Okay, the topic tonight, I try, I will try this year maybe to have the topics have some connection to the parashah of the week. It's usually better that way, besides that actually two people asked me if it has a connection to the parashah of the week, if we could find a topic, then it feels more that we're living with the times. So the topic tonight is going to be the discussion of the Akeidah, Akeidat Yitzchak, the binding of Yitzchak. In this week's parashah we learn about the Akeidah, when Hashem said to אברהם אבינו, קח נא את בנך את יחידך אשר אהבת את יצחק, take your son, the one that you love, your only son, and take him to the Akeidah. First Hashem didn't tell him exactly what to do, take him, and didn't tell him even where to go, but finally he showed him where it is and he told him, you shall bring him up as a korban, as a sacrifice. The end was that when he came to do it, Hashem told him, take him down. I never told you to slaughter him, I just said bring him up as a sacrifice. You brought him up, now you take him down. But Avraham Avinu did not know that this is going to happen, so when he took him, he thought 100% that he is going to slaughter his son, shachat his son as a sacrifice to Hashem. And this is the tenth test that Avraham was tested. We know it says in Pirkei Avot, בעשרה נסים נתנסה אברהם אבינו, אברהם אבינו was tested ten tests, and this was the last one, and this was the hardest one. And obviously Avraham Avinu passed the test. And Hashem said to him after the Akeidah, עתה ידעתי כי ירא אלקים אתה, now I know that you are a person who fears God, because he withstood even this test. Now this test of the Akeidah is not just a test that Avraham Avinu had, but this is a test that its effect lasts for all generations. In many of our tefillot, when we ask Hashem to give us our needs on Rosh Hashanah or other times, we mention the Akeidah. Remember, Avraham Avinu, our forefather, passed the test of the Akeidah. He was ready to kill his son because you asked him to. That zechut should stand for us. We say it when we have the special tefillot on Rosh Hashanah, in the Shmoneh Esrei, Musaf, we say malchuyot, zichronot, and shofrot. We took pesukim about Hashem being King and pesukim about Hashem remembering us, so there we mention at the end of the berachah, and please remember the Akeidah. And this is not the only time we do it, every day in the davenen, before Hodu, before we start with the minyan, there is a whole part that we say ourselves, some shuln they actually say it with the minyan, and that's the Akeidah. And there we say as an introduction before we say that whole portion of the Akeidah and afterwards, we say to Hashem, remember the akeidah, just like Avraham did this and therefore he was great, remember the zechut of the akeidah and that should stand for us for all our needs. So we make such a great fuss of the akeidah, actually, I will quote here the lashon of the Abarbanel, the famous Abarbanel was one of the great mekubalim, greatest scholars who lived in the 16th century, he was one of the people, the main, the leader actually of the Jews at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. He lived in Spain, and he was part of the גירוש שפאניע, he was one of the people who went into exile from Spain in this, in the 15th century, 1492, and he was known, he was a great mekubal. So his lashon is, he says, כל קרן ישראל, the whole קרן means the the the beauty, the greatness of יידן, וזכותם, and their merits לפני אביהם שבשמים, in front of their Father in Heaven, is the עקידה, ולכן היא שגורה בפינו בתפלותינו כל היום, therefore it's so common in our mouths when we daven all day, he says, because this is so important. But here comes the Sefer HaIkkarim and asks a very strong kushya. Sefer Ikkarim is also a sefer of Kabbalah, written by a great mekubal, and he asks a strong kushya, and after we will get through the question and the answer, we will get a better insight in what really the test of the akeidah was, what really the depth of the akeidah was. He asks the question, why do we make such a great fuss of the akeidah? Was was Avraham Avinu the only person that went on mesirut nefesh for Hashem? So many great tzadikim throughout all the generations sacrificed their lives al kiddush Hashem, for the sake of Hashem, they gave up their lives al kiddush Hashem. So why do we make this big fuss of Avraham? Avraham is great did something special. But so many people, like Rabbi Akiva for instance. Rabbi Akiva, the famous Rabbi Akiva, he's one of the עשרה הרוגי מלכות, one of the ten great tzadikim, sages that were killed by the government when he wanted to take revenge for the fact that the brothers sold Yosef, whatever it is. But he was killed. And not only him, so many others. Rabbi Chanina ben Teradyon. The government, the Roman government made a rule that anybody who will spread Torah, who will be מקהיל קהלות, will make gatherings to teach Torah, will be killed. And he didn't care. He said, \"We have to do it anyway.\" And many other of the great tzadikim. This is talking about the Tannaim, the great sages from the Mishnah or the Gemara, even later generations. And we don't have to go so far. In our own generation, just before, we had Yidden who went al kiddush Hashem, who sacrificed their lives. So what is so special that we make this great fuss of Avraham Avinu? That's the question that he asks. The first possible answer one might think is that Avraham Avinu's mesirat nefesh was greater because he was ready to sacrifice his son. We all know that it's much harder for a person to give up the life of a child than to give up his own life. We know that. A father or a mother would be ready to give up their lives to save the life of a child, of their own child. And therefore, the greatness of Avraham, you might say, is the fact that he was ready to sacrifice his son, not himself, which is something greater than sacrificing himself. Which is, by the way, one of the reasons why the akeidah is always attributed to Avraham Avinu. Why don't we attribute the greatness of the akeidah to Yitzchak? Actually Yitzchak was the one that's going to die. And he knew about it. In the beginning, he didn't, but as they were traveling, and he asked his father, \"I see you have the fire, you have the knife, you have everything, but where is the שה? Where is the sheep for the korban, for the sacrifice?