says that the malachim switched. How come it wasn't the same thing like in the beginning of the parsha? If malachim have to go up and down, so show it to him as olim v'yordim. At the end of the parsha, where they switched, it doesn't seem there was a whole hatzagah, a whole play out of it. They went up, they went down, they switched. Tell me, bichlal, do malachim need to be oleh v'yored on a ladder? What are you talking about? Malachim don't need no ladders. The Gemara tells us Gavriel jumps with one jump, and Michael maybe with two, and they can jump around. They have knafayim, they have wings. What kind of a ladder do they need? And if it's true that they do need a ladder, so how come at the end of the parsha we don't find the ladder? They just switched. So kipshuto, we could say that at the beginning of the parsha, Yaakov Avinu was still not Yisrael. You know, he still had all his life ahead of him, from nisyonot. He wasn't, in Yiddish we say, oysgeshtigen. He wasn't כבר ברום המעלה. So when he had to see the change of the malachim, it had to be b'chalom. He couldn't see it. But at the end of the parsha, Yaakov Avinu already was... After all the nisyonot, after being in Beit Lavan, שכבר גדל ועלה להיות המתמיד, הצדיק, הקדוש. So, tehillah la'El, he saw them. He didn't need to go to sleep with a chalom; he sees them anyway. You know, at the beginning of next week's parsha it says, Vayishlach Yaakov malachim. Rashi says, What's malachim? Malachim mamash. Tell me, when he had malachim around him, he was able to send them, just like you're able to send your son, Hey, chayim, go do me a favor, go to the store. Malachim, you go to Esav. And the answer is maybe, yeah, he was on such a darga. At that point, he was on such a madrega that he was frequented by the malachim. Malachim were part of his household, you know. They say over a very nice story. They once told over a Baruch Ber that the Chafetz Chaim, when he went to see his rebbe, Rav Nachumke Mehorodna, the tzaddik, he was a shamash in the shul, Rav Nachumke, hidden, a hidden tzaddik. And the Chafetz Chaim went to see him, and he was—I'm saying it in short, the story, because I don't want to take much time—but he didn't see great things, you know. He was a shamash; he gave out tea.

You know, he didn't see what the big— didn't know what the big deal was. He decided he's going to wait at night to see maybe when everybody leaves, something is special about him. And that's the way it was. When everybody left, he locked the door of the beis medrash. He took out from under the aron hakodesh sefarim from Kabbalah, and he began to learn Kabbalah to the point that a fire broke out. Ish, a fire broke out. The Chafetz Chaim was a young man at the time. He was sitting in the ezrat nashim, and he was ready to scream, Fire! Careful! And then he realized that the fire wasn't a physical fire. It was the eish haTorah. He let it go, and he was just watching the fire around the Rav Nachumke. So this story was told over to Reb Baruch Ber. Zech tzaddik livrachah, Reb Baruch Ber Leibowitz, the baranovicher. So he said that Rav Nachumke, rather, through his learning can make fire? That's not a big story to me. Eish haTorah, that's a story? That's not. But the chidush to me was that the Chafetz Chaim, in his younger years, when he was a young avreich, was able to recognize and see that fire. That to me is something. The fire of Torah could be anywhere, but how many people see it? Yaakov Avinu was on the madregah that he sees malachim. He could send malachim. Malachim are everywhere. Chazal teaches malachim are everywhere. We don't see it. Yaakov Avinu saw it. So it could be in the beginning of the parsha, he was still not the Yaakov Avinu that could see malachim so much. So therefore it went b'chalom. I would say a different answer. I would say that, of course, at the end of the parsha, the malachim came and went. That's not the point of the dream here. The dream over here was to teach him that the malachim are olim v'yordim, because he needed to learn this lesson as a preparation, as a hachanah, to the world that he's going into. Vayeitzei, like I tell you, he's going out. He's going out from his father's house. He's going out from the Beit Shem v'Ever. He's going out into the world. He needs to be prepared, and that is to be muchan for the changes of the nisyonot. In the yeshiva, it's aliyah. You keep on going up and up and up. In the outside world, it's rough. It's aliyot v'yeridot, going up and down and up and down. And mimeila, he needed this dream of olim v'yordim bo. What is the lesson of the sulam? So I'd like to take some time to give you many different pshatim from the Gedolei HaMefarshim and the Gedolei Baalei HaMusar that explain the sulam in different ways, and each way is a tremendous lesson. It's a tremendous lesson in darkei aliyah that we're supposed to take from this, how a person could elevate, become a ben aliyah, and how he prepares himself with the fight against the Satan, the yetzer hara, with the nisyonot. I want to begin with a beautiful, beautiful pshat from the Rishonim. I'd like to go in order. We'll start with Rishonim, after that to the early Acharonim, and then to the later Acharonim, the Baalei Mussar. In early Rishonim, we have the Drashot HaRan. Drashot HaRan says chidush. You know what the lesson of the sulam is? Of course, aliyot v'yeridot, but it's not just simple. It's more. There's a deeper insight into the sulam. You know, a sulam, a person could be on the same step, but that same person could be either on his way up or on his way down. You could be holding at the same place, because you're going up and some people are going down. When you look at him, do you know if he's going up or he's going down? There's one way to tell. If panav klapei ma'alah, if he's looking up, you know he's on that step, going to the next step up. If he's looking downwards because he wants to go down, he's going down. So it depends where... It's a beautiful Ran, Drashot HaRan, yeah? And I think what the Ran is saying, a me'orerdike nekudah, the Ran is saying is that it could change in seconds. A person could be on the same step, and he could be, You know what? I'm going up. You know what? I'm going to go down. Yachol lishanot bitdakut. In moments, a person's aliyah vyeridah could change.

