all written by his תלמיד, ר' חיים ויטאל, the רח\"ו. This תלמיד, ר' חיים ויטאל, was his main תלמיד. ר' חיים ויטאל absorbed everything that האר\"י ז\"ל taught, and he wrote down many things. You know how long ר' חיים ויטאל was a student of the האר\"י ז\"ל altogether? Altogether, I think it says, if I'm not mistaken, if you put all the time, because he was there a while and left, I think 15 months was the whole time, 15 months within two years. I think he was there for 15 months. I think that's what it says. So, I remember the חשבון of 15. Two years in צפת, and from that he was there and then after a while, so 15 months, which I think it says is similar to the amount of time that the אלטער רבי was by the מעזריטשער מגיד. The אלטער רבי was a תלמיד, the main תלמיד of the מעזריטשער מגיד. He was by him and he left, and he came back, but altogether, how much time did he spend by him? 15 months. And you know how much תורה the אלטער רבי took from the מעזריטשער מגיד? The אלטער רבי once said that all the תורה he said, and he said thousands of מאמרים and different things, he says, all taken from his from his רבי, the מגיד. And he says that, and even in that, that is only, he says, what he heard by שלש סעודות. And in דעם גופא האב איך פעק אויף פעק. I have still packages upon packages. From the first two meals, I didn't even start. You can imagine what he was able to absorb in such a short time. The same thing with ר' חיים ויטאל. So

what we have from written by ר' חיים ויטאל from the האר\"י ז\"ל is is nothing. Just to tell of of what the האר\"י ז\"ל was managed to to be משיג, to understand, once ר' חיים ויטאל came in שבת פרשת בלק to the האר\"י ז\"ל, and he saw the האר\"י ז\"ל laying on the bed or on the couch, sleeping. שבת afternoon, he took a nap. Wasn't a regular nap, you'll see. And when ר' חיים ויטאל walked in, he heard him mumbling something. So he bent down to hear. He was mumbling words that sounded words like קבלה. After he woke up, he slept about an hour, he woke up, he says, \"What were you mumbling there?\" So he says, \"When I when I was sleeping, it says the נשמה goes up למעלה, so my נשמה understood different underst- concepts in קבלה and different spiritual things that are going on in the higher worlds.\" So he says, \"Can you reveal them to me?\" So he says, \"It would take me between 70 and 80 years to tell you what I saw in this one hour.\" Now, how is it? So it

says depends how you learn. If you learn by hearing, it goes very slow. If you learn by seeing, if you learn בבחינת ראיה, then things goes much go much faster. For instance, if I want to describe, I give a look at this wall, and I want to describe what I saw, now I want to describe every detail, it could take me an hour. I'll start telling you the top is white, and per se if it was this and had this line and that thing, I could describe and go on and on, and by the time, it could take an hour, could take more than an hour just to describe the details of this one wall. And to see it, one glance. So when he slept, he saw, in the form of ראיה, he saw what was going on למעלה, and that's the level of the האר\"י ז\"ל. So he saw things which they did not see in the time of the בית המקדש. Why? So the explanation here is because nowadays is the level of מחשבה, the higher level, which therefore it's harder to see it, but those people who do see it, they see even higher. And the האר\"י ז\"ל saw in the form, learned in the form of seeing, because it says the האר\"י ז\"ל, in truth, had the time of משיח been, he would have been משיח. There's no question about that, the האר\"י ז\"ל would have been משיח, it says. Actually, the

