Learning From Reb Usher Freund zt"l

Good morning everybody. שבוע טוב. Month of תמוז, לעילוי נשמת בת יפקן בת ישראל, לוי בן יוסף and Freda בת יצחק. Today is a very special day.

My parents sponsored today, and that's why I wanted to make sure we have, one of the reasons I wanted to make sure we have שיעור today, is my grandfather's יארצייט, חיים יצחק בן רב נחום ישראל הכהן, on his 25th יארצייט, my זיידי. I was very, very close to my זיידי. And just to tell you a beautiful thing that happened this year, 25 years later, that we actually found out. I think I may have shared this with you.About my grandfather's name, he was born as זעליג יצחק.

Okay? That was my grandfather's name, זעליג יצחק. My grandfather, עליו השלום, comes from גער חסידים, like straight up. I've mentioned many times that my mother's maiden name was ווארשאוויאק, that's seventh, I'm the seventh generation directly from the חידושי הרי"ם from גער. In World War II, my grandfather was fighting in the American army.

He got severely wounded, very badly. He was fighting in the Pacific, the Pacific jungles. And he got, he got a, he also won the, the Purple Heart and all these different things. He was really a גיבור לוחם.

So, when he was פצוע קשה, when he was badly injured, well first of all, I, I didn't know this piece till this year. At a certain point, my my grandfather's name became חיים יצחק הכהן, but even though it was זעליג יצחק, he was born as זעליג יצחק. But he has, you know, great-grandchildren with the name חיים, but I never knew why. Till this year, one of my cousins who does like family research told me that when my grandfather whose יארצייט is today was severely injured, his father, רב, my great-grandfather, רב נחום ישראל הכהן, couldn't, he needed, he needed to speak to his רבי, the גער רבי, the אמרי אמת, but he was, it was too hard during the war to get in touch.

So he went to the, did I tell you this? He went to the פריערדיקער רבי. He went to the פריערדיקער לובאוויטשער רבי, and the פריערדיקער רבי added the name חיים and he had a רפואה שלימה and he made it out. Wow, what a story. I couldn't believe it when I found this out because my my my my my obsession with the פריערדיקער רבי, because of Reb Shlomo has been full on blazing for for many years.

And then to think that my grandfather's, you can say my grandfather's life was saved because the פריערדיקער רבי added this name to him. Anyway, today's his יארצייט and ברוך השם he has so many אייניקלעך all over the world, but mainly in ארץ ישראל. Elder, you know, not אייניקלעך, I guess what do you say after אייניקלעך? Yeah, they're still אייניקלעך. It's not, you know, grandchildren, it's great-grandchildren.

Now he has great-great-grandchildren. Anyway, it should be a מליץ יושר for all of us in שמים to bring the גאולה שלימה ואמיתית. אמן. All right, we're finishing today this wonderful, wonderful, beautiful letter from רב אשר.

Um, we're on, I think there are ספרים in the, is there, are there still ספרים there in the, in the first cabinet? Okay. We've been, this is the third, this is the third שיעור we're gonna be doing on this letter, but it's, uh, this has struck a chord by a lot of people. And we're going to finish it today. We began this letter, one that tries to understand why he has to go through so much pain.

Why he has to go through so much suffering. Um, we began this letter a few weeks ago where רב אשר had a שאלה. He had a question. The question was that חז"ל say that people have a hard, hard time but, אילמלא הקדוש ברוך הוא עוזרו, אינו יכול לו.

But if God doesn't help him, he has no כח, he won't be able to do anything. And רב אשר is saying to me, if God doesn't help him. Everything is God. God doesn't help him.

And that's exactly been the point of this, of this whole letter. We're on דף ה' on the top left column.Every, when we say if God didn't help us overcome, we wouldn't be helped. What are we referring to when we say if God didn't help us? This is רב אשר's, I think this is a, this is a big, big חידוש. ואין לנו אלא להישען על אבינו שבשמים שבידו הכוח הגדולה הגבורה, לתמכינו בעת משברי החיים that only God could help us and support us while we go through crises that המציפים אותנו that make us like almost choke, ומאיימים לבלעינו חס ושלום, and threaten to swallow us up.

