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Back to: Kiddush: Distinguishing Shabbos with Wine and Word

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Audio: Kiddush Part 1 (2022-11-04)

Recap of previous sessions and candle lighting

[0:01]

have to admit I forgot whether or not I forgot what we done here this is so I can't remember if we done candles or not. You did that last time. We did do candles. Good I remember. Okay. And adjust. Which one? The Tosafot Noach with anavah was it with oneg? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And nega ayin. We did both of those on Shabbos a couple days ago. No it's from I can't remember with the Maharal. Okay let's wait to go. Okay I don't remember someone will have to show me let's see I forgot where we.

We should have done a second group about Olam Ha-Ba but I thought we started but I didn't know where we were holding so oh you got the shitas that's great. All right we'll go to the shitas. I did all the shitas whatever I gave you I did for you. Okay. I'm asking telling him or asking? No no these we have not seen yet. We did Midrash Noach last time. Okay. Okay. No no no these are all new we didn't haven't done these. No no I know you haven't done those but I didn't know if we'd finished or or like candle lighting and that one we did.

Do we do the three dinim of oneg, kavod and and? Yes. Yes we did the three. Okay Shulchan Aruch awesome. Okay good. Okay someone has to keep me focused because I unfortunately don't remember from week to week what's going on with these sugyos. Okay so this

Planning this week's Kiddush and Taamei Ha-Mitzvos

[1:18]

week's going to be Kiddush. Of course the story with Taamei Ha-Mitzvos is I'd like to every week start off and have Moshe tell me over the taam of the mitzvah so we can get something from like the classic Heimishe Cheder right what's going on. Is this the right answer or the wrong answer? Wrong answer of course. I'm not going to count the students for right answer ever even you Moshe it's like you know. Okay but I guess I don't want to develop a philosophy of mitzvos right now philosophy of Taamei Ha-Mitzvos.

We'll probably devote over time but the key we'd set up whenever it was two weeks ago three weeks ago with the Gur Aryeh and the sin of the Etz Da'at with all the Etz and the sin of the Eretz was that the taam is at the end and the tree itself doesn't have taam and we have to go back the journey is to bring the taste to that tree. And that's what we have to always look at a taam of a mitzvah has to always start with something the person grabs onto and understands and then we want to show it in a bigger and bigger framework so it can resonate in a broader world and a deeper aspect of who he is.

To start off and you know I don't know why most people think we do Kiddush but most people either go too low and people say oh there's so many contradictions to that I don't believe it or too high and just go yayin is gematria sod which is something a person doesn't relate to so how's that help me grow. So we have to always try and grab onto the taam of a mitzvah something the person can see and go aha there's something deeper going on here and then attach it to a bigger vision of what's going on and that's what we'll try and do.

So

Sefer Ha‑Chinuch on the purpose of Kiddush

[3:14]

Sefer Ha-Chinuch starts off with the classic simple foundational understanding of what Kiddush is for and then we'll go into the Maharal's approach which as always is taking the esoteric Torah and making it exoteric he's taking all the Kabbalah and making it a way that you can feel it and connect to it and that's what we'll try and do and see. Okay. Mitzvas Kiddush Shabbos. So what's the Sefer Ha-Chinuch says? That the ikkar mitzvah of Kiddush is to make Shabbos distinguished from everything else and distinguish in a good way and therefore everything we do about Kiddush and why we choose wine is to show that Shabbos is distinguished in a good way and he calls it hissorirus.

It's to awaken us up it's to attach our emotions so we recognize there's something big here. Shabbos by itself might be so far away and so kodesh that we can't relate to it and therefore our mission over here is to find ways to relate to it with love and that's what he's going to say. The mitzvah of Kiddush is you take a has to be something that's chaviv on you there's famous Gemara. We did see the Alter of Slabodka on Kiddush B'makom Seudah and everything right?

Yes so that joy is what he's talking about over there that's where we're going to go for. מצות קידוש שבת בדברים. There's a mitzvah that you have to mekadesh Shabbos with words. לדבר דברים ביום שבת. שבת בכניסתו וכן בצאתו. Mitzvah d'Oraisa to separate Shabbos at the beginning at the end. So we know that it's a special chefetz of kedusha different from everything else. שיהיה בהם זכר לגדלות היום ומעלתו. So there's

Gadlus HaYom: Recognizing Shabbat’s greatness

[5:17]

two aspects. There's you have to recognize the gadlus hayom. Gadol's always the lashon of to give over. It's mashpia, it gives over to other things. The root of the word gadol is gomeil dalim, right? Gimel is gomeil to give over, dalet those that are poor. Gadlus hayom, Shabbos is mekor habracha. So we want to make everyone appreciate that from Shabbos comes all the goodness. Now not only does it come the goodness, but that goodness comes as qualitatively different.

One thing could be gadol could be just quantitatively different. Gadol is Wilt Chamberlain, alav hashalom, was gadol. Nobody's going to say that he had a qualitative greatness of being human, right? Maybe the opposite, right? So except he played Philadelphia, there was one like redeeming factor about him but I'm not sure there was much else, right? And this hand did shake his hand, right? But you know, I have gone to the mikveh for at least 100 times since, it's okay.

But that's the idea of gadlus, right? If we're familiar with gadol, that's when you say separate Sefer Torah, לך ה' הגדולה והגבורה והתפארת. Gedulas chesed, it's gedulas chesed because it's giving over. So Shabbos is the mekor habracha and therefore we have to appreciate the flow everything's coming out from it and that's what we call Kabbalas Shabbos, we have to get ready to open ourselves up to get a flow over here because something's coming down so you should know there's a gedulas Shabbos that's going to be mashpia and grow and flow.

But the second idea is it's qualitatively different, it's a ma'alah, it's a iluy, it's ilua. It's something that's comes from a different world qualitatively even a little bit of Shabbos is much more valuable. Rav Shach was five foot tall, there's much more ma'alas than Wilt Chamberlain had at seven foot tall. That's what we're looking for, that's umalaso. And because of this gedula umala, and the ma'alah's going to be called in a different language kadosh.

זכור את יום השבת לקדשו. Kedusha is we connect to a different point and bring that all together of course I assume I'm just laying down foundations that we know but if we don't you can ask me after I finish the line. והבדלתו לשבח משאר ימים שלפניו ולאחריו. Once we recognize this more flow in it and once we recognize its qualitatively a higher level, we have to stop and go ooh, I can't act on Shabbos like I act the rest of the week. I have to separate it before and afterwards shene'emar זכור את יום השבת לקדשו.

Remember Shabbos is unique. Lekadsho, we recognize that it comes from a place of kedusha, it comes from a ma'ala, and therefore when I go into it I have to go in with thoughts that it's different and when I leave it I have to go with thoughts that it's different. That's what I'm doing. זכרהו זכר קדושה וגדולה. Okay, so we switch the word ma'ala for kedusha, but that's what we want over here and that's what זכור את יום השבת לקדשו the Ten Commandments that's what we're looking for.

Uveferush amru chachameinu the Rabbis say explicitly Pesachim ק\"י עמוד א. שדברים אלו מצווים אנו לאומרם על היין. That these words we have to say on wine. Again machlokes Rashi Tosafos there, if it's a din d'Oraisa you have to have yayin or a din d'Rabbanan you have to have yayin. Sefer HaChinuch understands it's din d'Oraisa like the Tosafos. Shekein ba haperush zochreihu al hayayin. Like Tosafos. Ve'inyan hu.

Okay that's just what we'll go through just say the whole thing, what's the dinim? שניתנו בכוס רביעית יין חי או

Halachic measurements and wine‑water mixture for Kiddush

[9:38]

מזוג. It can be fresh or it can be mixed. Yoser merevi'is. It's got to be at least 3.3 ounces. אבל לא פחות מזה, not less than that. Lemeziga yedu'a. The idea of why you have to mix it is known. שיהיה חלק אחד של יין חי וטוב ושלש חלקים מים. that you want to mix the din with the chesed, and therefore the best wine is not to drink something straight, it's to mix it wine and water. Chesed and din. Not a conversation for today. V'm'varchim alav Kiddush Shabbos כמו שידוע בנוסח מן הידועים we all know what it is.

