Our Goal is To Take the YESH and Turn it into AYIN | Parshas Vayikra – Parsha Preview

0:00 Welcome back. Parsha preview. So it's a new safer. It's always exciting. We're ending we're we're ending off with chazak venez chazak, and we're beginning a new vaikra. What's interesting is that most first graders will begin Chemish from Boracious. But the Yalka, which is quoted by the Kliaka and others, says that actually the minag that should be, ideally, is really we should start from Vyikra. Vaykra should be the first, even though it's technical and uh carbonos back and forth. But there's a lot of depth as to why that would be. Not really gonna go into that exactly, but just for tonight, I want to talk about nothing.

0:44 Thought it'll be interesting to talk about nothing. I asked my daughter, my two-year-old daughter, I was dropping her off that playgroup this week, and I said, Are you excited to go to school tomorrow Estee? And she said, Yeah. And then I said, Why? And then she said, Nothing. So that's amazing. Because I was already thinking about this topic. So what what does that mean? Nothing. Is anything wrong? Nothing. Maybe she meant that. But that is nothing, yeah. Nothing's wrong or nothing hurts, nothing is not bothering you. So in the Hayom Yom for the 29th of Adar Bays, which if you learn the Hayom Yom, which is the daily regiment for the Chabad, you don't do it this year because we're not, we don't have Aadar Bays.

1:37 Happens to be, like you're just like I mistakenly brought this safer, I mistakenly read that Hayom Yom for the 29th of Aadar Bays, thinking that it was uh the 29th of Adel Risha. And I came across the little this little piece that I want to share with you. So the Rebbe quotes in the name of his father. He says, Ba'achas hisva'ados in one of the fabrinks of my father, my father was the Rebbe Rashab, he said like this, Hakurish Barakhu Bara Sailum. God created the world, the khala devarim hagashmiyam, in all physical matter. He created it, me ain liesh, meaning yesh me ayin, something from nothing. He's God, he's he took to that which was nothing, ayin, and yesh created something out of that.

2:22 And he says, our job, we've heard of that concept, me ayin. But what's our job as yedin? And the Rebbe Rashab says something amazing. He says, Un idin dorfin machen yesh l'ayan. Our job on this world, the job, the task of yidin, is to revert it back. So Hashem created the world Yesh Me Ain, and our job is to take the now Yesh and turn it back into Ayan. To take the something and turn it into nothing. What does that mean? So he explains. Fundigashmi is machen ruchnius. The yesh represents this is yesh, there's something here. Ayan, nothing, represents spirituality because there's it's like almost intangible.

3:04 It's something spiritual. It's Ruchni is ruach. It's you can't you can't touch wind, you can't like see it per se, but you could see what it's it still exists, but so that's ayan. So yeah. Homer. And surah. What's the Khomer is materialistic? Surah is that. Like physical structure, like spiritual. The notes on the piece of paper are the Homer. Right, right. Right. So that would be this, that would be the that would be the realm of Ion.

3:44 That would be the realm of nothing. It's like what is it exactly? So that's what that what that's what I mean. Hashem created the world of Yesha. Right, very good. Very good. Yeah. So that's that that's the goal. Hashem created the world Yeshmi Ayan. Our job is to take that yesh and turn it back into Ion. Tsura. Tsura. Tsura? Tsura, isn't it? Isn't that the uh versus Tsura? Maybe uh I don't know. I have to what's Tsura? So, okay, so and in this process, Hashem is Yeshmi Ayan, and our job is to go from Ayan to take that yesh and bring it back to Ayan. We become partners with a Karush Baruch in that. And that's that's really our evoid.

4:25 And in a different Hayomyom, so the Rebbe actually quotes from the Alta Rebbe, which is the Rushnirzaman, the first one, right? Uh Alt of the Balatanya. And he says also in a single line, he says, Idushigashmius is Ruchnias, that Jewish physical matter is spiritual. So that's something different. That's something that's not necessarily true when it as it relates to the Najus. When it comes to yiddin, our physical world, our materialistic is Ashtik's spirituality. It is Ruchnias. Like the Balatani actually says that when we say ubanu bakarta, we call on Vlash and that Hashem chose us, so we say it, right? Bah asher bakarbanu mi kolamin.

