As you just heard, topic is going to be medicines of the Talmud. But I am sure that you'll be disappointed. I'll tell you why: because you're probably imagining that I'm going to mention some of the different remedies that the Talmud gives for different sicknesses, and different things that the Talmud says we should do to stay healthy, and different diets the Talmud tells us. I'm not going into that at all. We're not going to go through the different specifics of the Talmud. What I will discuss is a general concept concerning the remedies, the medicines of the Talmud, which means the truth that's there, and how true is it, and how correct it is, and also whether we can follow what it says in the Talmud concerning these cures, these medicines, these remedies, or can we not follow them. It says in many of the commentaries, many of the פוסקים, which are the codifiers of Jewish law, bringing proofs from different sources that nowadays we cannot follow the medicines of the Talmud. In other words, if the Talmud says that for a certain sickness you should do this and this and take this medicine, it doesn't necessarily mean that now it's going to work. The reason they say for this is because נשתנו הטבעים, which means the nature changed. The nature of the human beings changed, and therefore things that were good for the body at the time of the Talmud, which is about 1600 years ago, is not necessarily good in our times. And therefore they might be good, but we can't know, and therefore you can't just pick up a גמרא and say, \"Well, the גמרא, it says for this and this sickness I should do this and this, and since I'm a Jew, I believe in the Talmud, I shall do what it says in the Talmud.\" So for sure we cannot do that. Things changed, time changed, therefore we cannot follow the things that it says in the Talmud concerning health. The same applies concerning the רמב״ם, even though the רמב״ם lived many years after the Talmud, and the רמב״ם wrote his ספר, his book, which includes different medicines and different diets, he wrote them he wrote it about 800 years ago, which was much later than the Talmud, but even from then till now the פוסקים write that we cannot rely on what the רמב״ם says. In other words, when the רמב״ם we know in הלכות דעות there is a whole section in הלכות דעות that the רמב״ם gives a complete diet for a person to follow, and the רמב״ם says that, \"If you will follow my diet, I guarantee,\" this is the expression of the רמב״ם, \"אני ערב, I guarantee you'll never get sick.\" So someone might say, \"Well, I'll take the רמב״ם, I'll follow the diet, and it tells us exactly what to it eat during the winter, and during the summer, and how much, and what, and when, and automatically I will be healthy.\" So it says we cannot follow that because it doesn't necessarily mean that now it's going to work, because נשתנו הטבעים, the nature changed. As time passes, the nature of the world changes, and the nature of the human beings change, and therefore it doesn't mean that what it says in the רמב״ם it's true. There are some that say that the remedies of the Talmud, and the same we could apply to the רמב״ם, were said by the חכמים, by the rabbis, based on the medical knowledge that the people had at the time of the Talmud. The חכמים, the sages of the Talmud, were definitely great, great scholars, very smart people, the smartest of their generation, the smartest from all aspects. We find that they even had dialogues and discussions with the great sages and scholars of different nations. There's a whole section in גמרא which talks about the discussion that Reb who was it? Who had Reb Shmuel anyway I'll remind myself that he had with the סבי דבי אתונא, the great scholars of Athens. They were the greatest scholars of their time, and the חכמים went to them and had discussion with them because the חכמים were the greatest scholars. Nevertheless, they claim that when they spoke about words of תורה, when they spoke about words of הלכה, those words were תורה and given by השם, and therefore they are holy, And we have to learn it, and that is part of the תורה. But those parts of the תלמוד that discuss medicine, that discuss astronomy, or other kind of things of nature, the חכמים, they were the greatest scholars, but they were the greatest scholars according to the level of scholarship of the sciences as it was at that time. And therefore, whatever it says in the תלמוד concerning physical things, things of nature, things of science, are not necessarily true. They are true according to the level of understanding of science at the time of the תלמוד, and at that time, as advanced as the science science was, it was definitely not advanced as it were later generations. And therefore, it's possible that later on we will find out that things that they write were not really true because they said it according to the understanding that science had at that time, or that medicine had at that time, that astronomy at that time, but later they found out astronomers themselves realized that they made a mistake, and therefore, there is a mistake in the תלמוד also. That's what some say. The truth is, not only some, we're talking about great people. The רמב״ם, for instance, in his book the מורה נבוכים, the Guide for the Perplexed, writes that. He writes that all the things of the תלמוד which are connected to nature are all based on the knowledge of nature that the people had at the time of the תלמוד. And there were great scholars then, and they were the greatest of them, but still according to the level of then, and then certain things could have been not true as they found out later. And there were other great rabbis, great When I say great rabbis, I mean great rabbis of that generation, of those days, that write the same way. But the accepted opinion is according to the other there's one others that hold that whatever it says in the תלמוד, any word that's written in the תלמוד, is part of תורה and is true. Any word of the תלמוד is true. If it's written in the תלמוד, and the תלמוד was a was take put together of the different הלכות, different things, so anything that's in the תלמוד is true 100%, and it wasn't a mistake. And the reason that certain things don't apply nowadays, and we can't follow it, is not because they were wrong, it's because the nature changed, and therefore, we can't follow it. The nature changed, but not because what he said wasn't true. There are certain things that seem very obvious not to be true, but obviously, it's not because they made a mistake, it's because we don't understand what they said. We have to look into what they said and have another interpretation. Maybe they thought that this is people thought that this is what they said, and when you look further, you understand that they meant something else. But it's not possible to say that a word of the תלמוד should not be true, should be false, because according to it seems from what the others say that there could be things in the תלמוד which are false, it's a mistake. They thought this was true, and it's not, and they will have to divide between certain parts of the תלמוד. Those portions of the תלמוד that deal with הלכה, with תורה, is one thing. Those portions of the תלמוד that deal with medicine is something else. Those portions of the תלמוד that deal with astronomy is something else. But that cannot be true, and I'll tell you why. We know that in order to learn תורה, you have to make a ברכה. Just like before you do any מצוה, we make a blessing: before we put on תפילין, we make a ברכה, before we blow שופר, we make a ברכה, before we בענטש לולב, we make a ברכה, מצה, every מצוה, before we do a מצוה, we make a ברכה. We have to make a ברכה before we study תורה, too. And we do make a ברכה. Every morning, when we say all the blessings of the morning, this includes three blessings which are called ברכת התורה, ברכות for תורה, and we are not allowed to learn תורה without making a ברכה. That's the law. So, if a person would open the גמרא and learn תורה before he makes the ברכת התורה, the ברכה in the morning, he's doing a sin. You're not allowed to study תורה before you make a ברכה. So, what we do is we make a ברכה in the morning, and that includes the תורה that we learn all day. That's why we don't have to make a ברכה every time we learn. But every morning, we have to make the ברכה again. The only exception is that when we get an עליה for the ספר תורה, then we make another ברכה because that's a special type of learning, a special type of reading of the תורה, so we make, again, two ברכות: a ברכה before we start, a ברכה after the עליה, but that's an exception. Everything else that we learn during the day, it is because we make the ברכה in the morning.