And the on, where is machshavah? Where is he looking? Is he looking to go up, then he's called going up on the ladder. If he's looking to go down, then he's going down on the ladder. And it's all, b'eizeh kivun. That's pshat. Yerushalmi, magia shamayma, sulam mutzav artzah. Where is the kavanos ha'adam? Where are you thinking? And this is a tremendous thing, Rabosai, because this changes in a person momentarily throughout the day. Any given moment he could, oh, chizuk, kavah, and then all of a sudden there's yeridah. What's yeridah? And that's all because of what are you thinking? What's going on in your head? So you could be standing at the same step, either going up or going down. This, Rabosai, is according to Drashos HaRan, the limud, the lesson, the sichas mussar that was given to Yaakov Avinu about the sulam. Good? Drashos HaRan. Maharal. Maharal says something very interesting. You know, Rashi learns, which is a machlokes in the Rishonim, it's not so clear, Maharal miPrag learns that, like Rashi, he goes in the Rashi, that the ladder was not straight up. The ladder was on a slant. It depends on how you learn. If you learn that the feet were in the makom HaMikdash, depends how you learn the story. So then the ladder was straight up to the shamayim. But if you learn like Rashi that it begins in Be'er Sheva, so Rashi says b'shipua, that it was on a slant. So there are many different pshatim that the mefarshim discuss the idea of the ladder being on a slant. What's the point? What's the lesson? What's the limud of the sulam on the slant? So there's, from later Acharonim, but the Maharal earlier says an interesting point. And he says, you know, people think madrigot is domeh, each to the second, each to the other, and the only difference is one is l'maalah and one is l'matah, right? But the madrigah is the same. If it's on a shipua, if it's on a slant, each madrigah is not domeh to the one before it. Let's say you have a ladder straight up, so every one is the same. So you have one on top and one on the bottom. So the only difference is one is on top and one is on the bottom. But if it's on a slant, there's nothing on top and nothing on the bottom of every step. Lelamed ha'adam, says Maharal, that in madrigot, in madrigot of Torah and yirah, eina domeh one madrigah to the other. We can't look and say the one on top or the one on the bottom. Many learn, I think Rav Sternbach brings this down in his sefer, another remez in the shipua, in the slant of the sulam, that just like a sulam, when it's on a slant, no one could be above you or underneath you. When you're on a ladder that's up, so there's someone who could be climbing up in front of you or climbing behind you. When it's on a slant, when you're on each step, there's no one on top, because it's really on the side. But a person has to always know, my madrega. I don't look at who's on top of me. I don't look at who's on the bottom of me. I stand on my madregot. Sometimes a person says, I'm here, but I want to see who's on top of me. Look who's beneath me. Ah, that's good enough, maybe I... There's no one on top, and there's no aliyot of madregot. If you have them straight, then you have people on top of you and people underneath you. But if you have it on a shipuah, there's nobody who is on top and the bottom. Each interesting. Okay. Now, I'm really discussing this because you see that even in the way the sulam was situated, there's remazim and limudim and sichot mussar to be taken. You understand? That's what I'm trying to show you, that each part of the sulam, even the way the sulam was situated, was it straight up, like many Rishonim learn, or was it b'shipuah, like Rashi and others learn? So if it's b'shipuah, that itself already was supposed to be a lesson, a mussar sichah, a limud.

So Yaakov Avinu to learn that madregot are not just one. The one on top is just over. No, no, no. Each madrega has nothing to do with the madrega below it, with the madrega below it. Now I'd like to share with you from the Baal HaMusar, who explained the sulam and its lessons. Reb Simcha Zissel miKelm has two lessons in two different places in the sulam. The first lesson he says in the sulam is that the sulam requires that a person should have mutzav artza and rosho magia hashamayma. You can't be in one world only. A person is chayav olamot shel kedushah, tzrichim lachiyot po. You can't be only lachiyot po, because when you're chay po, you need rosho. Your head should be magia hashamayma. The mixture, the mixture, the mizug of olam hazeh and ruchniyus together, that's the lesson of the sulam. A sulam has to start here, because you got to live here. You got to live in this world. The sulam of the person, the ruchniyus of the person is lihyot ben adam, lihyot ben adam, le'olam yehei adam yerei shamayim. So the Kotzker explains, I said it to you many times, le'olam yehei adam, period. And after you're an adam, then you can be yerei shamayim. You need mitzvos ha'aretz. It's got to start. You got to live in this world, says the Reb Simcha Zissel miKelm. But you also have to be rosho magia shamayma. You got to mix the two together. In chelek bet of Chochmah UMussar, Reb Simcha Zissel has a second lesson in the sulam, and that is that you have a sulam: are you first oleh or you first yored? So it says over here, olim v'yordim. So he learns olim kodem v'ach kach yordim. Rashi seems to say olim kodem, because he says the malachim of Eretz Yisrael went up and the malachim came down. Now the truth is, it could have been the other way around also, that the malachim of Chutz LaAretz came down first and the malachim of Eretz Yisrael then went up. It makes more sense it should be that way. You know why? Because if the olim went up first, they're keeping Yaakov unprotected. For the time being, they're unprotected. So there's a very, very famous pshat from the Gra, that the Gra says that's why VaShem nitzav alav. It says in the pasuk, VaShem nitzav alav. It says, Rashi, lishomro. Why do you have to watch? says the Gra, because since the olim first, the malachim were less, he was left unprotected. The malachim of Chutz LaAretz went up, so in the meantime he was unprotected. Lemaan Hashem nitzav alav lishomro. That's the Gra, a very famous pshat from the Gra. Why did it have to be that way? That's a very good question. Isn't that a great question? Do it the other way around. Send down the malachim of Chutz LaAretz, and then, I mean, when you take over... You leave, and then you have the new shomer come, or first the new shomer comes, and then... so why do it that way? I wanted to say, could be, could be, v'lo karav zeh el zeh. Malachim of Eretz Yisrael, malachim of chutz are so different in madregot that they couldn't even see each other. They couldn't. You couldn't have that they come down and then they go up. We have nothing to do with you. What does it say in the pasuk? We say this by the kedushah. By kedushah we say, l'karav zeh el zeh v'amar. Le'umatam mishabchim v'romemim. What's le'umatam? What does that mean? They're opposite. Each malach could be such a different madreigah than the other malach that they don't even come together. They're just from far, opposite. Le'umatam, v'karav zeh el zeh v'amar. They can get close and they say, but they're not attached, so to speak, that they could be together. So therefore the malachim of chutz la'aretz are so much less than the malachim of Eretz Yisrael that it had to be that the malachim of Eretz Yisrael go up, they're gone, and then, you know, we have some time by chatan v'kallah, they don't want to see each other, right? So they make this thing, she's already in the... now you can come. Maybe it was so much like such a madregah.

