Tisha B'Av: From Bilbul to Chassidus — Reframing Aveilus/Transcript

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Audio: Mesilas Yesharim on the Churban (August 7, 2022)

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The essence of Tisha B'Av is having a availus and the question what exactly is availus? So what's the lashon of availus? So the lashon of availus is to be confused. It says it comes from the word bal, bilbul, right? The aleph is extra for emphasis, it says. The word comes from the word bilbul, bal. It's thinking about things and not being able to figure out what happens, not figure out what's going on. And Mesillas Yesharim basically wants to explain that the essence of the bilbul, the essence of what we don't understand is that we think about ourselves so much we forget Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So what we're supposed to come out with is a whole day of doing everything we don't want to do for ourselves. We don't eat, we don't talk to each other, we don't wash our hands to have any joy, we don't have sexual relationships. Everything's about what you don't want to do so you open yourself up to what somebody else wants to do and Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to do. And we're so confused how caught up we are in ourselves, that's what we're trying to get out of. So I'm not sure exactly how to frame this piece for us. We can frame it as the Ramchal wants to what's really to be a chasid, what's it mean to be a chasid, and how do you a chasid without a shtreimel? And that's what we're trying to work on. The chasid without a shtreimel is chasid is very simple. The word chasid comes from you do chesed with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And that's what the mourning is, and mourning is thinking about how bad the world looks, how destroyed the world looks, and we have to awaken ourselves up that obviously the way we're going is not the right way, we're in a bilbul, we have to change our mindset and recognize to care about Hakadosh Baruch Hu's perspective, to care about Yerushalayim, to care about Klal Yisrael, and that's what the end of Mesillas Yesharim is over here about chesed is. Let me just refine availus first and then we'll go on from that. So right what's the lashon of availus? Rashi might say it the simplest. Right what's the word availus comes to the word aval? What's aval mean? Aval means \"I love you but not enough to buy ice cream for you.\" So aval is always you think A and then there's a geder that you think oh no not completely A. That's not completely right. That's not right it's changing my thoughts. So availus is the idea we have to change our thoughts. It's a \"but\". I thought something and that was partially true but there's a deeper truth that I didn't get and that's what I have to grow from during the availus during the aspect that's going on. I have a bilbul in my daas that I'm not thinking deeply enough about things. Let's go this story. Aval. So this the Ksav VehaKabalah just wants to bring: אין שם אבל לפי שמעון פינר לשון תוגה והספד כמו שרגילים לפרש. It does not mean availus does not mean you should be mourning and crying like most people think, that there should be a trauer, there should be a tragedy. כי אם לשון בלבול ותורת דעת. It's a language of aval-ness. I can't figure out what's going on. I'm aval, aval, aval. I can't do... someone's aval, aval, aval they've got no clarity, they just don't know what they're doing. שאין דעתו של מתאבל מיושבת עליו ואינו יודע מה לעשות. I realize that everything I'm doing is wrong, wrong, wrong and I don't know how to do anything. וענין מבוכה אלא שמבוכה רוצה לצאת ממבוכתו ואינו מוצא מוצא. A mevucha crying is when you're trying to get out of something and you may be able to escape. Availus is after the destruction's already occurred. With availus, you've lost a parent, you've lost the Beis Hamikdash, אינו משתדל לצאת מעניינו שכבר נעשה המעשה ואין להשיב. You can't do anything different, you're left. All you can do is change your daas, you can think differently, you can understand the world differently. I realize I'm mevulbal, I'm really messed up, but I can't... the only way to get out of it is by changing my daas. Ella shemachshovosav mevalbelim. My thoughts are confused. ואין להם סדר כראוי. לפי שבכל מקום שיש אבל יש תוגה. Now okay, sometimes we use the words the same way because when you're confused, you're sad. bekein u'lehefech. לכן בא אבל לפעמים במקום תוגה. Sometimes it comes for pain. כמו נהפך לאבל מחולנו. v'nehafachti evelam l'sasson, it gets happy. אבל בעצם תוגה לחוד ואבל לחוד. In essence, happiness is one thing, sadness is one thing, and mourning's a different. she'yagon poel lev. Yagon is you feel something in your heart, it's emotional. But avel poel b'machshava. That's what I want. Avelus is it has to affect your head. You have to think differently. If all you are is emotional, emotional, emotional, you've missed what avelus is. Avelus is a buddedness. I was thinking like A and now I have to think like B and I'm confused what I should be thinking. ומשום כך בא לשון התפעל ואבל ואצלו אבל. In hispael. Therefore usually the word avelus comes in reflexive. It's something I do to myself. yisabel al b'no, I'm thinking about my son. yisabel al imo. לפי שמתאבל ומסובב לעצמו זהו הבילבול. The key to avelus is, the reason I'm not talking to anybody else is because I know it's my problem. The reason we don't talk to people today, we don't get involved is I'm trying to say, shooh, things are just so bad, how can it be that Klal Yisrael does so much tefillah, so much gemilus