אמר ליה ההוא גוזאה לרבי יהושע בן קרחה מהכא לקרחינא כמה הוי. Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha was called that way because he was bald. So, this guy wanted to make fun of him, and this guy is called a גוזא. גוזא means a סריס. How does a סריס in English? Eunuch. A what? Eunuch. A eunuch. Didn't you just say in the Haftarah? I know, but I was thinking of Hey, this isn't English, hey? So, he didn't have a beard, he didn't have a his So, he wanted him But that's why he's called גוזא. So, he turns around to Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha and he makes a joke, and he says, מהכא לקרחינא כמה הוי? From here to the baldness is how far? What it first of all, what it means is there was a city called Karchina. But Karchina comes from the same shoresh as the word קרח. קרח is bald. So, he says, \"How far does How long does it take to get from here to Karchina?\" But he meant to shtechen saying, you know, \"You're bald.\" אמר ליה, so he said to him, כי מהכא לגוזינא. You know he's a סריס, he's a What's the word again? Eunuch. Eunuch, that's right. There was a city called Gozina. So, he said, \"You know how far from here to Karchina? Like from here to Gozina.\" So, he shteched him back, you know, he gave him the same in the way he said. That's the way they joke in those days. Yeah.

אמר ליה מינא, a a a מין, a כופר, said to רבי יהושע בן קרחה, ברחא קרחא בארבע. You know, if you have a sheep that doesn't have any wool on it, that's bald, charge four dollars for it. Again, he wanted to express, you know, he called him Karchina, he's bald, \"You're bald.\" אמר ליה, עקירה שליפה בתמניא. But you know, yeah you're right, but if you have a sheep that has that is made in such a way that says that the ביצים are picked out, whatever, they're mimela they won't can't do any it can't The bottom line it's it's it's more expensive. So, he says, \"You know, you're telling me that is worth four, a sheep a sheep that doesn't can't have any children, can't have any calves, that's worth eight.\" So, he shteched him back, you know, \"You're telling me this,\" he gave him back the same the same לשון. How is it shteching by telling him he's better? It wasn't the What you think he meant to say, \"Four maybe four is also good, four is better than three.\" He meant to mention to him, mention fix. But our point is, so he says, he was saying, \"I'll tell you what you are.\"

חזייה דלא מסיים מסאני, he saw that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Korcha did not wear shoes. Now, why didn't he wear shoes? Could be it was Tisha B'Av. Maybe it was Yom Kippur. But he didn't wear shoes. אמר ליה, so that this מין says to him like this, דעל סוס מלך, if you see someone riding a horse, I know he's a king. דעל חמור, if someone is riding a donkey, he is a בן חורין, so he's a free person. דמנעלי ברגליה, someone who has shoes on his feet, בר אינש, he's a mensch. דלא הא ודלא הא, someone doesn't have not this not he's not riding anything and he's and he does he's walking and he's walking without shoes, דחפיר וקביר טב מיניה, somebody who's dug and buried in the ground is better than him. In other words, you're worthless. אמר ליה, so he says to him like this, גוזא גוזא, he was, again, he was the סריס. He says, \"Listen here, תלת אמרת לי, you told me three things: on a horse, on a חמור, and and wearing shoes, and I I don't have any of these, so you told me three things, תלת אמינא לך, I'll tell you three things, too. הדרת פנים זקן, the beauty of the face is the beard. That's one thing. This guy didn't have a beard. שמחת לב, what's the happiness of the heart? אשה, a wife. נחלת ה' בנים, what's the נחלת ה'? Children. And basically, he was saying, 'You don't have any of these three things. ברוך המקום שמנע לאיש זה מכולם. Thank God that He didn't allow you to have any of these three things.\" Huh? Not a goy, a min. A min, it shouldn't be a goy. אמר ליה, so he said, קרחא מציונא. \"Oh,\" like he's saying, \"You're a sharp guy, you're a sharp you're a sharp baldy.\" אמר ליה, so he said, עקירה שליפה תוכיח. In other words, so he said to him, \"You came to get me angry, so you deserve it. It's not that I'm stam sharp, I'm Like we say in 'Oh, you tshepe with me, so I'm tshepe with you. You started up, you came started, mimila, I'm answering you like this.\" אמר ליה רבי לרבי שמעון בן חלפתא, Rabbi said to רבי שמעון בן חלפתא, מפני מה לא קבלנו פניך ברגל? \"Why didn't we come to מקבל פנים you ברגל?