רב אליהו עטייה שליט"א - ליקוטי מוהר״ן רעא--רעג - כולל נחל חיי

We are in Likutey Moharan, Torah 271. A person must possess "holy boldness." On one hand, it is written "bold as a leopard," but on the other hand, it is written "bold-faced to Gehinnom." In the same Mishnah, it says either bold as a leopard or bold-faced to Gehinnom. It depends on which boldness: " bold-faced," which is insolence, leads to Gehinnom, but "bold as a leopard" refers to holy boldness. A person must have holy boldness, as explained in many places, as written " bold as a leopard," and as explained earlier in section 147, the main thing is for a person to have holy boldness, also in Torah 22; even towards the Rabbi himself, one must have the boldness to dare to speak with him about everything necessary.

You must have the boldness to dare to speak with the Rabbi at all and not be ashamed. And the reason one person is closer is only because he has more boldness; because of this, he speaks with him more . That is to say, since he has more boldness, he speaks more with the Rabbi , and the Rabbi gives him more advice, brings him closer, and strengthens him more, so he is truly closer. Why is one person closer than another?

Because he has more holy boldness. Holy boldness is what provides the strength; however, even with holy boldness, one must know that the line between holy boldness and insolence is very thin. So, holy boldness. This means a person must be bold and not be ashamed, but everything must be within the bounds of proper conduct.

Yes, a person cannot come and say "now I am without proper conduct" and do something because of "holy boldness." Proper conduct is necessary, but a shame that a person has, a mere shame that hinders him in the service of God, that is not good. The fact that a person does not dare to speak because he is ashamed before the Rabbi—the Rabbi wants to speak with you , the Rabbi wants to give you time, only you are ashamed of him. You do not dare to be bold in his presence. Especially if it is a holy person, a great person, sometimes it is a very, very great fear and awe.

So this is what he speaks of as holy boldness. But everything must be within the general rules of proper conduct. Good, so that is as explained earlier. And even towards the Rabbi himself, it is necessary, yes, only because it is good.

But it depends on this: that his boldness to speak is because of his own work, that he performs and serves God a great deal. In other words, why does a person have the strength to speak with the Rabbi? It is precisely because he has the service of God. And with this, we will explain the matter.

I am ashamed, yes, a person by nature, especially a humble and excellent person , by nature has what? Shyness. Now, but a person is not ashamed when he needs something. A person who is hungry for bread has no choice, if not, he feels his stomach growling.

I am very shy, but he will not die of hunger. Why? Because he knows he must. That is to say, one of the pieces of advice against shame is the knowledge itself of how important the matter is.

How do I know how important the matter is to me? When I myself am occupied greatly with the service of God. And I know how important the service of God is . So I am ready to understand that for the service of God, which is so important to me, I will break through the shame.

There is no choice. A person is shy, so for that reason he wouldn't get married . Getting married, why? "I am shy, how will I speak?""How will I do this?" In the end, he gets married.

And why? Because he knows "I must get married." The same thing. I must advance in the service of God. When does a person feel he must advance in the service of God?

When he is truly engaged in the service of God. And the more you are engaged in the service of God, the more you want of the Because the Holy One, blessed be He, instilled a nature in man that everything I have makes me want more. It's the same with money: one who has a hundred wants two hundred, and it is the same with Torah. A person who has one page of Gemara wants two pages.

A person who has so and so in the service of God wants double. Because this is a desire that the Holy One, blessed be He, instilled in man, that the more you are in the matter and the more you enjoy it , the more you want. So this is what our Rabbi says, that it depends on this: that one who has the boldness to speak does so because of the work he does and because he serves God much, and because of this he has the boldness to speak with the Rabbi. And what is the result?

It is because he speaks with him—that is , he speaks with the Rabbi and the Rabbi answers him and explains to him—thereby he does and works much; thereby he serves God much because he is further awakened by speaking with him—it turns out that it depends on this. So if so, where is the beginning? Is the beginning to speak with the Rabbi to receive strength in the service of God, or is the beginning to work in the service of God and through that have the strength to begin? After all, it depends on this.

So where is the beginning? Like the beautiful question. The chicken or the egg, which came first? So therefore there are things, our Rabbi concludes—I will explain this in the world—that depend on each other and one does not know where the beginning is, because each one starts from the other, because it depends on this, as mentioned.

Okay, so what does he want to tell us? One sentence: wherever you start is good. Sometimes you begin by doing the service of God, and that gives you more desire to receive from the Rabbi. And sometimes it is the opposite: you want to begin by coming to the Rabbi and hearing words of Torah from him, and through that you begin the service of God.

In other words, there is no rule, rather start this way and it will strengthen that, it will strengthen that . Start from there and it will . Wherever you want, just start. This Torah, Torah 51, has another conversation related to it.

