לגאולה, which is actually a collection of different short sayings of the Rebbeim of starting all the way from the Baal Shem Tov up to the Rebbe, concerning the concept of exile and redemption. The name of the ספר is Megulah, means from exile, לגאולה, to redemption. And what we do is every week we learn one little piece, or two, or three, as much as we manage, and I read it inside, and I explain it, and then I try to elaborate on the details that apply to what we learned. We are holding here on page 36. בזמן הבית, the time of the בית המקדש, כשהאלוקות האירה בגילוי, when godliness was revealed, shined openly, היתה עיקר עבודתם של ישראל מצד כוחות הגלויים של הנפש. The main service of the Yidden to Hashem was מצד, was coming from their what we call the revealed attributes that they have. That means, as he explains, הם הרגישו אלוקות בשכלם, they felt godliness in their mind, ובמידותיהם, and in their emotions. And they served Hashem with their understanding and with their feeling. They understood the greatness of Hashem, they understood what it means to serve Hashem, they understood what it means to do the mitzvot, and that's how they did it. They also had the proper feeling, a strong feeling to Hashem, and a strong feeling to Torah, and a strong feeling to their fellow Jew. They felt it. So, they served Hashem with their revealed attributes, and I'll explain that soon. ומכיון שזו היא עבודה שעל פי טעם ודעת והרגש, since this is a service that comes from the person's understanding, the person's intellect, the person's feeling, לא היה נרגש בעבודה זו הכח של יחידה שבנפש, עצם הנפש, so you wouldn't feel in their service of God the יחידה שבנפש, which is the essence of the נשמה. That you wouldn't feel, which is a higher level than the כוחות הגלויים. I will explain that soon. דווקא בזמן הגלות, only in the time of exile, כשהאור האלוקי מוסתר ונעלם, when the light of godliness is hidden, it's concealed, וישנם מניעות ועיכובים רבים לעבודת השם, and there are a lot of obstacles in serving השם, דווקא אז, specifically then, כאשר חסרה פעולתם של השכל והמידות, when we're missing the influence of our intellect and our emotions to השם, מתעוררת היחידה שבנפש. That's when the יחידה, that level of the נשמה which is called the יחידה, which is the essence of the נשמה, is awakened. שבכוחה להתגבר על כל הקשיים והנסיונות מתוך מסירות נפש, and only through the awakening of that essence of the נשמה we are able to overcome all the hardships, of all the tests, all the obstacles that we have concerning serving Hashem. So basically what he's saying here is that even though on one hand, in the time of the Beit Hamikdash, before the exile, the Jews were in a higher level. That means their intellect was greater. They were able to understand Hashem more. They were able to understand the meaning of the mitzvot more, and they understood the greatness of Hashem and importance of Torah u'mitzvot. They had very strong feelings to Hashem. They actually loved Hashem, they had fear of Hashem, they actually felt it, much more than we have now, that we could even imagine now. So, and now

we're not like that. In the time of galut, godliness is concealed. That time it was revealed, means they felt it, they understood it. Now it's concealed. So on one hand, we are now in a much lower level than the Jews were in the time of the Beit Hamikdash. And that's what we usually learn in sefarim, Chassidut, Kabbalah, that during the time of galut the Jews are in a lower spiritual level than they were in the time of the Beit Hamikdash. But on the other hand, from one angle, the Jews are in a higher level in the time of galut, because in the time of the Beit Hamikdash, they did not have the feeling of the יחידה שבנפש, which is the essence of the neshama. And that is because they were involved in their understanding and in the feeling, that blocked, that covered the revelation of the essence of the neshama. I will explain this soon in detail. So therefore, even though when we look at the aspect of level of understanding and feeling, etc., etc., we are lower. But when we look at the level of the revelation of the essence of the neshama, which is beyond the כוחות הגלויים, the revealed attributes of sechel, of intellect, and middot, and emotions, we have that and they didn't have. Let me explain some of the details here.

יחידה שבנפש, we're referring here to יחידה שבנפש. That is the essence of the neshama, because we know that even though every Yid has a neshama, and we speak about it as the neshama, but there are different parts to the neshama. The different parts are, as we learned many times before, are נפש, רוח, נשמה, חיה, and יחידה. These are five names of the neshama which are not just five names, but five levels. I mentioned it last time, that in the Zohar, which is the source of פנימיות התורה, of the hidden part of the Torah, the secrets of the Torah, of Kabbalah, it only mentions four parts. It says that we have a נפש, and a רוח, and a neshama, and we have a נשמה לנשמה. That's how it refers to it, a neshama of the neshama. That's four. But in the Midrash, it says חמשה שמות נקראו לה. There are five names to the neshama, and it mentions נפש, רוח, נשמה, חיה, and יחידה. So חיה is the fourth, which is the same as the Zohar refers to as נשמה לנשמה, then it mentions the other level, which is the יחידה שבנפש. Now,

