Kiddush: Bridging Zohar and Maharal: Wine, Binah, and the Meaning of Kiddush/Transcript

This transcript was automatically generated by Sofer.ai and has not been manually reviewed. Hebrew terms appear in transliteration. Timestamps are approximate.

Back to: Kiddush: Bridging Zohar and Maharal: Wine, Binah, and the Meaning of Kiddush

Full Transcript

Audio: Kiddush Part 3 (2022-11-25)

Maharal as Bridge Between Zohar and Practice

[0:01]

not sure which way to do it. Got David from take care of all of Australia like man oh man. So I know what I want to do if we’re going to go to answer this question about Das Sanhedrin and really the das of grapes. So there’s this Maharal, and the Maharal’s an excellent case study. We haven’t done a case study of it yet, of exactly how do you learn a Zohar for Ta’amei Hamitzvos. That’s what happens. He brings a Zohar and then he says, okay, now what does that Zohar mean?

And he makes his explanation in Maharal terms. And if you look at it you’ll go, huh, there’s no connection between the Zohar and what the Maharal’s saying, but then of course when you look at it deeper you’ll see that he’s exactly explaining to you how to avoid the problem of learning the Zohar too much and not connecting it to the world in which we live. The framework is basically you have to have Ta’amei Hamitzvos. That’s what everyone understands. The Arizal wrote a whole sefer, the Rambam wrote Moreh Nevuchim the third section on it.

You have to have a connection between you and the mitzvos. If you don’t enjoy the mitzvah, you don’t have a ta’am in the mitzvah, then you’re not connected to the mitzvah with the fullness of your nefesh, ruach, and neshamah. Okay. So there’s basically I think maybe three simplistic ways of connecting. The one is the Sefer Hachinuch like we talked about, and the Sefer Hachinuch and the way most people do Ta’amei Hamitzvos is let’s see what resonates with me, and that’s the Ta’amei Hamitzvos.

I, why is it me’orer me, so I have to drink wine before I make Kiddush because I have to have simcha and I have to recognize it’s a special day, so we do it and that works well but then a person feels Torah is disconnected from the ruach, the neshamah, and the wisdom of a person, it’s just a regesh, an idea downstairs. And it’s not connecting you to Torah in a deeper idea, it’s just an existential experiential reality. The

Three Models for Understanding Ta'amei Hamitzvos

[2:29]

other way is many people, especially in our generation, especially the world of Sephardi thought is that we learn, we want to be real. We want to be real about things, so we want to learn Kabbalah, we want to learn Zohar. Let’s get what God says the reason is and what’s going on. And we think by doing that we understand the deep Ta’amei Hamitzvos and we’re being honest about it, we’re not just making up reasons that feel good to me and what I’m expressing, the depths of Kadosh Baruch Hu's Torah and the depths of what’s going on.

That’s the second understanding. But when you do that you become complete disconnected from the world and anybody who’s wise looks at you like you’re weird and you have to close your eyes a lot, you know, like you just like forget the world, here is what the Zohar says and there’s a template that I’m connecting to that’s upstairs that I’m bringing down and that makes a Chilul Hashem of Torah and of Kabbalah and what’s going on. And people say over things, they say it very strongly because they know it’s true, the Zohar says it.

But nobody understands why it’s true and therefore you kind of have to walk around nullifying your regular secular intellect and regular nullifying your emotions and nullifying your connection to the world and you become disconnected. The third way of course which is the way that the Ramchal and the Gra and the Maharal have us walk is you have to see the Zohar and see the depths of what’s going on and they’re expressing the deepest ideas of Torah, but we have to make ladders and elevators and stairs and tunnels to connect the upper-level world and the lower-level world so the ideas are the deep ideas are connected to a person’s emotions and a person’s intellect in the world we’re living and that’s the greatness of the Maharal, that the Maharal takes that high template idea and brings it down and people who don’t understand why you have to learn the Maharal or why you have to learn the Ramchal don’t understand why you have to connect the upper-level world to the lower-level world.

It's like I tell you what you see in an electron microscope and you're not looking at an electron microscope, you don't see reality that way, you think that people are just spaced out. You have to be able to bring those ideas and show how they affect down here and that takes lots and lots of hard work to bring down and to connect. And that's a good example over here is this piece where the Maharal takes a Zohar which is beautiful, but you'll see it is completely disconnected from what most people see in the world.

Hopefully what we said last week you'll understand it and then he explains it down here in the world and puts the two together and that's what we're trying to work for to build these tunnels and connections upstairs and downstairs that we're going to go for. Okay you can turn the tape back on this is just, I just did a ten second a fifteen second just the end when we were done with the story. Oy Yaakov, Yaakov, I have to get Yaakov in the right, it's like my left hand is not good enough to hit you but since we lived together I haven't done that.

Yeah, yeah. Okay so and this is basically the same idea I think.

Finding the Yesod for a Yeshiva

[6:17]

I probably this when we started Machon Shlomo, Rav Shlomo Zalman told me to go ask the gedolim what's the one yesod to build the yeshiva on. So I went to Rav Wolbe, Rav Wolbe said very good. Before I started Be'er Yaakov, that's what I did also. He said so he went to Rav Dessler and he asked Rav Dessler what's the one thing I should build the yeshiva on. Rav Dessler says I can't tell you, come to my mussar shmuess on Tuesday night.

So I went to his mussar shmuess. Rav Wolbe said I went to the mussar shmuess, it was at that time of seventeen year old boys in Ponevezh after the war, it wasn't exactly the height of Klal Yisrael's greatness and he gave a very standard run of the mill mussar shiur he thought. So after the shiur, Rav Dessler said what do you think of the shiur? So Rav Wolbe didn't think very much of the shiur but like you know how you talk to rabbis, so he said oh gevaldig great like you know he says how many hours do you think it took me to write that shiur?

So Rav Wolbe really thought that for a person who'd learned twenty years in Kollel and Kelm and been a mashgiach for thirty years he thought like half an hour putting things together, but he said two hours. He said oh no not that smart. It took me three hours to learn up the sugya and then three hours figuring out the mashalim and the connection I have to have to the talmidim of it, and then it took me three hours to integrate it and understand it myself personally that I could teach it and that's the yesod that you have to know that if you want to say a good shiur it takes a long time and you have to go through these three steps.

You have to learn the sugya up, you have to figure out a connection to the people, and then you have to connect it to yourself, then you can teach. That was the yesod that he gave over, that that's what we're starting from. So this is a classic example I'm just not sure which of the two ways of doing it. I know there's not time to do both together, so either we're going to learn the Zohar straight and see the problem or next week we'll do the Maharal. Or we can do the Maharal to see how it's filled in and just do the Maharal and next week see the Zohar and see how the Zohar would be empty without it.