\" And his father said, \"אלקים יראה לו השה לעולה בני, you're going to be the one.\" And the pasuk continues, \"וילכו שניהם יחדיו, they walked together.\" Before this was told to him, it says they walked together, and it means that just like Yitzchak, not knowing what's happening, walked besimchah, joyfully, so did his father, who knew what he was doing. But later, after he found out, the Torah continues and says, \"וילכו שניהם יחדיו, they went, they went together,\" to show that Yitzchak didn't care. He knew if it was told by Hashem, he was ready to do it besimchah. So why don't we attribute the akeidah to Yitzchak, ready to be moser nefesh, not his life? The answer is because it's harder to give up the life of a child. So it's a greater mesirat nefesh, a greater sacrifice on Avraham's part than on Yitzchak's part. So therefore, we could say that that's the specialty of the akeidah. But this is not a good enough answer, because when we look through history, there were many people who gave up their lives, the lives of their children for the sake of Hashem. We know stories of people who had their children, rachmana litzlan, killed in order not to be forced to bow down to idols or not to be forced to convert to Christianity. Just to mention one, the famous one, Channah veshivah baneha, Channah and her seven sons. When the king wanted to get them to bow down to the idol, so he called the oldest son and he said, \"Bow down to the idol.\" And he quoted a pasuk, and he said to him, \"The pasuk, Torah says don't bow down to idols.\" And he had him killed in front of the eyes of the mother. And then he brought the second child, and it said same thing, and he answered him with a different pasuk, and the third, and the fourth, till finally came to the small one, the seventh child, and they were all killed, and she saw this happen. And came to the seventh child, the king turned around to the mother and said, \"Can't you convince your son? See what's happening. You want him to die, too?\" So she said, \"Let me speak to him privately.\" So he was sure she is going to tell him, \"You know what? Do what the king wants.\" Privately, she told him, \"Don't you dare do it.\" And she said, \"What's going to happen is he's going to kill you. So I'm asking you, I'm sending a message with you to Avraham Avinu when you reach the heavens, and tell Avraham, 'You were ready to sacrifice one son. I sacrificed seven sons.'\" And that's exactly what happened. First the king tried to fool him, not fool him, but he said, \"You know what? Don't bow down. I'm going to drop my ring in front of the idol, and you just pick up, bend down to pick it up. But in the eyes of the people, it'll look like you bowed down to the עבודה זרה, to the idol.\" And he wouldn't do that either, and he went on mesirat nefesh. And the mother was happy, and I think if I remember correctly now, I don't remember exactly, the Midrash says, I think, that a voice came out from heaven and said, \"אם הבנים שמחה.\" That the mother of the children is happy. She was happy to reach such a madreigah that her seven sons gave up their lives al kiddush Hashem. So here we see a person who was not like Avraham Avinu and gave up her life, gave up the life of her children. She also died afterwards. And we find that throughout history there were many people who did this. So obviously this is not the specialty of Avraham. There must be something special in the mesirut nefesh of Avraham.

But the Sefer HaIkkarim, that I mentioned, who asked this question, the Sefer HaIkkarim answers it in one way. He says that Avraham Avinu was not commanded that he must do it. Avraham Avinu was asked by Hashem to do it, but He didn't say, \"You have to do it.\" He wasn't commanded to do that, so he says. He brings a proof from the Midrash, where the Midrash says that after Hashem told Avraham Avinu, \"Don't touch him, take him down,\" Avraham Avinu said, \"I don't understand. What are you doing to me? First you say one thing, then you say something else.\" And he started by saying, \"First you told me כי ביצחק יקרא לך זרע, that my main son is going to be Yitzchak, and from him will be a lot of descendants and a big nation. Then you told me slaughter him before he was even married, he had no children. And, you know,\" he says to Hashem, \"I didn't complain. I didn't say a word. I didn't say anything. And now you're coming and you're changing your mind again.\" And Hashem said, \"Don't worry, I never told you to shecht him, etc., etc.\" But what do we see from here? That Avraham Avinu said to Hashem, \"I didn't complain.\" In other words, he could have complained. He could have said to Hashem, \"I can't do it,\" and Hashem would have accepted it. Because Hashem, he says, didn't tell him, \"I'm forcing you, I'm commanding you to take your son to slaughter it, to slaughter him.\" All He said to him was, \"I would like you to do it.\" And the Ran, in one of his sefarim, the Drashot HaRan, one of the Rishonim, says that that's why Hashem said to Avraham, \"קח נא את בנך את יחידך.\" נא means in Hebrew please. \"Please take your son, your, the one that you love, your only son, and bring him up as a korban on the mizbeach.