bichlal, generally we divide these five parts of the neshama into two categories. It's even known in Kabbalah with the abbreviation: נר״ן ח״י. נר״ן is an abbreviation of נפש, רוח, נשמה, and ח״י, ח׳ י׳, is an abbreviation of חיה and יחידה. The נר״ן, the נפש, רוח, ונשמה, that refers to that part of the נשמה which has most of its attributes. When a person understands something that's holy, understands Hashem, or understands the Torah, understands a mitzvah, so at that time he is using the intellect of the נשמה. When a person has a feeling to a mitzvah, has a feeling to God, has אהבת ישראל, or any other type of feeling that is to ענינים of kedushah, holy matters, Godly matters, he is using these middot, these emotions that come from the נשמה. So these two parts, the intellect and the emotions of the נשמה, are included within the three names of נפש, רוח, נשמה. And these are called the כוחות הגלויים, the revealed parts of the נשמה, the revealed attributes. The חיה and יחידה, the other two, are already a higher level. Specifically, the יחידה, that is referred to always as the essence of the נשמה, that's deeper, more essential than the other parts of the נשמה. That's why it's called יחידה. The word יחידה comes from the word יחיד. יחיד means single. Single means true single. And it's similar to when we speak about Hashem and we say Hashem is יחיד. We say השם אחד, השם is one. And really it's more than that, we just use the word אחד like I explained once before, but really Hashem is יחיד, not just one, because when you say the word one, you give place for a second. You could have one and you could have a second, too. When we say that Hashem is one, we mean that He is the only one. And the word for that is יחיד. יחיד means single. So Hashem is יחיד, and that's essential, He is the essence of everything, so too do we have a part in our נשמה which is the essence of the נשמה. And these two meet: the essence of the נשמה is truly connected to the essence of Hashem. That's why in the הושענות that we say on Sukkos, there is a phrase: יחידה ליחדך, it is יחיד, it is single to Your being single. And that refers to the Yid, that the Yid has this concept of single, meaning the יחידה of נפש, and that is connected to יחיד of Hashem. There are certain times of the year, it says, specifically when this יחידה shines more than other times of the year. And that is Yom Kippur, for instance. That's why it says Yom Kippur we daven five tefillos, different than Shabbos and Yom Tov and Rosh Chodesh when we daven four, the weekdays we daven three. So it says that each tefillah coincides with one part of the נשמה.

Every day we daven three tefillos, three times a day: שחרית, מנחה, מעריב. These three are כנגד נפש, רוח, ונשמה. Yom Tov and Shabbos and Rosh Chodesh we daven a fourth תפלה, מוסף, because on these days, special days, even the higher level of the נשמה, חיה, is revealed. Yom Kippur is the only day of the year that נתחייבו בו חמש תפלות, we have five tefillos, because on Yom Kippur we have the revelation even of the יחידה שבנפש, the essence of the נשמה. And that's why we see that on Yom Kippur, so many people who are far away from Yiddishkeit, which means in the revealed form they don't feel close, nevertheless, on Yom Kippur they feel close to Hashem. They want to come to shul, and they feel close to Hashem because there is this revelation of the יחידה, which is higher than these כוחות הגלויים, and that shines on Yom Kippur, especially during the time of נעילה, which is actually the fifth tefillah, that's when the Yid and Hashem are very, very close. Anyway, that's just beside the point. So יחידה, that is the inner part of of the neshamah, the essential part of the neshamah, while the other attributes a person has are all connected to what we call the revealed part of the neshamah. And

