Masei: Forty-Two Journeys, Personal Growth, and Gevurah

Transcript

This is Masai. It's not Parshas Tashavua. Masai is Parshat Yisrael, Klal Yisrael. It's Parshat kol ha'adam v'chayav, a person and his life. What do I mean? The masaot was not just then. We're going to learn the masaot, something which is nogea l'dorei dorot, dorei dorot. The masaot, we're going to soon learn, was the talich, the journey. It had in it the journey of Klal Yisrael through the dorot till the time of Mashiach. And it also has a remez. It has meaning to the journey that a person has throughout his life. Every person, it's a journey. Every person is his world. He has his ride, so to speak. My ride and my journey is not the same as your ride and your journey. Every person has his journey, and it's merumaz, and it's the concept of it, is Parshas Masai. Now let's explain what I just said. I said a tremendous yesod. Masai seemed like the masaot that were in the midbar. It's not particularly so. It's also so, which means it was the masaot in the midbar, but it was also a remez, the masaot in the future. And it's also a remez to the personal masaot that a person goes through. I want to begin by asking, of course, the question that everybody asks. What's the reason that the masa'ot are brought, written, detailed? Le'eize inyan, le'eize inyan were the masa'ot brought? What's the point of it? It's a thing of the past, through the midbar, who goes in the midbar. What's the point of detailing? You have to explain to me. I can't talk. What's the point of the masa'ot that it's written? This question everybody asks. Everybody asks this question. Another question: names, the places. Where are these places? Who are these places? You start listing. We're soon going to learn there's going to be 42, 42 stops, 42 names. Who ever heard of these names? Who knows about these names? So why would the Torah that's eternal, the Torah which is eternal, talk about something which is kim'at lo hayah v'lo nivra? So hayah, it's almost not nogea. And the hoveh, it's almost—imagine a person starts talking about cities in Rome. Who's Rome? Where Rome? When Rome? It doesn't exist. What are you talking about? Third question: the Torah stresses that the masa'ot were written al pi Hashem. We're soon going to learn some machloket Rishonim how to explain the pasuk. The pasuk says, Vayichtov Moshe es motza'eihem l'masa'eihem al pi Hashem. Some Rishonim learn that the al pi Hashem is going on the motza'eihem l'maaseihem, which means the travelings were al pi Hashem. Others learn that the Vayichtov Moshe was al pi Hashem, that Moshe wrote it according to the way Hashem told him to. The question, of course, is, ma ha-rabuta? What's the chiddush in this? Of course, the whole Torah was written al pi Hashem. You think there's something in the Torah which was not dictated by HaKadosh Baruch Hu? So what's al pi Hashem? So if you learn l'maaseihem al pi Hashem, okay, very good. L'maaseihem means the travelings were al pi Hashem. Makes more sense, right? But if it's that it's written al pi Hashem, of course. We'll see the Rishonim. The Ramban learns that the writings were al pi Hashem. The Chida brings pshatim from Kadmonim that the travelings were al pi Hashem. It's a machlokes in the Rishonim and the mefarshim how to learn this. But if it's going back on that it was written al pi Hashem, what's the chiddush? What's the chiddush? And the fourth question, which I think is a very, very strong question: could you imagine someone writing a book about the history of Klal Yisrael in the Midbar, not mentioning Kriyas Yam Suf, and not mentioning Matan Torah, not mentioning Egel, and not mentioning Mishkan? What are you talking about? You know what—

The book would be worth nothing. It would be a book without pages. I mean, what are you talking about? Where's the main story of the Midbar? Not here. You notice it doesn't mention not Mishkan. It doesn't mention not Kriyat Yam Suf. It mentions nothing from the main events. You okay? Yeah, I'm okay. Yeah? It's an unbelievable question. You ever think about it? You read Parshas Masei, you hear? You read Parshas Masei, there's no zecher. There's no zecher of Matan Torah, Mishkan. So how could you write that these are the masaot, these are the travelings? But so what? This is nothing. What, the davlusayim and matika? What? Who? Basically, why do we need this? No, it's a better question. If you want to write, if you want to bring the history, ... she'eilah rishonah, bichlal, ma inyan hamasaot shehiyu ketuvim? What's the point of it? Imagine reading a book: I went here and I sat here and I... what? That's not the main details, right? What's the point of reading that? Second of all, the names, each name. What are these names? They don't exist in these places anymore. What's the point of bringing these names? And the truth is, I once thought about this, and I spoke to you about this in past years. How could it be that there are names to these things? This was a Midbar. What are you talking about? What kind of... You know, in English there's something called a ghost town, all right? So you go there, what do you find? Just a sign with the name of the town and one sheriff. That's usually what you had: one sheriff and a bar and two people. That's what they had. But here you didn't even have that. There was no sheriff, right? There was no bar. All it was was a place of Midbar. Who named them? What name? How did these places have names בכלל? I mean, what kind of names did they have? Imagine you go in the middle of the desert. Right here, this is Sanpalo. What's Sanpalo? What are you talking about? What are the names? It's pilpul. You start reading, you don't even understand what kind of names, what kind of places. Good, but what's everything else? Everything else, everything else. Forty-five. You're talking about 42 places, 42. Now, so the question is, why is it written? How and why are there names here to these places? What are the names? Who gave it to them? What is it all about? Also it says, Vayichtov Moshe al pi Hashem. Of course al pi Hashem. The whole Torah was written al pi Hashem. So some learn that it's going back on the travelings. Masa'ei was al pi Hashem. Chida learns like this from Shem Kadmonim. But the Ramban learns differently. Ramban learns that the writings was written al pi Hashem. So then what's the chiddush? It's Torah, of course it's written al pi Hashem. If you look at the whole history here, none of it is about the main events. The recorded trips, not about Matan Torah, not about Egel, not about Mishkan. So what's this? This is nothing. They went here, they went there. What is this all about? Now the truth is— There's a very big chidush. The Aruchayim learns that Moshe Rabbeinu actually wrote this before it became Torah. This was a pinkas. You know what a pinkas is? It's a diary. Moshe Rabbeinu had a diary. The Aruchayim learns—no, the Aruchayim learns that Moshe Rabbeinu kept a diary. And this parshas Massei is a diary. The only thing is that the Aruchayim says that the diary was also al pi Hashem. It was betzivui HaMelech. Hashem told Moshe to keep this diary. But if you look at the Ibn Ezra, he learns that Moshe Rabbeinu kept this diary, and it had nothing to do with al pi Hashem. It's not Moshe Rabbeinu kept a diary. Later Hashem said, Take your diary and put it into the Torah. How do you explain a diary in English? Nivnek. In Russian, dnevnik. That's—this is how the Aruchayim learns, that it was a diary, but the diary was al pi Hashem. Rabbi Yitzchak in Peh Kadosh learns, no, it was a regular diary. Moshe Rabbeinu kept a diary. Why would Moshe Rabbeinu need to keep a diary? You think one day—