\" Why did He say please? He asked him, \"I would like you to do it,\" but He didn't force him to do it. So that's the Ikkarim's answer, that Avraham Avinu's greatness was that even though he was not commanded to do it by Hashem, nevertheless he went and did it. But the truth is this answer is also hard to accept. It's an answer, but there must be more to it, because we find throughout history that many people who were not commanded to do it, nevertheless they went on mesirut nefesh, and I'll explain what I mean. When someone is asked to bow down to an idol, he is commanded to go on mesirut nefesh. You have to give up your life. And I'll explain it in detail. Like this, we have a rule that אין לך דבר העומד בפני פיקוח נפש, nothing stands in the way of a person's life. That means that if it means to do an aveirah, you or your your life is in danger to be מחלל שבת, you have to be מחלל שבת, except when it comes to do the three major aveirot, which is avodah zarah, idol worship, or גילוי עריות, adultery, or שפיכות דמים, murder. In any of these three things, if someone forces you to do it, if not he'll kill you, you have to give up your life, you're not allowed to do the aveirah. Every other aveirah, there is no din. The din is יעבור ואל יהרג. Do the aveirah and don't get killed. By these three, the din is יהרג ואל יעבור, you must get killed and not do it. By the other aveirot, it's יעבור ואל יהרג. Ya'avor means be over, transgress, and don't get killed. Now there is a machloket, there is an argument in the rishonim, basically between the Rambam and Tosafot. The Rambam says that by all aveirot where, which is not one of the three, where it says you should transgress, you have to transgress. What happens if a person says, \"You know what? I want to be so strict with Shabbos that I'll give up my life in order not to transgress over, not to desecrate the Shabbos.\" So the Rambam says you're not allowed to do it. As a matter of fact, he says if someone is מוסר נפש, gives up his life for all other aveirot besides the three, is basically committing suicide. That's what the Rambam says. But most of the poskim, Tosafot and most of the poskim of the codifiers, disagree with the Rambam. And they say what it means is that by these three, you must must give up your life. By all other aveirot, you don't have to give up your life. But if somebody is ready ready to give up his life for any other aveirah, the way they write is קדוש יאמר לו. He is considered a holy person. He's considered a tzadik, even though you don't have to. Now we find throughout history that there were many, many Jews who gave up their lives not only when it came to these three aveirot, they gave up their lives when it came to Shabbos. And here too they didn't have to. So to answer that to give that the the greatness of Avraham Avinu was because he wasn't commanded to do it doesn't really answer that that question fully because there were many other people who were not commanded, there is no chiyuv, no obligation, no mitzvah to give up their lives, and nevertheless they gave up their lives. So we're back to the question, what's why is Avraham Avinu so special? Especially if we start imagining Hashem, even according to the Ikkarim, Hashem asks Avraham Avinu to do him a favor. Would you not consider that that in the eyes of Avraham it's as good as a commandment? The answer he gives is that here he didn't tell him you must do it, he just asked him to do it. Ask if you Hashem himself asks you to do something, as far as you're concerned you feel this is basically almost like a commandment. How could you not do it? So here how could you answer that the greatness of Avraham is because he wasn't commanded? If you look at it, to some degree it would seem that the מסירת נפש of other Jews, Rabbi Akiva or other Jews, was even greater than Avraham Avinu. Because Avraham Avinu heard it from Hashem himself. Imagine Hashem told him, do this. The other people didn't hear it from Hashem themselves. They learned it in the Torah, they know that's the הלכה, but you can't compare the two. If you hear it from Hashem himself, certainly you do it. These are people who didn't hear it from Hashem, and nevertheless, because they knew this is the right thing to do, they did it. That's even greater than what Avraham Avinu did. So we're back to the question, why is the Akedah so special that we make the great fuss and we base our tefillot and everything on the Akedah, the Akedah, when really there were many people which did the same thing as Avraham Avinu, or it seems to a certain degree even more?

There's another possible answer. We know there is a concept called פתיחת הצינור. פתיחת הצינור means the literal translation is opening the pipe. The first one to do it is the greatest. The first one to do it, that is the hardest. We see that physically we see it, there are certain things that are done and there is a certain record, and nobody could break the record in any small stupid thing even. 20 years, 50 years no one broke the record. The moment one person breaks the record, the next week you hear somebody else did it, and a third person did it, and a fourth person did it. There is such a thing as to start it off. That's called פתיחת הצינורות, like opening a pipe. Until you open the pipe, the water doesn't come. The moment you open the pipe, you don't have to keep on opening it. The one that opens, when as soon as you open it, the water comes, now it's going to come even more, now it comes by itself. So when it comes to mesirat nefesh, Avraham Avinu by the Akedah was the first one to do it. When he was since he was the first, he opened it up for us. So the fact that all the Yidden throughout all the generations went on mesirat nefesh, sacrificed their lives on Kiddush Hashem, it's all thanks to Avraham Avinu, because he was the first one to do it. So that's why they were all able to follow. So that's why we make the fuss over the Akedah, because that's the first. But if we start thinking about