subjects to have a connection to the parashah of the week. And today's parashah is Vayechi, so the topic that I chose was to discuss the level of Ephraim and מנשה על פי חסידות, or we could say על פי דרוש, על פי חסידות, what Ephraim and Menashe represent. Because everyone of the shevatim, we know, it says in Chassidus, represents a different madregah. It says in the maamarim, it says even in other sefarim, not only in Chassidus, in other sefarim, that Reuven, Shimon, Levi, v'Yehudah, besides being the children of Yaakov and the beginning of the Jewish nation when it broke up into different tribes, but each one represents a different inyan, a madregah in avodat Hashem and how you serve Hashem. Just to give an example, for instance Reuven comes from the word ראו בן. Shimon is from the word shemi'ah, listening. Reuven comes from a word ראו, which means see. Shimon is from the word Shimon, shemi'ah, to hear. This represents the avodah of re'iyah, when you serve Hashem through seeing, this is to serve Hashem through hearing, different inyanim of each one. Levi, Yehudah, hoda'ah, which means admitting. All kinds of different, everyone represents a different madregah. So, we have to discuss, since this week's parashah talks a lot about Ephraim and Menashe, that they were chosen by Yaakov Avinu to be the ones that he will give the he'll split the shevet into two. And he gave the he gave Yosef the bechorah. A bechor, a firstborn, gets a double share. So, Yaakov gave the bechorah to Yosef and split his share into two. Gave him a double share, made him into two shevatim, which were Ephraim and Menashe. So, Ephraim and Menashe must represent something in our avodat Hashem. So, we learn in the sichot and Chassidut what Ephraim and Menashe represent. And that's what we're going to discuss. What is really Ephraim and Menashe? In order to get to understand what Ephraim represents, what Menashe represents, we see an interesting thing in this week's parsha, which will guide us to see how we should look at Ephraim and Menashe. We see that when Yosef brought Ephraim and Menashe to Yaakov to get benched, to get the brachot, since Menashe was the older one, he was the bechor, he was the firstborn, so he brought him to Yaakov in a way that Yaakov would put his right hand on Menashe and his left hand on Ephraim, which means he brought him, let's see, he was on the he put Menashe on the left side, because when you're across somebody, your left side is his right. So, he put Menashe on his left side, Ephraim on his right side, so Yaakov would normally put his hands that Menashe would be with his right hand and Ephraim with his left hand. Then the pasuk says שכל את ידיו, what Yaakov did, he made a trick, actually sechel comes from the word sechel, he used sechel, he did something tricky, and he changed his hands, he made like an X, and he put his right hand on Ephraim and his left hand on Menashe. And his son, Yosef, said, \"Ah, it's not true, this is not the right way,\" and he thought he made a mistake, because he couldn't see, Yaakov couldn't see already at that time. He said, \"You made a mistake.\" He thought that probably Yaakov made thought that he put Menashe on the other side, that's why he changed his hand. So, he said, \"No, Menashe is here, and Menashe is the bechor. You should put your right hand on Menashe, and the left hand on Efraim.\" And he answered, \"No, I didn't make a mistake, I know what I'm doing, and Efraim is going to be great, but Menashe Menashe is going to be great, but Efraim is going to be greater.\" Rashi says it goes refers to the later generations, the descendants of Efraim and Menashe, but the way the pasuk says is that he will be great, Menashe is going to be great, אולם אחיו הקטן יגדל ממנו, but his older brother, which is Efraim, will be greater. And therefore, he deserves the berachah from the right hand, which shows on a greater berachah. So, here we see that as far as Yaakov was concerned, Efraim was greater than Menashe. On the other hand, the fact is that Menashe was the בכור, Menashe was the firstborn. And the reason he was the firstborn bagashmiyut, because he has extra kochot. That means, if we look at the shevatim and the avot, בכלל everything is בהשגחה פרטית, but especially things that have to do with the shevatim and the avot, so the gashmiyut reflected their ruchniyut. So, if בגשמיות Menashe was the bechor, obviously Menashe had was greater, at least to a certain degree, in a certain aspect. He was greater, that's why he was firstborn. The fact that he was firstborn means that he had some maalah bagashmiyut since it was bagashmiyut, that shows he has some maalah baruchniyut. So, Menashe was greater. On the other hand, here we see that Yaakov Avinu said that Efraim is going to be greater. So, which one is greater? So, the simple answer is looking at it from one angle, Efraim is greater, looking from another angle, Menashe is greater. And we actually see that from the fact that Yosef wanted Menashe to get the greater berachah because he felt that he deserves it, he's greater. Now when we talk about Yosef, or anyone of the caliber of Yosef, you can't say they made a mistake. See, simple peshat, if you learn this pasuk without chasidut, without looking deeper, Yosef made a mistake, Yosef did not know that Menashe was greater, that Efraim was greater than Menashe. So he thought that Menashe was greater, that's why he put Menashe to the right side. And Yaakov told him, \"No, sorry, you made a mistake. Efraim is going to be greater.\" But we know the truth, this can't be. Yosef did not make a mistake. So when Yosef thought that Menashe deserves the berachah on the right hand because he's greater, it is true. Because from one aspect, Menashe is greater. On the other hand, the fact was that Yaakov gave the berachah to Efraim with his right hand because from a different aspect, Efraim was greater. And if we're going to want to divide it into to the right, you know, way it's supposed to be, is that for some reason, from the perspective of Yosef, Menashe was greater. Looking at what Yosef represents, Menashe, what he represents, is greater. Looking at it from Yaakov, the way Yaakov's דרגא or level, or the way Yaakov, what he represents, Efraim must be greater. So this is just an introduction that we see here that we have to look at both of them as both being great, both being greater than the other in different ways, and what we have to work out is to see what does Chassidut say, in which way is Menashe greater and in which way is Efraim greater. We have to look in order to understand what Menashe and Efraim represent, we have to look at their names.