It was not said with it, but it is related to it. And Rabbi Nathan tells that he heard from one of our Rabbi's students, that he heard that several times that student went in to our Rabbi and he wanted to talk to our Rabbi about the service of God. However, he would come and literally could not open his mouth because of the great fear of our Rabbi, even though that person was older than our Rabbi. But Rabbeinu—even though he was very young, there was a tremendous awe of him ; people were very, very afraid of him.

Because someone who is truly so holy has a great fear of Heaven upon his face, and it influences everyone who looks at him; so even though Rabbeinu was young, even older people felt a great fear of speaking to him. So he recounts: One time he was standing and serving him—it was, I think, a Friday—he was standing and serving Rabbeinu, bringing him this, taking him that, helping him with what he needed help with, but no, he still could not open his mouth at all. Afterward, Rabbeinu commanded

him to hand him his shoes in honor of Shabbat, as it was after leaving the bathhouse on Erev Shabbat. And then, when he handed them to him, Rabbeinu answered him—that is to say, at that very moment when he was serving him , Rabbeinu himself saw that he wanted to speak, he sensed that he felt bad that he couldn't—so he said to him like this : Accustom yourself to speak before Hashem, and then you will be able to speak with anyone as well.

Meaning to say, you have fear, but if you practice in*hitbodedut*(seclusion) to speak with Hashem—that unfortunately, even though one should have greater fear of Hashem, the reality is that we don't feel that fear because you don't see Him, whereas the Rabbi you see with your eyes, so you have great fear—so here, if we pay attention, this is what Rabbeinu said here: that sometimes you engage in the service of Hashem, and through that, you gain the strength to speak with the Rabbi. And this is the advice Rabbeinu

gave here: Engage in the service of Hashem, start speaking with the Holy One , Blessed be He; don't speak to me, whatever you want to speak to me about— speak first to the Holy One, Blessed be He, seclude yourself, that this is your business in the service of Hashem, and by starting this business of the service of Hashem, you will feel that you can speak to me. And then Rabbeinu gave him another parable; he says afterward he already started to speak more with Rabbeinu, and then

Rabbeinu gave him a parable about this whole matter of shame He said like this: A hero decided he was going to win, to conquer a city, he enters and conquers and conquers, in short all the soldiers surrounding the city, all those shooting from atop the wall, he succeeded, he won, he reached the city, and what did he see? That the gate was closed.

But you look closely—and what was it closed with? It was spiderwebs that they went and spun there, so he said: Whoa, this, this, I cannot go any further. He says: That is how it is for a person who is ashamed to speak to the Rabbi. You want to wage such a battle?

You want to conquer the evil inclination , the desires, the strength for Torah study, the sleep, everything you want to conquer just in order to speak. After all, shame, truly, shame is just a hindrance of spiderwebs. Because what is shame? There is really no hindrance at all.

There is no difficulty here. It doesn’t cost you any money. You don't have to do anything special. Just talk.

Shame is like a spiderweb. And the shame before a Rabbi that stops you from saying what you need, from receiving the reinforcement—that is a spiderweb. And the same goes for any shame a person feels; it’s not something that truly hinders you. Because it really doesn't cost you money , nor does it require you to break your desires or your evil inclination, just to come and speak.

Change your mindset and everything will fall into place. After all, another person who is less ashamed than you speaks with ease. Therefore, this shame is truly just like a spiderweb. Once you get this into your head, our Rabbi offered advice: the shame of not speaking to the Rabbi about what I need to address in serving God—this shame is just a web.

Then, little by little, you can find more strength to overcome it. Let’s look at another one of the famous teachings in Breslov. It is called "Today, if you will hear His voice," and here too our Rabbi says : It is a great principle in serving God , to set nothing before your eyes but that very day. Each day ask: What do I need to do?

I only need to do what is for today, nothing more than today, both in earning a living and in serving God. I’ll give an example: Now, as you know, I returned from a trip—what gave me the strength to do such hard work? Giving three classes a day, that was tough. But what do you tell yourself?

It’s only a few days, a week. Once you narrow down the work; it’s not as if I now have to do such hard work my whole life. So once it’s just a week, you say: Fine , for a week I have the strength. The same applies if you take it further , you say: Today, the only work I want to do is for one day.

Today I need to pray three prayers, today I need to study three sessions, today I need to guard my eyes, today I need to seclude myself. "Today" sums it up for you. If you start thinking that you have to do this work your whole life, then the evil inclination weakens you, saying you will fall tomorrow or the day after. But once a person truly lives in the reality of "Today, if you will hear His voice," then he will succeed.

I will give you an example from the Holy Zohar. There is a Zohar in Parashat Beshalach on the verse "And it shall be..." "And they shall prepare day by day" regarding the manna. The manna would fall daily and wasn't allowed to be kept for the next day. The simple explanation is because of the matter of trust.