He thought it would be a bestseller, maybe. Who knows? Today, take a look, the Bible, it's the bestseller. Maybe he thought, you know, he can make some money off it one day. Why would Moshe Rabbeinu keep a diary? Well, it could be, maybe the manhig hadorot, which means he didn't know it would be in the Torah. I want to say another pshat, something very interesting. I was thinking about it. You know, Yitro, he heard kol asher asah Hashem l'Yisrael. Rashi says he heard Kriyas Yam Suf, he heard the whole thing. Yet when he comes to the midbar, Moshe Rabbeinu vayesaper Moshe l'chotno, es kol asher asah Hashem, he repeats the whole story. The question is, why is he repeating the story to Yitro if it says clearly he heard it? So maybe he didn't hear. Maybe Moshe didn't know that. And maybe Yitro was a good listener, so he didn't stop you in the middle and say, Oh, I heard that already. A lot of times you repeat something, yeah, you tell over a story. So if the guy's a nice guy, you know what he does? Really, really? And he heard the story anyway. But if he's a rude guy, he says, Yeah, I heard that, okay. I know that story, okay, okay. So maybe Yitro was a good guy, and he was listening, wanted to hear it again, maybe. Or maybe the story, like little children, you know, little children, you can tell them the same story over and over again. Really? Wow, it's great. Same story. So maybe Yitro liked it, again, let's hear it again. The Brisker Rav has a different pshat. The Brisker Rav learns, the Brisker Rav learns that there was a mitzvah, sapru kol nifle'osav. There's a mitzvah to say over the stories, to repeat. There's a shevach of praise. So who's he going to do this to, Moshe? The people that were there, they were there. So he finally found somebody who wasn't there, Yitro. So the minute he came, he was mekayem the mitzvah with him. You know, there's something called an ani. In Brisk, they want to give matanos la'aniyim, someone who's a real ani. So when they find the ani, they use him as, This is my ani. They use him for Purim. They even say over that a lot of times the Briskers don't let people give that person money, because then they can't be mekayem Purim, right? They can't use him for the ani on Purim. So don't give him, don't give him any money. I need him, he's my ani. So it could be, could be, Brisker Rav says—Moshe, I'm just giving, just to make it humorous, I don't mean all this—but the Brisker Rav says that Yitro, he was using Yitro. Yitro was his man who he could give him mekayem the mitzvah of what? Of lesaper, lesaper, to say over. I want to say a different pshat, b'ezras Hashem yisbarach. You know, the big story everybody hears, it's the details that you don't hear unless you're there. Moshe Rabbeinu saw the details, yeah? And the trick—let's not use the word the trick—and the gadlus, the greatness. You know where the greatness is? The greatness is in the details. Yisro heard Kriyas Yam Suf. Yisro heard Milchemes Amalek. Yisro, of course, heard everything, the big, the big story. But the question is behind the scenes. The question is the details. How it really went down, as they say in English, this Moshe Rabbeinu filled him in, and could be Moshe Rabbeinu kept this as a diary. Of course, Mishkan and Kriyas Yam Suf and that, that's of course, you hear, that of course they knew. That's in the Torah. You know what Moshe Rabbeinu kept a diary of? The small details, the small trials and tribulations. We went here, we went there. These are things that are not big. Ad rabba, the masa'ot was not the big stories. The masa'ot was the travelings to the big stories. It was the details. Wait a minute, and why did he keep a diary? You know, baalei mussar speak about the importance of hashgachah pratit and to write it down. A person could live his whole life, you know, yeah, I went to yeshiva, and then I went, I got married, I went, I had a child, and his whole life could run by that way. That's the big stories in your life. How about the details? How about the yad Hashem that you see every day? If you don't pay attention to it and write it down and record it, A, because like this you pay attention when you have to write it down, and B, you remember it, then life just flew you by. Life just flew you by.

Moshe Rabbeinu didn't want the history of the Midbar to fly by from Eigel to Mishkan to Kriyas Yam Suf, Matan Torah. He wrote down what? The masa'ot, trials and tribulations, the travelings, the going from here to there. He wrote it down to keep cheshbon of the yad Hashem. Moshe Rabbeinu lived by paying attention every step of the way. We're going to get to that. We're going to get to it. Every step of the way, you hear? Every step of the way. So Moshe Rabbeinu went and recorded it. The Eibishter says, Take what you recorded and put it in the Torah. Of course, Mishkan—Moshe doesn't have to write about the Mishkan. The whole Chumash is about the Mishkan. Moshe doesn't have to write about Kriyas Yam Suf. Moshe doesn't have to write about Matan Torah. What Moshe Rabbeinu did was the masa'ot, from this place which seems insignificant to this place to that place, which we'll soon discuss what they were. Moshe Rabbeinu recorded it as hashgacha pratit. Keep track of hashgacha pratit. I hold it's emes l'amito what I'm teaching you. This is Parshat Masei, and we're going to learn that the person in his life is the same way. If he doesn't keep track and he doesn't map out the hashgacha pratit in his personal masa'ot, which we'll get to later, he's not going to see the whole picture. He will not see the whole picture. He'll see the marriage, the life, the... but every day, every day, every day, hashgacha pratit that goes through a person's journey in life. Keep a diary. That's what's going on here. You got to keep track of it. Because then, and only then, you'll see Yad Hashem. You'll see al pi Hashem. So let's discuss a little bit the masaot and get back to this concept. What were the masaot? Rashi says that the masaot, למה נכתבו המסעות הללו? Of course, that's Rashi's question. What's it written? What's the negeya? Answers Rashi, להודיע חסדו של מקום, that this is going to teach the chesed of Hashem, that in forty years all they traveled was this forty-two travelings, which was not much. Most of it was done not in the first year; afterwards, Rashi makes a whole cheshbon. ולהודיע מנוחה. You would think that they didn't have resting, and the answer is they only traveled this, and they had plenty of time to rest. Rashi. Everybody knows the Rashi. Then Rashi brings from Tanchuma that it's like a child who was sick, and the father takes him to the doctor, and then on the way back he says, Here we had a headache, and here we were cold, and... Not really sure the point of that. Very hard to understand what Rav Tanchuma wants. Why would you come and say, Here we had a headache and here we were cold? I don't know. Maybe, I guess, when you take a trip with your son, you love your son, you remember the details. I don't know. This is what Rav Tanchuma says: the Ramban brings from Moreh Nevuchim that the reason why Moshe Rabbeinu wrote in the Torah, al pi Hashem, the masaot, because future generations might come and deny the miracles of the Midbar. Nah, can't be. What? There must have been food. There must have been, you know, near a place where they were able to get the 7-Eleven. Impossible that they lived like this without any food and without anything. Mainly, they tell you the names of the places, and you know that these places are in the midbar. It's empty, and there's no place where there's food or people around. And therefore you'll know that Hashem did with you tremendous miracles, and you'll admit the miracles. I don't quite get that, because just say they were in the midbar. I mean, the midbar doesn't have people around. I mean, what, now that you gave me the name of Divloim, I know better? Now you gave me another name over there, let's see, Divlasayma, or Chareidah, Makhelah. Oh, they were Makhelah. Oh, now I know that they had some of the flies. Oh, they were tachah. Oh, now I have to admit that this was a tremendous miracle. All right, all right, I don't quite get the whole story here in the Ramban, because according to the—I'm saying according to the Rambam, I mean the point is they were in the midbar, right? The names of the places and how they traveled from one place to another, I don't quite see what the Rambam wants. Unless you say maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe if you show such a detailed account, it can't be that it was made up. If someone tells you, Yeah, he lived in the moon. Oh yeah, really? How'd he get to the moon? You don't have an answer, so you know that the story never happened, right? If I come and I explain to you that he traveled to—

