The topic tonight is going to be a continuation to last week. We started a few weeks ago a series concerning tefillah, different sections of davenen to explain the Chassidic approach to these different sections of davenen, not to go into the halachot of the davenen, but what the deeper meaning according to Chassidus and Kabbalah, the deeper meaning of the different parts of davenen. So we already had the part of מודה אני, and last week we spoke about פסוקי דזמרה, which are basically till after ישתבח in davenen. Now we're going to continue the next section. The next section of davenen is called ברכות קריאת שמע, the blessings of the Shema. We know that there is a commandment, a מצות עשה מדאורייתא, there is a halachah, commandment of Hashem, one of the 613 mitzvot, that every day we must say the Shema, once in the morning and once in the evening. And that's exactly what we do. In the morning prayers, in Shacharit, we say Shema, the whole Shema, and then we say Shema again in Maariv, which is for the evening, and it's part of the mitzvah. And from after ישתבח, that section, till we get to the actual Shema, is called ברכות קריאת שמע, the blessings of the Shema. The truth is that after the Shema, there is another blessing, which is also part of the ברכות קריאת שמע, but mainly, the ברכות קריאת שמע, the blessings of the Shema, starts from Barchu, if you daven with a minyan you start with Barchu, if you daven by yourself, it's from ברוך אתה השם אלוקינו מלך העולם, יוצר אור ובורא חושך, etc., etc., till we get to the Shema. That is called ברכות קריאת שמע, the brachot of Shema, and that is the next step of the morning prayers, of the davenen. Now to explain what is the deeper meaning of the ברכות קריאת שמע, we'll start with the famous question that the Rishonim—the Rishonim means the codifiers, the commentaries going back six, 700 years, 800 years ago—the question that they ask concerning the ברכות קריאת שמע: Number one, they ask, what is the connection between these things that we say before Shema, with Shema? Usually when we say that there is a bracha of something, the bracha has a connection to the thing that we're going to do. Let's use an example. We make a bracha before we put on tefillin, that's called ברכת תפילין, the bracha of tefillin. What's the bracha? ברוך אתה השם אלוקינו מלך העולם אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו—we thank Hashem for making us holy and commanding us—להניח תפילין, to put on tefillin. Before you light Shabbos candles, you make a ברכה, אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו להדליק נר של שבת קודש, or Yom Tov. So the bracha has a connection to the mitzvah that you're going to do. Even when we make a bracha on food, which is not called ברכת המצות, but it's called ברכת הנהנין, ברכות that you make when you have use, when you have pleasure of something, the bracha is connected to what you're going to do. When you make a bracha on an apple, בורא פרי העץ, because the apple comes from the tree, so you thank Hashem for creating the fruit of the tree. What is the connection between what we're saying here to Kriat Shema, that this is the bracha of Kriat Shema? Kriat Shema is שמע ישראל השם אלוקינו השם אחד, \"Hear, O Israel: השם is our God, השם is one,\" then we say you shall love Hashem, etc., etc. That is Kriat Shema, that is the mitzvah that we perform when we say the Kriat Shema. What are the brachot before? The brachot before start by saying you created the day, light, and you created the darkness, and then you shine on the world, and then we go on to say how the malachim, all the angels praise Hashem, and we go into a whole description of what the malachim do. כולם מקבלים עליהם עול, all the malachim accept the yoke of Hashem, and they give permission to each other, and then in a nice voice they say קדוש קדוש קדוש, they praise Hashem, and then the אופנים וחיות הקודש with great noise, they say ברוך כבוד השם ממקומו. And then we continue, לאל ברוך נעימות יתנו, that to the blessed Hashem they give their praise, and all the things that you continue saying. What does that have to do with Shema? And the next one is אהבת עולם אהבתנו, we say how much Hashem loves us. What does that have to do with Shema? So the question really is threefold. One part of the question is, why is this said before Shema? What is the connection between this and Shema? The second thing is, why is it called ברכות קריאת שמע, the berachot of Shema? A berachah of a mitzvah is usually אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו to do the mitzvah. If the berachah would say אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו לקרוא שמע, we thank Hashem for commanding us to say the Shema, that's called ברכות קריאת שמע, that's the berachah of Kriat Shema! But saying this, why is this called of ברכות קריאת