chesed, and so many so many so much Talmud Torah and it's so bad? I'm just confused. I have to figure out what's really going on, I'm missing something. That's what the key to avelus is. He says it at the very very end of the Chumash again, he just brings the lashon comes lashon of bal clearly. כי לשון אבל אינו עיקר הוראתו לשון תוגה והספד. Avel does not mean crying and mourning. מה שרגיל על פי רוב. That if you cry and mourn when you say kinnah, that's the key to the day. כי עיקר שורש אבל בל. Is the idea of not. sh'inyano eder u'shlila. I'm lacking, I can't get what's going on, I I thought like this and now it's a but. I don't know where I'm going. כמו ולבו בל עמו. My heart is not with me. בל ידעת שפתי דעת. אבל נקרא כן על שם העדר ושלילת דעתו מחמת צער. It's I'm lacking understanding of what's going on, therefore I thought we'd look at the Mesillas Yesharim to figure out what is supposed to be going on, what we're trying to do. So far so good? Two different definitions of avel and bal or they're both the same? No, he's saying the root of the word avel comes from the word bal. It's something I'm lacking, I'm lacking, it's bilbul. It's like mabul. It's confused, I'm messed up. Bal and bal, I'm just I can't get out of it. And it's not just supposed to be an emotional thing, it has to be an intellectual aspect. And you have to realize my thoughts aren't working, this is not I don't get what's going on. I can't figure out why something so bad happened to me. How could my father die? How could the Beis HaMikdash be destroyed? It doesn't make sense to me, I have to rethink everything. So that's what we're going to do over here, how do we rethink everything. So the Ramchal over here's going to do two big resets. One is, if somebody walked up to you and said, the reason you have to do a taanis today is because you're the cause of the Churban Beis HaMikdash, you'd go, huh? I'm a nice baal teshuvah, you know, I I've turned my whole life around, you know, like you know maybe you should complain to Rabbi Trubitz but you know at at my job is to fold my right hand over my left hand and my right foot over my left foot and my just put my tefillin on in the morning, that's good enough. What am I going for? And the Ramchal's going to say, no, the whole world is made for you and therefore you have to take this very seriously. You can bring the Beis HaMikdash back and you have to know that. And the second one is that we're missing about thinking about Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so we spend our whole life thinking about our needs and we need a mindset switch to think about Hakadosh Baruch Hu a little bit that the Apter Rebbe, the Avraham Yehoshua Heschel used to always ask, you know, who's the most tragic figure in Chumash? So some say it would be Moshe, he didn't get to go into Eretz Yisrael. Some people would say Iyov, Job, he lost all his children. And he would say the most the most tragic figure if you read Chumash properly is Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He gives us everything and sets everything up perfectly and we keep botching it up for him. It's like a good father who gives the kid everything he wants and we botch it up. Okay, so exactly where it is in the Mesillat Yesharim, every book's going to be different, I don't know where to go, there's some copies over there if you want them, there's some more copies over there, Yoel, you've got one? There, down, okay. Got it, okay. Hineh, that's what I want. He's going to say at the very end, go to the end and find Psalm 97:10, it's right after Psalm 97:10. You see this? Yeah, chapter 19 at the very end. You there? Someone give me one copy, I'll find someone's one copy and give you yours, Yoel, I'll find you yours. In the green one here, in the blue one here, it's on page 19. Vehineh, avar nu ad hineh, Mah starts? Yeah, in page 256. It's on page 137 in the blue. Thank you. Is it good? Everyone's got? We good? Okay. הנה ביאור חלקי החסידות מה שתלוי במעשה ובאופן העשייה. So Chasidut is doing the mitzvot as completely as you can, and then doing the emotional reactivity. So the first thing you have to have, of course, is you have to have your body doing right, and then you have to have your emotions doing right. But like we just said, aveilus is having your machshavos right. So now we have to go to kavanah which is the right thoughts. וכבר דיברנו גם כן למעלה מעניין לשמה ושלא לשמה ומדרגותיהם. Amnam, so the key idea is going to be, if your whole purpose of doing service is so you get a better reward, that's not Chasidut. Chasidut is to care about God and do chesed to God. What we have to do, if you want to be a chasid, a chasid without a shtreimel, a chasid is something inside of your head, they're trying to think: how can I make a Kiddush Hashem? How can I do kavod for Hakadosh Baruch Hu? How can I worry about Hakadosh Baruch Hu? What can I do? Here we go. אמנם ודאי שמי שמתכוון בעבודתו לטהר נפשו לפני בורא. A person whose whole intention is I want to purify myself, למען תזכה לשבת לפניו בכלל הישרים והחסידים. I want to be with the good people in the world to come. לחזות בנועם השם ולבקר בהיכלו. To see God's pleasantness and to enjoy the castle, the castle, the castle. ולקבל הגמול אשר בעולם הבא, לא נוכל לומר שתהיה כוונה זו רעה. I can't say this is evil. אכן לא נוכל לומר גם כן שתהיה אותה טובה. This is not a mature vision. A mature vision of the world is you want to be doing things for the right purpose. It can't be the whole reason you're doing something is because you care about yourself. כי עד שהאדם מתכוון לטובת עצמו. If my whole intention