The Fourth Street. At Fourth Street he went to NASA in Florida, and in NASA, Florida, he went on to the tarmac, and I give you a whole story that he went to the moon, how he went to the moon, right? So you say it's too much details; otherwise it's a story, right? If you show details, that means it wasn't made up. Maybe, maybe that's what the Rambam means. You don't like the teretz. You have a better one for me? Okay, so if you don't have a better one, stay with this one. If you come up with a better one, I'll buy it. I can't help you. I can't help you, but this is what the Rambam says. The Rambam says clearly that the reason why we have Parshas Masai is to make sure that nobody comes and denies. I don't know. How does that help you? I don't really know. So he seems, it seems that he's saying is that these places were not near populated areas where they can get food. Okay, so just say they were in the midbar. You have to tell me they were tachas... What do I know about these places? Aval sheyavo anashim veyomru sheze lo kara. Who are these anashim? These are people from today, right? So, oh, they're going to read in the Torah. Oh, they were in Rishon. What? Yeah, but not in the midbar. I'm saying, hold here, here. They were in Maseiros. They couldn't have gotten food over there. What? What's the Rambam? I have no idea. Just say they were in the midbar and finish. I don't know what he's talking... I'm going to the lashon of the Rambam. This is a Rambam, Memor Nevuchim. It's a Rambam, Moreh Nevuchim. Perek nun, shaar gimmel, perek nun. All right, it's there. You can look it up. The Rambam quotes it. Then the Ramban quotes his own pshat. He says like this: Rabosai, you have to listen carefully to what it says. Says the Ramban, it says the Ramban. You hear? Oy, listen to a Ramban. Here it is. You ready? Shh. Hinei, michtav hama'asos mitzvas Hashem hi min hata'am hanizkar. To write the ma'asot was mitzvat Hashem, o mizulatan, either for the reasons we gave or for other reasons, okay? What are the other reasons? Inyan lo nizgalah lanu sodo, something which the secret of it cannot be told. Shh, it's a secret, says the Ramban. Ki al pi Hashem davak im Vayichtov Moshe. Al pi Hashem goes back onto the words Vayichtov Moshe. Lo kedivrei Rabavram she'amar, not like the Ibn Ezra that learns that the pi Hashem was what? L'maaseh, that the traveling was pi Hashem, but rather the kesivah was al pi Hashem. Like, because this, that they travel al pi Hashem, it says al pi Hashem yachanu, al pi Hashem yisa'u. So what does it mean? It means Hashem told him to write it, secret. Lo nizgalah lanu sodo. So here today, I shall go against the Ramban and give you the sod. I shall hereby not contradict, but break the vow of secrecy that the Ramban has. Ramban keeps it as a silence, as a secret. When there's ... you hear what the Ramban says? The ma'asehot... Now, I want you to know, you think it's so pashut. You know, there was 42 masaot. You aware of that? 42, mem-beit, 42 masaot. Tell me, Hashem's name is what? How many letters? 42. Is there a connection? Yes. You know how I know there's a connection? I'll tell you how I know there's a connection. The connection is in Shulchan Aruch. I'm not talking about sefarim of who knows where. In Shulchan Aruch, okay, in Magen Avraham, in siman taf-chaf-chet, ot chet, se'if katan chet, yeah? He brings from Tzror HaMor that when you have masa'ot, you're not supposed to break up. Let's say, you know, if you notice Sheini is where? It's after the first ten or twelve pesukim. He says it's not a good custom. You're not supposed to have Sheini over there. You're supposed to finish the whole thing in one shot and not break it up, because it's tzirufei shemot of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, mem-beit. It's a Magen Avraham. It's a Shulchan Aruch. This is not the books that you find under the shelves over there. It's a Shulchan Aruch. You have to read it all in one shot. Put down Shulchan Aruch. No, yesterday was anyway mechubar. It was anyway mechubar.