here we would get a little bit into the difference between גילוי and עצם. עצם is essence. גילוי is the revelation. The whole concept of essence is beyond being revealed. Whenever we approach something, we grasp onto something, whichever way, whether we grasp by holding onto it, something that's tangible, we grasp an idea with our mind, or we grasp something with our eyes, that we see it. When we take something, that is the גילוי of the matter. It is revealed to us. There is something that we're able to take. But it's not the essence. The essence of something is beyond the details. When a person will say, \"Well, I know this. This is brown.\" Let's say he sees something and it's brown. That's one detail of the object. That's not the essence of the thing. It's a detail which is limited to that specific thing. The essence is something that includes everything that's connected to it. And therefore, whenever we grasp it, we grasp it with one one limited חוש, or with one limited כח, with one limited sense. If we grasp something by looking at it, we're only grasping the object the way it's able to be seen. But that's not the only thing of the object. It could be felt, it could be touched, it could be smelled. If you grasp something through smelling it, you're grasping how the thing is able to be revealed, how it's given out through smelling. And the same is with everything that we do. So when we pick something up, we're only holding it as much as the thing is able to be held. But then there is this essential thing behind it. And in physical things, we don't really see the essence. But even there, we have the essential concept of what this thing is, that cannot be grasped by this different detail that we grasp. So any type of detail, that is always we call the גילוי of it. That is not the essence. The essence is something that contains everything, which we cannot grasp through a certain detail. So when a person understands something, so the thing he understands is only grasping it according to the way his mind is able to grasp through the כח השכל, through the power of שכל, of understanding. When a person feels something, you only have a connection to it through the power of emotion. If you have them both, so you take them through both. But this is not the essence. Then there is an essential connection which is beyond all these details. For instance, where do we find amongst people such a thing? You have a connection between two people. One person loves the other person, so there is a connection through love. One person understands the other person, so there's a connection through understanding. But then there is a connection between a child and a parent. That transcends understanding and feeling and everything. There is this essential connection. It's part of it, and that's it. And therefore, even if he doesn't understand, and even if he doesn't feel, he's still a child. And the connection is there. Not always is it revealed. Not always do you have it in the feeling, that essential connection. But it's always there. That's, by the way, how you would, let's say, if someone gets angry at his child, what would bring the child back? A father, let's say, gets angry and tells the child, \"Get out of the house.\" What would a child do to come back? All that you have to do is touch that soft spot within the parent. What's the soft spot? The essential point of this person being his father or his mother. When that's awakened, then everything will be forgotten, because everything else is only a connection which we call in a revealed form. And that's what we call כחות הגלויים. All the different attributes a person has or different powers, each one is a כח הגילוי, it's a revealed power. It's not the essence. And therefore, that could be shaken, it could be lost, it could be forgotten. But then there is this essential thing and that can never be changed. That's why it says, for instance, when you make a in the time of the Chumash we find, or later on, a כריתת ברית. Like for instance, we find by Avraham Avinu he made a ברית בין הבתרים, a treaty, a covenant. What's the idea of a covenant, making a brit? That we should always be friends. Now, let's understand: if these two people are friends, then they'll be friends. If they like each other, they'll be friends. Why do you need that treaty for? The brit means that even if the time will come where for some reason you'll forget the friendship, you won't feel the friendship, nevertheless it should stay. Why should it stay? Because you make like an essential connection which is beyond, deeper than all these detailed כחות הגלויים. That's what we that's the idea of a treaty. And

