The True Beauty of the Mishkan: Kedushah, Mesirus Nefesh, and the Jewish Home

Transcript

This Torah class is brought to you by TorahAnytime.com. Press start. No, it's not ready. I pressed start. All right. Only when he's ready. Let's get to work. Not yet. Press already started. Well then. No, you can just leave it. That's fine. Parshas Terumah. The Mishkan. The Mishkan is the Yid. Azoi zogt the Nefesh HaChaim. Nefesh HaChaim says the Mishkan is a replica of the Yid. The Mishkan is a replica of what the Yid really is. The emes Mishkan is, b'soch kol echad v'echad, Bilvavi Mishkan Evneh. You're building a Mishkan in your heart. Chareidim. The Nefesh HaChaim says, V'chein ta'asu. It says by the Binyan HaMishkan, כאשר ציווה... v'chein ta'asu. Zogt the Nefesh HaChaim, in Shaar Daled, says, no, nefesh, v'chein ta'asu doesn't mean just to do it. V'chein ta'asu, it's atzmichem. That's a chovah. A person has to build himself. You know, rabosai, today we're busy building yeshivas, mitmoistes. Stop being the mench alein. Gotta build up people, rabosai. Gotta build up people, because the true Mishkan and the true Batei Mikdash are the people. I don't know how many people understand what the Nefesh HaChaim actually is saying. Everyone learns it. How many people understand it, literally what it says? It's saying something. It's saying that the real Mishkanos, the mench alein. Has, mizmachriv a mensh, and you destroy a person. What makes that la'asuli Mikdash? And farshteyt zach, v'chein ta'asu atzmichem. Every person is responsible to build himself, just like you have to build... Yanim, the other person. You need to make sure you build yourself too. So let's discuss what it means, boneh. What is vas boin? What are we building? How does one build? Vas is called giboyt, miboyt a mentsh. You build a person. You're building yourself. So let's understand binyan haMishkan a little bit. It's interesting. It's an interesting thing that we have to point out. V'asu li mikdash v'shachanti b'socham. So is it a mikdash or is it a Mishkan? According to the pasuk, k'daf zayin, that we should call it a mikdash. Kaposhta. You know, I like to learn simple. Let's read together. V'asu li Mishkan. Let me mikdash. It's called a Mishkan. No, it's not called a mikdash. The Beis HaMikdash is called the Beis HaMikdash.

But the Mishkan is called the Mishkan. So which one is it? V'asu li Mishkan. So the truth is, Avad v'asu li mikdash refers to the Beis HaMikdash as well. And of course, we can upleln in the sugya: parichis, Mishkan, Mikdash, good. But one thing is for sure: in this pasuk, it's referring to the Mishkan too, and it's called Mikdash. Yet the Mishkan is called Mishkan, and the Mikdash, the Beis HaMikdash, is called Beis HaMikdash. So let me tell you a deher that I was thinking. I'll share with you a deher. Ready, rabosai? You maskim? Maskim? The outer structure of the Mishkan—our shteits ached walls, right? The Mishkan had walls. Where did they get all this wood to make these walls? Atzei shittim. Atzei shittim, yeah? Where did they get atzei shittim? You know how much wood you need? It's a tremendous warehouse of wood that was needed. So b'emes, Rashi already tells us—it's based on a Tanchuma—Rashi says that Yaakov Avinu knew that one day they'll have to build a Mikdash, a Mishkan, so he planted in Mitzrayim trees, and when they left, they left with these trees. Now why did it have to be that they planted in Mitzrayim these trees? And the answer is because he probably couldn't plant it in the midbar, right? מסתמא in midbar they couldn't plant it. That's how you would learn pshuta, yeah. When you don't have local materials, if Costco's is not around the corner, right? Not Costco. What's the other place? Home Depot, in Childick. Home Depot is not around the corner, and Lowe's. That's actually, I was thinking about Lowe's, but I don't like to say the word Lowe's. I like highs. Al kol panim, if Lowe's is not around, you have to input, input, yeah. So why couldn't they have it from Cnaan? Why couldn't Yankev plant it in Cnaan? So the teretz is because why do you have to have two, right? It doesn't have to go from Cnaan to Mitzrayim, and from Mitzrayim to the midbar. Or maybe Yankev Avinu saw the Mishkan only in Mitzrayim. ... Yeah, ... pshat tov. Is he good? ... pshat tov. Mi dacht zach, there's a lot deeper than that. Mi dacht zach that these beams of wood needed to see shibud Mitzrayim. It needed to see nisei Mitzrayim. It needed to be part of the yetzias Mitzrayim. It's a chelek from yetzias Mitzrayim. No. No. Ich zog es. Ich halt azoi. It's original. You like it? You like the word? You like it, Rabbi Yankala? You like it? Okay. He knows I'm not just going to say a veltl and give a... Part of the yetzias Mitzrayim, which of course was the geulah based on the shibud Mitzrayim, these woods had to see a lot. The vent for the Mishkan had to see a lot. You can't just go to Lowe's and buy wood macha Mishkan. It doesn't work that way, rabosai. The woods have to be eingeveikt, eingeveikt. They have to be dripping. That's not the right word in English. Eingeveikt, soaked, soaked, saturated, saturated. Eingeza, saturated with something very, very special. And I'll tell you where I got this from. I saw the Even Ezra quotes this Rashi, and he says he's not maskim to Rashi, not maskim. Why? How could it be that they said they're going to leave Mitzrayim for three days, for shlosha yamim, and all of a sudden, let's bring all the cranes. You understand what it is to schlep all this wood?