And in Lashon Kodesh, it says the names represent what the people are. This is b'klal, we're not going to get into the subject of names, but we know that that a name represents a lot. It says that a name represents the character of the person. A name also contains what the future of the person is going to be. It says in the Midrash that the דורות הראשונים, imagine we're talking about a Midrash which was written closer to 2,000 years ago, it says, \"In the earlier generations, meaning very, very long ago, people were so great that they would name the child according to what they would see is the character of the child and what the future holds for the child. They would actually do that because they had nevuah.\" But now, says the Midrash, people are not so great in the time of the Midrash already 2,000 years ago, and they name the children after a father, a grandfather, after a relative. But Chassidut says that it doesn't mean that the name doesn't have a connection to what the person represents and what the person's character is. It's just that those days they knew it in a revealed way, they actually saw it, so they were able to name based on that. Now, Hashem puts it into the mind of a person. It says that naming a child is called a nevuah ketanah. It's called a small, a minor nevuah, but it's a prophecy. They even say that once somebody came to the Belzer Rebbe, was, I think R'' Shalom Belzer, chassid, and they said, \"Rebbe, I had a child and since I everything I do I ask the Rebbe and I get advice from the Rebbe, please advise me what name should I give.\" So his, the Rebbe says, \"I don't understand you. A Rebbe always has ruach hakodesh. A chasid doesn't. Here, it's only a few times in a lifetime that you're able to also have ruach hakodesh, so you want to also give it away to the Rebbe? The Rebbe doesn't need it. The Rebbe has ruach hakodesh without you. Keep it for yourself.\" And he didn't wouldn't do it. And the Rebbe also, the Rebbe בכלל would not mix into names. He would not give people advice of what name to give. But it is ruach hakodesh. It says in Kitvei HaArizal that it's thrown into the mind of the parents, and what name they give has a shayachut to what the child is is, what's going to be, and what's going to happen to the child. The truth is most times we don't see it, but it's there. Certainly when we deal with the names of the Avot and the Shevatim, that the names represent a lot. So in order to understand what's the difference between Ephraim and Menashe, we have to look into what the names mean. Sometimes we have to work hard to find out what the names mean. We have to start figuring ourselves what is the meaning of the words. In the case of Ephraim and Menashe, we don't have to work too hard. The pasuk says clearly why he named him Menashe and not why he named him Ephraim. And the pasuk says he named him מנשה כי נשני אלקים את כל עמלי ואת כל בית אבי, that Hashem made me forget. Nashani comes from the word pushing away, jumping away, well that mean with the point that means to forget. Hashem made me forget all my troubles and made me forget my father's house. This was many years after Yosef was already in Mitzrayim. You make a cheshbon how long it was, he was in jail for 12 years, and then first he came out, and then he was married. This was after he was for a while by Potifar. When he got married, he was thirty years old. When he was sold, he was 17. This is 13 years later. So he says, he called him Menashe because Hashem made me forget my father's home. And when he had Ephraim the pasuk says, he named him אפרים כי הפרני אלקים בארץ עניי. Hashem made me multiply. Ephraim comes from the word פרו ורבו, to multiply. Hashem made me multiply, made me grow in the land of my troubles, in the land of my sufferings. Now, what really it means, when he gave him a name Menashe, it wasn't that he meant to say that he forgot his father's home. Why would he name his child that represents that he forgot his father's home? Was he happy that he forgot his father's home? It's just opposite. Because he was in a level, in a matzav, in a situation that he could forget his father's home, he constantly wanted to be reminded. He constantly wanted to be reminded, don't forget. You're now in the position that you could very easily forget, so don't forget. Every time he would say Menashe, call Menashe by his name, it would remind him, you could forget, don't forget. So Menashe represents the idea that he hoped and thanked Hashem for not forgetting his father's home. It seems the opposite of what it says. It says that he named him כי נשני אלקים, השם made me forget, but what he meant to say is, Hashem made me forget to mean, now I could forget, I'm forgetting, I better not forget. So it reminds him always of his father's home, not to forget. Ephraim is not so much stressing the point that he wants to remember his father's home. Ephraim stresses the point that within the position he is in, which he is not in his father's home, he's in a land of troubles, he's in a land of Mitzrayim, and here he is able to grow. He could grow within that place which is far away from his father's land. Which basically Chassidus says represents two ways, two levels of a Yid serving Hashem in the time of galus, especially a time of galus. One thing is, when a person is in galus, or a person is in a place where he's far from, in this case, his father's home, or far from a place of Yiddishkeit, far, far from Torah, he, where has to work hard, he shouldn't be influenced by the surroundings. He shouldn't be influenced by the environment. He should always remember where he comes from. He should never forget that he comes from a place of Torah, and his source is Torah, his roots are Torah, and that will keep him going, that he will not be influenced by his surroundings. That's one thing. The second level is, it's not enough not to be influenced by the surroundings, not to be influenced by, let's say, the darkness, the spiritual darkness in the place where you're in, but what you have to do is bring light into that dark place. You have to bring more