They couldn't see each other, so therefore those went up, and after they were gone already, the other ones came down. So it comes out a chiddush, yeah, that it's bedavka. Olim v'achar kach yordim. The Rashbam learns lav davka. The Rashbam on the pasuk, Olim v'yordim, says Rashbam, lav davka. Shayach sheyordim v'achar kach olim. Not pashut. The order is not l'ikuva. Not l'ikuva. Makes no difference. Really, it could have been yordim v'achar kach olim. But rov rishonim learn, Olim v'achar kach yordim. So I told you why, because it could be they couldn't be together in the same matzav in this world. Here, malachim of chutz la'aretz, Eretz Yisrael is so different, the madregot, the kedushah is so different that they can't be together. But the way we're learning, that the sulam is a lesson, it's very meyushav, it's beautiful. You know why? It's a lesson to teach me olim v'yordim. Aliyah v'yeridah. What, you're supposed to start off with yeridah? You're supposed to start with aliyah. Aliyah, and then yeridah. And yeridah is l'tzorech aliyah. What do you want, you should start off with yeridah first? Start off with aliyah first. Aliyah first, and then yeridah. The Alter from Kelm says a different pshat. Why aliyah first? He says because the yeridah in this world can only have ruchniyus once you first went and had aliyah. When you look from above, when you look, b'mabat Shamayimi he calls it, a heavenly look. That even this world, mundane things, have kedusha, have kedusha. But if you look artziyut, if you look from this world, then everything is chol, everything. You know, you could tell a guy, he comes to a simcha, he could fight over a chair, a potato. Yeah. Then you can have a person, he comes to a simcha, he's elevated. He comes to the beis knesses, he feels me'uleh, he looks at it as a... So he sits by the table, so what, a potato? Potato is just, l'shem Shamayim. What's a potato? We're gonna fight over a potato? We're gonna fight over a chair? Oylim, says the Alter from Kelm, oylim. First you have to go up. A person has to be baal madrega, baal aliyah, and then yordim. Then you go down to this world, then you can have kedusha in the yordim also. He says, Mi'aleh bahar Hashem, umi yakum bimkom kodsho. What's mikom? Mikomo shel olam. Whenever we say makom, says the Alter from Kelm, makom means this world, right? HaMakom yenachem etchem. Makom is makomo shel olam. So mi'aleh, first you go up. When you go up, then it's mi yakum, then you can have kimah, then you can have a mamad ruchani, bimkom kodsho. You hear? That this makom, this world, can be kodesh. If a person takes this world and he lives in it like it's a, you know, artzi, you know, everything is about gashmiyut, he could fight with you about anything. Chumris, a baby, a child. There's nothing which is... Elevated. There's nothing spiritual. Everything, u'mevazeh, mevatel et hakol. If someone is shemayimi, if someone is oleh, then you're yored. Then the sulam is taka kadosh. Hen aliyah v'hen hayeridah l'olam hazeh. Yeridah b'olam hazeh is important. The person is to live in this world, but it has to be with, in Yiddish, a hecherkeit, b'matzav shel aliyah. Then you look at even the artziyut, the most simple things, as devarim shel kedushah. These are two lessons that the Alter from Kelm explains in the sulam. Again, the first lesson I tell you is that it has to be both. You need the artzah and you need the shamayim. That's the ladder. That's the sulam of ruchniyut, gashmiyut and ruchniyut, regel and rosh. The second lesson he says is, Oleh v'yored. That first you have to be oleh, and then when you're yored to this world, then it has me'uleh, then it has aliyah, even the mundane things in this world. Reb Yerucham in Daas Torah, in Devarim, says a third lesson that we learn from the sulam.

And he says a meirdige thing, and I just want to give a few nekudos to understand the beauty of his vort. It doesn't say that the sulam was ba'aretz, like the sulam it says was magia hashamayma. Magia means it reaches. Ba'aretz it doesn't say magia. What does it say? Mutzav. What does the word mutzav mean? Standing. Mutzav, strong in the ground. Says Reb Yerucham in Daas Torah that a person who wants to have aliyot, it can't be porech ba'avir. You know, you have people... the techilah, the yesodos have to be mutzav aretz, they have to be strong foundations. And they were teaching this to Yaakov Avinu, I believe Reb Yerucham is explaining and adding, because Yaakov needed to know that the foundation has to be strong. You have to start off on the strong yesodos. You're going now to the olam hanisyonot, you want to stand? You gotta actually have good shoes. The first thing is to make sure your feet are healthy, otherwise you're not going to stand too long. Mutzav. It doesn't say that it was magia ha'aretz. It doesn't say it was magia ha'aretz. It says mutzav. Mutzav means what? Grounded. In English we call it grounded, strongly into the ground. Reb Yerucham in Daas Torah. I would like to add another point. I saw the Mosif Rashi. These, you know, when I grew up we didn't have this Mosif Rashi. Mosif Rashi is they brought from different places, they found Rashis from different Gemarot and they put it together. So they have over here that Rashi explains, it doesn't even say... That the sulam was nitzav. Mutzav. What is mu? That it was put there. Nitzav means it's grounded, but it would mean that it itself is grounded by itself. Mutzav is that it was by somebody else. Mutzav means it was put into the ground, says Rashi, the Mosif Rashi. As the first time I saw it was Shabbat, and I said, you know what it's teaching? I think there's a lesson in that also. It's a lesson that a person doesn't choose his own sulam. Every person is given his tafkid hachayim. His sulam is mutzav; it's set for him by himself. You can't start walking around and choosing your own. You walk into Macy's and pick a ladder. It doesn't work that way. Oh, I like his ladder. You don't want his ladder. The Eibishter put you your ladder. Mutzav, it's put there for you, not that it's nitzav. Tikunim shelcha. That's what I learned and understood when I saw this. It was the first time I saw it on Shabbat. I never saw this before. Mutzav means al yedei acher. So I understood the lesson. You have it? Who? Rashbam also says it. I never saw this pshat. Mutzav al yedei acher. And it caught me. It could be the lesson. I think this is what it is. Bezrat Hashem, I think this is the lesson in the mutzav, that it's not that you, you can't choose your own darkei aliyah. They say over a cute anecdote, story. A person once came to the Admor and said, Rebbe, you know, I don't have time not to learn and not to sit in the beis medrash like others. The most I could do is say one kapitel Tehillim after tefillah. The rest is, I'm busy in life, to the dot. So the Rebbe said, Mi omer lecha שהקב״ה מבקש אותך ממך? Who says Hashem? That's what He wants from you. That's your derech in avodas Hashem. Every person, there's a tafkid, and you don't choose your tafkid. You know, some people have kochos in tefillah, some people have kochos in Torah, some people have kochos in chesed. And if you see that those are your kochos, yeah, but you start being like somebody else, סולם מוצב — it's there put by you, put for you. Okay, that's all right. Now, rabosai, let me tell you over a pshat after Reb El Yelopian, zichrono livracha, in Lev Eliyahu, brings in a few places, in the idea of the סולם מוצב ארצה וראשו מגיע השמימה, and that is that a person has to know that he could be yored ad...

