Learning From Reb Usher Freund zt"l

The week is sponsored by Miriam and Avram Deutsch, לילוי נשמת Avram's grandparents and relatives who perished in Auschwitz on כ״ד אייר. השם יקום דמם. Also, the week is sponsored by Batty and David Rich in memory of David's grandfather's יארצייט on כ״ב אייר, ישראל ישראל וולף בן יעקב. אמן.

And today is Monday, נכון? Today is Monday. לילוי it's sponsored by מינדי בראד, לילוי נשמת her mother on her שלושים, איטה בת צדוק הלוי זכרונו לברכה. So I just also want to mention that we are ברוך השם, our חבורה, חבורת אנ״ש, אנשי נחום שימן. This week is נחום שימן בן יצחק אייזיק'ס יארצייט, דוב and Tobi's אבא.

And every, all the learning has them, has him deep in our hearts filled with gratitude for his light and his השפעה on all of us. And there'll be a special יארצייט gathering tomorrow night 8:00 p.m. at עוז וגאון, that everyone should try to attend if you're able to. בעזרת השם, that's Tuesday night. Okay.

Now, I'm so thankful. I want to thank Eli for going and getting the ספרים. The ספרים are here. Grab one and pay box דוב 40 שקל.

We're going to be learning from the ספר for a while. And this is מכתבי אשר, the letters of רב אשר. And we started this letter last week. I'm going to quickly, quickly review what we did until now because we have the, we have an amazing, amazing שיעור today.Preparing it was very exciting, very humbling and obviously very, very thought provoking that leads to תפילה.

This whole, this morning שחרית, all I was דאווענען for was based on this letter. Like we'll see inside. So we began, it's on דף א. דף א.

You have דף א in front of you, the beginning of the ספר. We began by speaking about רב אשר was writing this letter in אייר תשכ״ט, exactly 55 years ago. Where רב אשר is writing to a person that obviously was having ענינים, having some problems, having some issues, whatever it was. And רב אשר says it's so interesting when you look at people that have a little bit of צרות in their life, they can't see anything else but their צרות.

They're trapped in their צרות. And then you have, and then you have other people that have much more צרות than that guy, and yet, they're living what's called חיי שלוה. They're living serenity. How could this be? How could it be?So רב אשר is saying I want to really like dig deep into into into man and who he is and where he's from, where he gets his כח from.

But what his true reality is, his true reality, like we said, is מציאות האדם היא אין. The place of me on my own, מכח עצמי, I myself am אין, am אין, nothing. Meaning I am not a, I'm not a מציאות עומד בבסיס לעצמו. I'm not my own.

It's it's hard to to say this in words. It's hard to convey any piece of this other than true, true divine revelation and experiencing this. But the more a person realizes what they're not, the more they realize what they actually have. And we see that what's given us the strength to do anything in this world, and to have the ability to do anything in this world comes from this place that's called אמונה.

אמונה is the thing that is the divide between basically ממש, the divide between all that's good and all that's an illusion. This began a long time ago, this struggle to to to see that us on our own are nothing. We were speaking about this is already happening in the Garden of Eden. We had the מחלוקת last week whether this took place right after the sin of the Tree of Knowledge or right or right before, תריץ עליון, we'll get there.

And then on and when we finished on דף ב, on the top of it over here is saying that when a person learns this and looks deep into this, deep inside this, that it's the רבונו של עולם and his אמונה in us that gives us the strength to do anything. In order to get to this recognition, each one of us according to our בחינה and our שורש נשמה, which we're going to be speaking about today. And the root of our soul, we can go through any hardship. Anyone have hardships here by the way? Never heard of it.

It's not this שיעור. Ah. Okay, let's let's let's anyone that has pain and hardship and and stumbling blocks, and that you could learn through every one of these things how helpless you truly are if you think that it's you that's running the show, that's when life begins. That's when life begins.Now, what we're going to be seeing today as he continues this letter, is explaining to us, I think the obvious truth that each of us struggles with and that has to deal with at a certain point in our lives, usually repeatedly over and over and over again.

But instead of seeing these things as like, I can't believe I'm still dealing with this, to look at it as what a wonderful experience it is to finally, to finally live, to finally live authentically, to finally not just get by. You know, I I I remember for so often when I was playing certain שמחות, I caught myself realizing, I'm just waiting, I'm just trying to like make sure that I get through this. That's when I realized this is not for me. Personally speaking.