ואין מצב שיוכל בן האנוש להחזיק עצמו בלי שיוה ה' לנגד עיניו תמיד ולהזכיר לעצמו חטאותיו תמיד. This is what we said, this is I think this is where we got to last time. וזהו שאמרו חז"ל, אילמלא הקדוש ברוך הוא עוזרו, אינו יכול לו. This is what חז"ל mean when it says if God didn't help, doesn't help, there's no way you can get through anything.

But רב אשר says like this, היינו, שמחובתו של האדם לדעת תמיד בעת נסיונו ובעת שהקדוש ברוך הוא עוזר, כי עזרתו היא מאת ה'. That's one thing. I have to know. עזרי מעם ה' עושה שמים וארץ.

But that's not all. וכי עצם יסורים הם הם עזרתו. This is the hard thing to swallow, but that also בדיוק, the tests, the hard stuff are also השם's way of helping me. Now you want to smack me in the face as I say that.

You want to close this ספר, run home, be done with this stuff. But listen, what what did he just say here? The, you know when the, you know when the gig becomes smoother? You know when you feel the help? when you feel that, you know when you really feel the help from השם? You feel the help from השם when you acknowledge that the tests that you're going through and the hard stuff is also falls under the category of help from השם. Because that's everything we learned the last two שיעורים. Once a person acknowledges that my set of trials and tribulations are custom made for me, no one can do anything to me.

It's just so hard to buy into, to swallow that. צריכים להודות לה' על הרע כמו שמודים על הטוב. Right. יפה.

It's a nice statement of חז"ל. Good luck. He's elaborating on, on that. I think you're, that it's not, it's not that it's just good for you.

It's elaboration, it's internalization. Yeah, it's internalization. It's not elaborating, it's basically saying, understand what help from השם means. Help from השם doesn't mean when you're suffering, השם sends you a lifeboat.

Real help from השם is the actual suffering. is acknowledging, בדיוק, is acknowledging, and like Eli said, internalizing that my פעקאלעך is also part of עזרה מעם ה'. Much easier said than done, boys. This is like a very, no, great, in שיעור.

Good luck later today, huh? Need more tools for that. You need, you need to transform yourself almost to this, to this new state of of being. Yeah, Eli. I remember once, I mean I can bring 100 examples.

One. Bring one. It was, he's like, it was, he was a ראש כולל. A ראש כולל, yeah.

I've heard this most and I know it helped a lot. And, um, he kept saying, he was doing really difficult things towards me, maneuvering, pushing me away. And, uh, he said, he kept saying to me, \"It's all השם." The whole time. I'm just a שליח from השם.

As he was, So he's giving me like, this, this is like probably the worst way. You don't, because it's the worst thing. You need to work that yourself, not be told by the person. Right.

Because when the person says it to you, it triggers, it's not, it's not. Right, that's from you. That's about, that's about גאווה type of, Whatever it is, it's just not. that's in.

The yeshiva is not there anymore. Okay, it makes sense. Hard time in recruitment the next year. It's true.

It's like, no one, this is what I always tell people, like never go to a שבעה house and tell people, you know, um, What's that? Right. השם is in control. גם זו לטובה. You'll see it's all for the best.

Like, no, no, no, no. Be with the person in their pain. That's like, but the opportunity, like this is what's so beautiful what he's saying over here, is the opportunity to feel, עזרי מעם ה', I think can only come from a person's own self-internalization of my פעקאלעך, the צרות I have with my children, חס ושלום, or whatever it is, when I when I when I acknowledge it's custom made for me, it doesn't mean I accept it and I'm okay with kids suffering. But what it means is that I look, I internalize the experience as part of עזרי מעם ה'.

