Tisha B'Av: We Only Go Up in Kedusha/Transcript Part 2

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Audio: Tisha B'Av: We Only Go Up in Kedusha – Part 2 (July 23, 2026)

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It's no really like I got this thing. Right. And I think I don't know I think I heard here Moshe I wanted to ask Moshe or Dovid when they get this shleimus. Where was it? Just in Darwin like the the the time when they get this shleimus to you don't know there's no shleimus here. So then there's another one. That's what the Rav says is the only way to brachos. תלמידי חכמים מרבים שלום בעולם v'chayil el chayil and ein lahem menucha lo ba'olam hazeh v'lo ba'olam haba. There’s no menucha. There are levels of shleimus to the point. The Alter Rebbe says it's like you have a little a little a little lachmanyah that's shaleim and then you're thick and then you have a lachmanyah that's shaleim but it's made of unrefined bread it's made of better so there's many levels of shleimus. Like the end goal is the end goal of bracha hashleima is that one of the shaleims? I always thought shalom is the end goal. That's really but there's many levels of shleimus. It's like a loaf of bread. So saying so there isn't there isn't a bracha to Kadosh Baruch Hu is Kadosh Baruch Hu is infinite so we can't do it. No, I'm saying also for us for people. Yes, but talmidei chachamim ein lahem menucha lo ba'olam hazeh v'lo ba'olam haba וילכו מחיל אל חיל. Where Rav says is to see that right you got it. In olam haba there's not going to be completion, not going to be shleimus, you're going to keep but you better get used to working hard. Cause the talmidei chachamim so it's a ba'alei batim they they they have shleimus in something else. Ready ready. I’m not sure if people join where they can join so easily but we'll try it but we gotta set up the whole hashkafa of the Gemara first. But what Bobby's talking about adding and I think one of the things I wanted to add onto it which Moshe said so nicely was this aspect of going as an example in a world of seven which is a completion of the physical world and then going to a world of eight and going to a world of ten. Is that adding or are we breaking? We break the seven to get to eight. So so when we break seven which is an entirely new going entirely new structure we're not we're not adding on to what existed already we're breaking seven creating a new thing of eight, breaking that, creating a new thing of ten. It's not adding on simply to. It's not a binyan. You're going you're going to see breaking the first Beis Hamikdash, Beis Hamikdash bursts to the higher level second Beis Hamikdash, breaking the second Beis Hamikdash to the higher level third Beis Hamikdash. So keep on going אמר מנחם בחזקיה שמו and you have to take them back you have to you got it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So he said. So he wanted to know what's the name of Melech Hamashiach, right? So he said obviously if they've broken the temple now there's a new middah, new attribute they have to relate to in the world. What's the attribute they have to relate to? So he said the answer could be Menachem. Menachem, Rashi says means you think about things from a different direction, you think from a different way. And Chizkiya is you have to have great strength. So you have to break through the false weak hava amina of the beginning to get to a deeper understanding of truth. אמר מנחם בחזקיה שמו that's what it says in the Midrash. Peirush. שכל מי שבכח הוא דבר אחד if someone is strong about something mitzapeh l'tova u'teshua נקרא שיש לו נחמה that's what's got nechama. How you're going to be able to help make another person complete? You walk up to a person he's befuddled. So he's weak. Being befuddled, being in aveilus means you're weak. So you have to walk up and the basic thing you have to do is you have to give the person strength to move past his befuddlement, move past his pain to get somewhere. So the root is you have to be strong. It's not easy to help people grow, it's not easy to pick up a new paradigm after you've broken the old paradigm. That's what goes for Mashiach שנחמתו בגלות נקרא מנחם. Therefore it's called Menachem. הוא תנחומים של ישראל בגלותם. He makes them think about, oh, I lost the second Beis Hamikdash but the third Beis Hamikdash is going to be better. It's hard to think that way and get to a whole new level of completion like like Noach said to go from the world of completion of seven to the world of completion of eight to the world of completion of ten. נותן חיזוק וכח לאשר מקבל תנחומים because the essence of what you're trying to do with nechama is a person's weak when he's in aveilus, a person's weak when he's confused, a person's weak when he's broken. The essence you're trying to give him is strength to build and grow and develop and therefore the essence inyana is chizuk and the aspect is nechama. Because avel chalash, a person who's just lost a loved one, a person who's lost the Beis Hamikdash feels weak mitzad atzmo. תנחומים שיש לו מקום אחר מחזיקם אותו. He needs strength from somebody else to get there. so for the essential name of Mashiach is you got to give strength to people. They've lost they had a vision of completion in seven, they got there and it was broken and now they feel they can't go any further. כך כמה שהוא בן חזקיה. That's why we call the Mashiach the son of strength. וכן אמרו בפרק חלק מנחם בן חזקיה שמו. The Midrash says the same as the Gemara in Sanhedrin that Menachem the son of strength, that's his name. Shene'emar כי