שמע. So why, first of all, does it belong here? Second of all, why does it have the title ברכות קריאת שמע, and why is it said before the Kriat Shema? In other words, this is like an introduction to the Kriat Shema. So this is a question that's asked by the mefarshim. In Tanya, in פרק מ\"ט, the Alter Rebbe, in short, answers this question. And he says that basically why it's called ברכות קריאת שמע and why we say it before Shema, because this is an introduction to the Shema. This brings us to accomplish what the Shema is supposed to accomplish. What is the Shema supposed to accomplish? The Shema is supposed to accomplish to bring us to have love to Hashem. ואהבת את השם אלקיך, you should first recognize that Hashem is one, and therefore ואהבת את השם אלקיך, you shall love השם בכל לבבך with all your heart, ובכל נפשך with all your soul, ובכל מאדך with all your might, with all your money. You're supposed to love Hashem. So therefore, in order to get us to love Hashem, we bring this introduction. The introduction is that we show how the malachim, how the angels praise Hashem, how the angels stand in front of Hashem, how the angels feel towards Hashem. That's number one. And number two, when we talk about the love Hashem has to us, that's the second ברכה, אהבת עולם אהבתנו, that Hashem loves us, when we elaborate in our minds on these two subjects, this brings a person to fulfill what Shema is supposed to make him fulfill. This brings a person to have love. When you realize that the מלאכים love Hashem, and the מלאכים praise Hashem, and the מלאכים realize how great Hashem is, so that makes us do the same. So we also come to love Hashem. And when we realize how much Hashem loves us, this makes us also in turn love Hashem. That's, in short, what the Alter Rebbe says is the reason why we have this ברכות קריאת שמע as an introduction to קריאת שמע. But what I'd like to do is elaborate on that point, and to explain more in detail what is the function of these ברכות, of these ברכות קריאת שמע, where we talk about the מלאכים and we talk about Hashem loving us, and this is the introduction to the קריאת שמע. ברכות קריאת שמע,

as we know, comes right after פסוקי דזמרה. After the פסוקים of praise that we spoke about in the last shiur. At first glance, it seems as if what we do in ברכות קריאת שמע is more or less a repeat of what we did in the פסוקי דזמרה. In ברכות קריאת שמע, as we said, we talk about how the מלאכים praise Hashem and how they're standing in front of Hashem, and how Hashem loves the Jews. Now, if we look in פסוקי דזמרה, we had mentioned that already before. In פסוקי דזמרה, many of the things we say is that from השמים from שמים they praise השם, הללו כל מלאכיו we say, all the מלאכים praise השם, הללו כל צבאיו, all his armies, הללו שמש וירח, the sun and the moon and all the stars, they all praise Hashem, and we go on to show how everything praises Hashem, and even the fact that Hashem loves us, we mentioned that too. We say אתה הוא השם האלקים, you are השם אשר בחרת באברם, that you chose Avraham, and you took him out of Mitzrayim, and he was good to you, and you made a covenant with him, and you took him out of Mitzrayim, you split the sea, this is all showing how Hashem loves us and what he did for us. So basically, we already did that before. So what are we doing now again when it comes to ברכות קריאת שמע, when we say we again, now we're coming a new level that we are saying about the malachim, speaking about the malachim, we're speaking about Hashem's love to us, there must be something more. But the truth is, we explained last week that what is the concept of פסוקי דזמרה, and we'll see that whatever פסוקי דזמרה is supposed to mean to us, it's only one stage. We said that davening is like a ladder. As the Zohar says, it's a סולם מוצב ארצה, the ladder that stands on the ground, וראשו מגיע השמימה, the tip touches to heaven, that was the dream of Yaakov Avinu, and the Zohar says that this is davening. And we explained, why is davening compared to a ladder? Because davening is a time when we're supposed to get davuk, connected to Hashem. And in order to get there, we have to go step by step. So we explained, and I'll repeat in short again what we explained what is פסוקי דזמרה, so we have to know that even though we explained what פסוקי דזמרה is, that same idea of פסוקי דזמרה is not complete. There is a need for another step in that same concept of what the פסוקי דזמרה stands for, and that's what's going to be in the ברכות קריאת שמע. And let me explain that. We explained last week that פסוקי דזמרה is the time when we are supposed to get our נפש הבהמית, our animal listic soul, to be ready to love Hashem. Since we're leading up to קריאת שמע, we're leading up to what it says there, ואהבת את ה' אלוקיך בכל לבבך, you shall love Hashem with all your heart. And