What is this matter of trust? The point is, to know that every day is special in its own service of God; that is why they weren't given manna for a whole week, because then, what about tomorrow? Tomorrow you would no longer pray. But once a person knows that manna descends for him every day, then he has trust.

The holy Baal Shem Tov also followed this custom, where he would not agree to keep money from one day to the next. Every day when the day ended, he gave away all the money he had to charity: what will be tomorrow? Thank God, day by day, He who feeds me today will feed me tomorrow. The Baal Shem Tov did not keep even one shekel for himself, and our Rebbe greatly praised this practice.

Although he said there is a greater practice than this, he spoke about this practice—if only we could achieve this practice as such. Baal Shem Tov, what is the point of this matter? The holy Zohar explains something new and says that even cooking from one day for the next is not the best; cook now. The Zohar doesn’t mean because the dish is tastier because you cook it today and aren't eating leftovers from yesterday, but rather the Zohar wants you to worry each day only for that day itself.

Even if you are cooking for tomorrow, it is not it. Except for one day in the world. The holy Shabbat. The holy Shabbat lives on the merit of Friday, but for all other days of the week, it is each day for its own day.

So how much time does it take you to cook? I am not talking about, for example, wanting to take a shortcut and cooking for two days; I mean to say, do not exert yourself more today so that you won't have to toil tomorrow. Rather, every single day, whatever you need for the affairs of this world— whether it's for a living, or cooking like the Zohar gives as an example, or anything else. Do the thing day by day.

What is emphasized today is that we need to start observing and looking at the day as a unit. We are in the weekly Torah portion, " And Abraham was old, advanced in days, and the Lord blessed Abraham with everything." Right? Chapter 24, verse 1 : So what is this verse, "And Abraham was old, advanced in days, and the Lord blessed Abraham with everything"? There is a Zohar, specifically a Zohar in Parshat Vayechi, and there the holy Zohar says "Abraham was old, advanced in days"—that he brought all the days in their completeness to the Holy One, blessed be He, not a day was missing.

And the Zohar there elaborates that what claims from a person is the day itself; meaning, each and every day comes and says: "Did you perform the service of God in me? Did you do it wonderfully?" Did you perform the service of God? The day claims from the person, the time of the day. And this explains what our holy Rebbe says in Likutey Moharan, Torah 59, and also in Sefer HaMiddot, under Repentance , section 1; there, our holy Rebbe says that Yom Kippur is an aspect of Binah and is above all the days of the year.

And what is it above? What is it above? Above time. After all, when you repent, you are today—today you are doing repentance.

How will that help you for yesterday? Yesterday has passed. After all, yesterday you flawed it. And when today it is flawed because of yesterday , you repent for yourself.

Okay? But how do you fix the time that has already passed? That is the power of Yom Kippur. Since Yom Kippur is an aspect that is above time, it takes all the days that have passed and enters them.

It arrives in their time. When you are above time, then yes, I can be in the present, I can be in the past , I can be in the future. That is the whole story of the time train, meaning I am actually also present in time that has already passed. It is above time for the Holy One, blessed be He, who is above time; now is also the giving of the Torah and now is also the future to come, because it is all one continuous present.

There is no chronological order like we have. In our perception, we cannot even grasp it, how that is possible, but that is how it is. Time is a created thing, they proved this in physics today. This is, after all, Einstein’s theory of relativity, which proves this thing physically.

We spoke about this a little once. In any case, this point of Yom Kippur, being above time, brings the days that passed and repairs them. This is the power of Yom Kippur once a year, that it is the special day of the year, to repair the entire year. Our Rabbi explains a further depth, that this is also the power of fasting.

He asks, after all, what happens during a fast? If I do not eat today, then what are you living on? On yesterday’s food. If you fast for two days, then what are you living on?

Yesterday's food is already gone; you are living on food from days before. And there is a person who actually does an extended fast or does many fasts; he says he is even living on the strength he drew from his mother. Meaning that he is already being nourished by the vitamins and strengths that were given in the past, in the far past. Okay, why do I need this?

Because that is how you bring the day from the past into today. And when you bring the time from the past to today through fasting, you can repair the time. So this is the point I want to emphasize very much. Every day is very, very important in the service of God, and the matter is that every day should also provide for itself And why do you come and provide for tomorrow already today?

After all, today, what you can do for today, for sustenance, do; what belongs to tomorrow, do not do today, because it is a waste of time—what could you be doing? Utilizing it for the service of God. That is the idea behind the Zohar. But I want to expand this not necessarily to that topic, but to the topic of spirituality, which is mainly this Torah in Likutey Moharan.

We live very, very much in the past and the future. And as Rabbi Avraham ben Rabbi Nachman once said in a conversation, he said, half of your life you think about the past and half of your life you think about the future, and not even a moment do you dedicate to the present. And the main thing is the present. The most essential thing for a person, what is it ?