רחק ממני מנחם. That's far from me someone to give me comfort. Meshiv Nafshi to turn my soul. ואין ספק כי משיב נפש a person who returns a Nefesh הוא מחזיק אחר מחלשותו. You make him strong after he's weak. לפיכך נקרא המשיח מנחם בן חזקיה. That's what we're looking for. We have to see what the reality is from a world of seven to a world of eight to a world of ten. And it takes strength to get a person to do that. That's why academics lack the strength and Ma'aseh 7, 8 and 10 don't help very much. And people who are strong but don't have brilliance can't help very much. ודבר זה מורה כי משיח הוא נבדל מישראל. Mashiach has to come outside of Klal Yisrael. כי נחמה הוא מצד זולתו. You have to think about things from a new way. That's going to be Moshe Rabbeinu growing up in Paroh's palace. That's going to be Mashiach growing up, like it says in the Midrash, in the palace of the Arabs אשר הוא נבדל מהם. וכך משיח אינו מכלל ישראל רק ממעלה יותר עליונה ונבדל מישראל he's separate from them. לפיכך נקרא משיח מנחם. He's to make them think about things from a different perspective. The old perspective of seven's not going to work, the old perspective of Beit Hamikdash is not going to work. This is what I always, Rav Moshe Shapiro, Rav Moshe somehow either because he's an Iluy people always brought him the big things or Hakadosh Baruch Hu knew his Ne'emanuto as a door so he had great things. So it says one day Rav Dessler who was the Mashgiach at Ponevezh in 1949 and Rav Moshe was like 15 years old and Rav Yechezkel Levenstein who was at that time the Mashgiach in the Mir came to Daven at Ponevezh. So Rav Yechezkel wanted to walk Rav Dessler back to his house. So Rav Moshe traveled along behind him. And Rav Yechezkel Levenstein gave Mussar, very very harsh Mussar to Rav Dessler the whole way. That Rav Dessler was talking about big ideas and broad and deep ideas and not doing like Kelm where you work on a small Nekudah and try and change that little Nekudah. And he's talking about what the Holocaust meant and what the post-war meant. And Rav Moshe said that he saw Rav Dessler sitting like a little 17-year-old Yeshiva Bachur listening to Rav Yechezkel Levenstein give him Mussar. And after about 10 minutes of Mussar, Rav Dessler stopped him and said, I agree what I'm telling you is not the Mesorah we had from Kelm. He says, but you have to realize it's a totally different world than we had at Kelm. For everybody's weak, there's a new world after the Holocaust and everybody's weak from the Holocaust and we have to start building over again new foundations, new ideas and therefore I'm teaching a complete different way because it's a complete different generation. He says, do you think that Noach taught Torah before the Mabul and after the Mabul the same way? Of course he didn't. He had to teach Torah differently in a different way because he had to get people to look at the world in a different way. And that's what this Maharal is saying of Menachem is always look at something from a different way. You have to change what you're doing, you have to make it stronger and heavier. And that's what he tried to do. Okay we're good. Yeah. Okay now, so where is, so the Jew asked the Arab, well where is Mashiach? If he's born, where is he? And he said, he's in a palace. He's in an Arabic palace, in a non-Jew's palace in a Jewish land called Beit Lechem. What's that mean? Maharal. V'omer heichan shari? Again, he understood this was not just asking social questions but this would tell us how to bring about Mashiach. B'biras Arva. He was in a palace, an Arabic palace. כך גירסא בספרים שלנו, probably shelanu d'charti, but I don't know what the other girsa in the sfarim are. I looked, I looked in the Medrash Rabbah, in the Amgeir Medrash Rabbah says the source so it just brings Biras Arva. But if the Maharal says כך גירסא בספרים שלנו, must be there's another interesting girsa someplace else, I don't know where it is. כבר בארנו למעלה כי כל הדברים האלה בלתי גשמי. I told you, we're not, this is not describing that there's actually a physical address in Beis Lechem that you should go visit. רק הכל מחייב סדר שכלי. What's being explained here is the intellectual organization שהמשיח הוא בבירת ערב. If you want to know what the intellectual aspect of Mashiach's doing, the Mashiach is in the very best place of Arabic thought and showing that from there is where growth will develop. And exactly from all the wrong ideas that we brought up there, that's where we're going to get strong from. רצה לומר שיש לו צירוף וקישור לשם. The Mashiach is not going to be learning in Meah Shearim. He's going to be learning in some place that's dealing with what the yeitzer hara is and how the world thinks the world is going improperly. ודבר זה ענין מופלא. The fact that the Mashiach is living in Arabic territory, כעין ראוי שיהיה אצל ישראל. He shouldn't be by Klal Yisrael. What he has to really do is figure out the yeitzer hara, he has to really figure out what's wrong in the world and then fix it up. שקודם גאולה אין העולם במדרגת משיח. ודבר זה מדבר קודם גאולה. Before redemption, Klal Yisrael's not complete. ודבר זה עצמו שגדל משה בבית פרעה. That's the same idea that why did Moshe Rabbeinu have to grow up in Paroh's house? That he had to see the power of Paroh, the eizeh of Paroh. אין חבוש מתיר עצמו מבית האסורים. דף כה עמוד ב ברכות. A person who is in prison can't free himself from prison. You have to be from outside. So the leader has to be outside of Klal Yisrael so he can see how to free them. ודבר זה עצמו שגדל משה בבית פרעה, v'lo b'veis aviv. He had to learn