5:06 But that phrase Asher Bakhar Banu, sorry, Uvanu Vakarta, he chose us, is not going on our Nishama. That's going on our physical khumir. It's going on our guf. Hashem chose our body, he chose us because of this, that the Yiddish Gashmi's is Ruchnias, it's a shtik ruchnias. So once we're on the topic or quoting from the Chabad of Rabim, so I want to quote something else from the Labadish Rabbah. And it relates as we're approaching Pesach and we're going to be doing a lot of Tibul, dipping. So what's the idea of dipping? So in Kabbalistic terms, the Rebbe says that it's an anagram.

5:51 So dipping is tibul, but that same letter is when rearranged spells bittle. Right? So tibble, bittle. It's the same exact letters. What's the idea? Is that when you dip something into another thing, you are being mevatel, you are negating and nullifying some of its own flavor, right? So for example, good mashal, I like for this, is a french fry. So if you take a French fry, it tastes like a potato. But the moment you dip your tibble, the moment you dip the french fry into ketchup, so what you essentially just this is assuming you like ketchup and french fry. What you just did is you actually now losing some of the own, some of the potato flavor, and now it's a new entity.

6:33 Now it's a potato, french fry with ketchup. It's completely new. You lost some of the potato flavor for the betterment of it's a new thing, and it just enhanced the whole experience. And this is what it means to do a tibul. To dip means to be mavatel because you're negating someone's own, but now you're creating a new entity. So when we do that in terms of food, that's a great thing. But the Seder of night is supposed to teach us that this dipping is supposed to connect us, our souls, connect us to Hashem, that we are supposed to be, we're supposed to dip ourselves into Hashem. What does that mean? That when we negate, quote unquote, some of our own ego, some of ourselves, and get rid of the humids, right?

7:14 Then we are actually, yes, we're losing some of that, but we're actually becoming a new entity. We're becoming enhanced. I remember I was in Boulder, Colorado. I have a brother there actually in college now, and we were visiting the celestial seasoning tea. You ever have that tea? Yeah, so we visited the factory, but unfortunately, the actual factory with the walkthrough area was closed. But the the store, whatever it's called, yeah, they have a little store there. Um, you know, with the chotch keys, gift shop was open. They try to just milk, you know, milk people till they're dry. So, anyways, one thing I just nothing to do with tea or even boulder, just the fact that I remember noticing this kid there wore a shirt.

7:58 It was a Heinz ketchup shirt, and it said, I put ketchup on my ketchup. That's what it said. I thought, and I was in a spell for me. He said, He puts ketchup on the ketchup. The ketchup is a condiment. It ketchup is ketchup, it's not the icker, it's the tofu. And here he was projecting this to the world that he takes that which is the tofu and he puts the tofu on the tofu. There's no iker at, there's no icar at all. The right, the avoid of a yid is the opposite, is yeah, use the ketchup, but use it for the sake of enhancing your experience. Don't just focus on the ketchup, that's gross. So when I dip my bitter herbs in my sweet harosi, I'm transferring that bitter herb.

8:39 It's exactly the same. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and now they kind of fuse together. And it's this spiritual thing that's coming together. It's the betal tibul. It's the same exact letters, it's an anagram. Rearranged, it's the same exact thing. You dip and you're nullifying yourself, and now it's a new, entirely new experience. So Shlomel says, right? Hevel Havalam Hakal Hevel, which a lot of times we translate as every all physicality, it's all vanity, right? But there's no other way to read that. Because hevel doesn't just mean vanity, it also just means it's spiritual, right? Hevel represents a breath, it represents air, it represents, like we're talking about, to take this physical world, to take the eesh and turn it into iron, to turn it into nothing, meaning to take the goshmias and turn it into ruach, to turn it into spirituality.

