Okay, thank you very much, and the topic tonight is malachim, angels. Truth is there is not much I could tell you about angels, because you have to be a very big tzaddik to see angels or know much about it, but nevertheless, we'll find some things that are written about angels and we could just repeat things that are written in the sefarim. One of the places that we do find a little bit of description of what angels are all about is in the Rambam. And I will actually read from inside the Rambam in English. The Rambam in Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, in his Mishneh Torah, the sefer of the Rambam is called Mishneh Torah, he has a section called Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah, the laws that are the foundations of the Torah. And there he discusses many different things, and one of the things he discusses are malachim. And I'm going to read from inside the Rambam, that will give us some insight a little bit in what malachim are. Everything which the Holy One, blessed be He, created within His world is divided into three categories. They include: number one, creations which are a combination of matter and form. They are constantly coming into existence and ceasing to exist. For example, the bodies of man and beasts, plants, and metals. These are things that are made up, as he calls them, of matter and form, which we would call guf and nefesh, the body and the soul. The Rambam refers to the soul as the form, the tzurah. But in our terms, the way we're used to using nowadays, is guf and nefesh, the body and its soul. And things he mentioned before, everything has a physical body to it, plus it has a life which makes it exist. There are different levels in these life forces that we talk about, but nevertheless, he includes them all in the same category: the bodies of man, beasts, plants, metals. Then you have creations which are also a combination of matter and form, but do not change from body to body and from form to form as those in the first category. That rather, their form is permanently fixed in their matter, and do they not they do not change as the others do. For example, the spheres and the stars which revolve in them. The matter from which they are composed differs from a simple conception of matter, and their form differs from a simple conception of form. So here we have another category: these are the גלגלים, the planets. They are also made of a form of a of matter, but the Rambam says they're from a different type of matter, and their nefesh, their form, is also in a different level in the form that we imagine in our bodies. Then you have the third category: creations which have form, but no matter at all. For example, the angels. For the angels do not possess bodies, but rather are forms which are separate from each other. In other words, the angels are spiritual beings. We could only relate to physical things, and we understand that all the different physical things contain a spiritual part in it which gives it its existence, but the way we relate to is no other way but to the physical part. But he says there are malachim, the angels are beings which are purely spiritual, as he calls them, purely souls, purely forms, and not at all matter, not at all גשמי, not at all physical. And each one is different from the other. But then he asks, what is meant by the prophet's statement that they saw an angel of fire or with wings? We just said that they don't have any physical shape, they're not physical things. So he answers, all these prophetic all these are prophetic visions and parables, as it states, God your Lord is a consuming fire, though He is not fire, and the description of Him in this manner is only metaphoric. Similarly, it says, He makes angels as winds, עושה מלאכיו רוחות, it doesn't mean that they look like winds, like a wind, but it's just using terms, physical terms, so we are able to relate to it. Then he continues: Since they possess no body, what separates the form of the angels from each other? Now, we know when you have physical things, each one is limited to what it is, takes up space, and therefore one is different than the other because this is here, that is there, this is this shape, that is that shape. So we know there are different things. But when we're talking about spiritual matters, spiritual beings, what makes one different than the other. So he says, \"Their existence is not alike. Rather each one is below the level of the other and exists by vir- virtue of its influence in a progression of levels, one above the other.\" There are malachim one above the other, and being as one is higher than the other, therefore we can know there is a difference between one and another. And he continues, \"Everything exists by virtue of the influence of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His goodness.\" And it says Solomon, Shlomo HaMelech says in in in Kohelet, he says, \"Because above because above the one who is high, there is a watcher, and there are others higher than them.\" In other words, he says that there are levels one upon the other, one on top of the other, and those are the levels of the malachim. \"The expression, 'below the level of the other,' does not refer to the height in a spatial sense, as one might say, he It's not that one is higher than the other, meaning one is sitting higher than his colleague, but rather in regard to spiritual level. For example, when speaking about two sages, one of whom is greater than the other, we say one is above the level of the other.\" Now we don't mean he's sitting higher than the other, but what it means is his level is higher. \"Similarly, a cause is referred to as above the effect it produces.\" So higher and lower doesn't necessarily mean like we would imagine a higher floor or a lower floor, but higher means in level. So too malachim, we have different levels of malachim, one is higher than the other. And I will explain soon what he meant when he said that it exists by virtue of influence. Or he says later everything exists by the influence of Hashem, and then they give their influence. I'll explain that in a moment. But in the meantime, he says there are different levels of malachim. \"The different names with which the angels are called reflect their spiritual levels. Thus they are called,\" and the Rambam goes through all the different names of malachim. The highest level are called חיות הקדש, the holy חיות. Then you have the אופנים. Then you have the אראלים, חשמלים, שרפים, מלאכים, אלקים, בני אלקים, כרובים, and אישים. \"These ten names which are used to refer to the angels reflect their ten different spiritual levels. The The level above which there is no higher level, except that of God, blessed be He, is that of the form called חיות. Therefore the prophets say that they are below God's throne of glory. The tenth and lowest level is that of the form called אישים. They are the angels who communicate with the prophets, and are perceived by them in prophetic visions. Therefore, they are called אישים because their level is close to the level of human knowledge, and an איש means a human being, so they are called אישים.\" Let's read a little bit more. \"All these spiritual forms are alive. They recognize and know the Creator with very immense knowledge, each of the forms according to its level, and not according to its greatness.\" And then he continues, \"Even the highest level is unable to conceive the true nature of the Creator as He truly is, since its in- its intellectual capacity is too limited to know or to grasp Him. It does, however, comprehend and know more than the form which is below it.\" What the Rambam said here was that we have the different spiritual forms, spiritual beings, are not made up of any body at all, and these spiritual beings are one level higher than the other, and they are the ones that are called malachim. And the Rambam said as he says before, that one is there or is created by the influence of the higher one.