it, it doesn't answer the question, because the Akedah was not the first mesirat nefesh that Avraham Avinu had. There was an earlier time Avraham Avinu went on mesirat nefesh: in Ur Kasdim, when he broke the idols of his father, and he was thrown into the כבשן האש, he was thrown into the furnace. He knew what he's getting into. He knew that to break the idols would mean death penalty, and he knew that his father would give him over to Nimrod, to the king. And when they asked him what he did, he didn't care. He told them outright, and he didn't stop. So he actually went on mesirat nefesh. The Rambam uses the lashon the king wanted to kill him, threw him into the furnace with all the miracles that happened. So if we're going to say that the מסירת the great greatness of Avraham Avinu is the fact that he was the first one to go to a mesirut nefesh for the sake of Hashem, it shouldn't be the Akedah. It should be Ur Kasdim, because the Akedah already was the second time when he went on mesirut nefesh. So we should always mention Ur Kasdim, Avraham Avinu allowed himself to be thrown into the furnace, that should be the specialty of the of Avraham Avinu. And we see not, we always mention the Akedah. So we finally have to get to the point. So in order to explain what is so special about the Akedah, let's understand something else. We say the Akedah is mesirut nefesh. And we always talk about the specialty of a Yid, that a Yid goes on mesirut nefesh. You have many Yidden who went on mesirus nefesh for the sake of Hashem. And we say this shows on the greatness of a יידישע נשמה that he could go on mesirus nefesh. And it says that when the time comes to a time when the person's essence of his Jewishness is questioned, this awakens in him special kochos to go on mesirus nefesh, and it's only something a Jew could do. That's why you could see sometimes it says in sefarim that there are Jews who in their daily life don't necessarily behave the way a Jew is supposed to behave. And these same Jews, when it came to a question of bowing down to an idol or not, or later generations the question of being forced to convert, they gave up their lives not to convert to Christianity. But these people didn't care about their Jewishness, you see, they didn't keep Shabbos. Because at that point, the true essence of the neshama was revealed, and this is a neshama concept of being able to go on mesirus nefesh, not to care about yourself, and to go on mesirus nefesh for Hashem. But the question is, how can we say that this is a Jewish trait when we see goyim, להבדיל להבדיל, also go on mesirus nefesh? We do find in history there were goyim who sacrificed their lives for their ideals, for their philosophy. What do we need more? We find nowadays these ימח שמם וזכרם, these terrorists, that's exactly what they do. They give up their lives. These suicide bombers, they're ready to give up their lives for a cause, that's what it seems, for a cause. So they are going on mesirus nefesh, they're giving up their lives. So what do we mean that mesirus nefesh is something that a Jew has, but a non-Jew does not have that concept of mesirus nefesh because it has to do with the neshama? Now there is one answer given which I mentioned, I think, quite a few times, just once that the Rabbi Rashab, when he was in Rostov, the Rabbi Rashab moved from Lubavitch when this First World War started, and he came to Rostov, and that was the time also when the Russian Revolution came about. And in the beginning of the Russian Revolution there were different fractions. There were the the whites and the reds, the communists, and the the, I don't know, the different. And they not only they they they fought between themselves, one week one group was in control, the other week another was in control, and they were fighting in the street, soldiers of the Red Army and the White Army. It was mamash dangerous to walk in the street. One day while this was going on, the Rebbe was he took a chance, and so to speak with a shamash, and he went to shul to daven, they had a minyan. On the way back, he happened to see two soldiers actually standing and fighting with knives. And the Rabbi Rashab stopped, and he started was looking at them for a while. So his gabbai turns, \"Rebbe, every second we stay here in the street is dangerous, let's get out of here.\" The Rebbe didn't go. He watched, he watched, and then he went into the house. So he asked him, \"What were you looking at? What was so fascinating that you wanted to see?\" So he said, \"I was trying to see the difference between mesirus nefesh and הפקרות.\" הפקרות means, how would you translate it? If someone is הפקר, doesn't care. Just some people just are don't care about their lives, they're just life life means nothing to them. So he said, \"I saw when these two were fighting, it one of them knew they both knew that one of them is going to die. I mean, they were fighting that one is going to kill the other, and they did it, and they were ready each one was ready to give up his life. So I wanted to see what they're doing different than what we talk about in in sefarim about mesirus nefesh, that this is not mesirus nefesh, this is הפקרות,\" he said. הפקרות means they don't care. But what does that actually mean? These are just words, but we have to have an explanation what that means. So let me try to explain it. We said before that one of the explanations by Avraham Avinu, the akeidah is why was that so special, because that was the beginning, the opening. It opened up the door for mesirut nefesh. Why do we need to open the door for mesirut nefesh? By the fact that we say this open the door, obviously it means that if the door is not opened, then it's closed. If Avraham Avinu wouldn't open that door, it would have been closed, which means there wouldn't be such a thing as mesirut nefesh. Why not? And