The present. And in the present, he is busy with the past, he is busy with planning for the future. Okay, what about today itself? So we sometimes want to serve the Holy One, blessed be He, but you don't have the will, let's say, to serve the Holy One, blessed be He.

And why? Because yesterday you did not serve the Blessed God, you wasted time, or even worse than that, you committed some sin, and therefore you are cold today in the service of God. Again, because you are living the yesterday, you are not engaged in the service of God today as you should, because yesterday I had coldness in the service of God for some reason. This is called living yesterday today, without feeling that, wait, today is a new day.

Today I was born into the world ; today, if you will hear His voice, today you are His child. So you think about yesterday. The same goes for tomorrow. You often think that you won't have the strength to persist in the service of God that I take upon myself.

Also later. What I want for today is to persist in studying for two hours. We talked and strengthened ourselves a lot about this lately here in the Kollel to study. So what does the evil inclination say?

Fine, let's say you succeed for one day, but what will be tomorrow? You won't succeed. That is the advice of the evil inclination. What is the advice that the Holy One, blessed be He, gives you?

If you gain one day, that is enough for me. That one day you gained is what I want from you. About today, what will happen tomorrow? That does not interest me.

You have rectified one day. Our Rabbi comes and says there was once a conversation, I think it is brought in Sichot Ran 292 . Our Rabbi said to Refa. Our Rabbi said to a person: "Today, if you will hear His voice." And he pushed very hard, er, excuse me, he said to him: "Repent one day before your death." And when our Rabbi said it , he did not say the Mishna like that— " Repent one day before your death" like the language of the Mishna; he said: " Repent one day before your death." He emphasized and pushed the words "one day " very strongly.

And he said: At least have one day in your life before death in which you were in complete repentance, not like the simple literal meaning of the Mishna, that the main thing is the last day, like a person who doesn't know how long he will live, so think every day is the last day. He comes here and offers a new insight: Repent one day—if only you would feel one day, that you would succeed one day in your whole life, that you would have in 70 years

where you were perfect from beginning to end. At least you have one day that you gained in life, and maybe each time you try to make a day better than that. There is always room to climb higher, but it is truly a very beautiful practice to think about today.

Maybe today is my lucky day. This is the day in which I will be that perfect version of life. Because one such day can advocate for an entire lifetime. And therefore our Rabbi strongly emphasized "repent one day before your death," that you should have one day in your whole life that was truly purely for the service of God.

Everything was as it should be. What would they do in the past? They would tithe. What is tithing?

It is brought that the Ramak has a book called "Tiruchin" or "Girusin," it is the same word. So this holy book, Girusin or Tiruchin, was the custom of the ancient Kabbalists who would tithe their time. Or they would tithe, one day a week or once every 10 days, or each according to his matter, that he would say to his Rebbetzin, "I am disappearing for 24 hours." For those 24 hours, they would go to some cities or places and perform personal seclusion for one whole day, where

on this day he would also take a piece of bread, a bit to drink, sit and spend the whole time in seclusion, spending the entire day only in prayer, or having taken some books with him, detached from human society. Meaning: No lashon hara (evil speech), no gossip, no distractions, nothing at all, and that day is entirely holy to the Holy One, blessed be He.

That is how they used to do it. Some would do it once a month, others would do it once a week. There were many, you must know, forms of service that we don't even dream of today. These were forms of service, I don't know if they were simple, but they were ways that people served the Holy One, blessed be He.

Today, it is not so comfortable for us to go to the mountains and valleys and sleep one night away from home, so it doesn't enter our minds. Fine, you don't have to do that, because that is not who we are. The Boberer Rebbe, who was only two generations or a generation and a half before us, used to do it this way: Every week he would come home for Shabbat, make Kiddush, do everything with the family, and as soon as Shabbat ended, what would he do on Motzaei Shabbat? He would take one challah leftover from Shabbat and take some water with him, and on that he would survive a whole week until he came back the following Friday.

For a whole week he had a bag of books, and he would find some place in the forest. I don't know, those were people who were truly angels, not for us. But what can we do? I spoke with you once: from time to time a person finds a synagogue, a person finds some time that is exclusively holy to the Holy One, blessed be He.

So it is possible during "Bein HaZmanim"(break time); during the semester you cannot do it, you have the Kollel or the day, you know, it's not terrible. You can also agree with your wife once during the break, for one day a year, two days a year, to have a day where you come and go and engage in the That the day should be entirely his. Listen, each person should do it, be wise, each person should find some way to fulfill this thing. This is a great rule in the service of God: that one should not place before his eyes anything other than that day, neither in the business of livelihood nor his needs .