Now, a question could be asked: if a person will choose to study in the גמרא that section that deals with medicine, or that section that deals with astronomy, or that section that deals with other sciences, must he make a ברכה before that or not? Can he study that page of גמרא without making a ברכה? Now, there is no opinion in the world that says, no opinion in הלכה that says, that there are certain passages in the תלמוד that you are allowed to learn without making a ברכה. So the fact that there is a דין that you have to make a ברכת התורה, a ברכה for studying תורה, before we learn that chapter or that page that deals with medicine, obviously this is תורה. So this is holy, so this is true, it cannot not be true. So what it has to be that the חכמים, when they spoke, whatever they said, they were Godly inspired. Whatever they said, they had their sources in the חומש, in the תורה, or things which they had handed down generation from generation all the way going back to משה רבינו who handed it down orally from סיני. But everything that says in the תלמוד, every single word of the תלמוד, whether it deals with הלכה or it deals with physical facts, with sciences, every word of the תלמוד is the word of God. And therefore, we have to make a ברכה, and when we make a ברכה before we study, what do we say? ברוך אתה השם אלקינו, we thank השם, אשר קדשנו במצותיו, that You commanded us with the מצות, וצונו, and You commanded us, על דברי תורה, for learning תורה, or some say לעסוק בדברי תורה. And we say that for every word. In other words, the words that were said in the תלמוד concerning the medicine are also words of השם. They're also words of God and they learned out the same way they learned out all the other הלכות. And it cannot be false in any way. The question that one might ask: so how could the רמב״ם in מורה נבוכים write that these things are only made according to the knowledge that they had in science in those days? The answer is very simple: the רמב״ם writes in the introduction to מורה נבוכים that a lot of things that he writes are only to answer the questions of the נבוכים, of the perplexed. The רמב״ם writes a lot of things in מורה נבוכים which, when we look into the גמרא and we look into the רמב״ם himself in his ספר יד החזקה, they are not really a hundred percent true. The רמב״ם wrote answers to people who are not yet ready to receive the truth, to hear the truth of what the תורה really is. The רמב״ם called his ספר The Guide to the Perplexed. A person who is perplexed, a person who is lost, actually the real words in Hebrew is נבוכים is lost. People are lost, and you'll come over to them and you'll tell them things that will overwhelm them and they won't accept it, they'll never return, they'll never be able to accept it and become פרום the way you're supposed to. So what you have to do is you have to deal with them according to their level. So when it comes to them and you'll start off with a person who doesn't really believe in the תורה, and you'll tell him, well, the חכמים when they write certain things concerning medicine in the גמרא, and it doesn't seem to be true, so you'll tell him, well, every word is true and we don't understand it, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, they will not accept it. All you'll do is you'll turn them away. So therefore, what the רמב״ם did, the רמב״ם wrote certain things that will be an answer sufficient for these people. What happens is, when the people accept it, then they're going to learn the גמרא, thinking that this is the truth, and this will give them enough that they will want to continue learning. When they'll learn the גמרא, eventually, when they'll learn enough, they are going to reach the level to understand the truth, and realize that every word in the גמרא is true. And the same is with the others that write. For instance, one of them is רבינו אברהם בן הרמב״ם, רבינו אברהם, the son of the רמב״ם himself, writes the same thing, because he also wrote it such a way that people should be able to accept it, because this is a very, very strong statement to make, that every word in the גמרא is true, and even when it comes to sciences, and even when it comes to physical facts which don't seem to be true, that they're also true and they're the word of God, it's hard to accept. Even nowadays, when you tell people, some people who are פרום, but have a modern approach, will also tell you that it's not true, they also won't accept it. So it's very hard to accept such a word. Therefore, you got to start by saying, okay, you know what? Let's leave it this way: you accept the תורה and the הלכה, תורה is הלכה, and the rest of the things, you know, in the meantime, don't say the meantime, okay, that's nature, and whatever the חכמים understood according to their level, according to the level of science at that time, and that's it. But eventually, the hope is that they will reach a higher level. And that is the ultimate truth: that every word of medicine, even medicine that's in the תלמוד, is a hundred percent true, and we have to make a ברכה, ברכת התורה, before we learn. The רמב״ם in his יד החזקה, in the ספר, in his ספר יד החזקה writes that any person who says on one word of תורה that it's not given by השם is an אפיקורוס, is a non-believer. And he says this is whether he denies the words of the written law, of the written תורה, תורה שבכתב, or he denies even תורה שבעל פה. So if he denies one word of תורה שבעל פה, of the oral תורה, and the oral תורה is all included in the משנה and in the גמרא, that's all the oral תורה. And if a person, the רמב״ם says, says on one word that it's not given by God, that person is an אפיקורוס, does not believe the truth of what the תורה is. In other words, everything that it says in the תלמוד is true, including these things. Now, certain things we have to explain how it's true. There is this I'll just use an example, a very simple example. One of the things it says in the גמרא is concerning שבת, the הלכה in שבת. Well, this is not even nature, this is הלכה, but הלכה based on nature. When if you kill any living creature on שבת, that's called חילול שבת, you desecrated the שבת, and that's a