Electric bike strikes again

 A middle-aged woman was walking on the sidewalk on Monday morning when she was hit by an electric bicycle rider on Ben Tzvi Sreet in Netanya. Worried relatives called United Hatzalah’s Dispatch and Command Center who immediately alerted nearby EMTs and other medical personnel.

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/363610

that Gemara

Remember that Gemara about fish on land dying is like Jews who don't study Torah? Turns out it's really about Torah AND Mitzvos.

Rav Yehuda says that Shmuel says: What is the meaning of that which is written: “And makes people as the fish of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them” (Habakkuk 1:14)? Why are people compared to the fish of the sea? This serves to say to you: Just as with regard to the fish of the sea, once they arise onto dry land they die immediately; so too, with regard to people, once they separate themselves from studying words of Torah and performing the mitzvot, they die immediately.

Avodah Zara 3b

אָמַר רַב יְהוּדָה אָמַר שְׁמוּאֵל, מַאי דִּכְתִיב: ״וַתַּעֲשֶׂה אָדָם כִּדְגֵי הַיָּם כְּרֶמֶשׂ לֹא מֹשֵׁל בּוֹ״, לָמָּה נִמְשְׁלוּ בְּנֵי אָדָם כִּדְגֵי הַיָּם? לוֹמַר לָךְ: מָה דָּגִים שֶׁבַּיָּם — כֵּיוָן שֶׁעוֹלִין לַיַּבָּשָׁה מִיָּד מֵתִים, אַף בְּנֵי אָדָם — כֵּיוָן שֶׁפּוֹרְשִׁין מִדִּבְרֵי תוֹרָה וּמִן הַמִּצְוֹת מִיָּד מֵתִים.

The study of halacha has a special virtue.

  The Tanya says many good things here. The study of halacha has a special virtue. The study of esoteric material is its own value. See depends how you look at it. Then you must fulfill all the mitzvos. All of this is a rebuke to the yeshiva world which values none of it and never talks hashkafa in such an intelligent way. 

אבל דוקא סודות המצוה

This, however, refers only to [the study of] the Kabbalistic mysteries of the mitzvah itself,

דלא גרע מלימוד הלכותיה, ואדרבה כו׳

for this is not inferior to the study of its laws; indeed, quite the contrary...,

אף שאינו משיג המהות

even though he does not apprehend the essence of the spiritual intent of the mitzvah as it applies to the visages of Atzilut.

Moreover, his understanding of the essence of the etrog, the object with which the mitzvah is observed, grants him some comprehension of the essence of the mystical reaches of the subject at large.

מה שאין כן בסדר ההשתלשלות

It does not apply to [the study of] the order of Hishtalshelut, the chainlike stages of progressive self-screening whereby the Divine light descends from level to level until ultimately this corporeal world is created:

אף אם משיג המציאות

Even if one does comprehend the external aspect of the existence of the Sefirot and spiritual levels involved,

לא עדיף מצד עצמו כלימוד המצות, שמשיג ותופס המהות

this is not intrinsically as worthy as the study of the laws of the mitzvot, where one comprehends and grasps their essence.

Knowledge of the various spiritual levels may indeed be superior for an unrelated reason, namely, that it leads to a “complete heart” (lev shalem), a wholehearted awe of G‑d — and this, as the Alter Rebbe will later say, is the purpose of all the mitzvot. Intrinsically, however, gaining this knowledge is not superior to studying the laws governing the performance of the mitzvot, whose essence he can understand.

ומעלה עליו כאילו קיים בפועל ממש

Moreover, this [study] is considered [in certain cases] the equivalent of actual performance,

כמו שכתוב: זאת התורה כו׳

as it is written,1 “This is the law [of the burnt offering and the meal offering...].”

The Gemara comments on this,2 “He who occupies himself with these laws is considered as if he had actually offered a burnt offering and a meal offering.”

Mastering the revealed laws of the commandments is thus in one sense superior to delving into the innermost dimension (the pnimiyut) of the Torah, on esoteric subjects such as the order of Hishtalshelut. For the study of the laws relates to the essence of the subject at hand, such as the physical objects with which the commandments are performed.

G‑d’s wisdom, moreover, which is inherent in these laws, descends and permeates the physical objects around which the laws revolve. It is thus the essence of G‑d’s wisdom that the student comprehends, and thereby he becomes involved in the “wondrous union” described in ch. 5 of Tanya, whereby his mortal intellect simultaneously “encompasses and is encompassed by” the Divine wisdom embodied in the Torah which he is studying. This intellectual union in turn unites his soul (which transcends his intellect) with the infinite light that is vested in the wisdom of the Torah.

The above is true only when he understands the essence of his subject. This is the case when he studies (for example) the laws regulating the observance of the commandments. If, by contrast, his subject is the hierarchies of angels in the Worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, or, yet higher, the configurations of Sefirot within the World of Atzilut, then his grasp is no more than external: he may indeed be aware of his subject’s existence, but he will be unable to know its essence.