\" He meant to say farkert. \"Why didn't you come to me for Yom Tov?\" It's a din that you have to be מקבל פני רבו ברגל. Yom Tov, you have to go and see your Rabbi. \"So, why didn't you come and see כדרך שהגבילו אבותי לסביך, like my fathers did to your fathers,\" which means farkert, the way your father fathers did to my fathers. Why didn't you come to me? In other words, Rabbi was the נשיא, so his father was also the נשיא, Rabban Gamliel, so he said, \"Your fathers came to my fathers, so why didn't you come to me?\" אמר ליה, so he said to him like this: סלעים נעשו גבעים, small little mountains became big mountains, right? In other words, for me to go, so I'm old, to cross was very easy. Now the mountain became I get old, basically, the המשך to the Gemara before we were saying when you become old, what happens to you. So the small one became big. קרובים נעשו רחוקים, areas which before were short, close, became far. משתים נעשה שלשה, from two feet became three. I need a stick now. Now I can't walk with my two feet, I have to have a third foot, have a stick. משים שלום בבית בטל, the part of me that brings peace to the house doesn't work anymore. That means he says he can't have any children, he can't have any relations, so that is בטל. What he meant to say was, \"I'm old, so it's I can't come to you because I'm old.\" It's true this way, takeh azoy, when it's hard for you to walk, it's like children. Children, small things look big. Same when you get old, you come back, you know? It's a circle, you come back in the same way. I remember when I was a kid in Paris, remember we lived in a building in Madan, that's where all the ליובאוויטשער lived, and across the street was the hospital, and it was a big, gigantic street in the middle. I remember it was a big street. About 30, 70 years ago, no, 60 years ago, my kids were learning in France, I went I went there, and I wanted to see that building. I came to Madan, the street is like clear, like clearly a guess like a small street, but in my mind, remember it as a big street. Same when we lived in Cleveland, I remember I was living in a house, and across the street was a big, big street, a main street, a big street, and across it was a building, because I even remember some maaseh from the Rebbe that it was a bakery, a kosher bakery across the street, and my uncle Rav Itche went to buy the bakery, and this was almost, the deal was almost done, and he asked the Rebbe, and the Rebbe answered not to buy it. Didn't understand why. Two days later, there was a big fire. I remember the fire across the street, and the whole thing got burned, and he wouldn't have had insurance, because if he had bought it, he Anyway, but I remember the street to be a big street. So I came back not long ago, a street, a small street, it's It's as small? Huh? To me, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly, I went the same thing, I went, yeah, like a huge bedroom, and it's nothing, it's a It's tiny, yeah, but when you're a kid, and it's And the same thing happens when you get older. When you get older, things which are really close, become Far, huh? Got small, you bend down, yeah, all these things. You lose your teeth, that means like you were born without teeth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And just like kids get angry very fast, when you're older that's everything your nerves, you don't have no patience, and you right away you get angry. Anyway, yeah, then he's quoting more pesukim. We've quoted before the pesukim that Shlomo Hamelech says you'd better do teshuvah, you'd better do good deeds when you're still young. Don't wait till you're gonna get old. The emet is if you didn't do it before, you do it when you're older, it's also mitkabel. We just learned it in the Rambam הלכות תשובה, I don't know if yesterday. No, not yesterday, Friday. So there's more pesukim, and he דרשנ׳ט many pesukim where he gives meshalim, says expressions which refers to what happens when you get old. All kinds, this happens, that happens, like your grinders don't work. What is grinders? The teeth, a mashal. So here he says more, there's more to it. וסגרו דלתים בשוק, that the doors in the in the in the שוק, in the in the marketplace get closed. What does that mean? אלו נקביו של אדם, these are the place, the the empty space, the the places where supposed to be a hole, like we say in אשר יצר, if it closes up it That's when you get old, these places, so these doors close up. בשפל קול