it says לבבך with two ביתין, not בכל לבך, with your all your heart, it's two ביתין, and the Gemara tells us it means בשני יצריך, with both יצר'ס, with the yetzer tov and the yetzer hara. We're supposed to love Hashem, not only with our yetzer tov, with our good inclination, but also with our yetzer hara, with our evil inclination. Using the terminology of Chassidus, we're supposed to love Hashem, not only with our נפש האלוקית, with our godly soul, but also with our animalistic soul. And I explained, what is the mean meaning of our animalistic soul? It doesn't mean we have an animal inside, but the fact that we, as human beings, are part of creation, we are according we are like animals. We are part of creation, so our nature is to be pulled and to like and to want things of creation, things of nature, rather than things of godliness. But that our job is to make sure that it shouldn't be that way. Our job is, and that's what we're supposed to reach with davenen, to reach a point that even our נפש הבהמית, our animalistic soul, should love Hashem. That means we're supposed to bring ourselves that even we, as human beings, not we as Jews and we have a godly soul, so the godly soul loves Hashem, we, as human beings, part of the nature which naturally has a המשכה, has a pull to physical things, should start having a pull to godliness. That's what we have to do. Now, therefore, I explained, we have the פסוקי דזמרה, and in פסוקי דזמרה, we discuss the greatness of Hashem. Now, as I explained, when we discuss, and it means not just to say, but really to think about it, that's really the way davenen was set up, when we're supposed what are we supposed to think about? There are two thought two types of thinking in the greatness of Hashem. You could think about the greatness of Hashem, how Hashem is removed from the world, how much He is beyond the world, and to create the world was something very low for Him, He had to lower Himself, but He, in essence, is beyond. That's one thing. But then there's another thing that we have to think about, it's opposite: how everything in the world comes from Hashem, how the nature comes from Hashem, how the stars recognize that everything comes from Hashem, how we ourselves, being that we are part of nature, so we also come from Hashem, and we are also batel to Hashem. That's what we talk about in פסוקי דזמרה. And that will cause, as I explained, that even the נפש הבהמית, our animalistic soul, meaning the natural part of us, will also start to recognize: wow, if the nature understands this, if all the the stars, the sun, and the moon, and all the stars and everything understands the greatness of Hashem and constantly bows down to Hashem, and that's part of nature, so me, as part of nature, too, should do it. So this is the idea that I explained of פסוקי דזמרה. The only thing is that this is only the beginning. To reach the goal of having our nature, our own physical nature, our נפש הבהמית, become close to Hashem, there are two stages. What I explained till now was one stage, and then there's another stage. The two stages are basically based on the famous pasuk, and it's only a logical thing, where it says סור מרע ועשה טוב. You have to stay away from evil, and you have to do good. Which means there is getting rid rid of the negative, and then there is bringing in the positive. What we explained last week concerning the פסוקי דזמרה, פסוקי דזמרה, what it does is, when we think about how everything bows down to Hashem, that will take away the evil that might be found in the נפש הבהמית. But that's only the סור מרע. That's not enough. What we have to get is that our נפש הבהמית, which basically, like I said before, means ourselves as natural human beings, should not only not have negativity against godliness, but should also, עשה טוב, should be in a positive way want godliness. That's a much harder thing. That not only we shouldn't block us from allowing the godliness to come, that's taking away the negative. That's why I explained that פסוקי דזמרה, the word זמרה means song, but the word זמרה also comes from the word לזמר עריצים, to cut. לזמר עריצים means to cut the thorns. And it says, what you do when you go, when you say the פסוקי דזמרה, what it's supposed to do is cut the thorns. There are thorns that stand in the way of Hashem becoming us becoming close to Hashem, Hashem becoming close to us to us, because of our natural being, which is part of this world, which is a concealment of Hashem. So we have to cut those thorns. We have to get rid of what that is. And there are stages in that. Even that starts really all the way from the beginning, from Modeh Ani. When you wake up in the morning, you say Modeh Ani. That, as I said, is the first connection you have to Hashem, and then you go on with the