I'll explain why not. Mesirut nefesh means to give yourself up for Hashem or, as a matter of fact, any cause, but give up yourself. This, to give yourself up for something else, is something that, in the nature of the world, does not exist. It does not exist. It can't be. The nature of the world, the way Hashem created it, is that every being is a every creature, every part of the creation is a creature, is a being, something. The nature of everything is כל דבר it says רוצה בקיומו. Everything wants its own existence, and whatever you do is for the benefit of your own existence. It is impossible to get out of that. A person cannot do anything to get out of himself. There's an expression in גמרא, אין חבוש מתיר עצמו מבית האסורים. A person who is in jail cannot release himself from jail. You have to have somebody who is outside to release him, because he's part of the problem, so how could he release himself? It's like the example given: a person cannot pick himself up by pulling by his ears. He'll try he'll pick himself You're pulling yourself up from yourself, so you'll never get out of yourself. You have to have something from outside. But from yourself, it can't work. So it's impossible, impossible naturally for a person to get out of himself and do something not for his own benefit, his own existence. That's nature. And this actually in connection to what I explained last week. I explained the same thing. When it says in Tanya, in the end of the first perek, it says that whatever a goy does, the best thing a goy does, the best goy, whatever he does, is for himself. There is a selfish reason there. And I mentioned that when this was translated, there was a whole tumult, how could you say such a thing? This brings antisemitism, that you're saying whatever goyim do is selfish, and we don't do it for selfish reasons. And the explanation is given very simple: not that we're trying chas veshalom to knock anyone, we're not saying the goyim are bad. Hey, if the person is bad, he's bad, but we're not making a general statement the goyim are bad. What we're saying is that goyim are normal. Normally, it is impossible to do something without any, any selfish reason. It can't be, because your whole being is yourself. Whatever I do is myself, so it is always that I, self, is involved, it's impossible. What it says there is that a Yid has this power of being abnormal, of doing something beyond norm, beyond nature, beyond the creation, to do something that is not for himself. But naturally, it is impossible. And therefore, when we see all these people who went on mesirut nefesh throughout all these generations I mean, non-Jews throughout whatever time, when we see goyim who went on mesirut nefesh, it is not that they gave up of themselves for whatever cause it is. It is for their own selfish reason. For example, if a person had an ideal and he wanted to further his cause, so some people would do it in such a strong way to give up their life, that the cause, what he stands for, should be should be strengthened. So why did he give up his life? Because there was something that he stood for that would be more by being giving up his life. So he makes a cheshbon in his mind: Where will I gain more? So he says, Where will you gain more? You'll gain more by giving up your life, because the person understands that his ideal is more important than his life to him, so he'll give up his life for his ideal. So it's again for him. These terrorists, ימח שמם וזכרם, why do they give up their lives? Because they're told that you're going to go to Gan Eden, to paradise, and there you're going to have this, and you're going to have that, all the great things that they're going to get. So they feel it's worth for them to do it. It's not giving up of themselves, it's giving up their lives, but not giving up themselves. They're doing it for a cause, for some greater thing that they will get. At least that's what they think they will get, but they're doing it for that reason. So that's not really what mesirut nefesh is. This is compared to an investment. You invest. Imagine someone invests a hundred dollars in a business, hoping to make a thousand. So how do we look at it? Do we look at it that this person threw away a hundred dollars, even though at the time when he invested he gave it away, and maybe the profit is not going to come till next year? But we don't look at it as he threw away, he gave up of himself, he gave up his money. This is an investment that, for the time being, you give up some because you'll make more, so this is all for the benefit of making more money. The same thing here. They gave up their they give up their lives to gain that their metziut, what they stand for, will gain will get even more. Sometimes it could be for a different reason, but the same idea. God forbid that somebody would commit suicide because he feels he can't cope with life, God forbid, God forbid. So again, this person is doing something which he thinks he is going to gain more. So this is what the world, the mesirut nefesh that the world has, is. When we talk about mesirut nefesh of a Yid, mesirut nefesh of a Yid means that a Yid has this power. It doesn't mean that every Yid does it, but a Yid has this power of doing something that's abnormal, like we said before, doing something beyond nature and being able to give up himself for the sake of Hashem without any any benefit that he will get. No selfish reason whatsoever. Like we said before, that a person could do a Yid could do something without any benefit, he could give up his life and he would give it up not because he feels he'll get Gan Eden. If a Yid gives up his life because he says this will bring him to the highest level of Gan Eden, in truth, that is not the highest level the real level of mesirut nefesh. The real level of mesirut nefesh is because Hashem