fact that the האר\"י ז\"ל started revealing the inner part of תורה is the beginning, it says, of the revelation of משיח. When משיח will come, it says that the the learning of תורה will be in the form of seeing, not of hearing, because חסידות has the question, we know משיח is going to be the teacher of כלל ישראל. How is it possible for משיח to teach millions and millions and actually probably billions of people? Imagine all the אידן and תחית המתים, all the אידן from all generations will get up, and one person will teach them all. So it says he's going to teach them in a form of ראיה. I guess we're going to look at a screen, I don't know, and we'll see. Yeah, something like that. So since it'll be in a form of ראיה, we'll be able to, you know, we can have millions, billions of people see the same thing. But the האר\"י ז\"ל, because he was the beginning of the sparks, it says, of משיח, so he already learned in בחינת ראיה. But the level he saw was higher even than them because it came from the level of מחשבה. Now as much as that explains, I'll finish the same way I finish every week, as much as we're learning here about how good it is in the time of גלות, and it's really רחמים רבים, it's great רחמים, and the revelation of מחשבה, not of דיבור, all the things, we tell השם, \"Please, enough. We had enough of this great revelation. Now let's get to the real revelation, the revelation of משיח.\" אמן. כוס של ברכה. The drink we drink is godly. All of the physical aspects of our life are have God within them. And it is up to us to use them in a Godly manner. So if a Jewish woman gets dressed nice, she's using that in a Godly manner. She's looking attractive for her husband. If a Jewish man or a woman makes a blessing over the food they eat, then that food is Godly and holy. So I sit in a סוכה, taking all of the physical aspects of my life that I do in my own home, and I'm doing them right here, and it's a מצוה everything I do. I'm sitting in the Right now, our sitting in the סוכה is a מצוה, enhanced more so, because now we're studying תורה in a סוכה. But it's not only תורה that we do in a סוכה. We do everything here. Of course, nothing of a desecrating nature. That's we go outside of a סוכה for. But I mean, everything that can be relegated to the realm of holy, such as eating, sleeping, drinking, celebrating, we do in a סוכה, and we should do as many physical acts in the סוכה as we possibly can. So the

message of סוכה, סוכות is number one, loving our fellow man as we love ourselves. We all come from the same source of Adam, of אדם הראשון. And number two, we take physical, and we elevate physical to spiritual. We do not destroy the physical, we elevate the physical. That many people cannot understand this concept. They think that there's physical, and there's spiritual, and the two have nothing to do with each other. And that's why in Chassidism, or in general, in amongst חסידים, people did not fast, and they did not inflict pain on their own body, whereas other Jews did. And the reason they they did it is again, they wanted to deaden and destroy the body so that the soul should flourish. You know, they say if one if one organ, if our hearing is weak, then it's compensated with our eyesight. The person has bad eyesight, it's compensated with his hearing is more attuned, it's much finer. And so many people think that if they're going to destroy the spiritual, they'll fast, they're not going to they're not going to eat, they're not going to drink, they're going to go away from home, they're going to deaden all their physical desires, they'll be a more spiritual person. Chassidism teaches on the contrary: take all the physical acts that we do every single day and elevate them to spiritual, cause they are Godly. And that was a unique concept that was taught by the בעל שם טוב, and then by the מעזריטשער מגיד, and then by the אלטער רבי, who was the founder of the Chassidic movement, that was the third level that he brought out, this great philosophy of taking physical, which is Godly, and elevating it, not destroying physical, but using it. And that is why you'll find many people that disagree with the Chassidic way. They say, \"Look at those חסידים, they're dancing with abandon.\" They don't understand that they're not dancing with abandon. The dancing is elevating the their feet and their bodies to a higher spiritual thing. Why? Because it's bringing joy into your life. And we know that when we have joy in our life, we can do everything better. When a person is בשמחה, he eats better, he sleeps better, he דאוונט better. He serves God better. If we're depressed, we lay in bed, we don't want to דאווען, we don't want to do anything, we don't want to see anybody. So that whole concept that the Chassidism, Chassidic philosophy tries to stress is: take the physical, which is Godly, and elevate it to the greatest spiritual height. No, then there are different types of חסידים. Within the That's why I said the אלטער רבי taught that concept, that the physical should be brought to spiritual. Now, I want to just bring There's a lot here, but I'm I'm having a hard time trying to get it out. But there's one concept that I must relate, because it's such a beautiful idea. We talked about the importance of loving our fellow man as we love ourselves. Now that, if I