how weak Egypt was to figure out how to save Klal Yisrael. וזה כי בודאי חטא מצרים ותועבות היה גורם שיפקיד השם יתברך על חטאתם. Definitely it's the sin of the Egyptians that was so disgusting, that's what caused Klal Yisrael to be redeemed. U'moshe m'forash bakasuv. מכות מצרים ועצמו נפרע מהם המצרים הם מגדלים הגואל אשר על ידי גואל יהיה השם יתברך נפרע מהם. That by the redemption they would be saved. לכך היה גדל משה בבית פרעה. Similarly, Mashiach is going to have to grow up in the evil of the Arabic world and learn what's evil about the Arabic world where we're going to go for it. Right, that again we said that the Maharal brings in the perek before this that there's two man d'amars in the Gemara. One man d'amar is the Mashiach lives among the Romans, Edom. That comes from the world of din. Esav lives by the sword. The Romans live by conquering, they they control everything. The Arabs, they come from the word orev. They come from the word sweetness, they live for things that are sweet. They're the world of taiva. Yishmael had twelve children. Esav didn't have twelve children. Yishmael had lots of children, he had harems, he had many wives. Yishmael stands for taiva. And therefore this Medrash is holding according to the man d'amar that we're going to have to grow up, the Mashiach will have to grow up in a world of taiva, a world of Aravia, of the root word erev, sweet, is the word ayin reish beis, eir. They live for things that awaken them, they live for things that excite them. And figure out how to break through that blockage and bring meaning there. That's what's going to be. V'kach Arvi'im eitzel... וכך הרב מדבר על מלך המשיח קיום הזאת לגאולה הקצה. It gets to the extremes. You have to get to the very extreme of an idea to see its weakness. So the people that are most hedonistic are the sons of Yishmael, the sons of Arav, and the people who live for sweetness. Now I don't even know actually in Saudi Arabia if they still have a harem or no, I didn't actually want to Google this, I was thinking about this. Does the king of Saudi Arabia somehow have a bunch of wives or no? Sure. Yes? Yeah? I don't know, I'll ask Ben Shapiro. No, but you can't see them, they're all in the way, I think. Mizad echad, mizad sheni, this is na na, trying to make leitzanut, but a lot of these things talking about trying to look at wrong ideas and from the wrong ideas come the right ideas and hedonism and all of these other kinds of things, the sort of people and today bizman hazeh, this would be like a college campus. That's where it all came from, that's of course the teshuva 100%. All the ba'alei teshuva you taste a little bit of the taste of Mashiach inside. Why does this point that hakatzah, why haMashiach comes? מצד הקצה יש לו סתם ונמשך מלכות משיח אשר באותו נמשך אחר כך תפס סוף של אותה אומה. You get the end of something and you see how it can't exist. When people are balanced, you think, oh, this balancing works differently, but when a person has a shita, I think the key of life is just let's call a spade a spade, I just want to live for taiva. When you see that, you see that you can't exist with just taiva. When you see the world's just for—why does the Mashiach of Am Yisrael need to come from the kitziyunut of the—because of the yetzer. That—they're controlling us, they're just an expression of our yetzer hara. They're the extreme of what's—in other words, a guy living in Mea Shearim is still affected by MSNBC news and whatever's going on in Tel Aviv. So you have to really understand it, if you just know a little bit of it, you don't really understand what the problem is. You have to see the shita worked out completely and then you know how to respond to it. When the hakatzah gets to—gets to the end, it's clear what's going on over there. When people are balanced, you don't see completely what's going on. So he's living probably in this Arab palace and he's also a proper Jew. Unlike the false Mashiach, Shabbetai Tzvi, right? He went about like that, all these Kedushas Levi's written for the idea you just said, to make sure you have this right. כבר בארנו זה בדברינו השם, explained bederush Hashem why Moshe had to grow up there, he had to understand the shita deeply and then he can see what the shita is wrong and that there's no roots to it. עין שם ותמצא לבאר ביותר, you'll see there explained more completely why you have to see the complete development of an idea then you can argue on it. לכך אמר כאן כי דירתו בבירה ערבא. Therefore he's got to be in a castle of Arav, it's got to be the best of Arav. כמו שהיה משה רבנו עליו השלום בדור פלטין של פרעה כי המשיח הוא דבק בתואר אותו אומה. That's the key idea, because the Mashiach cleaves to understand the lap of the nation. I understand what your Achilles' heel is, right? We understand that Yaakov comes from the word—he grabbed onto Esav's heel, he knew what the kabala with Esav was, that there's no foundation, therefore he grabbed onto the heel. That's what the Mashiach's going to do. כמו שפרשתי לפני זה ולכך משיח בבירת ערבא ומבית לחם. Why in Beit Lechem? Because מלכות ראוי בית לחם להקרא. We have to take care of the needs of the people, you have to give people lechem. Everybody has to provide food and energy to people. The Arab castle's providing it the wrong way, Mashiach's going to provide it the right way, but the key idea is always going to be Beit Lechem is where the Mashiach comes from because he's going to take care of our hunger, he's going to take care of our needs. Okay, so now he's going to ask the question: so he said why is it davka in an Arab castle, why