9:28 That hevel hevel and hakal hevel is a deep, the deeper understanding in the aposik is that Hakul Hevel, meaning the whole world, all of physicality, that which the world might perceive as vanities, all of it, Hakal Hevel, all of it is spiritual, all of it is can be turned from Yesh to Ayan, all of it can be turned from Gashmi to Ruchli, all of it can turn into this um to this heel. I'll give you a proof that Heil is a good thing. Um Hevel was the first person to bring, well, did Adam well in terms of the the right in the story of Kyan and Abel, right? Hevel brought the good stuff, exactly. And it's considered to be he's he's connected to Ilum Haba, whereas Kyan is more connected to this world.

10:13 And both of their names represent that. Cayenne represents like Kit Kinyani, like like possessions, right? He was Oveid Adama, he served the ground, he was much more materialistically focused. Whereas Kyan, sorry, whereas Hevel was uh Roa its own, he was uh a shepherd of sheep. He was utilizing the physical world, but merely utilizing it. He was a Roa is by de right, Moshe Abbainu was called a Roa. Roa, the seven rain, right? Roa a shepherd is something that takes care of others. It's true, they're in the physical world, but they're they're guiding and they're they're they're channeling. They're they're they're not oveda dhamma, they're not serving the ground. Cain represents Kinyanin, represents materialistic, represents Yeshus, represents their it represent right in and of itself.

10:56 Whereas Hevo represents, and he was the one that brought a carbon from the choicest of his stuff, whereas Cayenne just brought it from fruit, right? Just fruit, right? Just simple some was it rotten? Uh yeah, it was simple simple stuff. It wasn't great. It wasn't absolutely that's it. So the Medrashagada in Bracious tells us an amazing thing about the story surrounding the murder of Kain, killing Hevel, of like a little bit of the background. So, and I want to read this to you. Khan said to his brother Hevel, Atta Aimer Sha Yesh Ilam Acher. You say that there's another world, and that's key. Hevel is a what person who says, Yeshum achher.

11:38 There's a whole nother world out there, right? Everyone, the whole rest of the world sees just, you know, the world of uh physicality, the world, but but a Hevel person, somebody who's connected to the idea of Ayan, somebody who's connected to the idea of Bital, Tibul, somebody who's connected to the realm of Hevel Hevel Maw Kab Hevel from a spiritual perspective, that type of person sees the world as Ilam acheleg. It's a completely different world. Bhaivan Akluk says Khan to Hevel, let's split, let's split it up here. Aniatul Ha'ilamaza, Bekalki, I'm gonna take this world in my portion. And it makes very much sense that Khan is saying this. Khain is Ayyadama, Khain is Kenyanin, right? Khan is Khaikriatnia, Viatha, and you, Hevel Bekelka, Khatok told Ilam Haba.

12:20 You take your portion, you take Alamhaba. Cavan Shira Kain, but then, so, okay, so they're they're splitting their portions, right? There's two different worlds going on in in Kain's world. There's Ilam Haba, that's Hevel's place, and Ilam Haza, that's my place. But then all of a sudden, what happens? Kain sees his brother Hevel Riot's own. He sees she he sees him in the field guiding the sheep, and he says, I don't understand, we just made a deal. We split up the different worlds, and now you're you're in my portion. I don't know what what you're trespassing, exactly. That's exactly what, and then he gets up and kills him because you're trespassing. That's that's what the Madrash tells us. I thought that actually was just who actually had the upper hand was heavily.

13:01 And he had rough modus. And then letting him go. Oh, you're saying in that case. It could, yeah, that could it could be that that it could it could be. Um Rashi brings down that Cayenne was like he didn't know how to kill him or where to kill him. He had to just hit him multiple times. Yeah. Um yeah, so but at least this this argument sheds light on the dual, like the shift in in perspective. That Cayenne's worldview was that there's only there's only one world. It's Ilam Hazet, it's a world of Kenyanim, it's a world of physical possessions, it's a world of Yesh. But Hevel saw Ulam Akher, that there's another world.

13:42 It's it's called a world where you can fuse the two together. See, Hevel was a person who was living in Ulam Haba, but he realized that I can be in this world, meaning I can be a Rayat's own, I can guide the sheep, and that can be an Ulam Habadikan experience, right? Hevel connected, and he was the one who brought the karban that was of the choices. He was a person who realized that I can live in this world and at the same time can perceive this world as an Illum Akir, as a spiritual dimension, as a place where I can connect to Ayahna, a place where I could take physicality and turn it into Ruchni. It was a it was a it was a way that he was able to get to the bottom, to the core. And that's hevel. Hevel represents this positivity.