Ata, or it could be an oleh ad lemala, lemala, lemala, lemala. You know, a person thinks to himself, Mi ani? I am who I am. Not a bad guy, not a good guy. I'm not a great guy, not a good guy. I'm a baal teshuvah. If you're not going to be oleh, you could be yored ad heafar, mutzav artza. You could be into the ground if you. He uses a lashon related to Yaakov Avinu, you could be no different than a beheima. But if you want, you could be oleh lihyot malach. Every person, he says, has a sulam, and that sulam is ad haaretz. It's not middle. You know, some people think they start at six and they end at ten. No, no, no. You could fall all the way to zero, while you could also be, rosho magia hashamayma. Great. Like the Rambam says, we speak about the Rambam, that a person could be as great as Moshe Rabbeinu. You could be as great as Moshe. Yeah, your kochot and your tafkid and your hatzlacha, you could be great. I saw from Rav Mottel Katz, zichrono livracha, he was the mashgiach in Telz yeshiva, the menahel ruchani. He has a sefer, Be'er Mochokek, a beautiful sefer. He said beautiful sichot mussar. He says the lesson is, rosho magia hashamayma. You should always look further, further, magia hashamayma. You know, you shouldn't be happy with going up a few steps on the ladder. You have to be olim v'yordim, and what is it? Rosho magia hashamayma. Your head should be looking towards not stam, that's good enough to be fifteen steps up, eighteen steps up. No. A person should have the she'ifah. A person should have the she'ifah to reach Roshom maki'a shamayimah, yeah? Not enough to say, I'm a ben aliyah. I went up to the fifteenth step. No, no, no, no. Yeah, so we're having lessons in aliyah of a person and yeridah, that a person could be yored ad ha'aretz, like Reb Elie Lopian says, kemo ha'behemah. A person could be oleh haShamayimah lihyot malach. Mi abi malach? Yeah, Roshoh, says Reb Motl Katz, Roshom maki'a shamayimah. If your head and in your mind you're sho'ef to be, you could be. A person could be, like the Rambam says, kemo Moshe Rabbeinu. I saw a beautiful thing from Rav Shach, zichrono livrachah, Rav Chaim Kanievsky, tzaddik v'rachah, he says a person also has to learn, VaShem nitzav alav. That Hashem waits. It's a beautiful thing. He waits for the person to reach his madregot, and He stands on top of the sulam protecting the person. HaKadosh Baruch Hu nitzav alav lishmorah, Rashi says. What's lishmorah? In that sulam, in that aliyah that a person makes in his life, it's aliyot, it's difficult, but you should always know Hashem is standing on top, watching, waiting. He's ready to accept you. He wants you to be oleh, and He's watching your madregot. He's watching your nisyonot. He's watching your tachlich, your tachlich of aliyah and yeridah. He's watching it. Rav Shach says this in the sefer Merosh Amanah. I'm showing you how each one saw a different angle, a different pshat in the remez and in the lesson of the sulam. One is telling you that you have to know that you could fall to the floor and reach the heavens. Another Baal Mussar is telling us that you must not be happy with a little bit. You should always have a Roshom hagia Shamayma, that you should try to reach the highest of the heavens. Rav Shach says the lesson is Hashem nitzav alav, that in this sulam of Aliyah v'Yeridah, Hashem is waiting above, watching your talich. He's watching your growth to protect you, to be there for you, siyata d'shmaya, to help you when you need. Lishomro, Hashem is protecting you in your Aliyah v'Yeridah. It's such a beautiful insight from a gadol, that he felt that probably throughout his life, Hashem is waiting. He's standing there protecting me as I go through my life and have my nisyonos. He's there for me. He's watching my growth, like you have a child. A father watches the growth of the child to make sure on every prat that he doesn't go off. How does a father watch a child? He's not growing properly, he's not nourished properly, he needs this, he's not learning 100 percent, he's not... Hashem nitzav alav lishomro in the Aliyah v'Yeridah. I think that's what Rav Shach means. If you look over there in the sefer, it's not clear, but that's basically what he means. I'd like to add another nekudah. You know, the Medrash says that the ladder lost sight in the middle, like by the clouds, you couldn't see pisk. Roshom hagia Shamayma, but...

You can see, Medrash says that towards the end, they disappeared. He couldn't see those. So I was thinking, what's the lesson in that? Why did they have the latter, that towards the end that disappears? So I was thinking the pshat is like, did they have in the pictures that way, right? That disappears by the clouds, you know? What's the pshat? It's a Medrash. It's a pshat like this: a person wants to see the full package. For example, he wants to, I want to see, I feel I learned the whole Masechta. Okay, this I learned from here to here. To start, and wherever it takes me, it's very difficult. Lech lecha me'artzecha el ha'aretz asher ar'eka. It becomes difficult, el ha'aretz asher ar'eka. A person wants to know from here to there. Where am I starting and where am I ending? They were teaching him, you start. You go up the ladder. You're not going to see the end. No one ever sees the end. When you get to the end, you'll see the end. No one ever sees. How come they don't tell a person how long he's going to live? Rishonim talk about it, the Chazal. Why would they tell a person in advance, by the way, you're going to live so and so? So pashut is because yi'ush. Maybe, who knows, a guy's going to live very little, he'll be miya'esh. But the real pshat is, talicha chayim with nisyonot and aliyot is to go. The end becomes later nidbarer. You don't see the end in the beginning. Lech lecha me'artzecha el ha'aretz asher ar'eka. You go. Where it ends, it ends good. It ends more than you would imagine. And it's very possible that when you're on the bottom of the ladder, there's no way to see and understand what the top of the ladder is. When you get on the top, you can chap what the top of the ladder is. You can understand where the top is. You understand? Well, who knows, maybe if a person is going to see the top of the ladder, he'll get scared. So high up. I'm stage fright. I have a height fright. Imagine. So we tell him, okay, just go up. When you get further up, so you can see a little further up. When you get further up, you can see a little further till the end. But if you're going to let him on the bottom, start seeing how high up that ladder goes, he's going to get scared. He's going to have height fright. That's what it's called, height fright? Fear of heights. Fear of heights. Yeah. So what they do is, they don't show you all the way high up. You start, you get a little higher up, then you can see a little further, a little further, and then you're not so scared. Maybe a person, בתחילת עלייתו, הוא פוחד, פוחד, you know. So they didn't show maybe how high, how high the ladder goes. אולי, but I think this is the pshat. In דרכי העבודה, you start. Saying whatever you'll get, you don't have to see the ladder, you know, the high part of the ladder. Okay. מחתם אליהו says something beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. He says, you know why it was סולם? You know what they were teaching him with the סולם? סולם takes effort to go up. סולם takes מדרגות to go up. A person is not עולה בין עלייה unless he goes from step to step. מדרגה מדרגה, כמו סולם. אי אפשר לקפוץ. A person can't just jump. A person has to go up. You know, I remember as a child, they used to teach us that the sulam was like an elevator, you know. That it was—it's not true. The pictures sometimes show elevator. That's why they don't know what they're talking about. It wasn't an elevator. It was a sulam. It was a sulam with steps, like the Michtam Eliyahu, Chelek Bet explains. It took work. See, an elevator doesn't take any work. You go on, it goes by itself. It's an easy ride. Ah, says Michtam Eliyahu—he doesn't speak about the elevator—but he says it was sulam, that you need work to go from one step to the other step. So again, in Chelek Aleph, he explains, lo likfotz. And all the baalei mussar speak this idea, that the idea of sulam is to teach you aliyah is dargah mi-dargah mi-dargah mi-dargah, v'kach olim, one at a time. In Chelek Bet, he adds, he explains that the idea is that a person needs to do work, work to go up on the ladder. It's not just he takes the elevator up.