couldn't it be a Esavite, a Roman castle? ויש להבין מה שאמר דווקא בבירת ערבא. Why is it davka in an Arab castle? My kids, we all liked, what's it called, the Schonbrunn Castle in Vienna, that's a beautiful castle, like why shouldn't he grow up there? כי המשיח הוא רוכב ומעלה המדרגות הרבים. The Mashiach is going to travel and grow up from battling. with the Arabs *she-hem Bnei Yishmael*, that's they're from *Yishmael*. והוא דבר מופלא ועמוק בחכמה. And there's a deep idea why *dafka Yishmael*, כי כה ישמעאל נאמר עליו שנים עשר נשיאים יוליד. He had 12 great children, which symbolizes the sexual prowess, which symbolizes energy, *nesi'im* that pick themselves up. So, that's specifically the battle we have to fight. And they said the *lashon nesi'im bedrash* *al ken nesi'im* *chaser yod*. It's written without the second *yod*, there's no *yod* between the *aleph* and the *mem*, which means that they're picked up but they're lacking. They don't have the thought that you really need to be raised up. רצה לומר יכלו כעננים, that's what the *Midrash* says there in the *pasuk* and I think maybe *Rashi* brings it, I don't remember now. But the *Midrash* says they get picked up like clouds, they look big, but because they're lacking ideas they just disappear, they dissipate. And that's what Messiah's job is to see that their promises are completely lacking. ודבר זה רמז מופלא בעניין כוח ישמעאל. This is a great symbol for what *Yishmael* is. אשר ישמעאל מתעלה בכל פעם למעלה למעלה. They have this power of sexual desire. אבל הוא כמו ענן זה שיכלה בסוף. It just dissipates at the end. אבל מלך המשיח מתעלה עליהם. The Messiah will rise above them, שכן נאמר וארו עם ענני שמיא כבר אנש, if you can see it, that the clouds are lit up like a, above like a man. *Darshu chachamim*, זכו ארו עם ענני שמיא. If we're *zoche*, then the Messiah will come like light. לא זכו עני רוכב על חמור. If we're not *zoche*, the Messiah doesn't do his job and it's going to come very slowly, he won't have a big idea. The best way to bring Messiah is that we should illuminate with the right ideas. If we don't have those right ideas, illumination, then it's going to come very slowly, poor, riding on a donkey which is the slowest animal. הרי כי מדרגת משיח לעתיד יהיה מתעלה על כל העולם החומרי הזה מעלה מעלה כענן מעל. It rises above the physical world, high, high, as a cloud above. לכך הוא רוכב על ענן, *she-lemala*, *lefi she-yihiye* *mitale elyonim*. לכך משיח גדל בבירת ערבא. Therefore *dafka* the Messiah grows up in an Arabic palace. לפי שמשמיט מעלה כוח ישמעאל. He controls the *Yishmael's* *koach*, the sensuality and physicality and their pleasure from *arves*, called *arves* called sweetness. To recognize that sweetness can be used and has to be used for a greater purpose. At the end when you see hedonism just for hedonism, pleasure just for pleasure, it's got no sense. לפיכך הוא נמצא בבירת ערבא בית לחם כי מתעלה על הערבים. *She-lehem ne'emar* שנים עשר נשיאים יוליד. He had lots of kids and they went up very high. אשר כוח שלהם הוא ענן. *Ve-mashiach* *mitale* even higher. And that's what it is, *kasiv*, the job is to *ya'aru im anani*. He has to have a light that breaks through the clouds. That's what the Messiah has to do. He has to have a light that illuminates the clouds. *Shemaya kevar enash* like a man, שזה נאמר על המשיח לכך אמר שבירת בית ערבא. Okay. So now he brings some *machlokes*, that some *gemaras* learn that that way. ובמדרש הזה מוכח כי משיח בבירת בית ערבא. We hold here that the *koach* that's holding *Klal Yisrael* and the world back is the power of hedonism, *hen Yishmaelim* והם מרדי ומרדי על אדונם. And *Sanhedrin* though it says that Messiah is waiting on the doors of the Roman exile, ובגמרא אמרו שהוא על פתח מלכות רביעית, *Esav*. *Machlokes hu machlokes*, *kemo she-itbareir lemala*, מי יהיה בסוף מושב. These are the two major attributes of world and the Maharal says over there that they go fighting back and forth, sometimes Yishmael wins, sometimes Eisav wins, sometimes Koach Ha'Chesed wins, sometimes the Koach Ha'Din wins and you have to battle both. Malchus Paras שפירש למעלה שמלכות ישמעאל or malchus revi'is hu malchus Edom וכמו שנתבאר למעלה בענין זה umachlokos rais ואוי בנו לך שלא תטה לפרשן אלה גשמי one more time, please don't learn we're talking about fighting the Roman Empire or fighting Saudi Arabia, we're talking about fighting the culture and the ideas and the ideals of those people. רק שבא לומר בו ענין המשיח מפשוטו מן הגשם of course Maharal is going to be against all these people who whenever there's a war with Iran or something thinks that oh that's you know that's the messianic vision oh there's a war like sometime we'll fight with America I don't know like you know maybe we'll always have to wait for the next Vice President to become President and it's okay like you know something's going to happen. Okay. And why are they fighting each other, the Eisav and the Yishmael? Okay. So now why, like we said, why is it that originally we said originally the Medrash says that originally this Jew was plowing the ground and he heard the voice of his ox and the Arab told him okay, there's no reason to plow the ground now. Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put Humpty Dumpty together again. Stop working so hard, you had your chance to fix the world up and you can't. And then the second voice of the ox came and he said, oh, that means Mashiach is coming in the world. So we see the destruction wasn't to punish us and to just put us away, but it's to build us. And there it goes. And so then he said, so now the Arab said, put back on your ox and put back on your plow. And the Jew said no, we have to have a new madreiga, we're working for Mashia