is just for myself. סוף סוף עבודתו לצורך עצמו. I'm just being narcissistic, I'm being a good narcissist, but I'm still just being egocentric. אך הכוונה האמיתית המצויה בחסידים. If you want to be a chasid, it's you have to care about Klal Yisrael and you have to care about God and you have to care about Yerushalayim. אשר טרחו והשתדלו להשיגה. Don't think anybody is made, the Ramchal says, naturally to do this. We all start off being narcissistic, being immature. והוא שיהיה אדם עובד רק למען אשר כבודו של האדון ברוך הוא יגדל וירבה. We want that Hakadosh Baruch Hu's glory, yigdal, should become bigger, more deep. People should see more and more about God's greatness, veyirbeh. Veyirbeh is more multitudinous, we should see more little pieces of an explanation. So gadol is tall and great and a high expanse, and yarbeh is multitudinous. One is quality, that's the first one, the second one's quantity. וזה יהיה אחר שיתגבר באהבה אליו יתברך ויחמוד ויתאווה להגדלת כבודו. And that's after you are chomeid and misaveh to hagdalas kvodo. You have to be emotional about wanting people to recognize how great God is. Just because this week's Parsha, V'eschanan, chomed and mita'ave, what are these two words? So chomed is something you desire with your head. It's an intellectual desire that's deep. Taiva is something you desire with your body. And you have to want both, you have to realize for us to appreciate God and Jews and Yerushalayim more, it's with something with my head and with my heart. It's in this week's Parsha because we change, right? In the Ten Commandments, it says לא תחמוד אשה ולא תתאוה שדהך. So the Maharal wants to know why do we have one chemda and one taiva. So wife is to make us more complete, make us more human. The physical things are just physical desires and therefore use the word taiva on them. וגם כתוב בשאר קנינו לשון לא תתאוה ואצל אשה לא תחמוד בעשרת הדברות. כי לשון תאוה בא על תאוה חומרית לגמרי. That's talking about a desire from the physical world. כמו והאספסוף אשר בקרבו התאוו תאוה. The mixed multitude wanted a taiva. They want the quail. ותאוה לנפשך לאכל בשר. They want to eat flesh. וכי תאוה הוא לעינים by Adam HaRishon. It says וכי תאוה הוא לעינים, your eyes, your physical eyes see it and they want it. That's physical. v'nechmad ha'etz l'haskil it says nechmad, it's intellectually desirable, lehaskil. ובעולם לא תמצא תאוה רק בענין זה. That's what we're going for. לפיכך בדברות אחרונות שהם ביותר קרובים נאמר לא תחמוד אשת רעך כי לשון חמדה שייך לדבר שאינו כל כך תאוה חומרית. It's not something that's so physical. והנה כי אשה שלמותו של אדם, a woman completes man intellectually and emotionally also. לכך שייך לשון חמדה. v'etzel sh'ar kinyano extra physical things amar lashon tisa'ave. כי תאוה דבר שהוא ריבוי קנינים ותאוות חומריות. Okay, so he's saying over here that a mindset needs to be based physically and emotionally with what's going on. ומצטער כל שמיעט ממנו כי אז יבא עבודתו לתכליתה. Only if you get your head and your heart and your body working together will you really be able to care about God and other people. שלפחות מצדו יהיה כבודו יתברך מתגדל. That we should want that Hakadosh Baruch Hu's glory should become greater. שיתאוה שכל שאר בני אדם יהיו כמו כן. I want to do better for God's glory, I should be more of a Kiddush Hashem and I want other people to be more of a Kiddush Hashem. ויצטער ויתאנח על מה שממעטים שאר בני אדם. We're very distraught about the fact that other people don't appreciate God. וכל שכן מה שממעט הוא עצמו בשוגג באונס ובחולשת הטבע. I'm upset with myself if I do things unintentionally or if I'm compelled to do something wrong or I'm just tired and I do things wrong. אשר קשה לו להשמר מן החטאים בכל עת. It's hard for a human being. We're human beings and human beings naturally sin because we're physical. So we have to be open that we're sometimes a Chillul Hashem. כענין שכתוב אדם אין צדיק ba'aretz. A man is not a tzaddik in the aretz. The word aretz is extra, physical world, because the physical pulls us the wrong way. אשר יעשה טוב ולא יחטא. So I have to realize that my mindset is that I'm not living up to my obligations to God and I'm not thinking about God enough. That's what I have to do. Maggid of Dubna has a mashal. I don't want to make this as harsh as he makes it. He makes it pretty harsh. But there's a wife comes into the Rav and says, Rav, you know, all I want, all I really need, all I desire is this Shalom Bayis in my house. Like what do I have to do for Shalom Bayis in my house? Like I just want Shalom Bayis. So he tells her, go out and pick your husband's favorite food and make a lavish, glorious meal of the food, and go out and buy your husband his favorite present, go buy his favorite wine, go dress yourself up beautiful, and you'll do that and you'll have the shalom bayis back that you should do. So the lady spends a couple of days, she works, she makes the meal, she gets herself dressed up, she gets the present, she does everything, and she brings her husband in, and she says, \"you know, I did everything so that I'll have shalom bayis. Are you happy?\" And the husband said, \"No, I'm not happy, because you want the shalom bayis for you. You don't want the shalom bayis for me. Right? You don't want what shalom bayis to make me happy. That's why this marriage is not working because everything's about what you want, and you're just doing this to seduce me into it.