* * *

And now, all the above notwithstanding, the Alter Rebbe is about to point out the superior aspect of the study of Hishtalshelut.

אלא שידיעת המציאות מההשתלשלות היא גם כן מצוה רמה ונשאה, ואדרבה, עולה על כולנה

However, the knowledge of the existence of the Hishtalshelut is also a lofty and exalted mitzvah.3 Indeed, it outweighs them all, all of the mitzvot and the study of the laws of the Torah.

כמו שכתוב: וידעת היום כו׳

Thus it is written,4 “Know this day [...that the L‑rd is G‑d],”

דע את אלקי אביך כו׳

and5 “Know the G‑d of your father...”; i.e., there is an obligation to attain a knowledge or apprehension of Divinity.

ומביאה ללב שלם כו׳

Moreover, this leads to a “whole heart,” for the latter verse concludes, “and serve Him with a whole heart”; i.e., a knowledge of G‑d leads one to serve Him with one’s entire being.

As explained in Likkutei Torah, in the discourse beginning VeLo Tashbit, this refers to serving G‑d with awe — and this is the ultimate intent of all the mitzvot, as the Torah states,6 “G‑d has commanded us to perform all these statutes so that we may fear the L‑rd our G‑d.” And it is the study of the innermost dimensions of the Torah and a knowledge of the various spiritual levels which comprise the order of Hishtalshelut that enable one to fulfill the mitzvah of “knowing G‑d,” which leads in turn to the “whole heart” of “fearing Him.” Thus the Alter Rebbe concludes:

שהוא העיקר

And this is the essential thing: the wholehearted awe of G‑d is the ultimate purpose of all the commandments.

As mentioned above, one can attain this state only through a knowledge of the order of Hishtalshelut, even though this knowledge is merely an awareness of its existence and not a grasp of its essence.

והשגת המציאות הוא להפשיט מגשמיות כו׳

The comprehension of existence entails divesting [this subject] of any physicality....

In other words, one should endeavor to picture its spirituality. Hence, as the Rebbe has often stressed, one should study the innermost and mystical dimension of the Torah in such a way that one7 “derives sustenance from it” (יתפרנסון מיניה) — viz., the “sustenance” derived from comprehension. And soundly-based comprehension can be secured only when this dimension of the Torah is studied with the intellectual elucidation afforded by the teachings of Chabad.

רק שזו היא מצוה אחת מתרי״ג

However, this mitzvah (of knowing G‑d and apprehending Divinity) is but one mitzvah of the 613,

והאדם צריך לקיים כל תרי״ג

and a man must fulfill all 613,

לפי שהן השתלשלות המהות דחיצוניות דכלים דאצילות

for they descend from the essence of the external aspect of the vessels of Atzilut, a source whose standing was explained above.

לכך צריך להרבות בלימוד כל התרי״ג, וקיומן בפועל ממש, במחשבה דבור ומעשה, שהן בריאה, יצירה, עשיה

Hence, one must extensively study all 613 mitzvot, and [hence] fulfill them in actual practice in thought, speech and deed — which parallel Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah respectively —

לברר בירורין אשר שם

in order to purify whatever needs purification (beirur) there.

As previously explained, the extraction and elevation of the sparks exiled in the various worlds is the ultimate purpose of creation.

Lesson #1 From These Holy Parshiyos:

Bitachon Weekly

Stories of Novardok

Lesson #1 From These Holy Parshiyos:

Love People!

Look at Yaakov Avinu’s warmth, and how he calls himself a

brother [not a nephew] to Lavan! This is similar to Avraham

Avinu, who said to his nephew, Lot: כִּי אֲנָשִׁים אַחִים אֲנָחְנוּ לך יג

ח We are brothers. Look at the striking similarity between

Yaakov and Avraham, and how they were both full of love for

humans. As soon as Yaakov saw Anshei Charan, he said: אַחַי

מֵאַיִן אַתֶּם כט ד My brother’s, where are you from? And at

the end of the Parsha, he called his own sons: אֶחָיו brothers.

**

Look how every human being was like a brother to the

Avos! How we need to learn LESSON #1 from these holy

Parshiyos: Love people! They are all Tzelem Elokim! They are

all holy and precious! We need to review this throughout our

lives, and to learn how to love and be in awe and respect all

those humans we see in the street, instead of viewing them

like just another “number”, or Chas V'shalom being

apathetic, or even hating or being critical of them!

***

But how can we love people if we are busy being afraid of

them?? I recommend plenty of hard work in doing Novardoker

Pratim when you keep downplaying all those scary humans in

your life, and Davka going against your nature by public

speaking [and even private speaking, like saying hello to a

person who scares you].

Then it will be much easier for us to automatically love them!