So let me just explain in other terms, or in terms the way it's explained in Chassidus, what this idea of the malachim is and what it means that they are one lower than the other, or one is created by the influence of the other. Now we're going to get a little bit into the chassidish or or Kabbalistic terms here. We know that there is a סדר השתלשלות, which means that when the creation that Hashem created the world, there is a seder, an order, a sequence of events, of levels, of how one spiritual level was condensed, so to speak, was נתצמצם and lowered to a lower level, and from that lower level to a lower level, until finally it turned into this physical world, which is עולם הזה, this physical עולם העשיה, as we call it. In other words, when we talk about creation, it all started with Hashem. Hashem is the true being and the real being that's there always. And when Hashem wants to create the world, it all came as an evolvement, so to speak, from Hashem Himself. As the pasuk says, כי ממך הכל, everything is from You. But the way it is, the way Hashem is originally, or as Kabbalah uses the term, the אור אין סוף, the light of Hashem the way it's originally, is so strong that there is no possibility that at that point there should be an existence of something other than Hashem. So therefore, there couldn't be a creation of an other being, a separate being, or a being that seems to feel itself as a separate entity other than Hashem, couldn't be as long as that light of Hashem shines. In other words, when you have only Hashem and what's felt is only Hashem, it's impossible for something else to be. So in order to create this physical world, and this was Hashem's will—why He wanted it we don't know, but we know for sure that's what He wanted, obviously that's what He made—so in order for Him to create this physical world, it went through a long, long סדר השתלשלות, a seder of evolvement, which means that the beginning from that light, the light was not that strong, and then the next level the light was less strong, and still shined, which means the truth of Hashem is felt, then it's felt less and felt less, until finally it goes from one level to another, until finally it came down to a point where the truth of Hashem is not felt at all, and therefore there is a possibility of something that seems to be a separate entity. In truth, everything is only from Hashem and there is nothing but Hashem. אין עוד מלבדו, it says, there's nothing but Him, and therefore this physical world is also nothing but Hashem. But it looks that way, superficially it looks that way, but in order to make a world which looks that way, it had to go through a סדר השתלשלות. And therefore, there are many, many levels in between, and Kabbalah actually discusses all these levels. Basically, when we learn Kabbalah, all the different things we learn are all based on this one concept of the different worlds or levels which we call worlds in סדר השתלשלות. There are higher worlds and then we go down to lower worlds, and the very lower worlds which are the closest to this physical world are the three worlds called Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. We have a world higher than Beriah which is called Atzilus, and we have things beyond higher than that which is Keter, all the way going up till the tzimtzum, until Hashem Himself, etc., all these different details that we have. But the ones which are most direct, close to the creation of this physical world, are the three worlds, Beriah, Yetzirah, and עשיה. When it came to this physical world, in this physical world we have the world itself, the universe, and we have the creatures which are in this world. And we have all kinds of creatures. We have animals, we have birds, we have human beings, we have fish, we have דומם, unmovable objects, we have all kinds of things, creatures which are in this world. The higher worlds, which are, so to speak, the source, the level higher than this world, also have creatures. Just like this physical world has creatures, but being that this is a physical world, so the creatures in this world are physical. The worlds higher than this physical world also have creatures, but they're all spiritual. The only world that's physical, the only universe that's physical is this world. All other worlds, we said that there are many, many levels between from the beginning all the way down to this world, they're all spiritual worlds. In the spirituality itself, there are different levels, one higher and one lower, as the Rambam says, and when we say higher or lower in level, we mean feeling more the truth of Hashem, that's called higher, that's closer to Hashem. When you go to a point where you feel less the truth of Hashem, that's called lower. So, but still, they're all physical— in the physical worlds itself you have levels which feel less of Hashem and you have levels that feel more, and in these physical worlds we also have creatures that were created to exist in these physical in these in these spiritual worlds, but they are spirit- spiritual creatures. And just like the worlds, one is higher than the other, so are the creatures that are in these worlds are also. The creatures of the higher world are higher than the creatures of the lower world. And the lower world, lower the one that world is higher than the one below that. To use the general worlds, we have בריאה, יצירה, and עשיה, these are the three general worlds. In there each world we have many levels, and between the worlds we have many levels, we have unlimited amount of levels. But generally speaking, there the three worlds of בריאה יצירה and עשיה, and there are reasons why we have specifically these three, I'm not going to go into it now, I think once in the class on Kabbalah I explained what's the concept of these three levels, בריאה, יצירה, עשיה, why there are three, because everything is divided into three. Any השתלשלות is basically divided into three. Other words we have for it, I'm not going to explain it, just to mention them, is the three levels of אור, מים, רקיע. These are concepts in Kabbalah: light, water, and the heaven. Or we have the three levels which are the same idea, but three different words for it: נקודה, קו, and שטח. נקודה is the point, קו is the