The subject is the comparison between the Mussar movement and the Chassidic movement and their connection to Kabbalah, the mystical aspects of the Torah, the comparison and their differences. Now first, just a few words for the history. We know that the founder of the Chassidic movement was the holy Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, who was born a little bit over 300 years ago, just to give you an idea which period it was. And the Mussar movement started and was about the same time, but later on it was revived again about 150 years ago by this great rabbi called Rabbi Yisrael Salanter. And they are they are two separate movements that are trying to reach the same goal. And that is actually the similarity between the two. They're pointing towards the same direction, but nevertheless they are different because the approach is different. They're going on this to the same direction, but through different roads. But before we get to explain the difference between the approach of the Chassidic movement and the approach of the Mussar movement, which basically is the difference between the philosophy of the Mussar movement and the philosophy of the Chassidic movement, I want to first explain why is there a need for for Mussar or for Chassidus? These are two movements within the Orthodox community, the ultra-Orthodox community, the people who are most observant, people who study the Torah and do the mitzvot. So what else do they need? Why do they need such a movement or a philosophy of Chassidus? Or why would you need a philosophy of Mussar? We know a Jew who wants to live like a Jew is obligated to study the Torah that was given to us by God at Mount Sinai, is obligated to keep the mitzvot, to fulfill all the commandments. And when you do that, you're a good Jew and you have done what is expected of you, you have fulfilled your mission. What is this that there is a movement, a philosophy within the Jewish community called Chassidim, Chassidus, the Chassidic philosophy, the Mussar philosophy, which is not the actual keeping of the mitzvot and the learning of the Torah? There is no difference between the movements which mitzvot to do. Everyone puts on the same tefillin, everyone keeps the same Shabbos, we all study the same Torah, we study the same Chumash, the same Neviim, the same Mishnayot, the same Talmud, the same Rambam. So what is this that we have this Chassidic philosophy and this Mussar philosophy? So I would like to spend some time to explain that first and then we'll go to the step of seeing the difference between the two. This is actually the similarity, that they both have something in common. There is a need for something besides the just dry, as we would call it, dry study of the Torah, of the Talmud, or of the Chumash, and the dry keeping of the mitzvot. Besides the actual learning and doing the mitzvot, what's expected is that the mitzvot should influence the Jew. It should have an influence on the character of the person. The person should be changed through the learning Torah and doing mitzvot. The Midrash says, לא ניתנו המצוות אלא לצרף בהן את הבריות, the mitzvot were given in order to elevate, to purify, to make better the people. So when we do mitzvot, it's not enough just the actual doing of the mitzvah, the dry fulfillment of the commandment, but it has to have an effect to change the character of the person. When we study Torah, it's not enough just to study a Mishnah which deals with an ox gored a cow, and what is the halachah, what is the law, which is part of the Torah, it is the wisdom of God, but it is also supposed to have an effect on the character, on the person. Once somebody mentioned to the previous Rebbe, to the Frierdiker Lubavitcher Rebbe, and he said to him about a certain person that this person learned the whole Shas. He learned the entire Talmud, er hot gelernt gantz Shas. So the Frierdiker Rebbe replied, un vos hot Shas im gelernt? He learned the whole Shas, but what did the Shas teach him? In Yiddish it sounds better because the word learning means to learn and to teach. So he said he learned the whole Shas, what did the whole Shas learn him, meaning what did the Shas teach him? Because when you learn Torah, it's not enough just to get the information that you have, but you also have to have the influence that the Torah gives. But the truth is that being that the Torah is so holy, the mitzvot are so holy, the Torah is the wisdom of Hashem, the mitzvot are the will of God, so automatically it has an influence on the person and it must have a spiritual effect on the person person because you're involved in spiritual matters. But nevertheless, we don't necessarily feel it because we're not learning and dealing with these spiritual matters, we're dealing with physical things. Even though we know that these physical things contain spirituality because they are the Torah of Hashem and the mitzvot of Hashem, but we don't really feel it. Using the terminology of Kabbalah, it's only in a form of מקיף, only surrounds the person, superficial, but it doesn't go into פנימיות, so it doesn't really influence the person. We have to have something else, something that we have to study in a certain behavior that will help the person get the proper influence from the mitzvot that he does and from the Torah that he learns. Besides that, the nature of a human being is that he is pulled more to physicality than to spirituality. We are physical human beings, and therefore we are pulled to physical things faster than to spiritual things, which basically this is the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, which is not necessarily is evil, but it's something that pulls you to more to גשמיות. And therefore, even if a person does mitzvot, who knows how long this will last? We need something, a certain force to help us make sure, to guarantee that we will continue doing mitzvot. Because naturally, why should a person do a mitzvah which is an act that has no natural physical explanation? Why should somebody wake up in the morning, take a leather box with leather straps and strap it around his head? That's not normal. It's a spiritual act, but physically we don't feel it. So therefore, even if a person is involved, we never know whether this is going to last. This might pull a person, the yetzer hara, the evil inclination as we call it, the pull that one has to physicality might pull him away and you're never guaranteed it's going to continue. We need something to study. There has to be a certain idea to teach the person that will keep him going that he is going to continue. Otherwise, he will be pulled away because גשמיות and the world out there has this power of pulling a person away from spirituality. And that's why we need something in addition to the dry, as we call it, learning of the Torah and doing of the mitzvot. Basically, what it means really is that a person has to have the proper יראת שמים, the proper fear of God. And by just studying the Talmud, which has, as I said before, it definitely has a spiritual influence, but we don't feel it, so the יראת שמים, the fear of God, is not necessarily brought into the person. And that's very important. There's a pasuk that says ראשית חכמה יראת השם, the beginning of חכמה, the beginning of wisdom, is the fear of God. So that's the beginning of all. The