say to you, \"Love your fellow man as you love yourself,\" I mean, we can say it, but how are we going to do it? Emotionally, I cannot do it emotionally. On an emotional level, for a Jew to say, \"I love you like I love myself,\" takes a very great צדיק. But we can do it on a certain level. On a practical, physical level, we can do it. Let's talk about the idea of self-love. What is self-love comprised of? Two main aspects: quality and quantity. I love myself so much that I'm going to go out of my way to do something for me, because I love myself. So nothing's too hard. I mean, if I want it badly enough, I'm going to go and get it, because I mean, I want it. So if I have to drive miles to get it, if I want it, and I want to satisfy that inner urge inside of me, I will nothing will be too hard, or to- or or to difficult, or to tedious for me to attain that goal that I want. That's one aspect of self-love. Another aspect of self-love is, I don't see my own faults. If I do something wrong, I don't even notice that I did it wrong. I don't notice it. And if somebody points it out to me and says to me, you know, you did something that was not right, what I will do then is, I will not see it as a fault, but I'll rationalize it away. It's my father's fault, it's my mother's fault, it's my uncle's fault, it's my brother's fault, it's everybody's fault, but it's not my, I didn't do anything wrong, I can't be blamed for it, because I love myself so much, there's so much self-love, that A, I cannot see any fault, but if the fault is pointed out, I I I have to get rid of it quickly, so I try to put it off on somebody else. And so we are told in the Chassidic philosophy that how can we love another person practically, not emotionally, emotionally it's very hard, but practically, physically, how? By practicing my self-love on him. So for example, if I want to do something for me, and then and I'll go, I'll go 10 miles to do this thing for me, and then somebody asks me to do them a favor, what I should do is say, if it were me that wanted it, I'd go the 10 miles. So even up here and in my heart and emotionally, I don't love him as much, I don't, but what I'll do is, I'll drive the 10 miles to do it for him because I would have done it for me. So that's one way I can do self-love, and that's not so hard. That's not so hard! Because I don't have to love you so much, I just have to do for you what I would do for me. So practically, it's doable. I mean, it takes a lot of work, but it's doable. Then the second aspect of self-love is, I don't see any faults in myself. And even if I do see a fault in myself, I will minimize it as much as possible, and I'll rationalize as much as possible. So if somebody else does something that's wrong, I should look at that person and and not see it! Just as I wouldn't see it if I did it, I shouldn't see it. And if I see it already, פארפאלן, it's too late, I saw this person do something that's not right, what I should say is, oh, they didn't mean to, it's not their fault, it's this one's fault, it's that one's fault. Try to minimize the negativity that I see, just as I would minimize it for myself. That's that's right. Rationalize their negative act just as you rationalize your own negative act, and we know that we do that all the time. And if we can do that, we will love them practically as we love ourselves. May not emotionally, but practically. So if we see our child do something wrong, what do we say? Listen, it's not so terrible. I mean, after all. The teacher calls you up, your daughter or your son did this and this thing, so you start to rationalize and you find all kinds of excuses. But then you hear that your neighbor's child did the same thing, you'll say, kick that kid out of class! He's ruining the whole class! The teacher says, your child did it yesterday! My child did it yesterday? You know why? Because this kid made him do it! So if what we will do is, every time that we or our immediate family or those people that we really love emotionally, we should look at others as we look at ourselves, and then practically we'll be able to love every Jew, even if we won't be able to love them emotionally. And that's doable for everybody. It takes a lot of hard work, it takes a lot of practice, but try it like this. Somebody did something that was really nasty, they did something ugly and nasty, and you cannot say they didn't do it. They did it! The proof is that they did it. Take that act and say, what would I say to myself if I did it? I would try to rationalize why I did this horrible act. Take that same rationalization and transfer it to the other individual. In Hebrew it's called הוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות. Judge every person in the lenient manner. Rationalize his actions. And this

brings to mind a beautiful story with a great rabbi by the name of רבי לוי יצחק of Berditchev, who always, whenever a Jew would do something wrong, he loved the Jews very much and he always would rationalize their acts. One day, there was a young man sitting in the synagogue, he looked out the window and he sees there's a man standing outside with a טלית and תפילין, and he's changing the tire on his car, and he's all greased up, disgusting. So he says to himself, what a horrible person this is. How dare he grease the car when he's wearing טלית ותפילין? He's desecrating the מצוה. As he is thinking these thoughts, along passes this great rabbi, רב לוי יצחק of Berditchev, and this young boy runs outside and he says to the rabbi, \"Rabbi, take a look at what he's doing so horrible.\" And the rabbi looks up to God and he says, \"God Almighty, look at what beautiful children you have. Even when they're greasing their tires, they're praying to you. Even when they're doing the most mundane, physical act, they're praying to you.\" It's how you look at it. There's the