He must not think from one day to the next, as explained in the books, and likewise in his service of the Blessed One he should not place before his eyes ; so as explained in the books, this is what we said, a bit of the Zohar, yes. In general, the righteous did not like this thing where a person comes and engages in business for a long time, rather every day you have what you work for, you have done enough for the day, it is finished. The Or HaChaim HaKadosh , when would he close his shop? When he had enough to live on for that day, he finished that day.

That's it, tomorrow is tomorrow. If it happened that he earned more, then he would close the shop for days until the money ran out, then he would go and work. This is a very great service of God, of trust and being dependent on the Holy One, blessed be He. And so, in his service of the Blessed One, he should set before his eyes nothing but that very day and that very hour.

Here it is even more so, even that very hour. Why? Right now, I have an hour. This hour is holy to the Almighty.

Sometimes it is perhaps even easier to dedicate an hour now—an hour of seclusion, an hour of study, an hour of whatever it may be. It comes: he shall set before his eyes nothing but that very day and that very hour. When one wants to enter into the service of God, it seems to a person like a heavy burden . Yes, what is the service of God?

And it is impossible for him to carry such a heavy burden. But if a person pays attention—this is the main problem, and I, I feel this often myself. Okay, so what? Do I really want to disconnect completely from this thing?

For example , a person wants to take upon himself not to be so drawn after eating and drinking. Yes, so what does a person do ? What, will I never eat in the middle of the week again? Will I never go to a restaurant?

Or will I never eat steaks? Or will I never eat all kinds of delicacies? What happens? It breaks you completely.

Whenever you want to take upon yourself a good resolution, what is the second thought of the evil inclination? But you won't be able to do this your whole life anyway, or you don't even want to take it upon yourself . Therefore, the good thing is to take it upon yourself for a limited time. How much do you take?

A day. What will be tomorrow? Another day. And the moment a person takes it upon himself for one day , a person can accept all the hard tasks for just one day; he has no problem with it.

So, when one wants to enter the service of God, it seems to a person like a heavy burden, and it is impossible for him to carry such a heavy burden. But when he thinks he only has that day—he will have no burden at all. And also, he should not put himself off from day to day. Another thing, what does it mean to enter today with power?

Listen, this is also it: "Okay, tomorrow I'll start." And tomorrow—what do you say? "Tomorrow I'll start." So that is the big mistake. When should you say, " Today I start"? Not today—this very moment.

Like tomorrow: "I will start tomorrow to pray with intent or with proper strength ," and the same for other tasks. Yes, I actually received this when I was a child. I read the book "Everything is the Master of Everything" by the Rabbanit Ruham Hashem, and there she brings a great principle from her father. He was a great righteous man, called the Chofetz Chaim of America.

She once told him—he spoke with them, with the daughters, a lot about the matter of having intent during the Amidah, and several times she told him: "Father, my Amidah went wrong, I started to pray and suddenly my mind wandered, so what?" What? Is it hard? So he told her this: "Wherever you catch yourself, start over from there, you caught yourself." At "Hashiveinu Toratecha," excellent. From here start to have intent; sometimes in the middle of the Amidah a person can.

Gone again, the mind caught him once more. Wait, just a minute, is that okay? Think of it as starting right now. What is the usual thought?

"Okay, tomorrow, next prayer, or maybe tomorrow I'll try to focus in the Amidah." And what happens then? A whole lifetime passes by. But if a person comes and says: Right where you remember—this. I won't let the evil inclination take over , I will catch it.

And then at least you'll gain another blessing, gain half a blessing more. Our Rebbe offers many words of encouragement on this. In Torah 112, our Rebbe says it this way : A person must plead. To want to pray all his days, that he may merit one prayer done properly, because through one proper prayer, all prayers rise up.

Our Rebbe says in Likutey Moharan, Torah 99, on the verse "And I pleaded with God at that time"— what is "at that time"? So he says, "at that time" refers to a time of favor. There is a time of favor, but what? It is not always a time of favor.

Many times I do not succeed, but what do I do ? "And I pleaded with God" at all times , whether it's a time of favor or not, I plead with the Holy One, blessed be He. This "and I pleaded with God" is my service of God, hoping for a time of favor. That is to say, "at that time," all the prayers will rise up.

Now, our Rebbe has a tremendous insight , that if you have succeeded—and this is a very valuable and worthwhile insight, listen well: If, for example, you had one perfect Mincha prayer, truly as it should be, word for word as it should be And through this prayer, which is as it should be, our Rebbe says it elevates all the prayers you prayed until now, even those that were without focus. This means that in one moment you received 10,000 prayers. This point, many times a person strengthens himself so that when he prays with a Tzaddik. Udi told me a story today about the Admor from Amonug.

This story is so strengthening. He told it during Sukkot, and that same Udi, who is a Ba'al Teshuvah, has been managing to stand his ground very well since Sukkot. And he needed, how shall I say, to get advice, so they sent him to the Admor of his people. Thank God, he managed to get in.