end of all is also the fear of God, as the pasuk says סוף דבר, the end of everything, הכל נשמע את האלקים ירא, that you have to fear God. And that's a feeling that you're supposed to have. It's not an act, it's a feeling. So when you do the mitzvot, it's possible unfortunately to do a mitzvah and not have the proper feeling of yirat shamayim, of fear of God. It's possible for a person to study the Torah, which is the word of God, and nevertheless not to have the proper yirat shamayim. Because after all, when you study the Torah, anybody who studied Talmud knows that there's a lot of depth in it, there's a lot of wisdom and knowledge in it, so a person might just do it because it's very interesting, and it's much deeper and more interesting, and it has a lot more of knowledge and understanding than other types of sciences. So a person will want to do that, not because of yirat shamayim, and that's a problem. That's not the way a person is supposed to learn Torah and do mitzvot. But if you just stick to the dry learning and the dry mitzvot, you might be missing this yirat shamayim. The Talmud gives us a parable of a person who told his friend, can you bring me down a bushel of wheat from the attic? And in those days, in order to preserve the wheat, they would have to put in a certain herb which was called חומטין, a little bit of חומטין. So the Talmud says he asked him to bring him down a bushel of wheat, and when he brought him the bushel of the wheat, he said to him, עירבת בה קב חומטין? Did you mix the קב חומטין, a little bit of חומטין, into this bushel? And he said to him, if you did, fine. If you didn't, better that you wouldn't have brought me the bushel. And the Talmud says that this קב חומטין is the yirat shamayim. If you bring the bushel, which is the Torah and the mitzvot, and you have that yirat shamayim, you have that fear of God when you study the Torah and do the mitzvot, fine. If not, we're missing the point. Not, God forbid, that a person should stop learning because of that or not do the mitzvot, but you're missing that point of having that yirat shamayim in learning. That's something we have to have. It's interesting, the Rebbe once explained, why is it that the Torah starts with a beit. בראשית ברא אלקים, in the beginning God created heaven and earth, starts with a beit. It would have been appropriate if the Torah would have started with an alef. The beginning of the Torah is the first, the first letter is an alef, it should start with an alef. And in the Yerushalmi and different places it gives different reasons. One of the reasons is because the letter alef is an abbreviation of the Hebrew word ארור, which means cursed. The beit is the abbreviation of the Hebrew word ברוך, so we'd rather start with a beit. But this needs further explanation, because after all, we could find words which are with a positive meaning that starts with an alef, and words with a negative meaning that starts with a beit. So the Rebbe says there is a much deeper explanation here. When we go to learn Torah, we have to remember that the actual studying of the text is the second step. That's the beit. Beit means two. We have to remember that there is a step before that. What is that? Yirat Shamayim. That before we even get to study the Torah, we have to have an alef, the first step, and that is the Yirat Shamayim. And therefore when we start learning, we start with the beit, that's the second step. It's interesting that the Talmud, if you have ever opened a volume of the Talmud, it starts, every masechta, every tractate starts with page beit, not with alef. What happened to the alef? Now, could be it was an error of the printer and that's how it stayed, but everything is with Divine Providence, so obviously it was God's will that it should start with a beit. And the reason is, because to teach us that when you sit down to study the Talmud, you're already supposed to be holding at the level beit, at the second stage, because before that you're supposed to have the Yirat Shamayim, that fear of God, that feeling of kedushah, of holiness. You have to have that approach to the Torah that the Torah is holy, and if you have that feeling before you start, then the study itself will be in a holier way. And the same is with mitzvot. When we get to the mitzvot, we have to keep in mind before we do a mitzvah that this is a holy act that we're going to do. We get so used to it that we just do it out of habit. So we have to remember that. What do we do to remember that? That's where we need something in addition to the mere fact that we're going to study Torah and we're going to do a mitzvah. Something else that will inject within us, some kind of study, some kind of philosophy that will inject within us that feeling of Yirat Shamayim, that proper feeling that we're supposed to have in the Torah u'mitzvot, which will help us guarantee ourselves that we will never stop and continue doing it. And this is the way that we will have the proper influence that the Torah and the mitzvot is supposed to have on us, on our character. And that's where we have these two ways: the דרך המוסר, the movement of mussar, the דרך החסידות. They both came to fill this need, the need of something that will help a Jew have the proper feeling and approach to Torah u'mitzvot, and it'll help him stick to it and give him the proper Yirat Shamayim that he's supposed to have when he does Torah u'mitzvot. So they both came to fill this need. But their approach is different. And that's where they separate. That's the difference between the two. But first, I just want to mention that the דרך, the movement of chasidut is really an offshoot of the movement of Kabbalah. When the Baal Shem Tov established the Hasidic movement, it wasn't something new that he did. Just a little bit of the background. We know that the biggest mekubal, the greatest cabalist, was the Arizal, the holy Ari. The Arizal opened a yeshiva where they studied Kabbalah. And even though Kabbalah are considered the secrets of the Torah and they're called סוד, the secrets of the Torah, but the Arizal writes that in his time, they should not be a secret anymore. In his time, the secrets of Torah should be revealed. מצוה לגלות זאת החכמה, it's a mitzvah. Actually, the Arizal writes it's a mitzvah to reveal this wisdom, the secrets of the Torah. And he had a successor, a talmid called Rav Eliyahu Baal Shem, who continued and expanded the yeshiva. And he had a student called Rabbi Yoel Baal Shem. And he had a student called Rav Adam Baal Shem. And Rav Adam Baal Shem had a student called Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov. And Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem Tov formed the Hasidic movement as a continuation to the Kabbalah movement. And we all know that there was a great position to the Baal Shem Tov when he formed the Chassidic movement, but it wasn't something new. It was really a continuation of those people who opposed the learning of Kabbalah generations before. So really the derech of Chassidus is a continuation of Kabbalah. The derech of Mussar, the Mussar movement, also has some Kabbalah in it, but it is not an offshoot or a continuation of this קבלה דרך. It is a little bit different, and it has a different approach, and it is not really following 100% the derech, the way of Kabbalah.