This is where it is. At the end, at the end of the 42 masaot, you can have sheini. It's not a joke. Magen Avraham, halacha lemaaseh. I'm not interested in such questions. He's telling you not to do that. Magen Avraham says it's wrong. Magen Avraham, it's not a joke. Mem-bet, here Hashem's 42 letters, His Shem Hashem, is in the masaot. Ah, it's getting more scary in the masaot, eh? Eh? You hear what's going on here? The masaot are, Lanitgalah lanu sodo. Get ready for the sod. I'm going to teach you the sod. Rabbeinu Bechayei, as well as the Ravad in Idiot, perek bet, mishnah tet, that these masaot we're going to do on our way to Eretz Yisrael with Mashiach. We're going to travel in the same route. We're going to use a navigator. You know what the navigator is going to be? The GPS is going to be the Torah. We're going to sit there and use the map. Okay, next stop, Ramses, that's what it says here. The conductor is going to go, next stop Sukkot, next stop Etam, next stop Pi HaChirot, next... and he's going to use this. This is going to be the map. Back. This is how we're going to go to Eretz Yisrael. You like it? I'm for sure... The Rishonim, the Rishonim bring us that these masaot is not something of the past. You see, these masaot... There's something, a journey of the future. We're gonna have to go through this journey. Let's discuss this a little bit. If you take a look, everybody quotes the Marami Pano. Everybody. I don't think there's a sefer that doesn't quote it. The Marami Pano, in Asarah Maamarot, says a chiddush nifla. Eileh maasai Bnei Yisrael. You hear? These are the travelings of the Bnei Yisrael. Eileh maasai Bnei Yisrael, says the Marami Pano. Hakdamah me'ulah. Very good introduction to this parsha is to know the following. Ilulei chatanu b'egel, if we haven't sinned in the egel, hayu kol daled malchiyos nichlalim b'toch daled Mitzrayim. We would have been done with all the daled galuyot in Egypt. It was done. Done deal. We would have been finished with it. We sinned in the egel, so now we have to revisit, revisit certain galuyot, and that is: Eileh. Eileh maasai Bnei Yisrael. Aleph is Eileh. Mem is maasai Bnei, Beis Yisrael, roshei teivot Edom, Madai, Bavel, and Yavan. So we would have been done with Edom, Bavel, Madai, Yavan. Where? In Mitzrayim, had we not sinned in the egel. And that's the pshat. Eileh lehecha Yisrael. By the egel they said, Eileh. Guess what? Now you have Eileh maasai Bnei Yisrael. Eileh to Eileh. Okay? You made Eileh lehecha Yisrael, now you have Eileh maasai Bnei Yisrael. Asarah Maamarot. Asarah Maamarot. Acharei ma. First they were in Mitzrayim, then they sinned. Right. First they were in Mitzrayim, they would have been finished. But then they sinned, now they had to go back and redo, Amada, Yavan, and Bavel. לא במצרים, לא, אבל בעתיד. אני אומר שעניין של המסעות זה לא עכשיו. בעת כתיבת התורה במדבר, זה לעתיד. לעתיד of Klal Yisrael is merumaz, is lays between the words in the masaot. See clearly, Mada, Yavan, and that's pshat, Eileh lecha, and because of Eileh lecha we have what? Eileh maaseh bnei Yisrael. What's the inyan of the masaot? What was it? So if you take a look at the Shlah, famous Shlah, the Shlah says we have to be mekabel the Torah. That was the ikar. That was the ikar why we went into the midbar. In order to be mekabel Torah, you have to have teshuva, and you also have to mizachech, you have to cleanse yourself. Midbar is galut. Galut cleanses a person. He's ra'ui l'kabel haTorah, so says the Shlah Kodesh. And he says that's the pshat, v'higoleh el makom Torah. In order to go to Torah, you need galut. You have to be mechaper. You have to cleanse yourself. You can't stay home.

Home and enjoy mama's good food, mama's good ossovor, ushpalov, and read the newspaper and watch a little TV on the side, and then you go to yeshiva. It doesn't work that way. Havei goleh l'makom Torah. You have to get away, to run away, mechaper, mizachech, it cleanses. So this is the inyan of the maasahot according to the Shlah, was inyan of galut. Galut, galut, galut. If you look at the Chida, Chida seems to learn it's more not so much the galut as much as the getting away from the scene, hitbodedut. He says, Reb Shimon bar Yochai went into galut. You know where? In the me'arah, in the cave. So the idea of going to the midbar is like a cave more. It's about getting away. It's not about galut kaparah. It's about galut l'hitboded, the Shechinah, to get away from it all. Yeah? You know, it's so interesting. Mashgiach Lakewood told me that Reb Aaron—yeah, Reb Nasan told me that Reb Aaron wanted Lakewood because it was supposed to be to get away from New York. That was what it was supposed to be. You're supposed to come to Lakewood and you were away. You had nothing to do with the rest of the world. Little did he know, Lakewood became the world and New York is becoming the opposite. All right. Point B: What's the inyan of the maasahot? According to the Shlah, it's galut. According to the Chida, it seems to be inyan of hitbodedut, like a me'arah, to go into the cave. Sefarim also write, the Chaim speaks about this, he speaks Parsha, it's also about ma'aleh nitzotzot, that you go into the midbar to be ma'aleh nitzotzot, like Mitzrayim, right? By yetzias Mitzrayim, ki Mitzudashein badagim, they cleaned it out from all the nitzotzot. Now, you guys don't have to be explained about nitzotzot, because you guys live in that world. But I'm going to give you a little bit of a litvisha, a little bit of a baal mussar's understanding of nitzotzot, and that is that we go to places to fix and to gain and to work against the yetzer haras of those places. So when we say we went to America to be melad the nitzotzot of whatever America is, well, we can look at it that there's some kind of nitzotzot with Kabbalah and so on and so forth. But we can also look at it in a very, very, you know, grounded way, and that is that there's a yetzer hara here, and we have to fight that yetzer hara. And so is the tikkun in every galut that we went. In every galut, we have to what? We have to go and make sure that we fight that galut. I've told you many times that a Jew is supposed to not take it. He's supposed to work on not taking in the galut of the people around him. I've told this to you as many times as well, that there's two Mashiachs, Mashiach ben Yosef and Mashiach ben David. And my grandfather used to say over, why do we need two Mashiachs? One is to take the Jew out of galut, and one is to take the galut out of the Jew. We need two types of Mashiachs, yeah? Point: when you live in Egypt, they took from Egypt, so we had to fight that. They say over that when two Jews fight—my grandfather used to say this—when two Jews fight, it's not the Jews that are fighting. It's the Galitzian guy in him that fights together with the Polish guy and the other guy. That's why a Galitzian Jew fights with the Polish Jew, or a Sefardi with an Ashkenazi. It's the Moroccan fighting with the German, or the German fighting with the Syrian. I don't know. It has nothing to do with the Jews in us. Okay. The point being that galut is to make sure that we don't take it, that we don't fight, and that we don't absorb. That's called ma'alini tzoitzes. That's called ma'alini tzoitzes, yeah. And that's the pshat, ki al pi Hashem. The Chida brings down a very nice pshat over here. Why were the travelings? I told you, some say that the ksiva was al pi Hashem, and some say the masa'ot were al pi Hashem. Why are the masa'ot al pi Hashem? Says the Chida, because only Hashem knew how long it was important to stay in each place. V'zehu al pi Hashem, says the Chida in Pnei David, ki Hu yodea talumos. Hashem knows deep inside the person how much time tzarich b'chol masa l'sakno, how much each place that they went to, how much time was needed to be metaken. And that's pshat al pi Hashem, that it was according to Hashem He dictated. Even Moshe Rabbeinu, who was the manhig, couldn't know for sure when the right time to move on is. Maybe we still have to work on this midah. Maybe we still have to do things over here. So this...