wants him to do it, and this is what you're supposed to do, and I don't care if I don't get anything. It's similar to the story of the Baal Shem Tov. This is not a story of mesirut nefesh, but it's the story that brings out the point. It's also the most famous sto- very famous story, that once there was a couple, didn't have any children, and they begged the Baal Shem Tov for a berachah, and he didn't want to give it. Finally, they nudged him and nudged him, he gave him a berachah. As soon as he gave him the berachah, Baal Shem Tov said he heard a voice come out from heaven that said that this couple were not supposed to have children. In שמים, it was decreed that they can't have children. And the Baal Shem Tov, by giving this berachah, forced שמים to go against their own decree, so they're going to punish the Baal Shem Tov. And the punishment is they're going to take away his whole olam haba. They took away the Baal Shem Tov's whole gan eden. You won't get gan eden, you won't get olam haba. As soon as the Baal Shem Tov heard that, he started smiling and he said, \"Baruch Hashem, now I can serve Hashem for no reason at all. Till now, you would serve Hashem, and who knows, you get gan eden. Now I know I won't get gan eden anyway, I can serve Hashem for no reason at all.\" As soon as he said that, a voice came out from heaven and said, \"You got it all back.\" But that's not why he did it. He did it because he really sincerely meant it, that he wants to serve Hashem because Hashem, that's all. Similar to a statement the Alter Rebbe used to make many times. The Alter Rebbe, when he used to say a maamar, used to sometimes go into such deveikut, such feeling that he would even fall from his chair and roll on the floor. And some chasidim would roll along to see what he's saying there. So they heard him many times saying, \"רבונו של עולם, זע,\" he says זע means see, \"איך וויל ניט דיין גן עדן, איך וויל ניט דיין עולם הבא, איך וויל נאר דיר אליין. I don't need your gan eden, I don't need your olam haba, I need you.\" What he meant was gan eden and olam haba is all for me. You are the one, that's all. And it says this is what a neshamah is all about. A neshamah of a yid has this power of connecting itself to Hashem. It says that the nature of the neshamah, it says in Pirkei Avot, that בעל כרחך אתה חי, a person, a yid, is forced to live, which means that the neshamah is forced to be in the body. The neshamah really would not want to be in the body. What does a neshamah want? A neshamah wants to leave the body and go and become part of Hashem. And the question that you could ask is: when the neshamah becomes part of Hashem, it loses its own identity, its own it's not it's not its own entity anymore. The mashal given that you have a torch with a big fire and then you have a little candle. Imagine you would take that little candle and put it together with the big fire. It becomes part of it, and it's lost, it doesn't exist anymore. So why would a neshamah want to go up and be part of Hashem and lose its own being? The answer is, yes, the neshamah doesn't care for for itself. It's Hashem who's the true being, and that's all it cares about. But the same is concerning mesirut nefesh. A Yid has this power of going on mesirut nefesh, not thinking about any, any reason. Where was the first time that this happened? As we said before, the first time, that is the hardest. That's what counts the most. The first time was by the akeidah. In Ur Kasdim, when Avraham Avinu was thrown into the furnace, it could have been for some selfish reason, a good reason. Like I said before, some people would sacrifice their lives for their ideals. We know Avraham Avinu went around spreading the true unity of Hashem, and he was, allowed himself, you could think, to be thrown into the furnace to prove his point, how important it is to believe in one Hashem, it's worth to give up your life for. Then it would have been for his ideal. It would further his ideal on one hand; it would make it harder because he wouldn't be around anymore to continue spreading the word. But on the other hand, it would bring out the ideal more. So, if we look at Ur Kasdim, it's mesirut nefesh, certainly, a person allowed himself to be thrown into a furnace, but the mesirut nefesh, it's not clear that the mesirut nefesh is purely for the sake of Hashem. Now let's analyze the akeidah. At the akeidah, there was nobody there. He went along with the two, his two people, who was Eliezer and Yishmael, but then when he got close, he told them to stay behind, and he went along only with Yitzchak. No one was there. No one would be able later to testify that he sacrificed his son because Hashem told him, and this is to prove a certain point. As a matter of fact, if he would sacrifice Yitzchak, it would hinder his mission in this world. Because he knew that who was the one that was going to continue to spread the word of Hashem in the world? He knew this would be given over to his son Yitzchak. He knew he couldn't rely on Yishmael, obviously. So he had one son, Yitzchak, and he was the one that was supposed to continue his work. And by slaughtering Yitzchak, this would stop his work. So not only would it not help him or his ideals, it would make it harder, this would make it worse. So there was nothing, nothing selfish in the akeidah. And therefore, the akeidah, which is the first act, the first act of real mesirut nefesh that we could see as mesirut nefesh, to the furthest extent, was the akeidah, that's why we make a fuss. Now, we're not saying, chas veshalom, that when Avraham Avinu was thrown into the furnace, he had ulterior motives, he had a selfish gain, we don't say that. But it's not seen. בגלוי, in a revealed way, you don't see it, because all you see is he was fighting for something and he allowed himself to be thrown into the furnace because of