And let's get to the point. What is the difference that we're talking about? So let me tell you. We know that human behavior and in Torah and Yiddishkeit in particular, we find two aspects. And they're brought out very well in the few words that the פסוק says, סור מרע ועשה טוב, turn away from the bad, from the evil, and do good. And they're both important. We have to work on getting rid of any bad trait that we have or anything bad that might be, and we also have to do good, get all good things within us. The question is which approach is stressed. The derech of Mussar, the movement of Mussar, mainly stresses the סור מרע, mainly stresses the idea of staying away from evil. And it stresses, it comes to a person, if you look at the sefarim, the books written by the leaders of the Mussar movement, it stresses mainly the idea of how bad things could be if a person does not learn Torah. It tells us how terrible it is if a person does not do mitzvot, what kind of punishment a person could get if a person doesn't do a mitzvah or does an aveirah. And it goes on to describe the different levels of Gehennom and the different things that might happen to a person. And this actually will awaken a person to get better. We said before, a person could do mitzvot just out of habit and loses the feeling. Thinking about this these things could bring a person to get the feeling, yes, we have to get close to Hashem. It brings a person to yirat shamayim. But it's done through a way of describing, stressing the negative, how things could be negative. And therefore, those people who followed Kabbalah years before, now we don't find so many people behaving that way, their behavior was based on fastings. People would fast a lot. People would do sigufim. Sigufim means self-afflicting pain, and the reason was very sensible. After all, what is the problem? Why is it possible for me not to have the proper feeling towards Hashem? It's my body that's bothering, it's the physicality that I have. That's why I don't see the truth. So you know what we should do? Let's break it! Fast, let your body not be strong, afflict yourself with pain. And if that will happen, then your body will not stand in the way from your getting close to God and getting that feeling. That's what they said. And even when we look into the מוסר ספרים that deal with תכונות הנפש, with human characteristic, human traits, mainly what it stresses is that in human beings we find bad traits, and we have to fix it, we have to make it good, we have to change it. But it delves into the evil part of the person, while the derech of Chassidut stresses the עשה טוב, the good. In Chassidut we learn full, most of the books, the sefarim of Chassidut, describe the greatness of God, the unity of God, the truth of God. It describes at length the truth of Torah, the truth of mitzvot, how good it is to do a mitzvah, how good it is to learn Torah, what rewards we get when we do a mitzvah. It doesn't stress that much, very little, how terrible it is to do an aveirah. It mentions it, too, but the main thing is how good it is to do a mitzvah, what powers a Jew has, powers of the neshamah, of his holy soul, and powers of the body. Chassidut stresses very much the holiness of a Jewish body. The physical Jewish body is holy, and Chassidut explains it. The neshamah is so great. A neshamah is a חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש. A neshamah is actually part of God, imagine! It goes into detail to explain, based on the terminology of Kabbalah, the importance and the greatness and the holiness of a neshamah. The neshamah, it says, using the term of Tanya, which is the foundation, the the the main sefer, the main book which is the fundamental philosophy of Chassidut, and there it says a neshamah is a חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, part of God of above, mamash. You know what the word mamash means? The word mamash has a contradiction. Mamash means ממשות. ממשות means tangible. Physicality is called ממשות. So the word mamash means physical, tangible. On the other hand, we say that the neshamah is mamash part of Hashem. Mamash means really, really. So it's really part of God. Part of God is really spiritual, not ממשות. What he's trying to tell us in Tanya is that even when the neshama is in the mamash, you have the neshama the way it's up in higher worlds, in heaven before it comes down, then the neshama comes down to mamash, into the body. While the neshama is in mamash, it's חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש. It's really part of God. It's part of God not only before it it descends to this world, after it descends to this world it's part of God. That's what Chassidus tells us and gives a Jew this understanding of what the neshama is. To get a little bit Kabbalistic, I don't know how many of you studied Kabbalah or how far you went, but we learn in Kabbalah that there are four worlds: אצילות, בריאה, יצירה and עשיה. Our world is called עשיה הגשמיות, the physical עשיה. Then you have spiritual worlds. The first one is אצילות. אצילות is very godly. But that's not the beginning. Then you have spiritual levels of אור אין סוף, of the godly light, which is higher than אצילות. You have כתר, which is the crown, and then you have עולם התוהו, and then you have the קו, till you go all the way to the צמצום. I don't know if you studied about the צמצום, the contraction in the אור אין סוף, in the godly light that Hashem did, because otherwise there would be no possibility of Him creating a world even if it would go through this great chain of events, the השתלשלות. So there is a צמצום. And then we have the אור אין סוף שלפני הצמצום, the light of God, infinite light, which came before the contraction. And then you have עצמות אין סוף, God Himself, which is the source of that spiritual light. And you know where the neshama is connected to? To עצמות אין סוף, to that highest level, the essence of God. And Chassidus goes into explaining and describing all these greatness and good things that we have through the neshama, God, Torah, mitzvot, and it gives the Jew this great feeling of what he's able to accomplish. And when a person does that, it doesn't cause the person to fight the gashmiyut, to fight his body. It doesn't cause a person to say, \"Well, let's we weaken the body because the body is physical and physicality could pull me away from spirituality.