berachot, and then you go to פסוקי דזמרא, and through all that time, we're supposed to get rid, first of all, of the negativity which might be even forbidden, bad, and then we have to go further and get rid of the negativity which is not forbidden, but it is not 100% good. Like for instance, it says in chasidut that at the time of פסוקי דזמרא, we're supposed to think of getting rid, deciding of not talking דברים בטלים. דברים בטלים means just nonsense. We're not even talking about speaking דברים אסורים, things which are forbidden. That's the first thing to get rid of. But we have to go a step further, and make sure that we don't want to talk דברים בטלים. And it says, if you talk דברים בטלים, nonsense, it brings you to מחשבות זרות, to bad thoughts. And it means to control your ראיה, your sight, to control your שמיעה, your ears, what you hear. And that's supposed to be accomplished at the time when we say פסוקי דזמרא. We get rid of that. But that is not the goal. That is not reaching the goal yet. Because by doing that, all it is, we're making that our נפש הבהמית does not stand in the way of connecting ourselves to Hashem. But the goal is that the נפש הבהמית itself should love השם. ואהבת את השם אלוקיך בכל לבבך with all your heart, both beisin meaning בכל, אפילו with the יצר הרע, that your יצר הרע should want Hashem, should love Hashem. The יצר הרע to love Hashem in our in in in simple pshat is that we should love Hashem not only because of our neshamah, part of our nature should become not only that it doesn't stand in the way of being close to Hashem, but it itself should be want to become close to Hashem and have this desire of love to Hashem. That's what we have to reach when we say Shema. And therefore, פסוקי דזמרא is just a first step in that ladder. We have to go to a second step. פסוקי דזמרא, as much as a person will think about how the nature is batel, is nullified to Hashem, and a person will think how the world was created from Hashem, יש מאין, something from nothing, and Hashem is the Creator, and if not for Hashem, nothing would be. And as I explained last week, we think about לאהבת השם אלוקיך, to love השם, כי הוא חייך because it's your life. So we don't think about Hashem being removed from the world. On the contrary, Hashem is our life. And as much as we think about it and as we know and we start thinking about it, we have all the different explanations we bring in Chabad חסידות that explains that the world has to be constantly renewed again, recreated, because if Hashem would for one second stop creating it, it would completely stop existing, because its whole existence is only there because Hashem makes it exist. Not like people think, they say they once asked somebody who didn't learn Chassidus, and they said, \"What would Hashem do if He'd want to destroy the world?\" \"What would He do? He'd put the whole world on fire.\" \"Then there'll be ashes left, so throw the ashes into the ocean.\" And the Chassid was laughing at him. If Hashem wants the world to stop existing, He just stops giving it its existence. Don't have to burn it. Burning you have to burn something that's there, and you have to get rid of it. It's not there, it's only there because of Hashem. So the more you think about it, the more your nefesh habehamis, which is part of nature, will realize that he will not stand in the way of a person getting of of getting close to Hashem. But the nefesh habehamis itself will still not have that desire to be close to Hashem. And the reason is very simple, because the nefesh habehamis is part of the creation. Meaning, we say nefesh habehamis, meaning ourselves. We as physical human beings, not as Godly beings, physical human beings are part of the creation. Whatever we think, as much as we'll think deeper and deeper and deeper, it'll all be from within our own thoughts. And we, with our own thoughts, being we're part of the framework of creation, cannot get ourselves out of the framework of creation. So we will all be limited to what we are, and we won't go any further. And we what are we? We are part of the creation. And creation is not Godly, and therefore we still remain what we are. There's an expression: אין חבוש מתיר את עצמו מבית האסורים. A prisoner cannot get himself out of jail. If you are in jail, you can't get yourself, there has to be somebody outside. We are in jail. We are basically in jail. Godliness within us is in jail, but there's nothing we can do about it, because since we are who we are, we are part of the creation, we are part of the world, so we We are naturally pulled to the world. So our being is part of nature, so therefore, as much as we'll think about Hashem, we cannot change our nature. Now I'll go from a different aspect to explain it. We call it the nefesh habehamis, the animalistic soul.

