Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת וילך. In פרשת וילך we learn about the mitzvah of hakhel, that once in seven years, on Sukkot, in the year after shemita, all the people, all the Yidden, men, women, and children, had to come to Yerushalayim, and on the first day of חול המועד סוכות, the king would read to all these Yidden portions of the Torah. And where Rashi says, המלך היה קורא, the king would read, etc., על בימה של עץ, on a stage made of wood, שהיו עושים בעזרה, that they made in the azarah, which is in the בית המקדש. Now, the reason it was made on a stage that the king would read it on a stage, peshitut is very simple: because people should hear, so if he was higher, he was on a stage, it was easier for the people to hear. But the Rebbe says there is a spiritual meaning to this idea that he read it on a stage. The whole purpose of hakhel is, as the pasuk says, למען ישמעו ולמען ילמדו, they should hear and learn, ויראו את ה׳ אלקיכם, and they should have fear of Hashem. So the whole purpose of hakhel is to bring יראת השם into the Yidden. The true yirat Hashem, the complete yirat Hashem is when a person is mevatel himself completely to the מלכות of the Oibershter. You accept upon yourself עול מלכות שמים, the yoke of Hashem, and you're mevatel your whole מציאות. And the purpose of hakhel is to bring Yidden to have the bitul to Hashem. But if you have complete bitul, there is a little danger there, because if a person is mevatel himself, then he loses his self-esteem, and therefore it might bring the opposite. Since he feels himself that he is nothing, so there's no reason for him to do anything: \"I'm nothing anyway, so my work doesn't make a difference.\" So mimela this chas veshalom could bring a person to the opposite. So therefore, a person must have at the same time that he has the bitul, he must have a certain self-esteem, a certain self-worth, knowing that his work and what he's supposed to do means a lot. So you have to have both: you have to have the bitul, and together with the bitul there has to be a certain, we don't want to use the word ישות, but a certain selfness that you should feel that your metziut counts. And that's the remez the Rebbe says in the fact that it was on a bimah. A bimah represents something that sticks out. So by sometimes it would represent as gaavah, but in this case, what it means is that as much as you have Hakhel and it brings the Yidden to have yirah, which is bitul to Hashem, there has to be a certain bimah here, a certain stage, a certain self-worth, that you feel that it counts. And

that's the what the remez of the bimah is, which is similar to the answer that's given on the famous question: Chazal tell us that why was the Torah given on Har Sinai? Because Har Sinai is the smallest, the lowest of all mountains. A mountain represents gaavah, and Matan Torah, which was given to the Yidden, was given on a place where there's no real gaavah, it's a low mountain. But the question is asked: if a mountain represents gaavah, so why didn't the Eibershter give the Torah on a flat land or in a valley, which would avoid complete gaavah? Why on a low mountain? And the answer is the same: it's supposed to be low, you're not supposed to have gaavah, but at the same time, there's a certain level of, not the word gaavah, but good gaavah, certain self-worth, a certain self-esteem, knowing that what I do counts, and mimela you will keep the mitzvot properly. Same thing here, that this Hakhel, which was supposed to bring a person to have complete bitul, came together with a bimah that the king stood on to show that there has to be a certain level of a bimah. But concerning this bimah, there are two conditions when it's good and when it's supposed to be done. As Rashi says, it was on a בימה של עץ that they made in the Azarah. What's a בימה של עץ? A bimah, a stage made of wood, which means it wasn't something that stood there constantly. It was taken apart. It was made of wood. You put the pieces of wood together, it became a bimah. When it was over, they took it apart and they took it away. That means that it was a temporary thing. The same thing with what we're saying that you have to have a bimah within yourself. You have to have that certain level of gaavah, that's only if it's a temporary thing. It's only used at the time when it's supposed to be used for good things, but not otherwise. That's why it was on a בימה של עץ that was only a temporary thing and only when it was needed, it was used. And the second thing, Rashi says they made it in the עזרה. The עזרה represents, what's the בית המקדש, that represents that you could only use this בימה, this ga'avah, only when it comes to ענינים של קדושה. For holy, good things you could use the ga'avah. You could say, \"Me? I'm gonna do it. I could do it. I have the koach to do it to serve Hashem the proper way,\" etc. etc. But if it's not in the עזרה, when it's not connected to using it for קדושה, then it's forbidden. That's the רמז in the two things: it was a בימה של עץ, number, three things actually: the fact that it was a בימה, because you have to have that בימה Even though the tachlit is the bitul, and the בימה has to be only של עץ, something that's temporary that you put together, and it's there only when you need it, and even that, it's only בעזרה if it's connected to the בית המקדש, which, which means connected to holy things, then you could use your ga'avah to promote holy things, but otherwise you can't.