Like when I was just trying to whatever it was, you know, I don't want to say too much because a lot of חברה that are learning with this like, did their שמחות but at a certain point in life, I played your wedding. No, no, it was much later than that. It was much later than that. No, but anything, I have to be careful.

Anybody. It's funny, what am I going to do? I'm telling you the truth, מה אני אעשה? I can't pretend this is a real thing, but I'm saying it's like this in every area in life. Once you're doing things and it's the the עבודה is, okay, I just I'm just going to get through this. At a certain point, you can't, you can't live with yourself anymore because you realize it's not what you want your life to be about.

It's not how you want to conduct your life. So, here he's going to, he's going to point to us, point out to us, משהו כל כך מעניין. Something so interesting. Look at this.

האדם, you see? I'm on דף ב, second page. האדם, this is what we're up to. האדם צריך להכיר.A person must recognize and see, שהגורם המכאיב אותו הוא דמיון המחשבה. What really causes you pain? It's nobody else.

It's not any other happening. It's not what this person did, or what that person did, or even what you did. What causes a person, what's the source of pain in people's lives? דמיון המחשבה. Yeah, I'm thinking about this.

דמיון המחשבה. What's that? Figment of imagination. Figment of imagination. That that actually is the that is the that is actually what's causing you pain.

It's not an actual it's not what someone did or didn't, it's in landmark forum language, if you know what that is. I did I did a weekend in landmark forum about, huh? No, no, no. I wish, no. Not at all.

Like they they had they would call this, uh, your interpretation of reality, right? Your interpretation of reality. But it's not exactly that. I want to stick with the figment of imagination. דמיון המחשבה.

So you have to realize, he says האדם צריך להכיר שהגורם המכאיב אותו הוא דמיון המחשבה. The figment of imagination, that's actually the cause of all your of of your pain in life. Can you explain what that means, the figment of imagination? Let's see. Let's see.

אין הוא מסכן כפי שהמחשבה רוצה לרמות אותו. I'm sorry, רב אשר says. Your מחשבה, your thoughts, your imagination want to trick you into thinking that you got a bad deck of cards. That you're a נבח.

He says, he says, but there's only one problem. You're not as נבח as your thoughts portray you to be. You're not. ומה בכך אם אין לו שלמות של ענין זה או אחר.

So you didn't get the whole shebang. So, so you weren't able to finish שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום this week. So you weren't able to make that second million that you thought you'd make by the age of 41. So you weren't able to, um, overcome a certain something.

So you weren't able to overcome the whole thing. And what does the figment of imagination tell you? You're a לא יוצלח. You're a לא יוצלח. Because in your mind, most of the other חברה are מוצלחים.

They're successful. But you are a לא יוצלח.The question he even started with, this guy saying, well, all these other people seem to be so wildly successful and have, you know, no problems and they're just easygoing and they have, that's his, I don't know if that's true or not. This guy doesn't have any problems. And I think I would ask about the דמיון, that's fine.

Then when I do feel good or happy or content. Very good. Is that a דמיון? Very good. Very good.

Stick with that. That's that's a That is the question that waits anyone that's willing to, like if you're asking that question, that's a person that's really willing to be raw and look at what's going on inside and and you have to come to that question too. It's amazing. You have, you understand? If we're saying that figments of our imagination are really the source of our pain, then why, and and we're always going to like figments of imagination that bring us, bring about our feeling שוואַך and נבח, then why, why should I be so certain that the figments of imagination that are actually saying, wow, you're ממש א הייליגער איד.

Why should I trust that voice? It's very good. He's going to address it. What about the little יהודי that was there, whose son is in the hospital with his heart? He's living through that, like constantly. That's not a figment of imagination.

There are real problems in the world. That's a real problem in the world. He's not addressing here like he he's he's addressing the person that is not in that state. He's which is most most of our pain is not that type of pain.

But he also was talking about his oldest son, and he's making a ברית for his fifth son tomorrow. So there's a guy with all the pain that he's going through, he's still doing it, continues to go through life and experiencing life and recognizing that. Very good. He's not trapped in his own self-pity.