You have to. And in chelek gimmel he says, mashum yuchad. You know what he says? The Baal HaMusar was so, was such lamdanim, such, such brilliant things. You know what he says? When you go on a ladder and you put your foot down on the second ladder, on the second step to get to the third step, yeah, you're actually going down a little bit. When you put your foot, you go down. Yeah. And that going down, with mamatz, is to go up to the third one. Yeah. The aliyah works that I go down to go up. I go down to go up. Al kol gal vagal, I put my head down to go up, to go down to go up. You hear? And it takes kochot from the down of the step to be mitgaber, mitametz to get to the third step. Each step, I get there as an aliyah, but it turns into going, because that's what you do. You put your foot down, you put your weight down. To get to the third step, I'm mitgaber in that step of yeridah, koach, to get to the third step. No? Baal HaMusar, huh? That was the limud. That was the limud of the sefer, according to Michtav MeEliyahu, Sulam, huh? Not finished yet. I have another fifteen more to go. Another more fifteen limudim to learn from the sulam, yeah? So again, Michtav MeEliyahu says the inyan of the sulam. A, Aleph, madrigah lemadrigah, oleh kfotz. Second, that a person has to know, right, that it takes effort. It takes effort. You know, it's not stam elevator. You know, you go up for a free ride like an airplane. You have to go up step by step. And if you're difficult, you're zaken, you have big packages, baalei aveiros, you have big packages, it's much harder to go up on the step. Go on an elevator, it doesn't make a difference; it goes up anyway. It's hard, it's hard. You have aveiros, you have packages. Okay. Third lesson, that each step is the mamatz al hayeridah. That's what the Mekubal says. The mamatz on the yeridah is the aliyah. The over, the strength from the yeridah, that itself is the aliyah. Okay. Now, rabosai, I'll tell you over a few more nekudot in the sulam. Unbelievable. The sulam is unbelievable. Okay, so let me tell you a few more points. The Medrash brings down that the sulam was, that the sulam was the malachim, like Rashi brings down, Eretz Yisrael and Chutz Laaretz. Datzkini mibaalei haTosafot bring down that these malachim were not the malachim of Yaakov; they were different malachim. The nefilim asher baaretz, those were malachim. They came down to this world, and they did aveirot, right? The nefilim, and they had to stay here. They got an onesh that they can't go back up. They cut off their knafayim, they cut off their wings, and they couldn't go back up to shamayim. Says Datzkeni mibaalei haTosafot that those are these malachim. Olim v'yordim, but those are the malachim that went up and down. So I saw Rav Kagan. I have a friend of mine that always gives me his father's, you know, on Chumash to say over. And I say it over because, I mean, he was a big talmid chacham, and he also passed away young, this talmid chacham, so I feel it's a zechut for him to say over his Torah. So I saw in his notes over there, he brings down this question: How did this come here to Yaakov Avinu now? The nefilim—where did the nefilim—how did they come into the picture over here? Rashi says these malachim were the nefilim. What are nefilim? What, they—how did they come into the story of the parsha? What does that have to do with Yaakov Avinu? He says a beautiful pshat. They were teaching Yaakov Avinu, a ben aliyah, if he's oleh, he's ma'aleh the entire svivah with him, even the baalei aveirah. Even malachim. Beautiful, beautiful, huh? It touches the heart. It's so beautiful. Even baalei aveirah.

Malachim who couldn't make it to Shamayim because they were punished. Malei aveirah. If the talmid chacham is a baal madreigah and he's a baal aliyah, he's maleh with him even the nefilim, even the fallen, even the broken, even the people who need kiruv, he's mekarev. I was telling over Shabbos how I remember my grandfather, even the goyim in the block had such respect for him, had such love for him. There was a goy on our block, his name was John and Gus, two Greek goyim. Whenever they saw my grandfather, they would put on like a yarmulke. The rabbi, the rabbi, the rabbi, the rabbi. They put on a yarmulke. They had respect. They came to menachem avel. They had tremendous derech eretz. And I saw from this that if a person is derech eretz, darkei noam, that even the people around him, even the goyim around him, the tivotel, kol ha-tivotel, shalom, it's maleh the whole svivah. We learned this by Yetzei Yaakov mi-Be'er Sheva. Mikan we learned that yetzias tzaddik min ha-makom oseh roshem. Panah hadah, panah... Talmid chacham has to be ma'aleh. He has to be able to uplift the entire svivah around him. So the nefilim, they were teaching him, ben aliyah, especially in the workplace, especially in the workplace. You're going out now to the workplace. Yaakov was going. A ben aliyah has to be able that the people around him should be oleh with him, and not that the people around him should be what? Yored. They should, ah, look, look, look, ah, I'm going to go do aveiros. Look what a ben Torah looks like. Ben Aliyah is ma'aleh the nefilim. It happens a lot, especially in the communities, and all the non-religious, they look at him, look at how he behaves. They're waiting for that. They should say, Look, look, look, I want to do teshuvah. Look, look. Ben Aliyah, that's when a ben aliyah. Another pshat, Rabbi Kagan, the Choneh Levavcha brings in his sefer, he asks the question: If it's makom haMikdash, like the shittah that it was makom haMikdash, right, not shipua, that it was straight up the ladder, so then we understand that it starts here, ends there, and the sulam is b'makom haMikdash. It has to be zeh shaar haShamayim. But if you learn that it's Be'er Sheva, why would it start in Be'er Sheva? Like, why would the— from all places, you know what? Right here on the map, Be'er Sheva. Why would the— what's the lesson, the limud in the sulam starting in Be'er Sheva? So he says a meiridike, meiridike pshat. He says a person thinks, Ah, aliyah ruchani has to begin in Yerushalayim, in Kotel, makom haMikdash. No, no, no, no, no. First it could be in Be'er Sheva also, and it could be in America too, he says. First it could be anywhere, and he can have a sulam which is mutzar artza anywhere, but the Rosho magia haShamayimah. If he's a ben aliyah, he could start in Be'er Sheva too. It's תלוי in the person. If the person's a ben aliyah, that's a— Some people always tell me, Ah, I have to go to Ponevezh, I can't learn here. Let me tell you something: if you're a ben aliyah, you can learn anywhere. I'm not saying some people need help. I'm not discussing each פרט. But b'derech klal, yesodot of aliyah and yeridah is this. Okay, rabosai. So we've discussed that this was the hachanah, the sichah musarit that he was given as a preparation on his way out to the world, Vayeitzei, that he goes to the world, Olam HaNisyonot, Olam HaParnassah. Now I want to show you how Yaakov Avinu takes the lesson. He wakes up in the morning, yeah, and he says, HaKadosh Baruch Hu, if you give me lechem le'echol, u'veged lilbosh, u'shmarani b'derech hazeh, v'hayah Hashem li lElokim, right, v'chol asher titen li, aser a'aserenu. So I have a simple question. He had many havtachot in the chalom. He promised him Eretz Yisrael also, besides u'shmarani b'derech, that Hashem will watch him. Hashem promised He'll watch him, that's true. But He also promised him that He'll give him Eretz Yisrael, ha'aretz asher atah shochev aleha, lecha etnenah. He also promised him zaracha ka'afar ha'aretz. So why was he not noder aser a'aserenu for that also? Let him speak out, and if you give me Eretz Yisrael, and if you...