\" That's like Klal Yisrael doing all kind of mitzvos and all kind of avodah for Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but we're not changing our mindset that we're trying to do something for Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's what the Ramchal wants to get us with the mashal they're going for, that's what looking into, that's what the Ramchal wants. Now he wants to bring a proof for this, and the proof for this is the source for, it starts off, the midrash starts off as one of the reasons we call Maor Maor from this תנא דבי אליהו רבה. He asks, why is it that Moshe Rabbeinu after Luchos Rishonos didn't have karan or panav, he didn't have maor panim. The first luchos, תנא דבי אליהו רבה says was on a higher level, but he didn't come out with an illuminated face. But after Luchos Shniyos given at a lower level, Moshe Rabbeinu had an illuminated face, he had a maor panim. So the answer it says is that after Luchos Rishonos, Moshe Rabbeinu thought all he had to do was learn. So after Luchos Shniyos, he saw that Klal Yisrael was going to sin, and he realized that he had to love human beings, and he had to love God, and he had to love Torah, and then the world would be right. And when he got to that higher level that he realized he couldn't just sit and learn, but he had to work with Klal Yisrael and he had to work for Hakadosh Baruch Hu, then he got maor panim. So that's what he's going to say over here. So he leaves out the beginning part and it's going to say, כל חכם מישראל שדבר זה ביאורו בתנא דבי אליהו רבה אמר. How do you get Ruach HaKodesh? So the way you get Ruach HaKodesh is by actualizing your human wisdom as far as you can. God's not going to give you the fifth gear unless you've developed the first four gears. So he says, כל חכם מישראל שיש בו דבר תורה לאמיתו. The first thing you have to do is, we don't believe in a Chassidishe pshat you can just go blow your flute out in the field and everything's going to be good. So the first thing has to be is that you know Torah properly. Okay, we're Litvaks. You gotta understand Torah well. Now is that enough that God's going to give you Ruach HaKodesh and help you? Not yet. You haven't used all of your wisdom yet. ומתאנח על כבודו של הקדוש ברוך הוא. You have to mourn the embarrassment to God of the world, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has made such a fantastic, beautiful world, and people don't appreciate it. And we don't appreciate ourselves, we don't have the appreciation and the simcha we should have. ועל כבודן של ישראל כל ימיו. And you don't appreciate the honor of Klal Yisrael. Like we said by Moshe Rabbeinu, Moshe Rabbeinu learned after the Golden Calf that he had to work for the Klal Yisrael, he had to work with God. That's not enough. ומתאווה ומיצר לכבוד ירושלים ולכבוד בית המקדש. That's what we're doing today, that you have to be pained that there's lack of kavod to Jerusalem, there's lack of kavod to Beis HaMikdash. Right? Yerushalayim ircha we daven. It's God's city. No one recognizes it's God's city. It looks like a city like everybody else's city. That's a chilul Hashem. There's no Beis HaMikdash. That's a chilul Hashem. We don't recognize how special the world is, how special Hakadosh Baruch Hu is. And that has to mourn for us, that's what we're doing today. We're waking ourselves up that there is something I'm missing. We don't recognize it, we're so into ourselves. We're more worried about my tie having a spot on it than there being a lack of a Churban Beis HaMikdash. If you have this mindset, now God will help and give you ruach hakodesh. זוכה לרוח הקודש בדבריו. Then Hakadosh Baruch Hu will join into you and give you what you're going for. But he wants to bring over here that this is a crucial mindset that you have to worry about God, about Israel, about Jerusalem and the Beis Hamikdash. And that's what the aveilus is. Avel is I'm confused, how could things be so bad and the answer is I've forgotten about God, I've forgotten about Klal Yisrael, I've forgotten about Jerusalem, I've forgotten about the Beis Hamikdash, and I got to come back. It's embarrassing. I don't even know where to go to. Yeah. We're like that wife that will do all the deeds but we can't think about the other people, we just what we want to do, I want to do the mitzvos right, I want to do what I want to do, we don't think about what the world need. נמצאת למד שזו כוונה מעולה שרחוקה לגמרי מכל הנאת עצמו. I'm not thinking about myself so much, I'm thinking about Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's what the aveilus of today is. But I do the mitzvos because it's good for me, but I have to recognize I have to make it good for Klal Yisrael and good for Hakadosh Baruch Hu and good for the Beis Hamikdash and Jerusalem. ואינו אלא לכבוד המקום ולקדש שמו. I have to make a kiddush Hashem. המתקדש בבריותיו בשעה שעושה רצונו. There's a kiddush Hashem when we do the right thing, we make a kiddush Hashem whenever we talk in middle of davening, cheat in our tax returns, don't have a big enough smile on our face, we're lacking this mindset we have to have. ועל זה אמרו איזהו חסיד הזה, says who's a chassid? Doesn't say a person wears a shtreimel, doesn't say a person goes to the mikveh, doesn't say a person davens long shemoneh esrei, mis-chased im kono, a person who tries to do chesed for God. We try to make the world a little bit better, a little more expressive of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, people should see goodness and greatness in the world. That's what we're going for. So there's two things now. So first is when you do your mitzvos you're thinking about this should be good for Klal Yisrael, this should be good for God. And second you have to have a little bit of a day like Tisha B'Av that you feel the actual