line, שטח is the space. But they're all different stages until finally it became turned into worlds. And these three worlds, we have the creatures. The creatures in these worlds are called malachim. They are the malachim, they are the creatures of the world. And it says in Kabbalah that every one of these worlds we have malachim. We even have spiritual היכלות. A היכל is a palace. Just like we have houses and places, dwelling places in this physical world, there are היכלות in the spiritual world, in the spiritual sense. And just like in this world we have Yidden, neshamos of Yidden, which we said before there are so many different creatures in this world, I didn't mention Yidden, I mentioned human beings, but there is another level which is basically within this physical world a higher level, I'll explain in a moment, and those are Yidden which have neshamos, you have in these spiritual worlds, not open neshamos, not in bodies, but the neshamos as they pass down to come down into this world, they stop, and there are neshamos in these spiritual worlds too. But what we're discussing now are the malachim. So there are malachim in this world. And from the creatures of the higher world, as it goes down, it I don't even know if we call it progress, but it progresses in the level of creation, which really means it digresses in the level of greatness of, or which word is the opposite of progression? Yeah. Not degress, what is the word? Regress? Whatever, but you know what I mean. So it's going down, it's becoming worse, less, so it's one comes from the other. In other words, let's put it this way, whatever one level of malachim has, that level, as it goes lower, that means it leaves, it gives out, continues the lower level, that level becomes the lower level of malachim. In other words, the malachim of the world of בריאה, let's say, and all these 10 levels of malachim are all, generally speaking, malachim within the world of בריאה, יצירה, and עשיה. So the malachim, let's say of עולם הבריאה, they have a certain level of Godliness, a certain level of spirituality. But then there is what we call the lower level that's within their level, the simplest, the superficial, the least part of their spiritual level, that continues lower, and that becomes the level of that lower lower level malachim. And they take from that level what they are able to take, and what's left over, so to speak, the leftovers, that goes down to a lower level. Which is one of the reasons why malachim are referred to sometimes as קרביים. קרביים means the stomach, the intestines, the kishkes, the stomach. We say in davenen on שבת, וכל קרבי את שם קדשו, that all the קרביים, all the insides, they praise Hashem. So simple peshat is everything that's inside, the whole person, the whole human being, all the insides, even the stomach. And sometimes it says that this means even a child that's still in the mother's stomach also praises Hashem. But it says also a different peshat, this refers to the malachim. Why are the malachim called קרביים? Why are they called like the inside stomach? Because this is the system of the this is the concept of the digestive system. The digestive system works that you take food, and the digestion works and takes the best part and leaves it in the body, and the leftovers, the waste, is thrown out. The same thing works with the malachim. There is a level of malachim in עולם הבריאה, and they have this level of creation as they are in the level of בריאה, and they take that amount of spirituality, and, so to speak, as it passes through them, the leftovers, which is the lowest part of them, that continues to a lower מדרגה. And that level, that's the malachim of עולם of the world of יצירה. And then what goes through them, what they leave over, that turns into the malachim of עולם העשיה. And then what happens from what's the leftovers of the malachim of עולם העשיה, that turns into this physical world. So really, this physical world is re-digested and re-digested spirituality that goes through all these spiritual levels of these higher worlds. That's what chasidut and Kabbalah explain concerning the malachim.

Now, these malachim, we know, malachim are not at all in the same spiritual level as neshamot. We always learn that the neshamot of the Yidden are higher than the malachim, they're greater. And even though the neshamot of the Yidden are down here in this physical world, and the malachim are in the spiritual world, plus we say the malachim have no body, they are not physical at all, and the neshamot that we're talking about come down to this physical world and are dressed, are put into a physical body, nevertheless, the neshamot are greater than the malachim. The neshamot are actually the goal, the reason, the purpose of creation. The reason why we have the malachim, it's only because Hashem wanted to get to a goal. Hashem wants to create the world. So, in order to get to the creation of this physical world, there was an evolvement, a spiritual evolvement. And finally, the goal is this world. Why did He want to create this world? Now, like I said before, why, we don't know, but we do know what He wanted. What He wanted was that in this physical world, the Jews should take the Torah and mitzvot, and learn Torah and do mitzvot. So basically, the whole purpose of creation of this world was for the Jews. That's what Rashi says in the beginning of Chumash, on the first pasuk, בראשית. בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ, in the beginning, Hashem created the heaven and the earth. The word בראשית, Rashi says, is actually made up of two words: ב׳, ב׳ of בראשית is a word, ב׳ ראשית. ב׳ means two. ראשית, there are two things which are called ראשית. And Rashi quotes pesukim where we see that the Torah is called ראשית and the yidden, the neshamot, are called ראשית. And it's because of these two ראשית that Hashem created the world. That's why the word בראשית, which talks about creation, has that remez, that hint. The ב׳, and also the word the letter ב׳ is an abbreviation of the word בשביל. בשביל means 'because'. So really what the pasuk says here: בשביל ב׳ ראשית, that the בראשית ברא אלקים את השמים ואת הארץ, that the fact that Hashem created heaven and earth was בשביל, because of the two ראשית, of