\" On the contrary, the Baal Shem Tov said you have to serve God with your body, which means you have to keep your body and do everything that your body needs and you serve you're able to serve God. He explained it actually in a pasuk where it says, \"כי תראה חמור שונאך,\" you will see the donkey - first I'll give you the literal translation, then I'll tell you the explanation of the Baal Shem Tov, which I see some of you know - \"כי תראה,\" if you will see, you will look, \"חמור שונאך,\" you will see the donkey of your enemy, \"רובץ תחת משאו,\" is laying under its load, \"וחדלת מעזוב לו,\" you might think, \"I won't help him,\" the pasuk says no, you're mistaking, \"עזוב תעזוב עמו,\" you have to help him. And the Baal Shem Tov said like this: \"כי תראה חמור,\" if you will look into the חמור means חומר. חומר is the matter. You'll look into the matter, into the physicality, you will see שונאך, he's your enemy. The matter, the physicality of the body, of the world is the enemy of the neshamah. The neshamah wants to be close to God and the body pulls him away. So what would you think to do? \"וחדלת מעזוב לו,\" you're going to stay away from helping him, you'll try to fight him. But the pasuk says, the Baal Shem Tov says, \"עזוב תעזוב עמו.\" You have to work with the body because the body itself has kedushah and you're able to reveal it and elevate it. And by doing that, the result is that a person feels much happier. From the mussar, learning mussar, it brings a person to have yirat shamayim, true, but it also brings a person to be sad, to be depressed, feeling how terrible things are, \"But I have to overcome it.\" Chassidut brings the person to simchah, to joy. Imagine! Imagine you learn who you are and what you are and how great you are and where you could get and what high heights you could reach. It makes you happy. Happy just I'm a yid! From the fact that I'm a yid, I'm happy. That itself, that's what chassidut teaches. No matter what you are, you're a you're a yid. They say a story that the Reb Levi Yitzchok Barditshever, when he came to shul one morning, and he went to the amud to say berachot, he skipped one berachah. Every morning we say the ברכה, ברוך אתה השם אלוקינו מלך העולם שלא עשני גוי, that He didn't make me a goy. That berachah he skipped. Later they asked him, \"Why did you skip it?\" So he said, \"When I woke up in the morning and I realized I'm a Jew, I couldn't hold myself back, I made the berachah right away, so I didn't say it later.\" That's how happy he was that he was a Jew. Just that makes you happy. You know in the time of the Baal Shem Tov, before the chassidim got the title chassidim, many people referred to them as the freileche, the happy ones. That's what they used to call them till they got the official title chassidim, the freileche. They always went around happy. Because chassidut brings out the joy and the important and the goodness that we have in Torah.

Now one might ask, in that case, what are we going to do about fighting the evil inclination, fighting the evil traits? We do have to fight that, we do have to undress ourselves, as it says the expression in Kabbalah, undress ourselves of these garments that we have. So mussar gets you rid of those garments, it shows you how terrible they are. But what about chassidut that doesn't really go into the details of these aspects of the negative part, how do you get rid of it? The truth is, when you learn chassidut and you learn about the greatness of the neshamah, you automatically get rid of your evil traits. There's an interesting parable that's given, that there was once an argument between the wind and the sun. There was a man walking in the street wearing a coat. So the sun and the wind argued who could get this person to get take his coat off, who could get the coat off the person. And the wind said, \"I could do it,\" and the sun said, \"I'll do it faster.\" So the wind started blowing and almost blew off the coat. What did the person do? He buttoned the buttons. So it started blowing stronger, so he closed the belt. Started going stronger, so he put his hands over it. Didn't succeed. And the sun says, \"Watch this.\" The sun came out and started shining, and the person took the coat off himself. When you shine light, automatically it gets rid of anything that you have to get rid of. From this mashal, from this parable, there's another point that we can bring out. From this parable we could see that when you discuss the negative parts in order to bring the person to become better, again I repeat this, mussar only does it in order to make the person become better, but when you discuss the negative parts and you tell the person, you tell the body, you tell the evil inclination, \"You're bad and we have to get rid of certain things,\" the nature is that you fight back. Like in this mashal, when the wind blows and tries to get your coat off, you fight back, you don't allow it. We know what it says in different sefarim, in Kabbalah, in Chassidus, and also in psychology, that one of the strongest traits a human being has is the מידת הנצחון, the trait of victory. A person does not like that someone will be victorious over him. And many times, even if he knows something is wrong, you know you're wrong, but I'm going to let him win? Never! That's in human nature. So when someone goes and tries to fight you, you fight back. That's natural, you fight back. The מידת of נצחון, of winning, is so strong and you'll fight back. And we try not to come to a position that we have to fight, because when you fight, even if you win, you lose. There are always casualties. When you fight, there are casualties. There is a law in the Rambam, the Rambam speaks about a war, and he says when you besiege a city, you're not allowed to surround them from four sides, only from three. Give them a chance to escape, don't force them into fighting. Because when you close them from all four sides, they're forced to fight. And when they fight, you never know what's going to happen. Even if you win, there'll be casualties. Don't fight them. Try to get rid of them, but don't fight them. And the same here. Through Mussar, you fight. You're fighting the יצר הרע, and the יצר הרע fights back. And even if you succeed, there could be casualties. But Chassidus doesn't fight, it just shines. And when it shines, it makes you look at things differently. I heard from one of the shluchim in Antwerp, he told a story that there was this young man that was not religious that used to come into his Chabad house from time to time. And he started getting, bringing him closer to the observance, and he started getting closer, certain things he did. But for some reason, a while later, Iz arayn a meshugas in kop, and he was ready to marry a non-Jewish girl. And as much as he spoke to him, it didn't help. They brought him to great rabbis, and the rabbis spoke to him and explained to him how terrible it is, how much he will suffer, how much damage he will bring to himself and to her and to the family, all kinds of things. Nothing helped. And they explained it beautifully. It made a lot of sense. Nothing helped. He just wanted to do it, and that's it. The shaliach says he had no choice, he didn't know what to do. So he tells him, \"You know what? Go...