This is, this is my, this is the perfect, this is the perfection of me going to figure things out. You know, Judy Brot was, was my, our dear, dear sister, Rebbe Tzion's best friend, who was learning with us all the time, was by us for Shabbos three weeks ago. I remember something she told me many years ago, when her two boys were really little, and how Reb Shlomo, I think I told this to you guys once, Reb Shlomo asked her, how, how, how are your kids? Like, I forgot what the question was, how are your kids, how she said, \"Oh, they're they're they're trying my patience.\" right? And he said something like, \"No, sister, they're perfecting your patience.\" Again, it's an easier said than done, but if I approach life like that, if I approach what I'm going through like that, it starts to feel like help, meaning even the pain starts to feel like this was custom made for me to, to blossom. But again, don't pull this trip on somebody else.

This is, The only thing I could think of is one moment at a time. Because you try to apply this across the board, it's not so easy. everything in one shot. It's not so easy.

One moment at a time. Okay. ויתר, שאם לא ישי, you guys see where we are? On the second column. On דף ה', one, two, three, four, five, six lines down in the second paragraph, שאם לא, שאם לא ישים האדם לליבו כל זאת, שאם לא יאמין כי יסוריו מקרבים אותו ומביאים אותו לתכלית תיקון נפשו, הרי בוודאי ובוודאי שלא יוכל לו.

You know when you, you know when you're not able, you know when you won't be able to do anything right from, not have any idea how to go about life? If you look at your bag and your פעקאלעך and in your heart you're kind of saying, "אבשיטער, I think you made a mistake.\" There's a miscalculation. There's some kind of a mis, yeah, I, he could, she could, this is, this is too, he says, when that's your, when that's how you, when that's how you approach life, לא יוכל לו. You're right, you can't do a thing. וכי איך אפשר להחזיק מעמד בזמן היסורים והכאבים? How are you going to get through the pain? מה כי מה ידבר לליבו של אדם בעת צרת נפשו ומר לבבו אם לא שיאבק במחשבתו לא לעזוב קרש הצלה שנזרק לעומתו על ידי היסורים? לבקש ולהתחנן על נפשו לבל יסחף בגלים הגואשים בים החיים הכאובים.

רב אשר is saying, \"What are you going to hold on to? What's going to?\" I love this language. \"What's going to speak to your heart while you're, while you're gasping for air? What's going to speak to your heart? What ווארט are you looking for at that moment? What ניגון do you think's going to help you in that, in that moment? What's going to help you at that moment where you're like השם is sending you a קרש הצלה." You know what that means? Like a, like a life raft. Like a, a lifeboat, or one of those גלגל הצלה, right? And you think you have a, you have an image of what's that life vest, what does it look like? Not this. Right.

It looks like anything but this. And רב אשר is saying, the כאפ of life, listen again, I'm smiling because it sounds so deep and it's so hard and so worthwhile to to implement. This is your גלגל הצלה. This is, this, what you're going through, once you view it as a lifeboat, as a life jacket, then it becomes that.

But until you מקבל that, it feels like it, and it's the worst feeling in the world to think even for a split second, "אבשיטער, I think you, I hate to say it, who am I to say it, but I think you got it wrong a little bit. I'm not the address for this stuff. I can't do this. It's not שייך for me.

And also, I don't deserve this. Like that's for sure. Like why do I, why should, why should I have to have this צער גידול בנים? Why should I have to have this hard time with my children? I already did a תיקון for my parents. Like it's all, it's all good now.

This is a mistake.\" The moment you say, \"This is my גלגל הצלה," then he starts to, then he says, רב אשר says, \"Then it starts to feel like this is עזרי מעם ה' עושה שמים וארץ." פשוט, right? Yeah, extraordinary. ממש. Very פשוט. Yeah.

Easy. What do you want to say, Rabbi Yosef? I think, um, the hardest part of internalizing is, obviously when these things happen, הקדוש ברוך הוא does it so we can work on ourselves. There are, there are no, there are no tribulations without transgressions, right? What are those transgressions that we need to work on in order to Remember what he told us? Not the Torah. Get out of it.

He says, remember what he told us? It's גאווה to think that we could actually know for sure what caused what in our life. This is ריבונו של עולם's חשבונות. Also, let me answer your question. But it's all, in that moment where it's super painful and and tough and everything is so heavy, do you want to add more weight to you? Do you really want to add more weight to the story? I saying now what am I doing wrong more? Knowing that I'm being מתקן something.