the two things which are called ראשית, which are yidden and the Torah. So the purpose of creation is the yidden, so the yidden and the Torah should be able to take Torah and do the Torah in this world. Why Hashem wanted it, like I said, we don't know, but we know what He wanted. So the neshamot are really the goal of creation. The malachim are all part of the hishtalshelut. Since there are all these different worlds, so you have the creatures in all these different worlds. Just like all these different spiritual worlds, even though they're spiritual, but they're not the goal. That's not the purpose. The purpose of creation was not for עולם הבריאה, for the spiritual world of בריאה, let's call, or even the world of אצילות, which is even higher. It wasn't for יצירה, it wasn't for עשיה. One might ask, how do we know? Maybe the purpose of creation was for עולם הבריאה? The answer is very simple: if that would be the purpose of creation, He would have stopped there. The creation would have gone on up to עולם הבריאה, and finished. He got He came to the goal. Since it continued, and He continued from בריאה to יצירה, and יצירה to עשיה, and from עשיה הרוחנית, the spiritual עשיה, He came down to עשיה הגשמית, to the physical עשיה, and that's where it stopped, obviously, this is the tachlit, this is the goal, this is the purpose. And the purpose, as the Torah tells us, is for the neshamot. So the neshamot, they are here for a goal, that's an end. The malachim are here only as a means to an end. So obviously, the neshamot are greater than the malachim. The neshamot are the פנימיות הרצון, they are the inner will of Hashem, that's what Hashem really wanted. The malachim is only for the sake of the neshamot. In order for the נשמות ישראל, for the Yidden to be able to accomplish what they're supposed to, we have to have malachim. Just like we say concerning the whole world, why is there a universe? For the Yidden. Why are there all the different levels of השתלשלות? So it should come to this world, so the Yidden should have a place where to fulfill their their mission. So the creatures of all these worlds are also for that purpose. Everything was created for the purpose of the Yidden. And when we say 'everything', we include the rocks, and we include the trees, and we include the animals, we include the human beings, the goyim, and we include the malachim. To us, when we look at it, we look at malachim similar to other human beings of the world. As much as we say malachim are greater in understanding of Hashem, malachim are greater in their spiritual level because they are spiritual, while we are physical. They're spiritual, spiritual. Obviously they're greater, they're at a higher level. They are not as low as this physical world, they are more spiritual. Nevertheless, they are there only as a means to an end. As a means to an end of Yidden, because of Torah and mitzvot of Yidden, that Yidden are supposed to fulfill, that's why Hashem created the malachim. So they are not different than anything else of the בריאה. So when it says in Rashi that the whole world, the whole universe was created בשביל התורה, בשביל ישראל, which means because of the Torah and the Yidden, this includes everything including malachim. We always think of malachim, \"Oh, special! They're so holy, they're so great!\" It's true they're holy and great, but they're not as holy as we are. The only thing is, they see their greatness, they see Godliness, which we don't, because we're in this physical world. But that's part of what Hashem wanted. Hashem wanted that we should be in a form where the Godliness is concealed, and we should work to reveal it through doing Torah and mitzvot. But it doesn't mean that we're lower than them. The contrary, we are the goal, so obviously this is the real פנימיות inner will of Hashem, while the malachim is only, so to speak, a superficial will of Hashem in order to get to something. And that's why we find that there's a difference in the creation, in the way the Torah expresses the creation of the world, and the way the Torah expresses the creation of the נשמות of Yidden, and when and that expression that is used for the creation of malachim, of the world includes malachim, they are the same. And I'll explain what I mean. When it speaks about the creation of the world, of the universe, it uses a term, ויאמר אלקים, Hashem said. Which means that the creation came through the speech of Hashem, we call it. As it says in Pirkei Avot, this time of the year we learn Pirkei Avot, it says, בעשרה מאמרות נברא העולם, with ten sayings, statements, the world was created. And when we when we talk about the creation of the world with the ten statements, we mean everything. This includes malachim also. As a matter of fact, some of the pesukim in the creation, in the Torah where it talks about creation, refers to the malachim. It says, ועוף יעופף, one of the pesukim where it says Hashem created the birds, so the Midrash it says that this refers to malachim. The malachim were created on the fourth day, some malachim say malach were created on the second day, whatever it is. But it's part of the creation which is which are is included in this idea that Hashem created it through saying. When it came to create the נשמות, we look in the Chumash, the Chumash says Hashem made man, Adam HaRishon, and then it says, ויפח באפיו נשמת חיים, and He blew into his nostrils a neshamah of life. So there it doesn't say He said and it became, it says He blew in. Now we have to understand that both terms don't mean as it seems, it's not simple. When it says He spoke and He said, \"Let that let this be, let there be a רקיע, let there be grass, let there be...