kedushah into the place of darkness, in the place of galus. And this is what these two names represent, which means that this represents the two ways Menashe and Ephraim lived in Mitzrayim. That was their avodah. Menashe's avodah was that he made sure that he is not influenced by Mitzrayim and therefore he learned Torah and did mitzvot, did everything the way he's supposed to, he was not influenced. But he didn't work at bringing more kedushah into the place that he is. Ephraim was the other level that he worked in bringing more kedushah into the place where he is. And this is for us too, that every Yid have to have both. Every Yid has to both have both. First thing you have to do is to make sure that you're Menashe, that you constantly remember that you don't, that make sure not to forget your father's home, and keep going the way it was before, not to be influenced. But that's not enough. You also have to grow, you have to continue from Menashe to Ephraim, and you have to try to bring more kedushah in the place that you're in, even into yourself, not only into the place, but you have to grow more within the ארץ עני, in the land of your suffering. So, it comes out like this. If you look at it as, what is the goal? What is the higher level? Is the higher level Menashe or Ephraim? Ephraim. Ephraim is a higher level. That's what Yaakov Avinu meant, that הוא יגדל ממנו. Menashe is very good. Halevai we all should be the level of Menashe, not to get influenced by the galus. But he says he'll be great, but Ephraim is greater, because Ephraim represents the second level where you grow within the galus. But in order to get to the second level, you have to first go through the first level. The order always is סור מרע ועשה טוב. Stay away from bad and do good. First you got to get rid of the bad, then you do good. So Menashe represents not having the evil, not having the influence of the darkness, that's first. And then you come to the level of Ephraim, which is ועשה טוב, to add good. And therefore in birth, in birth, Menashe was born first, because that's the first order. So that's how when it speaks about the two children הנולדים לי which were born, Menashe is first, because that's the foundation. You can't start off without first working on yourself not to be influenced by the surroundings. But after that, the goal and where you're supposed to reach and what the higher level is, that is the level of Ephraim. So here we have the understanding of what Menashe and Ephraim represent. And this is not even al pi Chassidus. This is more על פי דרוש, brought down in Chassidus, but על פי דרוש, what their names represent and what they are.

But be'emes we have to go a step further here. It's not enough, because they're both children of Yosef. We know, says Chassidus, the Tzemach Tzedek writes, that what does the word Yosef represent? Again, we're talking about the names of the shevatim and that represents their madreigah, what their avodah was. What does Yosef represent? So here again we have to look, why did she name him Yosef? So it says when Rachel had Yosef, she said, יוסף ה' לי בן אחר. Simple taytsh, simple pshat is ה' should add Yosef comes from the word הוספה, addition should add to me another son. This was like a berachah. She named him with a berachah that she should have another son, because she expected a second son, because everyone knew that Yaakov Avinu is going to have 12 shevatim. And since Leah had six, so the other three wives would have each one two. So she knew, she hoped, she knew she would have another son, so she said יוסף ה' לי בן אחר. But Chassidus says, the Tzemach Tzedek writes, that what it means is that Yosef's avodah was יוסף ה' לי בן אחר, from אחר. בן means a son, אחר means another. So the Rabbi says, the Tzemach Tzedek says, that אחר refers to the other, meaning people or things which are on the other side, which is not the side of kedushah. We know that always in Chassidus, when we refer to the klipah, we always call it sitra achra. Now the word sitra achra, I mentioned in the other shiur once, doesn't mean bad. People think sitra achra means, oh, it means evil forces. Sitra achra, the translation is not evil forces. Sitra achra means the other side, that's all it is, because anything which is the other side of kedushah automatically is against kedushah. Not to get into the פרטים, the details of that. But the word אחר is the same as sitra achra. What we have to do is we have to transform the אחר into ben. Ben is a son, meaning a son of Hashem', like every Yid is בנים אתם לה' אלקיכם, we're children to Hashem'. But there are some people who don't feel it, you don't see on them the fact that they are ben, they look more like they're אחר, the other side. There was takeh a person whose name was Acher, Elisha ben Avuya, who used to be a great tzadik, a great tanna. He was the Rabbi of Rabbi Meir. Imagine, the Rabbi of Rabbi Meir. And it's from the very, very few tzadikim in Jewish history which turned away from Yiddishkeit, for whatever reason the Gemara says. And when he turned away, they called him Acher. Used to be called Elisha ben Avuya. We still have a saying of Elisha ben Avuya in Pirkei Avot. אלישע בן אבויה אומר, and we call him by his name, and he said that when he was still a great tzadik. But he turned away and they called him Acher. But they didn't call him rasha, didn't call him ra. They could have given him all kinds of bad titles. They called him אחר, but that's enough. You don't have to have a worse name. אחר is someone else, you're on the other side, you're אחר, you're other, and that's enough. So what Yosef's avodah was, יוסף ה' לי בן, ה' would add and make a בן, אחר, out of אחר. And this is what Yosef's avodah was. Yosef's avodah was to take things which are the other side and transform into kedushah, which seems to fit more with Ephraim. Because Ephraim is הפרני אלקים בארץ עוני, that Ephraim is the one that multiplies, you grow בארץ עוני. But Menashe was also a son of Yosef, and if they were both offsprings of Yosef, so Menashe also has to represent something that's similar to Yosef, because