They had to bring truckloads of... He says it's impossible that Pari didn't pick up. He says to say that they took it with them from Mitzrayim, he says, not shayach. The answer is not shayach. So he's cholek on this Tanchuma. It's a Tanchuma, that the wood did not come from Mitzrayim, Yankev Avinu's planting. L'maaseh, the Daas Zekeinim, the Daas Zekeinim also says it's impossible. So he says, so where did they get the woods from? It was in the midbar. There was wood in the midbar, huh? There was wood in the midbar. And he says, ... What's his raya? Because the Bnei Yisrael was zonu b'shitim. Why was it called Shitim? And the teretz is because there were shitim trees. That's where the shitim trees were. Azoy zogt the Daas Zekeinim: Shitim. They were zonu b'shitim in the midbar. Why was it called Shitim? Atzei shitim. That's where the wood came from. Like you have Yericho, ir ha-temarim, right? Because the palm trees are there. Shitim has the atzei shitim. But as me kukt arayn in Even Ezra, you see a p'shat, an anderer kneitch da, an anderer kneitch. The Even Ezra says that actually around Har Sinai, ... the atzei shitim was around Har Sinai, and when they came to Sinai for Kabbalas HaTorah... hat men opgehakt di ale atzei shitim. And this is what they used for the Mishkan. No? So, l'chaira, what's a coincidence? Some madne zach. Now, we all know that there were beautiful flowers around Har Sinai, those ve'esem. I mentioned to you many times that Sinai, Sinai, was the yesod of where we learn all the minhagim of a wedding, of a wedding. Yeah. Interesting, right? Sinai is all the wedding. Are you with me? You know what? I'm going to tell you something. I just have ... but I thought about it. The Gemara says that Rebbe was nota netiya. He planted. What did he plant? You know what he planted? What? What did he plant on Purim? So, netiya was—no, it was a tree. He planted trees. It doesn't say. It says, arniki. He planted trees to build a Beis Chasnus. Yeah? He planted a tree to build a Beis Chasnus. He planted a tree for a Beis Chasnus. Where did it come from, this inyan of planting a tree to build a Beis Chasnus? Where does it come from, bichlal? So, madne, to plant trees, and that itself was the simcha already. Interesting. By Maamad Har Sinai, there were definitely flowers. That we know, because Shavuos machmir on flowers. Shebolei HaLeket says that's where the minhag comes from, that we have flowers by a chasnus. It's a rishon. He says that that's also the inyan of music by a chasene, because there was kolos of brakim. Now, okay, he didn't know that one day that's all it's going to sound like is kolos of brakim. Ken zeich sein, ken eich sein. But I gathered once, once the taina: where is the brakim? Brakim is the blitzing, the photography. Stam, volt di shibolei haleket, gevshriben heint, volt es gezogt it has to do with the photography. Okay. Al kol panim, dos na'avidah, ein zach is klal. Di minhagim fun der chasene, the minhagim fun the chasene, come from ma'amad Har Sinai. The chosson goes out to the kallah, the chuppah, right? Ay, the kashya, the chuppah geven kfiyah. Kaf aleihem har kegigis was kfiyah. So we learn chuppah from there. The shotgun wedding, in English, right? Forced, forced. So we always say over from the Maharal. Maharal says that the kfiyah was, mitazeh, got libed tzu dem Ribono Shel Olam. There was so much ahavah that that itself was the kfiyah. You mentioned, the Ribono Shel Olam forced us by scaring us, ufakad. Ki cholas ahavah, there was so much ahavah that on dem, nafshi yatza bedaber. That's the kfiyah. We had no choice. Where is the—