הטחנה, it means it So it says that the the קול הטחנה, קול of the grinding becomes weaker. What is that? בשביל קורקבן שאינו טוחן. The קורקבן is the the The stomach. The stomach, the right, a certain part of the stomach which digests, and it doesn't work anymore. When you get older, it stops digesting. ויקום לקול הצפור, you get up for the voice of the bird, that means שאפילו צפור מנערתו משנתו, even if it's a bird that makes a little, how much does a bird make noise? When you get older, it wakes you up. When you're young, you sleep as a Young people, they could sleep. Some guys could sleep for pretty long time, and nothing will wake them up, to get them up to say the Chassidus. Oh, you've got to work very hard. You've got You have a crane, but when you get older, one little small noise already wakes you up. וישחו כל בנות השיר, שאפילו קול שרים ושרות דומים עליו כשיחה. וישחו כל בנות השיר, that this the shirah the song becomes like a talk. Even the the nice songs, which are always, you know, you like, that it's a song, it's this. But you get older, it also all sounds like like a person is talking and it doesn't give you any pleasure. Huh? You don't hear them, it's not Yeah. It's not that where you can't hear, you can't you can't differentiate between Your ears don't work, but all I hear hearing the words. אף Barzilai Hagiladi אמר לדוד, Barzilai Hagiladi said this to David. Barzilai Hagiladi was somebody who helped David when he ran away from Avshalom. Avshalom, so he gave him food. So later on, David told him he was a גוי, David told him, \"You know, you're living here. Come to, I owe you something. Come to my palace, and I'll feed you, you'll live with me, you'll live in that area.\" I mean, so he wanted to help him. And he didn't want to go. And he said, \"Where am I going to go? בן שמונים שנה אנכי היום. I'm 80 years old. האדע בין טוב לרע, do I know the difference between good and bad?\" Which and he says further, \"Even if I'll taste, what am I going to happen? I'm going to go to you, you'll give me money, you'll give me good food, you think I'll take the difference of good food? I'm 80 years old, I don't taste the difference.\" So he had, how will I know the difference between good and bad? מכאן שדעתן של זקנים משתנית. It shows that the mind of the old people get changed, that they don't really know what they used to know is good and bad, now they don't realize it. אם יטעם, and the שאלה is at what age do you have to reach this? Some people had no feeling get older. Here it says 80, others 90. Well nowadays, I think it's everything is pushed off. A bowl, a 70 year old man, altite, now 95, it's 80s are the new 60s. Huh? The 80s are the new 60s. We have drugs nowadays that can help out all the Yeah, for us the medicine and then the the the the doctors. Anyway, so he said That shows simply, said, \"I'm 80 years old. Now I don't know the difference between good and bad.\" That means that it changes. And he said, \"אם יטעם עבדך את אשר אוכל ואת אשר אשתה, and if I'll taste what you'll give me to eat and what you'll give me to drink, if I don't know the difference, if it tastes good or not, מכאן, from here we see ששפתיהם של זקנים מתרפות מתרפות, that the lips of the זקנים crack. You don't feel it. Then he said further, \"ואם אשמע עוד בקול שרים ושרות, and if I'll hear the voice of others, will I know שרים ושרות?\" I mean, it's from the people, or the songs, or from the officers, whatever pshat we learned. \"So, you think I'll know the difference?\" מכאן שאזניהם של זקנים מכבידות, it shows that the ears of the old people get weak, and you can't hear. So, this is shows that he said the same thing that we learned before in Kohelet. אמר Rava, Rava said, ברזילי הגלעדי שיקרא הוה, that Barzilai HaGiladi lied. Why? He claimed that since I'm 80 years old, so now I don't taste the food. Not true. דההיא אמתא, there was this maid, דהוה בי רבה, she was in the house of Rabbi, בת תשעים ותרתין שנין, she was 92 years old, those years were. והוה טעמא כסא דקדרא, she used to taste the food, she used to cook and taste if it's good or not. So, you mean to say to 80 years old, you can't feel the taste? So, the Gemara answered, Rava, Rava said, \"It's not a re'ayah. Barzilai, he wasn't lying. ברזילי הגלעדי שטוף בזמה הוה. He was involved in in in זנות. וכל השטוף בזמה, he quickly gets it all off. If you're involved in זנות, that makes it, because the Rambam does it, suck it. One of the מקורות is this Gemara. That the more you do