So again, ומה בכך, when the fourth line in this paragraph, ומה בכך אם אין לו שלמות של ענין זה או אחר. So you don't have שלמות in a certain area of life. הים בגלל זה הוא מסכן ומנודה מן העולם? That makes you a נבח? And a מנודה, completely banished from the world? הלא אלפי אנשים שסבלם גדול משלו. There are people that suffer tremendously more than you.

And what? חיים חיי שלווה. They're living in serenity. ואינם נותנים על ליבם לצער לצער עצמם עד בלי די. And they don't allow pain to completely conquer them.כשמתחיל האדם לראות שהכאב שנלכד בו אינו אמת.

When a person begins to see that the pain that you got trapped in is not true, אלא שיש בקרבו שונא. You have inside of you a an an an evil little, I don't want to say what I want to say right now. We have inside of you this this this entity that's that basically hates you. שבקטן מתגבר עליו להכאיב אותו בכאבים עמוקים ועד שאול תוקד מלילות הכאב.

And you see that inside there's this voice that for some reason is always drawing you and leading you to have these this horrible general sense of life that makes you focus on a certain thing, on one thing and doesn't allow you to see what you really have and where it comes from. כל זה, this all comes ממחשבת דמיון הבל ורעות רוח. Pay close attention. This is bringing you to realize that the source of all of this is vanity.

It's vanity. It's not the אמת. And a person can then say, then why am I so attracted to feeling like a נבח? Why is it that my knee-jerk reaction to things is that it draws me to feel like a מסכן and that everyone else has it together? Why is that? But that's the source of this. That's the source where this is all coming from.

This is deep stuff.You're with him, right? You're with him, right? Yeah. This is real, this is the real deal. This is the real deal.Now look what he says. כשאדם ניצב במלחמתו מלחמת היצר.

But then when you wage war, במאבקו נגד השונא הזה נמצא בקרבו, and I wage war against this hater that's in my midst and I and I start to develop this sense of I don't want to keep on living like this. I don't want to keep on not being able to, I don't want to say to see what I really have, but it's basically I I do not want to be able to be completely consumed by these thoughts that really make, that really feel very real. They really feel very real. I I'm I I'm done with it.So then he says, that's when the journey begins.

מתחיל לחשוב. How do you do this? You start to think ולראות. מאין קיומי ועמידתי. Where does my, where does my source of existence and being able to even stand up right now, where did that come from? You know, רב זלמן used to say the following.

It's a very, he had these one-liners sometimes that really would, I'd hear him say this and I'd just be like, wow, I need to start thinking like that. He said, did any of you choose to get up this morning? We we've spoken about this before. Did any of you choose to actually wake up this morning? Why why did I wake up this morning? Because the אייבישטער wanted me to to wake up. So where's the source of my strength? By a decision that God made that I have another day.

Oh, that's where it starts. That's a really nice place to start. That really is the the inner intent of מודה אני. That that's actually the פנימיות of מודה אני.

Like מודה, I'm not חלילה belittling the gratitude ענין, right? I I I want to enhance it. You want to enhance it saying, you know, we feel, okay, from יעד, he wakes up, מודה אני was the first thing you say in the morning. Thank you השם, thank you השם. Now go deeper into the הבנה of what of what מודה, what is the under, what is the inner meaning of waking up and saying thank you השם, that you brought me back.

Living with a recognition that I'm awake today and I'm alive today because you made a decision that I I I get another day in this world. For me it was a total game changer when I I say מודה אני every morning, ברוך השם. But then I also say things in my own words after right afterwards. Beautiful.

Game changer. Game changer. Game changer. A רב told me that שלום בית, the second thing you should say is thank you השם for my wife.

She's right next to me. Right. That changed my marriage completely. Wow.

It's deep. Deep. That's very deep. איך אני מתקיים? I start to think, how how do I how do I even exist? ומחזיק מעמד.

How have I been able to even holding my own מול שונא כזה ואני הקטן והדל. How have I even been able to to to get up every day when I have this voice inside of me? How? Where where do I have the כח to do it? Really, I should be toast. Because that voice is so loud and so convincing. And so שטאַרק.

He does not, he does not give up. He does not give up. He's so שטאַרק. He's right there.