pain. Hinei chassid kazeh, if you're going to be a chassid like this, think deeper, what's this mean? מלבד עבודה שהוא עובד מעשה מצוות על כוונה זאת. I want to do the mitzvos properly so it'll be a kiddush Hashem to God. People are going to go wow what a wonderful God you've got. Right? Gemara in Yoma pei-vov, נושא ונותן באמונה ועושה נחת רוח עם הבריות. You're honest in business and you speak pleasant to the people, alav hakasuv omer, the pasuk says אשרי אדם שלמד תורה אשרי הרב שלמדו תורה אשרי הקדוש ברוך הוא שלמדו תורה, happy is God that taught you Torah. הנה ודאי שיצטער תמיד צער ממש על הגלות ועל החורבן ועל המעט שגורם כביכול לכבוד יתברך. We have to be in pain that there's a churban Beis Hamikdash and if there was a Beis Hamikdash people would be blown away by how great Hakadosh Baruch Hu is. There's a galus because of the fact the Jews are split up all over the world, we don't recognize how great Jews were if they were all together. It would be amazing. ויתאוה לגאולה לפי שבה יהיה עילוי לכבוד שמו יתברך. Why do I want redemption? I want redemption because people are going to see how great Hakadosh Baruch Hu is then, and that's what I'm thinking about over here on Tisha B'Av. הוא מה שאמר תנא דבי אליהו רבה שהבאנו למעלה מתאוה ומצטער לכבוד השם ולכבוד ירושלים. You have to think about kavod and Jerusalem and the kavod Beis Hamikdash. And we have to realize, yeah it doesn't bother you much that there's not a Beis Hamikdash, okay, bothers God a lot. Should bother you a lot. It's something big. Think about it. ותתפלל תמיד על הגאולה של ישראל והשבת כבוד שמים לעילויא, and bringing Hakadosh Baruch Hu back to the world. Now stage two, so stage one... One is, you want to be a chassid, you have to have a mindset that I'm interested in other people. It's not all about me, me, me, me, it's I'm interested in God, Klal Yisrael, Yerushalayim, and the Beis Hamikdash. Those are all in my radar. But are you serious? I should daven for bringing the Geulah? Really? So here the Ramchal and the Zohar make the ikker of being a chassid is Chevron Gadlas Adam, right? Yep, you're made b'tzelem Elokim, your tefillah is important, you have to say the Mishna in Sanhedrin, Bishvili Nivra Haolam, the world is made for me, I'm responsible, the whole world is made for me. If you think that you're a peon or a peasant, you're not Jewish. No, no, no, Bishvilecha Nivra Haolam and you gotta do your part. Don't just leave it to Rav Chaim and Rav Chaim's died anyway right now so you've gotta pick up some load. What's going on, so that's what he's going to say now. V'im Yomar Adam, the second big thing that's supposed to be picked up by Tisha B'Av is that you're important, that you're part of the reason for the Churban. You can't just blame the great rabbis, and those of you who don't know great rabbis want to blame un-great rabbis, you can't just blame un-great rabbis, right, there's gotta go for it. V'im Yomar Adam, a person's going to say, \"This is not my problem. מי אני ומה אני ספון שאתפלל על גלות ירושלים\" Who am I? And why am I safun? Safun means to be a captain. Why am I in charge that I should daven for the Galus Yerushalayim? Or safun is obviously samech, samech stands for completion, peh is poh, bring it here. A safun, I'm so important I have to bring completion down here? I can bring completion to this world? Come on, that's not for me. המפני תפלתי יתכנסו הגליות ותצמח ישועה Because of me there'll be an end to the exile? תשובה בצדה כאשר שנינו לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי Mishna says man was made alone שכדי שכל אחד יאמר בשבילי נברא העולם for me the world was made. Boom! Radical, strange, strong, it's got to affect you all the time. You're not going to take Tisha B'Av seriously if you think you're a peon and a peasant, you're going to think Rav Gedalia Eisman, Rav Galay, Rav Gershon Edelstein, these people have to worry but I don't have to worry, I got other things to worry about. No. And he takes it more radically than what I do in knowing yourself vort, knowing yourself vort I say it's just a cheilek that I learn all the perushim that you've got a portion, Maharal learns, the Gra learns, but he's taking it very radically over here. It's your world, guy. Don't make yourself small. If you make yourself small, then all you worry about is how the fellow fellows are doing, and I'm sure they're not doing well. וכבר נחת רוח הוא לפניו יתברך שהם מבקשים על זאת If you do what you're supposed to do, God's going to be happy with you. ואף שלא תעשה בקשתם מפני שלא הגיע זמן או מאיזה טעם שיהיה and even though God's not going to answer you right now because the time hasn't come yet, הנה הם עשו את שלהם you've done what you're supposed to do. והקדוש ברוך הוא שמח בזה, don't play small, right? So he's saying, you have to have in your mind not just yourself, don't be narcissistic, think about God, think about other Jews, think about Yerushalayim, think about the Temple, and now how important you are. Don't think that you just have to be small and worry about your little city. Now he brings a bunch of proof. ועל דבר זה התרעם הנביא The fact that no one cares about the klal and davens for the klal and davens for the Beis Hamikdash, the prophets were all upset about. Yeshaya says on a pasuk וירא כי אין איש He sees that there's no great men. That's the first thing he's upset about. No great men. Okay, that's all of us. But it doesn't stop there. Veyishtomem, he's completely blown away. Okay, there's no great men. But some people should at least daven for good things. Ki ein mafgia. The daven, okay, I understand there's no adam hashaleims. I can handle