he was an extension of what Yosef represented. But what we said till now is different, that Yosef is יוסף לי בן אחר, and Menashe is just that he's not influenced by the outside, by the environment, but it doesn't have anything to do with growing. So the emet is, Chassidut says a deeper peshat. That when we said before that Menashe means that he only didn't forget or is working on not forgetting What בית אביו, his father's home, not being influenced, it doesn't mean in the simple peshat, pashut not to be influenced by the outside world. That's not what it means. It means a little bit deeper, which then will show that even Menashe has to do with Yosef, while Ephraim is even more than that. But what is Menashe? So it says like this: when a Yid is in galut, and there are all kinds of forces on the outside world trying to convince him, trying to influence him to do things which are wrong, and to be influenced by the kelipah, by the סטרא אחרא, etc., etc., and a Yid doesn't get נתפעל, and a Yid overcomes and is not influenced. When a Yid is not influenced, what that does is it brings out stronger kochot in his neshamah. It brings out a koach to show the strength of the neshamah. When there is no problem with the outside, and you don't have to fight a challenge of the outside world, your neshamah doesn't have to show great strength, because everything is fine. But when you have fight, a force that's fighting the neshamah, the neshamah has to reveal more tokef, it says, more strength in order to fight. So here we see that the neshamah is greater in the time of galut, by the mere fact that it's not being overcome by the outside world, it's not being influenced, itself brings out in the neshamah more than it was before. That's one thing. Then it says in Chasidut a step further, that when it's there, because it has a stronger tokef, strength, then it has the power to even influence the things in the galut. And that brings out a deeper part of the neshamah, that the neshamah has such a koach that it's able to bring light into the darkness. That's the second level. But both of these levels are not new levels of the neshamah. The neshamah at that point doesn't get anything new that it didn't have before. It has that power originally. It just doesn't have to use it if it's not challenged. When it's challenged, then the neshamah uses the tokef, and it brings out the strength so much so that it could even bring light into a dark place. But then there is a third level, and that is not only that the neshamah's koach is so strong that it could bring light into a dark place, the third level is that it's able to transform darkness into light. It could take the things of the outside world, and actually transform it and make that into light. And that's something that the neshamah does not have originally. The neshamah, as it is from birth, does not have that koach. Now, I'll explain what I mean. Just like it says by tzadikim and ba'alei teshuvah. Ba'alei teshuvah are greater than tzadikim. Why are ba'alei teshuvah greater than tzadikim? There are many, many reasons, many explanations. One of the things is that a tzadik could only elevate things which are good, things which are neutral. But things which are evil cannot be elevated, cuz you cannot do any you cannot do an aveirah. So there's no way you could elevate or, Chasidut uses the lashon, the ניצוצות דקדושה, the holy sparks that are found in things which are negative. A ba'al teshuvah even elevates that. And when the ba'al teshuvah does that, this brings out in the neshamah something that the neshamah did not have originally. It brings new kochot, new power to the neshamah. Something that the neshamah didn't have. And the same thing here. When neshamah a person is in galut, he gets such kochot, and when he works hard, he is able to bring new dimensions to the neshamah that the neshamah didn't have before. The first two levels are new revelations. He's able to reveal his strength, which he didn't have to reveal it at the time when he was בבית אביו, in his father's home, in a place of kedusha. He could even show how strong the neshama is, that could bring light into a dark place. But those are not new kochot the neshama gets. These are kochot that the neshama had, but didn't have to demonstrate them, didn't have to use them. When you're in the dark place, you have to use it, and the neshama is able to use it. The third level is when the neshama actually, because of that, gets new kochot that it did not have itself. The neshama did not have it, and now it gets it. And this is the difference between Menashe and Efraim. When we said that Chassidus explains that Menashe represents the level of not being influenced by the outside world, and that's all, and not adding anything new, we don't mean that he doesn't add anything. We mean that it represents the first two levels, that there is nothing new. There is no הפרני Meaning there is no multiplication, meaning there's nothing new, but still it's a part of Yosef. What am I trying to explain? That we said Menashe is just not being influenced by the outside world. But how is he a son of Yosef? Yosef represents that you add, you change over the אחר to בן. So what I'm saying now, Chassidus says that Menashe, when it says it's not influenced and it doesn't have anything new, doesn't mean at all that he just sits back and doesn't get influenced and that's it. It represents a deeper level of the neshama, it does, which is part of Yosef. Yosef represents addition, this is also addition. But Efraim represents a much higher level of addition. Efraim represents the addition that brings out an added koach to the neshama that the neshama did not have before at all. So this is the deeper peshat in the difference between Efraim and Menashe: that as Menashe represents when you don't get influenced from the galut, that means you can even bring light into the galut, but it's still not something that's new in the neshama. You reveal the kochot that the neshama has hidden, and Efraim represents the higher level when you're able even to add new kochot to the neshama.

