The shiur today will be concerning the date of ז' Cheshvan, the seventh day of the month of Cheshvan. ז' Cheshvan always comes out in the week of פרשה לך לך. Sometimes it comes out on Sunday פרשה לך לך, sometimes Tuesday or Wednesday, and sometimes Friday of פרשה לך לך. But it always comes out in פרשה לך לך. And since the Shlah writes in חלק תורה שבכתב in the beginning of פרשה וישב that all the מועדי השנה, all the special days of the year, have a special connection to the parsha of the week in which they come out, so there must be a special connection between ז' Cheshvan and פרשה לך לך. The truth is, in the Zohar it says that from שבת, מיניה מתברכין כולהו יומין, that from Shabbos all the days of the week are blessed. Mimela we must say that the days of the week have a connection also to the parsha that we read on the Shabbos before that special day. So therefore, in our case, there must be a special connection between ז' Cheshvan and פרשה נח. Since ז' Cheshvan always comes out in the week of פרשה לך לך, which means it always comes out in the week after פרשה נח, so there must be a special connection between Noach and ז' Cheshvan, being that from שבת פרשה נח, the date of ז' Cheshvan is blessed, as the Zohar says. But in addition to that, being that it comes out in the week of פרשה לך לך, there also must be a connection between ז' Cheshvan and פרשה לך לך. In this shiur, we are going to explain the connection between ז' Cheshvan and פרשה לך לך, and in the next shiur, we will explain the connection between ז' Cheshvan and Parshas Noach.

The inyan of ז' Cheshvan we explained last year in the shiur, that this is what the Mishnah says that from ז' Cheshvan on, שואלין את הגשמים. In Eretz Yisrael, we start asking for rain in ז' Cheshvan, as the Mishnah says in Ta'anit דף י' עמוד א'. And the reason for this is because this is 15 days after Sukkos, so we give enough time for all the people who came up to Yerushalayim for עליה לרגל, that they should be able to come home. And the lashon there is, כדי שיגיע אחרון שבישראל לנהר פרת, that the last one of the Yidden who has to go to the furthest area away from Eretz, from Yerushalayim, that he should be able to get home. Because if we will start asking for rain before that, then the rain will start while he's still on the way, and we don't want the person who is still on the way home to get wet. And therefore we start asking for rain when the last person will reach his place where he lives, and that is 15 days after Sukkos. That's when the last person would get to his place, which is by נהר פרת. And that's the halacha in the Rambam, הלכות תפילה פרק ב' הלכה ט״ז, and in Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, in the beginning of סימן קי״ז, that in Eretz Yisrael we start asking for rain on ז' Cheshvan. From this we see that till ז' Cheshvan is still considered a continuation of Sukkos. And ז' Cheshvan starts already the time when we leave the period of the Yamim Tovim, and we start a new period. And even though we explained in the previous shiur that from the beginning of the month of Cheshvan already we consider it a time when ויעקב הלך לדרכו, when we enter into the second period, the period of getting involved in our physical matters, nevertheless, but in Cheshvan itself, it seems that ז' Cheshvan is another stage within this itself. Because till ז' Cheshvan, we still felt that the Yom Tov is still there, because people are still on the way home from the Yom Tov. And when is it considered that the Yom Tov is over is from ז' חשוון. And as the Shach actually says in Choshen Mishpat, סימן מ״ג, סעיף קטן מ״ז, that for the 15 days היה דומה להם כאילו הם עדיין בארץ ישראל עסוקים בעניני הרגל, that for the 15 days after Sukkot it was to them, similar to them, as if they were still in Eretz Yisrael, involved in the ענינים of יום טוב, כל זמן שלא היה עובר הנהר הגדול נהר פרת, as long as he didn't go through נהר פרת. So he says clearly that till ז' חשוון, it's still considered a המשך to Yom Tov. And therefore he פסק'נס that in a שטר, in a document, if someone writes אחר הרגל, after Yom Tov, it means ז' חשוון, because till ז' חשוון is still considered a המשך to the Yom Tov.

But according to this we have to understand: how does this fit to פרשה לך לך? We said before that the מועדי השנה have a connection to the פרשה we read, obviously they must be saying the same thing, and here it seems that ז' חשוון and פרשה לך לך are two opposites. Because ז' חשוון is the day that the ירידה starts, it's the day when they start going down, going away from Yom Tov, away from Yerushalayim, it's the day when we're entering into חוץ לארץ, while לך לך was just the opposite. Hashem said to אברהם אבינו, לך לך מארצך וממולדתך אל הארץ אשר אראך, leave your birthplace, leave your father's house, and go to the land I will show you, which was Eretz Yisrael. So לך לך refers to Avraham Avinu leaving חוץ לארץ, going to Eretz Yisrael, while the ענין of ז' Cheshvan is the opposite, the time when you leave Eretz Yisrael and you go to Chutz La'aretz, you go away from Jerusalem, further away from the inyanim of Jerusalem and from the inyanim of Eretz Yisrael. And even though we do find a pasuk in Parashat Lech Lecha, where it says וירד אברם מצרימה that Avram went down to Mitzrayim, so this does fit to what ז' Cheshvan represents, nevertheless, this is not the main part of the parasha. We know that the name of a parasha, that represents the main part of the parasha, just like it says in many sefarim and midrashim that the name of a person shows what the person is, so too does the name of the parasha show what the parasha is. And since the name of the parasha is Lech Lecha, which refers to Avraham Avinu leaving Chutz La'aretz and going to Eretz Yisrael, so obviously this is the main nekudah, the main point of the parasha. So how does that fit to ז' Cheshvan where the nekudah is the opposite, leaving Jerusalem and Eretz Yisrael and going towards Chutz La'aretz?