מלאכה, it's one of the thirty-nine מלאכות. And therefore, if a person does it intentionally with witnesses and warning, will actually be stoned for doing it. You do it בשוגג, by mistake, then you have to bring a קרבן. But the גמרא says, and there's הלכה in the רמב״ם and in שולחן ערוך, that when it comes to killing lice, killing a louse, so it says there are two types of lice. There are certain lice that are born from parents, from a father and a mother, a female and a male. Those lice, if you kill them, that's called killing a regular living thing, and that is called חילול שבת. But if you kill lice that were born just from dirt, because it says there are lice that just come from dirt, from from from עיפוש, from sweat and dirty things, that if you're not allowed to do it מדרבנן, but if a person would do it, he would not be considered that he was מחלל שבת מדאורייתא, and wouldn't get punished for it, etc., etc. Now, later generation science said that there is no such thing. There is no such thing that any living creature that is not born from a male and a female. It's just that it happened in a different way, and we don't see it, and they just they laid an egg here and left, and that's how it is, but there is no such thing that it doesn't come. And therefore, they want to say, here, you see, at that time, the time of the גמרא, people thought that. So therefore, the חכמים made a הלכה based on what they thought. But now that we realize it's a mistake, so the הלכה changes. So here we see that you could even think that a הלכה, a הלכה in תורה should change because of change of science. The truth is that it's impossible to say this. Here we have a good example that they based a הלכה on nature, so are we going to say that the whole הלכה that the גמרא said, that the חכמים said, which is part of the תורה is wrong? The answer is obviously, that's not what they meant. What they meant to say was that those creatures that you could see that they were born from male and female, those creatures you're חייב מיתה for killing. Those creatures that seem not to be born from from female a male and female, and that's true that these don't seem to be that way, they have a different דין. Even though the expression that they used was according to the level of science then, the expression is that they're not born from male and female, but obviously what they meant, it seems that way. But the the same is with every other thing that the חכמים said, it's all true. The only thing that we have to continue is if we say it's all true, but nevertheless many of the remedies of the גמרא don't apply nowadays, we said, but the reason is not because it's not true, the reason is because the nature changed, so we have another question that we have to deal with.

We know that every word of תורה is נצחי. Every word of תורה is eternal. The תורה was given by השם, and when השם gave us the תורה, He put Himself into the תורה. And we know that the תורה is חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, is the wisdom of God. And the רמב״ם even adds that the wisdom of God is different than the wisdom of a human being. By a human being, he, the person, and his wisdom are two separate things. A person has thoughts in his mind, but they're two separate entities. But by השם, He and His חכמה are one. And he says, איי, it doesn't make any sense. How could He and His חכמה be one? How could something that I understand be one with me? So he says, true, we can't understand how that is, but השם is beyond understanding, and therefore Even though it doesn't make any sense, but it's true, He and His wisdom are one. If the תורה is the wisdom of השם, and the תורה, the wisdom of השם is one with השם, so just like השם is eternal, the תורה is eternal. So the question is, here we're saying that every word of the גמרא is תורה. Here we're saying that the remedies that the תורה, גמרא talks about is תורה. If it's תורה, it's the word of God. It's the wisdom of God. The wisdom of God is eternal. So this also has to be eternal. How is it possible that here we have a statement in the גמרא that if you're sick with this sickness, you do so and so? So the the גמרא, which is the תורה, is telling us a fact, and since it's תורה, it has to be true forever, and here it's not true forever, it's only true at a certain time. There are certain things that are true, certain things in תורה that are true only for a time being and not later, even הלכות, and I'll give an example in a moment, but that is all because there was a condition put into that הלכה that that applies only at a certain time. Because otherwise, one might ask a question: there are certain הלכות that the גמרא says, certain דינים that the חכמים made, and if the חכמים made it with the power of the תורה, with the foundation of תורה, it is true, and nevertheless, a time came and that changed. Now, one can ask the same question, how did that change? And I'll give an example in a moment. But the answer is there was a condition put to begin with that this should only be for a time being, so that's not called a change. And I'll give an example. One of the examples is the חכמים said that a person should not drink what we call מים מגולים. מים מגולים means water uncovered. If a person would put down a cup of water and just walk away and not have it covered, and you come back, the חכמים made a prohibition. You're not allowed to drink it. Now this has nothing to do with leaving overnight, it's nothing, it's a separate, nothing to do with a metal כלי, we have other דינים. There is a דין that you're not allowed to drink water that was left unwatched, uncovered. The reason is because the חכמים said, were afraid that as you turned your head, a snake might have come and drank from it, and then left some of the venom inside, and then when you'll drink it, it's poison. And the חכמים made certain prohibitions which became הלכה prohibitions, but it's all because of סכנה, because of danger, but they are הלכה prohibitions. Now, we all know no one is careful with such a הלכה now. You ever saw somebody not drink a cup of water that was left when you turned your head away? The reason is because it