optimist and there's the pessimist. The cup is half full or the cup is half empty. Or two people are traveling on a plane together. One of them is thinking about the great vacation he's going to have and he's all excited about it, and he can't wait, he's going to land soon, and he has his family with him, and he's so excited about how he's going to relax and what he's going to do and how he's going to spend his time. And the other one is also going on a vacation, but he's sitting there and he's biting his nails, and he's a nervous wreck. The plane might crash, we may never get there, the weather might be lousy. He cannot enjoy any part of himself. There's the optimist, there's the pessimist. There's the one that looks at life with an outlook of sunshine, positive, and the other one is doom and negativity. If we want to practically love our fellow Jew, let us practice self-love that we know what it's all about on other people, and that is doable. It's not easy, but it's one of the greatest מצוות that we have in the תורה. The whole foundation of Judaism stands on it. You know, sometimes somebody will come to me and tell me a story about someone, so I'll I'll go ahead and I'll find something positive about it. So person will say, \"Don't do that. Don't rationalize for them.\" So I say to myself, maybe deep down inside, all the way in, I know that what the person did was wrong, but I'd rather say to myself and I'd rather try to feel, well, maybe it wasn't really their fault, maybe such and such happened, maybe the circumstances happened. It's not easy, but what we're told is continually practice to do it. Let me explain my my my my last line here. To turn over like that, and every time somebody does something that's negative to say, well, they didn't really mean it, not their fault, circumstances were this, circumstances were that, right off the bat, that is one of the most difficult things to do because they hurt you, or you see this person is constantly doing these negative things. So you you do it once and you say, \"Well, all right, you know, listen, it wasn't so it wasn't nice, it was wrong, but maybe maybe this, maybe that, as same as I would do it for me.\"

Every single time you start practicing as you leave this room. Every time you'll hear somebody did something wrong to you or to somebody else, try to find excuses for that person, and you'll keep doing it. You will get into the habit of doing it, you'll always do it. And then when you'll meet that person that you always hated, you won't hate them so much because you will have rationalized so many times for them in your brain that when you see them now, that anger will have lessened and dissipated a little bit until eventually it'll be totally gone. And the benefit to us is that all that wasted energy that we use up with negative feelings and negative thoughts we'll be able to use for the positive. And I want to tell you something: I do it very often, and it really works. Somebody says, \"Do you hate anybody?\" I mean, I've been doing this for a long time, so I could say I really don't hate anybody. \"But this person, this person did such a horrible thing to you. How could you like them?\" So I'll say, \"You know something? Maybe they did a bad thing, but, you know,\" I'll give you an example. Just recently somebody said something to me that hurt me. Whatever. It hurt me, it bothered me, I was upset, and it was a one-on-one confrontation, and I felt really badly as a result of this experience. And I I had gone to this person's house, I and I went there for a specific purpose. When I left, this person had told me some of things about her own youth, and I listened to this person's story of her own youth, and I said to myself, no matter what she ever says to me, no matter what she ever does, I forgive her a million times. It's a miracle that she is the way she is. She had no love at home when she was a child growing up, none whatsoever. She felt rejected and dejected from the day she can recall until she was an adult. She doesn't even know how to be nice. Is it her fault? She never saw anybody around her expressing that. For her to To be nice is harder than for a nice person to be mean. Do you understand? So, when I listened to what she was saying to me, I said to myself, \"גאט אין הימל, I'm going to be angry at her? How could I be? She doesn't know how to be nice, it's a רחמנות on her.\" So, I made up my mind, I'm going to be so nice to her. Every day I'll try to be as nice to her as I possibly can, maybe some of it will rub off. Some say, \"That's being a hypocrite, I don't even feel like being nice to her.\" Be nice to her, she needs help! So, if you start to look at everybody that way, you can never be angry at anybody. Well, you can try to correct the person, or you have to, like, you can tell her Yes. and explain, look, maybe what you did was wrong. Good, and explain it: maybe what you did was wrong, maybe what you did was not so nice. But sometimes, the person will reject what you're saying, the person is not interested in what you're saying. So you try again. So you try again, and again, and again. And

Maribel, the person may not receive you right away, the person may continue to do the same things. But if you keep pounding away the nice things, it will change, there is no question. I have an experience with a girl, and you all know who she is. She had a lot of problems with somebody in her family, and the other day she came and told me a beautiful thing. Her mother-in-law called her up on the phone and gave her compliments. She was like in the seventh heaven, she couldn't believe it. Her mother-in-law, who never had a smile for her, who never had a nice thing to say, all of a sudden, out of the clear blue, the mother-in-law called her up and said something nice. We don't have to be concerned so much with how they are. What we should do is practice self-love on everybody we meet, because practically it's doable. Emotionally, that's on the level of a צדיק, but on a practical physical level, we can all do it, every single one of us can do it. Let's start practicing, and then we'll really be doing the מצוה of what סוכות represents, which is love of a fellow man. Thank you very much. Can we get one question? Now