\" When we say Hashem spoke, it doesn't doesn't mean that He physically spoke. Hashem doesn't have a mouth, and the whole concept of speaking the way we imagine is a physical thing which doesn't apply to Hashem. The only way the reason the Torah says that uses these terms is for should we should be able to relate to it. We can't relate to spiritual things, so we have to use physical things. Now, really, it doesn't mean Hashem spoke. When it says Hashem blew the neshamah in, it also doesn't mean Hashem blew. Hashem doesn't have a mouth and He doesn't blow like that. But it's also, again, a term used just for us to be able to relate to. The question is, and I mentioned this many times, since it doesn't mean in a simple sense, it just an expression for us to relate to, so how come sometimes it uses one expression, sometimes it uses another expression? Sometimes it says He said, sometimes it says He blew. We find in the Torah it says the hand of Hashem, it says the finger of Hashem, the eyes of Hashem, it uses all kind, the ears of Hashem heard. Now we know it all doesn't mean b'gashmiyus, physical. What it means is b'ruchniyus. It means some kind of spiritual thing which we can't relate to, that's why we use the physical terms. So again, if it doesn't really mean it, so why change expressions? The answer is very simple: that Hashem wants that we should take these physical expressions, analyze it, understand what they mean, and then we're able to apply it to their spiritual explanation, to their spiritual interpretation. In other in the spiritual sense, it's similar to the way it is in the physical, but on a spiritual level. So too, when the Torah says here that Hashem created the world through speaking, Hashem wants us to understand what is the idea of speaking, and then we'll come to understand what was the form of creation. Then we should look into what blowing means, and then we'll understand what the form of the creation of the neshamah was. And here we have the Zohar. The Zohar says that there's a difference between speaking and blowing. When a human being speaks, he gives out his inner nefesh, that's true. You give out your life. The best proof is, when you talk, you talk, you talk, you get tired. I can tell you it's true, you get tired. And if you talk loud, you get even more tired, and you talk for a long time, you get tired. It takes the fact that you get tired shows it takes out some of your kochos, some of your chiyus. Nevertheless, a person could talk for hours and hours and hours. When you blow, it takes out your chiyus, and you could only blow for a short while. If you were going to blow for a long time and continue, continue, continue, your life you'll you'll die. What does that mean? That when a person speaks, he gives out part of himself, and actually there's a pasuk that says, נפשי יצאה בדברו, your nefesh goes out in your talking. But it's only, the Zohar calls it the חיצוניות החיות, the superficial part of your life. The proof is that you could talk and talk and talk and your life didn't leave you. Obviously it's not the true life that you give out, because if you'd give out, it should go away and finish, you'd be finished with your life. But if you blow, since if you blow long enough your your real life your life will leave completely, that shows that blowing comes from the pnimiyus of your chiyus, the pnimiyus of your life. That's how he explains it in Tanya, based on the taken from the Zohar. And that's what the pasuk wants us to understand, that when Hashem created the human beings, I mean the world, everything else in the world, including the malachim, but when He created the neshamah, when He, there it says He blew in, just like blowing is the pnimiyus, the inner part of the person, so too was the creation of the neshamah from the inner part of Hashem, because that's the goal. So the neshamah is much higher than the than the malachim, the neshamot. And that is actually the reason why the neshamot of Yidden, the neshamot were given that mission of coming into this physical world and accomplishing the mission of Hashem to elevate this physical world, because the neshamot are higher than the malachim. If the neshamot would not be that great, they wouldn't be able to fulfill the mission. In order to lower oneself into a very low stage in order to pick it up, you have to be very, very strong. The malachim would not, because of their status, and their spiritual status, they would not be able to come down in this world and be able to do what Yidden do. They tried it once. It says at the end of פרשת בראשית, והנפילים היו בארץ, it says that there were malachim that complained to Hashem against the human beings, look how they are. So Hashem said, you know what, you try it. And He sent down a few malachim into this world, and they didn't succeed. They fell even lower, and they were the cause of the מבול, they made all the צרות, all the problems came from the malachim. Why? Because they tried a job which is not fit for them. That's why when it came to Matan Torah, and the malachim saw Moshe Rabbeinu in heaven, and they asked Hashem, what's a human being doing up here? So Hashem said, he came to receive the Torah. So they said the they said, Torah to receive? Who are You giving the Torah? He said, I'm giving it down to the people, to the to the people. Why don't You give it to us? תנה הודך על השמים, they said, give Your glory, Your Your Your הוד, Your beauty, Your Torah to us in heaven. So Hashem said to Moshe Rabbeinu, give them an answer. Moshe Rabbeinu was very scared. Hashem said, hold on to My כסא הכבוד and don't worry, give them an answer. And he gave them an answer, he asked them all kinds of questions. He said, you know what it says in the Torah? It says in the Torah you have to work six days a week and rest on the seventh. You guys work six days a week? You can't work. It says in the Torah you shouldn't eat this, you should eat that. You guys eat? It says in the Torah אשר השם said, I took you out of Mitzrayim. You guys went to Mitzrayim? Then he said, כלום יצר הרע יש ביניכם? Do you have a yetzer hara? So the Torah is not for you. Now the question is, well, why didn't they say, well, give us a yetzer hara, and give us the Torah? You claim that we don't have a yetzer hara, so we can't do it, so it's not for us, we have no purpose. Give us a yetzer hara! The answer is they couldn't. If they'd have a yetzer hara, they couldn't accomplish. They they are not to the level at all to be able to work for six days and rest on the seventh day, meaning be involved in gashmiyut and at the same and then elevate the gashmiyut, they can't do it. You have to be very, very high. The neshama, which came from the inner part of Hashem, that is able, a neshamah is able to do it. Being in this physical world is able to do it, but not malachim.