14:23 I'll give you another example of how hevel is is an amazing thing. The Gomaran Chavez 119 tells us about it talks about the hevel tinoikos shell-based rabbin. And it says that the the air that comes from the learning of Tara from the children, that is what is misim the world. What keeps the world afloat is the the children, their breath, it's their learning tarah because it's untainted by by sin. So much so the Gemara says a plia, it says an amazing thing. It says that ain't raban, fiddle binyan bash mikdash, mashiach comes, they're ready to build.

15:03 You if the the kids are in Khaida, they're learning Torah, you don't you're not mavatl them for the binyan of the Besha Mikdash because of their learning Torah. It's an amazing thing. The Gemara says this in black and white, but I'm just bringing out you see the idea, the hevel, it's the hevel, Tinagishabish Rabban. It's this the hevel represents in its purest form, heavel represents spirituality. So hevel hevel, when reading it, when understanding it in this light, when Shlama tells us, Hevil hevelam, a kolhevel, so yeah, we could translate it as everything's vanity, or from this perspective of heavel, bring the carbon. And from the hevel, tinagushab is rabbin, heavel represents a kolhevel. Everything can be spiritual. Everything can be perceived from like Hevel saw the world as an Ulama Akher, a Gami.

15:46 It's a completely different world. And this leads us to Vaikra. The beginning of Vyikra begins with a small aleph, right? Vayikra, vayakar, then aleph. You look from afar, it looks like it's just chance, happenstance, vayakar. If you look a little bit closely, you see it's vayikra, it's a calling. That's like that with a lot of things. You sometimes, from a far perspective, things can feel like chance and happenstance. But when you look a little bit closely, you realize everything is a calling. Everything is a direct connection with Hashem. But what's the inun of the small aleph? So the Swarim tells us that the small aleph, it's called an Aleph's ira. A small aleph represents um represents bittle, represents modesty, represents humility, anava. This is what it means, tibble, this is what it means bitl. This is what it means to take Yesh and turn it into aon, to take the yeshus of a person and realize, okay, you know what?

16:30 I'm going to be mavatil, some of my own wants and desires for the sake of a better cause. And with that, it's now going to become a ketchup, uh, French friend ketchup. It's going to be a better, new, uh completely different experience. And um when you rearrange the letter Aleph, it spells Pela, which is a wonder. What's a wonder? The definition of a wonder is the Ramah tells us in the beginning of Shoknarh that a person who's able to go to the bathroom, right? There it they it they say a bracha, it's the most incredible brachim, a fila sos. What's the wonder? The wonder is that the physical body can house a dovaruchni, that a dover, the fact that a physical body, a dovar gashmi, can contain or dovaruchni, meaning our nishama is contained inside a physical body, that union is a pela.

17:15 Um just anecdotally, I've heard from not anecdotally, um it's similar but related. Um, the animal that has this name is called a peel, which is an elephant, right? An elephant. An elephant is a peel, meanosh and pela. What's the wonder? What's the wonder of an elephant? Well, it is it is big, and it says mu godluma sechashem, right? That's the paragraph it says how great are your creatures, which makes sense that the elephant, the big the largest land animal, says that. It's incredible that it knows that it's the largest animal, okay. Why is it called a wonder? So the the hands represent the mice.

17:56 I heard this from Rabbi Feiner once. The hands are represent physicality, right? Koyakura, you dying the Aesur. The hands represent the working this world, physicality. The nose, we've brought this up before, the nose represents spirituality. We're talking about heavel, right? Breathing. It's right, it was the only the only sense that didn't sin by the Itzadas. So what's the one creature where the hand is its nose? True. It's the trunk of an elephant. So that's what we're talking about. Right? Apella, by definition, is a dovargashmi and a dovaruchni. It's the fact that our body can contain a spiritual thing. So that the elephant, which its trunk, which is the largest nose, which represents spirituality, is its hand.