We can do it any way you want, but anyway we'll know that Avi is wrong, that's the key to this shiur like that's just make sure he's taking notes on that. Avi is wrong. Avi is wrong. Yeah. Just tell which way you'd prefer to do it?

Choosing Disconnected Zohar Before Maharal

[8:51]

Prefer to do it the disconnected way and then you see the chiddush of the Maharal or see the Maharal first? Disconnected first, we'll do the disconnected. Okay so we'll see why you need the Maharal in other words what's going to happen if one moment I didn't get these stapled so okay everyone take three pages that's what happens here. Okay. It's a good thing we had so many shiurim on Gadlus Ha'adam before. Shana Rishona like that's the last thing you have to work on Shana Rishona is Gadlus Ha'adam, Gadlus Ishtecha like you know.

Okay that's amazing. What else do we need while we're waiting for - anyone else besides Moshe's got my pencil is broken. You need a - there's three people. I'm trying to make them come in fast. Yeah, yeah, keep them this side in threes, so don't speak to the other first place over me. Anyone else? Threes, all right. How are we doing? How are we doing so far? What happened? What happens next? We got the... we got separate ones. Oh no, oh no, oh no. They did separate them. No, they did not. Look, this is connected.

No. The joy of bringing back things that are disconnected to connect the world. Let me just find the ones you gave it to, let's integrate that. Oh, there they are, passing out. Okay, so are there three individual pages? Here's a group of three. Here's a set of... Wait, this one doesn't have the third... Just put them in the middle and they'll figure it out. Just give us... the struggle to... do a bigger thing, do organized. Do thing, organized. Yeah, yeah, teach us the... just a struggle to... You guys ready? Let's go.

Take a set. I've got one for myself. When we had the argument about when you teach first and take a mashal then integrate? I forgot the source. Who was that? Oh, you have to give it over first and then the mashal then integrate. Oh, right, right, yeah. I'm with you. Integrate after mashal. Oh, but how, how you'd give it over before giving it over, yeah, right. What's the other side? What's the other side? We should just give it over first. Does anyone have... are we missing a couple still or no?

Yeah, we've got more. Yeah, we need two three-sheets. You have the third sheet? The one that's one side? Yeah, we have... Here's a full set if anyone doesn't have one. Everyone's good? We're missing the first... here's a full set. Just... just the third page. I don't think I can go with just the third page. This is the one I have for myself. Okay, I think we need one more set, right? That's all we have. That's all we have. Okay, you'll have to share with whoever doesn't have and you'll xerox it afterwards or something.

Does anyone have an extra set? This has got the first two pages too. One more set. Oh. Okay. So this is the Zohar that the Maharal quotes when he's asked about what's special about wine. Right? So the question's what's special about wine? Why do you make Kiddush on wine and why are we makpid that a non-Jew can't touch our wine? What's going on? What's happening? So the Zohar

Wine as Symbol of Binah

[12:46]

explains the essential idea that we tried to start explaining last week, but he explains, which is what the Maharal and the Ramchal are working around all the time, is that wine is unique that it expresses the world of binah. And again, we explained the sevara last week, last class, that binah means that what's unique about the... we went to the Gemara in Pesachim lamed-gimmel amud-bet which is again making the Zohar understandable, is that what's unique about wine is wine as opposed to orange juice, apple juice, raspberry juice, is that grape juice is in packets.

It's not connected with the pulp, it's little pulp packets inside which symbolizes binah, which is binah is the world of machshava of thought that you can't touch directly. So you've got with a grape, you've got the skin of the grape and then you've got the flesh of the grape, and then you have these packets of wine. With most things you just have the skin of the orange and then you have the pulp and the juice mixed together. What's unique and special about wine is the fact that it symbolizes the world of binah, but of course the Zohar doesn't say that, and that's why you need the Maharal that we did last week for.

Okay, so he's just going to go and explain it. Rabbi Yitzchak pasach. Rabbi Yitzchak starts the sugya and wants to explain that something's unique about wine because it says אשר חלב זבחיהם יאכלו. It says in Parshat Haazinu God says if you don't want to listen to me then go to the people that the fat of their sacrifices they eat, yishtu yayin nesichechem, and drink the wine that they offer up as avoda zara. So what's Hakadosh Baruch Hu saying? Hakadosh Baruch Hu saying over there he says, you don't want to listen to me?

Okay, so go, go to the non-Jews and eat their sacrifices and drink their wine. So he says זכין אינון ישראל דאינון קדישין. We have kedusha. And therefore God expects more from us than eating the sacrifices... of idol worshippers. What's inun kadishin mean? The Matok Midvash explains, inun kadishin, that we're connected to the world of Bina. We have an internal world, we have to connect to that internal world. וקודשא בריך הוא בעי לקדשא להון and Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to make us holy.

So you have to understand that all the restrictions and all the difficulties that God puts on us and the fact that it's so hard to make kosher wine is because wine and Jews are special. Don't look at it as stringencies, don't look at it as difficulties, recognize it וקודשא בריך הוא בעי לקדשא להון, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is always, the mitzvot are to make us better, to make us happier, and therefore it's bringing us in to connect to that inner world. I think the best way is I'll read it through once just with the Aramaic then we'll go back to the Matok Midvash if that works best for everybody.

Yeah? Okay. Tach chazi, come and see.

Zohar’s Direct Vision vs Gemara’s Hearing

[15:59]

Again, like we always say, the Zohar always says Tach chazi, come and see, as opposed to the Gemara always bringing a ra'aya from Tashma, right? The Gemara is hearing, hearing that you don't have to be directly connected to what's going on, you can hear around the corner. Gemara is Torah She-be'al Peh that's once removed, it's hearing in the physical world. Zohar is trying to get us above the world of physicality so you see the ideas directly, sight, if you're not in direct connection you can't see something.

Therefore just like in the Gemara whenever you bring a proof it's Tashma, come and hear, that's the world of oral law. Tach chazi, come and see directly, that's the world of Zohar. Does the Yerushalmi say Tach chazi also? Yes. Isn't that also Gemara? Maybe, but it's land of Eretz Yisrael so you're seeing without the Bavel, the blockage of Bavel. Tach chazi, Yisrael kadishin, Klal Yisrael has kedusha. Why are we kadosh?

Ke-chayei alma d'yarsan, the whole world that we inherit. What makes our life as Jews geshmak? What's the world that we inhabit? Ke-chayei alma d'yarsan, all the world that they inherit. כולה תליא בההוא עלמא דאתי. Everything depends on the world to come. That connection to the world to come. Okay, so that's the big conversation. So again, if you don't learn Zohar properly, it sounds very disconnected. Oh, we're living for the next world and that's what you'll sometimes hear people say.