To explain this, the connection between ז' Cheshvan and Parashat Lech Lecha, we have to first see what happened when Avraham Avinu went to Eretz Yisrael. What change took place legabei the way he was before? Now we know that Avraham Avinu, even while he was in Chutz La'aretz, also spread the unity of Hashem amongst the people in the world, as the pasuk says in Parashat Lech Lecha, in פרק י\"ב פסוק ה', that when he left Charan, he took along as הנפש אשר עשו בחרן, the nefesh that he made in Charan. And as Chazal say and brought down in Rashi, that this refers to all those people who he convinced to enter תחת כנפי השכינה, under the wings of the Shechinah. Because as we know, at that time most of the people did not believe in Hashem, and Avraham Avinu's job was to spread the belief in אחדות השם, in the unity of Hashem. And that's what the pasuk says that he took along the nefesh that he made in Charan, as Rashi uses the expression that Avraham Avinu was מגייר את האנשים, Avraham Avinu converted the men and Sarah converted the women, which means that Avraham Avinu was involved in spreading the name of Hashem amongst the people even while he was in Charan. And as we have the all the stories in the מדרשי חז\"ל of what Avraham Avinu did to tell the people about the unity of Hashem, and this he did even while he was still in chutz la'aretz. And as the Rambam says in Hilchot Avodah Zarah פרק א' הלכה ג', that התחיל להודיע לעם שאין ראוי לעבוד אלא לאלוה העולם, he started notifying the people that you should only serve the God of the world, and לו ראוי להשתחוות, and to Him it's proper to bow down, ולהקריב, and to be מקריב קרבנות, ולנסך, and to pour the wine, כדי שיכירו כל הברואים הבאים, in order that all the creatures should recognize Him, והתחיל לעמוד ולקרות בקול גדול לכל העולם, and he started calling with a great voice to the whole world, ולהודיעם שיש אלוה אחד לכל העולם, and to notify the world that there is only one God to the whole world, ולו ראוי לעבוד, and to Him it is proper and fit to serve and worship. And this Avraham Avinu did while he was still in chutz la'aretz. Then, when he left to Eretz Yisrael, he continued this thing that he did, the spreading of the unity of Hashem. But nevertheless, there is a big difference in the way he did this before he fulfilled the ציווי, the commandment of השם, לך לך מארצך, לגבי the way it was done after he fulfilled the ציווי. And the difference is very simple: before he did it on his own, and later on he did it because he was commanded by Hashem. Before that he wasn't commanded by Hashem to go anywhere and to do anything. From לך לך on, he was commanded by Hashem to do this. And this is a very big difference. Because before he did it on his own through his own understanding, as the Rambam uses בלשון, שהשיג דרך האמת, he understood the true way, והבין קו הצדק, and he understood the righteous קו, the righteous path, מתבונתו הנכונה, from his proper, from his straight understanding, from his straight mind. So the reason he spread the unity of Hashem was because he understood that with his own mind. So he did it based on what he understood. Later on, after he fulfilled the mitzvah of לך לך, to him it was a mitzvah, the commandment of לך לך, and then he spread the name of Hashem, then this was done because of the commandment of Hashem. The difference between doing it on his own and doing it מצד the commandment of Hashem is very great, because whatever a person does on his own, as great as it is, it's still based on himself. Being that this person is a נברא, he was created by Hashem, he is so to speak a creature of Hashem, so whatever he does is limited to the capability of a נברא, to the capability of the creature, of the one that was created. But he cannot go beyond that because, since he did it on his own, he cannot do something that he doesn't have. Being that he is limited to the limits of the creation, so he could do it only based on the limits of the creation, he can't go beyond the limits of creation. But when you do something because you are commanded by Hashem who is the Creator, so then you could do this in a much higher level, you could do it in an unlimited level because you have the power of Hashem who is infinite, who is unlimited. And this is the difference in what Avraham Avinu did before he went to Eretz Yisrael לגבי after he went to Eretz Yisrael. Before he went to Eretz Yisrael, whatever he did was based on his own understanding, which is a very high madregah, because we could imagine that the understanding of Avraham Avinu, the understanding of the unity of Hashem and understanding the importance of being mefarsem, of spreading this belief in the אחדות השם, in the unity of Hashem, was very great. But nevertheless, as great as this was, it is still limited to his own limits. But later when he did it מצד the ציווי of Hashem, then it is unlimited, and the accomplishment is unlimited, and it could penetrate in an unlimited way. So basically, the difference between before לך לך and after לך לך is that before לך לך the stress is the koach of the נברא, the koach of the person, the koach of Avraham Avinu as his own madregah. From לך לך and on, we stress the koach of the בורא, the koach of the ציווי of Hashem, the commandment of Hashem that was given to him, which is in a much higher madreigah, an unlimited madreigah.