It can be b'motzei Shabbos גם כן מברכין על היין l'chavod hayom at the end we do it also. ואותה ברכה שמוצאי שבת נקראת הבדלה. Okay. mishorshei mitzvah zo. What's the shoresh of this mitzvah? Again, it's interesting and we have to have a discussion. Sefer Chinuch, unknown, anonymous author, whoever he is, he already writes a PhD dissertation and tells us who he is, I don't know, so but he doesn't call it everyone would say that Sefer Chinuch's a ta'amei hamitzvos sefer.

He doesn't call it a ta'amei hamitzvos sefer, he calls it shorshei hamitzvos, right? A huge, huge difference. We're not going to get into a whole conversation again now. We'll do like we'll say we'll do five or six aspects of ta'amei hamitzvos and then we'll try and take a klal or something. I don't want to do something before we get into seeing what's going on. But he calls it shorshei hamitzvos and clearly a shoresh is different than a ta'am hamitzvah.

A shoresh

Shoresh vs. Ta'am: Roots of the mitzvah

[11:32]

does two things. The purpose of a shoresh is to help something grow and to give energy. And that's what he sees as ta'amei hamitzvos as. When I'm sitting down and say what's the shoresh, what's the root of the mitzvah? You're doing the external part and you could just go through it like an automaton. You can just go through it like a like a hurried, hustled commuter and forget it's kedusha. But the shoresh of the mitzvah, what gives it energy and flow, is knowing why you're doing it.

That's what he wants. And anybody who does a mitzvah with a ta'am, I think understands that. But it's different from a ta'am. Ta'am sounds like and many people think a ta'am is you have to take the medicine so you wrap it in a sugar coating, and that's a ta'am hamitzvah. No, no, no. This is a shoresh mitzvah. This is the ikkar, the key, that you're trying to understand. Is he saying they're the same thing? No. He uses the words. He doesn't use the word ta'amei hamitzvos.

He says mishorshei mitzvos. So but I'm saying, is he saying that the ta'am of a mitzvah is pointing back to its shoresh? Like what's the connection? Could be. But it could not be. He thinks shorshei mitzvos is much deeper, it's much more essential. I'm trying to get at the essential point. He'll give all kinds of side ta'amim. But this is the shoresh hadavar. So why aren't we taking a shorshei mitzvos class? Because I don't want to be weird. I could make you weird.

Okay, Avi's right, Avi made himself weird already, so I'm not responsible for Avi. But Moshe, Moshe's got a nice mother and father, like I can't like, you know. I was just going to ask the difference, how would you define ta'am hamitzvah? I just tried to define it. Well, you said it in a negative way, what it's not, you said it's not the sugar. No, I said a ta'am hamitzvah is the davar hachitzoni that reaches down furthest to this world that you can taste. Like we did in that class in Gur Aryeh, right?

That it's the thing that goes all the way out and reaches down so even a prost, unrefined human being can understand it. This is going up. This is relating to the whole human being. Right? A branch is a branch, it's out there on the side, it's, you know, the ta'am hadavar is on a branch of it. So would you say ta'am comes, I mean a shoresh comes from I want to do a whole class on it, that's not where I want to go right now, but yeah, go ahead, just because I love you, go ahead.

If you promise you won't do like Moshe when he does something stupid, it's okay, go ahead. Would you say that shoresh comes from sod and ta'am comes from not sod, the opposite of sod? No, no, because I, you know me already, the sod's in everything, it's like the the sod's DNA and RNA. It's in everything. You just have to find it. No. Okay, mishorshei mitzvah zo. Okay, what's the root? And like when you're doing it, and again, if you even think just this, you know, this was written for a thirteen-year-old boy, so the simplest aspects.

But just if you think about it, it changes what you're doing. כדי שתתעורר מתוך מעשה זה לזכר גדלת היום. What's the reason for Kiddush? So we'll be awakened. So we'll be enthusiastic. So we'll remember the greatness of the day. So we take things that are sweet we One of those it sits so beautiful to... I can't remember where it is, it's somewhere in the Divrei Marom but I've been looking for it and I couldn't find it again. So I'll do a check, a search check and I can find it maybe, I don't remember where it is.

But the Ramchal says just beautifully that hisorerus, right, comes to the gematria, l'orer. Ayin-Resh is gematria 270. 270 is one of those terms of Shana Rishona that everybody thinks about, right? Bachurim look at me like, \"What are you talking about?\", right? Right? Daniel? You, right? So 270 is 90 times... 9 times 30. It's the period of time that a child is learning Torah in the womb, right? So to be m'orer is when you connect back to the Torah you learned in the womb, he says.

The only way to m'orer somebody is you're trying to connect them with that earlier vision, deep vision of Torah he had. כדי שתתעורר מתוך מעשה זה לזכור גדלות היום to recognize how much flow we can get if we use Shabbos properly. Shabbos is not a day to rest. Shabbos is a day for keddusha, right? People say Shabbos is a day for rest, chas v'shalom. Shabbos is a day to bring flow into the world. Yeah, you're allowed to sleep. The Arizal slept, I sleep, but there's a lot more to do than just sleep.

And then what's going on? ונקבע בלבנו אמונת חידוש העולם to remember that God made the world and that everything in the world is a perfect portrait that God made that's beautiful and awakening. כי ששת ימים עשה השם. Al kein, because that's what we want, we want you to be excited, we want you to be engaged, we want your heart to be thinking about the day. על כן נתחייבנו לעשות המעשה עם היין. Therefore you have to do something with wine. Why?

Why wine awakens emotion for Kiddush

[17:17]

Because if you ask any fraternity guy, לפי שטבע האדם נתעורר בו הרבה, like the Gemara in Berachos says, לה עמוד ב, soeid u'mesameiach. Right? The Gemara says there in the beginning of Keitzad Mevarchim that wine is the only thing in the world that gives physical sustenance and makes you happy. So we want you to recognize what's going on on Shabbos. Shabbos is a day to be happy, it's a day for oneg. We're trying to get you there, we're trying to make it...

you shouldn't, right? You know, again, my kids question... \"I don't understand, Abba, if the idea is being happy on Shabbos, why do we light candles? I get more fun from eating Ben and Jerry's ice cream with chocolate chip cookies.\" That was a nusach of the question asked in the Gershobach house, right? So the answer was we saw the Meiri, I think, we saw the Meiri? That says that no, it's gotta be rosh ha'hana'os, the beginning of all the hana'os. So the same thing's over here.

Why are we drinking wine? Because it doesn't just... it makes us happy, it touches our emotions, and we want a hisorerus, we want us to be excited and recognize this day is different inside ourselves, not just outside ourselves with clothes. U'kvar amarti lach, he tells us, כי לפי התעוררות האדם ומעשיו, if we awaken our heart and our actions, so we change our heart by the wine, we change our actions by wearing different clothes. ישתווה אל הדברים לעולם. We will change. The external actions awaken ourselves, that's the idea of shuckling.

You shuckle outside to be excited, and inside you get excited. Right, the other way, when you walk slowly... in my old days in Red Cross, they told you when you see an accident, you walk slowly to it so you calm down inside so you can get in a safe place so you can slow it down and see what's going on. But this is the classic Sefer HaChinuch that the outside awakens the inside. Now, u'mizeh hashoresh, because we're trying to work to this, amru Gemara... don't think there's something special and mystical about yayin.

Though we're going to see there is something special and mystical about yayin. But I'm willing to give up the special mystical part of yayin because I want you to be happy, I want your emotions to be awakened. Therefore the Gemara says in Pesachim right over there where it's talking about this, שאם הפת חביבה לאדם יותר, that if a person likes bread more... I get all these mystical things with wine, but you don't like wine, and you really like hot challah, right? So then, ykadesh al pas.

Why does that make sense? We understand why that makes sense now. Why does that make sense now? Because the mitzvah is to be m'orer, is to... get excited, to get happy. So I'm not going to give you a din outside of drinking the wine, I'm actually going to want you to appreciate wine and I try to work to appreciate. I drink wine because I don't want to be strange again, Abi, right, but and I guess Bartenura does work at some level for me, but I'm sure wine connoisseurs will tell you that's not wine.