Trees. Rabbi Natan ... where did the trees come from? ... There were trees there. And these trees—it's a nefeleh—trees from Har Sinai, hatmin, they chopped it off, ... gemacht a Mishkan. ... You’re saying the vort on me. Yeah. ... This is the best simcha for Nashim. You know what the nicest thing in a shiur is? I’ll tell you the truth, chaverai. I say shiurim all day, every—all the time. It doesn’t mean much to me anymore. ... I don’t mean it the way you understand. ... I had a talk, a shiur, Baruch Hashem. ... The oilam ... The oilam is ... Das, das is shiur. So here, a mechadike zach, huh? You know what’s interesting? The Mishkan—and again, I have to be modeh, I’m into Chalitfish; I’m not into all these inyanim gvohim, that’s the truth, but I don’t know, it’s almost boiling to me. The Mishkan, the Ramban says, what was the ma’alis haMishkan? That they went back like the ohel of the Avos, the ohel of the Avos, ‘Shachinah yesharah aleihem.’ Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, the ohel haAvos. They went back to the Mishkan, ‘shehaKadosh Baruch Hu, the Shechinah is given me’alah aleihem. You know, there’s an interesting medrash, ... Medrash says, ‘Zahav v’chesef v’nechoshes’—zahav is keneged Avraham, ‘kesef’ is keneged Yitzchak, because he became nichsaf, he became... It became clean, nichsaf, karbon, the chayshes, v'vecheni Hashem b'glolach. It's a pshat medrash. The ingredients in the walls of the Mishkan and the toichen haMishkan was the avos. The Ramban says clearly, what was the tachlis? It was to rebuild a replica of their shtub from the avos. The first Ramban, in hakdamah to Shemos, that the tachlis was to come back to Mishkan of the avos, okay? The whole inyan of the building of the bayis, where the Mishkan, the Ribbono Shel Olam rests, which is really the bayis. There's a very nice, beautiful vort from Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Moshe, zecher tzaddik livrachah. Yeshiva said, what's the pshat that every time we talk about the Mishkan, Gleich hot mishmira Shabbos. Shabbos, the Mishkan, the Mikdash. So avada we all know that Shabbos, melachas Shabbos, but the truth is it's even more than that. The whole mahus of Shabbos is all the melachos was geit arayn in the Mishkan. It's more than that. What's called shmirah Shabbos? Only what's given byin the Mishkan. That's not stam a tchirah, rabosai. Pashut pshat is, Mishkan is more than Shabbos. No, you see the opposite. It's even more than that. Nit Mishkan is Shabbos. Nit Mishkan. You asking with me? You're not maskil? Okay, so say it again. It's a pashutdike. You know, normally when you learn the pshat is that one takes precedence over the other. You don't build a Mishkan on Shabbos because Shabbos, I guess, is more important than, or whatever, however you want to say it, more than Mishkan. But you see even more than that. What is shmiras Shabbos? What is it? It's the shmiras Shabbos is the lamed tes melachos. And all the lamed tes melachos is vos iz arayngegangen in binyan haMishkan. So, all the binyan haMishkan, at the end, is the mahus of Shabbos. Halacha vet gebrakht beisai. And this is a meyridike vort based on what the Rosh Yeshiva said. The Rosh Yeshiva said a meyridike vort: we can live without a Mishkan, without a Beis HaMikdash. Klal Yisrael survives, but on Shabbos, chayich. Not chayich, rabosai. Klal Yisrael on Shabbos needs chayich. So the Torah is teaching us: Shabbos takes preference. It's not just physical, technically, halachically. Aber, rabosai, Shabbos is mev vimikdash.