that's the idea of teshuvah also. There's a connection a Yid has to Hashem. And if a person doesn't do the right thing, then Hashem is upset with him. When you do teshuvah, what do you do? You return to Hashem. Teshuvah, it says, touches that essential point, the essential connection between a Yid and Hashem, which comes from the יחידה דנפש to the יחידה of Hashem. And when you touch that, then all the be bad behavior you had is forgotten, because that's something that's deeper than these כחות הגלויים. Where do we see a revelation, let's call it, of the כח of this this inner כח of the עצם הנפש by a Yid? When a person understands Hashem, and through that he's connected to Hashem, or You understand Hashem, you're close. That's not a connection from the עצם of the neshamah. That's connection limited to understanding. A great man with a great mind understands much better, so his connection is stronger, but still limited to the understanding. Some people have a strong feeling, they really feel ahavat Hashem, love of Hashem, yirat Hashem, they fear Hashem, still limited to that. Where do we find the concept of the essence, is when a person goes on a mesirat nefesh. If a person will go give up his life for Hashem, then it's not limited to understanding because nothing in your mind will convince you that that's what you have to do, because there's a rule that כל דבר רוצה בקיומו, everything wants its own existence. There's nothing in emotion or in understanding that'll tell you to give up yourself, because everything that you do is all to strengthen your existence. You understand something, it's good, to give up yourself only comes because there's an essential connection, like a child that would give up his life for his father, a parent for a child, certainly, so a Yid when he gives up his life, mesirat nefesh for Hashem, or is ready to give up his life, that's the revelation of the yechidah shebanefesh. That's why we find that there were many people that when it came to the test of giving up God, it was a test of conversion, let's put it this way, they would tell them, or you convert to another religion, or you bow down to an idol, or you will be killed, they gave up their lives. And these are people, many of them were people that in their daily life were not so religious. That means that they did not really feel close to Hashem. If they would feel close to Hashem or understand the greatness of Hashem, they would keep the mitzvot. These are people who didn't keep the mitzvot. So, why did they do it? Because at that moment, this pressured the revelation of the etzem of the nefesh, and that came out beyond all other what we call kochos hageluyim, other revealed kochos, revealed powers or revealed attributes. That's the form of revelation of of of this of the yechidah shebanefesh. Or, even in a simpler sense, without to go all the way to mesirat nefesh, actually giving up, physically giving up your life, but kabalat ol malchut shamayim, accepting the yoke of Hashem, doing something just because Hashem wants, whether I like it or not. That's also a certain form of mesirat nefesh. It's not simple, literal mesirat nefesh of giving up your life, but it's similar. The word nefesh, we all know, has another meaning, not just the word life, but nefesh also means the willpower, will. I mentioned this Shabbos in shul, in this week's parashah, it says אם יש את נפשכם, אברהם אבינו said to the people from חת, אם יש את נפשכם ופגעו לי בעפרון בן צחר, he wanted to buy the burial plot for Sarah, which was the מערת המכפלה, and he wanted the people to go to Ephron and ask him for it. So he said, \"If you would like, please do this.\" So how did he express the word \"if you would like,\" \"if you would want\"? אם יש את נפשכם, the word if you have your nefesh, and the word nefesh means ratzon, it means will. Mesirat nefesh means giving up your will. I want one thing, and I don't do it because Hashem wants different. That's mesirat nefesh. In a lighter degree, thank God we don't have to go through mesirat nefesh nowadays to give up our life, chas veshalom, for Hashem, but we have to give up our will, and sometimes it's even harder. I want something, I like this, I like that, but Hashem said no, I'll give up my will. Like it says in Pirkei Avot: בטל רצונך מפני רצונו, be mevatel, nullify your will for His will. That's mesirat nefesh. So that's also a form of the expression of one's yechidah, because if you're giving up your will, that means that you don't want, you don't understand that you should do it. Your mind is not that clear that that's the way to do it. It means that you're not serving Hashem with your sechel. You're not serving Him to mean that you feel it, because then it wouldn't mean it wouldn't be giving up your, not giving up, that's exactly what you want! If a person wants to do what Hashem tells him to do, he's not going on mesirat nefesh, he's not giving up his will, actually, that's what his will is. Giving up your will means that you don't, you really don't want to do it, and your sechel says don't do it, and your emotions say don't do it, and I say, \"No, Hashem wants me to do it, I'll do it.\" That's an expression of one's yechidah shebanefesh, because this is beyond the limitations of the sechel and the middot, but that's the nefesh. So what it says here is that in the time of the Beit Hamikdash, the Yidden served Hashem basically with their revealed attributes. They understood Hashem, they learned Torah all day, and understood the Torah very much, and understood the greatness of Hashem, they did mitzvot with understanding, they actually had the real feeling to Hashem, they had ahavat Hashem, they loved Hashem. ואהבת את השם אלוקיך, it says you should love Hashem, they actually felt it. See, we speak about ואהבת את השם אלוקיך, you should love Hashem, and we say, \"Well, every religious Jew who does mitzvot, obviously loves Hashem.\" But I'm not so sure. Loving Hashem means to love Hashem. to have a feeling of love, just like you have a feeling of love to something or somebody that you actually love, you have to have that feeling. Your heart should physically ache to Hashem. I don't know how many people are in that level that actually feel this desire, this love to Hashem. There is an even expression that a person could reach a level of חולת אהבה, to be sick of love for Hashem. We find a person being sick of love in גשמיות, but you know, to Hashem, very few people. But in the time of the בית המקדש, people actually, because Godliness was so revealed, so close to them, they actually

feel love. Fear, they were afraid, they were physically afraid of Hashem. We say a person has yirat shamayim, we say nowadays. Means he's physically afraid, that he feels on his heart a fear like you're afraid of when you see a wild dog coming at you? Really afraid? Or anything that we do, teshuvah when we do, we repent. Do we really repent and regret? You know, teshuvah, are we really feeling it? Some people do, but not very hard to feel that way. But in the time of the בית המקדש, they did. So, they served Hashem with all these different attributes. We, who are in time of exile, who do not feel Godliness, God is not so close to us, and we do not feel all these things, but on the other hand, we have something that they didn't have. They did not serve Hashem with this expression of their יחידה שבנפש. They didn't have to go on מסירות נפש, to give up their life. Seldom did in the time of the בית המקדש, in normal times, not talking towards the end, but normal times did they have to go on מסירות נפש. They didn't have to give up their will to Hashem. They wanted to do what Hashem told them to do. Godliness was revealed. They really felt that I want to do it. It was enjoyable to them. But now, when it's not so enjoyable to us, and we don't really feel it, there are so many places where it's hard to do mitzvot, and a yid nevertheless does it, it's because he expresses his connection to Hashem not because he understands, because he doesn't really understand, not because we feel, Godliness is not so close to us. This is the expression of יחידה שבנפש. And the

truth is, they both go together. When you have the revelation or the expression of your revealed attributes, that itself covers up on the עצם. It sounds strange. It's not only that there happened to be two parts. In those years they served Hashem with their revealed attributes, and now we serve Hashem with our essence of the נפש. It goes together. Because they served Hashem with their revealed attributes, that covered up on the עצם. When you understand something very good, in detail, this detail, this detail, it is very hard to have that essential feeling, the expression of the עצם, when you have the understanding of sechel. How could a person say, \"I'll do a mitzvah just because Hashem wants me to do it, because my neshamah is close to Hashem,\" when I really understand how good it is? It's very hard. Because if I really know how good it is to do the mitzvah in my mind, I feel I enjoy to do the mitzvah. It's very hard then to have the feeling of doing it with קבלת עול מלכות שמים, with giving it up to Hashem. It's very hard. The expression used in Kabbalah, in Chassidus is that גילויים cover up on עצם. The fact that we get involved in detailed connections, these revealed things cover up on the essence. You cannot have the feeling of the essence, the expression of the essence, when you have these details of the שכל and the מדות. Just to use as a משל to this, we find it in a lot of times there are certain essential expressions or essential things, and if you start going into the revealed parts, you will block out the essence. I'll give you an example, just a small small example. If