כי אז נעורה טבעו יותר למשהו תאב, because then my nature is awakened, we're going for something that's real, we're going to awaken you. Shabbos is different, Shabbos is mekor habracha. You should be happy. ואף על פי כן he's going to ask a question. I was thinking about doing a, but we're not going to do it because I don't think we have time, I can't well figure out what an hour and fifteen minutes looks like, I can never figure out how much to put in an hour and fifteen minutes to find out, but there's a question.

Everyone has a question, Tosfos, the Gemorra.

Bread vs. wine: Options for Kiddush and Havdalah

[20:56]

Why, when you go into Shabbos, you get the option of making Kiddush on bread or wine? But Motzei Shabbos there's no option to do it on bread. So he brings an answer that I haven't seen in any Rishonim other than him, but it's a nice baal batishe answer. He says, na, he says Friday night you're hungry, right? So bread's chaviv. But after three meals on Shabbos, nobody wants to eat bread Motzei Shabbos. And if there's a strange person like that, בטל אצל כל אדם.

There it's clear. There you have to use wine and that's it. That's what he's going to say. Ay, this question, if I'm telling you that Havdalah and Kiddush are parallel and they both to point out the greatness and specialness and uniqueness of Shabbos, so then why is it different between Shabbos coming in and Shabbos going out? ואף על פי שבביאת היום, even though at the end of the day, lo amru ken, we don't say like that, אלא שחובה להבדיל ביין, you're obligated to provide on wine, Motzei Shabbos al ken, al kol panim, gam b'zeh tzadku.

No, the svara is good. כי הם זכרונם לברכה Chazal understood gam b'Torah hashleimah, gam b'Torah, yavchir l'olam b'rov. Well, go after what most people think. Most people don't want to eat bread Motzei Shabbos. There's so few of you who want to eat bread, that's not a statistical influence. ומאמת כי רוב רוב העולם יתאוו אל השתייה במוצאי שבת יותר מן האכילה. Most people after three meals want to drink, they don't want to eat. לפי שכבר קבעו סעודה גדולה ביום הכבוד שבת.

You've already had a big meal in the day, you don't want to eat more. אין צורך ליתן טעם על חיוב המנה שיהיה בכוס רביעית. I'm not going to explain to you why we need three point three ounces, why we need three three point three ounces, he's going to say, דבפחות מזה שיעור אינו ראוי ולא תעורר לב אדם עליו. You have to drink something to get excited, a sip is not going to make you happy. So we see that a revi'is, is that the ikkar shiur revi'is, like that's where revi'is comes from, it's the shiur that gets a person happy on wine?

That's what he's saying, many people say that, yeah, many Rishonim, sure. ואשר

Why the Kos Rules?

[23:24]

חייבנו להדחת כוס. Okay, now why do we have all these dinim about the kos? You have to wash it inside and out and all these dinim, ושלא ליטעם פגום עד קידוש. Why can't we eat until we make Kiddush? ושיקדש במקום סעודה. כל זה ענפי שורש ההתעוררות שאמרתי. These are all ways of getting you excited about the aspect. You have to be hungry when you drink the wine, you can't eat food until you drink the wine. This is to make the day special. So the key idea over here is we want you to be excited and passionate on Shabbos, and that's why we're using wine and it's chaviv and it opens your heart.

I mean, a beer for a German makes his heart also very excited. You are an ascetic, a parush. Can you imagine a poor German who can't drink beer the whole week just because you want to make Shabbos special? You can use beer as chamra d'medina, you can do it, it helps out my life. You mean even for Friday night Kiddush? Yeah, according to the understanding of that. No, according to halacha. According to the halacha. Thought it was only Motzei Shabbos. Yeah, but it'd be weird.

Thank you. Yeah, it'll be weird. You can be weird because you're German. I'll be weird. Okay. Now I

Going Deeper: The Essence of Wine

[24:46]

want to go to the deeper area. So we've got something that connects to everybody, that everyone feels, if you don't feel the wine, the question is why does wine do it? How does wine do it? What's in wine? Why is it holy? What's going on? And now we're going to take it from the idea of sechel. simcha to all the baalei sod understands the idea of kedusha. Wine is kadosh and kadosh and kedusha come together, and of course kedusha brings you passionate joy, but that's not the ikar of it.

The ikar's not that it brings you simcha, the ikar's to bring you passion connection, deep connection. Okay, so I have these notes someplace, but Shlomo hasn't found them yet, so I don't know where it is. But so what's the yesod? The yesod that the Maharal, and you could understand that the Maharal and everybody's just saying something over, it's not true, but l'maiseh, it's spot on. Botany only apply to flowers or also apply to fruits? Botany applies to flowers.

Don't you dare as a German as a 15th language tell me what the word botany means. I'll feel compelled go back and be a ditch-digger again. I don't know what it... yeah, why not? Botany might just be, horticulture is everything, farming... Okay. Botany is... yeah, okay. So l'maiseh Chazal hold, and and when I looked this up thirty years ago, botanists agree and it's takeh pelleh, and I had all these articles written up and I xeroxed them, I can't remember where I put them, I'll have to find them.

These all plants? All plants, thank you. So and just is that thing good enough? I don't even know what words to put in, that's what not to put in. What? You'll you'll, after you do the, after you do the Gemara you'll say. So so the major idea is that yayin, why is it better to use yayin than to use beer or to use bread? What's the idea? What's the greatness of wine? So the greatness of wine is wine is exactly like Shabbos. Wine is something there's an external world and there's an internal world and the wine expresses that two aspects.

There's a grape which is the external world, and then there's a world, an internal world neshama, a world of kedusha. And that world of kedusha is expressed, not the word symbolized, expressed in the fact that wine also has the juice inside of it. So there's a coarse world of the pulp of the fruit and there's the refined inner world of the yayin. So that's an exact mashal for your body and your soul, for this world and the next world, for chol and Shabbos.

And therefore everything about Shabbos is in wine. Isn't that true of all fruits, berries and... Exactly no, that's exactly what I was saying. I don't know if you tell us you know more than I do on this, but we'll go for it. So that's exactly what I'm saying. So the Gemara says something that's like that's what I'm trying to get to Jimmy. And and someone will be smart and they'll google it, I didn't have time this week to look right, but this article, these articles had a bunch of articles.

But the Gemara holds something that is like you think at first it's just like gerrymandered, but then you go ooh and then you find that the botanists agree with it and you go whoa, this is awesomely beautiful. And that's why you have to do with the taamei mitzva, you have to show a person that oh, it's not this, we're explaining more to you about yourself and about Torah and about the world all together, that's when a person goes ooh and that's why I need this part of the secular aspect.

But the Gemara holds like this. Gemara, it's a long, it's a complicated sugya in Psachim lamed bais and lamed gimmel. But the sugya is like this. I'm trying to think whether to speak to you guys, I'll do it from the halachic side first and then from the experiential side. But Gemara

Gemara’s Distinction: Grapes vs Other Fruits

[29:13]

makes a clear distinction between grapes and all other fruit and then it adds one more fruit. But it says that all other... so what happens like this. A dead person grabbed a okay a watermelon, right? And then only touching the rind outside the green stuff, never touching the inside stuff, squeezes it and watermelon juice comes out. So clearly all of the pulp and the rind the rind of the watermelon are tamei. Okay? Is the juice tamei in the bottom? Of course. The juice is part of the pulp, and if the pulp was all tamei, so then too the juice is tamei.

If you have the same example with a tamei person, a person who's polluted, walking up and squeezing grapes, and the grapes come out, and we have to do one thing, the grapes come out less than a kebayitzah, so it doesn't give over as its coming out the tumah, the grapes that come out are tahor. You can use them in the Beis Hamikdash for the nesachim. The juice that comes out? The wine that comes out. The juice, the wine that you'll turn to wine, you can use in the Beis Hamikdash.

Not only is it not tamei, but it's kadosh enough to use for the Beis Hamikdash. Less than a kebayitzah. Less than a kebayitzah of grapes. Because if the grapes are a kebayitzah then the kebayitzah is enough to metamei everything that comes out too. I just don't want to get too complicated, but that, yeah, that's the halakha. So of course the Gemara asks, why is that? So it says grapes are not made like apples and oranges and watermelons.