ch, it can't just be the physical world, I have to rise to a higher level. כמו שאמר דזבין לבידי he bought, he sold his ox and he sold his plow and he bought linen. ועאל למדינתא ונפק ממדינתא and he traveled from place to place selling soft, warm, supportive clothes for babies. Because he wanted to... the idea of a baby was the Mashiach was just born, he wanted through chesed and care to coddle and create and develop the baby. כל הדברים מאלו הם שכליים all these things are intellectual. Not that you should believe that you should look for the Procter & Gamble guy and he's the one who's bringing Mashiach. שכך נתקדש השכל למשיח this is what happens intellectually. Intellectually we're going to have a different way of acting. We're going to realize that we have to nurture the Mashiach, we're going to have to do it in a different way than just plowing the ground. והדבר הזה בארו במקומות הרבה ואין צריך להאריך בדברים אלו. Okay. So now we didn't do the next part of the Medrash so we'll go back to the next part of the Medrash. I think that the big piece of the next piece we'll just go over with this... go. So it says that when he went to look for the Mashiach, the Jew, he was told that he had gotten blown away by winds and shedim. Did shedim blow him away? Excuse me? For Mashiach? For Mashiach? A little baby Mashiach? Baby Mashiach? This is what it says. Kemo she'omer, okay, וזה ביארו במקומות רבים ואין צריך להשיב. ומה שאמר כי רוחין ושדין נטלו אותו he couldn't find the Mashiach, that winds and shedim and negative spiritual forces take him. כי בודאי כל כוחות הטומאה שבעולם הם מתנגדים לענין משיח and Mashiach had gotten tossed away, he wasn't in Beis Lechem anymore. ומהם מגיע ביטול עליו וזהו ש... Lefichach heshiv, and he said, I don't care. You think I'm gonna be upset that the Moshiach's not where he's supposed to be? No, I learned that just like the destruction there was one groan from the animal that was destroyed, there was the second groan right after it's for building. So too here over here, everything that God does is helping me figure out what I have to build right now. So I'll just go find the Moshiach where he's going to be. דאורחי ענני במארי שמיא, rely on God, d'al raglacha rav, but by God it was destroyed, v'al ragla misbanei, he built up. Whatever God's doing, everything that happens in the world, my mission is not to hope for a better world. I wish I could just deal with Moshiach. Whatever is in front of me, that's what I got to build up. I got to sit down and deal with the world I'm dealing with. K'moshe's ba'olam alo, שכחורבן בית המקדש הוא סיבה דביאה זו. The destruction of the Beis Hamikdash is the cause for a new creation, sh'iye lo l'sof. וכאשר תדע תבין בדברים אלה, ואז תבין דבר גדול. This is a huge thing, that all destruction in the world is just helping us get to a better completion. And therefore there's no place for pessimism, there's only a place for optimism, there's no place to stop working like the Arab thought after the first voice: sell your donkey, sell your ox, sell your plow. But it's to keep working in harder and better ways. Ki chorban habayis, אף שהוא חורבן למטה, הוא סיבה לבית יותר עליונה, like Moshe kept saying, the bigger shleimus, k'moshe's ba'olam alo, like Noah keeps saying, we're going from completion in seven to a completion in the world of eight, a completion in the world of ten, like the Midrash says in Maseches Tamid, that in this world we're going to play, pray to God with a seven stringed instrument, in the afterworld play with an eight string instrument, they'll play with a ten string instrument and all that. Okay. Now here he goes. Now this is going to be a hard part philosophically. The first hard part philosophically he said was understanding why destruction leads to a higher level building. This is going to be now, he's going to go through and he's going to say, look, the second Beis Hamikdash had more kavod than the first Beis Hamikdash and it existed for a longer time. So you see between the first Beis Hamikdash and the second Beis Hamikdash we went up. So you should imagine the third Beis Hamikdash has to go even further. Right? So the first Beis Hamikdash only lived for 410 years, the second was 420 years. Oh, that's better. The first Beis Hamikdash didn't have as much kavod as the second Beis Hamikdash. He explained that that's because kavod is something you can see and feel. Kavod is what you see down here. Oftentimes something's too ethereal, you don't recognize how great it is. But a king has to have a throne, has to have a crown because that gives kavod, things down here. So God brought it down further and that's with the idea that everything we do will be brought down further, so we're more clear to everybody, the truth of the kedusha. V'od, that's what we're up to, right? כי לא היה ראוי שיהיה מן השם יתברך אשר טוב ומטיב. It's impossible to imagine a God who's good would mammash destroy something like Humpty Dumpty that we couldn't put it back together again. Chorban Beis Hakodesh. ויהיה הוא יתברך סיבה להפסד. Why would God be the cause for destroying the world? Chorban habayis hakodesh. כי אין דבר מתיחס להשם יתברך. God did not destroy the world. אם לא היה דבר זה שיעלה הטוב אל הבית יותר עליון. Rather, he takes the world up to a higher level station. That's helping get us to a better place. ואף בית המקדש ראשון חרב לעוונותינו. Yes, the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed for our sins. Amru, and it says in Chaggai