For all the havtachot, why was he only guaranteeing with his neder the lechem lechem u'veged lilbosh u'shmarani ba'derech? He should have said, if everything you said in the chalom will happen. So the truth is, we could say a few different simple answers. The first answer we could say is, maybe the aser asrenu lach doesn't fit. The only way it fits, I'll give you ma'aser when you give me food, right? If you give me beged... aser asrenu. What's he gonna say? If you give me—so I'll give you a ma'aser, I'll cut off a piece and give it back to the Arabs. What does it mean, aser asrenu? You can't give ma'aser from Eretz Yisrael, right? What does it mean? Unless he could have said, I'll give you ma'aser in Eretz Yisrael, from the peiros Eretz Yisrael. And the children, he could also ma'aser. The Rabbeinu Bechaye brings down that Yaakov Avinu gave ma'aser from his children, Levi. So why would he already not speak out, and if you give me children, let him speak out the aser asrenu for everything, for all the havtachot? It's a very, very, very strong question, bothered me for many years. He gets many havtachot. Wake up in the morning and say, if you give me that you'll protect me, and you give me Eretz Yisrael, and you give me children, I'll give you ma'aser. Why does he only guarantee the lechem lechem u'veged lilbosh? So another answer I could give, I could say this is the one that's closest. This is happening closer. The children, kafar ha'aretz, and Eretz Yisrael is later. U'shmarani ba'derech hazeh, first dayatzara b'shaita, maybe. Who's to daven for what's gonna happen in a hundred years from now? I'll daven for what's happening tomorrow. Yeah, maybe. I would say a third pshat. I don't believe— That Yaakov Avinu was guaranteeing the havtacha. The Rishonim ask, Hashem promised him; how could it change? How could it change? Hashem promised him shem agaram chet, so let him have shem agaram chet on everything. So I want to explain, Gra had a shtikel pshat, I once said. The Rambam paskens that a nevuah, which is nogea to the navi himself, could change, even if it's l'tovah. A nevuah which is l'klal Yisrael can't change. Hashem gives a nevuah for the sake of the tzibur; on behalf of the good of the tzibur, it doesn't change no matter what. It can't. So the afar haaretz, zaracha k'afar haaretz, and the Eretz Yisrael, which was not only personal, that could have been for Klal Yisrael, so that couldn't change anyway. But to protect him on a personal level, shmarani, that could have changed. Therefore he was maftiach it through nidrei, right? Like we learn out, mikan, from here we learn out that you're supposed to be noder b'shaas tzarah, right? That's the Gemara over here, Leimor. It says in the pasuk, Vayidor Yaakov leimor. So Chazal, the Medrash, leimor l'dorot, that whenever they're in a tzarah, whenever they're in a bitz case, they should go and what? And be noder, right? So it could be, could be, he was noder only what he felt was insecure. That means his shmirah. But for Klal Yisrael, he didn't feel. But it's a little bit difficult, I'll tell you why. Because if he's not going to make it out of the house of Lavan, there isn't going to be a Klal Yisrael either, right? There's no V'haya zaracha k'afar haaretz if he don't make it, right? So it's hard to say that this was not included in the havtacha for the Rabbi. Hard to say that. I'm not 100% sure that we can't look at his own personal shmira as not for the sake of Klal Yisrael as well. But either way, either way, I think, bezrat Hashem, he wasn't menader to be mavtiach the havtacha, to make sure the havtacha. You know what he was being noder? Not to lose the clarity, not to lose the behirut that he saw, v'hinei Hashem nitzav alav. A person could go out into the world and lose that clarity, Hashem is the one that's nosein lechem lechol u'beged lilbosh. You could lose that. Chidushei Harim explains, you know what a neder is? B'sha'at habehirut adam menader, k'dei she'achar kach lo yishkach et habehirut הזו, sheyeh mekushar tamid lo tomatzav. Very interesting, Chidushei Harim. A person, b'sha'at tzar, he says he sees everything very clear. He did aveiros and Hashem is mevoreh u'manig et haolam. Then as it gets better, the matzav, he forgets a little bit. It becomes not so bahir, it's not so clear. So the neder always brings him back to that.