\" He passed by dollars, and the Rebbe gave him a dollar, and the Rebbe looked at him, and the Rebbe said to him, \"You know, I'm jealous of you.\" Looks the Rebbe in the face. \"Rebbe, you're jealous of me?\" So the Rebbe says, \"Yes.\" \"Why?\" So the Rebbe says to him, \"You see, you have a test right now. When God gives a person a test, He gives him special powers to overcome. So you have such special powers that I don't have. I don't have that test, so I don't have those powers. You have those powers, so I'm jealous of you that God gave you such special powers that other people don't have.\" He walked away from dollars, and he turns around to the rabbi that was walking with him, and he says, \"I'm not marrying her.\" The Rebbe brought out the positive part in his negative situation. And when you bring out the positive part, then automatically things are different. When you shine, there is no fight. He didn't fight it anymore. Till then, when they tried to convince him not to do it, they were fighting what he wanted to do. So normally, if you fight, you fight back, and he wouldn't give in. מידת הניצחון. How could he give in? He shouldn't come out victorious? But here the Rebbe didn't fight him. The Rebbe just said to him, \"Contrary, I'm on your side, you're on my side, we're together, you have such great powers.\" He walked away, and he looked at things differently, and he did not marry her, became more observant. Now he's a complete religious Jew. I don't know if he became a chasid or not, but he is a religious Jew, and it's all based on the approach that the Rebbe took. This is the general difference between Mussar and Chassidus: the approach we take to everything. Everything in the world is made up of good and bad. אין טוב בלי רע ואין רע בלי טוב. There is nothing in the world that good without bad, except Torah and מצוות obviously, and and the, but at this, there's nothing good without bad and nothing bad without good. The creation itself, the world itself, it's bad. It's called in the Zohar עלמא דשקרא, a world of falsehood. It's a world full of evil, and such terrible things happen. On the other hand, you know, it's a creation of God. There's a lot of good potential in the world. What do you have to stress? Mussar will stress how terrible things are in the world. Chassidus will stress, \"Look, the world has such great potential. Look what we can do with it.\" I remember the Rebbe once explained, based on what it says in Chassidus, that we have a פסוק that says באתי לגני אחותי כלה. When God gave the Torah to the Jews, He said, \"I came back to My garden,\" because originally it says when אדם הראשון, the first person, Adam, was created, God was down here. Then through different sins, He went away from this world. When He gave the Torah, He came back down. And the Rebbe asks, \"Why does He refer to the world as גני, as My garden?\" So the Rebbe said, \"Because the world is a garden. A garden is a good place, a place of beauty, a place of pleasure. Yes, the world is a good place.\" In the beginning of creation, we look at the פסוק, it says Hashem said, \"Let this be and this happened, let this be this happened,\" וירא אלוקים כי טוב. Hashem saw it's good. Why does the pasuk tell us Hashem saw it's good? Because it's good. The only difference is, how do we look at it? Do we look at look at it in a form of it being good, or do we look at it in a negative way? And Chassidus looks at everything in a positive way, looks as if everything is good. And when things are good, then it makes you happy to work with it, and you don't fight it, and then you follow what you're supposed to do. And because of that, another thing happens. When you fight and you succeed, you never know, it might come back again. Now you pushed it away, it might return. But if you don't fight it, you just bring out the good that's in it, then you're finished, you never have to fight again. The Baal Shem Tov gave a mashal, a parable, to the difference actually between Mussar and Chassidus, in one of the sefarim of the Baal Shem Tov. He says that when a thief comes to steal, there are two approaches: you could start screaming, and he'll run away, you're safe; or you could catch him, bring him home, teach him, make him that he shouldn't be a ganav anymore. The difference is that if you scream and he runs away, he'll come back tomorrow. But if you bring him in and you teach him not to be a ganav, not to be a thief anymore, you're finished, he will never come back again. And that's what Chassidus tries to do. Now it doesn't mean that from time Time to time, we do not have to a little bit look to the side of the negative side of the person and deal with that. From time to time we have to. That's why we do find even in Chassidus that it deals with certain midot, traits a person has, or sometimes discusses the bad trait, because you have to do it from time to time also. But that's just a little bit and as an exception. But that's not the rule, that's not the general approach of Chassidus. And even when that is done, you also have to know how to do it. The pasuk says שמע בני מוסר אביך, \"Listen, my son, to the Mussar of your father.\" It says, \"Listen, my son,\" you have to teach Mussar like a father to a child. The person you give Mussar to has to feel that you love him. The Baal Shem Tov says also another mashal of a king whose son was sent away far away, and he turned off the right path. And someone came to the king and told the king, \"You know, your son turned away, etc., etc., etc.\" He didn't pay any attention to him. Another person came and said the same thing, and he said, \"Yes,\" and he went and acted upon it and brought his son back. And they asked him what was the difference between the first person and the second, and he said, \"The difference is, when the first person told this to me, it didn't look as if it bothered him. He just told me the facts. The second one, it looked like he cares for me, and it bothered him. Then I took it seriously, and that's when I changed.\" So when you give Mussar, you also have to do it in a nice way. But even that is only a יוצא מן הכלל, we call it, an exception to the rule. Generally, it has to be the way, the positive way. And when you go with a positive outlook the way Chassidus expresses, you will have automatically all the negative things fall off, because you see the positive and the light shines, automatically the bad is fallen off.