Apples, oranges, and watermelons the juice is part of the pulp. But with grapes, the grapes, the language is mifkad pakid. The grapes are little packets, separate from the pulp. And therefore you metamei the pulp, but you don't metamei the packets of olives, of water, of grape, of grape juice all around. And therefore the grape is the perfect mashal for a body and a soul, for a Olam Hazeh and Olam Habah, for Shabbos and chol, because it's separate and protected and we're bringing it to this world.

And therefore it's going to have the greatest impact because the juice itself is going to make us experience what Shabbos is. Ah, it brings us simcha, that's good. Oh, it brings us passion, that's good. But the reason is because of a metaphysical technical reason of what's going on. And I admit when I learned this the first time, when I was just learning the Mir Beis Medrash, you can imagine that there wasn't a Google available and I just kind of learned this as a sugya. And then when I had to do Taryag Mitzvos, many years later, three or four years later, I said, \"Look, is this really true?\" I was almost embarrassed to ask the question, so unrefined the Baal Teshuva's like, \"Does the science back this or is this just like one of these mystical Brisker categories that don't really exist?\" And I found all over it really exists, the creation.

Now the only thing they add onto it, which is again hafleh vafleh, the only thing, other juice that is mifkad pakid is olive oil. Olive oil is also mifkad pakid. And again, I found that secular science goes with that too. I know the world's fallen apart in the last 35 years. It could be there's a deconstructivism on this also. But eventual- when I ever get through all my notes, I'll find it someplace and show you the 35-year-old research. And this wouldn't be like an orange? Like I'm not understanding mifkad pakid.

No, orange would be a good example too. You would think. No, orange is not. Orange is the pulp. The pulp is made up of all of these pieces. There it says the pieces, the pulp, and the juice inside the pulp. It doesn't just separate the juice, it's the pulp and the juice. Is that the skin that's around, just to clarify? Because the orange skin is clearly separate from the fruit, more so than the skin of the grape is separate from the fruit. But the skin has pulp inside of it, with the water inside of that, the liquid inside of that.

In the orange, you mean. In the orange, yeah. If you had a fruit that's as small as a grape, let's say you had a really- what do they call them? Like the little tiny orange things. If you touched one of those- a kumquat, right? If you touched one of those and you could squeeze juice out of it, wouldn't that also be tahor? No, you don't understand. It's both of these things. The fact it's small and the fact that- no, it's not small. No, no, it's not the only thing. You touch it, a watermelon, I touch something really big, the whole watermelon becomes tamei because its tumah's all the way across the back and forth.

With wine, when you touch it, not a problem, because I mean they're all little packets and they're protected. Right. Why do we measure the shiur? Because the shiur is when you squeeze it, right? So now this- so less than a kebayitzah's not going to make tamei tamei coming out. It was tahor, when it comes out it's going to be not- it's going to become tamei from the thing that it comes out from. So that's what the problem is. You have to do it less than a kebayitzah so it doesn't metamei when it comes out.

It's tahor before but I squeeze it, it's going to go through the grape and it's going to metamei it. If it's less than a kebayitzah, it can't do that. Okay. Yaseiv Rav Acha. יתיב רב אחא בר רב right here Psachim Lamed Gimmel tried to pick out just the key one line didn't want to go through the whole Sugya יתיב רב אחא בר רב אויא קמיה דרב חסדא ויתיב over here's a famous Tosafot HaRosh I think that says why is it say many times in Shas he sat and he sat he sat at the beginning and he sat at the end right so he says that the derech of Chazal was that the Rebbe stood and the talmidim sat and when the Rebbe spoke when the talmid spoke he had to stand up so it means he's sitting in the beginning he stood up and spoke and then he went back and sat down to hear what the Rebbe said so this is a strange construction יתיב רב אחא בר רב אויא קמיה דרב חסדא ויתיב ואמר משמיה דרב יוחנן ענבים שנטמאו דורכן פחות פחות מכביצה ויין כשר לנסכים so anavim that had been touched by a person who's got tumat met if you crush them less than a kebeitza the wine's kosher lenesachim it's the most kosher you can get it's been untouched Gevaldig אלמא קסבר משקין מפקד פקידי we find that it must hold this occurs because it's mifkad pkidi right and just for your interest of course the other thing that brings kedusha out when we have kedushas hazman how do we mekadesh zman we mekadesh zman with grapes how do we mekadesh space we mekadesh space with zeisim right you do meshicha you do it so you'll see the next the next Braisa they bring is somewhere 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 lines down טמא מת שסחט זיתים וענבים right it's also there too zeisim are also in this category being different from all other fruits so these are the two things that bring kedusha again not for right now why there's kedushas hazman on grapes and kedushas hamakom on zeisim but that's what we're going for okay Rashi

Mifkad Pakid Explained by Rashi

[37:41]

explains what mifkad pkidi is קסבר משקין מפקד פקידי מפקדים הן בתוך הזג they are placed with protection inside of a packet ve'einan chibur lo and they're not connected to the rest of the fruit אלא כמי שנתן בכלי they're like put in a vessel וכשנטמא הזג לא נטמו משקין okay so that's what he understands it to be it's a separate space and this we have a perfect metaphor for why grapes are like Shabbos and why grapes are like kedusha what we're going for okay so yeah wine is like kedusha so what's the inyan behind wine's when it ages it gets better meaning if the kedusha's in the metzius it should be in its most essential best form as it is meaning why is it that we then have to put it aside ויהי ערב ויהי בוקר יום אחד ויהי ערב ויהי בוקר יום שני ויהי ערב ויהי בוקר יום שלישי you garnish a cup everybody says and explains that in Judaism everything starts incomplete it's erev and we have to work to make it complete even kedusha even kedusha everything that comes in this world has to be mekudash כל דבר שבעולם צריך תיקון the Gemara says everything in the world needs a tikkun אפילו חרדל ואפילו תורה even mustard and even Torah everything needs a tikkun okay so now we're going to see the Maharal mishtamesh with this yesod in many ways here we go so the main point why why the connection with the grape is because the thing that is contained inside of the grape is wine and wine is like a neshama or are we saying because yes wine reveals a deeper world just like Shabbos is a giluy olam haba it's not here in this world.

treat it special. special. So yayin gives you that taste of a special world. And so the point that it’s in packets is just to say that even though the outside could become tamei, the inside... No, the point of the packets is the fact that something’s nister, is nister. It’s hidden from you. It’s separate. You can’t just grab it whenever you want. Rebbe, if you want me to read it, it’s just a little bit. I’m sure there’s a lot more research, but basically it says below the skin layer of this type of grape lies flesh or pulp, which makes up most of the berry’s value.

Cells in the pulp have very large vacuoles containing the cell sap or juice. When the berry is gently crushed, the fragile cells in the pulp are broken and the juice is released. The juice is commonly referred to as the free run. So it has this separated quality. If it didn’t, would that affect how you view this Gemara? If it didn’t say that or if we didn’t have confirmation from botany? I think so. I’m a Sefer Yetzirah Jew. I want to see the Sefer Yetzirah. I look at the world, I believe the world is kadosh and the kedusha is telling me something.

So I want to know what’s going on. It wouldn’t affect the halacha, but it’s going to affect my ta’amei hamitzvos just how I look at the world and bring it out. Of course. So would you still, so it wouldn’t be something you would share necessarily about ta’amei hamitzvos and it wouldn’t be something that you would resonate with as a ta’am. Right. Right. Okay, so over here in the Gemara in Shavuos י\"ח עמוד ב'. The Gemara in י\"ח עמוד ב' brings from the pasuk Vayikra yud yud.

I wrote down last night so I’ll be able to find it easy. In the beginning of Shemini. So it says over here. So what happens? So Aharon’s sons die because they drank too much wine. We’ll get to it at the end what they thought, but they clearly thought that drinking wine was going to bring them to kedusha. They thought the wine was olam habah and that they would the way to bring in the Beis Hamikdash the first time Nadav and Avihu was to drink wine. So דבר ה' אל אהרן לאמר יין ושכר אל תשת right v’lo samusu don't die.

ולהבדיל בין הקודש ובין החול. Why can't you drink wine? To distinguish between the kodesh and the chol. בין הטמא ובין הטהור. ולהורות את בני ישראל את כל החוקים אשר דבר ה' אליהם ביד משה. So we see that yayin that there's havdala that it makes and the Gemara goes through if you are if you are careful with wine then lots of things happen to you. You have male sons. You you. So that's the question. So the Gemara says, the Gemara says in Shavuos from this pasuk.