Now why is Shabbos more than Mikdash? Well, this is Mishkan alein. This is hashraas hashchina alein in shtub alein. This is in the shtub; it's in the house. We want to go back to the ohel of the avos, the kedusha of the ohel of the avos, hashchina, that the Shechina comes. But this is Shabbos. You know, the beis says, what is Shabbos? It's the nomen from the Rabbeinu Shlelem. It's one of the names of the Rabbeinu Shlelem. Shabbos in shtub means that the Rabbeinu Shlelem is in the house. The Rabbeinu Shlelem is here. Reb Yanti, the main sedrush, you think it's a drush? It's halacha. You know, the Maharil brings down that the shulchan of Shabbos needs to be a four-legged table. It shouldn't have a three-legged table. Maharil, it's brought down in Shulchan Aruch. Why? Because it has to be domeh to the shulchan, to be domeh to the shulchan. It's a Maharil, it's halacha. So get back to halacha, Shulchan Aruch. There are Shabbos dishes. Yeah, there's Shabbos dishes. We all know that the lechem hapanim, the twelve, right, it's brought down in Zohar, many are makpid on it. The zemiros of Shabbos, that gebrachtes hasevid leviyim, and the wine is asevid the nesachim, and, right, and the korban, mizbeach, is chaltz. The Shabbos is the hashraas hashchina by Klal Yisrael. So Rav Shiva was saying, Rav Shiva ... was saying, and I heard the same yesod from Rav Pam zatzal, zichrono livracha, my rebbe, used to say over this yesod. Klal Yisrael, that farshtein that we survived without a Mikdash. Klal Yisrael on Shabbos, nisht. Mishkan. Mishkan means the Ribono Shel Olam dwells among us. So what part is the Mishkan, and what part do we do? And the Torah says, V'asu li. We make—what do we make? We make Mikdash, a heilike matziv. We make kedushah. Shabbos is kodesh. It's kedushah, Shabbos. We make the matziv, so zayn heilik. The Ribono Shel Olam shaft Mishkan. It's emes a vort in pasuk, kaveyachol. Here, ... V'asu li. What do you do? We make Mikdash. The Mishkan is not a Mikdash. It's not. Beis HaMikdash, kemered, it's called the Beis HaMikdash. Okay, talk about it when we get to Beis HaMikdash. Aber the Mishkan—Mishkan is V'asu li. What do you do? You do a matziv, Mikdash, heilik. U'me'eileh, Ich, the Ribono Shel Olam, v'shachanti. You know, the Mishkan moves around. Is there a ground to the Mishkan? I was thinking about it this week. I'm sharing with you al hamachshavah. I don't know if it's even beseder, because I still have to come back, kaveyachol, to the Arvaniki. But Rebbe built—Rebbe was nota a tree l'veis chasnusoi. So I ask you where it comes from, huh? So I told you, Matan Torah atei shitim, huh? The trees, everything from Har Sinai, from Maimed Har Sinai becomes what? A chelek of the chasnus. That's sheina drush, okay. But let's get back even deeper, because what is it? It's about the what? It's about the bayis. It's about the Beis Hamikdash, v'shachanti, the Yiddishe shtub, right? It's all connected. It's all connected, yeah? Okay. But I was thinking to myself, was there a floor to the Mishkan? Tam chacham, tam chacham nega chai fregen. Tzidareb Chaim Torah like this on sukkah. Yeshiva shecherb Chaim Torah on sukkah. It's four walls, but is there a din karka, right? That's such a shaila, huh? The what? Yeah, but is it Hashem karka? Do you have a floor? You want to know something interesting? I'm sorry that, you know, let me tell you, there's two types of shiurim I say: one that I prepare, which is not that good. Usually when I prepare, it's not so good. And one is when I say, you know what, I'm not—whatever comes to my head, I let the forces run. Okay, the force is running now. Okay. You know what's interesting? The one thing that the Beis Hamikdash needed more than anything else, makrivin af al pi she'ein bayis bonui. What is the one thing that it needed? Ritzpah.