Yeah, I made a neder then. Oh, I remember then, zacharti sheHashem hu hamanhig. You hear? You hear? When a person is in a shas tzarah, says Chiddushei Harim, everything is very clear, seriously clear. No, the tzarah goes away, I'll answer you, the tzarah goes away, yeah. So what do I do? I make a neder, and the neder I have to mekayem even later, so it always reminds me the matzav that was then, so I shouldn't forget and lose sight of the behirut, the clarity that I had b'shas hatzarah. What is the word im? Im. Im Yelokim imadi. Im lo yezlo. Tonight, כאילו זה tonight, huh? Okay. You can't even give maaser tonight. In halacha, you can't—the Gemara Bava Basra says clearly—you can't give maaser tonight. Rav Chaim Kanievsky speaks about it, and he says im does not mean if. Im means when. Im, when. I'll prove it to you. Kesav v'Kabbalah. It's a very famous klal; he learns the same thing. Im doesn't mean if, but im means when. When Hashem will give me—I know He's going to give me. I don't have a question if He's going to give me. But when He gives me, what do I want? Im Yelokim imadi. I want that Hashem should be with me. I want that I shouldn't forget who gave it to me. I don't want to become rich. V'lishkoach, yeah. HaYidor Yaakov neder leimor im Yelokim imadi. Shlah says a person always has to say, b'ezrat Hashem. He brings a very famous medrash that Eliahu Navi met somebody, and he asked him, How's the parnassah? Good. Ah, he lost his parnassah because he said that. A second time he met him, again he lost. The third time he got smart and he said, b'ezrat Hashem, b'siyatא dishmaya. Oh, he became rich. Says Shlah that a person has to always say, Baruch Hashem, Hashem is with me. Now let's go back to the pasuk. VaYidor Yaakov neder leimor. Why does he have to say leimor? VaYidor Yaakov neder im Yelokim imadi. Why leimor? So the Gemara, I just told you to ask this question. What does leimor mean? Leimor l'dorot, teach it to the generation. The Gemara asked the question, what's the leimor? Or HaChaim HaKadosh says, you know what the leimor is? Leimor, leimor not b'lev. He spoke out the neder saying it b'peh, because he didn't want it to be a neder balev. That's why it says, VaYidor Yaakov neder, not in his heart but leimor. Mishkenot Yisrael says, according to the Shlah, it's beautiful. VaYidor Yaakov neder, leimor, that he will always say im Yelokim imadi. He'll always say bezrat Hashem. He'll always say, Baruch Hashem. It comes from the Ribono Shel Olam. Im Yelokim imadi is the leimor. That itself is what Yaakov is going to say. VaYidor Yaakov neder. What was the neder? Leimor, to always say, Im Ya Elokim imadi, Hashem is with me. I got the money. You know, I got, Hashem was with me. I got the money. You know, I was thinking at the end of the parashah, how did Yaakov Avinu get his money? Nikudim, nikudim u'brudim. Tell me, does that really work? I just want to know. Yeah, it works? I think we should go speak to the farmers and give them a patent on how they can get polka-dotted animals. Nikudim, nikudim u'brudim. It doesn't really work. It's not true. Nikudim, akudim, nikudim u'brudim. You hear what we're learning? Vayidor Yaakov neder. What was the neder? Leimor, that he'll always say, Im Ya Elokim imadi, bezrat Hashem, besiyata dishmaya, that he himself will always say, he's getting his money, bezrat Hashem, it's not him. Akudim, nikudim u'brudim. It was the Eibishter, you hear? You think it's normal the way he got? Did he ever complain to Lavan? It's mashma not. Whatever Lavan did, okay, no problem, I'll already... You know why he didn't complain? He didn't complain because he didn't want to have anything to show that the money is coming from Lavan. If it's coming from Hashem.

Hashem, Lavan can't stop. What's the difference what Lavan says? Whatever Lavan wants, no problem. Yes. You know why? Because it doesn't make a difference. You see clearly that whatever Lavan said, the malach came and changed it. That's the limud. The limud is, Yaakov Avinu went into the parnassah, im Ya Elokim imadi. That's it, Hashem, You're with me. Ein od milvado. Kulo bitachon. I'm relying on You completely. I'm relying on You completely. You hear? Ein od milvado. And therefore I don't complain. You know, the Gemara says that what's called a talmid chacham hara'ui lihiyot dayan in beis din? Sonei betza. What is sonei betza? Shesoneh mamonam bedin. That they don't even want to make money by going to a din Torah. Why not? It's their money. If they won, they won. No, they hate it. Sonei, they hate their money bedin. Why should they hate it? You know what the answer is? They hate it because that means that they have to make hishtadlus for it. They hate this money. Hashem, why didn't You just give it to me? Why did it have to be I have to go to a beis din, I have to complain? What are you complaining about? Like Yaakov with Lavan, he never complained to Lavan. He never complained to Lavan. Whatever you want. What do you want, the colored one? Okay, colored one. Tomorrow the poked out. Okay, you want the poked out? Poked out, I'll take the colored ones. Why don't You tell Him, listen, at some point, will you stop making crazy? And the answer is, whatever You want. You know why? Because Hashem will take care of it for me. It doesn't make a difference. And that's what you see from the parsha, and that's why the parsha is so marich. Why is this parsha so marich? Akudim, Nekudim, Uvrudim. So what? You know what the answer is? To show you, shelo k'derech hateva. Whatever Lavan said, the exact opposite. No matter what, because HaKadosh Baruch Hu was Imi Elokim imadi. Hashem was with Yaakov Avinu, so it didn't make a difference. The Rashba says Yaakov was ma'us. He was mo'es in ashirus. The Rashba in the teshuvot says he was mo'es in ashirus. Valacharaya, he said, aser asrenu lach. Whatever you give me, I give it back to you, ma'aser. I never understood. I thought the Gemara tells us, aser bishvil k'dei shetis'asher. Maybe he liked riches, for the opposite. How does the Rashba know that Yaakov Avinu didn't like riches because he gave ma'aser? Maybe the opposite. Maybe he wanted riches and therefore he gave ma'aser. You know what the answer, rabosai, is? The answer is, why does a person like rich? Why does he like it? You know, you have people who have millions of dollars, they don't use it. Millions of dollars in the bank, they don't use it. They have nothing. Billions—what are you going to do with a billion dollars? Nothing. But the actual having of the money is power. In English, he's a powerful person. He has money. What's power? Kochi v'otzem yadi. It shows that you're a good businessman. You made good money. It shows power. It's about power. But if you believe it's not kochi v'otzem yadi, so money has no value, or just what you need. Why should a person—more than what you need, the money has no value. What value does money have? Tell me, what value? Only so you can buy what you need. What did Yaakov Avinu ask? V'natan li lechem le'echol. What else are you going to do with food? What else are you going to do with food if not to eat it? Tell me, what else? Yeah, you know what else you do with food? Lechem is lechem, beged is lilbosh. Says the Rabbeinu Bechaya, only lechem, lechem, just enough to eat, that's all. Only beged, lilbosh, not more. Why? He was me'us b'motrot. He didn't want it. He didn't want it. He only wanted exactly what he needs. What's the pshat? Because Yaakov Avinu looks at money, that it's needed for food. It's only what's needed for food. Anything more than that, he's me'us b'zeh. What do you have from it? You have nothing from it. What could you have from money? There's nothing in the money. There's nothing there. What's the proof? When you give maaser, what happens when you give maaser? You're saying that everything belongs to Hashem. Ah, there's no kochi v'otzem yadi. So, it's mimeila you're me'us ba'shirut. That's what the Rashbam means. Now you see what the Rashbam means. The Rashbam is saying, you see that he was me'us ba'shirut because he gave maaser, which means he understood it's not kochi v'otzem yadi. Because kochi v'otzem yadi means you don't want to give.