But what if you never, but what if we learned that you can't know exactly? So then Hershi is right, then it becomes just more weight and negative feelings about ourselves. That doesn't, doesn't take us anywhere. Just to move in. I think Rabbi Ari was just saying, just understand it, it is a transgression, but don't try to understand it, because you can't when it's, when you're in that pain, you can't think and you can't understand it.

You just have to accept it. But we need to fix something. Not that, not, not at that moment. Moment, you can't do it.

You can't. Why can't the יסורים just be the תיקון? Why is it always, right, that's a good שאלה. Why, why can't it be that the יסורים you're going through may have nothing to do with something that you actually did wrong. Listen, you know how much, you know how much פעקעלעך we're schlepping from from other worlds and other, like, you have no idea.

We could never know these things, you know. Could never know these things. I'll tell you something freaky about my other grandfather. When I was 39, I couldn't figure it out.

I had this heavy, heavy, I wasn't feeling good. I wasn't feeling good, and I was going through the ענינים of like, what did I do wrong? I'm like exactly what we're saying. And, um, then I, I spoke to someone and asked me like someone that's deep thinker and. They said to me, \"Tell me something, who are you named after?\" I said, \"My father's father.\" He said, \"Did you ever, so you, you obviously didn't meet him.

If you're not, you're not ספרדי, you're אשכנזי, so you never, you name after the deceased.\" I said, \"Yeah, I never met him.\" He said, \"Well, when did he die?\" I said, \"My father was 14.\" So she said, this person, this like deep thinker, this like a רביצין, huh? She said, she asked me, well, what about his life and everything? I said, \"Well, he was married, he had two kids. They were killed by the Nazis. And then he fled the Austrian army, and then he met my grandmother who was married with a kid. They were also killed.\" So I didn't know exactly what years it were, but the second I stopped for a second and did a חשבון, she said, \"What do you mean? He was, he was 39 while he was, while his wife and kids were killed in front of him.\" So meaning, we don't understand these things, right? And and let me ask you, and then when I found that out, do you think like, now I know what to do.

No, but there's a, but there's a sense of, you know, there's something happens, you realize, זה גדול, like החיים שלנו גדולים. Our נשמות are, are very big and very much not limited to this world. And is like, I think, I think that what he's saying through every paragraph is basically saying to us, you're way bigger than you understand, and you're trying to put very finite descriptions to an infinite soul, which is, won't work. Won't work.

Our souls are eternal. Their נשמתם צרורה בצרור החיים. Our souls are, they never die. You're limiting השם to, to say that he rewards and punishes you the way that you would reward and punish somebody.

His ways are not our ways. Right. And that's just you, your head. Right.

Right. You're like that lady had a different head than your head, so she saw a different, but she's also just, could be she's right, right. I don't know. It makes sense, but I don't know.

That's her limited perception, but at least it's out of mine. So it was interesting. You're right, exactly. Exactly.

מה אני יודע? And רב אשר is saying, גאווה, the root of it is thinking you know. I know why I'm going through this. All the Talmud says to us, יפשפש במעשיו. That, that חז"ל do say that.

That יפשפש במעשיו means like, um, toss a בדק בית, clean up shop a little bit, like, you know what I mean? But, but the חז"ל don't say sit in התבוננות until you have detected what has brought upon your צרות. And we're going to say this unfortunately, if things don't change, soon on the הפטרה on a fast day, כי לא מחשבותי מחשבותיכם ולא דרכיכם דרכי, נאם ה'. Like, just get out of the, the גאווה is, I would, God punishes me the way that I would punish me. Exactly what you're saying.

You get, you got to get out of that. That's the beginning of of feeling like that the pain is an עזר. It, it actually is part of the help. That's what's so mind, that's what's a, that's the breakthrough that I feel like we're getting from this story.