In Teirah, ... You see, now I start to enjoy this shiur. You see, I said I wasn't, I don't enjoy it, but now I'm starting to enjoy this shiur. It came to my head, let's talk l'maaseh, ne? Yontif, yeah, good? That's the one thing of Beis HaMikdash needs. Makrivin af al pi she'ein bayis banui, aval b'dafka min haRitzpa. I always say that's the vort: she'ualim hilchu boi. Vos iz di she'ualim hilchu boi? Vos iz pshat? Al zeh hoyah dover libeinu, alei lechaske eineinu, ... she'ualim hilchu boi. Ech velt she'ualim hilchu boi? Gerade Reb Yochanan gegangen, hat gelacht af dem. Reb Akiva, Reb Akiva gegangen, hat gelacht af dem. S'geווען a gelachter. It was a joke. He was laughing, she'ualim hilchu boi. Steyt doch, steyt doch azel. Al zeh hoyah dover libeinu, alei lechaske eineinu. Tell me, yedei nashim rachmaniyos bishlu yaldeihen. No, that's not. Aval zeh, zeh, al zeh, the Ritzpas haZarah. Why the Ritzpas haZarah? What do I mean? Mashal says when there's no Ritzpah, there's she'ualim. פירוש המשל from Gemara. It's a sign that there's no binyan whatsoever. So we thought even if there's a churban, about kaponim a karban, apes, because you can't be makriv unless you have the Ritzpas haZarah. It's one of the tenaiim. So al zeh hoyah dover libeinu. You can make apes, a kesher with the... apes, something. Afilu she'ikarban. She'ualim means there's no Ritzpah. No Ritzpah means there's no... So even if ein bayis banui, the walls, you don't need the wall, but you need the Ritzpah. I don't want to get into discussion today, but they have one on looking on the Har Habayis and korbanos, ... It's clear in halacha, in the Rambam, you need ritzpas Azarah to be makriv a korban. That's clear. When it does is ... Alei lechashkah, in dark. So what's the teretz? Even though we don't have Beis HaMikdash, ... the bayis Yehudi, ... Shabbos. We have the bayis, ... Does a Mishkan have a ritzpah? That's what I want to get back to. Does a Mishkan have a ritzpah? ... I saw a Sha'alos Uteshuvos sefer, and I don't have time to look at it. I didn't have a chance to look at it. It caught my eye that the ritzpah was a nes; it went with the Mishkan, it went with it. ... You have a kasha? What's your kasha on a nes? That's your kasha? You understand anything about what happened in the Midbar? ... Huh? Don't be ... Tell me something. The things that you think you understand, you understand? The older you get, rabosai, you're going to learn this. As life goes on, even the things that you took for dvarim peshutim make sense, they don't make sense. Nothing makes sense. There's nothing. Even as ... it's also going to be. The ... said, No, the ... that they weisen, that that's the facts of what's in front of you. That's what it is. Getting back to the shaylah here, could be a Mishkan doesn't have a ritzpah. You know why a Mishkan doesn't have a ritzpah? Because the truth is, it's not grounded anywhere. A Mishkan travels because it's not nogea to where it is. There's no makom for the Mishkan. The Mishkan's avuz asuli Mikdash, v'shachanti b'socham. You don't need a place. You need the Mikdash. Wherever there's kedushah, u'memacht kedushah, HaKadosh Baruch Hu dwells. So let's talk about the etzem of Yaakov Avinu. The etzem of Yaakov Avinu, through gehinom Mitzrayim, איינגעוועקט. He was איינגעוועקט with whatever happened in Mitzrayim, all the nisyonos, and all the yissurim, and all the tefillos, and all the kisuf for the Ribono Shel Olam in Mitzrayim. Das is geworden di beimah. These are the trees, the sap of the trees of the Atzei Shittim, and it had to go with them out of Mitzrayim, and it had to go with them through Kriyas Yam Suf. Or the pshat is, or the pshat is that it had to be in Atzei Shittim.