For questions, comments or to subscribe, email thenewbitachonweekly@gmail.com Bitachon Hotline: 732-719-3898

To hear Vadim from Rabbi Mandel; Kol Haloshon 718-906-6400 1,4,93 also on TorahAnytime.com

I never would have joined

I became frum to take my life to a higher level. I was searching for God. When I heard about mitzvos, I thought, oh so I can bring God into my complete life.

So you join the thing, you take the plunge, and you go to baal teshuvah yeshiva and find that mitzvos aren't so important, what matters is Gemara lomdus. You must do this all day long, not miss a second. It's the greatest mitzvah, greater than all the others put together, even one word of it is greater than everything else put together. That's what they tell you.

What happens to your life now? You were going to "be better at anything you do now" as they tell you on the Machon Yaakov promotional video, as I was told by the kiruv organization that I had encountered. But no, everything you were doing is narishkite. All of life is narishkite. You lose your life. You were going to make your life better, but now you don't have a life. You lose everything, your family, your friends, your interests, your career. It's all replaced with Gemara study.

I once presented this conundrum to a famous Modern Orthodox scholar that I saw on the street. I said, when I was becoming frum mitzvos mattered, now it seems they don't. I sense a bait and switch, what happened to mitzvos? He said, "You gotta do, what you gotta do." In other words, yeah those crummy little mitzvos, we have to interrupt our precious study to do them. We don't really want to do them. It's the price we pay for getting to learn Torah. 

So there was a bait and switch. If I had known that Jewish life consisted of one activity, and one that nobody really teaches you how to do very well, I never would have joined.

Now, I learned over the course of decades that the attitude is perverse, that Tehillim 119 references mitzvos about 100 times and Torah 25 times with many of those references being that one should keep the Torah (And I shall keep Your Torah constantly,), that Shlomo the King said the sum of the man is to fear Hashem and keep His comments, that Pirkei Avos says, study is not the main thing, doing is. I learned that Rabbi Soloveitchik -- the rebbe of the man who said you gotta do what you gotta do -- said that just as Hashem acts, we must act. Hashem doesn't just study. I learned that Chabad has an entire philosophy of the importance of physical mitzvos, that they are the primary means to freeing the sparks of holiness from the world of Tikun and of bringing holiness into the animal soul.

Until I learned all that, I really had no life. I was a rag of man, just defeated, his whole life just pulled out from under him, walking the streets in a stupor. I was a person in a cult, the cult of Gemara study. And it is a cult.

more on those physical mitzvos

 

In the beginning, as the Midrash teaches,1 G‑d “created worlds and destroyed them.” The Kabbalah explains that this refers to spiritual worlds, Supernal Sefirot (“emanations”), that first existed in one state of being and then in another. The Sefirot in the former state of being — called the World of Tohu (lit., “Chaos”) — underwent a “breaking of the vessels.” The World of Tikkun (lit., “Order”) was then built.

The Sefirot comprise orot (“lights”) and kelim (“vessels”) that contain these lights. The crisis in the World of Tohu occurred because the orot were so intense that the kelim were incapable of containing them. As a result of this breakage, sparks of holiness descended within the kelipot. These sparks are to be found in the Worlds of Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah in general, but particularly within the physicality of our world. It is the task of the Jew to sift this materiality by using it properly, in order to extract and refine these sparks, thereby elevating them to their original source in the World of Tohu. This elevation in turn elicits a mighty downflow of Divine energy from Tohu, and from even higher than that level.

(Certain Divine Names, whose respective Kabbalistic meanings are signified by Hebrew letter-combinations, are related to this process of beirurim, the extraction and refinement of the sparks of holiness. Thus the Name known as Ba’n (ב״ן) is the source of the fallen holy sparks; the Name Ma’h (מ״ה) is the power that extracts and elevates them; while the Name Sa’g (ס״ג) is the original source of the World of Tohu. When the extraction and elevation of the sparks deriving from the Name Ba’n is accomplished through the Name Ma’h, a lofty degree of Divine illumination is drawn down from the Name Sa’g, and is vested within the “capacious vessels” of the World of Tikkun.)

This extraction is for the most part accomplished through the performance of action-oriented mitzvot involving physical objects which derive their life-force from kelipat nogah, and which house the sparks of Tohu. Performing a mitzvah with such objects disencumbers the hidden sparks of their corporeal husk and elevates them.

The seeking out of sparks, however, can also be accomplished through the study of Torah, as well as through prayer.

once again we hear it

Someone once told zzzz about a certain talmid chochom who was completely immersed in Torah, but the person relating this did not know whether he was a tzaddik. zzzz responded: “For me the greatest form of righteousness is hasmodo”.

I think this is wacky attitude. Tzidkus has so many parts. There are so many mitzvos and types of souls. We see it again and again, these people have reduced Judaism to one thing. I think it's a problem. And I like the rav mentioned here. But even he had his prejudices.