In truth, being that Efraim and Menashe are both children of Yosef, this is really, not only they're children of Yosef, this is an extension of Yaakov. Because Yosef himself was a son of Yaakov. אלה תולדות יעקב יוסף. And this, now I'll try to go a little bit into Chassidus, explaining Ephraim and Menashe's role, not from their point of view, but from Yaakov's point of view, על פי חסידות, how what these two levels are an extension, as we said, of Yosef, but really they're an extension of Yaakov. And it says, אלה תולדות יעקב יוסף. So it says in Chassidus, now we'll get a little bit into the more chassidish or the chassidishe terminology. It says in Chassidus that the מדרגה of Yaakov is מדת האמת, so it says. That says in many sefarim, based on the פסוק, תתן אמת ליעקב, that you give emes to Yaakov. So Yaakov represents the מדת האמת. Kabbalah brings all kinds of ראיות. It says בכלל that Yaakov and Moshe have a very strong connection. על פי קבלה it says משה מלגאו ויעקב... דאית משה מלבר ויעקב מלגאו, that Yaakov and Moshe are really one. One is the outside, one is inside, kabbalistic terms. And by Moshe it also says that the מדה of Moshe is emes. Because it says in the י״ג מדות הרחמים, the 13 attributes of rachamim, one of them is emes. And it says after Moshe Rabbeinu heard from Hashem the י״ג מדות הרחמים, it says, וימהר משה ויקוד ארצה וישתחו. Moshe rushed. He ran. So the Gemara asks: Why did he run? What did he see that he fell on the floor? What happened? So the Gemara answers: מדת האמת ראה. He saw emet. And that's to him the strong, greatest thing. So Moshe Rabbeinu saw מדת האמת. There's a pasuk in Tehillim, it says, אמת ושלום נפגשו, that the emet and shalom met. So the Midrash says, who is this emet and shalom that met? Moshe and Aharon. It says when Moshe met Aharon, it says when Hashem sent Moshe to Mitzrayim, it says he met Aharon. So Moshe is emet, Aharon is shalom. How do we know Aharon is shalom? It says in Pirkei Avot, Aharon is you should be מתלמידיו של אהרן, should be from the students of Aharon, אוהב שלום ורודף שלום, you should run after peace and love peace. So the מדרגה, the level, the avodah of Aharon is shalom, and the מדרגה of Moshe is emet. אמת ושלום נפגשו is Aharon and Moshe. So just like it says by Moshe his מדה is מדת האמת, Yaakov Avinu's מדרגה is also, it says, מדת האמת. It's strange, because when you look at Chumash, in peshat, the one that looks like, chas v'shalom, but looks like was the one that did many things not לאמת was Yaakov Avinu. Kivayachol, kivayachol he tricked Esav in selling him the בכורה, he got the ברכות, tricked him with the ברכות, he tricked Lavan with putting up the sticks. He did all kinds of things. But that's, chas veshalom, it's not trickery, it's avodat Hashem, everything. His madregah is the מדת האמת. This connects it to what it says in chasidut and sefarim that the middah of Yaakov is תפארת. We know that Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov is חסד, גבורה, and תפארת. תפארת is the middle. חסד is the right, גבורה is the left, תפארת is the middle. The middle is emet. When you're extreme to the right, so you're a little bit off, extreme to the left, a little bit off. The middle, we would call that the שביל הזהב, the golden path, That is the emet. And מידת התפארת, again, not every, every word that I'm saying now has a lot of depth and explanation in chasidut why and what and when, we'll just bring in the general points. So his middah is תפארת, which is the middah of emet. Concerning מידת האמת, it says מידת האמת is מבריח מן הקצה אל הקצה, which means it goes from the top to the bottom. Emet, it's an expression in kabbalah, but taken from a pasuk. A pasuk by the Mishkan, it says that inside the Mishkan, what held up the walls of the Mishkan? So they had the בריחים. The בריחים were the, like, poles in the wall. So they had each wall had two halves on top and two halves on the bottom, and in the middle, it says the בריח התיכון, the middle one, was מבריח מן הקצה אל הקצה, was one that went from one end to the other. So that's the term that's used in kabbalah that when we talk about the middle madregah, the middle mida, which is תפארת, which is מידת האמת, is מבריח מן הקצה אל הקצה, goes from one end to the other. It's, because it's true, truth, the level of truth, the mida of truth has to be from beginning to end. There is no such thing as emes being emes at one point and one point being different, then it's not emes. If it's really emes, it has to be emes all over. It's hinted, Yerushalmi says it's hinted in the word emes. The word emes is Alef, mem, tav. Alef is the first letter of the alef beit, mem is the middle letter of the alef beit, tav is the last letter of the alef beit. So it says it's מן הקצה אל הקצה, from top to bottom through the middle. And it quotes a פסוק, אני ראשון ואני אחרון ומבלעדי אין אלקים. I'm first, I'm last, nothing in between is something without me. But because Hashem is emes, it says השם אלקים חיים, השם אלקים אמת, is emes, but bichlal it says that the inyan of emes goes through. And that's logical. Anything that we say is emes, if it's emes, it has to be. There is no such thing as emes being limited to certain times or certain places. It can't be. Something is emes, you can't say it's emes today and not emes tomorrow. And the example always given is when you say 1 + 1 = 2, and that's true, 1 + 1 = 2, you can't say, well, in the year 2006, 1 + 1 = 2, but in