I want to tell you over another thing. I saw an interesting medrash. The medrash says that trees grew in the midbar. It's a medrash Rabbah. Chukas, yud tes chavav. It grew. Things grew. There was, there was—not, what's it called, not navigation—vegetate, right? Yeah, in the midbar. Why? Be'er shel Miriam. No, irrigation is to make. He said it right. Vegetation, growth. Okay, so, you know what? I don't—agriculture. Good? You're happy? Everybody's happy now? Good. Mara mechada u'mara mechada v'lo פליגי. Mara mechada u'mara mechada v'lo פליגי. Nobody's—you're all saying the same thing. L'maaseh, where did it grow from? Zogt the medrash, be'erah shel Miriam. All right. And from the be'er shel Miriam, it megadei beimin, it megadei ala padeisim, everything. It's a medrash, because the medrash asks, the nesachim, where did they get nesachim from? So bishlama, I guess he's not asking on what—on the flour, the menachos. Why is the kashya only on the nesachim, huh? Kashya is only on the grapes, the nesachim. Or the flour—where did they get the flour from, at the mon? You have to work on it a little bit. But al kol panim, the nesachim is a kashya in medrash, chaverta, yeah? So one pshat, Reish Lakish zogt, remember the grapes that the meraglim brought? You remember such a sach? From these grapes they made nesachim, says the medrash. Makes sense, right? Why? Because it has to be a tikkun. The meraglim, the tikkun, Chet HaEgel, the Mishkan, yeah? Okay, good. Not means peshat. There's even a medrash that says that the Atzei Shittim, like I spoke to you, the shittim comes from the banos, no? Shittim, shezanu b'shittim. So it's a tikkun; they used the woods for the Mishkan. Huh? Yeah, good. Medrashim. Al sheinah sheinah gishmakke medrashim, yeah, habeizai. But I want to zoom in on the be'er shel Miriam. Be'erah shel Miriam. For us, it's be'erah shel Miriam. See? It's Yankev, Vinu, Mitzrayim. But then there's another pshat. Gevaksen durch be'erah shel Miriam. What is be'erah shel Miriam? Let's talk a minute. What was Miriam's be'er? Rashi in Bamidbar chaf-beis, we know the Medrash: b'schus Miriam. B'schus Miriam, we had the be'er. Why? Why was the be'er b'schus Miriam? So, mistama, we have to give a whole shiur, but why is the man b'schus Moshe, and why is the anan b'schus Aharon? We'll do it one day. Tachmol kumen a tog mit a stund. But why is it that the be'er was b'schus Miriam? So there's an interesting medrash. Medrash Rabbah, Bamidbar, perek aleph, piskah beis. She said shirah al hayam. Since she said shirah al hayam, tachidush, Miriam, took up pesah haisairis, hot zi gekhrogen vasser zchusim, vasser. A peshute medrash. Be'er, yam, okay, a medrash. There's a Tanna d'Bei Eliyahu which I saw; I didn't see it inside, so the Kli Yakar brings it. Tanah d'bei Eliyahu brings a kli yakar. Miriam was meizen, was meizen, right? Shifru puah. So, b'schus of the tchiyanas hayeladim, meizen. So, water, water, food, check. Yeah, good? Yeah. Nish gut avu gein. Yeah. That's facts. ... Miriam, she went poo poo poo to them. Facts, not good. The kasha. I'm ... kasha shtark in ya. Okay. Sometimes the ... Good. Yeah, you're right. It's all Torah, good. But I want to get to Rabbeinu Bechaye. Ready? Rabbeinu Bechaye says, yeah, ... The Rebbe of Pamvod ... I think he would have been very happy with this. You know why Miriam was the be'er? Zaka Rabbeinu Bechaye, bamidbar chaf, pasuk beis, Vatisatzev Miriam meirachok l'daas, shetishtaneh ba'dabai, u'metarein gevah, when they threw Moshe into the Yar. You look at the Sifsei Chachamim, he brings up an art. It's also Sifsei Chachamim. She she put him into the water.

And because of that, the zechus to bear. What's the taych? Rabbeinu ... This is a mefurasher Rambam. The Rambam says that Miriam got tzaraas for speaking against Moshe Rabbeinu. Do you realize, vifel zit lieb gehat Moshe Rabbeinu? She loved Moshe Rabbeinu. She siknah atzmah. She put herself in tremendous danger to save Moshe Rabbeinu when she threw him into the water. Siknah atzmah. And af al pi kein, because she said and she didn't mean, and that, and she still got tzaraas. Because ... v'mered ... ... That's what the Rambam wants. Zocheis ashah ... Miriam. She loved him and she cared for him and she was moser nefesh for him, and she didn't say anything, and af al pi kein. So can you imagine? Okay. What's siknah atzmah? ... to save Moshe Rabbeinu, a mesiras nefesh. This mesiras nefesh had gebracht b'eiro shel Miriam. You know, vi es boitzach, the shoresh of a mishkan, mesiras nefesh, mesiras nefesh. That is, the walls of a mishkan don't exist. You know, there's wood and there's wood. Ashtikel holtz, there's nit no ashtikel holtz. The mother says, Kiros beiso meid olav. The walls speak sometimes volumes of what happens within the walls of something. What you put into the walls, the kedusha that you put into