And and I'm able to still keep on going on. That's unbelievable. מכאן, רב אשר says, אני מתחיל להרגיש שיש מישהו שמחזיק אותי. Ah.

So now I start to tune into the אמת of life. Ah, there there there's someone been holding me here. I've been, someone's been holding me. Something's been holding me.

ונותן לי את הקיום וההמשך. And it's giving me the ability to exist and to continue to exist. And how? וזאת, on the top left column, וזאת על ידי שבאים אליי כל מיני סיבות המחזיקות אותי. Because there are all these different causes that have been holding me.

והסיבות הללו, and all these reasons and causes, יש מי ששולח לי אותם למען האחוז בהם. There's something that there's some, not someone, but some entity that is sending every single cause which brings to an effect that allows me to grab a hold on to life. היאחז is it sending? היאחז means to grasp. Oh, להחזיק.

Yeah, אחיזה. בכל חיי רצופים בשרשרת I just want to point out something. For him to right now ask a question in public about trying to understand a word means that you actually went out of VC for two seconds. גוואַלד.

בכל חיי, VC is victim consciousness. בכל חיי רצופים בשרשרת הסיבות שנתנו לי את כח הקיום עד הלום. Now he says, and now start looking at your whole life. My whole life are is filled with a chain after chain of causes and reasons that gave me the ability and the strength to live till this moment.

It was sent to me. I didn't, this is the point. I didn't make it up. I didn't create, usually the defense mechanisms that I create keep me in a very נבך'דיקע place.It's it's it's defense mechanism, it's survival.

But he's not talking about that. I don't think he's speaking about that over here. He's speaking about all the the bigger picture of the אמת that you start to be attuned to. Bless you.

The fact that you're able to still keep it together and still stay alive and know that there's a continuation. You start realizing, oh my God, that happened and that happened. But not that that happened. That was sent to me, that was sent to me, that was sent to me, that was sent to me.

That brought this, that brought this, this brought this, this brought this. A friend of mine once told me, I can't believe I'm saying this, whatever. It's some, it's a there's a big לימוד here. He dropped acid for the first time at a Grateful Dead show, probably 40 something years ago.

And he said, I said to him, what was the, tell me something, what what was your experience? He said, he basically said this, meaning he said, I for for a few seconds there, it seemed as if or a few hours, he doesn't remember, it seemed as if, huh? It was probably 30 seconds. Or a split millisecond. He said, every single thing that ever happened to him showed him the שלמות of his life. I said, I said, that's amazing then so what were you, what what did you what did you do with it afterwards? He said, absolutely nothing.

There's nothing I can do with it.So here, what we're saying is like to be able to come to that place without, you know, without any any kind of accelerator button is the is is divine עבודת השם, and it's like in its most majestic purity and beauty. רב אשר says, you could start when you start asking these questions from a place of like what we're speaking about, you see my whole life, my whole life, everything I went through is filled with these this these causes that were sent my way in order to realize that I'm alive till today from this. What does this cause me to feel? חש אני. And then I start to sense.

חש אני ומרגיש שיש לי אב טוב ורחום הנמצא איתי תמיד. I start feeling that I have a good and compassionate אבא that's always with me. ולא עזבני אל המקרים. This is an interesting usage of word, unless I'm missing it.

Okay. And he didn't leave me, he didn't basically throw me to the world of happenstance. I'm tuning you. I'm just He didn't throw me and chuck me into this reality of happenstance of of what what's called in the תורה והלכתם עמי בקרי, which means that the worst thing in the world is to live a life of really feeling like מקרה, like it just happens to be, like okay, it ended up like this, you know.

Yeah, chance. This is the difference between say the world of science. I'm sorry? It's the difference between the world of science and the world of אמונה. Yeah.

They see the same phenomenon, but the interpretation is just radically different. I go if I'm in the world of science, everything is a series of causes and determination and determinism and so on and so forth. And I go back and I find the ultimate ultimate source, and the ultimate source is random. Right.

And this is luck. This is okay, I ended up on the planet. Wow. Okay.

But there's nobody behind it. There's no being that cares behind it. Yeah. And and that that that that that that threw me life preserver after life preserver.