says in the פוסקים, in all the, in the שולחן ערוך, in different places, that nowadays this הלכה doesn't apply. Why? Because we don't have snakes around. So we're not afraid that a snake will come and drink from it, cuz snakes don't roam the cities like it was in the time of the גמרא. And therefore this הלכה doesn't apply. So one might ask the same question: here we have a הלכה in תורה, a clear הלכה, and that changed. At a certain time, the הלכה existed. Now the הלכה changed. So one might ask, how could a הלכה of תורה change? If הלכה is תורה and תורה is נצחי, is eternal, even more than the eternity of all the medicines, cuz there, there is no dispute. Concerning the medicines, we have to prove that it's also תורה. Some say, seem to say that it's not. But a הלכה, everyone agrees it's תורה. So this is part of תורה that you're not allowed to drink water that's uncovered, and then it changed. How could a הלכה in תורה change, and we know if it's the words of השם, the wisdom of השם, and that's eternal, so that has to stay forever. How could it change? But that's not a question. Because when the חכמים said that you're not allowed to drink water that's uncovered, they said it, they said like this: you can't drink water that's uncovered because of the snakes. In other words, they made a condition in that law that this is only because there are snakes. As if they said, if there are no snakes, then it's no no prohibition. Even in the time of the גמרא itself, those places that did not have snakes did not fall under that prohibition. So that's not a contradiction to the eternity of תורה. Similar, someone might ask, there are הלכות of bringing קרבנות, bringing sacrifices different different times, bringing sacrifices for different sins, etc., etc. Now we don't have קרבנות. Here we see it's a הלכה, a law in the תורה, and the תורה is forever, and it changed. Now we don't have קרבנות, so the תורה How could it be? How could the תורה change? Doesn't that show that the תורה is not eternal? That's a stupid question, because in the הלכה of קרבנות it says part of the הלכה, that when you have a בית המקדש you should bring קרבנות. If you don't have a בית המקדש you can't bring קרבנות. That's not a contradiction to eternity. That's part of the condition of the הלכה. Like someone would say, there's a דין that you have to keep שבת. But here you see, Sunday you don't have to keep שבת. תורה is eternal. Eternal means it's forever, it's always. Here we have six days a week that you don't keep שבת. That's stupid, why? Because הלכה of שבת is that the condition is it's only the seventh day. The same here, the condition of the קרבנות is it's only at the time when we have the, when we have a בית המקדש and all the other conditions that we need to bring קרבנות. So if we don't have the בית המקדש, so the law of קרבנות to begin with doesn't apply nowadays. And the same is with this law of מים מגולים, of the water. The חכמים did not say that you cannot drink water that was left uncovered. They said you cannot drink water that's left uncovered because of the snakes. So there's a condition put into this law that it's only because of the snakes, and automatically if there are no snakes there was never such a law. So it's not against, saying that that law, that הלכה stopped. It never stopped. This was the condition of the הלכה. Now, concerning the remedies of the גמרא, it doesn't say any condition. The גמרא doesn't say that while the people are, if the people are in such and such a stage and the life, the nature of people are so, then this remedy works. See, that would be said in the גמרא, then we would answer the same way, that these remedies are true and it's no contradiction to eternity of תורה, because there is a condition put in it. It's only under these circumstances, then these remedies work, like any הלכה that has certain conditions. But it doesn't say in the גמרא. The גמרא does not mention that it's only under these specific conditions. The גמרא mentions them as a fact, which means that it's not connected to the condition, so this is a fact of תורה without conditions, so they have to be true always. So if we say that this is part of תורה, and that we went through saying definitely it's part of תורה, so definitely it's true, but here we see that this is only for a time being, and now it's not true, so part of the תורה is not true now for side reasons, not because it was a mistake, but nevertheless it's not eternal. And the same applies to the רמב״ם. We know that whatever the רמב״ם wrote is also תורה. We know what the different פוסקים write, the תומים writes, that the רמב״ם when he wrote, he wrote with רוח הקודש, he wrote with godly spirit in him, and every word that he wrote is true, and every word is תורה. There are sections in the רמב״ם which people might think is science. There's a whole long, long section of קידוש החודש, which is laws of astronomy, all kinds of astronomical facts. Then you have all kinds of things about the stars, about the planets. And then you have a whole section that deals with food, like I mentioned before, the diet. The רמב״ם gives us a whole diet, he says that these, if you keep this, you will be healthy, and he mentions exactly what to do. Now, since the רמב״ם mentions it, obviously this is part of תורה. If this is part of תורה, then it has to be true. Now, how could it be that that's not true now? And we see that it's part of תורה. It's interesting things. The רמב״ם, see there is a, let's put it this way, there is a מצוה that you have to be healthy. It's a מצוה. Person has to watch his health. There's a פסוק, it says ונשמרתם מאד לנפשותיכם, you shall watch your נפש, watch your health, so there is an obligation, a מצוה of the תורה. So every time we do what the doctor tells us tells us to do, we fulfill this מצוה. Every time we go to a doctor, and the doctor prescribes a medicine and says that for your health you have to take this, and when we take it, we're doing a מצוה. Good for all the doctors here. So that's a מצוה. True? But no one will say that that specific prescription is part of תורה. It's called הכשר מצוה, it's not a מצוה. הכשר מצוה is a preparation for