Why do we call it the animalistic soul? Just an expression. We have a little animal inside? The truth is because we, we are, as far as creation is concerned, as being part of creation, we are like animals, unless we work on it, and we bring our neshamah in. What's the difference between a human being and an animal? A human being has sechel. An animal doesn't. An animal does what it wants. It wants things which are good for it, what it feels good, that's what an animal, animal doesn't understand anything. There is a certain level of sechel, it says, that an animal has, that's why an animal will recognize its master. An animal has enough sechel not to jump into fire. That, yes. But that's only more like an instinct, but that's called, in Chassidus it's called שכל הנקנה. That's bought, borrowed sechel, but that's not really sechel. An animal doesn't understand. An animal just has a taavah. An animal has midos. We have intellect, sechel umidos, we have the intellect and the emotions. A human being all has intellect and emotions. And a human being is supposed to, his intellect is supposed to control his emotions, מוח שליט על הלב. I might want what I want, but I'm supposed to control it with my mind. An animal, a behemah, a chayah, can't control itself, doesn't, cuz whatever it wants, that's what it does. That's why the Gemara says the difference between tzadikim and reshaim, that צדיק, רשות, צדיקים ליבם ברשותם, by tzadikim their heart is under their control, and רשעים הם ברשות ליבם, they are under the control of their heart, because that's what reshaim are like a behemah. Actually, one of the animals has even that name. A dog is called a כלב. And it says why is it called כלב? כלב is כולו לב, completely heart. What do you mean completely heart? It means it has only the feelings, the midos. Whatever it wants, it'll do. Whenever and whatever it wants, whatever it feels is good for me, that's what I will do. And that's what we are. If not using extra special kochos that is given to us, we naturally are the same. A human being is, has naturally the nefesh habehamis, he is a behemah, because mainly it's midos, and if we'd let things go, the nature is that we would follow our feelings, follow our midos. And that's what the nefesh habehamis is. Nefesh Elokis it says, the godly soul has to do with sechel, but the nefesh habehamis is the midos of the person. That's why we see that when it comes to the time of sefirah, and we know that the seven weeks of Sefirah is a time when we have to purify our נפש הבהמית, we have to purify our middot. So we have seven weeks, and seven times seven is 49. What's the cheshbon of 49? Because there are seven emotions and each one is made up of seven, so we have 49. What about the sechel? We know that a human being has seven emotions and three parts of the intellect, but that we don't put into the Sefirah. Why? Because when we're trying to be mevarer the נפש הבהמית, we're talking about the middot, because it's only middot. And when we start doing this, counting the Sefirah, it starts off with a korban called קרבן עומר, that's why it's called ספירת העומר, we count from the omer. What is the omer? The omer was a korban, a sacrifice, a minchah made of flour. But what kind of flour? All other korbanot minchah made of flour were made of wheat, except two: the korban minchah of a sotah and the קרבן עומר. And the Gemara says a sotah is a woman that was warned by her husband not to go into hiding with a man and she went along ahead and did it, she's brought to the בית המקדש, and she has to bring this korban, and then she drinks the water. Why does she bring, the Gemara says, a korban made of barley? So the Gemara says cuz barley is a מאכל בהמה, barley is eaten by by animals. And since she behaved like an animal, her korban is like an animal. The same thing is with the Sefirah. Why does Sefirah start with the קרבן עומר? Because we are trying to purify our behemah. So we start off with the קרבן עומר, which is a minchah made of barley, which is a a flour made of barley, which is מאכל בהמה, food of a behemah, because that's what we're working with. So what are we working with? Middot. So the נפש הבהמית, which is really not some strange object or some strange being put into us, it is the way we are from nature itself, so that is middot. And therefore middot is I want what I want, whatever I feel. So to change the נפש הבהמית, that he should want something other than nature, but to want Hashem, is very, very hard. Therefore, even though we went through פסוקי דזמרה, and in פסוקי דזמרה we showed that nature itself is batel to Hashem, and nature itself, the stars and the sun and the moon, they all bow down to Hashem, and everything batel to Hashem. What it could do is it could show the נפש הבהמית, you see, you know, even the nature is not really against Hashem. But to change the נפש הבהמית itself, he should, he himself, that means we as human beings as physical human beings from the physical part of it, we should start wanting Hashem, which is not us. That's something that's not normal. That's something that's not going to happen. We know that if we want Hashem, we want to get close to Hashem, that means the more we get close to Hashem, the more we lose of our ego. That's against what a beheima is. A human being, it's possible sometimes to overgo his ego for the sake of something higher. But for an animal, there's no such thing. An animal, what it wants. So the נפש הבהמית, which is our animal, the way we are an animal is the same. So we want what is good for us, not what is beyond us. So to look at Godliness and that should become our desires, that's something very hard. And therefore, after the first step of פסוקי דזמרה, which at least accomplishes one part, that it gets לזמר עריצים, it cuts off the thorns, and it doesn't allow the negativity to block, but we still have to have the second stage of causing the נפש הבהמית itself to want Hashem. That's where the ברכת קריאת שמע comes in. And in the ברכת קריאת שמע, we talk about the malachim, how the malachim are praise Hashem, and what they do to Hashem. And by doing that, we cause our נפש הבהמית to want also. And I'll explain how, this is what Chassidus explains, how this works.