Oh, we're living for, it's not for this world it's for next world, Olam Haba. Of course that's not what it means in the Zohar. The world to come means the world of Bina, it means the world that's hidden, that we don't see, that we grab onto, the essence of what we inherit is that we don't have to live just a physical life down here, we can live a life that resonates with the metaphysical reality, the spiritual world upstairs, that's what gives us the most joy, that we connect to Alma De'atei.

Reinterpreting Olam Haba as Alma De'atei

[18:04]

Again, as the Ramban says in Sha'ar Ha-gemul, everybody translates the word, I like this like one of the classic Rambans over here too he says, everybody reads the words wrong, this is before there was ArtScroll, right? The Ramban still says everybody says the words wrong and they translate Olam Haba as the world to come. Even in eleven hundred Spain they were translating it wrong before there was ArtScroll, right? So he says it doesn't say Olam Yavo, it says Olam Haba.

Haba means like לשנה הבאה בירושלים הבנויה, Hashana Haba'ah, the gift that's coming. It's the Alma De'atei is the world that's coming. There's a, there's a, it's not that I'm waiting to get to another world, it's I'm trying to bring a spiritual world into this world. So that's Alma De'atei, the world that's coming. That's what it is. It's the world that's coming. So the whole essence of being Jewish is actualizing potential, is connecting to the world of Bina, to the deeper ideas that are out there, and living with them.

Begin because that deeper world, that metaphysical reality, the power and the energy that's expressed in the spiritual world that's inside, די הוא חיין דכלא לעילא ולתתא. Begin because that is the life, the energy of everything, both above in the Sefirot above, the flow that comes down to us, Vetata in our world. Everything's based on how much Bina do you have? How much understanding do you have? How much energy do you have? How much connection to metaphysical thought do you have?

How much connection to kedusha do you have? Everything depends on your connecting to that internal world, that hidden reality that you can't see with your eye but when you put a microscope on it or you put an electron microscope on it you see. והוא אסר דיין דמנטר שרי. And that's the land where wine And yayin is hidden. What's yayin? Yayin is a metaphor for what greatness is in the world. It's you don't eat the grape and then you squeeze the grape to get the inside of the grape and you don't drink the grape juice.

You squeeze the wine, you get to the grape juice and then let the grape juice ferment and then you get wine. And that's what's the inside, the essence, the greatest potential, it's natar, it's hidden, it's guarded. You can't get it, it doesn't come naturally to yourself. Wine is something that's hidden inside like the world of bina is hidden inside the world. If you live a simplistic life, then you don't see the world of bina. You don't see what you need lamdus for in gemara, what you need lamdus for in life, what you need lamdus for in relationships to people.

You don't need it for a shana rishona. Yes, so like you don't really have to care about your wife's emotions and sensitivities like we're just doing mitzvos and Torah. What's going on? But so that's what's going on, והוא אתר דיין דמנטר שארי. So wine symbolizes the world of bina. ומתמן נפקין חיין וקדושה לכלא. And from there comes out life and holiness to everybody. Again, without you can see how disconnected it just sounds like there's just bina what's going on. Okay. If I had time I would've drawn you a chart.

Let's just... No. Okay. This is not too hard. It's just three. It's just three we need, right? It's just whenever you have it set up. Keter, the

Keter, Chochma and Kedusha in Kiddush

[22:06]

top sefira, symbolizes ratzon. It symbolizes the greatest desire. I want to be great. I want to express something. I want to be a king over everything. That keter, that ratzon, that's what ratzon is. So that creates kedusha. That's the passion in kedusha we always talk about. Right? So keter brings kedusha in the world. That's why the end of Mesillas Yesharim is when you get to the keter, you get the crown of everything. The last chapter, chapter twenty-six is kedusha.

That's the passionate connection to greatness, to the keter. The keter is the ratzon. I'm doing something great and that brings you on kedusha. הרי את מקודשת לי to a wife is you have to be inspired to love her. Of course over here we're talking about kiddush. So kiddush Friday night when you're making kiddush, you have to be... wine is going to awaken your passions. It's a Dionysian drink. It's going to make you excited. Life's excited. That's the keter.

When you see that life is great and there's kingship and there's nobility and there's greatness then you're excited. That brings kedusha into the world. Chochma, wisdom, that gives you energy. That makes you alive. That's the verse that we always quote in Kohelet, and of course the gemara quotes it, chochma t'chiye b'aleha. Wisdom enlivens a person. Chochma t'chiye b'aleha, right? The Rambam always says the life of a wise one is a life that's alive. So chayim

Chayim, Chochma, and the Joy of Bina

[23:40]

comes from the world of chochma. And bina itself brings simcha. Bina is more down in the world. Bina is more connected and that brings simcha. So that's what this line in the Zohar is saying, taking me to the first line, this last two words in the first line, והוא אתר דיין דמנטר שארי. So yayin is guarded there. U'metaman, and from bina, nafka chayin comes out the chochma that comes from chayim. V'kedusha and comes the keter d'kala.

In the world of bina is hidden the chochma and the keter also that we're going for. Rabbi, what's the connection between meteman and bina? There is not here and we're saying והוא אתר דיין דמנטר שארי. Yayin that's hidden there. So yayin that's hidden, that's hidden inside, that's meteman. That's the bina that's hidden inside the grape, that's hidden inside the grape juice. Meaning meteman is referred to the hidden part and the hidden part of intelligence is bina?

The hidden part of the world is bina, above the middos, above all the physical world. world is the wisdom, the svara that generate the reality of the world. So then once you get to Binah and then you get Chachmah and Kesser, that's... They're inside that, right, cause Binah is... Binah's like the mother, the mother's got God and her husband are also expressed in the mother, but expressed in a way you can understand it. So Kesser's going to symbol Hakadosh Baruch Hu and the Chachmah's going to symbol the husband if you're making a physical metaphor, it's how you just work it out.

The mother, a good wife, don't beat up on her first year. A good wife is bringing out the wisdom of Hakadosh Baruch Hu and in her way that relates to the people in a way that they can relate, not too high. That's what you're saying, you're saying that inside Binah is Chachmah and Kesser also. V'yayin d'Yisrael, okay, this next part's a little bit hard, let's do it. Okay, so he's going to go like this, he wants what happens. So

Binah as Wine: Bringing Wisdom to the World

[25:49]

you've got Binah up here, so wine symbolizes that Binah. Now what do you have to do? You have to bring the Binah out to the world to make wine. So it's hard to take Binah and apply it to the world properly. So what do you have to do? You have to bring out the Binah yashar, you have to bring the Binah out straight, not crooked, straight. That's what the word Yisrael means. Yisrael means I take the word Binah and straight yashar in the proper way, I bring it out to the world.

And that's why Jews have to make wine, right? We let goyim, it's fine, you can get your Scotch from Kentucky or Scotland, right, we don't care, some good goy can make it, that's fine. Cause that's not expressing the world of Binah. That's down here in the world, that's down inside of oats... what's inside... wheat? I think... wheat, yeah, oats, you know it's down here like that's no big deal. But when you want to go up to the world of Binah, now that's why we're going to make it that only Jews can make wine.