Mosai is tikkun. Now let me explain to you something, peledik. The Shem Mishmuel brings a meyridike thing. You know the Shem Mishmuel? Ah, Shem Mishmuel is unbelievable. Shem Mishmuel says that he brings from the Zohar HaKadosh that the samach mem, his dwelling place is in the midbar. Oh yes, sure. And I want you to know he wasn't the only one to say it. The Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh says it in this week's parsha as well. You should read it. He calls him the belial. Yeah, says the Ohr HaChaim HaKadosh, the belial, you hear, is kona mekomo. His dwelling place, where he's koneh shevita, which means he—this is where he lives—is in the midbar. And he says that's why there's nachashim v'akrabim over there. Why is there so many scorpions, snakes, and lizards? And the answer is these are his chassidim. These are the chassidim of the samach mem. The Ohr HaChaim says, Sha, sha, sha, take it easy. Let's see what it says. You ready? We're gonna read it inside. Listen to the Ohr HaChaim. Come, come here. It's getting hot in here. What's the— You want to put on the air conditioner? No, put on the air conditioner. He says like this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, not putting on the air conditioner. Here it is. Yeah. One second. Here it is. Achi yisbayer, al pi divrei anshei emes. He brings a Zohar Kadosh, shehalichas Yisrael bamidbar haysa levarer nitzotzei kedushah, she'onas ish habliyaal, hachoneh bamidbar hashomem. Ish habliyaal — who's ish habliyaal? It says the Satan, the Malchamavis, whatever, he's all the same, yeah. So where does he rest? Hachoneh bamidbar hashomem, shesham... And that's why they swallow. He says, very interesting. See what he says: v'darko sham, adas Hashem lo hotzi boi lo mipiv. It's interesting, huh? You notice snakes are big swallowers. They swallow you up. Yeah, big snakes. The big snake swallows a guy whole, you know that? It's unbelievable. You know, I want you to know something interesting, something very interesting. The snake does not chew. It has its, its, its — what do they call that? It has its muscles. The muscles contract and just swallow, just takes in the whole, the whole thing. You knew that? You pull inside, you pull it. It's unbelievable stuff. You don't bite, you don't eat, you pull, just swallow inside. It swallows you. I know, everybody. It's a fact. This big snake, why I'm sorry, it's like a really big snake, this. No, but all snakes do that. What they do... Haflufella. Haflufella, you hear? L'hotzi bolei mi'piv. Wow. No, so the sun tries to swallow you alive, and you're supposed to fight that. And where is his main, main kingdom? It's in the midbar, with the snakes and the akravim and the scorpions. This is, you know, whenever you see a thing of a monster, right? So they have his castle, and who are his chassidim around him over there? You have the snakes and the goblins and the... all the chash... The midbar is full of that. It's full of that. You ever go to Harlem, you'll find it over there. Now, the kitzur, so this is the pshat in fighting the yetzer hara. Tikkunim, we go there to be mesaken. Okay. So let's discuss a little bit, just the me'ein shebeme'ein, because the truth is, the masa'ot are so deep. Like I explained to you, A, it's going to be the future journey of Klal Yisrael through the dorot. As a matter of fact, the Chida brings down, Eileh masa'ei Bnei Yisrael.

So he brings down from Harav Kotnot Or that the whole Jew is masaei Bnei Yisrael, a wandering Jew. You notice that Jews don't stay still in one place. Schwartzes, if you put them in Harlem, they're gonna stay there till the nuclear war. That's it. They're there till they become present. They stay and stay and stay in the same place. They destroy the homes and you got to build them new homes, but they stay. They stay on. Jews never stay in one place. Jews never stay in one place, you know? Even when they came to America, since we've come to America, you know how many places we went to? We went from Brownsville to Bronx, and Bronx to Crown Heights, and then from— no, it's like unbelievable. The moving around is unbelievable. Saying the Jews, when they came here, they first went to the Bronx, and then they went to Brownsville, then from Brownsville they went to Crown Heights, and all over the place, and then they moved to Brooklyn. Now they're starting to move to Lakewood. I mean, it's an interesting phenomenon. It's pellucid. This is the pshat: Harav Kotnot's פירוש, אלה מעשי, כאן רמז התורה שילכו בגלות. Jews travel. The wandering Jew is part of its makeup. אלה מעשי בני ישראל. What do I want? So I want to tell you that part of wandering and going from place to place is part of our makeup. So when are we going to understand the masa'ot, which is deep? So the Netziv says al pi Hashem, that that's also al pi Hashem, that one day, לעת קץ, and the time of the end of Bnei Basar, when humanity will end and Mashiach will come. Danu bin nitbarer inyan hamasaot. The journey that we take in this world as a nation, and possibly as an individual, will become clear. It will become clear le'et ketz, in the end of days. We'll understand what we're here for. We'll understand why the Jew had to go from Spain to Europe to America to all over the place. This is going to be the explanation to the journey, the talich of Yisrael, le'et ketz, says the Netziv. And that's al פי ה'. Let's discuss a little bit. You're running away for the best part. You better come. You're going to miss. Okay, make it fast. I'll try to repeat it. Make fast. So let's discuss a little bit, a me'ein sheb'me'ein, to understand what the masaot are about. I saw over here in Yalkut Reuveni, he brings from the Tziuni a very interesting pshat. He brings from the Tziuni, what is Etzion Gever? One of the places they stopped was Etzion Gever. So hold on to your seats because you're going to get a very, very interesting Tziuni, a midrash, and I'm going to explain it and you're going to be fascinated. So be prepared. כתבו המקובלים שנקרא עציון גבר. What's Etzion Gever? What is it? לפי שהיו בו אנשי מועצות, מועצות, people who give advice, דבקי בחכמת תרנגול, that they are acquainted, they're knowledgeable in the chochmah called tarnegol. Hanikre gever, which are called gever. A tarnegol is called a gever, right? A rooster. So therefore, since they're baki, they know this chochmah of tarnegol, they give eitzot. This is etzion gever. I don't know, we'll soon see. Etzion Gever has something to do with these people who give advice, and it has something to do with what? With the tarnegol. As a matter of fact, if you look in the Targum Yonason on the pasuk Etzion Gever, our gever, he translates Targum Yonason, tarnegol. Gever means not the person, but gever, the tarnegol. Look at the Targum Yonason. You have the Targum over here? Etzion Gever. Ki hu mavchin bein yom uvein laylah. What's this gever? Gever is something very interesting. He knows the difference between day and night. Af betzuraso uvekarbalto, even in its tzurah, the way it stands, its structure, and its crown. Karbalto, he has a crown. It has like a rooster has a crown. Nimchmasim devarim nifla'im. There are tremendous wisdoms in the tarnegol. V'hameivin sod, and whoever knows the sod...