Let's start off with a question. Why is it important for us to speak about how the malachim praise Hashem? We are greater than malachim. We know that Yidden are greater than malachim. So we have to talk about these low creatures? They praise Hashem, big deal. We are the neshamot, we are Yidden. The answer is we're doing it not for our neshama, we're doing it for our נפש הבהמית. And this is the peshat. The Gemara says, אין לך עשב למטה שאין לו מזל למעלה ואומר לו מכה, המכה בו ואומר לו גדל. There's not even a grass down here that doesn't have a mazal in shamayim, in heaven, that controls what happens to that grass. Every little thing in this world has a mazal. We also have a mazal. Now, when we talk about a mazal, there are many, many levels in this mazal. Mazal really is the are the constellations. A mazal is a constellation. The mazal is in control over what happens here, but on top of that mazal, there is another mazal. There's a pasuk that says גבוה מעל גבוה וגבוהים עליהם, that there is higher and higher and higher on top of them, so finally you go higher and higher and higher. So let's look at the נפש הבהמית. The fact that we have this behemah within us, which may basically means we are that behemah if we don't work on it, what is the source, the mazal of that behemah? So if we go from level to level, you know what that mazal of that behemah is? The malachim. The angels are the shoresh, the source of these of the נפש הבהמית of a person. And we see that the malachim are called חיות הקודש, we even mentioned it here, והאופנים וחיות הקודש. Chayot means animals. They're called animals, some of them are called behemot. Why are they called animals? Why are malachim called animals? Tell you why they're called animals. Because like I said before, an animal, his intellect doesn't control his midot. His midot are midot. He loves what he what he loves, he wants. That's exactly what the malachim are. The malachim love Hashem, not because their intellect tells them to love Hashem. The malachim have intellect, there's no question about it. Malachim are very smart, and they understand the greatness of Hashem greater than any other anyone of us could imagine. The Rambam says, the Rambam says that even the planets understand, have intellect and understand Hashem. Certainly the malachim understand Hashem. But at the same time, the way it says in Tanya, פרק ל״ט, at the same time, it is not the intellect that controls their midot that that's why they love Hashem. They love Hashem, but not because they understand the greatness. That's a separate thing, they understand the greatness, and naturally they have this nature. Since they are creatures which are created by Hashem in a revealed way, they naturally have this love to Hashem. So why do they love Hashem? Exactly like a behemah loves the loves loves the grass. An animal, a cow eats grass because that's what it likes, not because it understands, not because it knows anything. And it likes what it likes, and it does what it likes to do. Malachim do the same, they love Hashem. The difference between malachim and a behemah is, that a behemah, since it's part of this physical world, where Godliness is concealed, so they love the things which are a concealment of of Godliness. The malachim, which are in higher worlds, they love Hashem the same way the behemah, but they love Hashem. They love Hashem not because...as because that's what's revealed to them. But basically, it's something that's inborn in them, and something that's natural, and they do it because this is what they are what they like. So the malachim are called behemot. And what we do here in this berkat kriat shema, we talk all about how the malachim love Hashem, and how they look at Hashem and they say, \"קדוש קדוש, השם is holy, ברוך כבוד השם ממקומו, ולא-ל ברוך נעימות יתנו,\" they give all kinds of praise. We say that. What does that do? When we say that, and obviously the whole time, any explanation I'm giving here is if we say it and we think what we're saying, and we know what it means deeper, then we could really apply it. When we really think what this means, what this tells us, when we elaborate on that, what this tells us, us, our nefesh habehamit, that you should know, the true being of the nefesh habehamit, what is really his essence? His essence, he is just a disguise of a malach. And what is the true will and ta'avah of a malach? Hashem. So that gives the nefesh habehamit to understand, we said before that nefesh habehamit, because it is part of this world, we are part of nature, so