that fight. The first place where we see it, and after we see it by the akeidah, we understand probably it was the same way by Ur Kasdim, but since it was the first that you could see, the akeidah is the one that's considered the special one. And the mesirut nefesh that Yidden are able to have throughout all the generations, that they're able to give up their lives for Hashem for no ulterior motive, and the truth is so many tzadikim, and not even tzadikim, simple Jews gave up their lives not knowing, the truth is by a simple Jew, it's even more than by a tzadik. A tzadik who understands the greatness of what goes on in heaven, you could expect that when he goes on mesirut nefesh he knows what he's going to accomplish. But a simple Jew doesn't know much. So why did he do it? I know I'm a Jew and I have to do it, and that's all, he goes on mesirut nefesh. And all these other thoughts which might, you know, come in, they say that Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman, who was one of the big ליטווישע גדולים, he happened to be in America right before the war broke out. And they saw the war is breaking out, and they begged him to stay. He said, \"I'm not staying.\" He came to America to collect money for his yeshiva. He went back to Europe to his yeshiva, went back to the Holocaust. And people who survived the city where he was remembered that when the Nazis came in and they knew that that's the end of them, he gathered them all in the shul, and he said a speech, and he told them, he said, \"We are now on the verge of being korbanot, of being sacrificed to Hashem. Remember,\" he said, \"there's a din by a korban that a מחשבת חוץ makes it pasul. If there is a wrong thought at the time when you bring a korban\" in the בית המקדש, when you sacrifice a korban, if you have a wrong thought, the korban is pasul, it's invalid. Let us not make ourselves korbanot which are pasul. Don't have wrong thoughts in mind. What did he mean wrong thoughts? Wrong thoughts means that sometimes a person, when he's going on mesirat nefesh, he thinks, \"Well, no, after all, I'm going to be a hero. People will later talk about me.\" So as much as he's going on mesirat nefesh, but there is some selfishness involved that, \"I'll later on be considered something special. So there is still something that I will gain.\" Like they they say that once there was a person who שקצים started up with him, and then they wanted him to convert, whatever, and they were about to kill him, and then he was saved. So later he says, \"You know what happened right before I was killed? The yetzer hara came to me, and the yetzer hara said to me, 'You know what? Put on your tallit and tefillin when they kill you. So when they find you, when the Jews find your body, they'll say, 'Wow, this guy got killed in tallit and tefillin.'' Says that the yetzer hara said it to me to make me lose the mesirat nefesh, it should be some kind of selfish gain. But this these people, many, many yidden, hundreds and thousands who gave went on mesirat nefesh for no ulterior motive whatsoever. Where did they get the koach from this? Because this is something, as we said, beyond nature. It cannot be normally. It's from the neshamah, but this specific inyan says we have an inheritance from Avraham Avinu. Avraham Avinu was the first one. And where was he the first one that started this and that gave us the push? Where did we see it as being the first, and therefore this is the one, the one that you see is the one that has the effect, is the Akeidah. And that's why we make such a big fuss on the Akeidah.

This is connected to one more point I want to mention concerning the Akeidah along the same lines. I mentioned at the beginning the pasuk that when he finished with the Akeidah and he was leaving, Hashem said to him, \"כי עתה ידעתי,\" now I know, \"כי ירא אלקים אתה,\" now I know that you fear God. Now that you were ready to sacrifice your son, I know that you fear God. And Chassidus asks the obvious question: What do you mean \"now I know\"? The akeidah was the tenth test! There's so many tests he passed before. Those tests do not prove that he was a yerei Elokim, that he feared God? Now you know? And בכלל, Avraham Avinu, don't we know that he feared God, don't you know from his Didn't Hashem see everything he did? Why did he have to come onto the akeidah? So Chassidus answers based on a Gemara. The Gemara tells a story that Rav Chanina ben Teradyon, I mentioned his name before, he was the one that gathered people against the decree of the Romans and didn't care and finally was killed, but he taught Torah to thousands and thousands of Jews, Rav Chanina ben Teradyon once asked one of his friends, the other, one of the other חכמים, תנאים: \"מה אני לעולם הבא?\" What do you think, I will get עולם הבא? So he looks at him, he says, \"Well, can you think of something good that you did, then we'll see.\" So he thinks and thinks, and he says, \"Yeah, I remind myself something good I did.\" What did he do? Once he gathered money for Purim for the poor people, and there was some money left over, and he spent it on poor people and he used it for the right cause, etc., etc. So he listened to him, \"Oh, right, now I see you're going to have עולם הבא.\" So the Alter Rebbe asks a question, \"I don't understand. He went on mesirat nefesh all his life, taught Torah in the worst circumstances, that was not enough for him? That he still didn't know? They found out there's a story that he took the money and he gave the money to poor people, he did some extra chesed, that's the one that's going to lead him to עולם הבא?