You should know, from all the שיעורים we've done in the last few years, telling you, these שיעורים, we've only done about five or six of them, have me online with people every day from all over the world, it's these תורות from רב אשר. This is, this is, this was meant for our דור. This was meant for our דור. I actually called the person that introduced me to רב אשר on, on Thursday, on Wednesday.

Wednesday. And I asked him, I told you who introduced me to him? The singer Yehuda Glantz. He was a חסיד of רב אשר. And I was staying in his house 25 years ago in the summer, and he, I, I for, whatever the reason was, I didn't go with him to go see him that night, but the way he spoke about him, and he had a portrait of him in his house.

So I called to thank him on Wednesday because you never know when someone needs to hear a good word and everything, right? So I left a message, he calls me back and he says to me, \"I can't believe you're saying me this. You know I have a whole album, a half an album of songs that I wrote based on רב אשר's words. And I'm waiting to finish the album, I'm waiting for years to do, to complete it and put out a full album of רב אשר's words, songs of רב אשר's words. Let's do it.\" Huh? Collab.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay, back inside. Fourth line from the bottom, ואין כל אפשרות שהאדם ירצה ישועת נפשו כל עוד גופו מסענג בתענוגי השעה.

There's no way you really want, you know, real ישועת נפש, you know, this real salvation of your נפש, as long as you're enjoying what's going on right now. תענוגי השעה, things that just last for a second. ולכן השם ברחמיו המרובים חשב מחשבות. Next page, therefore God in his infinite mercy thought thoughts כביכול, page ו', לבל ידח ממנו נדח, so that we never are eternally estranged.

ושלח לנו יסורים, and this is אמונה, he sent us pain and affliction כמידת יכולתנו לסבול. In accordance to how much we could actually, now you choose what the word לסבול means, suffer or handle, tolerate. בדיוק. אשר הם מסוגלים להביאנו להרגיש את הרעב האמיתי.

Oh, sorry, I guess I have an older edition. That they are, they are capable of bringing us to feel the real hunger אשר ממנו אנו סובלים that we really are suffering from. ולכן נמצא שהיסורים והלחץ, the affliction and the pressure הם הם עזרתו של אדם. These are the aids of a person, וחובתנו לדעת, and therefore we're obligated to know, דעת ממש like התקשרות, כי אילמלא הקדוש ברוך הוא עוזרו, if God doesn't help us, אילמלא שלח הקדוש ברוך הוא את היסורים לאדם על מנת שיעזרו לו.

If God didn't send this pain and affliction to a person in order to help him, לא היה יכול לו. What does that mean you wouldn't be able to do anything? לא היה יכול האדם בשום פנים ואופן לסבול היסורים. Then you wouldn't be able to tolerate what you're going through. כמו שאמר דוד המלך עליו השלום, גם שם ידך תנחני.

Also there, where, what's there, שם? Meaning there in the world of pain and עינויים, גם שם ידך תנחני ותאחזני ימינך. And you'll hold me by your right hand. He's stressing exactly what we were saying before about redefining what the term help means. Help doesn't just mean I'm going to pull you out of something.

That's, there's no חכמה in that. Help is, I'm going to take you to a place where you realize that this, this, this thing itself is me saying to you, this is, this is your way of being the highest, best, most refined, מתוקן, a fixed person in this world. The יסורים themselves, the confusion themselves. Again, this is a תורה you have to, when you go, it's much better these days, but back in the day, if we would have read רב אשר before we went to like appointments at משרד הפנים or things like that, you know, it would have been, it would, it's much better today, like the, the עולים of 10, 15 years ago, 20 years ago, those things you remember? I mean, you, now everything's, I can't do this.

You have to fill out forms. השם is saying, השם didn't help me, I would have been in the bank. I said my parent or died and not saved me. Okay.

Because, like they're just, he saw me say my wife like crying. These things are the, they're the, you really start to doubt like Zionism, everything. Like, עליה, ארץ ישראל, תורה. You you come to like, like, just, it was the bank.

It was the bank for you? Yeah. Ages and pages and pages. I want to give you money. They don't want it.