the מצוה. The מצוה is to be healthy. Now whatever you need to stay healthy, that all leads you up to the מצוה. But no one will say that this is the word of God, that you have to take this medicine now, even though you will be fulfilling a מצוה by taking the medicine. The רמב״ם could have done that. The רמב״ם could have written that you have to stay healthy, and therefore you shall look up the medical books or look up the health books, and follow the diet that it says there in order to be healthy. The רמב״ם didn't do that. The רמב״ם wrote in his ספר exactly what to eat and what not to eat, exactly what to do. So all this seems to be that this is תורה. This is not like a prescription that you get from your doctor, which is not תורה, because it doesn't say anywhere in תורה to take that prescription. It just says be healthy, and the doctor tells you, so you put it together and you and you eat it. But these things the רמב״ם in his ספר writes. The רמב״ם could have skipped it, and would have been the same. Obviously these are words of תורה. See, the רמב״ם himself writes later on in the next section, the רמב״ם writes that when do I guarantee that if you follow my diet you'll be healthy and never be sick is if you have no if you're born normal without any problems, also If you started from young, if you from the beginning on followed my diet. If for a time you didn't, then this is does this won't work. Then you have to do different things. And he says, look it up in the ספרי הרפואה, in the medical books, what you have to do. So we see over there the רמב״ם did not tell you exactly, do this and do that. He left it to the medical books. So everyone is sure that when you're going to look up a medical book and in the medical book it'll say that in your case you have to eat this and this in order to be healthy, no one is going to say that is תורה, because you took it from the medical book even though you're doing it in order to be healthy. But these things that the רמב״ם did write, so he did write specifically do this and do that, that is תורה. And the same applies to the to the astronomy that he wrote, that is תורה. But the question is, just like we ask the קשיא, question on the גמרא, that how could it be that there are certain things in the גמרא, and there are no conditions given, and the גמרא states facts, and nevertheless we say now it's not true even though it's part of תורה. And the same is true with the רמב״ם. So the רמב״ם gives us a diet and tells us to eat this and do this and do that, and that is part of תורה, and then we say at the same time, don't do it now because the nature changed. So it's תורה that changed. How could תורה change if תורה is true and eternal, תורה cannot change? And we know it's one of the 13 principles. We don't say, נוסח האר״י, the Lubavitch doesn't say the אני מאמין's, but we know them anyway and we believe them anyway. The reason we don't say it is because some people might think saying it is enough, you gotta believe it, not say it. But what is it? So one of the 13 principles is that to believe that every word of תורה is נצחי. And here we see that the תורה did change. To get to the answer, to explain this, there is a famous statement that is that brought down, especially in the של״ה, in different places too, the של״ה, famous מקובל, של״ה. של״ה is an abbreviation of three words, ש-ל-ה is abbreviation of שני לוחות הברית. Great, ר' ישעיה הורביץ was his name, he wrote the ספר שני לוחות הברית, he was a great מקובל, from the greatest מקובלים that lived. And he writes like this, that don't think that התורה מדברת בתחתונים ורומזת בעליונים, which means don't think that the תורה talks about things down here and hints to things up there in the higher world, in the higher spheres. It's the opposite. התורה מדברת בעליונים ורומזת בתחתונים. The תורה talks about things up there and hints to things down here. In other words, there are people who believe that there is a lot more behind the תורה. We learn תורה, but there are other secrets in the תורה, other spiritual things, every word of תורה has spiritual explanations, but that's the secondary thing. That's not the real תורה. The real תורה is the way we have it. When the תורה says a word, this is the way it is, and what's behind there, those are hints. The תורה hints to different secret things, different spiritual things. So the של״ה says it's a mistake. The תורה hints talks in spiritual matters and hints to physical things. In other words, the way the תורה that we have down here that talks about physical matters, that's the לבוש, that's only the garment, the outer garment of the תורה. The real תורה, the essence of the תורה, which is חכמתו של הקדוש ברוך הוא, which is the wisdom of השם, deals with spiritual matters. And it's very obvious, there's no way no two ways about it. If we say that the תורה is the wisdom of השם, what did השם have in his mind? When we learn a משנה where it says שנים אוחזין בטלית, that two people were holding a טלית and they come to בית דין arguing it's mine or yours, and then the בית דין says divide it, and that's תורה, that's a משנה, no one argues that's תורה, that's part of משניות. So השם in his mind was thinking about two people arguing and that's his thought, and the division, the הלכה is that to divide it? Or שור שנגח את הפרה, an ox gored a cow, and they found a calf and they don't know whether it died before, who it belongs to, a whole discussion, and that was what השם thought in his mind? Tell you even more. We know, if we're only people from תורה, we know that it says that the תורה came before the creation of the world. Says there are a few things, many things that came before the creation. One of them, the most important one is the תורה. So if the תורה was there before the world was created, there were no people yet, there were no טלית yet, there was no ox yet, no cow yet. So what did השם think in the תורה? What the תורה the way it's there, what did he think about a cow and an ox? Obviously, when we talk about a cow and an ox, we're talking about a spiritual cow, and we're talking about a spiritual ox, and we're talking about spiritual matters. Every word of תורה, in