I jumped in, but maybe you started the one before I did. Amar Rabbi Yochanan. He quotes the Gemara, that's where he made it. The Gemara says המבדיל על היין במוצאי שבתות הויין ליה בנים זכרים. If you're careful to use wine Motzei Shabbos you'll be zocheh to have male children. So he's going to say why is that? והוא הטעם אשר אמרנו אם מפני שהוא מבדיל בין קודש ובין חול שדבר זה הוא הבדלה that you write the pasuk says over here you shouldn't you have to be able to divide between kodesh and chol ראוי שיהיה לו בנים זכרים אשר זכר יש לו מדרגת צורה.

The man is like a yud and the woman is like a hei. The man is the idea and the woman is bringing the idea to action. So if you relate to the internal world of yud, you get you do wine, and wine is related to the internal world what you don't see. The grape is the hei, but the wine inside those cellular boxes, that's that’s different. That’s unique. And again just back to Jacob’s question. I think when people find that it is unique, it’s unique from most other from apples and oranges, that blows you away all of a sudden.

Oh, it’s not just that’s that’s. That's what we're looking for. So הוא הטעם אשר אמרנו כי מפני שהוא מבדיל בין קודש ובין החול שדבר זה הבדלה. What's Havdalah? You divide between external and internal. When you use wine which is internal to divide between the internal and external, you're showing that division properly between the internal and the external. ראוי שיהיו לו בנים זכרים. It's appropriate to have sons. אשר זכר לו מדרגת צורה because the banim are the yud. You've got the internal world.

אשר צורה מבדיל בין דבר לדבר. And that's what tzurah does. It divides between something and something else. You know, you don't just say they're all flowers, you say this one is a rose and that one's an iris. I don't know what irises are but it's a word my mother taught me. כמו שנתבאר כי על ידי צורה יזכור הדבר. By getting to the tzurah you get to the essence of the thing. And Shabbos is the tzurah of the world. ויש הבדל בינו ובין דבר אחר. אמר רבי יהושע בן לוי. גם כן שיהיו בנים ראויים להוראה.

Not only you're going to get sons, but you're going to get sons who can teach. Because what's the essence of teaching? You can divide between this and that. If you get connected to that the essence of Shabbos is being mavdil between the chutz and the pnim, then your kids will be able to divide between what's tamei and what's tahor. כמו שנתבאר כי יהיה לו בנים השכל עליון. Your kids will have that upper level דאש על ידו הוא הוראה כי השכל הדעת מבדיל בין דבר לדבר. Amnam, let's go deeper though.

Why? Okay, so that's because you make Havdalah. You know that Shabbos and the Chol are different. But why is the Gemara makpid in שבועות יח עמוד ב? Makpid that it's got to be on wine? Why can't it just be המבדיל? I say words, why do I have to use the wine? מה שאמר מבדיל יין דווקא? Why is it particularly on yayin? וזה כי הבדלה ראוי שתהיה על יין דווקא. There is something unique about yayin in the entire creation. מפני כי יין יוצא ונבדל מן הענב. Because wine is separate and distinct from the grape.

Right now we're talking about when you eat it, it's outside the grape, but even before. וגם, even before you take it out. You've sat down, looked at this grape and you said, oh I have to divide the grape, this is grape and this is wine. And I know that you can sell a kilo of grapes for ten shekel and you sell the same amount of wine for a hundred shekel. Oh, you'll be able to mavdil, you recognize what's important, that's what you're doing. But it's not just the fact that you've done the second level search to make it better.

גם בתוך הענב יין מפקד פקיד. He's quoting the Gemara that we just saw in Pesachim right? פסחים לג לב. בתוך הענב ונבדל מגוף הענב. It's not there with the pulp, it's unique and separate. ולכך ראוי היין להבדלה יותר. Therefore

Uniqueness of Wine in Creation

[48:00]

wine, you could say apple juice, apple juice could be the first part. No, no, but in its essence it's separate, it's mifkad pakid, that's what we know. K'mo haShabbos, that's exactly like Shabbos. נבדל מן החול שאינו קודש. Six days of the week are external, the seventh day of the week is internal. כך היין שהוא דק נבדל מן הגוף הענב שהוא גס וגשמי יותר. לפיכך אומר המבדיל יין במוצאי שבת. Therefore, you have to, it's best, and you get all the brachos and you're in the flow, and it's better than anything else because it's connected metaphysically to the time.

That's why you shouldn't use beer even if you're German and it's chaviv, right? But you should, there's a, I don't exactly know how beer, beer is not mifkad pakid, I understand. Wheat? Wheat. So at this just you smash it. Right. she'zeh havdalah gemurah. This is the great demarcation. ולכך הווין לו בנים זכרים שהזכר הוא צורה.

The Male Yud and Spiritual Detachment

[49:20]

A male is the yud. He's got the ability to be disconnected from the physical world. נחשב שכל צורה בהבדלה. וכן בנים ראויים להוראה. You'll have children who can also determine between kodesh and chol. Okay. So that I think is he carrying out the idea that we're trying to look for, that's the greatness. I don't know if he says anything more about Shabbos in the beginning, but they obviously flipped the whole thing over to Shabbos in the beginning and that's what I think the same ta'am as we're going for.

Yeah. So just... Because the male is the Yud, he has an inherent ability to detach from the physical world, which is the idea of the inherent ability. You can tell your guy in shul, yes, you sometimes don't care about your wife like you should. Yes. She's told me a couple of times. She's a therapist. It's good, like, you know. Yeah. Actually. Yeah. Yeah, so because of that Yud, basically that's the idea of the wine having those two, or the grape having those two aspects. What makes us unique as men is that we can make the separation, whereas a woman is always going to be everything mashed together.

She's going to be able to be more connected to the physical world, but she's not going to get to the place of detachment that sometimes is good when you davven and learn Torah and stuff. Yeah. Let me just make a Bracha. ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם בורא נפשות רבות וחסרונן על כל מה שברא להחיות נפש כל חי ברוך חי העולמים. Yeah. Now I'm going to ask this question because this is what I actually think. I know that you're going to... Okay, so let's talk about that then. Let's do Gevuros Hashem.

Let's do Gevuros. Here we go. I'm just trying to get the Kavanah up. I'll give you my question. I'll do it. It's not a real question like at the end we can do it. Yeah, fine. What time is it? About 11:10 or something now? 12:40. 12:40. So okay. The

Gevurot Hashem and the Arba Kosos Question

[51:29]

other place I know he talks about it over here is in Gevuros Hashem. He wants to know, why is it that on Pesach night we have to drink Arba Kosos of wine? Again, we're makpid davka on wine. As opposed to grape juice? No, as opposed to Matzah. Is that on there? See, again. It's not, but right now that's not what he's going to talk about. He's going to take yayin. He's not... Why grape juice? Yossi... He holds grape juice is not yotzei, but then we're not going to go there now.

So... Yeah. So he understands like this. He says everything works in two ways. He says eating is something that's coarse and more physical. Drinking is something that's more refined and internal, like the first side of what he said. And therefore there's two madregas of geulah, and therefore we have to have two signs of geulah. We have the Matzah for the geulah that was nigla and you could all see that you're no longer slaves of Paroh. And then you have the wine for the geulah that you couldn't see, that your neshamas got better, you were more connected to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, all these other things.

And therefore we have to have two aspects. The Matzah is the nigla and the yayin is the nistar, and it's going to be the same idea I think as over here. Five lines from the bottom: ועל כל פנים הדבר ברור כי יש לגאולה מדריגה עליונה יותר. Matzah shows one level of geulah. Every knows that they went from being avdei Paroh to being עבדי הקדוש ברוך הוא... to being free men. I didn't want עבדי הקדוש ברוך הוא. They went from being avadim to Paroh to being free men.

The second part of the geulah that you're connected to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that's nistar. That's not seen. That's something that's internal in your internal perception and understanding. ועל כל פנים הדבר ברור כי יש לגאולה מדריגה עליונה יותר לפיכך אכילת מצה שהיא אכילה גופנית. Therefore eating Matzah which is physical. שהאכילה מסתפק ממנה הגוף. The body gets pleasure from it. וישוב בשר הלחם מה שהוא אוכל. And it turns into flesh. Hashtia m'mashke, drinking, shehu dak, drinking is obviously, it doesn't have a form.