Pireach ba'avir, paga v'noga b'soitze. Whoever understands, I think the actual word is migdal. So, migdal hapireach ba'avir, paga v'noga b'soitze. Whoever understands the concept of a migdal, that's pireach ba'avir, paga v'noga b'soitze. He touches on the side of the tarnikol, and this is what this place is all about, etzyon gever. Okay, what's going on here? This sounds like such foreign concepts and words that we have to explain what it means. Okay, so I'm going to explain to you what this means. You ready? What is Etzyon Gever? Ready, rabosai? The roosters, it has a tremendous surah, and the karbalto, its crown, and there's a migdal hapireach ba'avir, and this has to do with the stop that they made in Etzyon Gever. What's going on here? Okay, let me explain to you what's going on. The yetzer hara comes in many different forms. The yetzer haras of the world doesn't have to come to you with a pitchfork, with horns, and he tells you, Come, let's go do aveiros. That's not what happens. The briah instilled in the mechanism of the briah, there's big yetzer haras. You know, the gever, the rooster, is a very interesting thing. It has a wisdom. It's mavchin bein yom uvein layla. It's mavchin bein yom uvein layla. It's wisdom. So it's interesting that the baalei eitzah, these wise men who gave advice, were b'ki b'chachmas tarnegol hanikra gever. Krus hagever is the chicken that teaches the person yom velayla, day and night. Okay. It's tzurah. You ever notice the way a tarnegol walks? Royalty. Like a gaivah, has a gevaldige gaivah, an arrogant posture. The karbaltoi is like a crown. You know, in the old films, comic strips, when they wanted to say a king, they would have the rooster put a crown on him. He was the king. In the comics. There's something about the rooster that's about kochi v'otzem yadi, wisdom. The migdal hapore'ach ba'avir. You know what a migdal is? They wanted to build a tower. You know why they wanted to build a tower? Not so lanu shem. They wanted to fight Hashem. They believed that they were stronger. They can overpower. So they're going to fly to where? To Shamayim. Do you know that there's a tremendous yetzer hara for NASA? You know what NASA is all about? NASA is all about going to the avir, to the skies. Why is it that way? And it's all about wisdom. NASA is science, tremendous science. NASA lanu shem. That's exactly what it is. NASA is notsah lanu shem, 100 percent. It's migdal haporeach ba'avir. It's an unbelievable thing. And every nation is trying to fight to have it because it shows power. It's unbelievable. If you think about it. Etzion Gever, you know what Etzion Gever is all about? Kochi v'otzem yadi. And one of the stops that they had to fight in the Midbar was this yetzer hara, Etzion Gever. You know another stop that they had to fight? Pi HaChirot. You know what Pi HaChirot stands for? The freedom of the mouth. It's also yetzer hara. Pi, HaChirot. It's also kochi v'otzem yadi. You know what democracy really is based on? Freedom of speech, which is based on the wisdom of the founders. Founders. I listen all the time and I hear the way all these talk shows, they darshen, there's no one more smarter than the founders of the Constitution. These were the most brilliant men. Ah, they fathered children from avadim. That's not a kasha. That's a chochmah. It's בכלל not chochmah to do that. Not really. What was her name over there, the Schwartz that was the einikel of Benjamin, what was her name over there?

One of them. See, from the chashuva, the chashuva Jaffes and Gahatapar, you know, different families and shvartzes and... beautiful. Chachamim niroyim. Unbelievable. No one smarted them, yeah? You know what freedom of speech is really based on? Certain koiches are in my hand. I have the right to talk. Who are you to tell me what? I can say whatever I want. Freedom. Very deep if you think about it. The yetzer hara is in the midbar, yeah? You want to hear more? I'll tell you more. Pi achiros. Pi achira, you like it. Pi achiros, I'll tell you more. Vayachnu b'Eilosh. There's a... chidah, rabosai. Ah. Vayachnu b'Eilosh. What happened here? Kashya mamash. Vayachnu b'Eilosh, you hear? What's Eilosh? How come you didn't write this down? This is very interesting. Such interesting stuff. Where are you gonna hear this? Etzyon Gever. I recorded it. Etzyon Gever. You know what Etzyon Gever is? It's davar shel peleh. It has to do with roosters and the crown of the rooster, and migla perei ba'avir, says the Tzioni. It has to do with the tower that's flying in the sky, and what's he talking about? What's going on here? Vayachnu b'Eilosh. Yeah, Vayachnu b'Eilosh. You ready? Sham yarad lahem hamann. That's where the mann was. The mann was in Eilosh. Why do we have the mann? B'schus Sarah. Shenemar, that says by her, Lushi va'asi ugot. So Eilosh is lushi va'asi ugot. Eilosh, lushi. What are you laughing? The Baal HaTurim brings this down. There's a Baal HaTurim. Turim says, eylush is lushi vasiugos. It has to do with Sarah, and the man fell there, and that was b'schus Sarah. Kach kasuv l'kuti goyne, k'moi Ashkenaz b'sefer Rabbeinu Ephraim. In truth, this is brought down in the Baal HaTurim. He says more, Rabbeinu Ephraim: Yiska, which is the name of who? Sarah. Gematria Haman. Not Haman, but Haman. See, I woke you up. Gematria Haman. So, is that how it worked? I always—I'll tell you why. I have a son that asked me, what does—little boy, he asked me, what does Haman have to do with Haggadah? ... And his brothers till today don't forgive him for saying that. Every year Pesach he gets it over the head. You remember Haman? More, you—I'm arguing to you, you didn't know you thought Haman has to do with Haggadah. All right. The kitzur: gematria Haman. V'chein kasuv b'sefer Paneach Raza. Ulfi ma shekasavnu b'aniyus lidrosh l'shvach, so he's going to explain it, the chiddah. Haman, Sarah, Yiska, what's going on here? Says the eilu yechidah. Says the eilu yechidah, d'Avraham Avinu olav ha-shalom, ma ma'ashloisiv, v'stamem kemach. Avraham Avinu said kemach. Tell me, is kemach better or soles is better? Kemach is better. The Gemara tells us that normal women, nashim, Sarah, they know b'orchim, they're very cheap, they're very stingy, and very jealous, right? They have a lot of jealousy and stinginess. So what happened? So Sarah answered back, she'll do soilus, soilus vasiyugai. She made soilus, okay? Aval Sarah yatza michlalan. Sarah wasn't eina Sarah b'chaverta, right? Sarah v'loi Sarah. That's why her name is Sarah, not Sarah. You like that? Yeah? That's a chiddush. Can you imagine if a guy's wife's name is Sarah, and she's really not a good wife, so you start calling her Tzara. Why not? Sarah is Sarah. My tzudela, my tzudela. Anyways, aval Sarah yatza michlalan, v'hi Sarah v'loi Sarah. Hashta asi shapir, now it makes sense. Sarah amra, eilu soilus. She said, I'll make soilus. Therefore, l'zeh b'maaseh eilu zachu l'man b'schus Sarah. So therefore we were zocheh to man, because lo shehi vasiyugai, so she wasn't cheap, she wasn't stingy. So eilu we were zocheh to man. Okay, now I'm going to explain to you what this is all about. You ready? Okay, but you said... Avraham said kemach. So he said... Sarah said, no, soilus is better. Why is soilus better? Because it's fine, refined. No, soilus, no.