and the Gemara Bava Basra: גדול יהיה כבוד הבית האחרון מן הראשון, amar Hashem. Don't worry, God says after destroying the temple. The second temple will be better than the first temple. pirshah b'Bava Basra, שהיה בית שני יותר גדול בשיעור מבית ראשון. It was taller, it had more gold, it was bigger. וגם בזמנו היה יותר גדול. It also existed longer. שזה היה עומד תי שנה. The first Beis Hamikdash was 410 years. v'zeh taf-chaf. This is 420. years. Keda'isa b'Yoma. U'mize tireh כי השם יתברך אשר מאתו מציאות, God would not destroy reality and help us and just destroy it and not help become greater. אי אפשר שיבוא חורבן והפסד לזה, God would not let things just be destroyed אם לא כאשר יעלה אל הווייה של מציאות יותר מעלה on a greater level. לכך יקבל מציאות שלפניו הפסד, and therefore the aspect before it has the hefsed. Okay, now here comes the hard part. It was missing five things, right? It was missing that's right, chamesh devarim, good for you. V'ein lecha lishol, and don't you dare ask like you just asked, right, like you know, of course when the Maharal says don't ask that means you should ask if you're awake, right? You should be the first person after that, you should do it. Ah, wait a second, yoter ma'aleh, everything's better, wait a second. ואין לך לשאול סוף סוף אי אפשר בית שלישי שיהיה במהרה בימינו לא יהיה כלל חורבן. Sorry, one second, it was here. Why didn't God just make a Bayis Shlishi to begin with? I think the answer, I think the question he uses is coming up, let's see, sorry. כי דבר זה אינו בלא דלא שיהיה הבית עומד נמצא בתחילת הבריאה. You see that nothing starts complete. God made תהו ובהו וחשך על פני תהום. That started the world with darkness and we went to light. You can't get this positive aspect without a negative aspect. See Da'as Tevunos and the entire idea that only from negativity, the contrast, we can get the positivity, we can understand goodness. רק הראוי להיות נמצא בריאה שאינו כל כך במעלה קודם ואז מעלה בקודש אל מדרגה יותר עליונה, just like by light, it starts choshech and then light. She-nimtza eizeh briya, why wasn't the first thing God made light? Why did God make a world without light? שהייתה הארץ תהו ובהו וחשך עד שיהיה כאן העדר מציאות לגמרי ואז נברא האור להשלים הבריאה. That's what we're talking about over here, that everything has to go in a path to go up. כי בעצמו אינו ראוי שיהיה מדריגה עליונה. It's not appropriate that there should be a lower level until you've worked through the higher levels. Everything's like a ladder, you have to work through each level, that's why God בונה עולמות ומחריבן בונה עולמות ומחריבן. והוא הבית אחרון נמצא ראשון רק שמעלה בקודש, that's where all the pieces, we go up in levels. ולכך היו נמצאים שני בתים קודמים. You go up levels with each Beis Hamikdash. כי אף אם חרב הבית אל תאמר כאילו לא היה כלל הבית בעולם. Don't you dare think that everything has been for naught. No, there's a hava amina, there's a growth there that we needed. כי דבר זה אינו שסוף סוף כבר נמצא בו הבית לעולם וקדושה זאת לא בטלה. I think I told everybody this story, it moved me so much, it was like there's a wonderful person, Rav Chaim Cohen, such a wonderful person, I don't see him so often, he's a lot Beit Shemesh v'chutz la'aretz. So he got engaged to a girl from Tzfon Tel Aviv, a nice Israeli girl, went up to Beit Shemesh now and they davened in the shul of Rav Mordechai Auerbach, Rav Auerbach, Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach's nephew, I believe. The nephew that the father died young, so it's like the nephew was raised in Rav Shlomo Zalman's house. So we were there for the ofruf, the tefillos packed out, end of the year, and like Rav Elyashiv went to Tzfon Tel Aviv to fancy Makom in the Five Towns for the end. So we went there and Rav Auerbach was just unbelievable, really a great, great person. He got up and at the drasha, and his drasha between shacharis and musaf on shabbos, he said, we all learn the essential midda of Hakadosh Baruch Hu is rachamim, י\"ג מידות של רחמים. גמרא שבת קוף למד גימל says מה השם רחום וחנון אף אתה יהא רחום וחנון. Everything he said, that's the essential aspect of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. But that's only the revealed aspect of HaKadosh Baruch Hu. The Zohar says that what was HaKadosh Baruch Hu doing before he made a world of chessed? Before he was making a world of chessed, he was boneh olamos u’machrivan. And it says he was boneh olamos u’machrivan, built a world, and says up, this world's not good, I can do better, and he made a better world. He does make it better, he didn't make it the way he made a better world. He didn't make it the way he made a better world. And he's trying to show that the essential aspect of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, we didn't make a perfect world to begin with. He was boneh olamos u’machrivan for madreigos and steps to show that's what we have to do. So he said he never, never really understood the midrash until this morning, until Shabbos morning. He said, came to shul and having this aufruf, and the shul was like Yom Kippur. He says how do I know it's like Yom Kippur? He says Yom Kippur is a very special day in the shul. My beloved president's the only day he doesn't talk to all the congregants. He says he's so serious that even the president doesn't talk with anybody. He says so today with all these baaleitshuva in the shul davening seriously, where president couldn't talk, he was actually davening also, so it was a shtickel Yom Kippur. He said it in front of his president, like you know. So with a big smile. But he said very, very