Why we're like, and what the Zohar's bothered by is like why are we so makpid about the making of wine and the touching of wine, what's going on? It's because we have to know we're dealing with something that's very refined, it's very deep, it's very holy. And therefore again, don't think that Klal Yisrael's putting all these dinim on you, these restrictions because God wants to restrict you. He's doing it because we're dealing with a very high world and you have to bring it out properly.

V'yayin

Yisrael’s Wine: The Sacred Distinction

[27:24]

d'Yisrael, back to the Zohar. בגין יין דישראל אחרא. The yayin of Yisrael, you have to understand that the yayin of Israel is different from the wine of non-Jews. You can drink scotch and whiskey from the best blokes in Scotland and that's fine. V'da b'da talya. And this with this is depending because it comes from the world of Binah and a Jew's trying to get to the world of Binah, therefore we can make it that it expresses Binah in the world.

דהאי ישראל לעילא בי נתחיין. Yisrael goes up and it connects to the world of life. ובגין כך אקרי עץ חיים. Because of that the tree's called a tree of life. עץ מההוא אתר דאקרי חיים. It's a tree from the land that brings life, from Binah. V'nafka miteiman chayim. And it brings out life and chachmah from that world upstairs. Because of this uniqueness of grapes, this world of Binah, this world of joy, this world of depth, here he goes, al kein, so this is going to be the Zohar's ta'am that we started with four weeks ago when we started talking about wine.

So we're just going to quote the Zohar, ועל דא מברכין ליה לקודשא בריך הוא ביין. Because of this this is why we bless Hakadosh Baruch Hu with yayin. That would go not according to the shita that says that the Etz HaDa'as was the gefen, because that would assume that would be more connected with the opposite. Nope, nope, exactly, exactly right, it goes with the shita the Zohar's going to say later on with the shita that was Etz HaDa'as because that's exactly what brought using it wrong.

You had to go through Shabbos and use it properly and then you could have brought it out, but it's not easy to be yashar. You

Proper Handling: Straight vs Crooked Wine

[29:18]

first touched it crookedly, therefore you brought it out and destroyed it, and that's going to make you aware of the fact that don't botch it up, you've got to do it the right way, exactly right, shkoiyach. Okay, Shabbos, Shabbos. So okay, so ועל דא מברכין ליה לקודשא בריך הוא ביין. Therefore everything we do we do with yayin. Yayin's to express that I want to connect to a deeper world, I want to connect to the world of Binah, and again you can see you can put the Sefer HaChinuch in that, it's an os with a deeper world.

You can put the Maharal in it, that it's the penimiyus. The yayin d'Yisrael the... the wine of Klal Yisrael below has to be in this way that we bring out yashar from the world of Binah to the world downstairs and therefore that's what we're going for and we're trying to express. Okay, turn the page.

Non‑Jewish Wine and the Issue of Tumah

[30:20]

גוי עובד עבודה זרה, now the next side right it should say Taf Pei Aleph on top of the page. גוי עובד עבודה זרה ihu mistav. A non-Jew who serves idol worship, he's coming from tumah. ומאן דקרב בהדיה יסתאב. And if you come close to him, you get the tumah, the tumah is catching. כד יקריב ביין דישראל ha istav. And if you he takes Jewish wine, ha istav, he can take Jewish wine and mess it up. וכל שכן חמרא דאיהו עבד. Certainly if he made the wine himself, the non-Jewish wine you can't drink because he's got no relation to Binah, doesn't recognize being sent forth with Binah, and therefore that's why we can't we can drink Goyishe scotch because it's coming from the world of middos, from the world of חסד גבורה תפארת נצח הוד יסוד.

But we can't we can't take the world of wine and bring it out because it will bring it out improperly. Okay. ve'at shechitah? What's shechitah? yayin shechitah is also coming from Binah. It's a mitzvah. That's a mitzvah. There's a mitzvah has to be done with it. ואע\"ד לא תימא דדא הוא בלחודוי. And now of course just he says the yesod which is probably a yesod for all Ta'amei Hamitzvos again. And don't think that what I've told you over here just applies to wine, that all these sensitivities and that the essence is the reason we're being careful with wine down here is because it's careful with wine upstairs.

אלא כל מה דעביד דישראל לתתא. Everything that Jews do below, כלהו כעין דוגמא דלעילא. Everything has to be modeled, paradigmed to what came above. That the essence of all Ta'amei Hamitzvos, right here comes the Ramchal saying explicitly, is that we're doing anything down here it's because we're resonating upstairs. We're trying to mimic and resonate with metaphysical patterns that God set upstairs. Every Ta'am Hamitzvah should be this way. kol sheken yayin, certainly wine because wine expresses the deepest world.

Other middos and mitzvos that express it, חסד גבורה תפארת נצח הוד יסוד, you would think that oh maybe they don't express the higher world and therefore we can have disconnected Ta'amei Hamitzvos. Oh no no no. אלא כל מה דעביד ישראל לתתא. Every mitzvah we're commanded to, כלהו כעין דוגמא דלעילא. It's all to connect to the paradigm above. וכל שכן יין דקא אתי באתר עלאה. Certainly that's true of wine because wine is the most special and it comes from the world of Binah, it's the deepest world.

dugma de'yayin de'mitnatar because yayin that's hidden, you can't see yayin when you touch we saw the Gemara in Psachim, that you touch a grape as tumah, you don't tetamei the inside of the grape because it's hidden inside. So certainly Binah you have to recognize is all connected upstairs, but every Ta'am Hamitzvah you're going to try and find is what we're trying to do is get it to resonate upstairs. The mitzvos are powerful because what we're doing is there's a powerful flow of energy we can tap into and we do it right down here we get that flow of energy from upstairs.

So every mitzvah should be, if you understand it deeply we're connecting to the pattern of the flow from the world above. Again, those you who have been to the Franklin Institute you can go, right, but like they the opening room is Philadelphia it's so geshmak they have these big pendulums and you see harmonic vibrations right that you start shaking one pendulum at to a certain level and all the other pendulums at the same level start going in harmonic vibration to it and the ones that are a little longer a little shorter they don't move right because you have to be vibrating at exactly the same frequency to get everything moving.

Mitzvot as Resonant Frequencies

[34:17]

That's what all Ta'amei Hamitzvos, that's what all mitzvos are. Mitzvos are vibrating so we can get the response from the frequencies of Hakadosh Baruch Hu upstairs. That's what we're doing. Okay. עד כאן תפ\"א. I'll stop and breathe. Questions, comments or we just keep going. Yes, Shlomo. Rav, if wine is from the world of Binah and it's the highest level and encompasses all the other levels, then where we do mitzvos that are the lower levels and we do wine with those mitzvos, do they get also elevated to the level of Binah?