essence, is spiritual and deals with spiritual matters. The way the תורה was given down to us, it was put in a לבוש, in a garment, that the garment from the outside is talked about physical things. Now, the תורה the way we have it down here is not, God forbid, a different תורה than השם has it. The whole wisdom of השם, the way it is in the higher worlds, in the spiritual sense, that is down here in the form of the תורה the way we have it. And now I mentioned this many times, I'll mention it again. To give an a parable to this is from the concept of a parable. A parable, what's the idea of giving a משל? When a person doesn't understand an idea, so the way to explain it to somebody, to a simple person, is you tell him a story, and by telling him the story and giving him a משל, this will bring the idea closer to him. So, when you look at the משל, it's like a story, but what's in that story is hidden that deep thought that the person is trying to explain. And sometimes a person can't even understand it through the story, you give him another story to the story. You give him a משל to the משל, and finally you go on, so finally he'll understand. And many times, when you'll try to compare the bottom משל with the top, with the first level of the שכל, you won't even see the connection. But in truth, it's all a cover-up to that first שכל. The person who gave that first שכל, that first idea, when he gives the משל, he sees that in that משל, to him, that is just another expression of the truth that's there in the depth of the שכל. That's really what a משל is. The תורה is called in a פסוק, משל הקדמוני. The משל of השם. It's a משל. The תורה the way we have it is a משל of השם. So really, when every word of תורה that we learn, whether it's שור שנגח את הפרה, about a ox goring, or we learn שנים אוחזין בטלית, or הלכות שבת, or we learn about the medicines that the גמרא says, these are all talking about physical matters. In truth, we're talking about spiritual things, and that's the way the real essence of the תורה is. The תורה came down from that level and was נתלבש, was dressed into, not changed. The תורה the same תורה that's here that's by השם. It was just dressed into a way that we could relate to it, so we take it through this משל. The same is with the מצוות. When we do מצוות, a lot of spiritual things happen, that's the most important part of the מצווה. The way we can relate to that spiritual happening is through doing the physical act, but in that physical act, you have all the spiritual things. Now, we know a rule: המעשה הוא העיקר. The main thing by a מצווה is to do the act. If someone will sit down and think about all the spiritual things behind it and not do the מצווה, he won't fulfill it, but that's for a different reason, because השם wants you to do it in the physical way. So השם said, \"I want you to do it, and if you don't do it, you didn't do the מצווה.\" But what we're accomplishing, what we're doing here is, is we're reaching the spiritual level of what happens through the מצוות, and the same thing with every word of תורה. We say it in in in שמונה עשרה in ראש השנה, that מן השמים השמיעך, from heaven, השם let us hear the תורה, so the תורה came from heaven. The תורה came from a spiritual level and brought down here. Therefore, all the physical things that are written in the תורה, that deal with science or with anything else, they really mean spiritual matters. That's what they really mean. That, and since it's תורה, every word tells us all kinds of spiritual things, and there are so many secrets in it, level upon level upon level of spiritual things. And that's really what it is. It just came down here to this world in the form of a physical sense, because it's השתלשלות, we call it, it devolved till it came to the world this way. Now, when the world, or people of the world, were in a higher level, then actually it was able to come down, that the same form, the way it was in the higher level, that's the way it was able to come down to this physical level. And therefore, whatever the counterpart, the spiritual counterpart did, turned, evolved, that in the physical sense it happened the same way. And therefore, when we take a certain medicine of the תלמוד, so really this means that for a certain spiritual sickness, you do a spiritual thing, and that will help. Because of that, and every spiritual thing has a counterpart in the physical world, so because of that, the counterpart, the physical sickness that is parallel to that spiritual sickness had the counterpart of the medicine, and it worked. But when the world became in a lower level, then not always necessarily will the way it is in the spiritual world, will it come down to the physical world, and therefore it's possible in the physical world it will not work. But that doesn't contradict the fact that what it says in the תלמוד is true. It's true in its essence. The essence of the תורה is the חכמה of השם, is the spiritual part, the עליונים, the way it's above. And therefore, if it says in the תלמוד it's true and that has all the spiritual meanings, it might not come down to the physical thing. When it comes to מצוות, we can't say that, that maybe nowadays the spiritual מצוות will not come down in a physical sense and we don't have to do it in a physical way. Because השם said, השם said you have to do the מצוה in this and this way. So we know it, He said it and He said it's going to be forever, so that doesn't change. But anything which is not a מצוה, it's not a מצוה to take this remedy. If the גמרא would say it's a מצוה that for this sickness to take this remedy, it's a מצוה, then we wouldn't change it. Then we have to take it whether we understand what it means or not. It's not a מצוה. The תורה, the גמרא just tells us facts, medical facts, that because of this, for this sickness you take this remedy. So these facts are spiritual facts which we don't necessarily understand how what they mean, but that's what they mean. And they do not necessarily come down in the physical sense, and still it's true. It's true in its real meaning, in the תורה the way it's above. That's what the נצחיות of the תורה will be here.