that. But there's ein mafgia, there's no one who's bothered, no one davens. Okay, so you're not complete, but still daven. He learns it. Ve'omar habit, I look, God says. Ve'ein ozer, no one's helping me. V'eshtomem, I'm more shocked. Okay. No one's going to help me, but at least someone will be somech, at least hold me up. Ve'ein somech, there's nothing there. So we're seeing again and again that God says, even if you're not complete, even if you're not great, like, do something, do something for my goodness. Ve'omar: ציון היא דורש אין לה. Yirmiyahu says I walk around, Tzion, Zion, the Beit Hamikdash requires me to look, be worried about it, concerned about it. I see there's no one's doreish. Doreish means look deeper. We look around and, okay, it would be a better tourist season if we had a temple with a lot of miracles. We don't think deeply what that would be. Pshat is, we run around, miklal d'beirusha. From that we see that we have to think about it. הרי כאן שחייבים אנחנו בזה. So from all these cases we see that even simple people like us need to think about it. ואין לנו לפטר מפני מיעוט כוחנו. We can't say, \"Oh, I'm too small, I can't do anything.\" Obviously, we shouldn't go nuts. It's not that you have to forget learning Gemara and forget taking care of your wife and, but you have to have it somewhere that you think about this. כי על כיוצא בזה אנו אומרים. לא עליך המלאכה לגמור. Don't make a mistake to think you have to finish something. Just the process of doing it is big to God. ואי אתה בן חורין להבטל ממנה. Pirkei Avot says you can't not do it. Ve'omer haNavi. Navi says, \"Hey. אין מנהל לה מכל בניה ילדה.\" Yeshayahu says the people in the world are like drunkards, he says. Nobody is מנהל לה מכל בניה ילדה. All the children, no one takes the hand of the people and brings them in the right direction. ואין מחזיק בידה מכל בניה גדלה. From all the children she gave birth. Amar: Kol basar chatzir. So he's quoting a Zohar here. The pasuk in Yeshayahu says, Kol basar chatzir. All flesh eats animal food. Vechol chasdo, and all the goodness of man, k'tzitz hasadeh, is like a dying flower. Peirusha: Zichronam livracha, Avodah Zarah, daf beiz-beiz. That's obviously a mistake, I think it's in the original edition, but I'd like to know if someone can be creative. I don't know what it is, but it says a Zohar that he wants to say, right? In Avodah Zarah, daf beiz-beiz is nothing, I learned the daf ten times. It's a mistake, right? You all have daf beiz-beiz, right? Yes, it's a mistake. It says Tikunei Zohar. That's what it should say. Right. So, yeah. It says it's a girsa change or no? Just across Tikunim. Okay. So up in the top of the text or the bottom of the text? No, just in the top. Really? Good for them. Okay. So it says over there, it says people are like animals eating food. All they care about is what makes them feel good. And they don't realize that their goodness is like a flower that's going to fade. He says, \"Your interest, your interest, your interest, how long is it going to be important?\" But if you daven a bit for God's interest, that lasts forever. If you're worried about Klal Yisrael, that lasts forever. Does tzitz mean a dying flower or does it just mean a sprouting? A sprouting flower that's going to die. It doesn't last long, it's a tzitz, it's a small little thing, not a tree. It's a perennial they call it. It grows and it dies and it grows and it dies and it grows and it dies. Not like a tree. שכל חסד שהם עושים לעצמן עושים. Letovat nafsham ve'hana'atam. ואינם לכוון לשלמות הזאת. They don't think about Klal Yisrael and about Yerushalayim and about God. And that's why. And that's why we're having aveilus today. Thoughts are wrong. Aval we think but we should think deeper and we should think more properly, שאי אפשר לכבוד עליון להיראות אלא בגדלותם של ישראל וברוב כבודם. God can't be expressed until we see greatness for Jews. People, God's too deep for most people, and therefore we bring out God in the world that'll be easier than seen. שזה תלוי בזה באמת. כמו שנאמר בתנא דבי אליהו שזכרתי. This is the Tanna Debei Eliyahu we mentioned. And מסדר כבודו של הקדוש ברוך הוא וכבודו של ישראל. Okay, so so far you got what we got to do. And now the next part which we'll try and read through fast and we'll finish. So the next part is you have to worry about the generation. If you're a chasid, so you're worried about God, you're worried about Klal Yisrael, you're worried about Yerushalayim, you're worried about Beis Hamikdash, and then you have to worry to protect the generation. Everybody has to do this or you've got to do it 24/7? No, that's what he's second over here, right? He said over here the Sanhedrin, right? לפיכך נברא אדם יחידי, right? Everyone's got to do it. The difference is you can do it just by sparkles. If you do it two minutes a day, that's enough. A person with this middah does it all the time. Okay? So the Mesillas Yesharim on middos, that's middah all the time. The rest of us have to do a little bit, but again, don't drive yourself nuts and try and do it 24/7, but a little bit of what you're trying to do, that's what we're looking for. אומנם עוד עיקר שני יש בכוונת החסידות והוא טובת הדור. שהנה ראוי לכל חסיד שיכוין במעשיו לטובת הדור כולו. ולזכות אותם ולהגן עליהם. Vehu inyan shekasuv what's a tzaddik, אמרו צדיק כי טוב. Everyone says that a tzaddik is good. Nowadays people don't say a tzaddik's good, why? כי פרי מעלליהם יאכלו because they realize they eat the fruits of their deeds. שכל הדור אוכל מפירותיו. Everyone eats from their deeds. So you have to worry about everybody else, you have to davven