someone will ask you about a certain person, just give an example, \"How is his religious behavior?\" And on one person the person will answer you, \"This person? Oh, he is a real frummer Yid.\" Then he'll ask about somebody else. He'll say, \"Well, this person, oh yeah, I know I think I know he keeps Shabbos, he eats kosher, I know this person puts on tefillin.\" Which one of the two would you think is more religious, the first or the second? The first. But lechora, you can ask a question: the first, all he said was one word, he's frum, he's religious. The other person he even explained the details, you know, he puts on tefillin every day and he keeps Shabbos. There is this one essential thing. You say a person is frum, that's the essential expression that we know this person is frum, that's it. When you start going into the גילויים, that already blocks the עצם, that you know the עצם is not there. When you start saying, \"Well, he puts on tefillin, he keeps Shabbos,\" so I know this person is not really really a frum, but he does this, he does this. Because when you talk about, when you have the גילויים, the revealed details, it blocks, it covers up, and it takes away the essence. But if you say the essence, yeah, he's frum, that's it, that's in essential words. And you didn't say the details, then you know what it is. Give you another example. You see two people are writing a letter to the Rebbe. Now, we know by us, when we used to write a letter to the Rebbe, the way the head, the title was כבוד קדושת אדמו״ר שליט״א, which actually means Rebbe. It's just another word for Rebbe. So, you

see one person writing a letter to the Rebbe, and he writes כבוד קדושת אדמו״ר שליט״א. Then you see another person writing a letter to the Rebbe, and he writes a title 10 lines: הרב, הגאון, הצדיק, הקדוש, הטהור, המפורסם, he could write 10 lines of the greatest titles possible. You look at the two letters. Who's the bigger chassid? Who would you say is a chassid, a Lubavitcher chassid, let's say, for example, and who is an admirer, who holds of the Rebbe? They say like this: the person that wrote כבוד קדושת אדמו״ר שליט״א, he's a chassid. The other guy might be somebody else, but he admires the Rebbe. Why? This person wrote a title of 10 lines and expressed the greatest, greatest ענינים, גדלות about the Rebbe. And this person, all he wrote was כבוד קדושת אדמו״ר שליט״א, so one little word. The difference is this one word, that's the essence. Everything else, those are גילויים. The essence is the Rebbe, and he includes everything. A Rebbe is a צדיק and a קדוש and a tahor and a gaon, everything. But there's one word, it's a Rebbe, and that's it. If you start going into the giluyim, it covers up. You know that the essence is not there, it blocks the essence. It just reminds me of a story. It's not connected to the whole explanation I'm trying to give, but just a story in this, that once they had arrested in Russia a Lubavitcher chasid who was a head of the underground movement of the schools, of the underground schools that was headed by the Frierdiker Rebbe. And the Frierdiker Rebbe funded these schools. That's why eventually he was arrested himself, was sentenced to death, and later with a miracle he was freed. The same was so they arrested one of the chasidim. They wanted to get through him evidence that the Rebbe, the previous Rebbe is the one that supports all these schools. How could they get? They tried to convince him, and this person obviously wouldn't talk. They

forced him to write a letter to the Rebbe, to the Frierdiker Rebbe, asking him to send him money to support the schools. And they were standing over him, watching what he's writing, to make sure, a person who understood Hebrew watching what he's writing to make sure that he doesn't write anything, no hint or anything that the Frierdiker Rebbe should be able to see. He didn't know what to do. He had to write a letter, otherwise he'd be shot. He had to write a letter, but he wanted to do something that the Frierdiker Rebbe should understand that there is a problem here, because he used to constantly write such letters, but here he wanted the Frierdiker Rebbe to understand. And he was thinking, thinking. Finally what he did was like this: he wrote a title to the Frierdiker Rebbe of 10 lines: הרב, הצדיק, הקדוש, 10 lines. And then he wrote, \"Rebbe, please send me money for the schools,\" and signed his name. When the Frierdiker Rebbe got this letter, see, the Russians, when they saw it, the more he wrote, the happier they were. This is better, that this means that for sure that the Frierdiker Rebbe will listen to him if he's giving him so much kavod. And the Frierdiker Rebbe looked at the letter, and he saw this chasid wrote a big title, and he understood there's something fishy here. And the answer he sent him back was, \"It's about time that you knew that a Rebbe takes money and doesn't give money.\" That was his answer. But what I'm trying to bring out that how did he know, except that a Rebbe, ruach hakodesh, tzadik, I'm not even, I'm looking בדרך הטבע, naturally, how did he know that this was a problem? By him writing a title of 10 lines. Why? Because the 10 lines are giluyim. They're revealed things, details in it. This is not the essence. And giluyim tend to cover up on the essence. Not only giluyim are not essence, you have these side details, every detail is important, and then in addition to that, separately, you have the essence, it's more than that. One blocks the other. If you have this giluy, then the essence is lost. And the same thing when we talk about serving Hashem, if you