the year 2009, it'll change, it'll be 1 + 1 = 3. It can't be if this is emes. Or you'll say 1 + 1 = 2 in the United States, but in Eretz Yisrael, 1 + 1 = 4. It can't be, because if it's emes, it has to be through and through all over. So we say legabei the mida of Yaakov, since it's מידת האמת, it says that מידת האמת is מבריח מן הקצה אל הקצה, that means that his מדרגה, what he represents, he represents the fact that kedushah, Godliness, holiness, would come from the highest מדרגה, from all the way up all the way down, using the terminology of Kabbalah, that Ein Sof is מעלה מעלה עד אין קץ, למטה מטה עד אין תכלית. The Ein Sof, the infinite light of Hashem is מעלה מעלה עד אין קץ all the way all the way to the top, and all the way all the way to the bottom. All the way to the bottom to the lowest madreigah, it's all Hashem. In Kabbalah, in Chassidus, it says the madreigah of Yaakov is the madreigah of Atzilut. We know that there are four olamot: Atzilut, Beriah, Yetzirah, Asiyah. The highest olam, there are dargot, levels higher than that, but that's not part of השתלשלות, part of the general olamot. In olamot, the highest olam is Atzilut, then it goes down to Beriah, Yetzirah, Asiyah, and it's still רוחניות'דיקע עולמות, then you come down to עשיה הגשמית, the physical olam. The madreigah of Yaakov is Atzilut, but his madreigah of Atzilut, he is so that he has, what he did or what his madreigah represents, is not just the way it's in Atzilut, but מן הקצה אל הקצה, to bring down Godliness from the highest level of Atzilut all the way down to Beriah, Yetzirah, Asiyah, into עשיה הגשמית, into this physical world, and in this physical world in the lowest of the lowest of the physical world. That's the madreigah of Yaakov. So his madreigah is being mamshich, bringing Elokut, Godliness from the highest level of Atzilut, which is top, top, top, all the way down to the lowest, in עולם הזה, in this world down to the lowest. But it says that Yaakov himself, even though that's his madreigah, needs some other darga which is the one that's mamshich. We wouldn't use the word helps, but something like it helps the hamshachah from his madreigah all the way down. And who does that, says in Chassidus, Yosef. That's the מדרגה of Yosef. It says, אלה תולדות יעקב יוסף, that Yosef is the main תולדות child of Yaakov. So it says in Kabbalah that Yosef's's ענין is to be ממשיך from אצילות all the way down to this world, to bring אלקות into this physical world, that's The מדרגה of Yosef. We see physically, בגשמיות, he was the one that was able to be a tzadik in this, in the lowest part of this world. It says the difference between Yosef and his brothers, that his brothers were in a מדרגה that they could not be connected to Hashem with their greatest דביקות if they would have been involved in so much secular, worldly matters. And therefore, they chose to be shepherds, to be out of the city where is no noise and not busy and you could sit and constantly be דבוק in your mind connected to Hashem. But they couldn't do that. Yosef was in Mitzrayim, and he was the king of Mitzrayim, and Mitzrayim represents the lowest of the lowest. Mitzrayim is called ערות הארץ. It says in Avot deRabbi Natan an interesting thing, it says whatever you have in the world as a whole, you have in the human being, and it gives different places of the world that's compared to different parts of the body, and it says there is the ערווה of the body, the private place of the body, and what is that in the world? That's Mitzrayim. It's called ערות הארץ. It's the worst. It says that Mitzrayim represents the lowest. That's even hinted in the word Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim comes from the word מצר, limit. The greatest limitation, which means concealment of godliness, is Mitzrayim, Eretz Mitzrayim, the land of limitations, that's the lowest. Sometimes it says, earlier Charan was the worst. It says Charan was חרון אף של מקום בעולם, it was the place where Hashem was very angry. But later on it is Mitzrayim, Mitzrayim represents the worst. And Yosef was able to be in Mitzrayim, be the king of Mitzrayim, and be the same tzadik because he was able to be ממשיך אלוקות to the lowest of the lowest madregot from the highest. If you look at the ספירות, when קבלה compares the שבטים and the אבות to the ספירות, Yosef Hatzadik is ספירת היסוד. It says צדיק יסוד עולם, ספירת היסוד. Again, not to get into that. But יסוד, it says, is the end end, represents the end end of the body. The feet are already called לבר מגופא, outside of the body. But the body itself ends by the ספירת היסוד, and that's connected to Yosef. That's why Yosef had his נסיון was in something it has to do with these ענינים, and he was the צדיק יסוד עולם, he was able to overcome. But anyway, he was able to be bring Elokus into Mitzrayim. And that's why Yosef was the one that was ממשיך the madregah of Yaakov, what Yaakov was, to bring it down לפועל was through Yosef. So again, Yaakov's madregah in itself is the concept of מן הקצה אל הקצה, bringing Elokus down from the highest madregot all the way down to the lowest, into Mitzrayim which is the lowest of the lowest. But he himself couldn't accomplish it, and who was the one that accomplished it? That was Yosef. Which means that Yosef represents the idea of bringing Elokus, not just bringing Elokus into this world, but transforming the lowest part of the world as and transforming