\" So the answer is like this: when a person does something and he could do it with the greatest, you know, feeling, you never know, this might be the nature of the person. So therefore, as great as it is, if that's your nature, you're doing it because that's what you would like, then there's really not mesirat nefesh. Now, Rav Chanina ben Teradyon said to his friend, \"I know I did all these great things, but I'm not sure, maybe I'm doing it because that's my nature. Maybe I'm the adventurous type, and I like adventure and there are people who take risks and do all kinds of things. Maybe that's why I did it. And if that's the reason, I won't really get עולם הבא, which means\" - he didn't care about עולם הבא, but it means, \"I didn't do it 100% the way I should.\" So he answered him, \"You're right, I taka don't know. Tell me a story, is there anything that you did which is of the opposite nature? This is the nature of gevurah, of strength, of adventure. Is there anything that you did in the nature of chesed? Then we know that you didn't do it because of your nature, because if you're doing it because of your nature, they all would be along the same line. Not opposite. So he said, \"Yes, there is something I think I did which is in the opposite side, the opposite קו.\" And when he told him, so he says, \"Now I know you will get the עולם הבא, not for that story only. This proves that your serving Hashem is not only with your nature.\" And the same thing with Avraham Avinu. We know Avraham Avinu did a lot of chesed, did a lot of great things. But what was not clear, maybe he did it because his nature was chesed. And the truth is, we must admit, Avraham's nature was chesed. It says Avraham represents the middah of chesed, of kindness. Yitzchak represents the middah of yirah, of fear, gevurah. And actually, Avraham's nature was chesed. His physical nature was chesed. Yitzchak's nature was gevurah. By the way, which just answers a question, we're starting we're going to learn Chayei Sarah next week, and there it says that Hashem made a miracle that Yitzchak looked like Avraham, because when Yitzchak was born, people said that is not his child, or said that Sarah became pregnant from Avimelech, she was taken by Avimelech, and it's not Avraham's child. So Hashem made a miracle that Yitzchak should look like Avraham, and everyone saw that he's his child. So the Rebbe asked a question, \"What kind of miracle is that? Many sons look like their fathers. So it's a miracle? It's normal that a child look like a father.\" So the Rebbe answers, \"You know why a child looks like a father? The looks of the person represent represent the quality qualities, the characteristics of the person. And usually the characteristics of a child are similar to his father, and therefore the face are like the father, or like the mother, but that's what it is. By Avraham and Yitzchak it couldn't be. If Avraham was chesed and Yitzchak was gevurah, so he automatically should not have looked like Avraham. And therefore there's a miracle he looked like Avraham.\" But the point I'm trying to get to that Avraham's nature was chesed. So therefore, as long as Avraham behaved with chesed, it still doesn't prove that Avraham really, really serving Hashem beyond his nature. Here, he came to do something which is a complete opposite. He was ready to kill somebody, and kill his own son for the sake of Hashem. That is not chesed. So when he was ready to serve Hashem with yirah, with gevurah, now Hashem said, \"Now this shows that what you did is not because that's your nature, but what you're doing is because you really want to serve me.\" And that's why he used the term עתה ידעתי, now I know, כי ירא אלוקים אתה, you fear Hashem, because till now he said, \"I know that you love Hashem.\" Chesed comes together with love. Gevurah comes together with yirah. Now I see you have the other side. Now that you have the other side, so obviously you're not doing it for the reason because that's your nature, but you're doing it for Hashem. Which fits into what we saying before, that the whole concept of the Akeidah was mesirat nefesh, not to do it for any selfish reason. And it doesn't mean a bad selfish reason. You could do things for a good selfish reason, but as long as it's selfish, as long as there is a little bit of myself involved, this is not the full-fledged mesirat nefesh that we're talking about a Yid. That could be done, l'havdil, by a goy also. Maybe not as great by a Yid, maybe, but it could be done. And there were good goyim, I gave the examples before of these terrible people, you had good goyim who sacrificed their lives, who put their lives online for good things. Even during the Holocaust there were some goyim who put their lives in the line to save Yidden. But still, they can't go out beyond nature, so they did it because, you know what, at at at best, it made them feel good, which is also for yourself. Like they say that once somebody was, there was a car accident and someone fell and person was bleeding, and someone ran over and helped the person up. So later they asked him, \"Why did you do this?\" He said, \"You know, I did it because I just can't stand blood.\" Which is good, but why did he do it? Not because he cared for the person. He can't stand blood. Or you could say, \"I can't stand when someone suffers,\" which we wish every person would be like that, but if you look at the ultimate level, it's because I can't stand that someone is suffering. It's me. The ultimate level is, nothing to do with me. The right thing to do, Hashem wants me to save this person, and I couldn't care for my nothing for myself. And that's the chidush of the Akedah, and this is the first thing that happened that way, and that's why it's so special, and that's why whenever we daven, we ask Hashem, \"Remember the Akedah,\" because there's such a zechut that something that is beyond the nature of the world. And that was transferred to all of us, and because of that Hashem accepts our tefilot, and we hope he does, and answers all our tefilot and gives us everything that we need.