They do have their missions. Malachim are sent many times by Hashem to do missions. Actually, that's the reason we call them malachim. Malach, the word malach means a shaliach. A shaliach means a person with a mission, an agent. That's what a shaliach is. That's what the word malach is. That's a translation of the word malach. And many times in Chumash it says malachim and it means shluchim. It says וישלח משה מלאכים. Moshe sent malachim to Sichon, to ask Sichon to allow them to pass. Who was malachim? He sent And he sent shluchim. Sometimes it means malachim mamash. It says וישלח יעקב מלאכים, when Yaakov sent malachim to Esav, so Rashi says malachim mamash. Real malachim. But otherwise, many time malachim don't mean malachim. It means agent, because malachim, the translation of the word malachim is shluchim. So they do have their shlichut. Hashem sends them and we find many times in Chumash and in the midrashim on Chumash and in Tanach, malachim came and this that. Malachim are sent by Hashem. Malachim came to Avraham Avinu, three malachim and they came to do different jobs they do. So they do, that's why they're called malachim. But again, it's all for the sake of the idn. Then there are more jobs that we find that malachim do. They are, like I said before, part They are the creatures part of השתלשלות. But nevertheless, they do certain things, but they don't have free choice. They don't get rewards for accomplishing a mission, because they have no free choice. They recognize Hashem and they do their like robots. That's what really they are. They're like robots, they're they're they're, what's it called, when you wound up, they're they're to do what they're supposed to do and they can't do any different and they, so they don't get reward. Because they are not that great, so they can't have free choice, they would never be able to. But this But they do other missions also. For instance, it says that when we daven, or even when we learn, the malachim take our tefilot and they take it up to Hashem. They גפפלען, they נשקלען, they hug it, and they kiss it, and they polish our tefilot, and they bring it to Hashem. So again, it's all for our sake, because they are created for our sake, like everything else. The reason we need this, because well imagine you're davening to Hashem and the tefila is supposed to be taken to Hashem, and many times when we daven, we might not really have the proper intentions, we might, who knows what we might think about, we might stop in the middle and say something, sometimes the tefilot are covered with some kind of dirt, and it's not לכבודיג, it's not proper, it's not respect to bring those tefilot to Hashem. So the malachim do us a favor. They take our tefilot, says they wash it, they polish it, they kiss it, they says they they put crowns to it, and they bring it to Hashem. Now, the truth is we're not allowed to ask malachim to pray for us, that you can't. We're not allowed to ask any other being to pray for us. The reason we're allowed to ask a tzadik to pray for us, or another Jew, and we always do so, we even ask another Jew, say Tehillim for me, pray for me, because we're all one. All the Yidden are one, so it's not like we're asking somebody else, just like when the foot hurts, the mouth prays, or the mind, you don't say, well, how could the foot make the mouth an intermediate between himself and Hashem? That's not, because we're it's all one body. So too, all Klal Yisrael is one body. But to ask a malach to daven for us, that we're not allowed. But this isn't what we're saying. We're not asking the malachim to daven for us. We're we're davening and the malachim take our tefilot. They are our shluchim, they're the shluchim of Hashem to receive us, and then they're our shluchim to take our tefilot to Hashem. And they make it ready that it should be fit to be brought to the king. That's their job. We also find that there are different malachim that are appointed on different things, like we said before, since everything in this world is an השתלשלות, an evolvement of the higher worlds, so everything that we have in this world has a malach or malachim in the higher worlds, which they are the ones appointed to take care that these things should happen. They are the ones that are משפיע. So it says, some malachim we even know what their job is. Malach Michael, the famous Malach Michael is, he is appointed on water. He is the source of water. Malach Gavriel is the source of fire. Now, Michael, sometimes says it is the source of snow, but it goes together. The מלאך, שר של אש is גבריאל, שר של מים, שר של שלג, that's Michael. We have Malach Raphael, who is appointed on refuah, on healing. And it says that all doctors that heal, get their hashpa'ah from Malach Raphael. The expression in sefarim is that with every doctor, a malach goes, a malach that belongs to that group of Malach Raphael. Malach Raphael is the one that ממונה, appointed on healing, and he has a whole staff with him, so to speak, and with every doctor, one of the members of that staff go along. And if it's a very great doctor, then Malach Raphael himself comes with him. You know what, just like the famous story with the Mezritcher Maggid. famous story, everyone probably knows it, that there was once a person who came to visit the Mezritcher Maggid. Think he was from the city of Vilna, and he came to the Maggid, and the Maggid spoke to him, and then he asked him, \"What can I help you with?\" So he said, \"No, nothing. I just happen, I'm a businessman, and I happened to be passing the city of of Mezritch, and I heard about you, so I wanted to pay a visit, that's all. I don't need a berachah, I have money, I have health, Baruch Hashem, and I have children, I have everything. I just wanted to see.\" So the Maggid says, \"Very good.\" And then the Maggid just says to him, \"You should know that with every doctor, a malach goes along. And with a great professor, Malach Raphael himself goes along.\" And he said goodbye to him. He didn't understand what it had to do with him, why he said that vort to him. Anyway, he came back to his city, and after a while, he got sick. Got very, very sick, and all the doctors couldn't help him, and they didn't know what to do. And he was mamash on his deathbed. They heard that, I think the king of Austria happened to be visiting that city, and he comes, the king always would travel with a personal physician, great professor, so they thought maybe that great doctor, who is famous doctor, would come and see the patient. So they got permission from the king's entourage, and they said, \"Yes, they allow him to go visit.