serve Hashem with the כוחות הגלויים, with the revealed parts, and you understand everything, and you know everything, and you feel, and you have all this, it's hard, it blocks the essence from coming out. You don't have the, you don't feel the essential connection. In the time of galut, when we don't have all these revealed things, that's when we have the essential connection. The same is when we talk about individual people. You could have a great person, a big תלמיד חכם, a great, we say משכיל in chasidut, understander of the philosophy of chasidut, a great מקובל, and this person serves Hashem with greatest levels. And then you have a simple Jew who never had a chance to learn, never had a chance to study קבלה or even נגלה, הלכה, just a fine Jew, and he has this simple connection to Hashem. Who is greater? In one hand, this first one is greater. He learned much more, he understands much more, he fears much more, he has everything. But what he's missing is this, we call it the עצם, the פשיטות, the simplicity of the essence of the נשמה. That's what the Baal Shem Tov said, פשיטות of the אנשים פשוטים reach פשיטות העצמות. The simplicity of the simple Jews reaches direct into the simplicity of the essence of Hashem, because their connection to Hashem is an essential connection beyond, because they don't have much. They just have this strong feeling, not because they loved out of an emotion, just a strong, urgent connection to Hashem that they had. And this happens more in galut, more than in the time of the Beit Hamikdash. That's one of the reasons it says that Moshe Rabbeinu, it says, was an עניו, he was humble, and it says מכל האדם אשר על פני האדמה, in front of everybody, every single person. And it says not only for people in his generation, but he saw the future, and he saw all the Jews that are going to live throughout all the generations, and he felt humble in front of every single Jew. So it says in sefarim, mila he was humble in front of great people, but what could he have been humble in front of the people of our generation? But Moshe Rabbeinu was humble. What did he see in us that he felt that we're some greater that he doesn't have? So it says he looked at the Not only that, it says that he was humble in front of everybody, the most he was, was in front of the people that lived close to, before Mashiach, the people who have to go on mesirut nefesh. In the last few hundred years, especially lately with the Holocaust, I mean, so Moshe Rabbeinu was humble, why? Because he saw that here you have people that the יחידה שבנפש, the essence of their נשמה, is revealed, and they serve Hashem with that נשמה, which is more, which is greater than the people who served Hashem with the higher levels, because they're missing that essential touch which these people have. So this is basically what we just learned here, that in the time of the Beit Hamikdash, אלוקות was בגילוי revealed, they served Hashem with the revealed parts. Now that we're in time of galut, we serve Hashem more with יחידה שבנפש, and that expresses itself in the mesirut nefesh. Now we'll go further: בזמן הגלות ניתן להגיע לבחינת מסירות נפש בקלות יתר מאשר בזמן הבית. It's along the same lines, but another

detail. In the time of galut, it's easier to reach the level of mesirut nefesh more than in the time of the Beit Hamikdash. וכפי שאנו רואים בגשמיות, and he gives a mashal, a parable, a physical mashal, we see בגשמיות שקל יותר להכניס את העקב במים רותחים, it's easier to put your heel into hot water מאשר את הראש, than the head. הסיבה הפנימית לכך, what's the real deep inner meaning, inner reason for this? כי הראש הוא חומר דק, the head is a much finer, Yiddish we would say eidel material, much finer material, ויש בו גילוי אור השכל, and in the head you have the revelation of this light of intellect, שהוא כח פנימי, that's a koach, that's a power a person has which is in the person, one of the inward powers we call it, לכן אינו נשמע כל כך אל הרצון, so the head will not listen to the person's willpower, שהוא למעלה מן השכל. The power of will is higher than sechel, is higher than the person's intellect. Now the