Soilus vasiugois, no? She said she brought soilus is better. No, soilus is refined flour. She gave soilus. Avram said, Lushi vasiugois, and she said, What? Soilus. I'm gonna give good one. Kamach. Avram said kamach. She said soilus. Okay, so I want to explain to you like this. Why is the person tzarah b'chaverto? Where does it come from? You know, women have very bad techunos. They're very jealous. Women are jealous. Scorn of a jealous woman is the worst thing. You know, women are extremely jealous. You know, matter of fact, if you ever sat listening to a ladies' conversation, it's all about the dress. This one's dress and this one's that and this one, and she has, and it's all about jealousy, yeah? Okay. Tell me, were you pasul to be jealous about the money? No. It wasn't shayach to be jealous, nothing to be jealous about, because every person had the same. It looks the same. It sounds the same. Everybody got the same, and even if you picked more, you had the same anyway. Sicha. What is sicha? She was sicha. Her cook. Sicha is to look. Her look was not with jealousy. So, bzechus this Klal Yisrael got the mon in the midbar. When they came to Elush, you know what they had to be metaken? This inyan of jealousy. The whole trip was tikunim and tikunim and tikunim. They had to be metaken Etzion Gever. They had to be metaken Pi HaChirot. They had to be metaken this inyan of lushi, kinah, kinah, dizahav, all the different tikunim. Talking about, like I explained to you, the big events that happened in Klal Yisroel. That's not the discussion of the masa'ot. The masa'ot were the tikkunim, the daily trials and tribulations against the yetzer hara. Let me show you a little more. You know, there's a place called Charda, and there's a place called Metika. Saw the place Metika? Let me show you. It's one of the places here. Vayisu meCharda, and then they went to Metika. What's Metika? Here. Vayachnu beCharda, tachas Mitka. Says the Bardichever, רבי יצחק: Charda, they learned at that place not to fear the world, but to fear the Eibishter. Mitka, they learned how to appreciate sweetness in Torah and mitzvahs, every step of the way, every step of the way, yeah. And we could go on, more and more if you'd like. There's a very interesting Baal HaTurim that explains the shoresh of each one of these places. So look at the Baal HaTurim, very interesting. Yes, the Baal HaTurim on the masa'ot, it goes through every place. What's the shoresh? No, but you'll need a rebbe to sit there and explain to you what's behind it, but the shoresh... So I'm just showing you, Mitka, Bardichever says, Metiku. Metiku. You see the Baal HaTurim? You have it over there? Go ahead, read it a little bit. Read. No, the big one that he goes through all the different names. Go ahead, he has a whole bunch of names over here. Okay, so the point is that this was the travels with the tikkunim. Now I'm going to show you a little bit more. The Chida learns that when you read Parshas Masai, that itself is the tikkun for these things. V'nakdimah sheshamati mi'shem hamekubalim, writes the Chida in פני דוד. The mikra Yehudi b'Torah, neviim u'ksuvim, binyanei umos u'kiyotza. When you read about all the nations, they've went to find Amon and Moav and Og and mevarer ניצוצות הקדושה. This is the birur. This is how we do it. We're not going through the midbar. You're going to go through the midbar now. Moshiach comes, we might have to go through the midbar, like Rabbeinu Bechaye says. So how do we, in our daily lives in the Torah, through reading the pesukim? The tikunim come through reading the pesukim. And this is the pshat he brings from the Gemara, Chazya d'amar Moav, mizgar bechu, because there were osukim binyanei Amon and Moav. The Baal Shem Tov writes that mem-beis masa'ot is not only the general Klal Yisrael, but each individual in his life, his neshama goes through mem-beis masa'ot. Very interesting. What a masa'ot. We have to discuss that. You look at Degel Machaneh Ephraim, he quotes the Baal Shem Tov. It says that each neshama...

Has its own journey, and in his journey as well, there's mem-bet masaot. You know, sometimes we change a job. Sometimes we go from a yeshiva to a job, or from a job to a yeshiva. You know, everybody has different... He's laughing, huh? I must know you very well. We asked a question, got an answer. The masaot of a person in his life is l'taken, l'taken, l'taken. There's reasons. There's reasons, there's things, there's a whole map for each individual, what he has to be mesaken. I want to show you something interesting. It says, Zeh sefer toldos Adam. B'yom bara Elokim es ha'adam. Divrei Hayamim begins with this: Zeh sefer toldos Adam. In Kabbalah, it's brought down that every person is like a sefer. And in the Torah, there's masaot. So too, the individual is going to be writing his masaot. Zeh sefer toldos Adam. It's a book. You notice that we make Kaddish when a person dies, and we make Kaddish at the end of a masechta. They say that every person is a masechta for himself. Some people have a hundred blatt, a hundred dapim in his masechta. Some people have different numbers. But it's a life. Yeah, it's a life. It's a whole life. I want to show you something interesting. If you notice, the pasuk begins, Maseihem l'motzaeihem, and motzaeihem l'maseihem. It starts, goes back and forth. It's all the mefarshim ask this question. Pashut pshat, Rabosai... You travel, the stops that you make, it's all to get to the destination, right? When you get off on the highway to get gas and a chreis and a Danish, it's all a stop, but it's not important, the stop, right? No. It's to get to the destination. The way we travel is a little different, you see. We travel and the stops have meanings. It's true there's maitzeim l'maaseh. There are stops for the travelings, but there's also travelings for the stops. Stops we make in life, my boys, are part of the journey, you see. It's all part of the journey. It's all not about getting gas and danishes, but the point is that the stops that we make, the stops that we make, it's all part of the big cheshbon. The Bitzalel Blazer in Kochvei Or explains, the maaseh doesn't have to even mean literally travel. Maaseh, rabosai, can mean when a person goes from one stage of his life to another. He goes from 12 years old to a bar mitzvah boy, about bar mitzvah boy to a teenager, a teenager to a married. Stages in life. And just like motzaeihem means stops, why were there stops? Why'd they just keep on traveling? You think Hashem can't make miracles that you travel nonstop? So he brings from the mefarshim that the motzaeihem were like chaniyot, stops that what? Rest, to be mitbonen, to take in the lessons that were learned. You have to stop to pay attention to what happened. Here I stop. What did I learn from this? There are stops in the trip if you keep on traveling through life that way. You don't make stops to listen and to think and to take in what you learned, and the life just runs by you. Because you don't want to end. Koych v'yor, bitul b'latzon, okay? Baalei mussar, so you see that all the Sifrei Kabbalah and the Baalei Mussar, they all have the same concept, that the masa'ot of a person needs stopping to contemplate, because life is a journey. And the masa'ot of a person is eileh masa'ei Bnei Yisrael. Just like Klal Yisrael as a whole has a journey, the individual has his journey as well. I want to tell you over one more very interesting point. If you notice, I don't know if the Sefardim have such a custom, but Ashkenaz has a custom that when they say the masa'ot, they sing it. There's a certain song that they use. It's a shirah. Just like by the shirah, they use the same thing. You heard this probably. They do it like a shirah. What's the point of that? And you know what the answer is? When you look at the stops, sometimes they're not pretty, sometimes they're hard. But when you look at it as a full journey, the entire picture, it's shirah. It's a song because it has all harmony. There's a pshat to it. There's a reason for it. There's an understanding to it. Az yashir Moshe. Yeah, az yashir Moshe. What's az yashir?