Besides that, when you study Chassidus, and again, I'm not trying to chas veshalom knock Mussar, I'm just trying to bring out the point, when you study Chassidus, Chassidus, as I said before, deals with the understanding of the truth of God. How much more do I have? It deals with the understanding of the truth of God. We heard before the siyum of the Rambam, that the Rambam, in the end and the beginning, that the Rambam says that every person has to know that there is the existence of God. He uses the word \"to know.\" The Rambam doesn't say להאמין, to believe, because believing is not enough. We have to know. The difference between knowing and believing is, when you use the term \"belief,\" it shows to a certain degree a little bit of doubt. Like people use the expression, \"I believe in this philosophy. Well, you could believe in yours.\" In other words, \"Possible you're right, I believe in this.\" We don't believe in God. Sounds pretty strange. We know that there is a God. We don't believe in the Torah and mitzvot, we know it's the truth of Torah and mitzvot. We don't believe in the greatness of a neshama, we know that it's true. But how do we know? These are issues that are very spiritual and abstract. We can't see them. But if we learn about it and we learn to understand it, it becomes clear in our mind. When you understand something very clear, then it's almost as if you saw it. When you see something, it's a hundred percent true in your mind. We know that expression is, \"Seeing is believing.\" The real believing is seeing. When a person hears something and he hears it from a trustworthy person, but then if somebody else will come and show him that it's not true, he will answer, \"Okay, so obviously he's wrong.\" But if I saw something myself and someone will come and tell me this didn't happen, and he might have a hundred proofs, I will have one answer to him, \"I saw it myself.\" And that's clear in my mind. When we learn something and we understand it a hundred percent, it is true in our mind. And that's what לידע means, and that's a very, very important part of the Chassidic philosophy which we do not find in Mussar. In Mussar we find, as I said before, all the explanations of how a person has to take away the evil from himself or from the world, etc., etc. We do sometimes find in Mussar, it describes the good parts of a Yid, which much of it was taken from the Chassidic philosophy, and therefore we see that in the later generations, after Chassidus was born, was founded, in the sefarim of Mussar we find more of it, because it was influenced, Mussar was influenced by Chassidus, but anyway, this we certainly don't find: the deeper explanations in the true existence of God, in the understanding, explanations to understand it. That we don't find in other philosophies, but in the Chassidic philosophy. And when you learn Chassidus, you come to really, really know the truth of God. And what it leads a person to is, let me tell you this: the Talmud says a very interesting expression. The Talmud says: גנבא אפום מחתרתא רחמנא קריא. Sounds Chinese, but it's not, it's only Aramaic. A גנב, when a person goes to steal, and he's breaking into the other person's house, he prays to God quietly that he should be successful and not be caught. Now, the question is, what kind of person are we dealing with here? A meshugener, I think. If he believes in God, obviously he believes in God, because he's praying to Him, and not only he believes in God that there is an existence of God someplace up there in the seventh heaven as we call it, but he believes that God is standing right next to him, because he davens, he prays pretty quietly. Doesn't want anyone to hear. So, obviously, he believes that God is standing right there next to him and could hear his prayers. So why is he stealing? He knows God said: Don't steal. And if he's stealing, obviously he doesn't believe that God sees. So why does he pray to Him? The answer is very simple. He believes in God, but Chassidus and Kabbalah refers to it as אמונה בדרך מקיף. It's belief, trust or belief, faith, but faith in a superficial way. That means it's true, I believe it, but not enough as to change my behavior. It's not really real to me. He'll see a policeman across the street, he'll run away, because that's real. This guy, this policeman, will catch him, put handcuffs on his hands, and take him to prison. He'll arrest him. That's real to him. God is true, I believe in God, but is it real? Not so. We're laughing at this גנב, but I'm sorry to say we're all in the same category. We do things sometimes that we know is not a hundred percent right. And we know we shouldn't be doing it, and we know God is watching us, and we still do it. Why? Where is our emunah? It's אמונה בבחינת מקיף, which we call the superficial emunah. We really believe, really, but is it really real to us? As real as this, this is real. I see this here, and this is real. I can touch it, I can see it. God, is He really real to me? In truth, the fact that I can't see Him doesn't mean it's not real, because if I can't see Him with my physical eyes, doesn't mean it's not real. Reminds me of a joke. Rabbi Tennenhaus mentioned before that we went to Russia together. I went once before him, so I remember the first time I went to Russia, someone there told me a joke. In Russia they used to teach atheism in the classrooms. So a teacher got up and wanted to explain to the children not to believe in God. The teacher says: You see this pen? They say: Yes. So there is a pen. Picks up the book: You see the book? Yes. So there is a book. And the teacher: You see God? Everyone says: No. Hm, so there is no God! One kid gets up and says: Does anyone see the teacher's brains? He's got no brains! The fact that you don't see it doesn't mean it's not there. It's just something that's beyond that we should be able to see with our physical eyes. But nevertheless, since we don't see it, it is not real. Something that we see is real. Chassidus, if you learn Chassidus, God becomes real. It's a reality. It's real, as real as it is that this watch is right here, that's how true it is that there is a God. Now, tell you the honest truth, more than that. This might be some kind of illusion, I really don't know, but that there is a God is not an illusion. That is real. That there is a Torah, that's real. But how do we get that feeling, that understanding? By itself it won't fall into our minds, because we don't see it. We have to work on it, we have to study it, and we have to put our mind into it, and then we are able to grasp and understand and feel and see the truth, the reality of spirituality, of God, the mitzvot and Torah and neshamah, and all the different things that we learn about. And that's what Chassidus teaches us. So the bottom line that I want to say is, it's very important for us to learn Chassidus. Learning Mussar is fine, and those that learn, fine. Chassidus is very, very important to learn, besides the fact that Chassidus is really the continuation of Kabbalah, but in a way that we are able