I see it's yours. It belongs to you; you made it. But a person doesn't think kochi v'otzem yadi. He has no value for the money. Well, what value does it have? He was a moes, and this is what Yaakov Avinu was asking Hashem: Im yihyeh Elokim imadi. I ask Hashem should be with me when I go and I make my parnassah. I saw that some Rishonim learn im is a lashon of a tefillah, halavai, im, I wish, Elokim yehyeh imadi. Or some Rishonim brings down from Rabbi Yosef Saskada, from one of the early Rishonim, im yihyeh Elokim, halavai, halavai yihyeh Elokim imadi, u'shmarani b'derech hazeh asher anochi holech, v'nasan li lechem le'echol u'veged lilbosh, that it should be ruchniyusdiker money. I want to tell you two more nekudos. I know the oilam can't sit anymore, and that's when I like. I like when I see the oilam can't; it's jumping around, they can't take it. I could sit here all day and do this. I'll do this all day, no problem. So I want to tell you over a ... thing. Tell me, do you have the tefillah by Birchat Kohanim, the tefillah in the Chalamot? Okay, you have, 'V'yasem Hashem' — you should give us parnassah, 'b'nachat v'lo b'tzaar, b'heter v'lo b'isur, b'revach v'lo b'tzimtzum, kemo shenatata pisat lechem l'Yaakov Avinu u'veged lilbosh,' yeah? You don't have that. Okay, Ashkenaz has that lashon, that you should give us 'b'nachat v'lo b'tzaar, b'heter v'lo b'isur.' We don't have kavod; we have 'b'revach v'lo b'tzimtzum, mitoch yad charevah, kemo shenatata pisat lechem l'Yaakov Avinu u'veged lilbosh.' Tell me, did Yaakov Avinu get it, 'b'nachat v'lo b'tzaar'? Because he complained the whole time. Wasn't that what he did? He didn't stop complaining. Yaakov Avinu didn't stop complaining on how Lavan... So how can you say menachat v'lo b'tzaar, like you gave Yaakov Avinu? What's he talking about? And you know what the answer is? The Chazon Ish writes on himself, I don't have no greater nachat than doing retzon Yotzri. I don't have no greater tzaar, la'avor b'kishalon avon. You know what Yaakov Avinu wanted? He shouldn't do aveirah. He should come out ruchniyus shleimut. V'shavti b'shalom — Rashi says, b'li chet. When I do the parnassah, it should be in such a way that ruchniyus, ruchniyus, I shouldn't fall. You say Beit Avi, olam haba. I always say Beit Avi — he had the picture of his father's house, what it's supposed to look like. He carried the Beit Avi, the picture, v'shavti b'shalom, the Beit Avi, what it should look like. Yeah? He saw what it's supposed to look like. So when he goes to go make parnassah, he wanted it should be of a derech, an ofen, b'nachat v'lo b'tzaar. B'heter v'lo b'isur. Mi'tach yadcha harechavah — that should come straight from Hashem, that I should feel You're the One who's giving it to me. Nachat and tzaar doesn't mean a bad boss. Nachat and tzaar means that I know that Hashem is there for me. When I know Hashem is there for me, that's called what, rabosai? Nachat. When I do the parnassah of an ofen that I'm mekayem mitzvot, that I don't fall in my Yiddishkeit. What do we call that? Nachat v'lo b'tzaar. Burn the boss, big deal, so the boss... that's not nachat v'lo b'tzaar. Just like you gave pieces lechem to Yaakov Avinu. This, rabosai, was the tefillah that Yaakov Avinu made before he went to the Beit Lavan, and this is how he protected himself: hachanah, preparation with the chalom and tefillah. And this answers the kasha. I asked you a question: why didn't he make a neder to be mavtiach the children and Eretz Yisrael? And the answer is because he was more worried about the aveirah. Maybe he'll do parnasah... Rashi, even Chazal even say, Ushmarani milashon hara. Ushmarani, he says over there, miGilarayish v'chazdamim. And I never understood this. Chazal say he was asking Hashem, Protect me from gilarayish v'chazdamim. You think Yaakov Avinu was going to do gilarayish v'chazdamim? He had to ask Hashem when he thought he was a monster? What did he think he was already? Tell me, do we daven to Hashem, Hashem, protect me from gilarayish v'chazdamim and avodah zarah? Why would...? So some baalei mussar say, yeah, he left the yeshiva. Once you leave Shem v'Ever, who knows what could happen to you? Who knows how far you could fall?

But the way we're learning, it's very nice. I don't think he meant he was going to fall into gilui arayos and shfichas dam. He was going to fall into the shrashim, avak, the zrayu of it. You know, a person could try to make parnassah, he could step on the other guy. He steal all his leads. He tries to undermine the other guy, lashon hara, avodah zarah. He thinks it's all kochi v'otzem yadi. That's what Dushmarani. He wanted in the parnassah, he shouldn't be over in the shorashim of the chamuros. Not that he'll be doing gilui arayos, he'll do avodah zarah, he's going to do shfichas dam, put a knife into somebody, chas v'shalom. But it's possible to step on a guy, yeah? Dushmarani. He was asking Hashem it should be beheter, lo b'issur, b'nachat, v'lo b'tzaar. Like the Chazon Ish says, ein yisur yoter mikishalon avon. That's the type of tefillah we ask. And Yaakov Avinu had to prepare himself. So Yosef had to l'hitpalel. He didn't think of it at first. Came back, he thought that he has to daven, so he got the dream to teach him to prepare him. Aliyah and yeridah, like every ben yeshiva. Before a ben yeshiva goes out into the world, he must have a good sichas mussar with good foundations, like the sulam, to understand the sulam, to understand aliyah v'yeridah, and to be mitpalel, and to daven to HaKadosh Baruch Hu, u'shmarani b'haderech hazeh asher anochi holech, siyata d'shmaya, siyata d'shmaya, to constantly be able to say, Im Elokim imadi, v'chol asher titen li, aser a'aserenu lach. With this, he'll take care, v'shavti b'shalom el beit avi. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.