\" So the doctor came in, the house was full of people, because he was a very chashuver'er person, so everyone came to visit him. So he pushed himself through the crowd, and he gave a look at the patient, he started screaming. He said, \"My time is precious. You think you, I have time to waste to come to see a dead person? You could see he's dying! There's nothing that we could do about it.\" And he was very angry, and he was about to go, but since there's a big crowd in the house, he couldn't push himself through. But he tried to go, took a while till he started moving, and as he moved a little bit further, he turned around, he saw a change in the face of the patient. He says, \"Well, I see some hope.\" So right he wrote, right away he wrote a prescription, and he said somebody should go and get it, and somebody left right away to go and get, he said, he'll wait. And as he's waiting, he looks and he sees the patient is, has more color, a little better, so he said, \"That medicine is not the right one.\" And he gave a different medicine, and happened a few times. Finally, got a medicine and he waited there, and he helped the patient, he cured him. And when the patient got up, he understood what the Maggid told him. Since with every doctor, a malach comes, and with malach, with a great doctor, Malach Raphael comes, so when this doctor came in, Malach Raphael came. So if Malach Raphael was there, so he was the one that started the healing process. So that was the answer that the Mezritcher Maggid told him that answer beforehand. This doctor, when he heard it, he was very impressed with the vort of the Maggid, and he was a Jewish doctor. He wasn't frum, obviously, so he was very impressed, he said, \"I want to go visit the Maggid.\" So, him, and I think and the patient together, when he, after he became healthy, they went to the Maggid, and this doctor became one of the famous talmidim of the Maggid. And when you see the list of the talmidim of the Mezritcher Maggid, there is one called, I think his name is Dr. Gradna, I think it's... you can imagine nowadays, you know, you have a lot of frum'e doctors, many of them baalei teshuvah, many are other, but at the time of the Mezritcher Maggid to have a frum'e doctor, not only a doctor, a talmid of the Maggid, because this is the story that happened, because the malach came along with him. But this is the job of the malachim, so we have malachim that do these different jobs. We have, for instance, it says there's a malach that is appointed on rain. I even know his name. I think we say, we have it in the siddur. His name is אבריוטס. Funny name. But in the in geshem, when we say the prayer of geshem, geshem in the Musaf of Shemini Atzeret, the prayer for rain, the first few words start: אבריוטס שם שר מטר. אבריוטס is the name of the officer of rain. That's the name of the malach on rain. We have a malach that is memuneh, he's appointed on all graves. His name, on the graves, when a person is buried, he's the first one that comes and asks the person, takes him along to the Beit Din shel Ma'alah. His name is מלאך דומה. And it says the first thing he does is he knocks on the grave and he says, \"What's your name?\" Like like we have in gashmiyut, you know, when someone is arrested and he is taken into the office, first thing they ask him, \"What's your name?\" And they ask him, \"What's your name?\" And it says, just by the way, that normally a person forgets. And a person feels very, very upset that he can't remember his name, the neshamah, the person can't remember his name. So it says there is an etzah for a person to remember his name after you pass away, if you say at the end of Shemoneh Esrei a pasuk that starts with the first letter letter of your name and finishes off with the last letter of your name. And when you say that right before יהיו לרצון, that's a segulah to remember your name. That when the מלאך דומה knocks on your grave, it says he knocks on the kever and he says, open the door, who are you? You're able to tell him your name. By chasidim the minhag is that we also say the pesukim for the Rebbe's name. Because if you're so connected to the Rebbe and they ask you your name, you give the Rebbe's name so they know who you're connected to. You say both. So we say our own name and we say the Rebbe's name. But that's all because of this מלאך דומה that comes. And we find in different places in Gemara all kinds of different things about malachim, what malachim do, but all is one thing, it's all for the benefit of Yidden. Even the fact that we have what we call malachei chabalah, unfortunately we have malachim which are called מלאכי חבלה, destructive malachim, it says. And they are the ones that always are מקטרג, they always are the ones that are that find the, they're, we have the קטרוג, the faults of people, the faults of Yidden, and they are the ones that punish. And they're called מלאכי חבלה, but it's also for the benefit of the Yidden. Just like punishment in general that the Torah says speaks about is for the betterment of the person, so the fact that there are מלאכי חבלה also for the benefit of the person. Then there are malachim, it says, that help the person in his service of Hashem. כי מלאכיו יצוה לך לשמרך בכל דרכיך, it says He will command His malachim to follow you, to guard you, to protect you in all your ways. So the malachim protect the person, but it's also dependent on the person. When a person does a mitzvah, it says he creates more malachim. Because the mitzvah that you do has an effect in spiritual worlds that in the higher spiritual world it turns into a creature. The good deed that you do turns into a creature, except that it goes to Hashem and you get the reward and all the different things. In addition to all that, it turns into a creature. And that creature is a spiritual creature which we call a malach, and those malachim guard the person. Says when you walk to shul, every step you take creates another malach. That's why there were people who would live far from shul so they would get more reward, more malachim. Every step you take creates a malach. That's why it says that when you do mitzvot you should do it with the proper kavanah, because if you do a mitzvah without the proper kavanah, then you create, in Yiddish we would say a קאליקער מלאך, you create a malach that's a little bit misshaped. So it can אונטערהינקען, it could, it could be deaf or blind, because the mitzvah that you make, did, creates a malach. It says when every bad thing you do, chas v'shalom, creates a bad malach. They're all not, yeah, right, they're all not in the proper form. Says when you come