that into kedushah. So the children of Yosef were Menashe and Efraim. Because in what Yosef represents there are two stages. In the simple sense, the stages are that first you don't get influenced by the outside, which is Menashe as I said in the beginning, and then to multiply, to grow within the galut. And then also deeper than that, the second way we said, that even Menashe represents bringing out new kochot within the neshamah, but still new kochot not really new, just new revelations in the neshamah. And then Efraim represents the fact that you actually bring mamash new kochos into the neshamah that's not there from the beginning, and that happens through the galus because you're mamshich Elokus to a very low madreigah, and that's done through Yosef, and his children which are the ones that accomplished it b'poal. We see an interesting thing also in this parashah. It says at the end of the parashah, after Yaakov Avinu passed away, he gave instructions how the shevatim should carry him. And they carried him, his casket, from Mitzrayim to Eretz Yisrael exactly the same way it says later by the דגלים when divided, Hashem divided the twelve shevatim, the camps, the Yidden, the מחנה ישראל into four flags, four groups, and each one had his side, the same exact way was actually it came from what Yaakov said. So there it says like this, Rashi says that Yaakov said, \"I want my children to carry me.\" And he said exactly who should be on the right, on the מזרח, on the מערב, everything. Then he said, \"But Yosef and Levi, I don't want them to carry me.\" Why? Yosef is a melech. King, I don't want him to do it. Levi, he said, will eventually carry the ארון. When they build the Mishkan years later, Shevet Levi carry the ארון, so I don't want them to carry me. But אפרים ומנשה יהיו תחתיהם. Ephraim u'Menashe should be instead. So, Ephraim u'Menashe, they were substitutes for Yosef v'Levi. But the fact that Ephraim u'Menashe were substitutes for Yosef v'Levi, it must be that they have some connection. It must be, when we talk about these ענינים על פי רוחניות and Chassidus, there must be that must be that Ephraim u'Menashe represents certain, from a certain angle, the same thing as the as Yosef v'Levi. Otherwise, they wouldn't substitute, can't, it's not like just, even b'gashmiyus, when you have a teacher who is not there and you need a substitute, you have to somebody who could teach the same subject. You can't say a substitute that has nothing to do with what he learns, what he teaches, you can't substitute, you have to be in the same thing, the same line. So Yosef, so Ephraim u'Menashe have to be in the same line as Yosef v'Levi. How is Ephraim u'Menashe the same as Yosef veLevi, what do they represent? So, there's a lot of things here, but one of the the simple points is that both Efraim Yosef veLevi represent the fact that they were not influenced by the galut, by the surroundings of Mitzrayim. And not only that, they were able to do things within Mitzrayim that should transform Mitzrayim, the evil of Mitzrayim into good. Yosef, obviously, Yosef is the king of Mitzrayim. And as long as Yosef was alive, there was no shi'abud, there was no hard work. Why? Because Yosef, his madregah was that in Mitzrayim, he was able to have hashpa'ah, have this influence that the evil should not have the power. And that's why the Mitzrayim didn't have the power as long as he was alive. So that shows what we said before that Yosef, his madregah was that in the galut, he's able to bring Elokut. Levi was the same way. Levi was the only shevet in Mitzrayim that did not work for Par'oh. The reason is simple, because Par'oh was told that if you want the Yidden to survive, because he wanted them to survive, he wanted didn't want them to intermarry and because he wanted them as slaves, so he wanted them to continue. So, he was told that the only way you could have that they should continue is if they have people teaching them their philosophy. If you're going if you're going to ban learning, what's going to happen? They won't study their philosophy, and then they'll they'll disappear. They'll become mixed into Mitzrayim and they'll disappear, you won't have any slaves. So, he put one shevet, he said to them, you don't have to work, you be the teachers. And he wanted them to teach the Yidden. But whatever the reason is, l'po'al, Levi was a shevet that was not influenced by the outside, they didn't work. They, as a matter of fact, were the ones that were teaching Torah, trying to keep the spirit of the Yidden up. So here we see that Yosef and Levi were both people that were able in Mitzrayim to overcome the hardships. And in both ways: not to get influenced by Mitzrayim and, on the contrary to it, to transform what Mitzrayim represents. So, if they couldn't carry, so at least he said, so who will be the substitutes? Efraim uMenashe, because they are similar to what Yosef and Yosef veLevi is. But the bottom line from all this is that Efraim uMenashe, each one has a ma'alah. The ma'alah of Menashe is that it's the first level. You can't start to serve Hashem in galut if you don't have Menashe. So, therefore, Yaakov said the first thing is Menashe that's what Yosef said, the first thing is Menashe. He's the one that needs gets the credit because he's the one that starts everything. With Menashe, without Menashe you can't do, the first thing is to keep in mind that we