it, it gets you older. And it gets you sicker. It is, I don't know what it is. Yakar, says it. The energy is the Rambam use this lashon, that a 1,000 people will die, 990 and one dies out of a this of a disease, and 999 die because of too much, so much זנות. זאגט די Gemara ווייטער, תניא, we learned a braita, Rabbi Yishmael bar Rabbi Yosei, Rabbi Yishmael bar Rabbi Yosei says, תלמידי חכמים כל זמן שמזקינים, as long as they get older, חכמה נתווספת בהם, they get smarter. שנאמר, it says, בישישים חכמה. A ישיש, he's an old person, has חכמה. ואורך ימים, that you have a long years, תבונה, you understand. ועמי הארץ, כל זמן שמזקינים, טיפשות נתווספת בהם. עמי הארץ, the older they get, they get stupider. שנאמר, it says, מסיר שפה לנאמנים וטעם זקנים יקח. It says that the that the Eibershter takes away the טעם of the זקנים. Now, the truth is, it doesn't say in this פסוק that it talks about עם הארץ. Actually, it didn't say in the previous פסוק it talks about תלמידי חכמים, but the Gemara has understood that since we find two פסוקים, one פסוק says you get smarter, one פסוק gets stupider, so, which one is a סתירה. Must be we're talking about two different types, so, it's אפשר, what does that mean? תלמידי חכמים get smarter, and they get stupider. So, the famous story with the Rogatchover, you know the famous story he said. There was once a אסיפה of רבנים with a lot of גדולי ישראל there, and he was there, too. They had a whole discussion, who should speak first? So, the Rogatchover says, \"One thing I know for sure. Any of you All of you guys should speak first before me. I have to speak last.\" So, they said, \"Why?\" So, he said, \"Because זקני עם הארץ, you know, the old עם הארצים, their mind, the older they get, they get worse. They get they get worse. So, you guys better start speaking earlier, so you shouldn't get so bad. זקני תלמידי חכמים, the older you get, the better it is, so I have to speak the last, because I So, you see, I I should If I speak later, I'm going to be smarter.\" Anyway, so he quoted this Gemara. Anavah. Huh? No anavah. Yeah, no, he he meant it He was very sharp. Very sharp, and to him everyone's an עם הארץ. I mean the truth is, compared to him, everyone was, but he the כול everybody who came to him and spoke to him he he was מבטל everybody. He was מבטל the אחרונים. Not the Alter Rebbe, not the Tzemach Tzedek. What? הקול. I mean, what for the for the for the פריעדיקער רבי, for the Rav Shach, ...he had גרויסע דרך ארץ, but בכלל everybody else, everyone spoke, anyone asked him a she'elah, he's an עם הארץ, he didn't know. R'' Menachem Zemba came to speak to him. Menachem was a yungerman, a very young man. He died, he was a young man, he died in the Warsaw Ghetto, and he came, and he was a big gaon. So when he walked out, the Rogatchover turns out to some people, \"א, דער פוילישער קען עפעס לערנען.\" This פוילישער guy, he קען עפעס לערנען, you know. He didn't mean to get angry, but it just he his mind was so strong. No, he couldn't take if somebody said something that was קרום. He pushed, he couldn't take it. He would scream and either he would turn the guy, you know. But even the Acharonim. And the Gra he spoke, ooh, things. Because he said, \"דער מיזש קען לערנען, no?\" He said on He said on that the Hagaot HaGra on the Gemara, so he said, \"ער לענקע (he was a ilui), ער לענקע נישט געוואוסט קיין פשט אין דער גמרא, פארפאטשקעט די גמרא.\" He didn't know the peshat in the Gemara, so he made הגהות. Yeah, he spoke on him... but the Gra was the גאון הדור, but he, but he saw him, he, he saw him, you know, he was The only ones really he spoke of the Rishonim was the Rambam and Rashi, and these are the ones. But Acharonim, he didn't even look, כמעט he didn't look. I mean, he knew them, but he didn't, you know, and to him it was... Huh? No! Pshh, sure, never! So, I heard from Rabbi' Zalman Shimon, he once went to visit him, a group of bachurim came to the Rebbe in Leningrad, תרצ\"ו, תרצ\"ז, I mean, which is 1937, 36. So once he came, a group of bachurim came to him. So there's ליובאוויטשער בחורים, with other בחורים, ליובאוויטשער בחורים, when they've come, \"Who are you? תמימים! תמימים, קומט אריין!\" He used to mechabed them very much, yeah. So when they walked in once, they heard him talking against the Tzemach Tzedek, terrible things. So yeah, Tzemach Tzedek. He said, \"I'm talking about the other Tzemach Tzedek.