That's why that's where we put them before, yeah sure. And why do we only do that with certain mitzvos and not with others? Like... the ones we can pick up. So it was what we can pick up. Do they need to be picked up? We can pick them up. They have enough of an expression we can pick them up. I can't bring something from zero to a hundred. But something that's at 80, I can pick up to a hundred. So why Bar Mitzvah for example doesn't need one? Exactly it. Much too low, you can't bring it up. At all.

Much too low. But a marriage, originally marriage doesn't require wine according to the גמרא כתובות דף ח. You don't need wine. Rabbi Yehuda Gaon said no. And the Zohar says that it used to be that regular people would get married with sheish brachos in the times of Chazal. And the Zohar says that Bnei Aliya, people who were Bnei Aliya, people who had Binah, they would make wine. Now I don't want to be the Mesader Kiddushin that decides you get wine, you don't get wine, right?

But around 800 or 900 Rabbi Yehuda Gaon decided that everybody needs to know that to make marriage work, you need to have Binah. So he made it that we make the sheva brachos. People think that the sheva brachos are in the Torah. Like no, no, no. Look at the Gemara, right? Gemara only lists six brachos, right? The seventh bracha was a Zohar bracha. So you see when you have that ability to pick it up, but if you don't have the ability, then we're not going to, we're not going to do it.

You can't like. I know that you think like before you learn Gemara in the Mir, like okay we're going to sit down. Okay, I'm being yotzei the whole year Beis Medrash Kiddush in the morning. I don't think Rav Asher would be happy. It's like you know. Yeah. I assume why not Chochmah and Keter as like the highest thing we can connect with? Is it because Binah is as close to those things as we can get? No, because Binah is as close to us as we can get.

We need the mother. You wouldn't be able to go... that's too high. Need the mother. Kids love their mother. Kids love their mother. Mother connects. He's gashmi, your gashmi, it connects. Wine is like the mother? What's that connection? I don't feel nurtured by wine. Why do we have Matzah, Maror, and Korban Pesach keneged Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov? Why do they have four glasses of wine, Arba Kosos keneged ha'imahos? Wine is the imahos.

Wine is that part that makes you happy, that connects you, that brings out your emotions. That's the nurture, that makes you happy. You come home from a hard day of work, people drink wine. I grant, I know I'm not experiential, I'm really bad, I can talk the big game, but I don't do it. It's going to happen, it's going to happen that I'll when I'll stop teaching and I'll sit down, become a connoisseur of wine and I'll shake all you guys up, but you know how many great people always talk about how great the mother is?

I did tell you this story. I forgot the book's called now. David Brooks's book The Road to Character. Thank you, The Road to Character's what it's called. So he lists in the middle a whole bunch of heroes that are terrible heroes. Okay, so read the book. So one of the students heard him speaking at the 92nd Street Y afterwards and somebody asked him, the interviewer asked him a great question, the kid sent me the video, this like snip from the lecture, and he says what did you learn about the book that you wish you wrote that you've now talked about for two years after you wrote it, like what have you left out?

He says the major thing that I left out is I wrote in the book that I couldn't figure out if any idea connecting these ten heroes of modern times. He says but two years later I now know what the connecting part is. They all had deep relationships with their mother. Wow. So like you're saying, but that's the wine over here we're going for. Any other questions? Okay, let's see what we have over here. Make sure we finish. It's good to have a wife who is like her mother by the way. Have back to this. It's good to have a wife too.

Even if she's not like your mother. We're going to increase shalom bayis over here, like you know. Your wife is still Binah. Okay, so here we go. So בגין כך ישראל סבא. ישראל שתין יין דישראל. Therefore, Jews should drink wine that's דקא קא דחזי לקדושה, they're made b'kiddusha. K'gavna d'yisrael l'eila, just like it's done upstairs, just like upstairs, there's Bina and Yisrael brings it out, yashar. דשתי ושתיא ואתברך בההוא חמרא, and when you drink and you connect and you bless that wine ela'a kaddisha, you connect it to the world above.

ולא שתי חמרא דעבד במסאבותא, you shouldn't drink wine that's made by non-Jews that is connected to tumah. d'sitra d'misavuta, comes from the side of tumah. דהוא באתר רוחא דמסאבותא, that there it's going to dwell a ruach, a spirit of tumah, it's going to block you off. ומאן דשתי ליה אסתאב רוחיה, it's going to metameh your ruach, istav ihu, and it's going to afterwards not just metameh your guf, it's going to close up your body also, istav ihu, your body.

ולא הוא מסטרא דישראל, because it doesn't come from the side of Israel. ולית ליה חולקא בעלמא דאתי, whoa, wait. If you drink goyish wine, you don't have a portion in the world to come. This is why it gets so stark. That's right. Like shicheis es hatov takes from the world to come. These are both Zohar ideas. We'll figure out what that means, right? d'hu alma d'asi, because what happens? It's mida k'neged mida. If you, just like it says, if you don't believe in techiyas hameisim, then you don't get techiyas hameisim.

So if you don't have respect for olam haba, for the world of Bina here, then you're not going to have respect for the world in the world to come. mida k'neged mida. yayin d'mintar ihu, the wine that's guarded you're not respecting and therefore you're not going to get that world that's respected. That's why we have these very, very stark dinim on... so you'll see maybe next week we'll see it, the Maharal. The Maharal was the Gadol of Prague. But I have to look it up.

I don't think he became Chief Rabbi of Prague until he was 88. He basically outlived everybody because they didn't want him because the Maharal was an ish emes. So he kept beating up on the baalei batim all the time, and the baalei batim didn't like him. They were dealing improperly with poor kids, they were making money off selling and buying non-Jewish wine, and he got very upset with it. So they censored from the book. When he first put it out, they took out a bunch of lines that were talking about this part that if you drink it, you're not for the world to come because the baalei batim weren't happy with him.

So this made that he wasn't a Chief Rabbi earlier in his life. So you have to outlive them, that's what you've got to do, that's what you've got to do. Why would the Zohar put this in in this way knowing that people will probably read it incorrectly and create extremely frantic and overly machmir Sephardim? You'd imagine somebody saying this to his kid, being like, Look, if you have yayin nesech, no olam haba, and freak them out. Not yayin nesech, just even wine made by a goy.

Even if it's not yayin nesech, just nice, normal, just like the Johnny Walker Scotch you can drink, you can't drink, I'm not sure what the other, what the goyishe wine is. Is there a goyishe wine? I don't know goyishe wine. Come on camera, I expect your mainline, no? I know there's a brand called Justin. Justin? Okay. Justin, Josh, Josh. Josh it's called, yeah. Or you can get the Two-Buck Chuck at... You can get Two-Buck Chuck at Trader Joe's. Best deal probably in the world. Two-Buck Chuck?