When did he enter? Almost in the evening, and they said there that the Admor was still praying Shacharit and soon it would be time for the Torah reading. And all right, so they entered the Sukkah, they managed to get him in, he managed to enter too, and they brought a Torah scroll and were about to read the Torah. And then he says: Someone came, went up to the Torah and said "Bless the Blessed God," and everyone answered "Blessed is the Blessed God forever and ever," but

the Admor, when he answered the blessing , it took him over a minute to say the words "Blessed is the Blessed God forever and ever." And he says: I watched the Admor at that moment when he said that, and it was with such enthusiasm and holiness, he said it's like this every time, he really exerts himself for every prayer, word for word.

So he said, "Where am I in the focus of prayer?" And then he took upon himself a commitment: I will start to concentrate during the Amidah, the meaning of the 18 blessings, and he has succeeded until today. Although the Amidah takes him a long time, he succeeds. That is what happened ; it is because of the merit that a person was privileged to pray with a righteous person. Once a person is privileged to pray with a righteous person, there is tremendous power in the righteous to influence you with something truly good.

One needs to combine with this a pure soul, and one must also combine it with simplicity and sincerity. And all the traits, many other good traits. But it is a tremendous power. And now, if he had come and thought at that moment, what, now every time I must concentrate on all 18 of my life, he would have been done for; who has the strength?

No, just one Amidah, I will concentrate. That is what he thought; just one. This led to another Amidah, and behold, it is already holding up. We are already almost a month, after a month and a half , it is still holding up.

And why? Because of this thing, that a person comes and thinks: Okay, one Amidah I take upon myself. And this is truly the Rebbe's advice: only that day and that hour. Take small things, and then you will be able to, small parts of time, and then you will be able to stand by it.

This means: it seems to a person as if it is a heavy burden and he cannot carry such a heavy burden, but when he thinks that we only have this day, he will have no burden at all. And also, he should not delay himself from day to day, as we said: tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow I will start, tomorrow I will pray with proper intention and strength, and likewise with other tasks. For a person has nothing in his world but that day and that hour in which he stands, because tomorrow is a completely different world. "Today, if you will hear His voice," this is the precise truth.

Now another thing: it is not explicitly written here, but it is an explanation of what is written here. If I think today of taking upon myself, with God's help, a good commitment, then the thought that I have to take the good commitment, to take upon myself the good commitment, comes because of the merit of this day. Regarding this day, our teacher says that every day has its own fence from the outside. Truly, every single day has its own merits and its own protection, with a fence that keeps not just anyone from entering.

Now, if you had an awakening in the service of God today, where does it come from? From the strengths and the merit of this day. If you come and say, "Fine , I will start tomorrow," then you have lost everything. You did not use what belongs to today for this day.

And also tomorrow, tomorrow, what you received yesterday, the strength of yesterday is no longer useful for tomorrow. The strength of yesterday is useful for that day. Sometimes, if you sanctified yourself today, tomorrow such strength will also come to you, but do not put it off until tomorrow. It’s not just the procrastination business we’re experts at, which destroys every good thing; it’s not just that, but if today I was in a state of a good resolution—today, then today it truly has the power to act upon this good resolution, because it comes from this day.

But to take the power of the day that gave me the good resolution and use it for tomorrow, that is already, how should I say, a miracle and a wonder. It just doesn’t...it doesn’t work well. Torah 263: Know that there are sons born in this world—the regular sons, which are 600,000 souls of Israel. But there are very great people of spiritual stature who give birth to souls that are higher than the souls that clothe themselves in the children born into the world.

So as we see here, what precedes this Torah is the word. Know. Usually, when our Rabbi begins with the word "Know," it means that this is a Torah from the World of Atzilut. Meaning , this isn't something you need to go look for a source for; this is the only source—this is Likutei Moharan.

And here our Rabbi says a tremendous innovation: we always know that from Adam until today there are 600,000 souls of Israel, that is what there is, that’s it. But as our Rabbi will bring here later, a tremendous innovation, saying that at that moment when the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Moses "I will strike them...and I will make you a nation greater and mightier than them"—at that very second the Holy One, blessed be He, said this thing, the Holy One, blessed be He, created 600,000

new souls, which were not created during the time of Adam. Because when the Holy One, blessed be He , says something, there is a certain manifestation, and if He comes and says : I want to give you, Moses, 600,000 great souls from the people of Israel. Then these are 600,000 new ones that were created at that time.

In practice, Moses our Teacher did not take the deal and did not allow it, so to speak, to the Holy One, blessed be He, and on the contrary, he prayed for the people of Israel. But as it is written, a good word of the Holy One, blessed be He, never returns void. There is no such thing. So, in truth, 600,000 souls higher than the souls of the people of Israel did emerge from the "sons of Moses." Truly more holy, much higher souls than we can comprehend with our small intellect, what a high soul is.

