How Can You Keep Having Bitachon?
QUESTION What is the way to reach bitachon? What does a person need in order to keep having bitachon? What prevents a person from having bitachon and how can a person overcome those obstacles?
ANSWER Externally, it is by being stubborn, and internally, it is to have pure, trusting, unquestioning emunah in Hashem. Lack of inner resilience and lack of emunah prevents a person from holding strong with his bitachon (and “go and learn the rest”).
How Did the World Change in 5760?
QUESTION The Rav said in the derasha [about corona] that the world started to become spiritually ruined in the year 5760. What happened then?
ANSWER That is when the power of Amalek began to dominate in the world, because from 5760 and onward, there are 240 years left until the end of the world [the gematria of Amalek is 240].
How to Transform Pain?
QUESTION What is a “song”?
ANSWER Every song takes opposite musical notes and sounds and harmonizes them together.
In a marriage, there is the voice of the husband and the wife, the chosson and the kallah, and they are opposites, and when they are not worthy, the sounds do not harmonizes and there is instead the sound of war in their home. But if the husband and wife are worthy, their different voices come together and harmonize into the sound of a melody, a Niggun.
Why is a person pulled after a Niggun? Any person knows what it’s like to be pulled after a sweet melody. What is the secret to this? Simply it’s because a sweet song allows us to leave behind the painful reality of life which is filled with struggles, challenges, oppositions – everyone has their own personal “wars” they are fighting. Sometimes you can walk by a house and you hear sounds of war coming from the house. But when we hear a sweet sounding melody, our soul immediately feels a yearning for all problems to become transformed into a melody, Niggun, a song, a Shirah.
The Torah is called a Shirah, a song: “And write for you this song”, All of Shas is filled with questions and contradictions that the Gemara asks, but when we reach the inner level all of these contradictions are turned into song. The “war of Torah” becomes turned into the Song that is the Torah. It is there that all our souls yearn for. We want all of the wars to become turned into a song.
When a person is at the level of Song, he can feel how there are no wars in the worlds, everything is joy, everything is calm and serene. A song is where we feel that there are no wars in the world. When a person sings a song and connects to the song, he leaves the world of wars and difficulties and opposition and it all becomes turned into one big song.
The root of all the songs in the Torah is the song of Moshe Rabbeinu, Az Yashir, which was sung at a time of war when they were leaving Egypt, when they had been opposed and challenged by Egypt and now that they had won, it all became turned into a song. Not only did it become a song from now on but even the sounds of their pain from Egypt had now turned into sounds of song. Chazal said that Moshe’s song was about the future. That is when all the sounds of pain that we have heard throughout all of history, all of the cries of agony and cries of war, will all join together to become turned into a reality of Song. It will be the joyous sounds of the Chosson and His Kallah [Hashem and the Jewish people].
The sound of the Chosson and Kallah are the sound of those joining together, everything in Creation becoming turned into one sound. This will be the sound of the Shirah, the Song.
The highest level of Shirah that we have ever known of was in the Beis HaMikdash when the Leviim would sing their Shirah. But when Mashiach comes in our times, all the sounds of the world, all of the agonizing sounds of pain that each of us has groaned, all of these cries and groans will become transformed into the Shirah.
This is called the Geulah, in which the entire world becomes transformed
Saved in the End of Days
QUESTION The Rav wrote recently in a message that everyone should learn the sefer “Shaar HaNun” which explains all the collected teachings of the words of Chazal, sefarim hakedoshim and the teachings of the Rav’s sefarim, of how to separate from the evil of today which is the “50th gate of impurity” and how to become connected to the “50th gate of holiness.” Since it is a deep, lengthy, and comprehensive sefer, the Rav was asked how any person on any level can gain from the sefer in a nutshell and thereby become worthy of the Geulah. The following is a synopsis of the Rav’s words which were committed orally:
ANSWER Our avodah is two-fold, aseh tov (do good) and sur m’ra (stay away from evil). The sur m’ra part that everyone must do is to separate as much as he/she can from the “50th gate of impurity” - which is the internet – and since it is almost possible for anyone in our generation today to avoid internet completely, every person’s avodah is to minimize his connection to the internet as much as possible, having less and less to do with it.
But this won’t be enough – a person also has to connect to the “50th gate of holiness”, which is the aseh tov aspect. This is by revealing mesirus nefesh, by going beyond ourselves and giving up something up for Hashem, in at least one aspect of our lives. Though there are many ways to access the “50th gate of holiness”, this is the way that can be attained by any person on any level, and there are many levels to this, and the more mesirus nefesh that one manages, and certainly the more one connects to other ways of revealing the “50th gate of holiness” (as explained in the sefer Shaar HaNun), the more one becomes connected to this light of the “50th gate of holiness” which becomes his or her share for the rest of their eternity, and accordingly, that is how much spiritual light one will gain after Mashiach arrives.