And so you're left with a very different feeling. Yeah. Then you're left with in this. Yeah.Last night, they say you can't dance at two, but you, true, you can't dance at two weddings at the same time, but you can dance at two weddings in the same night.

So last night I had to, I had to be at two different weddings. And one was here in בית ברכה, and then I had, I I I zoomed to מושב אורה in, uh, outside ירושלים, yeah. And, um, dear friends of mine from Baltimore, a guy, a musician, one of the most beautiful יידן I've ever met. It's a really a beautiful ייד.

There's a band there called Zemer Orchestra in Baltimore, Nassi Gross, remember him? Nassi's daughter, Nassi's daughter got married. Oh, really? So I got there right in time to to dance a little bit with him. And there was a ייד there named חיים קץ. You know, I don't know if you know, do you know him? חיים קץ from Baltimore also.

Yes. So he came up to me, בדיוק, yeah. So he grabbed me, I was, you think I'm, this guy is strong, big, grabbed me in the middle of the dancing and put his arm around around me while he was whispering to me, and I realized I I can't get out of this. This guy has his arm around me, he's so strong.

There's nothing I can do right now. I have to be מבטל myself till he till he says what he says, but I I just felt a little bit uncomfortable because I wanted to the dancing was right there in the dance floor, right? But I knew there's something he's telling me. And he had made עלייה. So he said to me that the גמרא that says כל הדר בחוץ לארץ דומה כמי שאין לו אלוקה וכל הדר דומה כמי שיש לו אלוקה.

The famous גמרא that speaks about the dwelling in in outside of the land is דומה, okay, it's very important that word is דומה. You have to be very careful. דומה, it's as it's it, what's the right word? It's similar to comparable to someone that doesn't have a God. But the one that lives in the land, it's it's comparable to someone that has a God.

So he's there and he's saying to me, he's like, and he gave me three examples of living this life of what you just described in the clearest way since he's made עלייה. So I just want to throw in here my little ארץ ישראל ענין that this ענין of sensing that there is no happenstance, that's according to the מרש״י לועז and the אישביצער brings this down in a few different places, that's really what ארץ ישראל is all about. There's actually that's a נקודה פנימית of ארץ ישראל. Just want to say.

All right. So I sense when I live like this, I start to sense that I have an אב טוב ורחום. I have such a compassionate and good אבא that's with me all the time and he didn't just leave me for happenstance. גם כי אלך בגיא צלמוות לא אירא רע כי אתה עמדי.

And even though I walk in the valley shadowed by death, he's with me. זה האמונה, this is אמונה. כי תפקיד האנוש מהגדול ועד הקטן, what is the purpose and the job of human being? Doesn't matter what what age, doesn't matter what point in life. It's להגיע לדבקות באמונה.

It's to reach a world of דבקות in אמונה. Like what? כתינוק המתרפק על אמו. Like a baby that's cuddling by his mother. כבן המתחטא לפני אביו.

You know what that word comes from in Hebrew? חיטוי. חיטוי means to sanitize. Like a son that's sanitizing himself before his father. We talk about אמונה a lot וכולי.

But to actually reach the level of feel like I'm cuddling, what what what think about that, to be, to feel like you're being cuddled by your אבא, that he says that that's that's אמונה. That's really אמונה.Cuddling, to be cuddled before your father, before your mother. I just want to bless us all to to taste that level of אמונה in our lives, to live that level of אמונה in our lives. והמעבר והדרך לזה, but to get there, to get there, it sounds so good, but to get there, על ידי הכאבים והמכשולים שלנו.

To get here doesn't happen after you've sat in quiet meditation for three months on top of the Himalaya Mountains and no one's bothered you and you finally reached the peak of inner calm. No, no, no. This happens through obstacles and pain. שכל אחד ואחד עובר לפי בחינתו ותיקון נפשו, that each person goes through in accordance to their זַאך, their תיקון הנפש.

And this, he says, זה תפילת דוד המלך בתהילים טוב לי כי עניתי. דוד המלך says, it's good that I have I have been afflicted, even tortured. עינוי. Why? למען אלמד חוקיך.

Because that's the way I learned you. That's the way I learned who you are. Now, others say that most of us would not would not have signed up for the gig if we knew that this is what it's like, but that's why no one asked us to to really be born or like no one asked us in this form, do you want to come down to this world. And maybe now we understand what the גמרא says that it says it's much more נוח for a person to not have to come down into this world.