It's fluid. What's fluid mean? It means it moves around, it's got no form. It's not physical as much. וכל שכן כאשר המשקה הוא יין. All drinks are less physical than food, but certainly yayin is the seminal paradigm for everything. נבדל ויוצא מן הענב שנסתר לשם. It's hidden there. Now he's going to take and try to explain... You know, a person who thinks he's saying something deep, he does Arizal with you or the Gemara. Oh, we have to... yayin is gematria

Gematria of Yayin and Sod: Seventy Seventy

[54:28]

70. Yud-Yud is two tens is 20, Nun is 50, that's 70. And sod is 60 and Vav and Dalet, that's 70. And therefore 70 and 70, you do it. That's not going to... That doesn't show in the world. That's for persons that relate to gematrias. We're going to find out that Abraham Lincoln is the same gematria as Joe Biden or something, like you know who's going to find out over here. But once you now understand... understand that no, we're going to see that we have how I react to something, it makes me happy because it awakens my internal and it grows in the tree differently, and there's a Halacha that tuma and tahara connects to it, and the name of it is a Gematria, now it's geshmak, now I see that everything's going together, I'm not just sitting down and gerrymandering ideas that we're going to make up.

Just again the Ari says that that's why the yud yud nun, the three letters that make up the word wine that are all have no breath to them, all are one-dimensional because we're talking about the nistar. What's that expressed in the physical world? So everything about it, once we try to put everything together we see how Taamim work, that if we have a real taam, it explains the physical world, it explains the world of Torah and the dinim and Halacha and it explains the etymology of the word, explains the graphic structure of the word, everything goes together.

So he's saying now היצא מן הענבה שנסתתר שם כמו שאמרו. This person, I don't know why he brought the Tanchuma Chukas, clearly Maharal's not bringing that, he's bringing the Gemara in Sanhedrin Lamed Chet. But okay. יין ניתן בשבעים וסוד ניתן בשבעים. So the Gemara says and the Midrash says that yayin is Gematria 70 and sod is Gematria 70. v'ein ha-perush, do not learn like those politicians, those unconnected people to s'vara and to daas and to the world and to unity of Torah.

ואין הפירוש בודאי גימטריא, it's just because of the Gematria is that way? It's not connected to the physical world, not connected to dinim. בשביל כך נכנס יין יוצא סוד, some kind of mystical thing unconnected to the real world? אבל הוא דבר אמיתי, it's a very true thing, metzad atzmo. It's true essentially. That's what he wants, this is what we always want. You have to connect a word's meaning to the Gematria, to its graphics, to its Halacha, and then we know it's true, then we know we're not just...

כי היין הוא משקה נסתר יוצא מהסתר. Like we saw based on the Halacha over there in Sanhedrin Lamed Gimmel. The anvah and the pnimiyus ha-anvah, there's a grape and there's the internality of the grape. לפיכך יין שהוא גדול בנסתר. Therefore the special qualities of wine, it grew in a hidden place and therefore it has an aspect of hiddenness and it can awaken something very deep inside of yourself that I see obviously we'll see next week. פנימיות הענבה בגימטריא סוד, and therefore because it's pnimiyus, it's Gematria sod, lefi she-hu nistar, because it's hidden.

וכאשר נכנס יין באדם מוציא סוד.

Wine Awakening the Inner Soul (Sod)

[58:03]

Wine has the ability to touch something inside of you and wake up your sod. And that's why it's important. It's not just the chavivus like the Sefer HaChinuch says, but of course that's part of it. But the reason it wakes up your pnimiyus is it's not like bread or Ben and Jerry's, it metaphysically mamash touches your internality, and even if Beryl Gershowitz doesn't appreciate it, which I don't know why he don't, but somehow Hakadosh Baruch Hu seems to have made me that way.

I try guys, I really do, I have all these gevirim give me these 400 dollar wines and I can't... I don't know, it doesn't... I don't know. They help out? If you can, good. So you're more experientially sensitive than I am, that's good. כי הוא בא עד נסתר כפי שמדרגה שמוציא. So it mamash that's why we get happiness because it makes us aware of something deeper in ourselves, it shows we have pnimiyus, and that's what Shabbos is supposed to do. So it's the perfect way to bring in the Shabbos, it's a ha'aras ha-pnimiyus, that's what we want.

לפיכך האכילה שמצה באה על הגאולה הנגלית. There's a redemption that everybody saw was going on, that you're no longer slaves. והשתייה באה על מדרגה עליונה יותר. The shtiya goes on a second level, nistar giluy, that we're losing the yetzer hara and more connected to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. lefikach, and then he goes on so why there's arba kosos, that's the idea. Okay, but that's hopefully these two ideas about why yayin is special and pnimiyus and next week...

This is what the problem with this shiur. Next week we'll do the piece in Ben Sorer u'Moreh about why wine's good, why wine's bad, what's going on, and then we'll have something else too, I don't know how we're going to make this half a shiur and then the next will be half a shiur. I'll try to think what to do. Let me just think for a moment. Is there a reason or not, I'm sure there is, that we know why grapes specifically grow on a vine and not a tree or bush? Something that's more...

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good one. We could do why it's called a kerem and not called an etz. Yeah. We'll speak to this. Good. This is... you probably know it's Gemara 63 in Brachos. They called the Rabbanim Kerem BeYavneh. Right? It's their Kerem BeYavneh, not an Etz BeYavneh. And okay, maybe we can do that. That maybe will fill our 20 minutes over here and we'll do it next time. Don't want to do it right now, but yes. That's obviously a side idea, but that's what's going to go on over here.

Yes. How can we... wine misuse? I mean, there was misuse in many instances in the... That's exactly what's next, and that's the next Gemara we're looking at. That's on this page over here. Someone give me a page so I'll be able to write on it. Do you have a blank piece of paper here? Yeah. No, no, no. Don't take it out of the thing. No, no, no. It's okay. I have respect for Israeli spiral notebooks. They're very expensive. No. No, please. Please my sheet. Thank you. I appreciate that very much. I should have just ripped it out from someone else.

No, I definitely should have... Yeah. Oh my goodness. Right on my hand. Okay. So, I think Shloime's got it. Alright. Yeah. What was the next one? Misuse? That's going to be... that's mamash the Gemara. We're going to just take a look at it and see it. It's going to be all-time beautiful. I saw this Maharal when I first saw this Maharal, I was like, whoa, I read this Krias Shema all my life and didn't chap what was going on. After I read it, I was like everything that changes and moves, I'm going to get it.

He did this Gemara over here. Yeah, in the middle column there on דף קס\"ח. Do you have me, Shloime? רב כהנא רמי כתיב תירש וקרינן תירוש. Right? It's written chaser yud. So it says what's the idea, like you just said. Zacha na'aseh rosh. If you

Proper Use of Wine: Blessings and Pitfalls

[1:02:59]

use the wine properly, na'aseh rosh. It makes you better. לא זכה נעשה רש. It makes you poor, it makes you empty. And that's what the Maharal's going to explain why it goes both ways. But that's mamash what the Gemara's talking about. Yeah, Frank? You said something about having male boys. Could we possibly have female boys? Wait, one second. There was five vavs in there someplace. After writing the kesubah, I remember he would name it and remember it. Mamash im shemo?

Im shemo? Okay, yeah, go. Yes, what's the question? You said something about having male boys? No, if you mavdil on wine, so what's... that's like super connected. When you make havdalah on yayin, it means I recognize the importance of pnimiyus. I recognize that Shabbos is different from chol, that's one. I sit down and make havdalah, that's two. I sit down and make it on wine, that's three. All three of these things are saying I recognize the importance of tzurah and chomer.

So then you're going to have a child who's also the tzurah and not the chomer. So male... there's not two separate things. Male, is it possible to have a female boy? Banim zacharim. Why is it... it's like a redundancy. Banim is already male. So the truth is, no, it's banim zacharim, children who are males because you can have children. This is going to help you if you're going to have children... the pshat is if you're not going to have children, if you're going to have children, this will help them be male children.