I'll just give an example, one of the things in רמב״ם, just as an example, which talks about a physical thing, and really it means spiritual, and it happens to be that nowadays that physical part also works, but if it wouldn't, it wouldn't make a difference. The רמב״ם, when he speaks about food, he says that if a person plans in a meal to eat first, to eat fish and meat, he should first eat fish and then eat meat. And he gives a reason. The reason is because it's easier for the stomach to digest fish, it's lighter. So for the digestive system, it's much better that if you eat the lighter stuff, so your stomach gets used to the digesting, and then when it's in in process, then you could eat the meat and then it'll help, it'll be easiest for to digest the meat. And that's a physical thing. It says in חסידות that this has a spiritual meaning, when you, and this connects to the physical part, when you eat fish, the truth is when you eat any food, what you're really doing is you're מברר the ניצוצות. You are elevating the Godly sparks that fell into the food. We know that everything in the world has Godly sparks, and what we're supposed to do is elevate it. We're supposed to elevate the food to a spiritual level. So when we elevate the, when we eat, we elevate the food. It says in the גמרא that it's easier for the נשמה to elevate fish than to elevate meat. Meat, being that it's coarse, so that it's a much more מגושמדיקע thing, מגושמדיקע means it's much more coarse, much גראבער, lower, and therefore to get involved in elevating meat is much harder. To elevate fish, being that it's a lighter food, that's איידעלער, that's much finer, so it's easier to elevate the food. That's the spiritual meaning. And that's what the רמב״ם means: you should first eat fish, start the digesting system. Digesting, just like there's a physical digesting system, there's a spiritual digesting system which is the elevation of the sparks, the elevation of the גשמיות. So you should first start elevating those things it's easier to elevate, and then you get into the process, you could already start elevating things which are lower. Now it would be possible that physically things would change, and fish would become harder to digest, let's say. It wouldn't mean that this הלכה in רמב״ם is not true, because spiritually it's still true. And the same is with every הלכה in רמב״ם and every medicine of the גמרא, spiritually they are all true. And whatever they mean, it is still true, you have to be the one to understand what they mean, but this is all true. Physically, sometimes it's true, sometimes it's not, it depends, but it's no contradiction to the נצחיות and the truth of תורה. So the bottom line of what I was saying tonight is, if you want to put it in a nutshell just in two words: number one, we have to remember that every word of the גמרא, every word of the רמב״ם is תורה. Whether they're talking about הלכה or they're dealing with physical things, whether it's astronomy or medicine or or or any other types of science, you have in גמרא different things about things growing, about plants, math, all kinds of different things that we have in the גמרא, it's all תורה! Some people who will hear this statement will say, well, this is fanatic, this is old, old-fashioned stuff. This is תורה, this is the word of God! And nevertheless, there are certain things that nowadays won't apply, not because it's not true, it's because the nature changed. But then still it shows, it seems to be showing that certain part of תורה stopped being true, the answer is that ברוחניות, in the spiritual sense, they are all true, and that is the most important part of the תורה. And when we have that approach, then our whole way of learning תורה is different. If a person learns תורה, learns גמרא with that approach, then you are able to feel the truth of תורה. If a person learns תורה thinking, well, certain parts of תורה the חכמים said as human beings as much as they understood, certain parts of תורה not, then the moment you start choosing and picking, then you never know where you're going to end up. Then someone might say, well you tell me that this הלכה, which is based on nature, they made a mistake, mistake. So, someone else will say they'll make they made a mistake in a different הלכה, so then the whole תורה is questionable and how do we know that all all this is true? But if we go with the approach that it's all true, then we know we're going on the right direction, and then we really have a connection to תורה, and if we learn תורה properly, השם gives us what we need in proper way the way השם feels and the way we want, and we get everything בגשמיות וברוחניות, and the best thing is the greatest thing to get משיח. Yes.

Rabbi Tokayer, you seem to be dividing between something being true in רוחניות and something being true in גשמיות. So, where Where do you end? Do you say that תורה is true when it speaks about astronomical facts, that the sun going around the Earth, but in the physical world maybe it's not true? תורה is true when it speaks about the world being only 6,000 years old, and that's in רוחניות, but in the physical world maybe it's billions and billions of years old? We only say this concerning those things that נשתנו הטבע. It doesn't say anywhere that other things that they said are not true could be not true בגשמיות and they only true ברוחניות. When they When they say facts, it is true. There's no question about it. The whole question that we asked was those things which they themselves, not they, the later said that it's the nature changed. The question is So, it comes out that when they said, their fact was true 100% בגשמיות. When they said this is a remedy, there's no question that it helped. The question is why doesn't it help now? If it's תורה, it should be true now. That's the only place we would say, well, it's still true ברוחניות, but when they state a fact of this is true, this fact, then we don't we don't say it's ברוחניות, then we say it's בגשמיות. So, if we say that they said the sun goes around the Earth, it is true בגשמיות. If there are things that we don't understand what they said, but it's בגשמיות. Same with the הלכה of of of the lice, we don't answer, \"Well, maybe ברוחניות they were true, it's true, not בגשמיות.