Makes a lot of sense. This is this is yeah, the end game is is divine beauty, but till you get there. Oh my God, רבונו של עולם, until you get there. And we're in the world of till you get there, and this is what we're doing here.

So now he he continues here and and this Eli, I was going to ask you, I'm wondering if he only said this to this person or he says this is a כלל. ולכן עליך לדעת, so you must know. Remember, this is a letter that he's writing to someone. כי הדאגה שאצלך מן הראיה, this worry that you have from the way that you look at your life, נובע עוד מפגם בגלגול קודם.

This is really all coming, this really sprouting forth from a blemish that you have in a previous reincarnation. What do you think? It's not for it's for this particular person. Yeah. In other words, he'll he'll say different things to different people.

Right. Right. So here he's saying to this person, and it could be that that's our Zach too. I don't know.

But here he's saying to this person, now just understand, everything I said is true to everybody, but your ענין is, you're carrying some baggage from from before. Now, each of us obviously are back here, we're here now because we have, each of us have something that we're, you know, huh? Yeah, there's something here going on.But why is it different for him? Everyone has what he has. The voice is power powerful for everyone. So he's That was my question.

Or maybe what he's maybe the רב is saying, your specific worry stems from a תיקון from a previous גלגול. Yeah, it could be that you You might be struggling You might be struggling with something else that's from a from a previous גלגול, but this ענין for you of not being able to actually grab hold of the way that you look at things, that specific thing is coming from from from from before. Whereas Julius, your ענין in that area is coming from a different area, is coming from a previous גלגול. That that's what I was asking.Well, it could be not.

Could be you have a תיקון to make but you're worried about something that's not קשור at all to the real תיקון you need to make. Could be. It could be. He's not here to ask.

The closest we have is אלי, so no pressure. Yeah. Pretty close. Along with what the ר' משה is saying, like one of the big questions when I sat כלל in ירושלים for years, I used to ask some of like the the bigger of the שם there, the חשובע people there about this ענין.

And how is it the ירושלמים who have such חובות and such נסיונות and יסורים, I could see it with my own eyes. They walk around with such שמחת החיים, constantly. I didn't understand it coming from outside. Of course.

Right. It's like and it's such a comfort hearing from this ספר like some sort of insight into it, how they think and because often they'd say their answer to me was they don't ask too many questions. They have a very big פשטות. Look where you're living now.

I mean that that didn't, yeah. That didn't really help you stay there. Don't ask too many questions. help some of their יסורים.

They dealt with it amazingly.Okay, so the so again, ולכן עליך לדעת כי הדאגה שאצלך מן הראיה נובע עוד מפגם בגלגול קודם. You're you're you're carrying, you're carrying stuff from from from from a while ago. And he says, ולמטרה זו ירדת לעולם. And and that's why you actually came to this world.

לתקן את שלמות הגוף מפגם חטא עץ הדעת. This guy must be a big נשמה. He's saying, you're here to fix the פגם of עץ הדעת. המכאיב אותך, and what's hurting you, הוא כח המדמה.

Now, רב נחמן speaks about this so intensely. Do you does it come across in ליקוטי הלכות in the morning? מדמה? מדמה is כח המדמה, כח המדמה, this this power which is so convincing. And yet it is a מדמה, it comes from a figment of our imagination, לרעה. לרעה.

כח המדמה ונובע מהנפש, and it's coming from the soul, not from the body, לא מהגוף. תפקידך להילחם עם המחשבות שלך. Your תפקיד is to fight with your thoughts כדי שתגיע למצוא את יסודך הנתמך מקדושה. So you could actually find your יסוד, your foundation, which sprouts from holiness.

המתלבש בסיבות השונות שאתה נתקל בהם. Which enclothes itself through all the different reasons that you are you are coming across in life. I think if I'd have to try to say this in in in in some language that we could hold on to, he's saying If after all this ר' אשר tells the guy, you know what you have to do? You have to fight your thoughts. I'd close the ספר.

I mean I can't. What I mean fight your thoughts, but what does that mean based on ר' אשר to fight your thoughts? It doesn't mean, oh I have a bad thought, fight it, banish it. It means something so infinitely deeper. It means start again and start to pay attention and start again and saying, how did I get to anything that I have? How did anything even happen to me? It happened for me.