And these souls can also be accessed by us through great people of spiritual stature whose quality is of such great holiness. They can draw down high souls from these souls that are called the "sons of Moses ." Sometimes you see such righteous men that you don't understand where such holy and pure righteous men came from. They have a very, very high soul and they are from the aspect of the souls of the "sons of Moses." So that is what our Rabbi says. Know that there are sons born in this world, but there are very great people of spiritual stature who give birth to Because all the souls that are in the world are 600,000.

And even though there are more, thank God there are many, many more Jews. There are maybe 10 million, 20 million, I don't know how many. There are many, so it is much more than 600,000 then. The Ari-zal already addresses this question regarding the division of sparks; the Ari-zal writes that every soul is further divided into 600,000 soul sparks, and for a person to live, a single spark is enough.

So if that is the case, there are infinite souls and sparks, they are just dividing the sparks, but in total there are only 600,000. But these souls, the ones we mentioned that spiritual climbers bring down, are on a level above the 600,000 souls that clothe themselves in this world, because they are not fit at all to be clothed in this world, and even when they come into this world they are not considered part of this world at all. There is an expression that our Rebbe once

used about himself: We are not considered part of this world at all, therefore we have no honor from this world, because we truly do not belong here, we are here by mistake. Meaning, a mistake for the better; it is like it is not, it is not it, it is not fitting.

We really should be in another world. But what? The Holy One, blessed be He, sends these great souls so that they will be righteous, so that they will be great, great, great righteous ones to perform this service of God. That is one of the things.

It is always known about Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk and Rabbi Zusha. That both of them were perfect righteous ones, holy of holies. Only Rabbi Elimelech received the greatest soul there is, and Rabbi Zusha says that he received the smallest soul there is. Both of them engaged in the service of God.

Only their service of God was very , very different, but each one reached the greatest perfection in his service So Rabbi Zusha highly refined this soul , his soul, and thus reached a wondrous , wondrous, wondrous service of God. And Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk also elevated his great soul to such heights So it does not matter which soul you receive, it is possible to serve God. But sometimes you need a soul that will activate. Rabbi Elimelech, from him came a large part of Hasidism.

That is Rabbi Elimelech. The students of Rabbi Elimelech. One of the successors, a little Baal Shem Tov they called him, that was Rabbi Elimelech. You need such a great righteous one, a Baal Shem Tov.

Is it possible without the soul of the Baal Shem Tov? Is it possible without the soul of our Rebbe, is it possible without the soul of the Ari-zal? Is it possible without the soul of the Rashash ? These are very, very great souls, and they also succeeded in reaching so far.

So even though they came into this world , they are not really part of this world You see that this world does not interest them at all. But why did they come into this world? They came in order to influence. And that is what he says here.

Because they are not fit at all to be clothed in this world. Essentially, from the side of the root and holiness of their soul, they have no connection to this world. And even when they come into this world , they are not considered part of this world at all. They are not part of the story of this world.

And this is the aspect of the sons of Moses, about whom it is written: "And the sons of Rehabiah were very many." Who is Rehabiah? Rehabiah is the son of Eliezer. Eliezer, the son of Moses our teacher, he was on a very high level. Why?

It is written: "And the name of the one was Eliezer." And this one, this special one, is Eliezer, the son of Moses. There is a Rashi. Rashi says on the verse: "May the God of the spirits of all flesh appoint a man over the congregation, who may go out before them and who may come in before them, that the congregation of the Lord be not as sheep which have no shepherd. " Rashi interprets two meanings there, and seemingly one contradicts the other.

The first interpretation in Rashi, if you recall well, I told you this over two years ago, or right at the beginning when I first came here. What is the first interpretation Rashi explains? What is it on...now you're asking... excuse me, what does it say?

Their merit, come see the merit of the shepherds of Israel, that even close to the time of their death, they set aside their own needs and occupy themselves with the needs of the public. Immediately after a few lines in Rashi, he says: The time has come for you to pass on, so that my sons may inherit my greatness. So how does this fit together ? The answer is very simple: Moses our teacher wanted his son to be the successor, Eliezer the son, Eliezer, just as our Rabbi explains in Likutey Moharan, Lesson 7, Part II, the son Eliezer was the son who was entirely the father.

Eliezer the son of Moses was essentially Moses our teacher entirely. In contrast, Joshua is the student. So there is Rabbi Eliezer and there is Rabbi Joshua. Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua are son and student.

And pay attention, according to whom is the Halacha? Rabbi Eliezer or Rabbi Joshua? The Halacha is like Rabbi Joshua, not like Rabbi Eliezer. And even though Rabbi Eliezer is greater than Rabbi Joshua, there is no doubt, for he took both his hands as two Torahs and everything, and like, like, like Rabbi Eliezer, the great Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Eliezer was the greatest, but Halacha is something else.

Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, who are greater? Beit Shammai. According to whom is the Halacha? Beit Hillel.

In Torah, it is very interesting , Halacha is another matter, but the greatness is Rabbi Eliezer. The same thing, Moses our teacher wanted Eliezer to be. The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him : "Not as it has risen in your thought; rather, in My thought, Joshua is worthy to receive the reward for his service to you." What about Joshua? He would arrange the benches in the study hall.

The Midrash, when the Gemara says in Bava Batra page 75a, the Gemara says: The face of Moses is like the face of the sun, the face of Joshua is like the face of the moon. That the elders of that generation would say: "Woe to that shame, we began in shame and we end in shame." It is literal, to learn from Moses our teacher, say the elders, he is the Rabbi, but to learn from Joshua? To learn from the one who arranged the benches in the study hall every time, that now he will be the leader, he will be the Rabbi? It did not make sense to them, and there were those who were older than Joshua.

Even to Moses, it did not fit in his mind. What is written to Moses? Moses said to Joshua, the Holy One, blessed be He, appointed you, but there are elders in the generation here. Everything you do must be according to their word.

Why ? We all know they are wiser than you, the 70 elders. Joshua was not even counted among the 70 elders. They are more special than Joshua.

Joshua was the young servant of Moses. He was not one of those who were inside the tent. The Holy One, blessed be He, says, it is written in the Talmud, Sanhedrin page 8 , side a. We heard that the Holy One, blessed be He, said to Joshua: One leader for the generation, and not two leaders for the generation.

So that was truly the power of what was of Joshua. So again, Joshua specifically remained. Moses wanted Eliezer to be his successor , and why? Because Eliezer was literally the aspect of Moses our Teacher.

Why did Moses want Eliezer to be the successor? Because of the first reason, that he worries about the needs of Israel. Moses, Moses our Teacher, wanted the miraculous leadership that existed in his lifetime to continue, and what does it all depend on? On the Rebbe, on the leadership: Manna, the Well, and the Clouds.

How is it written there in the Talmud in Taanit ? They all returned in the merit of Moses. The whole thing, if Eliezer had been the successor of Moses, then this leadership would have continued. It would have remained; we would be in the Land of Israel, but there would be Manna in the Land of Israel, there would be the Well, and there would be the Clouds—all the leadership of Moses our Teacher.

What does the Holy One, blessed be He, say? I do not want your leadership anymore, Moses, of a son who will be exactly like you, rather I want the leadership of a student, which is Joshua. What is the leadership of a student? "Every man under his vine and under his fig tree.""Beautiful is the study of Torah combined with worldly occupation, for the exertion of both makes one forget sin." Meaning, they also need to engage in worldly matters in the Land of Israel, and then there will not be Manna, the Well, and the Clouds—there won't be, but that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted.

By the way, this was also the case with our Rebbe himself; the Rebbe wanted so much to establish a son and he had a son like him, Rabbi Ephraim, but this son passed away. Who was his? Joshua. Who is Joshua?

Our Rebbe called him "my Joshua," what Joshua? He would call him many times Joshua. So it is brought in the books of memoirs, especially in the year 5563 at the beginning when Rabbi Natan draws close, this is the aspect of the student . So again, Eliezer was literally Moses , and what happened to Eliezer?

"The sons of Rehabiah," Rehabiah is the son of Eliezer, "were very many." Where? Where were all the 600,000 high souls promised to Moses fulfilled? This was fulfilled. This came out from the sons of Moses, it came out specifically from the grandson Rehabiah, son of Eliezer, son of Moses; from him it emerged.

And that is what is written: "were very many "—higher than [the] many. And our Rebbe , of blessed memory, interpreted it: Above the 600,000. That is to say, because they are not counted at all among the 600,000, because they are above them, as stated. So this is the proof that the Rebbe brings that there is this concept of souls that are above the 600,000.

And those above the 600,000 are also souls that sometimes come into the world; they are not of this world, they are special righteous ones, but they come in order to be righteous, to help us in the service of God. So sometimes we see someone who is a righteous person. When I was a child, I used to tell my mother: So-and-so, God didn't give him an evil inclination, He forgot to give him an evil inclination. She would argue with me, but that's how it is, and such a thing exists.

So I see that I was also a bit right when I said it as a child; there are children you see coming home from school , sitting and learning just with the book, and it's all fun and pleasure for them. I was also in Canada, you see a child there constantly stuck to a book, a Bar Mitzvah boy, wanting to learn more and more, you say: where does this soul come from? So there are such souls, although I don't know if they are children of Moses , but you see that there are souls that are holier. May God grant that we merit this.