beautifully and sensitively in shvach of baaleitshuva. He said, look at these baaleitshuva. These guys were out there on pot and drugs and crimes. They built a world, and it was a good world, these guys have all built good worlds, I'm sure. They're making money, they're having good relationships. But they had the strength to break that world to build a better world. He says that's haloch b'drachov, that's the essence of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, this ability to see that there can be something better, and have to break it and move on. That's the deepest aspect of haloch b'drachov of HaKadosh Baruch Hu, that's what the baaleitshuva are showing. That's what HaKadosh Baruch Hu is showing over here with I'm going to destroy the Beis Hamikdash to get to a deeper, higher level, that's what we're trying to work for. Kodem haya zeh הרי סוף סוף כבר נמצא בית בעולם קדושת המקדש וחורבן של בית שני לקבל havayah ha'achronah. And the reason the Beis was destroyed, to get to a higher level. We have to know that the second the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed, the Eretz groaned a second time to tell us keep growing. כמו שיוקדם העדר לכל הויה. It's always a lack then the metziah up. Now we have to fix it up to something better. ויהיה לפיכך כל אדם אשר נתן בו השם יתברך דעת וחכמה, every human being is like that, every baal teshuvah, we build a world, mevin devarim elu. He understands this idea. People, somebody asked, it says the Briskers had tainos on Rav Yisroel Salanter, why was he doing so many different things? Why did he start this? He had, he made a journal up for six month, six years, and then he stopped. He built a yeshiva for two years and then stopped, built second yeshiva two years and he stopped. So Rav Yisroel Salanter said, I'm being like HaKadosh Baruch Hu. I'm building something and I see it didn't work the way I wanted, I make it better, right? So it's not a failure to start something new, I'm making something better, I'm going forward. That's what we're doing. כי מן השם יתברך המצאת המציאות עולם והווייתו. אין ראוי שהחורבן וההפסד, God doesn't destroy things to have hefsed, שחורבנו הוא כדי שיהיה מתעלה להוויה יותר עליונה. It's getting to a higher level. וכל אלו דברים בארו חכמים. All these words are what the rabbis would explain this midrash, k'mo she'amarnu. וזה באמת קושי המציאות להעלות על תכליתה. The destruction of the Temple we have to know, aveilus today is to get us to a higher level. והוא שלמות האחרון כמו הדברים אלה. Like he explained over here. That's the end of his discussion on this midrash. Okay, so it must be in I don't remember where it is right now. But the Yeshuos Yaakov asks, ai, we're missing the the five higher levels in this Second Beis Hamikdash, how can you say even though it's longer and it's bigger, it's lacking in the kedusha? So he explains that the key idea of building is getting HaKadosh Baruch Hu more in the world. It's taking the physical world and making it more spiritual. And losing the light of a higher level world is not what the world is for. The world is called Ne'elam, hidden, Olam, word to be hidden, and then it's rooted from the word Olam to be brought up. So the growth is, he says, work with the world of Ne'elam, hiddenness, to bring Hakadosh Baruch Hu to places where he's not before. That's what the growth that we're looking for is, and not an ethereal growth that's disconnected from the world. And you can't have both growths naturally; you can't have the highest level in the physical world. Have to work to express something in the physical world; that's what we're trying to work on. The Midrash goes on and the Maharal then explains it, but he finally meets Mashiach, Mashiach's mother, and he gives Mashiach's mother, he says, I want to give you some of my Lavenim, some of my linen stuff. And she says, no, right, it's hard to be Mashiach, I don't want to give him the linen stuff. So he says, well look, take the linen support, and you don't have to pay me now, you can pay me in the future, you pay me later, right? So that's what they decide. So the big idea is that working in the world is very, very hard. At the end, once you get there, it'll be linen; it'll be a soft, wonderful, sweet world. You have to take it on credit, right? You can't pay right now for it because it's not going to be, it can't be soft, have to be Chazak like we saw with Nachman ben Yitzchak, right, Benayim. But at the end it will be soft and it will be sweet, we'll have that aspect going up. But you shouldn't think that the way that you're going to bring Mashiach, that brings sugar and spice and everything nice; it needs a certain toughness to do the right thing. That's what we have, the Midrash, I think, is going for. Questions, comments? Just a question on second Beis Hamikdash. Rebbe said that that was bringing Hashem more out in the world because Hashem is in Kevod. It's making heavy, it's light material, therefore Kevod, the word for Kevod is, Kevod is always a Talmid Chacham's weight. You don't appreciate him, you have to give him Kevod, you have to stand up for him, you do things in the external world to be able to internalize. So that's what we're working, we're working on bringing Kevod to the world, that's what the second Beis Hamikdash did better than the first Beis Hamikdash, and the third Beis Hamikdash will do better than the first and the second. Even though, as it says, just hinted to in Mishnayos in the fifth Perek of Pirkei Avos, that you didn't have the miracles, you didn't have all these other kinds of things, it still had