it, that's the v'asu li mikdash. Das vil in Chazal, az di shtub iz heilig. Das is heilig, the walls. That's what creates mikdash. Then it becomes, the Ribono Shel Olam's mashrushkinah. I see the time. There's a lot more to talk about. I want to end with a maiseh, Rebbesei. He's already jumping to close the... Sometimes the story is the whole shiur. This story is the whole shiur, Rebbesei. When my son, Yisroel Meir, my last son, his bris was erev Shabbos, Rosh Chodesh Chanukah. It was last days of Rosh Chodesh, last Chanukah. The sandek was Reb Shmuel Birnbaum. Reb Shmuel told me I should pick him up from the yeshiva at six o'clock in the morning. The bris was, I think, eight. Probably was seven. Pick him up six, a quarter to six, at the yeshiva. Okay. It's winter. It was pitch black outside. It's not a car. It was not a light in the whole building. No light in the whole building, yeah. Quarter to six, maybe even earlier. Twenty to six I was already there. Twenty to six. He's upstairs, Reb Shmuel, in his shiur room, it's a classroom. Today a shiur room. It's a palatial... The regular classroom. Reb Shmuel gave shiur in a classroom. I should pick him up from the room. Okay, I come in, pitch black. I'm telling you, the whole building is pitch black except for the light in the room. I walk in. Reb Shmuel versteht zach, sitting and learning. Basmad, I don't know. Might have been there already, who knows when. How many hours he was there before, who knows. We leave the room, and in the mirror, as you go down the steps, there's a window where you can look into the beis medrash. Right before Reb Ezra Snashim, on the side there's a window. The only thing that was lit was the ner tamid, and it was bright. It had a glow. I don't know if it was me or it was the moment. I became very nisragish. I looked at the Mir yeshiva. Yeshiva. Something heilig. It was beautiful. So I turned to Reb Shmuel and I said to him, Yeshiva, ... beis medrash. It shines, it glows. It's beautiful. It's quiet, still, shein, prachtig. So he looks at me, he goes, What's so beautiful about it? I said, I don't know. I just, there's something about it that's beautiful. It's moving. I'm moved by it. What should I tell you? He says, You see the shtenders? He says that it's a brach and it's a shas in the shtenders. You see the shafkes there.

Talked in their old, to schmetter the chairs. What's so beautiful about it? He asked me this. So I said, Rosh Yeshiva, I don't know. You know how much Torah was learned? The Mirer Torah, from Frankfurt, Ginsburg, Boberman, Torah Yisroel sat on these chairs. It's the same chairs, the same shtenders, the same tables. So he says, That's what I want you to tell me. That's what I wanted to hear from you. I want to know what is so beautiful about it. It's these old shtenders. It's these broken tables. He says, ... and they push me and they force me. ... The new hanhalah, they want me to polish it, update it, ... modernized. ... he tells me. ... on the shenkai from the bais medrash. It's a bracha on the old shtenders, and it's a bracha on the old tables. ... He built beautiful binyanim today, Baruch Hashem. Nothing against beautiful binyanim. There's ways how to build beautiful binyanim. ... with kedusha, with taharas, with mesiras nefesh. It's a whole different... Beautiful binyanim sometimes doesn't look what we think is beautiful binyanim. And with this, I just end one more vort. I'm sorry, I'm very moved by this whole shiur, so if you don't mind, give me another second. It says we judge the ... mita, ... and the kiyor. That's not lovely. In front of president, that's before thinking we'll judge that. The kiros—I'm telling you, the kiros. I want to tell you, the hosafah, the last part of the Varder yeshiva, that we don't need a mikdash; we need Shabbos, his mashal. Yeshiva brings a mashal. It's in the... He says, you notice that goyim, the Christians, their churches are big, fancy, like blocks long, campuses. He says, ... yeshiva, ... brachan the walls, ... brachan the tish. And our yeshiva lived in some other world, I guess. But that's what he says. He says, why is it that way? What happened to the binyan hamefuar of a beis knesses? What's—? Now, he's not arguing. I don't have the time to go into ... Beis Hashem with fire. We can talk about that at a different time. But he's saying, l'maaseh, a shul could be any four walls. He says, ... is nisht. The ikar is the shtub. The ikar is chashrus haShechinah. This is nisht b'medrash necessarily only, but it's by the Yid alein in shtub, and the Shabbos, the shtub takes precedence over this mikdash. ... to teach us, lameid, throughout the doros, but the knesses were not necessarily because of this. ... in vambeis, the shtub, the ... the ahavah, that does shaft for us only mikdash. You've just experienced another Torah class, brought to you by TorahAnytime.com.