don't want to forget where we come from, we don't want to forget what we have to do, we don't want to forget our father's home, our roots. And that's the foundation. And the foundation is what counts. That's the most important thing. But Yaakov, he said, you're right, but look at it further, look at what the goal is. The goal is Ephraim. The goal is it's not enough just not to get influenced, and not even to bring out the powers of the neshamah, but the goal is to actually transform the evil into good and bring new kochot into the neshamah and make the neshamah grow with something that the neshamah didn't have originally. And that's the lesson to us. In our galut, we're exactly we're now in Mitzrayim, even though we're not as bad off as in Mitzrayim, but the Midrash says כל הגליות נקראו על שם מצרים, all the galut are called Mitzrayim. So, we're also in Mitzrayim. And this is what we learn from this parashah and from Ephraim u'Menashe, because this is our job. And we see how important Ephraim u'Menashe is to all of us because when you get give a berachah to a child, you could give him a berachah, you should be like Avraham Avinu, you should be like Yitzchak, like Yaakov, like Moshe Rabbeinu, all kinds of great tzadikim. That's not what you say. ישימך אלקים כאפרים וכמנשה. You give him a berachah, you should be like Ephraim Menashe, and Ephraim before Menashe, because that's the goal. And that's what Yaakov said in this week's parashah, he said Ephraim u'Menashe will from now on this will be the berachah for the Yidden throughout all the generations because this is what we have to focus on, on Ephraim u'Menashe. Starting with Menashe, but coming up to the level of אפרים, כי הפרני אלקים, bringing Godliness into this galut till we bring so much Godliness into this galut, transform this darkness into light, that it turns into a big flame, the flame of the geulah sheleimah with ביאת המשיח במהרה בימינו.

Yes. I must have failed, but the growth that you have in in galus, yes. All, cuz Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov were the fathers of all of כלל ישראל. Yosef was a father only of one shevet, of two שבטים, אפרים ומנשה. So we can't call him our forefather. But on the other hand, there is a pasuk in Tehillim which refers to כלל ישראל with the name Yosef. It's interesting, we don't find that כלל ישראל should be called Yehudah. כלל ישראל is called Yisrael after Yaakov, and כלל ישראל is called בני אברהם, בני יצחק, בני יעקב, but we're not called בני שמעון. But the reason is simple, is because we're not all the children of Shimon. We're all the children of Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, but not of Shimon. Shimon is the fa... what? יהודי היה בשושן הבירה, and it says איש ימיני, he was from Binyamin, and it says איש יהודי. The Gemara says, why is he called Yehudi? Because it comes from the word modeh. Because he was כופר בעבודה זרה is מודה בכל התורה כולה, you admit. But Yosef, it says נוהג כצאן יוסף, we're called Yosef. So the פשוט פשט it says in the Midrash, why are we called Yosef? It says because at the time of hunger, Yosef fed all the Yidden, his whole family, and that's how they survived. So since כלל ישראל survived because of Yosef, because הוא המשביר בר, he was the one that gave the food, so we call all אידן יוסף. But Chassidus says it doesn't mean just the physical food. He supplied to Yidden this avodah which is important for כלל ישראל. And that's why we are called Yosef. Because our avodah is אפרים ומנשה, which are children of Yosef, and that's everyone's avodah. The reason it says in chasidus why we are called Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, I'll tell you even more, let's that's another more moment. It says in גמרא, אין קורין לאבות אלא שלשה. You're not allowed to refer to anyone else but Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov as our avot. It means in Shemoneh Esrei, in davening, because other places we do call our the Yidden in Mitzrayim, we call אבותינו במצרים, but in Shemoneh Esrei you can't. Chasidus says, why why only these? Because what Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov represents, chesed, gevurah, tiferet, ahavah, yirah, whatever they present is something that every Yid has to have. What Reuven represents, or Shimon, not every Yid has to have. Some people have the avodah of Reuven, some would have the avodah of Shimon, but avodah of Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, which is chesed, gevurah, tiferet, ahavah, yirah, rachamim, every Yid has to have. What Yosef represents, also every Yid has to have, because Yosef represents our avodah in galut, divided into the two ways of Menasheh and Ephraim, or Ephraim and Menasheh, and that's what we have to do, and that's why we are called Yosef. We find other places also, כי מלאכיו יצוה לך לשמרך בכל דרכיך, that malachim... Yeah, but the Rambam says that what a malach is is a certain, what word would I use, certain form of Hashem's kochot. When Hashem comes down to help us in this world, we refer to it as a malach, cuz that's all he is, he's just a koach of Hashem. So he meant to say that Hashem, who saved me not just biruchniyut, but down to earth, who that he should help you too, so that's why he referred to him as a malach. So we say כי מלאכיו יצוה לך, Hashem sends malachim to to protect us. Malachim? Hashem Himself. But the way He manifests Himself is that's called malach.