Yeah. I think it's three bucks now. I know that this is all shadchanim, I know this sounds like Jimmy, but it's not Jimmy. That was Jacob, Jacob said that. He's not married yet either. Got to get the boy Moshe... That was me, I did it. That's this guy from Miami. So okay, so no, so this is the idea that it's all over, that a, we're not expecting people to learn Zohar who aren't shayach to the Zohar. Second of all, it's not part of the normal reading that a person does. Second of all, you understand that no one who doesn't understand Zohar is going to get here.

He's just going to read the words, it'll be gibberish. They didn't expect that rabbis would take it out of context and wave it in front of people and go for it. So it's the rabbis' problem, it's not, this is written... And that's what it is in the same thing and it's revealing at a deeper level world. This is the

Litvak vs Chasidic Approaches to Zohar

[45:10]

idea of the major difference we have between Litvaks, I'm not sure what to call it. Not sure exactly how to title it and Chasidim. The Chasidim think that anything written in the Zohar everybody should be doing it. And a Litvak says no, this is not what your, this is not your level of work right now. You're holding by understanding Rashi Tosafot. You don't have to worry about the Zohar ideas, unless you see it in the Zohar, it doesn't apply to you, it's not relevant to you.

Keep to where you're going. But the idea obviously is very clear, exactly kind of like Yoel's saying, it's just like the Mishnah over there says you don't get Techiyat HaMetim then you have no Techiyat HaMetim and I told you the, let me turn off the tape for a second, it's just a funny story about Techiyat HaMetim. אבא שכחש בתחיית המתים? No, Techiyat HaMetim, yeah, but it's also Middah Kenneged Middah. If you deny the goodness of Olam Ha-Ba then you don't get Olam Ha-Ba, meaning also Middah Kenneged Middah.

Attribute as attribute, the same attribute as attribute, like Yosef just said, right? Ve-da, and therefore because of this again because we realize that wine is so special and wine is so deep. Yisrael Kedushin, Kel Yisrael wants to be holy. They want to connect to the world of Binah. Boee we're required linatura da kulo. We have to guard it more than anything else. There's nothing you guard as much as wine. Right? Your chopped liver, your lox, you can have a goy touch it, it's no problem.

But the thing why we're most machmir about wine is because wine has this connection to a deeper world, a deeper reality. Right? Al-kulo, there's nothing we're careful as about as wine. Because wine has an aspect that's very, very deep and very, very hidden, very protected. Begin, why are we so careful about it? דאתקשרא באתר דעלמא דאתי, because it's connected to the world to come, it's connected to the world of Binah. So that's basically all the Taamei Mitzvot we have to explain are to explain why wine is different from everything else on the planet.

And that's what the Taam is hard for and of course Sefer Chinuch doesn't explain that. Sefer Chinuch just tells you it's happy with it, or like you can't explain all the dinim without some deeper idea of what's going on as a goy. What does bishul change all of it? So the question is whether bishul changes all of this or not. Al ha-halacha, enough to, right. U-vagin kach, let's go. Because of this yayin is בריך קודשא בריך הוא יתיר מכלא.

Because of this you can bless God and you can bring more flow to the world with wine than anything else on the planet. You want to bring a flow from God, it gets the highest up, it touches the deepest place, u-vagin kach be-yayin is בריך קודשא בריך הוא יתיר מכלא. Because of this you connect it to God more than anything else. בגין דאיהו חדי לסטרא דשמאלא, a new idea. Because God loves when there's hard work that comes from the world of discipline of the right, of the left hand. What's the idea?

The idea is that you have to bring out the wine yashar. Right? You have to bring the wine out straight. That symbolizes discipline, you have to put a ruler down and make it go straight. You have to bang the grapes. You have to let it ferment. So when there's din, when it doesn't come naturally and we have to work at it, that awakens God's love for us. And that's the beauty of the grapes and the yashrus we bring the grapes out with, and therefore we can bring more flow from HaKadosh Baruch Hu.

And HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves it more than anything else because He sees us working at it. He sees us trying to be alma de-ati-dike Jews. When we work hard at this and use our smal, our discipline, and we don't let non-Jews touch it and we develop it properly, HaKadosh Baruch Hu loves it. ובגין דחדוה דיליה אשתכח בימינא. Because the joy is also connected to the right hand, it's connected to the depths of Binah. כד אתעביד כולא ימינא. It's enough to make everything like the right hand.

It's enough to make everything connecting to Binah, כדין שמא קדישא בחדוה. And then God is happy. וברכאן משתכחין בכלהו עלמין. And the Bracha from wine affects all the worlds. Since it goes from Binah, it goes all the way from the top all the way to the bottom and it's the most powerful blessings you can make. And therefore like Yoel's saying, we stick it before marriage and we stick it before Brit Milah and we stick it before Birkat Ha-Mazon and we anyway you do it, it symbolizes God, this is what we're trying to do, we're trying to relate deeply and bring it down and God goes.

God goes, \"Oh, that's beautiful. I'm going to give you the flow and I'm going to give you the happiness,\" and we sit down and we recognize what we're doing, that brings the big flow we want. וברכן ומשתחוין בכל עלמין and there's a flow in all the worlds. Ub'ovda del'tata and by the avoda below itar ovda del'eila. When we do the work downstairs, we make the Bina come yashrus to Yisrael to Za coming out to all. ועל דא מזמנין יין לקבלא יין and therefore we prepare our wine to accept the wine that's going on upstairs, and when we do that then we bring a huge flow down from Hakadosh Baruch Hu.

When we're sensitive to how deep wine is and we're sensitive to the fact that there's energy in the world that comes from wine, Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to be happy, wants to have Keter, we want to have Chochma, we want to have Bina, then great things happen. ובגין דאיהו נטיר מלעילא because we realize that it's guarded from above. The nature of yayin is it's not natural. To get to yayin you have to bang the pulp and you have to ferment the wine and it's hidden inside and God loves when we're looking for a deeper level world, God loves when we're looking for something that's more pnimiy.

בעי לנטרא ליה לתתא because the natural state is that the world of Bina you don't see and the world of grapes you don't see and therefore בעי לנטרא ליה לתתא. We below have to express it like the world upstairs, to get to a deeper spot, to get to the ideas behind the world, to recognize what's going on. וכל נטירא דיליה קודשא בריך הוא לישראל, the more we guard it, the more kedusha we bring to Klal Yisrael. Period. Okay, yeah Avi. This idea of the Sitra Smola, is it also referred to the fact that wine has this potential to bring us way down and we're using that to bring ourselves up?