therefore nature is not Godliness. And therefore, what do we have a what does the nefesh habehamit have a desire? To things of this world, because he desires what he what he knows, what he feels, what he wants, and that's it. But when he realizes that what am I really? I really am just a hishtalshelut of the malachim. And the malachim, what is they're like me, they also have a desire, ta'avah, without controlling it with the sechel. But what is their essential ta'avah to? To Godliness. So mimela, when I would want Godliness, it's not going against what I am, that's really what I am in truth, that's really where my essence is. The problem of the nefesh habehamit, why we said in the beginning that it can't get close to Hashem, because it's against its nature. Naturally it wants what is good for it, and it thinks that what is good for it, food, gashmiyut, ta'avot. But when it starts like that's not really me, the real me, when you say the real you should stand up, who is the real me? He thinks the real me is the malach. If the real me is the malach, and the malach has the same ta'avah as I do, but his ta'avah is to Godliness, oh, so then there's nothing...it makes the nefesh habehamit, it makes us think, so we as as behemot, as with our animalistic soul, also want Godliness. So that brings us to the second stage. The first stage was by פסוקי דזמרה, to stop having ta'avah, bad ta'avot, to stop taking away the negativity, stop talking devarim beteilim, stop doing something as to decide not to have anything that will interfere with the connection to Hashem. But not enough to say that I should want. How could I want? I want what is good for me. That's not good for me, because I'm part of nature. So we tell the nefesh habehamit, it's not true. Who are you? You are really, really this malachim, and the malachim really want Hashem. So that's number one. Another thing, the fact that we think about this, this itself is mamshich, this itself brings into the נפש הבהמית a special koach that the נפש הבהמית should be able to overcome its ta'avot to the world and change to ta'avot of Hashem, because there's an expression, מיניה וביה אבא לישדי ביה נרגא. In order to chop down a tree, how do you do it? The only way you could chop down a tree is with the tree itself. In order to use an ax, the ax must have a handle, and the handle is made of wood, so it's only with the wood itself you could chop down the tree. So in order to affect the נפש הבהמית, to make a change, it has to come from within something that's in the in the category of נפש הבהמית. So when we talk about the malachim, that, besides making the נפש הבהמית, the first thing I said, making it realize that really I'm, my essence is a malach, which wants Hashem, so I could also want Hashem, but besides that, this brings the koach from the source of the נפש הבהמית itself to change the נפש הבהמית to want good, to want Hashem. Like it says in Chassidus and קבלה, אין הדינים נמתקים אלא בשרשן. דינים, to be strict, the way you could sweeten it is if you take the שורש. Even gashmiyus say that that sometimes in order to cure you have to take the source of the sickness and with the source of the sickness you could cure. How do you get cured from a sting of a bee? It's by taking that's what they used to say years ago I don't know if they still say it taking the bee itself and rubbing it on. With the bee you could get rid of the sting. And I'm sure there are other things that the doctors here are able to say. Uh? So the idea is you take the thing itself, and that's what we do when we say ברכות קריאת שמע we talk about the malachim. We talk about the malachim and we tell the נפש הבהמית, look, you the malach is you, and look what the malach does. And this brings the נפש הבהמית also to want Hashem. And then we go to the second part which specifically we will explain it in the next shiur, the next bracha, which talks about the love of Hashem, which is another step to the introduction and the preparation of the נפש הבהמית wanting to be close to Hashem. Basically, it comes out here that when we have to affect the נפש הבהמית, that the נפש הבהמית should want Hashem and lead up to ואהבת את השם אלוקיך בכל לבבך בשני יצריך love Hashem with your נפש הבהמית too, we have two stages here we said. One is realizing, telling the נפש הבהמית, look, the nature of the world itself is batel to Hashem, that's the Pesukei D'Zimrah, and then we come the second step telling him, look, the malachim which is the top spiritual beings, look how they're בטל to Hashem and that affects the נפש הבהמית.