Every single thing happened for me. And I'm only I've only been able to be alive or do anything because something was השם sent all these different reasons to bring me exactly to what's happening at this moment. That's called מלחמת המחשבות. If you're waiting, that's why like I never connected so much to the thought process, to the to the school of thought that said when a person has a bad thought, then right away counter it with like a really strong thought and and curse that thought and kill that thought.

It's an illusion. It'll it'll it'll come back 50 First of all, it doesn't go away. And second of all, it'll come back 50 miles 50 miles faster. You know, then 100 miles faster.

Dr. גנצווירט just gave me this advice. Go ahead. No, you. Okay, thank you.

Love you. Dr. גנצווירט, yes, I was talking to him, the idea of like, you know, in a moment if something's not good, of it's okay, say the words, like it's it's okay. Like mourn on something, and then move on and be positive about it, but it's like it's important to acknowledge, like if a kid drops a lollipop and he's so sad, oh, don't worry, I'll give you. No, acknowledge that It's sad that you dropped the lollipop.

Yeah. You have to you have to go through that emotion. נכון. To have a healthy way of dealing with it.

נכון. What were you saying? I was going to say if you use that voice of push through or whatever or get or you can you need to overcome it. It's that same voice saying you're not good enough. It's the same exact voice.

Right. Right. It's it's you literally now using that voice instead of it. Cuz it's cuz and what's the word? You.

He's trying to get you out of you. That's the whole that's why it's the same voice. Anything that that alludes to you being the one that's controlling it sounds the same. For good or for bad.

He's taking us out of that dimension and saying, חביבי, you are אין. Your own מציאות this is just is nothing. It didn't cause all this. Yeah.

Nothing. אין. אין. יושב בגולה.וכשתגיע, loose these words are so powerful.

Look at the bottom. וכשתגיע להכיר שהכאב והדאגה שלך הוא דמיון. Oh boy, is this is this a שחרור? This is a release. When you come to the place that you recognize that your pain and your worries are imagination.

ואתה נאחז ומתקיים מכח ההשגחה שעליה אתה שם כל ביטחונך ואמונתך. And you're holding on and existing from only and you realize I'm only existing from the כח of a supernal השגחה of a providence that you putting all of your בטחון and אמונה in that, אז תלך ותשתפר הראיה שלך. Then your eyesight, then your corrective lens start to come into effect. Not how powerful you were to throw away a bad thought.

That's not that's not it. That's not that's not the עבודה here. Maybe for some people it is. It's not ר' אשר's world, it seems.

His his ענין is משהו אחר לגמרי. He's like, get get into the אין again. Like always go back and start again and realize I didn't choose to wake up this morning. And that humbles the daylights out of you.

And that causes you to look at every single thing that's on your plate differently. אז תלך ותשתפר הראיה שלך, כי כל קושי וכבדות הראיה שלך, the the hardship and the heaviness of your eyesight was only בשביל שתגיע לתכלית הזאת הנרצת. Was only to get to this place that's wanted. That's why you went through what you went through.Every stumbling block, every ache in the heart only was there to lead you to a place of the real אמת, which is recognizing that we are in control of nothing.

Other than choosing to live like that. Only only only בחירה. The only thing, only to choose to live like that. זהו.

There's nothing else.Don't wait for the big big bangs in life in order to implement this. That it won't work like that. I don't think it'll work like that. I think this is a you know of Leo, like I think the greatest example we have is that Leo Dee gets up in front of his in front of two daughters that are being buried on חול המועד פסח.

We're all standing there. Broken's not a word. It's a שבר that only משיח can heal. Only משיח can heal.

And he gets up and he starts talking אמונה in ways that none of us and and many of us think, oh he's, you know, he's probably, you know, they probably doped him up or something or, you know, he probably took extra meds because you can't you can't talk like this. This is not it's not human. גם בשבעה also. Every every day since then.

This is not human. This is not human, right? So he said these passionate, deep words about אמונה up there. He quoted Rabbi Fromm Goldberg, David Sachs, Rabbi Chief the Lord Rabbi Sac. He was saying some profound things about אמונה.