Oz, that he's saying. Why? So we said, first he made a mistake. He said, Oz, me'az dibarti el Paro. The beginning when I spoke to Paro, it was bad. Then later on, when he saw Kriyas Yam Suf, he said, Oz, the same thing, Az yashir. So what's the shir? When he saw the beginning, it was bad. But then he saw the end, and he realized the whole picture of it. And you realize, shir, it all fits. That's when you start to have shirah. That's when you start to have song. This is the pshat, the menbeis masa'ot. You're right, this part of the journey was not that pretty, and this part was difficult, and this was this. But all in all, look at the whole picture of the journey of life. Oz yashir Moshe. There's a lot of shirah involved, a lot of shirah. So this is the point. Pinkus, a person has to keep records of his journey. You know why? Because if you don't keep records, and the journey is once, one year I did this, two years later I did that, that, the journey has different parts to it. And you see the Yad Hashem. You see that Hashem is there for you, and you see Hashem is behind everything. And each person has a detailed journey where he's supposed to go. You keep record of that, and you'll see tremendous masa'ot within the person's life. This, rabosai, is eilu masa'ei Bnei Yisroel, eilu masa'ei Bnei Yisroel. Tikkunim, tikkunim, tikkunim. Everything we jump in our— every situation that we get into is— no, I want to just add one more thing. You know, galus, rabosai, doesn't have to mean that I'm kicked out of one land and I go to another land. You know, we live in America, and we're in galus. But we're not really in galus. We're really in galus? We so in galus, is it true? Seems like we're pretty much set, you know. We have jobs, we have life. And the answer is, then the galus comes inside, and we're not settled inside. There was a time that a Jew felt very menucha with himself, and his not menucha came from the outside. Today we're in the opposite situation. The outside's full of menucha, and the inside is all galus, all matzav. So I want to tell you something very scary. You know, I love you all dearly, and I come from far to teach you, so I don't care if you realize that. I'm not afraid to say what I want to say. I say the truth. You like it, good. You don't like it, you can leave. I don't care. That's how I talk in life. Works. I talk like that. Here you guys are too sweet for that. Here I have to tell you how much I love you. There I have to tell them how much I hate them, and that's a place not like you. Over there I tell them I hate you, you should go jump in a lake. Oh, really good, good, give me more. They're laughing. My first proposition, they came to my house, a group of guys, wealthy, gvirim adirim, the richest guys are like, they want me to become their rav. I was right out of here from Eil Simcha, the Bucharians are sweet people, you know, to be sweet with them. And that's how I grew up in my home also. I didn't know the outside world yet. I was a little bit rough, you know, I didn't know the rough edges on the outside world. So they're sitting there and they ask me a question: What happens if in shul two people are fighting? How do you deal with it? I said, What do you mean, how do I deal with it? I go over to each person, and I explain to them that it's not kedai to fight, and ahavas Hashem and ahavas Yisrael. Right there and then it was over. It was finished, done. So, like, after the whole conversation, they came back and they said, You said this, this we didn't like. I said, But what did I say? I said that you should fight. He said, Yeah, we didn't like that. We like it hot and heavy, he tells us. We like, you should give it to us between the eyes and say, You're right, you're wrong, and you should scream at the guy who's wrong. And I'm going, What are you talking about? I had no idea which world I was coming to. I was so taken back by it, and I was like, Whoa. I know I have to stay outside world. So here I can tell you I love you dearly, so I'll tell you what I love you dearly. Hashem Yishmuel brings down, if you notice that right after the maasahot, we have Arvei Miklat. It's also galut. It's not interesting. How many Arvei Miklat are there? Also 42. 42. Mem-bet. Again, the shem Hashem with mem-bet. Very interesting. Hashem Yishmuel. The beginning of the parshas maasahot, mem-bet, galut. Arvei Miklat, galut. We don't have Arvei Miklat today. We still have the galut of Arvei Miklat. What causes that?

So he says an unbelievable thing. Retzicha b'shogeg. Today nobody kills b'shogeg. We don't have this whole situation. But מצד זרע לבטלה, he says, is a type of hezek b'shogeg. It's in the same realm. It's killing. It's murder. Retzicha. So true, there's no chiyuv with edut and the mitah and so on and so forth, but it's in the same thing like הורג בשוגג, and you go to galut for that. Who knows if the galut within is not because of this. The Steipler writes clearly that when a person is not shomer in these inyanim, he's very unhappy. Very unhappy. He writes many letters. He writes about it, many, many, many, many letters. He said the atzvut of the daughter today is based on this. You're not shomer in these inyanim, you're not happy. Atzvut. It brings atzvut. Now, could be it makes a lot of sense, everything. You know, you have to understand, a person is not inside clean, so it's like a midbar. You know, a person like a midbar right away takes in himself. The Ohr Hachaim says, kana bli'al, right? He's koneh, the bli'al is koneh himself the midbar. It says clearly in the pasuk, Borek ein bo mayim. Aval nechashiva, keravim yesh bo. The Baalei Mussar always say, Borek ein bo mayim, ein mayim ela Torah. The minute there's no Torah, what happens? Nachashim v'akrabim come in. You make empty space for the yetzer hara, like a midbar inside, he's gonna come. He's gonna come. This is the atzvut. This is the galut that we live in. Outwardly, pretty good. Homes, we come, we go. Freedom, freedom. But we don't have what, rabosai. We don't have insideness. It's the galus, terrible, terrible, terrible galus, terrible. And this is it. We cause with our sins, we cause our own galus. We cause our own galus. We have to fight. Mem-bet masaot means to fight. I want you to know, he brings very interesting that it's gematria gevurah. Chida brings down, the teimus eilim maasai, gematria gevurah. Yeah, eilim maasai, gematria gevurah. Shehayah tzarich gevurah lhotzi la'or nitzotz hakedushah min hamidbar hagadol v'hanora. It takes strength to do masaot, to fight. It takes a lot, a lot of strength, rabosai. Strength, gevurah, gevurah. You know, it's much easier to let life just fly by you. Yeah, come, go, yeah, have a good time. You drink a coffee, you drink a piña colada, you come, ... food, dancing, that, checka checka machaka, checka machaka, whatever the music you guys sing over there, right? Chinga machinga. What's it called again? Sounds like apes dancing in the wilderness, chinga machinga. Shein. All right? Life can run you by that way. It's a lot of gevurah, to follow the stops, to learn from them, to be metaken along the way. I wish you each one to finish your journey properly with the mem-bet masaot, bishleimut, biroi, lekabel haTorah, lachnis l'Eretz Yisrael.