to understand it. If you study Kabbalah without Chassidus, especially people on our level, I must say it's not the right thing, because you never understand, and you learn about these godly things in a physical expression, and it makes you feel as if God is a person, things which is the hidden part of Torah. It says when Mashiach will come, there will be the revelation of the secrets of the Torah. That's what Rashi says in Shir Hashirim. Since we are preparing ourselves to Mashiach, we have to now already start studying the secrets of the Torah. When we prepare ourselves to something, the preparation has to be within the same thing that we're trying to get to. A person is preparing to really, really understand and appreciate a musical concert, he's going to study music, I guess. And if he wants to prepare to appreciate an art exhibition, he'll study art. If we want to prepare ourselves to appreciate the coming of Mashiach, which will be, who will be teaching the secrets of the Torah, we have to start learning now the secrets of the Torah. Especially that we know that there is a law that Friday we have to taste from the food of Shabbos. That's the מנהג. Ask the women. They make two kugels because of that, because one is for Shabbos, and if they make one, they eat it up on Friday. But they make two, because Friday it's a mitzvah to eat from the food of Shabbos. We know that the 6,000 years, the six millenniums are compared to the six days of the week. The seventh, which is the time connected to Mashiach, is like Shabbos. The sixth is like Friday. From the year תש״ן, which is 5,750, we entered Friday afternoon. If 1,000 years is a day, then 500 is the night. The next 250 is the first half of the day. So 750 makes it into the beginning of the afternoon. So it's Friday afternoon. Friday afternoon, we have to taste the food of Shabbos. So we have to start learning Chassidus. And what this will do, this will make us really, really, truly understand the truth of God. And this is what's going to happen when Mashiach will come, that the whole world will see, will recognize the truth of God, as the pasuk says in the נביא, ונגלה כבוד ה׳, the glory of Hashem will be revealed, וראו כל בשר יחדו, all flesh will see כי פי ה׳ דיבר, that the mouth of Hashem spoke. Will see, not will hear, not even will understand, will see. When we learn Chassidus now, we get that feeling already, and that helps us overcome all the obstacles, and helps us overcome the yetzer hara. I almost slipped and said it helps us fight the yetzer hara. That would have been a mistake. And that we don't fight the yetzer hara. It helps us overcome the yetzer hara, and it brings us to a higher level, closer to God. And when we are closer to God, we do all the mitzvot properly, with the proper feeling. We learn Torah with the proper feeling. And if more Jews would do it, this great light that shines from these people who do it will become a very big flame till it will turn into the big flame, the flame of Mashiach, which we hope we will see very, very soon, bimheirah veyameinu mamash. Amen.

Thank you very much, Rabbi Shapira. Before we take some questions, and I I I always tell people never say a quick question. Very often people call me up on the phone, they say, \"Rabbi, I have a quick question for you.\" I always say to them, \"How do you know the answer's going to be so quick?\" So don't say it's going to be a quick question, because sometimes a quick question warrants a very long answer. But before we open the floor to questions and answers, I just wanted to remind everyone of our daily, weekly, and feature lectures. The daily classes, every day we spoke, Rabbi Shapira spoke about the study of Chassidus, Rabbi Moshe Schwartz, who in a private audience with the Rabbi was told by the Rabbi study the Tanya, and that's all you'll need. This is what Rabbi the Rabbi told Rabbi Schwartz, study the Tanya, this is all you will need. Rabbi Schwartz will tell you the exact wording, but every day Rabbi Schwartz teaches the Tanya, the daily study session of Tanya, Monday through Friday, that see that that lecture is at 9:00 Monday through Friday. Saturday, it's after Minchah, and Sunday, it's the first class after Shacharit, which is at 9:30 in the morning. So every day you could come here to study Chassidus with Rabbi Schwartz. In addition, Minu Abichzer, Chacham Minu, teaches Kabbalah every Monday night at 7:00, and Minu studies Kabbalah Such as the book of ע״ב and the book of ס״ו that he reads every day. So, come Monday night, 7:00, for the study of the Kabbalah. Tuesday morning, for those of you who could get away Tuesday mornings, Rabbi Kudan gives a Tanya class for ladies only, that's at 10:00, and at 10:30, Rabbi Kudan teaches women the laws of Shabbos. Also, we're soon going to read the Wednesday night features. Rabbi Kudan, if you could just bring me that form. Thursday night at 7:00, Rabbi Schwartz teaches the teaches beginners in Hebrew reading, how to read Hebrew, thank you, and how to use the prayer book. That's every Thursday night at 7:00. In addition to these classes, there is also two other daily classes. Every weekday morning, Monday through Friday, I teach a chapter of the Rambam, Maimonides' Mishneh Torah, at 7:30. Sunday, that class is at 10:30, and Saturdays, it follows Rabbi Schwartz's Tanya class in Saturday afternoon. Rabbi Kudan teaches חומש and Rashi every day, the weekly Torah portion. Each morning, Monday through Friday, that class is at 9:30, and we have someone filling in for him on Saturdays before Mincha, and Sunday, that class is at 10:00. Also, some of you participate, and all of you are welcome to take part in the weekly legal discussion, a lunch and learn at the law firm of Becker and Poliakoff that I deliver every Friday at 12:00. It's a $7 lunch, and the lunch takes place at 3111 Stirling Road, which is the offices of Becker, Poliakoff. There is there a beautiful media center where each week we study something of current events and how it relates to the Talmud and to Chassidut. I believe I mentioned all of the daily and the weeklies. If I left out something, please let me know. But in the meantime, I will announce the upcoming Wednesday night features. Next Wednesday, January 31st, Rabbi Shaya Meyer, some of you know him, will speak on the Sephardic tradition, and even Ashkenazim are interested in the Sephardic tradition. There's a $5 admission fee for that class. All the other classes we mentioned are free admission, and the Friday, Becker and Poliakoff, there's a $7 lunch. February 7th, these are all Wednesday nights at 8:00, Rabbi Dovid Kudan will discuss ט״ו בשבט, which that marks the day of the 15th of שבט, the New Year for trees, and he will give some insight into what a fruitful experience is all about. Wednesday, February 14th, 8:00, Mrs. Tova Mordechai will speak about her bestselling book, Back to Her People, One Woman's Remarkable Odyssey. And as I mentioned, here's a woman, her father was Jewish, her mother was Jewish, her father was a minister in the church. She had an extensive background