It's not going to help you have children altogether, although Rav Chaim says it does help you have children altogether. But the simple pshat is banim that are zacharim. It's not an aphrodisiac, it's not a fertility drug. It's going to help you become more pnimi and be more zocheh to the pnimi. But the Meiri in Niddah says that... asks this question and says banim zacharim therefore does not mean male children, it means strong children like males.

Otherwise he'd just say zacharim. it means banim zacharim, children who are strong. That’s how the Meiri pshat, but yeah. How is wine sod? Like it says lechem sa’ad. The pasuk says in the beginning of Perek Vav, that wine gets a special bracha because it’s so’ed... so’ed... sa’ad... sa’ad. Yeah. So how does it sa’ad? I mean the simple answer is it gives calories like everything else gives calories. The deeper idea is it gives sa’ad because it gives strength to the most important part of yourself.

Just like if I... there’s two ways of making a tree grow. One is you can pour water on the leaves, one you can pour water on the roots. What’s going to make it grow more? Pour water on the roots. That’s the chiddush of yayin. So bread nourishes your physicality, wine nourishes your neshama? That’s why it’s so’ed? Doesn’t say emotions, but yeah. Something deep in your neshama. We haven’t talked about emotions at all yet. I think the Maharal would be upset if we called it emotions.

We’re calling it shoresh neshama. Your mamish neshama. It’s the lo nigla. It’s something very deep. It’s very deep. Maybe next week we’re going to talk about why it affects your heart when you get drunk and get smashed, but that might be Yavan. But right now we’re talking about something deep. We haven’t talked about emotions yet. I don’t think I’ve used the word ruach or I’ve seen the Maharal use the word ruach yet. Next week he’s going to use it as a different thing.

I think you mentioned this too at the beginning that the yayin representing din but you said I don’t want to touch that right now. Not today, yeah. Oh that’s going to be next week too. And it being integral to the miziga... shlish... the shlish of the yayin. I think next week’s class will be too long now, but okay great. Shalom. No I’ve got something to fill in. I just don’t want to get stopped in the middle and then what are we going to do? Yeah. Rav, one of the things I think you wanted to show us also is that we begin with the ta’am then we see the bigger picture, right?

We see the practical aspects and then only we go to gematria and the deeper, right? But it feels to me that the gematria also arouses a ta’am. When I see a gematria then I get a feeling of wow, that’s amazing, which gives me personally a ta’am. So it’s basically the first step rather than the last step. So Baruch you’ve gotten to that’s great. You can imagine someone walking into your house and you tell them 70-70 and yayin they’re going to look at you like you’re out of your mind.

You’ve learned for two years. That’s why you feel that way, right? You’re trying to find something that connects to people outside of yourselves. Even if I didn’t go through the steps, I know that the steps are there and therefore I know that ta’am... so okay anyway thank you. Can Rebbi just clarify the Ari he just brought about the sounds of the letters of wine, yayin? Didn’t say the sounds. What was it about? The graphic description of yayin has no expression. They’re one-dimensional.

Yud, yud and nun. Yes, got it. Also Yavan isn’t the same, like... Yavan has all externality. No. Not according to the Zohar, no. Yavan is all wisdom, chochmah. They used their chochmah wrong maybe but they’re all about chochmah. That’s the positive side of Yavan they talk about a lot in the Zohar. Yeah. But for Maharal though, why wouldn’t Torah be one of the things that the letters of Yavan would be made...

it’s connected to world of yud... so I get the tzura aspect. But wouldn’t Torah also fall in that category? I think so. I think that’s what it means that again you’re going to read parashat v’zot habracha and everything then it’s going to be zocheh litrom to teaching hora’ah. Hora’ah is Torah, right? That’s the highest... that’s the highest Torah. That’s the highest Torah. It means you get it. Yeah. Rav, maybe I missed it but... the idea of yud...

this is a keiruv talk, right? There’s no Torah for yourself, there’s no mitzvah of talmud torah, only mitzvah to teach Torah. The idea of yud yud and then the nun, what’s the idea of the two yuds? Don’t jump into... I’m not sure we’ll do next week... yeah... the nun represents... it’s simply the idea of coming out to... okay maybe we’ll talk about it. You should speak out Rabbi, you should speak out Rabbi. And you know, maybe add Edie’s in, but don’t hold back.

I thought Rabbi said there was a lot of things you also have to speak about on yayin. Sod word Ari these are going to take over. Yes. But... well also no I think I think if Rebbi had prepared things they still also... we can just do more weeks I guess. Anything else? Yeah. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about how the... we have the inside of the grape and the outside of the grape, and we have Shabbos versus the week, and neshama versus the body, and the idea that the things that are kadosh...

separate from the outside thing. Obviously, that's not a Lashon we'd like to use in terms of Kedushah, things being separate, but that was a Lashon that we saw over and over again, like when we're seeing the Maharal, like Nivdal, Nivdal, Nivdal. But the Kedushah is that it connects everything else back once you've got it. But that's a job that we have to do, like go outside and get something that the Kedushah which is outside of us? But that'll be next week.

You have to have Daas before you drink. If you don't have Daas, then the drink messes you up. If you have Daas, then the drink is good for you. You have to first go inside and then you go outside. But that'll be next week. Okay, just to clarify, right? So the way that we're learning, it seems to be contradictory to Sefer HaChinuch. Sefer HaChinuch says, if you... the way that we're learning right now seems to be contradictory to Sefer HaChinuch, because you're saying that if you like bread more, then go for the physical world, go for you know what gets you going, the physical world, ignore the internal.

Is my hand clean? If I do brain surgery, is it clean? No. So that's what we're trying to do. Sefer HaChinuch was written for a thirteen-year-old boy who's got no Torah. So he's saying the essential thing is we want you to get awakened. And according to that, when I say it like that's what Baalebattim, like a Baalebass understands Sefer HaChinuch and understands Halachah and goes like, what do I care about the Zohar?

Questioning the Quick Shmoneh Esreh

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What do I care about all these things? I'll do it. It's Muttar. Like, what are these rabbis? It's Muttar to Davven Shmoneh Esreh in two and a half minutes. And that's like a יום כיפור שמונה עשרה, right? Like, you know, what do I have to do the five-minute Shmoneh Esreh for? Like, what's going on? But if you recognize the deeper aspects of what's happening, then we go deeper. So that's what always happens. Sefer HaChinuch says something over that's engaging for a thirteen-year-old.

And then we look deeper and understand, oh, but this is why it's better to use wine than it is to use Lechem, and this is what the Hakpadah on Yayin is and what the special Bracha you get is. And if you make on bread, probably you're going to end up with a son that teaches Talmud Torah, etc. Yeah. It sounds like this is what the Maharal is going to be next week, but how is it possible that when you overly connect to Neshama, aka the wine, the inner part, the soul, you become more Guf?

That's Maharal next week. Okay, great, Gut Shabbos. May I ask the Parsha question? Maybe. Maybe short? The people online didn't see at 12:30 yesterday. The question that led to the Midrash of... the order, it says leave from Artzecha, Moladetecha, Mibeis Avicha. So it's all going in the wrong order. It should be saying leave the opposite way around. Right. So it shows that it's a spiritual going. That leads into the Midrash somehow, like that's what seems to lead into the Midrash.

I'm not doing this today. I think I tossed it out there. Didn't I toss it out to all of you? For some reason I had it written down that that was like what led us into the Midrash. Well, it's one of the things. It's a bunch of things. I forgot that.

Logistics: Packet Distribution and Numbers

[1:13:04]

Havdalah, Wine, and Male Offspring

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I have to admit I forgot whether or not I forgot what we done here this is so I can't remember if we done candles or not. You did that last time. We did do candles. Good I remember. Okay. And adjust. Which one? The Tosafot Noach with anavah was it with oneg? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And nega ayin. We did both of those on Shabbos a couple days ago. No it's from I can't remember with the Maharal. Okay let's wait to go. Okay I don't remember someone will have to show me let's see I forgot where we.

We should have done a second group about Olam Ha-Ba but I thought we started but I didn't know where we were holding so oh you got the shitas that's great. All right we'll go to the shitas. I did all the shitas whatever I gave you I did for you. Okay. I'm asking telling him or asking? No no these we have not seen yet. We did Midrash Noach last time. Okay. Okay. No no no these are all new we didn't haven't done these. No no I know you haven't done those but I didn't know if we'd finished or or like candle lighting and that one we did.