This is also the difference between before ז' חשון and after ז' חשון. As we explained last year, the inyan of ז' חשון, when the yidden left Yerushalayim, represents a much higher madreigah than when the yidden were still in Yerushalayim by עליה לרגל. Even though superficially it seems the opposite, that while the yidden were in Yerushalayim, then they had a very high madreigah, they were close to the בית המקדש, they were able to see godliness, etc., etc. But when they left, and ז' חשון represents the time when they started working in their own place, so then they did not have this high level of kedushah, they were not involved completely in godliness, but they had to get involved in החורש והזורע, in planting and plowing, in all these physical matters. Nevertheless, in essence, what they did later was higher than what they did before. Because what they did in Yerushalayim they gained very high madregot, but they gained it for themselves, so they reached higher and higher and higher. But later on, when they came to their own place, and they worked in the physical world, and they took these high madregot that they gained in Yerushalayim, and they brought it into this physical world, which means, not only did they have kedushah in themselves, but they brought the kedushah into this physical world, into physical matters, here they accomplished the will of Hashem. Because we know, as the Midrash says, נתאווה הקדוש ברוך הוא להיות לו יתברך דירה בתחתונים, השם had a desire to have a dwelling place in this low world. And therefore, when a person brings kedushah in the low world, he accomplishes the desire of Hashem. Even though for himself it might be a yeridah, he might lower his madreigah because he's involved in lower matters, but nevertheless, as far as the Creator, Hashem, is concerned, this is what Hashem wanted. Which is actually the peshat in Pirkei Avot where it says, יפה שעה אחת בתשובה ומעשים טובים בעולם הזה מכל חיי עולם הבא, that one moment of teshuvah u'maasim tovim in this world is greater than the whole life of Olam Haba. And there itself it says, יפה שעה אחת של קורת רוח בעולם הבא מכל חיי עולם הזה, that one moment of pleasure in the world to come is greater than all the life in this world. Isn't this a contradiction? The answer is very simple: as far as pleasure of the person, the nachat ruach for the נברא, so there is more pleasure in Olam Haba than עולם הזה, because there you have pleasure from Hashem, it says צדיקים sit and נהנים מזיו השכינה, they have pleasure from the glory of Hashem. You could imagine this is the greatest pleasure that a person could get. So all the pleasures in the whole lifetime of a person in this world that he could have doesn't come to one moment of pleasure in עולם הבא. But that's as far as pleasure of the person. But when we're talking about Hashem, what Hashem wanted, the נתאווה הקדוש ברוך הוא, the desire of Hashem and the pleasure of Hashem, is that we should bring kedushah in this low world, and that's the reason He created this world. So the נחת רוח לבורא, the pleasure that the Creator gets, is more in this world than in the world to come, in olam haba. And therefore, if a person does good deeds, teshuvah, in this world, and he brings kedushah into this world, so even if he does it one moment, it's more than all the pleasure of olam haba, because all the pleasure of olam haba is only the pleasure of the person, the נברא gets pleasure. But the pleasure that comes by bringing kedushah into this world is not pleasure for the person, but it's pleasure for Hashem. And we could imagine the difference between the נברא and the בורא. There are no two extremes as far apart as the Creator and the creation. So therefore, whatever a person accomplishes for himself is no comparison to the accomplishment that he does if Hashem gets pleasure. And that's why the greatest pleasure Hashem gets is after ז' Cheshvan, because while the Yidden were in Jerusalem and they gained high מדרגות, this is similar to olam haba, they reached very high מדרגות. But when ז' Cheshvan came, which represents the time when they came home and they left these high מדרגות, but they brought from that kedushah into this low world, that is the pleasure of Hashem. So it comes out that ז' Cheshvan represents a time when the Yidden start going away from their own pleasure, spiritual pleasure, but their own pleasure, to giving pleasure to Hashem, which really is what happened at the time of Lech Lecha. Till Lech Lecha, till Avraham Avinu was commanded, as we said before, so then he only worked with his own koach. There was the כח of the נברא, of the creature, so to speak, of the person. From Lech Lecha on, when he was told to go, so then since there was a commandment of Hashem, here he had the koach ha-Borei, the koach of the Creator, which is actually what ז' Cheshvan represents. That's the time when we start giving nachat ruach, ta'anug, pleasure to the Borei, not as before where the main pleasure was for the nivra. And that's the connection between ז' Cheshvan and Parashat Lech L'cha.