Like there's something about wine that looks like we're doing something bad almost, but... I don't think so. Not here. No, here it's talking about the flow we're making and the tirosh and the tirash we talked about and we'll talk about next week. That's how we mekabel it, but that's not what we're talking about here, we're talking about the making of it, the blessing of it. Yes. In that paragraph the uvego chedvasa dilei is probably Yemina? So the Yemina is bringing out the Chesed within the...

the din? That the din is making me happy, that's the simcha I have, but if I don't bring it out by yashrus within, I'm not going to relate to the deeper reality that exists. But everything in the world requires discipline to make it happen. You're not happy until, right, simcha is you're working hard to do something. It's LeBron James in the fourth quarter of a basketball game like we say. You have to be working hard. That's the way we're bringing out the ideas right to the world.

And you can't bring anything from a deep world to this world without yashrus and discipline. And that's why a mother is both Bina and also din for her... Yeah, there's other reasons but it's an expression of that. It's not why it is. It's different reason why that is, but it's an expression of that. David! David, such a surprise! Man, oh man, the seventh? Is Australia the furthest place away from Israel or not? You're in the exact opposite side of the world? No? New Zealand is a little bit farther.

Australia's pretty good. Okay, good. Is it chedva here davka as the Rabbi teaches for Rosh Hashanah that it's pnimiy being discovered through chitzoniyus? Rashi, Malbim? Yeah, no, yes and no. What it is is the chedva v'chad of the unity we're making upstairs and downstairs. Right. And if you're talking about the fact that it's the... it's the p'nim we're having of doing Smol Yemina, that's because of the discipline we're having. So the discipline is what's going on, but it's not here that the guf is not happy with it.

It's the fact that I have to work through to bring it down. That's what Avi was saying also. That's got to go later on when you're mekabel. We'll talk about how you mekabel the wine later on. Yeah. Step 3 type question. I don't understand the... if yashrus in this context is din, why doesn't it say din? What's the particularity of yashrus in that it connects to this whole idea? Because din just blocks something, yashrus brings something out. It goes yashar, so there's a Chesed, there's a flow what's going on.

Din is just no, you can't do that, I'm blocking you here, right? Yashrus says there's a flow I'm creating that's got to go the right way. It's a connection of din and Chesed. All flow... Like a funnel. Something that prevents it but allows for something to flow. That's what... It's not always Smol, that's what I'm saying. It can't be yashrus. Not always. It's yashrus. By definition it has to be Chesed and din together. It's a flow. It's a flow. Din would stop it.

Okay, yes. Yes. What's the difference between the flow from... from making a bracha on wine and the flow from kedusha? Kadosh Kadosh? Saying Kadosh Kadosh? Yeah. One is your... you've made something that's going to resonate... It's unlocking the flow, that's what the maise is. The maise, the maise is to create the flow. And then the Zohar brings it down. Yeah, and the Talmud Torah is just the idea, it's touching the or but not touching the kli.

Not touching the vessel. ומאן דפגים ליה לתתא, here it goes to the negative part. A person who pogim lei letata, a person who drinks Goyishe wine d'sitra d'mesava, you drink juice or whatever it is, יסתאב איהו בהאי עלמא, you'll be disgusting in the world to come. God's going to say, up, you messed up the world here, you're going to be disgusting in the world to come. לית ליה חולקא בעלמא דאתי, you're not going to have a portion in the world to come ובאחסנתא דהוא יין דמתטמר, because there the yayin is hidden up and you refused to accept that.

ve'ino natir lei, yayin should always be hidden, the nature of yayin it's hidden and you didn't hide it. ולא ינטר קודשא בריך הוא, God won't guard you l'olama d'asei, in the world to come it's going to be bad for you. hu mesaiv lei, you polluted this world, יסתאב ליה בהאי עלמא, and God will make you polluted in the world to come. ולא יהיה חולקא בההוא יין דעלמא דאתי, you won't have a portion in the joy of the world to come. zaka'in inun Yisrael, again, I'm making this so hard for you, you can't drink the Goyishe wine, you can drink the Goyishe vodka, and you can drink the Goyishe whiskey, right?

So but don't look at it that way. The reason that we're being tough is because we're making you happy. zaka'in inun Yisrael umkadshin nafshaihu, you mekadesh your soul bekdusha ila'ah. ונטר מה דאצטריך לאינטרא, and you've guarded what you have to guard. umkadshei l'malka, and you've sanctified God benatra ila'ah da, and you've sanctified God with this. זכאין אינון בעלמא הדין ובעלמא דאתי, by being careful with wine you'll be zoche in this world and you'll be zoche in the world to come for the joy and the flow of simcha.

That's the Zohar's understanding of what the common mitzvos are of wine. Hopefully next time you tell that to anybody they'll blanch and not have an idea what you're talking about and next week we'll see how the Maharal takes two aspects of it and tries to explain it in a way that will make it a tunnel and a ladder to connect people upstairs downstairs. So that's on wine. What's the difference between chayim and Etz Chayim? chayim is a place where there's life and Etz Chayim is I'm taking the life and bringing it out.

It's like the yashrus, it's a tree. The tree has life at the end, the fruit. So it's that vision of something that's spreading out. It's connected to chayim but it's coming out and being peiros to this world. So in this metaphor, the chayim in and of itself is the wine and the etz is the way that it's being brought out or the process of making the wine? One more time? I'm trying to understand if the etz is the expression of it then where I'm just trying to understand is the wine the chayim in and of itself and that's the metaphor for chayim in this world?

No, it's an Etz Chayim. It's coming out. From what I was saying, obviously it's not that world up there, it's down here, so it's an Etz Chayim or peiros, so maybe it's sabah maybe it's what, we've gotta get the words. Yes, you see. Yep. Yes? This might be a bit of a tangent but when we say Olam Haba, that's both techiyas hamaysim and the world after? Yeah. But both? So techiyas hamaysim kind of just seems like a yes or no, either you have it or you don't. No, everything's levels, no, not at all.

Everything's degrees. But when you create your Olam Haba with the quality of mitzvos that you do here, I mean there's both the tzurah and the chomer, there's the actual mitzvah and then there's the quality that you put into the mitzvah. Does that have how does that really impact the total reality that you're going to live in in techiyas hamaysim? Meaning it's much bigger than you are, it's a world that's shared with everybody. Well it's a ruchniyus'dike world, there's room for everybody.

It's not like down here where there's tzimtzum. The flow you get, what's the flow you're going to get from Hakadosh Baruch Hu? That's what the world to come is going to be. It's the world that I'm bringing in and I'll exist with more and more of the reality that I've made for myself. When God reveals Himself, certain people will have put up antennas and certain people will have put up conduits. Yeah. You said Olam Haba is the world that is coming into this world. I didn't say it. No?