home Friday night, two malachim greet you at home. That's how we say Shalom Aleichem. We say Shalom Aleichem to the מלאכים, שלום עליכם מלאכי השרת. In the Gemara it says that the two malachim are one good malach, one bad malach, and when you come in, if the home is with candles and with challah and you make kiddush, then the good malach gives you a brachah that next week should be the same. And the bad מלאך, בעל כרחו יענה אמן, by force, he's forced to say amen. If chas v'shalom it comes to a home and it's not there, that the bad malach says next week should be the same, and the good מלאך, בעל כרחו יענה אמן, is forced to answer amen. He doesn't want to, but he's forced to answer amen. These are all jobs of the malachim. And there are different things that you find in the Gemara, מדרשים, all deals with malachim and the different missions they were given, different things they have, and different, but it's all based on one thing. They are all there as a part of the סדר השתלשלות, and therefore they are all there for the benefit of the Yidden. The Yidden are greater than them. That's why we, Yidden, are referred to as a chelek of שם הוי׳, and malachim are called Elokim. Elokim we know is a lower level than הוי׳. Elokim is teva, Elokim shows on a level of Hashem the way He is really concealed. So as spiritual as they are, they're not really that high level. But neshamot are called, it says in a פסוק, חלק הוי׳ עמו, that the Yidden are a chelek of הוי׳, a chelek of Hashem using the name הוי׳, because they are much higher מדרגה. So as much as it's very important and special and great to think of malachim, but we have nothing to be ashamed about. We as Yidden have more than malachim have, and we as Yidden are able to reach higher levels. It's just that it's harder for us because we have the free choice, that means we have the yetzer hara. We have all these things that block out our seeing the truth. But nevertheless, when we break it all through and we do the right thing, we reach much higher levels than malachim. And the malachim are jealous of what we do. It says the malachim come to us to hear Torah. There's a פסוק, it says, היושבת בגנים חברים מקשיבים לקולך השמיעני. It says that Those that sit in the gardens, referring to Yidden, the חברים come and listen. Who are the חברים? So one pshat is the malachim come and listen. And then I'll just finish up with a famous vort of the of the Baal Shem Tov that Malach Michael, he gave an example, is jealous of the Yidden that they have mitzvot. And he wishes he would have one mitzvah, at least one! We have 613, he would have one. And the example that he gave was, he wishes he would have the mitzvah of tzitzit, for instance. And he said even more, he wishes he would have one tzitzit! Can't be greedy to ask for four tzitzit, one tzitzit, if he could only have one tzitzit. He's jealous, but he doesn't have it. Why? Because they're not that great to have these mitzvot. But they come and look at us, and if we have the mitzvot, they enjoy it, and they don't have it, so, but they nevertheless they understand that we are able to have it, and we are, reach a higher level than them. We say in the Kedushah we say the malachim ask always, איה מקום כבודו? Where is He? We know where Hashem is, Hashem is in Torah and mitzvot, and they don't really know and they always ask, as great as they are. So, therefore, we have nothing to be embarrassed about. We are greater than malachim.

Okay, any questions? Yeah. Six wings, that's all ruchniyusdike inyanim. See, even though we said before the malachim don't have a body, it means they don't have a physical body, but in, a spiritual גוף they have, whatever that should mean. And the spiritual גוף has a description. We use physical terms, but it's always a ruchniyusdike inyan. So when it says they have wings, it's ruchniyusdike type of wings. And when it says they have feet and the feet look like this, that's all ruchniyusdike type of things, but exactly what it means, we don't know. Yes. Because they thought that they could. They knew, but they still wanted. In nigleh, there is an answer because of דינא דבר מצרא, all kinds of things why they wanted it, but even halacha they, even in the, in ruchniyut, they wanted, it says that they wanted the Torah, only they wanted פנימיות התורה, that part of Torah. The gashmiyut they knew they can't get, but even that is not for them, and they thought they could. Because even, because the פנימיות התורה, the the אפטוע, the the accomplishment of פנימיות התורה is only in a place where you have the the the the gashmiyut of the Torah. That's where the פנימיות התורה, even though it comes from higher worlds, and therefore there's more שייכות to פנימיות, but when does it accomplish the דירה בתחתונים? Only if you have the gashmiyut part of it. And therefore, even though they had a טענה, but they wouldn't be able to accomplish it. Yeah, they have knowledge, right, and they have some knowledge of the Torah, but they're, to to be more specific, it's a subject, a different, but just in one word: to have the etzem of the Torah, they can't have. They have only the חיצוניות of the Torah, the the the superficial part, but the etzem of Torah they don't have. The גלוי of Torah they could have, the etzem is only down here in this world. A person can learn Torah, and he goes to sleep in a gashmi, in a very not proper, spiritual way, then the malachim come at night, it says to him, the bad malachim, and they laugh at him, and they bother him, and they throw bad dreams into his mind. That's what it says. No, they're they're servants of Hashem, but they have a mission to do, just like the Beit Din, the physical Beit Din down here would have people who would have to do the job of giving malkot or giving mitah, so they have that job, too. They're called מלאכי חבלה, but they have that job to do. Yes. Even people become malachim, it's not like a malach, he stays a neshamah. Eliyahu Hanavi went up to סערה השמימה, but he didn't become a malach. He's still higher than a malach. Huh? Chanoch, because it was not, it was before Matan Torah. A malach, he was, was רוחניות before. So פינחס זה אליהו, he was first, yeah, it was רוחניות, but when, after the neshamah comes onto this world, it can't become lower, it can't become a malach. It could have the מעלות of a malach, it could have the רוחניות of a malach, but not the חסרונות. כל הנשמה תהלל י-ה. Amen. Please, everybody remember next week will be the eat right or of the holy Lubavitcher Rebbe, זכרונו לברכה לחיי העולם הבא, the leader of the Jewish people and the leader of the world, and there is a beautiful, beautiful teaching.