And then he addressed what all of us were thinking in our minds. Like you probably think that I'm that I've lost it, right? Because I can talk he's like, is that I learn אמונה every single day. He he he he learns this stuff it's not that he was shoved into a corner and now he has to come up with something. But in his practice before this happened to him, learning אמונה, learning בטחון, was something that he was doing every single day.So that's why when he when when when when it this happened, that person came out.

That wasn't a uh happenstance uh episode appearance of his. That was him.This is for us every single day. It's I think it starts with the the the פנימיות of מודה אני based on what we learned today. I think that that would be a really good place to be tuned into the אין, right? of the day would really start with with with those those first thought those first words and first thoughts and first כוונה in the morning.

So he ends off here.וכשאנו מדברים מזה אנחנו צריכים לדעת. Now we're talking about really special things here, but you got to remember. And I told you this guy's the first שיעור. Patience.

כשם שצמיחת הצומח אינו בא בפעם אחת, ועד שמגיעים לפרי זה צריך לעבור כמה וכמה שלבים, חרישה וזריעה והשקיה, ורק אחרי זמן זוכים לפירות. כך גם עבודת האדם הנמשל לצומח כמאמר הכתוב: כי האדם עץ השדה. Man is like the tree. What does that mean he's like the tree? Is that it takes time until the fruit blossom.

But you have to plant and nurture properly in order to eventually have fruit, but it takes time. כי האדם עץ השדה, right? כי הפרי אינו בא פעם אחת, צריכים לעמוד באמונה, בתקווה ובסבלנות. You have to be with faith, patience, and hope. להיות בשקטות ובסבלנות עד שנקבל את הפרי.

In quiet and with patience until we receive the fruit. What's the fruit here? What is the fruit? Living with that consciousness. Consciousness of אין.Like we hear these things like, oh my God, I need to do that, right? Um, something I would love to get back to that you were really big on about checking in throughout the day with חבר'ה, you know, after we would learn, we would check in with each other every few hours. Doesn't take much.

It's a it's a We we probably send or receive, some of us more than others, probably about 50 messages an hour. One message that actually has meaning could could actually be a nice thing.I challenge us all to do that today. Checking in with אין. You know, אין check-ins.

ואם האדם מחזק את עצמו באמונה, בתקווה, בטוב הצפון עבורו, and if a person strengthens himself with אמונה and with faith, with the and with all the good that's destined for him. That might now might be hidden, הצפון, but it's destined for him. ומאמין כי הישועה בו תבוא, and he believes the ישועה, the salvation will come, אז יקויים בו, then what will happen to him? The פסוק: והיה כעץ שתול על פלגי מים, אשר פריו יתן בעתו ועלהו לא יבול וכל אשר יעשה יצליח. This is the third פסוק in תהילים.

The third פסוק in the first chapter of תהילים. אלי, you want to give it a shot? He is like a tree planted on a river bank, um, whose fruit, uh, comes in its appointed time. And his leaves don't fall. And everything he's going to do will be successful.

אמן.לכן, ר' אשר says, אני מבקש ממך, I'm asking you, שתחזק את עצמך באמונה בשמחה. Right now, strengthen yourself with two things. The first the second one is harder than the first one. אמונה.

Okay. But I could still be צעבראכן with אמונה. ובשמחה. כי זוהי המערכה והמלחמה של כלל ישראל.

What you're dealing with right now is really the general war of כלל ישראל until משיח comes. עד בוא יבוא הגואל. לצדך, you're surrounded by ידידים נאמנים, trustful, faithful friends that are partners with you in this war. שותפים לך במערכה זו.

Meaning, חבורה, friends, community, people that This is not cuckoo talk. They're in this פרשה. They're in this פרשה.השם איתך לא יעזבך. השם is with you, won't leave you.

ומצפה להשתתף בשמחת ישועתך. And I and longing to participate in the שמחה of your salvation. עוד תראה בהתגשמות כל רצונותיך הטובים. You will see the materialization, the actualization of all of your good wills and desires, מתוך שמחה וטוב לבב.One letter written 55 years ago that if all we had in our lives was this one letter, first letter, ממש דיינו.

ממש דיינו. There's so much more to say about this. I must run. There's so much more to say about this.

We'll continue this next Monday and we'll continue with רב