No, they don't know. More work for them. They don't want, I literally fought with the manager of the bank in ירושלים. Like I'm sitting there waiting for half an hour.

He's like, I need a soup. Half an hour. Okay. I'm coming to see him.

He's on his phone. I come in like, אשרינו. מה אתה רוצה? לתת לך כסף. אני רוצה לעשות טוב, לפתוח חשבון בנק.

למה לא התקשרת? התקשרתי כל יום בשביל שבוע שתחזרו אליי, לא חזרו אליי. לא מאמין לך. I literally took out my phone and I showed him. He's like, בסדר, אוקיי, תור עוד חודשיים וחצי.

לא, יש לי, יש לי, אה, אה, זה, תור עם עם מה זה? המשרד הקליטה. אני צריך לפתוח חשבון בנק. אני לא יכול לעזור לך. arguing back and forth.

If I, like if I didn't have like a little Israeli חוצפה then, I've gone home crying. I don't give it. But what does רב אשר telling you there? That was my yeshua. Them.

What? That person. Yeah. Well, when did it feel like he has your, it doesn't seem like you felt he still has, he hasn't become your yeshua yet or you still, I ended up like, he passed me on to some other person. That person passed me on to another person.

And like I finally got to like an American who, I'll give you the contrast of that. Two years ago, two summers ago, remember we were in, we were in, uh, in Canada, and I went to go play in Camp Stone one night from, from, who? The Baal Shem Tov. Oh, as the Baal, yeah. Thinking, right.

Now what's the problem is that Nachman doesn't have an American, didn't have an American passport, right? And I'm thinking like, and my girls, all their American passport, it was, all my American passports were all expired. Now to get into Canada is not a problem, you can go in on your Israeli. That's how we got in, it was fine. But to go cross from Canada into America, you needed to show something, right? So the four girls, they you could show, they have a passport, it's expired, meaning that proves they are American citizens.

My son though, he he had nothing, right? So we're, we're, we're driving from up there and it's a long drive, but it was a beautiful drive. Passed by a, that shady place there, what's it called? Niagara Falls, yeah. That side is so shady. I don't know what it's like in New York, but the Canadian side is, it's a shady town, really shady.

So, like, you guys hung out there? On the Canadian side. The Canadian side is the better side. Oh my god, really? The falls, not, So, the falls are the falls. I'm talking about the streets, the people.

Shady, shady area. I was so excited talking about the, I thought all of Niagara Falls was this gorgeous, like, beautiful, right? We get there, I'm like, Tiffy and Orly, like, Aba, this doesn't, this is not really, I'm sure this is it? I'm like, yeah. The drive is the best. Anyway, we passed them, I'm like, oh my god, I have to be in stone in a few hours.

I'm like, what am I going to do? I already planned with Bena, I'm going to cross over alone and rent a, somehow you'll just stay in Niagara Falls here overnight and I'll meet you, whatever. They they they take us, they they pull us aside, they come out of the vehicles, go here. We had to park our car, go into this, you know, the border patrol. I'm in there with like, every, you know, כל אומות העולם, כל הנשמות עולם כללות, right? Every type of nationality, whatever.

I'm like, I'm so depressed, like this is ruining my kids' vacation. I don't know what to do. Why did I do, why did I agree to do this? Why didn't I figure out a way to, whatever. I'm sit there for, and my mind is this is like, like, happening for four hours, right? What what תיקון is this? It was like two minutes.

Till some guy, someone said Katz? We show up. ממש like one of these like white American, you know. And he's like, how come your son doesn't have an American passport? And all I did was show him that he had a טור, he had an appointment at the embassy from three months ago that we didn't make. He said, you're going to take care of this when you get back to Israel? I was like, yeah.

He's like, okay. I look at his, I'm not kidding, Officer S H A U L, okay? I don't even know if this was a real person or אליהו הנביא. The guy's name was שאול. And I and I walked through, right? Now I'll tell you something.

This ממש what happened. Part of me was so thankful and part of me was so angry. What, why was I angry? You didn't want it to be easy? Yes, I wanted it to be worse than here. But it it wasn't at all.