will, the person wants to do something, it will command the head to do it, but the head is so smart and is so fine, and it will not necessarily listen so fast. So it's harder, if you want to put your head in hot water, you want to do it, but it's not so easy, it's hard. So the head will not go so fast. The ratzon is a כח מקיף, I will explain it in a moment, it's a koach, it's not פנימי, not inner, but it's more outward. מה שאין כן העקב, but the heel, הוא חומר גס ועב, that's a very coarse, grobe, thick material, ואין בו התגלות אור השכל, doesn't have the revelation of the light of the intellect like the head, ולכן פעולת הרצון חזקה שם ביותר, so the willpower has a stronger influence on the foot, on the heel, than on the head. כאשר עולה ברצונו של אדם להכניס עקבו במים רותחים, when a person wants to put his heel into hot water, מתבצע הדבר תכף ומיד, it happens right away. הנמשל הוא, what is the nimshal, what do we apply this to? בזמן הבית, in the time of the בית המקדש, היו בני ישראל בעלי השגה גדולה בתורה, the Yidden were great understanders, understood, great minds in understanding the Torah, ובעלי מדות טובות, they had a lot of great emotions, היינו שהאירו אצלם הכחות הפנימיים של שכל ומדות, what shined in them is the light, so to speak, of the intellect and of the emotions, ומכיון שכן, since so, לא האיר אצלם כל כך כח הרצון ומסירות נפש, so this power of mesiras nefesh of giving yourself up and listening to Hashem, just because Hashem says so, wasn't so strong, similar to the head not being so fast in listening to the will of the person that wants it to go into hot to put into hot water. וכן, and so it doesn't have the ratzon and mesiras nefesh, הוא כוח מקיף, which is a surrounding koach, a higher power than the seichel. בזמן הגלות, in the time of גלות, לעומת זה, on the other hand, שנתמעטו המוחות והלבבות, the mind, the intellect, and the heart, in a lower level, they're not so fine, it's much coarse, so we are compared to the עקב, to the heel. Especially the generations right close to Mashiach is called ikveta d'meshicha, the heels of Mashiach. קל יותר לכל יהודי לעורר ולגלות בנפשו כוח הרצון ומסירת נפש. It's easier for a Jew to reveal the power of mesiras nefesh, just like the foot will listen faster, without no debate, listen faster to the willpower. Let me explain this a little bit. We know that we

have different attributes, different powers, which are the seven emotions which are in the heart, the three parts of the intellect which in the brain, chochmah, binah, daat. Then we have two higher powers. Those are taanug and ratzon, the power of pleasure and the power of will. They are what we call kochos makifim. Each of the other powers like the seichel, the three of the intellect and the seven of the emotions, each one has its place within the person, a specific place where it's supposed to be. The intellect is in the brain, the head here. The emotions are in the heart. We also have the different abilities, like senses, each one has its place. Sense of smell is in the nose, sense of sight is in the eyes. The power of will, Chassidus says, different than what is accepted in the secular world, that it's not in the brain. The power of will is all over the body. It has no specific place. It just registers in the brain, but it's all over the body. That's why it's not called a כוח פנימי, it's an inner inward ability, attribute in a specific place. It's מקיף, it surrounds the whole person. And that's why it says the will willpower is stronger, higher than the power of seichel. A person could want something, and because of that, that could affect the seichel, that his seichel should start working a certain way, because he wants. Sometimes it works the other way. Because you understand something, you want it. But that's a lower level of rotzeh, but then there's a higher level of ratzon, of a willpower that controls the mind. That's the whole idea of bribery. Tells the Chumash, a judge not take bribery. Why? Because it says it'll make his mind crooked. Now, it doesn't It says, כי יעור עיני חכמים, it will blind the eyes of the חכמים, ויסלף דברי צדיקים, and it's going to make the words of the צדיקים crooked. But what it means is not that because you'll take bribery, you'll say something that you know is wrong. Says, a צדיק might be influenced by bribery. If he's a צדיק, he won't because of the bribery he'll say, you're innocent knowing that the person is guilty. What happens is it makes his mind work differently. Because the connection to the money, or whatever it is, he wants that person to win, his mind will actually start working to his direction, and he'll really think that that person is right. And there were cases where people took bribery, and they would see. Till then, when they were looking, they were neutral, and it seemed, more looking into the books and trying to investigate, seemed tilting towards one direction. And as soon as they took bribery, their mind, well, they figured out all kinds of ideas, that other guy is right. They even tell a story of one of the great rabbis, that one of the two people, the two baalei din, threw a coin into his pocket without him knowing. And while he was looking into the sefarim trying to find out to figure out the case, he didn't know what happened, but all of a sudden, his mind started working the other direction. Till then, he was looking, and it seemed all to one direction, and all of a sudden, he doesn't know, and he couldn't figure it out. This even shows you how it works even without knowing. And later he found out that the guy put money into his pocket. So what's the peshat here? That the will, because you want that person to win, it'll influence your mind. So that's a higher higher attribute, stronger even than the person's seichel. And we call it makif because it's not in a specific place, which means it's stronger because it's the whole person. And it is true. When you want something, it's the whole person. When you understand, it's only working with your seichel. When you feel, doesn't affect your seichel, but when you want something, it's the whole person that's attached to it. Anyway, I don't want to get into that either. Also, the second one, And which is ta'anug, pleasure, is also in the same line, even greater, but that's not important here. So the willpower,