No. World that is coming? No, Rabban Gamliel says, yeah right. So is that the understanding? We say Shabbos is part of Olam Haba, right? Or a portion of Olam Haba. But according to that understanding, every mitzvah should be basically projecting Olam Haba into this world, not only Shabbos. So why is Shabbos... No, most exactly the opposite. Most mitzvos are חסד דין תפארת נצח הוד יסוד, the low Olam Haba. The specialness of Shabbos and the specialness of wine is there for the world of Binah.

Yeah. They're the world that's going outside. That's the idea that everything on Shabbos is double. You have seven, which is going to be Malchus, but then there's eight, you have the second challa is because you want to get to the world of Binah. So if you keep Shabbos at the low level, it's just Malchus and you just do the right thing. But you want to get seven and eight come together, you have to double everything, that's where you want to get to the world of Binah.

And then it brings life and everything into the world, just like wine. And that's why the connection of Shabbos and wine is perfect. They're both the world of Binah and that's why you're going to mekadesh Shabbos by wine. And that's why you can also make Kiddush on on the bread if you don't have wine? No, no, that's that's the lower level. But if you have the double... Then... If you have the, but then it's the world... That's the world of Malchus. You still you're still missing Binah.

So it's like the second best. Halachically, yes. Halachically, yes. I'm I'm trying to understand, you're saying that that there's a... that we're going from we're going from the Binah to the chesed, from the left to the right. Are we saying that the that the wine is creating that or that we're bringing it out and it was always there? Bringing it out. So then does that mean that really the ikkar is the chochmah part, not the Binah part? Like if the Binah is really just there to bring out the chesed?

No, no, no. The Binah, there are three. There's Binah, there's chochmah and there's Kesser. No, and there's Kesser, and they're all in the yayin. And now you have to bring it out to the world properly and that's... And the process of bringing it out is the Binah? No. The process of bringing it out is, I don't want to use words you don't understand what they mean, obviously I don't understand, but we're using the thing that's not Binah to bring out the...

Maybe it's da'as, maybe it's Zat, bringing out to the world. When you're crushing that grape, you're bringing it out. That's all the middos. And so the main Binah aspect of the wine is the impact that it has on us? Or is it just some property that's like in the grapes that we're connecting to? It's it's there's there's a deep aspect we're connecting to, so the grapes we're connecting to and bringing it out properly so you connect to it. So what part of... so it's only... this...

you only don't work... you only get your place in the world to come if you really know the Zohar and you're at this level of understanding it? But so it really does apply to everybody. So why why isn't it important to wave these signs in front of people's faces? Too high. You got other things to work on first. There's lots to... I can't I'm not going to tell you to work on a double backflip until you can do 10 pushups and 10 sit-ups. You have to build yourself up. Yes, you'll be missing something if you never do a double backflip, but I can't tell you the first thing, that's not what I'm getting to.

And most many people will get Olam Haba just by being good Jews, not knowing why they're doing and how they're doing it. And it's it's not really about like an objective mechanism that that creates this objective reality you're in? Of course it's about objective mechanism. You just pick up the glass of wine, you don't know why you're doing it, you do it, and that's going to work, just like if you do exercise it's going to make you strong. But there's a higher level of mekadesh everything, you're not going to get to.

Well, I mean, all it's really asking people to do now is just go to the store and check the labels to see if it's mevushal or whatever. That's right. And don't have your fraternity brother grab it. So I mean it it I don't really see why like you need to know the like the depth of it to just like be aware of the fact that... Because because two things: one is you're not going to be careful about it and second you won't be happy about it. You're going to be 'Oh, Torah is so difficult and I can't drink, and why can I have Scotch and I can't have wine?' A normal person's going to have all these negative issues that come up with him, he's going to find it all a discipline.

That's why it starts off, the whole idea of the Zohar is, I know it's very difficult to have Jewish wine. I know it's tough. It's so much easier to drink Johnny Walker. But there's a reason why we go for wine and not Johnny Walker. So if it's always if you just do the dina without an understanding of more, it gets tough. Okay, I'll be a martyr, I won't smile, I'll have that face right in my whole life. Right? No, if I understand it, I get that face and then I'm in good shape. Yeah. So today Rabbi, we were trying to see how a Zohar could be extremely high up and without the ladders it's going to be difficult to bring it down.

Yeah, it's going, if you tell it over to people, it's going to destroy people, right? You're going to sound like a nut. You're going to sound like any like... For sure. Yes. And a Brisker's issue with this, would it be that they're worried you won't be able to actually accurately bring it down? Or is that even if you could accurately bring it down via the Maharal let's say, still they don't want you to know this mitzvah? Know this ta'am why you're doing the mitzvah. It's better to do it without the ta'am, even if the ta'am is correct.

Or they worry that you won't get it. No, I think, well I don't know, I guess we have different Briskers. This is basically Brisk. This is everything's gezeiras hakatuv. Just like in Gemara, they're not going to give you the sevara. They're going to say, oh it's a pasuk, right? I want to know the hagdara of the pasuk, but no, I don't know it. So Briskers, they learn, they can learn Zohars and stuff. They just this is the way it is, this is the din, and I don't care why it is.

Why is a grape different than a strawberry? I don't know, but God said it is, it's a gezeiras hakatuv, we just go forward. So I think the Briskers both here and missing the Maharals and the Shev Shma'tatas, they're missing the same thing, they're missing the bina in the middle. Okay. Maybe you mean a Litvak who doesn't want to learn Zohar at all. It's like, who cares? Just the key to doing the mitzvah is I'm doing mitzvah out of ahava, I don't care about the individual mitzvah.

That's too high for me. The key is I'm serving the Eibishter, I'm serving the Maker of the world, that should make me happy. When you bring home pansies for your wife, you don't ask why did my wife like pansies? Lilacs are so much more loyal. You just make her happy, so you just make God happy, that's what a Brisker would do. And I think that's a higher level. They actually, Soloveitchik's Halakhic Man brings Rav Chaim Soloveitchik who says not knowing the reason for why for example God created the world is the best thing.

Not that, they think it's higher. What reason would that make it higher? That you're just mevater your da'as to Hakadosh

Confusion about Rav Chaim's belief

[1:06:53]

Baruch Hu, you realize I can't understand everything. But I don't think, I'm pretty sure my Kabbalah Rabbi told me Rav Chaim didn't believe that. Okay, well... Or mevater at some point also. And I don't think Rav Soloveitchik believes that either. Rav Soloveitchik himself said that Halakhic Man is a typology which explains what the Brisker was, but it's not the real you know... It's the extreme. It's the extreme. Rav Soloveitchik was much more emotional and warm and Kabbalistic than that.

It's a cold, it is a pretty cold book. Yeah, I'm just a little confused because I've heard Rabbi say that the reason that Maharal and Rav Chaim of Volozhin were so popular is because they speak out the sevara, because the sevara is so explicit. But I'm confusing how to reconcile that with what the Rabbi just said about Briskers being more pasuk-oriented, not sevara-oriented.