for people. And it keeps going on and on. The Zohar, it's a Gemara really in Berachos daf yud, but Rebbe Akiva Eger brings a Zohar there that it says there's a mitzvah for a person to davven about resha'im. You should davven for the hatzlachah of resha'im, of evil people. And it says strong language, it says imagine if Terah had died, there wouldn't have been Avraham and there wouldn't have been King David and there wouldn't have been Messiah. So a chasid has to davven for even the resha'im because the resha'im can be a way that we bring out what we're supposed to bring out, what we're trying to do. And we'll stop there, we'll go too long. That's the basic idea Mesillas Yesharim wants, that the aveilus, the mindset we have to change is at least two big mindsets. One is we have to worry about somebody else besides ourselves, about Klal Yisrael, about Yerushalayim and about God and get that into our mindset. And the second one is that we think we're small, we're not important, it's not really our problem, and therefore we don't worry about this, but we're really big and we're great, we can do great things. That's what we're trying to go for, that's what he wants. Yes Ken? The concept of Hashem being in pain or being good for Hashem is kind of a chiddush to me. I mean I understand by other people, you're doing chesed someone else has a lack so you fill that lack for them. And then you're doing good for them, you're elevating their lives and potentially their growth. But for Hashem, you know I've always kind of considered Him as like this constant and whatever we do down here kind of pushes buttons then He kind of reacts down here, obviously according to whatever the musar. But to say that we have to do good for Him, I don't really understand that concept so much. Okay, so you know this is this is Rambam like you, Maimonides in Moreh Nevuchim doesn't get it either. You'll see the very last Perek of Avos the Maharal goes and obliterates the Rambam and philosophers being overly philosophical. The last Perek of Avos is כל מה שברא הקדוש ברוך הוא לא בראו אלא לכבודו. Everything God made He made for His glory. So just like everything we understand by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the tzimtzum of Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes it and will be strong. So He made an aspect that we understand that just like you want your father to have glory or your rebbe to have glory or yourself to have glory, God wants it too. Yes, at some level God's not bothered by anything. But he made a world down here that works, relates to us in a certain way. And therefore we have to feel his pain and we have to feel his, because as human beings, that's the first step of understanding הקדוש ברוך הוא. If you don't understand הקדוש ברוך הוא is like a person, you never understand that he is more than a person. So you're saying that the part within the צמצום that he created that feels pain. שכינה feels pain. And that שכינה was created specifically for this world? So we have a way to relate and understand the move forward we're trying to go. Okay, בעזרת השם we should leave the אבילות and go to כלל ישראל, yeah. I just have a very quick, just on a practical level, how can we develop a greater sensitivity to the בית המקדש that was destroyed? I mean, obviously for myself, but growing up conservative, the בית המקדש was about a building was destroyed. And you know, so what are some practical ways to really internalize just exactly how much we lost so we gain a greater awareness? I mean, I think just to טייטש the words up, בית המקדש, the sends out קדושה, מקדש, right? That there's a place where I could go to get קדושה, to get connection. The whole world, I feel disconnected from myself, I feel disconnected from you, I feel disconnected from the תורה, and there's a בית that's מקדש, makes passion connection all over. And people would go and it's amazing, you know, Richard the Lionhearted, the king of England, traveled four thousand miles overland to get to it because he knew that there in that place, there was a connection that even people had. ישראל, the name ישראל, the country, is ישר קל. We're here, we get straight to הקדוש ברוך הוא. So we have to think about, obviously, not a building it's, to think about the power of the building, there was a place that was called שוש כל הארץ, the happiest place in the world. That place that we would feel connection to ourselves, connection to הקדוש ברוך הוא and it's lacking. That's what we're trying to think about. Can the place give you קדושה without the building there? Yes. Should we go there today and feel the קדושה? I was there with רב Efros, I once asked רב Efros this question. And רב Efros said, I used to answer yes, that if you learn half an hour מוסר before you go, then you can go. But now I don't think that's enough. Now if you learn half an hour מוסר every day and then you go and do a half an hour מוסר before you go there, then perhaps you can see it. What I think he was trying to say in his German dry humor way is that it's far for us to see nowadays and it's not something that he really thinks most people experience, but if you want to work at it you can try and work at it. Yes. Is this all an intellectual pursuit? Meaning, or if there's some sort of action involved? Meaning, why isn't it that we don't just go down and try to just take it? I don't know, meaning it sounds radical. We're not supposed to take it, that's the, הקדוש ברוך הוא set that up for us. Please control yourself. Like, you know, like you know, that's not what we're supposed to do. But we're supposed