which is stronger, tries to tell a person to do something. When will there be a like when the mind, let's say, is, since the mind has its own being and feels he's also something, so I'm not going to listen to the ratzon. That's why the mind, the head, which is finer and stronger and has more to it, will not be ready to give itself over to the ratzon. And the same thing with the middot. But the foot, the foot has nothing. So therefore, the foot will accept the ratzon, the willpower, the command of the ratzon, right away. That's why in the mashal, the head to put in, the finer part of the person, which is a being for itself, \"I'm also something,\" that will not go so fast into the hot water, which is hard. You do something which is easy, no problem, we're talking about doing something that's hard, and the only reason you would do it is because you were told to do it. So who is going to do it faster? Somebody who thinks that, \"I'm also something, and I also have understanding, and why should I listen to you and you're telling me?\" Even we see among people. Yeah, that's, in simple words, is ga'avah, in higher words, but what it means is feeling yourself as a metziut. What's ga'avah? It's your ego. Now ga'avah means that a person holds

himself big and is a big shot, but even just feeling yourself as something, as a you have your own ego and therefore you will not be mevatel yourself, so you will not listen so fast. So the mashal is that the head has its own ego, so to speak, because it's a fine thing, it has seichel, it has something, so it won't listen so fast. And if the ratzon will have to fight and push it and push it in, the foot doesn't have its own ego. It's לכתחילה גרוב, it's a coarse thing, it's nothing fine, it doesn't have its own say, it'll right away listen. See, in simple, the physical, simple reason why the foot will go into the hot water faster is because it doesn't hurt so much. The part the brain, the head, which is איידעלער, gets affected, it hurts more, it's harder. But for the foot, because it's coarse, and like we learned once before, I think, last week or once before, from the אבות דרבי נתן, that it's called the מלאך המות שבאדם, it's called the the the the angel of death of the person because it has no chayut, it has the least life. So it's easier because it doesn't feel so much. That's the superficial reason. That's why he said

the פנימיותדיקע reason, the deeper reason is, because when he's coarse, he he's lower, and because he's lower, he's ready to accept faster the command of the ratzon. When a person is higher, it's harder to to accept the command of the ratzon. And that's what the difference is between the time of the Beit Hamikdash and galut. The time of the Beit Hamikdash, אידן were on a higher level. So mesirut nefesh, which means giving yourself up, being mevatel yourself, nullifying yourself for Hashem, it's much harder. You wouldn't do it so fast because, well, I have to think if it makes sense, and I have to know if I feel it, and I have to rationalize, and I have to and then not always will it come to that understanding. The time of galut, we don't have much understanding, we don't have much, so therefore it's easier for us to go on mesirut nefesh. But because we go on mesirut nefesh, on one hand it's because we're lower, true, but at the same time, because we're lower, like we said before, we have this essential connection to Hashem we feel. The essential connection was always there, but we feel the essential connection, so we have, to a certain degree, more of Hashem than they used to have, imagine! And I think once by a shiur or by a farbrengen, I don't remember, I once explained a mashal that the Rebbe said. Maybe it was in shul, Simchat Torah, I don't remember, but lately, that's why, I get confused where I said what, because in yeshiva I give five shiurim every day, and then I give here and there, I just can't figure out where I said what, if I said it yesterday or. Anyway,

there's a mashal once that the Rebbe said, would maybe I said it here once, with the crown of the king? I don't know, anyway, with the wood. I said it by the shiur here, which is the same idea, that the king has a crown, and he doesn't always wear it. What happens when he's not wearing it? So there are pieces of wood in some room, and the crown is on that piece of wood. So the Rebbe asked a question: the king has so many servants, so many slaves, so many workers, so many officers, can't they designate designate one person that when the king is not wearing the crown, he should wear it? Better than that it should be on a piece of wood. Not nice, a piece of wood. A human being is chashuv, is important. So the Rebbe's answer is that this person might think he's the king! But if you put it on a piece of wood, then the wood will never think it's the king, and the wood is ready to wear the crown of the king. That means that a person has his own understanding, his own feeling, his own מציאות, his own being. So he thinks he's also something, so he is not mevatel himself to the king. But the piece of wood doesn't have its own understanding, is mevatel himself. And the Rebbe said, and therefore, if you have a person who feels himself in comparison to Hashem like a piece of wood, he taka wears the crown. That's the point, he taka wears the crown. What it means is that the essence of Hashem, which is the crown of Hashem, and the crown is the essence of the kingdom. You know, by a king the crown, that's even by מלכות בית דוד, it says that the crown, that was the essence of the kingdom. That's why it says when a king died and they didn't know who's the next king, so one of the ways they figured it out, it says, that whoever the crown fit, let's say they had a few members of the family, if the crown of דוד המלך fit his head, you knew he was the king. So the crown is the essence.