Basically, these two things can be referred to as the אש של מעלה and the אש של מטה. Let me explain this. We know that אש is the fire, אש של מעלה the fire of above and the fire of below. We know that davenen, and that's what we're talking about, davenen, tefillah is במקום קרבנות, instead of korbanot. By korbanot we find that every time there was a korban brought to Hashem, there were two types of fire there to consume the korban. It says, number one, there was a fire that came down from heaven, and was on the מזבח, and that consumed the korbanot. Then it says in the Gemara, and there's a halacha in Rambam, that even though there was a fire from heaven and אש של מעלה, מצוה להביא מן ההדיוט. They had to the כהן had to go and bring ordinary fire from down here, and add it to the fire that came from heaven. So the korban in order to be burned, had to have two fires: the fire של מעלה, the fire that came from above, and the אש של מטה, the fire that came from below. Davenen is like a korban. Why is davenen like a korban? Like we're saying now, because a korban was to burn the בהמה, and the בהמה should be consumed by the fire of Hashem and go up to Hashem. When we daven, that's exactly what we're doing. We're being מקריב our בהמה, the בהמה that's within us, the בהמה that we are, and we are being מקריב to Hashem. Thank G-d that it's only in a mental form, in a spiritual form, not a physical form. Actually the Ramban says that when they brought korbanot, the man who brought the korban had to think, at the time when the korban was being burnt he had or whatever was done to the korban he had to think in his mind, \"Really, this should have been done to me. And Hashem had pity on me and he exchanged it as to be done to the animal.\" So really, what's happening at the time when this done to the korban, it's really for us to do it to ourselves. Who are we? Ourselves, not the neshamah part, the holy part of it, our נפש הבהמית, we have to be makriv and make close our behemah. And that's why, as I mentioned the other time, the main part of the korban was that on the mizbeach went the blood and the fat. Blood represents the heat of the person, the koach, the life of the person, fat represents pleasure, as we all know, I mentioned last time, that fat even in a human being comes more from the pleasure you have than from the food you eat. Those who are on a diet should know. And it's not as what you it's not what you eat, it's how you eat it. If you eat it with pleasure, it gives you a lot of fat. So we're supposed to burn the fat and the blood on the mizbeach, to show that our נפש הבהמית, we're supposed to take the נפש הבהמית and burn it on the mizbeach. So here by the korban, we see that there are two inyanim here. There is when the korban was burnt, it was burnt by the fire of above, and at the same time there was a fire from below. And together that brought the korban up. The same thing is with our korban that we do through davenen, which is the korban that we bring. First we have the אש של מטה. By פסוקי דזמרה, we have the we contemplate, we think about how the world down here, the nature is batel to Hashem. So we're bringing a fire to bring us closer to Hashem, but the fire is made up of what? Which things do we think about? About things of nature, things of this world. That's the אש שלמטה. Then come to the ברכת קריאת שמע, the first part of the berachah of קריאת שמע, there we think about not what goes on down here, there we think about what goes up there by malachim. That's also another step of the esh, of the fire that is supposed to help our נפש הבהמית get close to Hashem. But that's already the אש שלמעלה, the fire that comes from above, the fire that deals with malachim who are above. And between the two, we are able to reach the point that we're trying to reach: the point of having our נפש הבהמית, our animal that's within us, to also love Hashem. So again, just in short, we start off with פסוקי דזמרה, where we get we show the נפש הבהמית how nature is really batel to Hashem, so don't interfere, don't put your natural desires on in the way of interfere with the connection to Hashem, and that takes care of that. Then we go to the second one. We say, not only that, now listen who you are. Not only you shouldn't interfere, you yourself should love Hashem, and you're able to do it because you are basically an השתלשלות of the malachim. And when we think about that, that brings down that same light that's there by the malachim onto us, and then we're able to have the נפש הבהמית feel that, and then we're closer already to accomplishing what we're supposed to when it comes to קריאת שמע, which is to love השם בכל לבבך, even with the נפש הבהמית. And then when we reach that, we have reached one goal, but it's not the complete goal, because after that we have the Shemoneh Esrei, etc., as we have the whole seder, but this is that part. So so far we're here, and if you want to hear further, Im yirtzeh Hashem, next