It was like, so there's no ענין of מאין השם, עזרי מן השם. עזרי was officer שאול and it was two seconds, right? If you want it to be worse than here you could just go to Russia. Russia, maybe Russia. They almost didn't let me on a plane.

You had to, I had to pay money in the airport to to get my passport out of the guy's hand. ייסורים. ייסורים. A hotel's comfortable, but ultimately you want to come back home.

Yeah. That, I want home to feel like the hotel. It ain't. Right, right, right.

Or nicer than the hotel, you know? I I don't know exactly, whatever it is, you know.Okay, וכל אחד. Bottom, bottom right paragraph. וכל אחד יכול ללמוד היקש לעצמו מכאביו וממחשבותיו. You ever, anyone ever go through pain here? ואולי כדאי לעורר עתה עניין הכבדות שיש לך, אשר לפי מחשבותיך, הדבר בא כתוצאה.

Oh, he's going back to what we said before. Maybe you're doing a חשבון out in your mind that the heaviness that you have is accordance to your מחשבות, that what you're, what's happening is coming as a result of. He's saying it again, ובאמת כל המחשבה הזו היא עצת היצר, הבא לטורדך מן המלחמה. It's actually making you not focused on the actual war.

והמאבק על קיומך, and the the מאבק, the struggle for your own existence. על כן וביודעו שאם יהיו לך מאבקים, הרי מר ורע יהיה גורלו אצלך. ועל כן הוא מסיט התענינותך ורצונך למאבק בו והוא מארגן הכבדות בסיבות שונות ומשונות. This is so amazing.

He's saying over here something very interesting. He's saying the יצר הרע sees that the moment that you acknowledge that this bag of mine is part of השם's help package to me, the יצר הרע will do anything in its power to try to convince you that now it's time for חשבונות. Because if you if you crack this code, he's toast. He's toast.

You have a chance now to grab a hold of your קיום in this world, of everything about your existence in this world. The יצר sees that, it's going to come out of you and be like, no, no, no, no. I'm going to make you feel like a smart צדיק right now by doing by by remembering some ווארט you heard on תשובה and thinking about like bad things you've done and and feeling like a צדיק by fixing it like that. It's automatic.

It's exactly what happens in your head. You don't even think about it. It's it's the it's automatic. That's what comes right away.Second to bottom line.

Remember, this is a letter that he's writing someone in Zurich in 1970, this is a letter he's writing to someone. אבל שמע בקולי ואיעצך. Listen to my voice and I will I will I will give you an עצה. מי כמוני יכול להבינך, אחר שהרבה סבלתי מימי חיי עד אתה מכל מיני סבל לא עלינו.

So הרב אשר doesn't get go into it. He says, but listen, I'm I've been there. I've suffered tremendously in my life. I've gone through personal, we haven't gone into his personal צרות when we learned about his life, we didn't really go into it.

But הרב אושר is saying, trust me, I have suffered tremendously in my life. ועדיין כל גופי דווי מכאובים מייסורים וממחשבות. My body is still filled with with pain over the ייסורים that I have and the מחשבות that it led me think about myself. ואף אני בחלומי אמרתי בוודאי בשל זה או זה בא הדבר.

And in my dreams, רב אשר said, I told myself, I'm going through this because of this or I'm going through this because of this. ותמיד היו מוכנות ומזומנות איתי סיבות לסבלי אשר לא היה להם למציאות הנכונה ולא כלום. And there were always reasons that I came up with that to help me get through what I what I I thought that's the way of getting through life. היום, לאחר פרק הזמן שעבר, ולאחר ששתיתי הרבה מכוס הייסורים.

Wow. Very poetic, huh? After I've drunk from the goblet of affliction for many years, זיכני השם יתברך להבין כי איפכא מסתברא. השם has let me to understand that it's exactly איפכא, הפוך מסתבר. It's really the opposite of what I thought it was.