\" We say בגשמיות is true, but we didn't understand exactly what they said. They meant this and this, but בגשמיות is true. The only time we say ברוחניות is true is when something changed because the nature changed. So, it is still true. It's true that when this when people are in this and this, the this type of nature, these remedies are true בגשמיות. The question was only when the nature changed, how is that true now? That we say that continue ברוחניות. It's a different part. Yes. What things would you say there's a נשתנה הטבע? So all things, all all medicines. All medicines are help things. You're talking about the people. We're saying the nature of the people changed. Oh, which way it changed, I don't know if it says. No, no. What is what else would we say changed besides the nature of The whole world itself, the the nature of the of of the weather, of things like that there are things that change. Everything had changed. That's one of the answers that we give to those people who bring proof that the world is much older than 6,000 years because of certain fossils they find and So, one of the answer Many answers. One of the answers is that certain things that now takes a year to happen and they based the age based on the way on on now. That then things were different. What takes now a year, maybe then it took a day. Especially from the מבול. המבול made a complete change. It says that for sure. But even then, as time passes, things change. So the whole says the whole nature of the world changed from the גמרא to the רמב״ם's time and from the רמב״ם's time to our time. We don't say that we say that fossils are no older No older than 6,000 years or whatever, 5,000. It's just they look older. The best Like the best proof was אדם הראשון when he was created, first human being, so the מדרש says that he was like a man of He wasn't created like a baby of a minute, he was created like a man of 20 years old. So if anybody would look would look at him, will say, \"I have proof the world is 20 years old. Here, I have a man that's 20 years old.\" The answer is he was created 20 years old, so we can't base it on that. Same thing here, השם created the world with fossils, that's another answer. But also this these fossils could have changed according to the nature of that time much faster than they change now. Yes. It wouldn't be hard to see that that we're changing every 50 years because uh um the ways uh change the methods and things the methods depending to True. Oh, maybe. Right. Medicine also changes every few years, so אין הכי נמי. And it could be not because they made a mistake, could be the nature changed, true. Going back to the to the lice that the idea was that everything has a male and a female. What if you take now an amoeba or a cell that's have, I mean, as far as we know You're saying still that they do come from Well, I don't know of the the the the new developments. Right. That's probably what it is. Yeah. Yeah, does. The amoeba has a male and a female that come Well, I mean, it's chromosomes that uh fuse, whatever. Right. Right. It doesn't just come from dirt, that's all it is. That's what he means. גמרא says it comes from dirt. Not to know if it's sweat itself, right, sweat, but does it does it produce with sweat, whatever. That's that's the point. I used the I used the word male or female. The real word should be whether it's reproduced or not. That's the real word. That's what they say. Yes? Yes. Last week, you were talking about the calendar that הלל, whoever, made For the next a few thousand years, yes. Yeah, and you said it's to the year 6000. That's in our calendar, right? Right, right, right, right, right. Because the world now is 5,759 years old, so he made it, and he lived about I would say 16 1,700 years ago, and he made it up to the year 6000 because because we know that up to the year by the year 6000, no matter what, משיח will be here. The world will not last longer than that in this normal way, the way it's now. That's why he made it up to then. Did he say anything about that, you know? Yeah, that's what he said! He said he's making it up to the year 6000. Yes? I noticed that the רמב״ם mentions for break-off Does that still apply? No. It could be, but it's not necessary. You can't just follow it. If a doctor will look at you and say, \"Yeah, this fits,\" follow what the doctor says, but not because the רמב״ם says it. What about taking a shower where it says like you start there, you take a shower, you get a shower Times are different, nature changed, and that doesn't mean that it's true. Doesn't mean that it'll work. The truth is there are some that want to say that the רמב״ם's diet does work. I think מאיר אבוחצירא has a whole book, I didn't see it, I just heard, a book to show that the macrobiotic type of diet is based on the רמב״ם. So I don't know if every detail or just generally speaking, so he tries to say that it does apply now. But the מפרשים all say that it doesn't apply nowadays. And even even the soil today is is lacking all kinds of minerals and The way it used to have. they used to have. Right, right. He says have one tomato, and one tomato may only be A quarter of it, two of what it was. Right, like that. Exactly. Yes? Yes, just one more. You mentioned about for a מצוה it would never change. Right. What's the situation with this חדש? חדש doesn't change, חס ושלום. No, not because it changed. How could you change a מצוה? The question is הלכה, does it apply in חוץ לארץ or not? There is an argument whether it applies outside of ארץ ישראל. And the truth is, many פוסקים hold it does. The ב״ח holds holds it holds it doesn't, and in this thing, most people follow the ב״ח. חדש: not to eat any grain that was grown and didn't pass פסח yet, was grown during the year before פסח. That's חדש, and many people are careful. In the אלטר רבי's שולחן ערוך, it says like this, that a person should be careful with חדש, then it says, but nevertheless, most people are not. And it seems like we're not. Usually, it seems it's interesting that in this thing, different than most things, חסידים are not careful, and non-חסידים are. At least lately, they become more, you know, careful with חדש, but חסידים, not only ליובאוויטש, all other חסידים also. They say that there was once a big אסיפה in Europe, a big gathering, a lot of רבנים, and the גערער רבי, אמרי אמת, not the previous one, the the one before before him was at that at that gathering. And he was giving שיריים from cake or bread, giving שיריים, giving out food to his חסידים. So all the people who were there took. I think it was רב חיים עוזר גרודזנסקי, who was the רב of וילנא, wouldn't take from it, said it's חדש. He wouldn't eat it. But but חסידים ate it. חסידים are not are not Anyway, they we follow the opinion of the ב״ח, not because it changed. Nothing can change. No, that לכתחילה, those of that opinion hold that in חוץ לארץ, it doesn't apply. Yeah. So therefore, if it doesn't you hold it doesn't apply, then you don't do it. Okay. So everybody holds in ארץ ישראל you have to