18:36 That is the ultimate union between physicality and spirituality. So that's why the elephant is called the Pio Miloshum Pella. It's just an interesting thing. Yeah. I'll say afterwards. Yeah, okay. Um, so on this topic of getting into it from Yesh to Ayan, specifically as it relates to Vaikra, the Rebbe of Kurat says that he says this line, Kulanuk, hub kesser, mida us ayan. Every humble person is crowned with the attribute of ayon. To get to a level of ayon, we started off by talking about nothing. Nothing can seem like it's it's bad. No, no. Nothing is the realm of ayon is the kesser alion. That's that's the crown, that's the crown of humility.

19:19 And a person can get to that through, like you were saying, through being humble. That's the small aleph in that's the small aleph in Bayikra. And I just want to really end with um another aspect in this week's parsha that we find, because this is the introduction to carbanos, and one of the highlights of the carbanos is salt, right? N-A-C-O, right? The the salt represents that it first of all it's needed on every carbon. I'll call carbon chat hak of malach. You need to bring salt. But what's the end of salt? Salt, the the morale tells us, and parsha's told us, he says about salt, the hamelach lithiam, it's so like saturated in flavor. Shabo eeno dover i made baat smoke.

20:00 But you don't no one eat salt by itself. The whole mohos and tahis of salt is who i made loss tamba akher. The whole nature of salt is to give flavor to something else, right? And it brings exactly, and it brings salt brings out, it draws out the flavors of everything else. So on this topic that we're talking about, being mivatal, to be tibble, to dip, that's exactly what salt is. Salt is not just there for itself, it's not there for yeshas, it's not there for its own self. It negates its own mahos for the sake of bettering everything else, for drawing out the godless and everything else. And I'll col carboncha says the Tyrrh and every single carbon, the carbon represents us because I think it's the Ramban who says that. Person is supposed to imagine every time a carbon is brought, you're supposed to imagine yourself being brought.

20:44 You're supposed to imagine yourself that you really, right? So what's the it starts off as an animal that's alive and slowly but surely it goes eventually it's going to turn into nothing, right? The whole var the whole goal of the carbanos is to get to a level from yesh to iron. That's what carbonos are. It's mechem, it's from you. It's a person, it represents who the person is and it represents kirva. That's how that's how a person connects to Kharishbarhu. We connect to Hashem, we get close to him by transferring, by going more from losing the yesh and being available ourselves and becoming more iron. Because the more hevel we become, then the more part of, quote unquote, part of him we become. And that's the process of the carbonos, and that's the idea of the salt on every single carbon.

21:26 Salt brings it out. And just to end off with one interesting thing where Vijayaku Khanetsky and I Sliako points out that salt represents the lowest of the low on this world, right? Because where does salt come from? It comes from the sea. So we have this, you know, nowadays there's a modern desalinization process, but naturally, you know, that that's how we are the way we don't taste salt when it rains, even though the rain often comes from the ocean. And that's because when the water evaporates, it goes up. But the salt is the one thing that stays down. So the salt is represents, according to him, Like the lowest of the low. Even the physical water on this world, the Mayam tachtonim, they eventually get an elevation because during evaporation it goes up, but the salt stays down.

22:11 But even that, this salt, what happens to it? We bring it and it goes on every single carbon. Because a person can take the lowest of the low on this world, they can take the salt that that never makes an elevation. It goes up. And Tara says, take the lowest of the low and turn it into something spiritual. Take the yesh and turn it into iron. Take it and bring it, bring it on your carbon. And so the Rabbi Nachmin tells us that the key to Bittl is just an interesting thing. He says, Dash ikra bittle. The primary form of bittle is to um do his potash. It's an interesting thing to think about. According to Rabbi Nachman, the way, the primary way of getting Bittle is to do his potas.

22:52 When a person thinks, and one of the ways of his potos is to just talk to your creator as if he's a friend, just to talk one on one. And I just, you know, challenge myself and uh everyone just to think about how that how that can work and why that would work and to try and do it and see if it can work. So yeah, Shrikaia, thank you for coming, and I'm going to share Michelle Bizoyta. To be invited ourselves and connect to nothing.