\" There's a an earlier Tzemach Tzedek, Teshuvot Tzemach Tzedek. His name was also Menachem Mendel, but this was about 150 years before the Tzemach Tzedek, the ישן, not about this Tzemach Tzedek. So everybody was started talking about those guys, no one knows how to learn. So they asked him, \"What about the Alter Rebbe?\" So Rabbi' Zalman Shimon told me he didn't understand why he used these terms, this is what he said, \"דער אלטער רבי? איך האב ברוך השם גארנישט וואס צו זאגן. ער איז געווען א א גאון, א פילאסאף.\" \"א Gaon, א filosof? A gaon, a philosopher,\" he says, that's the expression he used. Now, I believe what he means, a gaon, the maalah of the Rogatchover was his abstract thinking. He thought deep into the inyanim, not stam, you know, everything was with with with נקודה'ס, various deep. And the אלטער רבי the same way, that's what he understood in the אלטער רבי, in a פילאסאף. No, the Alter Rebbe! Oh, whose? Yeah, and a פילאסאף. No, but I think even in his lamdut, because the Rogatchover, his lamdut went in the form of philosophy. His whole lamdut he took the נקודה'ס of inyanim the way it's an abstract thinking. So he said of the Alter Rebbe, \"A gaon, a פילאסאף.\" Then they asked him, \"What about the Mitteler Rebbe?\" So he doesn't know, because the Mitteler Rebbe didn't write in nigleh. \"Aber according to what he wrote in chassidut, I see that he was must have had such a great brain that he must have had a a artery or a vein in his brain that was thick as a finger, otherwise you couldn't think so deep,\" he said. So, because the Frierdiker Rebbe he was מתפעל, he was מכבד the The Frierdiker Rebbe as well. He was older than the Frierdiker Rebbe. The Frierdiker Rebbe when he got sick, the year he became Rebbe, he got very, very sick. He sent He sent him Ask a beracha from the Rogatchover. The Rogatchover gave a whole answer on in nigleh why he's sick. So he gave him also semicha then, right? Who, the Frierdiker Rebbe? The Rebbe gives, the Rebbe gives semicha. Rebbe gives, that's his derech. So he he said, he wrote the whole thing up in nigleh and bring all kinds of ראיות that when you change from one position to another, there has to be a a birur in the middle. Since you became Rebbe, he told him, so you need so a birur to

go through, I mean, whatever. But someone eats Who told me this? Maybe it was R'' Zalman Shimon, also. Someone who was there. They once came into his house and he was in He finished davenen. He davend very fast, you know. He couldn't stay in. He helped cover it. So, he finished davenen and his wife was going to give him something to eat. All of a sudden, someone came and says that the Rebbe, the Frierdiker Rebbe is calling him, because in in Leningrad, they were both there. So he right away grabs his coat to run. So the Rebbetzin says, \"You have to eat. Gornisht gegeten, you didn't eat anything.\" So she said, \"Good, give.\" So she gave him some smetene, some sour cream, and he was half half hand one hand was in the coat, the other hand he was standing with one foot, eating it, so she said, \"Walk politely.\" So she said, \"אז דער נשיא הדור רופט, דארף מען גיין.\" Yeah, she said, \"אז דער נשיא הדור רופט,\" and this was the Frierdiker Rebbe. But the Frierdiker Rebbe, seeing his thing was nigleh, the Frierdiker Rebbe didn't show anything in nigleh, you didn't see. He was a gaon olam, but no one saw, and still he understood he You'll probably find, the ones that Lubavitch wrote about, the most, you know, you'll find these. Somebody heard it from them, so R'' Efraim Fishel went to visit him in I can tell you this, one thing he said, it's funny, one thing he said, they

once came to him, bachurim came, Lubavitch, he says, \"וואס האט איר געקומען? Where are you going to...\" So he said to him, \"We came here to the Rebbe, to Leningrad.\" So he said, \"Again, to the Rebbe in Leningrad or to Leningrad to the Rebbe?\" He said, \"What's the difference?\" There are 18 differences in halachah which way you say it. \"I'll tell you one, און די אנדערע ברעכט זיך אליין די קאפ,\" so he says. And he told him one. So it says if you have a עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה, if you come to the Rebbe the Or Zarua holds that you're the whole time you're there you're עוסק במצוה, you're patur from all the mitzvot. If you came to the Rebbe, the Rebbe happens to be in Leningrad, so you're patur from mitzvot the whole time. If you came to Leningrad, אלא מאי the Rebbe is in, then you're not patur. And there's more 17 more differences, ברעכט זיך אליין די קאפ.