Do we do the three dinim of oneg, kavod and and? Yes. Yes we did the three. Okay Shulchan Aruch awesome. Okay good. Okay someone has to keep me focused because I unfortunately don't remember from week to week what's going on with these sugyos. Okay so this week's going to be Kiddush. Of course the story with Taamei Ha-Mitzvos is I'd like to every week start off and have Moshe tell me over the taam of the mitzvah so we can get something from like the classic Heimishe Cheder right what's going on.

Is this the right answer or the wrong answer? Wrong answer of course. I'm not going to count the students for right answer ever even you Moshe it's like you know. Okay but I guess I don't want to develop a philosophy of mitzvos right now philosophy of Taamei Ha-Mitzvos. We'll probably devote over time but the key we'd set up whenever it was two weeks ago three weeks ago with the Gur Aryeh and the sin of the Etz Da'at with all the Etz and the sin of the Eretz was that the taam is at the end and the tree itself doesn't have taam and we have to go back the journey is to bring the taste to that tree.

And that's what we have to always look at a taam of a mitzvah has to always start with something the person grabs onto and understands and then we want to show it in a bigger and bigger framework so it can resonate in a broader world and a deeper aspect of who he is. To start off and you know I don't know why most people think we do Kiddush but most people either go too low and people say oh there's so many contradictions to that I don't believe it or too high and just go yayin is gematria sod which is something a person doesn't relate to so how's that help me grow.

So we have to always try and grab onto the taam of a mitzvah something the person can see and go aha there's something deeper going on here and then attach it to a bigger vision of what's going on and that's what we'll try and do. So Sefer Ha-Chinuch starts off with the classic simple foundational understanding of what Kiddush is for and then we'll go into the Maharal's approach which as always is taking the esoteric Torah and making it exoteric he's taking all the Kabbalah and making it a way that you can feel it and connect to it and that's what we'll try and do and see.

Okay. Mitzvas Kiddush Shabbos. So what's the Sefer Ha-Chinuch says? That the ikkar mitzvah of Kiddush is to make Shabbos distinguished from everything else and distinguish in a good way and therefore everything we do about Kiddush and why we choose wine is to show that Shabbos is distinguished in a good way and he calls it hissorirus. It's to awaken us up it's to attach our emotions so we recognize there's something big here. Shabbos by itself might be so far away and so kodesh that we can't relate to it and therefore our mission over here is to find ways to relate to it with love and that's what he's going to say.

The mitzvah of Kiddush is you take a has to be something that's chaviv on you there's famous Gemara. We did see the Alter of Slabodka on Kiddush B'makom Seudah and everything right? Yes so that joy is what he's talking about over there that's where we're going to go for. מצות קידוש שבת בדברים. There's a mitzvah that you have to mekadesh Shabbos with words. לדבר דברים ביום שבת. שבת בכניסתו וכן בצאתו. Mitzvah d'Oraisa to separate Shabbos at the beginning at the end.

So we know that it's a special chefetz of kedusha different from everything else. שיהיה בהם זכר לגדלות היום ומעלתו. So there's two aspects. There's you have to recognize the gadlus hayom. Gadol's always the lashon of to give over. It's mashpia, it gives over to other things. The root of the word gadol is gomeil dalim, right? Gimel is gomeil to give over, dalet those that are poor. Gadlus hayom, Shabbos is mekor habracha.

So we want to make everyone appreciate that from Shabbos comes all the goodness. Now not only does it come the goodness, but that goodness comes as qualitatively different. One thing could be gadol could be just quantitatively different. Gadol is Wilt Chamberlain, alav hashalom, was gadol. Nobody's going to say that he had a qualitative greatness of being human, right? Maybe the opposite, right? So except he played Philadelphia, there was one like redeeming factor about him but I'm not sure there was much else, right?

And this hand did shake his hand, right? But you know, I have gone to the mikveh for at least 100 times since, it's okay. But that's the idea of gadlus, right? If we're familiar with gadol, that's when you say separate Sefer Torah, לך ה' הגדולה והגבורה והתפארת. Gedulas chesed, it's gedulas chesed because it's giving over. So Shabbos is the mekor habracha and therefore we have to appreciate the flow everything's coming out from it and that's what we call Kabbalas Shabbos, we have to get ready to open ourselves up to get a flow over here because something's coming down so you should know there's a gedulas Shabbos that's going to be mashpia and grow and flow.

But the second idea is it's qualitatively different, it's a ma'alah, it's a iluy, it's ilua. It's something that's comes from a different world qualitatively even a little bit of Shabbos is much more valuable. Rav Shach was five foot tall, there's much more ma'alas than Wilt Chamberlain had at seven foot tall. That's what we're looking for, that's umalaso. And because of this gedula umala, and the ma'alah's going to be called in a different language kadosh.

זכור את יום השבת לקדשו. Kedusha is we connect to a different point and bring that all together of course I assume I'm just laying down foundations that we know but if we don't you can ask me after I finish the line. והבדלתו לשבח משאר ימים שלפניו ולאחריו. Once we recognize this more flow in it and once we recognize its qualitatively a higher level, we have to stop and go ooh, I can't act on Shabbos like I act the rest of the week. I have to separate it before and afterwards shene'emar זכור את יום השבת לקדשו.

Remember Shabbos is unique. Lekadsho, we recognize that it comes from a place of kedusha, it comes from a ma'ala, and therefore when I go into it I have to go in with thoughts that it's different and when I leave it I have to go with thoughts that it's different. That's what I'm doing. זכרהו זכר קדושה וגדולה. Okay, so we switch the word ma'ala for kedusha, but that's what we want over here and that's what זכור את יום השבת לקדשו the Ten Commandments that's what we're looking for.

Uveferush amru chachameinu the Rabbis say explicitly Pesachim ק\"י עמוד א. שדברים אלו מצווים אנו לאומרם על היין. That these words we have to say on wine. Again machlokes Rashi Tosafos there, if it's a din d'Oraisa you have to have yayin or a din d'Rabbanan you have to have yayin. Sefer HaChinuch understands it's din d'Oraisa like the Tosafos. Shekein ba haperush zochreihu al hayayin. Like Tosafos. Ve'inyan hu.

Okay that's just what we'll go through just say the whole thing, what's the dinim? שניתנו בכוס רביעית יין חי או מזוג. It can be fresh or it can be mixed. Yoser merevi'is. It's got to be at least 3.3 ounces. אבל לא פחות מזה, not less than that. Lemeziga yedu'a. The idea of why you have to mix it is known. שיהיה חלק אחד של יין חי וטוב ושלש חלקים מים. that you want to mix the din with the chesed, and therefore the best wine is not to drink something straight, it's to mix it wine and water.

Chesed and din. Not a conversation for today. V'm'varchim alav Kiddush Shabbos כמו שידוע בנוסח מן הידועים we all know what it is. It can be b'motzei Shabbos גם כן מברכין על היין l'chavod hayom at the end we do it also. ואותה ברכה שמוצאי שבת נקראת הבדלה. Okay. mishorshei mitzvah zo. What's the shoresh of this mitzvah? Again, it's interesting and we have to have a discussion. Sefer Chinuch, unknown, anonymous author, whoever he is, he already writes a PhD dissertation and tells us who he is, I don't know, so but he doesn't call it everyone would say that Sefer Chinuch's a ta'amei hamitzvos sefer.

He doesn't call it a ta'amei hamitzvos sefer, he calls it shorshei hamitzvos, right? A huge, huge difference. We're not going to get into a whole conversation again now. We'll do like we'll say we'll do five or six aspects of ta'amei hamitzvos and then we'll try and take a klal or something. I don't want to do something before we get into seeing what's going on. But he calls it shorshei hamitzvos and clearly a shoresh is different than a ta'am hamitzvah.

A shoresh does two things. The purpose of a shoresh is to help something grow and to give energy. And that's what he sees as ta'amei hamitzvos as. When I'm sitting down and say what's the shoresh, what's the root of the mitzvah? You're doing the external part and you could just go through it like an automaton. You can just go through it like a like a hurried, hustled commuter and forget it's kedusha. But the shoresh of the mitzvah, what gives it energy and flow, is knowing why you're doing it.