an aspect of greatness that was better than the first one even didn't have Hashra'as Hashem because of Kevod. The aspect is Kevod, that's what we have, that's what we need, we need to be communicating to people the greatness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Okay, let's try to find a meaningful use for this concept. Going to the King of the Aravim, so when finishing with the Benayim, when we do Ahavas Chinam and don't Sinat Chinam, no Sinat Chinam anymore. In this world where it's tough, we have to remember from the first year in the Yeshiva that everything's not so good. And this Midrash says exactly like an opposite, like we compare the Aravim, Romim's Ma'aleh, compare them, it's like it's a different, whole different thing that the whole building of the Beis Hamikdash was shown. Right, the idea then to put the two together, the answer is that of course your Rebbe's right, just don't want to break up what you learned in Cheider, like we have to, we have to do Teshuvah for our sin of Sinat Chinam, but we're going to a deeper source. Why do we have Sinat Chinam? Because we were looking for things more pleasurable and didn't do it. And by us, it's not so clear that we're doing it just because of pleasure, but we see it by the Arab in the Midrash and then we'll understand how to break out of it. The reason why we did these various things because in this Machlokes of the Aravim and the Romim, because like the Midrash mentions Rabbi Elozar, the Romim there were so two things, not the Aravim, but the Aravim will be later and that's why the Midrash came as to like these two separate times. And so this is the big idea in the Maharal that one of the ways of learning for the second Beis Hamikdash was made with wood and because we didn't love each other so we got thinner and Now after that the question is what are we going to go to? We go to one of Chesed or one of Din? And that's where Mashiach is going to come from. For whatever you messed up, that's what's going to destroy the Beis HaMikdash. We messed up with midas hadin, so we got destroyed by midas hadin. So the Beis HaMikdash will be rebuilt with it. That's according to the Chafetz Chaim and the Sfas Emes. Some people learn that the Gemara says no, the problem was we always had midas hadin and they always had Chesed. They destroyed it and therefore we have to bring it back with midas hadin as opposed to Chesed. It's complicated. That's another shittah of how Mashiach is going to be. Right. This Beis HaMikdash, the third Beis HaMikdash, is going to be a greater Beis HaMikdash than the other two, does that mean the world has to be at a lower place for it to make that step? Yes. And guess what? We're in good shape. We're very optimistic. We're very optimistic. So the Chesed of like the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar is mapped onto Chesed. They are - so Chesed keneged Chesed, that knocked out the Chesed. And Din of Rome knocked out the second Beis HaMikdash, which was also a Din. In terms of the way that the olam was created initially, and we always know that they point to the Chafetz Chaim and the Sfas Emes over here like Moshe. So now the third one is, like you said, the first one is Chesed, the second one is Din, so the third one is Tiferes, which is going to be a combination of the two. Well when the world's, when HaKadosh Baruch Hu was creating the briyah, He started with Chesed. I thought He started with Elokim and said 'No, no, we can't do that.' So would it be that the first world He started with Elokim and broke that, can't we have no, can't do Chesed and then He created the world? As everybody understands with the Zohar, understands it, עלה במחשבה לפניו לברא את העולם במידת הדין. Bereishis bara Elokim. Elokim is Din but that's the beis. The aleph of creation is of course before there was Din, there was Chesed. He wanted to create a world. So the aleph is the world of Chesed, the beis is the world of Din, and then the third aspect is Rachamim putting the two worlds together. Okay, so it still maps, same map, same map. Are we at a much lower level than the Yidden that lived during the Beis HaMikdash? Like we hear about them and we hear that they were doing shfichas damim, and avodah zarah, and giluy arayos, and then sinas chinam. And I know that we're - we haven't been zocheh to build the Beis HaMikdash, so we're still involved in you know, we're still involved in these things in a way. But are we at a - like when we think about like building ourselves, are we - were they at like a really high level and we don't appreciate it and we just hear about what they did wrong? Or that they were like us and they weren't at a higher level either, they just had the Beis HaMikdash and they were getting a kaparah? This is the whole machlokes between the Chazon Ish and the Alter of Slabodka about how do you understand the sins of the original people, right? The Alter says that of course their sins are much more refined than our sins and you shouldn't read the sins of the Rishonim as as bad as they are and it's just saying that the level they were at they should have done better. And the Chazon Ish says 'No, the sins were bad sins, that's why the Beis HaMikdash was destroyed.' The reason was that the yetzer hara for idol worship was so much stronger that therefore their sins aren't as bad as our sins because we don't have such a strong yetzer hara but they were the same. And then all the pilpul between the Chazon Ish and the Alter of Slabodka is big topic, we can't get into it right now, but that's the point.