כל אותם הסיבות שבהם תליתי חסרונותיי, all those things that I said, oh, I'm lacking 'cause I am so low, הביאוני דווקא לקריבני אל אבי שבשמיים ולראות מציאותי שאין לה קיום אפילו שעה אחת ורק היצר ביודעו כמה מסוגל מצבי הקשה לקרבני אל תכליתי. The יצר saw, the יצר knows if I'm getting closer to my תכלית, I'm getting closer and closer to my תכלית, which means the יצר ראה that I'm letting go of this calculation חשבון. חיבל תחבולות למצוא בנסיבות הזמן והמקום את שורש ומקור צרותי. So the יצר made it even harder and harder for me, but really, this is what's going on.

ואף אצלך יקירי, כן. This is why you're suffering so much because you're still stuck in סיחון מלך חשבון. You're still stuck there. Still stuck in last week's פרשה.

You're still stuck in last week, literally, yeah. That's why I waited till Sunday to do this.והנהני מבטיח לך כי אם תתעקש, if you remain stubborn and persistent במלחמתך, in your war, in your מאבק, in your struggle, תחת אשר תחפש את הסיבות למניעות. If you stay stuck to like say, I'm done trying to crack the code. But what? בשעה שהמניע האמיתי מצד היצר הרע בולטת מפני השטח, when really, the real thing that's preventing you is right there in front of you and you could call it out, תצמח ישועתך בודאי ובודאי.

Your ישועה will sprout forth for certain. רק חזק ואמץ. Just be strong and courageous. בברכות נאמנות להצלחתך, with blessings for your הצלחה.I feel like our חבר'ה have a ברכה to learn תורה like this and actually have עזר משמיים and it's because of Carduner.

It's because of יוסף קרדונר and פורים. I told you guys what happened this year? Right before, I was with him a few days before פורים in the studio for something, and I asked him what is he doing regarding פורס מפה or not. Is he, what's his מנהג if he's going to do a סעודה early in the day and then, you know, sober up before, I can't really imagine, you know, but whatever. Jerry, can you imagine him like? Whatever.

I can't really imagine that, but I I asked him like, what are you gonna do? So he said, no, no, no, אין לנו סעודה בבוקר וזה, שתים עשרה, נכנסים לשבת רגיל. So I was like, wow, he's just gonna be, he's gonna be totally ready for a normal שבת by the time שבת comes in because the way שבת and פורים came this year with Friday. And I thought about him during the day. And you came over my house Friday afternoon, late in the day, about 3:00 p.m. you came by, 2:30, 3:00 p.m. And about, I think we sat down for סעודה because we're doing פורס מפה.

I don't remember the times exactly, maybe 4:30. Could that make sense? משהו כזה, like people were doing like four, four thirty. So a little bit after you left, he calls me. And Carduner calls and I'm like, oh, this is gonna be a real sober conversation, right? I'm thinking, לבריאות, right? And I hear a new track of his in the background about תשובה.

He had just put it out that week. I hear it in the background. And then I hear someone crying. And it's him crying, but like this is two minutes into it.

And he's said to me over and over and over and over again, שלמה, these two words: חזק ואמץ. שלמה, חזק ואמץ. It's like for for like 12 minutes. I took a picture of the, I was still sober enough to, I took a screenshot of of the time because I wanted to remember this actually happened.

And he said over and over and over again these two words, חזק ואמץ. חזק ואמץ, over and over crying. חזק ואמץ. So two things I learned from that.

One is that his סעודה was definitely didn't end by 12. That's one. Two is that the צדיקים tell you stuff that you don't understand when they're saying it to you, what exactly it means, unless you're stuck in the חשבון thing of, oh, I need this right now, this חזק ואמץ for this עבירה or whatever. We're months later and I'm realizing that his חזק ואמץ ברכה to you could say to me, but I believe everything is is for us, is that if we could hold on to what he said in this letter, we have a completely different experience of going through this world, completely different.

We all know that. Completely different experience of going through this world. So I give us a ברכה to continue his ברכה, חזק ואמץ. חזק ואמץ.

יאללה. Should be good news ונהפוך הוא. איפכא מסתברא. איפכא מסתברא.