from the Rebbe on this week's parashah, Parashat Chukat-Balak, but we'll speak about Parashat Chukat. In Chukat we find that ותמת שם מרים, מרים died in the desert, ולא היה מים, so then there was no water for the people to drink, so they came to complain, and the whole thing that Moshe Rabbeinu hit the rock, etc., etc., etc. Rashi says, taken from חז״ל, מכאן שכל ארבעים שנה היה להם הבאר בזכות מרים, that from here we see that all 40 years in the desert, the yidden had the well, the water, in the zechut, in the merit of Miriam. And as Chazal say, that there were three special things that happened in the desert to the yidden: they had the mon that came מן השמים from heaven, that was the bread, the food that the yidden ate; they had the בארה של מרים, the well, the water that came from this rock; and then you had ענני הכבוד, the clouds that protected them. And it came in the zechut of three tzadikim: the mon came in the zechut of Moshe Rabbeinu, the water came in the zechut of Miriam, and the clouds came in the zechut of Aharon. And therefore, when Miriam passed away, they had no more water until the Oibershter made it come back, and the Gemara says that after Miriam passed away, the water came back in the zechut of Moshe. When Aharon passed away, even the clouds came back in the zechut of Moshe. But be'etzem, the water came in the zechut of Miriam. And the

Rebbe asks, why is it that the water davka came in the zechut of Miriam and not in the zechut of Moshe? Lichorah, Moshe is the רועה ישראל, משה is the shepherd, and the shepherd takes care of his flock and everything that they need. Water is part of the important needs of a person. So why would that not come in the zechut of Moshe? Why was it davka in the zechut of Miriam? And the Rebbe explains it like this: What's the difference between water and food? The Rambam writes that in Perush Hamishnayot, that water doesn't fill a person up. Water doesn't feed a person, it doesn't give him sustenance. Water takes the food that you eat and spreads it out into the whole body, it comes into all the places of the body, so that it should actually give the person his life. That means food is the one that gives the person his chiyut, you eat food that gives you health, that gives you life, and the water just makes it come to the right places in order that the food should give the proper life. When we apply this in ruchniyut, because everything that we have in gashmiyut, we also have in ruchniyut in Avodat Hashem, so food, which comes inside in a person, and we know it becomes דמו ובשרו כבשרו, it becomes part of the body, it's internalized 100%, that represents the pnimiusdike things, the internal things of the person, meaning the sechel of the person, the intellect, and the feelings, the midot of the person, that you have the sechel, in ruchniyut meaning you have the sechel to understand what's right and what's wrong, you have the feeling what you should feel to do and what not to do, etc., etc. That's what the food represents. And the water represents the fact that all this sechel and the midot that you have should come down into actuality, it should come down into reality. In other words, you could have the proper sechel of understanding what to do, you could have the feeling in what to do, but then you have to bring it down lemaaseh, it has to come down in actuality. That's the difference between food and water. Food represents the ideas and the feelings that you have, knowing what to do and how to do, etc., etc., but then to actually bring it down befoal, that is what the water represents. That's by every single person. Whatever applies to every single person's Avodat Hashem, also we find the same thing parallel in Klal Yisrael as a klal. So by Klal Yisrael as a klal, we

see that that's the difference between the avodah of the men and the avodah of the women. The men, their job is to set the tone of the house, their job is to know what is right and what is wrong, to understand, to bring the feelings and bring the atmosphere, and bring down the pnimiusdike things that you have. The job of the woman is to actualize it, to make it real, to bring it down into befoal mamash. That's the job of the woman, that whatever the husband brings from his being the lamdan, the one that learns Torah and has the great yirat shamayim, etc., etc., but she's the one knows how to bring it down into actuality, how to make it come befoal. So the avodah of the men, that is represented in the food a person eats, that's the food, the inner parts of the person. But what the job of the woman is represented by the water, because water brings it down l'foal, that the food that you eat should have its effect, should actually do what it's supposed to. That's what the water does, and that's the job of the woman. And therefore, when it came to the midbar, Miriam, the woman, it was in her zechut that the water came, because that's connected to the woman, to represent this idea: that the inyan of the water, which is taking what's right and what you feel and what you understand to bring it down, all the way down, it should Have, it should have an effect befoal, since that's the woman, job of the woman, that's why the באר של מרים came in the zechut of the woman, of the zechut of Miriam. But on the

other hand, when Miriam passed away, it came back in the zechut of Moshe, telling us that in a case where chas veshalom there's a situation where the woman can't do it, the Eibershter also gives koach that the man should also, besides his job as the מן, as the food which is just having the intellect and the feelings, etc., etc., the Eibershter gives him extra koach that he should is also able to do this job of bringing it down bafoal, to make sure that it's done bafoal in the family, that it's done actually in reality.