to feel bad that we can't take it, that we can't do it and recognize what we're missing. That's what we're trying to go for. And just to call just the mindset, he keeps calling חמדה ותאוה. You have to really desire, you have to see what we're lacking, feel like, ah, we're living in really a lacking world and it's טאקע could be so much more. So it's gotta be a feisty, you know, mindset, it's a serious mindset that wow, this is really what I want to do. And רב משה שפירא used to always, there's a piece in דרך עץ חיים that he used to always think about, רב משה used to always talk about, he says, how can we be so stupid? I mean we all understand that we're gonna be around for 120 years and whatever, you know, no one's gonna care whether you got the extra ice cream or not, whether you got the Nobel Prize or not, 50 years from now. Like what, like why can't we think big thoughts about what's good for כלל ישראל, what's good for הקדוש ברוך הוא? That's what the אבילות is. And of course this is where, you know, where did the לשון הרע come from? לשון הרע can we just think about yourself, you don't care about everybody else. Where's the שנאת חנם come from? We just think about ourselves. So the big vision's got to have a mature vision that we care about people other than ourselves, that's what we're trying to go for. Make the mindset, that's what speaks, yeah. How does רב ראובן put together this emphasis on pain with עונג in the beginning? Is this, like if עונג is the way to bring כבוד then if your pain is the way that you come, like how does he piece them all together, or how... Great question. Everybody asks this question. Wait a second. I thought the purpose of the world is להתענג על השם ולהנות מזיו שכינתו. It's to get pleasure from God and now you tell me the purpose is Kavod Hashem. It's to give Kavod to Hashem. So in Da'as Tevunos, he asks this question himself, the Ramchal. And he says, no question. He says the way that you get joy is by developing a mature mindset that you care about other people. You care about other people and make כבוד הקדוש ברוך הוא, then you'll get more joy because the world's working properly. So the two aspects aren't opposite each other, they work together. When you have a mature vision and Hakadosh Baruch Hu's expression is more complete in the world, then you'll have more oneg, and therefore these two work together. Yes. Recognizing that they're all ultimately connected, is there a difference in the entry point, or I guess the avoda, when it's like an individual aveilus, lo aleinu, God forbid, but someone loses somebody or something like that, or is the avoda the same where you think about what we just went over with the galus? Yeah, there's a famous, one of my favorite Gemaras, is a Gemara in פסחים דף סח עמוד ב. And Rav Yosef says people don't even know how to be frum. He says people don't know how to be frum. So the Gemara says over there that Rav Yosef says, חדא נפשאי בשבילך תנאי בשבילך תנאי. So Rav Yosef says, I'm learning for me, I'm learning for myself. So the Gemara asks a question, wait a second, it says that the world is made אם לא שמים וארץ. The world's not made for your joy, the world's made for the world to exist, how can you be so small? So Rabbeinu Chananel and Rabbeinu Gershom over there in the Gemara understand that at the beginning God expects us to be for ourselves. At the end, we grow up and have a more broad perception of the world. When you're a bachur, guess what? God sent you a bachur because you don't have that wide vision of the world yet. When you get married, guess what happens? Now it's time to start going to worry about your wife and your kids and your ratzon with them. But yes, so it definitely starts with yourself, that's natural, and then you move on from that. Like everything in Mesilas Yesharim, you got to go rung by rung by rung by rung. But you shouldn't get stuck in that season. That's the aval I'm trying to say. I know that I have to make myself happy and I know that I'm working for myself and I'm working to be an adam mashlim, but it's not working completely, and the but is I have to go from worrying about myself to worrying about other people and worrying about Golus Yerushalayim, and that's what we're trying to do today. I was wondering when it comes to the aveilus we're thinking about, and of course there are probably practical things that even in our lifetime we can think about, 15 years ago we didn't have X problem and now we have that problem, and if only we'd work on that problem. Is it things that are practical like that, or is it like, I don't know, when I think of the word kedusha, it's not, I don't think about it in the most practical terms, it feels like more of an abstract thing. So to mourn the loss of kedusha is a little bit harder than if we had practical things like these are huge problems in Klal Yisrael and the world? Yeah, you have to always have both. You know, you can't just be 'yes, you should love a person every day', right, 'make the world work better, I should worry about a different person every day and give them a phone call'. That's very practical, that's one way of loving Klal Yisrael. But the second thing is, whoa, people don't appreciate Klal Yisrael as a group, like these people sitting and shteiging and learning and people think they're just a bunch of messy guys in the Mir, they don't recognize what's going on. So you have to have the big picture and the small picture. You've got to be concrete but you also have to see the bigger picture above just being nice to people, I think, as always. People are recording.