in church training. She wrote poetry for the church, and she was searching for her roots, and she came back to her Jewish roots and now is a world-renowned lecturer. Admission for her lecture is $10. It's costing us a lot of money to get her here, so we get a little up in the fee. And February 21st, the final of the winter semester, Get in Touch with Your Inner chazan. Rabbi Yossi Lebovics, who is here today, I don't know if he's going to give us a usually there's when a big event is coming like the Super Bowl, they usually have a little bit of advertising previews, but I don't know if we're going to get that today, but in any case, all of us have an inner chazan in us, and you could find out about your inner chazan Wednesday, February 21st. Ladies and gentlemen, if there are anybody, if there is anybody who has questions to Rabbi Schapiro, we don't have him here too often, he's a very busy man, so please don't hesitate to ask, and Rabbi Schapiro will be kind enough to respond. Steve, go ahead. I will not bore you with my strong agreement of Rabbi Tennenhaus's introductory remarks. Taking a hint from Rabbi Tennenhaus. Okay. If someone were to ask Just to spend, yeah, all right, 180 seconds, and going through very much stronger and deeper differences between that we would not generally hear about in this first type of introductory prospectus. I don't understand the exact question. You want further Further, yeah, further differences. We started on the differences. I think Steve wants part two. In in a 180-second capsule. Well, I know Steve wants, but we're here in part one, and your time is rare, but if you could just go a little deeper into several of the major, major differences Now, the truth is, the points that I mentioned before are basically the major differences. The detailed differences are all within those points that I mentioned. For instance, when it discusses a neshamah, the way Mussar explains it and the way Chassidut explains it. When we discuss what the Torah is, the way Mussar explains, the way Chassidut explains. And they both are true, but here the approach is different and you have to just learn the details. I just mentioned one point of what a neshamah is and how far it goes based on Kabbalah. Mussar does not go into those details. So, is it since if if we want to to study it, are you saying it's better off not to study the difference the further differences then, because you're better off concentrating and knowing what Chassidut holds and what Chassidut taught, and not not like, or are you better off studying and seeing what the differences are? I didn't say that. No, no, I'm You said it! Are you better off going through stage two, or Well, the truth is, first, the best thing is first to go to learn Chassidut, and then, when you become well-versed, then you're able to go back and start comparing and see the differences. And a lot of times you could see it, but not always can you see it at first glance. So therefore, the best thing to do is to further your study of Chassidut, and then, eventually, to go back and to compare, and see what that what they say is true. Like, for instance, there is a very at-length the explanation in Mussar on a certain verse in the Talmud that speaks about that there was an argument in shamayim concerning a certain halachah. Which seems strange to understand. How can there be an argument in heaven concerning an halachah when God is the one that gave the halachot? And there is an explanation in Mussar, and then there's an explanation in Chassidut. When you start comparing, that's really where you see the difference. I can't go into the details now, but you see that here Chassidut looks at it with glasses of light, and there they look at it differently, and therefore, it's not to the same level. But you have to just actually go through the details. It's not something, right, it's not something that could be answered so quickly. Rabbi Topps, I'd like to welcome you, the rabbi of Temple Beit El. Go ahead. I really love what you said about Chassidut emphasizing the the positive, and looking for positive between human of drive for love, Godliness. You need to correct somebody, but the proper way of doing tochachah is to start with a positive. Positive. Start with the positive. And and and and I agree with that. So, and and I and I and I feel that that's your way, and I know Rabbi Bernath. Sometimes in the rough-and-tumble political world in Israel, you know, and religion and politics get wound up together, we see people from all the traditions of people, the people on the Chassidic side, people from Orthodox branch of Judaism, often saying very mean things about each other. And and sometimes we have Chassidic people saying those things, too, who despise Reform Jews, and secular Jews. And this is not all, but there are some who act more on the Mussar idea, the way that you've described it. You know, how how do we, you know, in our in and and in the political differences, how do we make sure that we emphasize the goodness of the other person, bring the other person bring that out, actually, and still, you know, disagree? First, I want to tell you that Chassidut is perfect, but that doesn't mean that all Chassidim are perfect. We are human beings, and therefore some people do not behave the way they should according to the philosophy of Chassidut that they themselves learn, and they themselves follow. And therefore that's what you find, and sometimes, you know, it comes out and it's not perfect. But how to do it is, if you really study and bring it into practice, if you really study Chassidut, and I would think that the people who study more Chassidut would at less occasions come to do what you describe. And therefore, we have to just continue studying, and that's the way to do it. There is no real, real cure to this, and there is no real way to say that I can do something that I will never do something against this philosophy. But we have to try our best. We are still human beings. The truth is, tzadikim, great sages, you will not find doing this because they are perfect, as much as it's possible for a human being to be perfect. But we simple people, we're not perfect, and therefore, sometimes, this is what we do. Yes. I I I know I'm not in a maybe, I have to be carried by, but I know that for me, to learn Chassidut is a wonderful thing and beautiful, and I see the total fulfillment. So, why would other Yidden, who I know are a lot smarter than me and bigger tzadikim than me, and for so many hundreds of years, why what, should I say, blinds them from seeing the light of Chassidut? Why are these righteous people, in fact, screaming at us and saying that we're doing wrong? If if the Torah it it's so it's backed in them, what what's their yetzer hara that's holding them? The truth is, I have the same question. I wonder myself. But the truth is, some is because of their background, some is because of what they were taught and they were told. And many, many, who had a different background, they tried it. They changed. There's a pasuk that says,