Where the Rambam discusses the laws of Mashiach, and we went through most of them. We are actually holding towards the end of the second פרק. I just don't know what we'll do when we finish this. We'll find some other ענינים about Mashiach, but in the meantime we're trying to go through the halacha. And what I've been doing till now, I learn the halacha and then I stop at certain details of the Rambam, try to explain question, answers that the mefarshim, the commentaries, ask and answer. That's how we go through. Basically, that's the best way for me to learn, because I'm used to that from the yeshiva. That's how we learn. It's not just sitting down saying a lecture. We have a sefer, and we learn the sefer, and then we ask questions on the Rambam and answers and different, you know, דיוקים, stressing different words. So we are holding here in פרק, it's the 12th פרק, which is the second of the last two, הלכה ג׳, the third halacha. And this is what the Rambam says: בימי המלך המשיח, during the era of the King משיח, כשתתיישב ממלכתו, once his kingdom has been established, ויתקבצו אליו כל ישראל, and all of Yisrael, it means all the Yidden have gathered around him, יתייחסו כולם על פיו ברוח הקודש שתנוח עליו. So then the entire nation, all the Yidden, will be מתייחס, that means that they will have established their lineage, their yichus, through Mashiach, with his holy spirit, with his ruach hakodesh, shene'emar as it says, וישב מצרף ומטהר. פסוק says that he shall sit as a refiner and a purifier. That means that he will be there to purify to see who's what. Because we know that there are different שבטים by Yidden. We are

made up of 12 שבטים. Actually to a certain degree it's 13 שבטים, because Yosef was divided into two, Menashe and Ephraim. We don't know exactly which שבט we're from. We know generally speaking we are or from Binyamin or from Yehuda, because the other עשרת השבטים, other 10 שבטים, were sent into exile, and we don't know where they are. So the ones that were left were Yehuda, Binyamin, and the Yidden now are from Yehuda, Binyamin mostly. I heard, I don't know if it's true, that someone to say that generally speaking the Sefardim are from Yehuda, and the Ashkenazim from Binyamin. Yeah, I think that's what I heard, but I don't know if there's any source to that. But we still don't know. When Mashiach will come, or yeah or not, I mean, what is the difference? It's not important. Oh, one second. Except this and except those are the except the Kohanim, except שבט לוי, yeah. So we have Yehuda, Binyamin, then we have the other עשרת השבטים... That's what I say we're going to get to that in a moment. But what we have now is Yehuda, Binyamin, and then we have שבט לוי, and שבט לוי is made up of Kohanim and Leviim. We don't know exactly who we are, especially the people from other shevatim, certainly we don't know. The main problem that we have is with the Kohanim and Leviim. Because whether we are from שבט יהודה or שבט בנימין really really doesn't make a big difference, because after all, we all have the same halacha. Whether we're from שבט גד or שבט אשר, what difference does it make? It does make a bit of a difference. A little bit it does, and I'll tell you why. Because it says that the

real way Eretz Yisrael is supposed to be set up, and that's when all the laws are going to return, is if the Yidden are settled in Eretz Yisrael according to their shevatim. So therefore, as long as we're not settled according to the shevatim, it's still not 100%. And the Rambam had said earlier, if you remember right in the beginning, that the main accomplishment of Mashiach will be that all the halachot will return. When Mashiach will come, we will again have shemita and yovel, and all the korbanot, everything we'll have. Now really really, when will we have all that? When we have all the shevatim. So that's also, and there's a need to find out the shevatim. But more than that is שבט לוי. We have to know who's a Kohen and who's a Levi, and what they're supposed to do. Now, we know that nowadays all those who are considered Kohanim or even Leviim are in the category of a כהן מוחזק, not a כהן מיוחס. כהן מוחזק means an assumed Kohen. Well, those that claim that they're Kohanim, there is no reason to suspect they're not, and therefore, we consider them Kohanim. That means we give them an aliyah as Kohen, they get the first aliyah, which is not such a major thing. A more important thing is that we have a mitzvah that we fulfill nowadays only through a kohen, and that is pidyon haben, that when you have a firstborn child, you must there is a mitzvah, you must give a kohen five shekalim. Now we give it to a kohen who's a כהן מוחזק, so we assume he's a kohen. And that's enough in halachah to assume. There were Gedolei Yisrael, there were great tzadikim, rabbanim, that would from time to time redeem themselves, if they were bechorim, with different kohanim. They would meet a new kohen and say, \"Well, maybe the other kohen that I did it with was not a real kohen.\" So they would do it again. They say on the Vilna Gaon, I don't know if it's true or not, that he used to always have five shekalim in his pocket. Whenever he would see a stranger, a kohen, a guest, \"Oh, you're a kohen?\" he would redeem himself again, because he was a bechor, because he wasn't sure. But there's no halachah, you don't have to do it. But the reason is because all the kohanim are כהנים מוחזקים.

There are certain kohanim who do have what we call a כתב יחוס. But also, I don't know if in halachah it has any value, but nevertheless, it's good to know. There are certain kohanim, I know a certain kohen, that his family, he has a כתב, a document, that his family goes back to Rav Rafael Hamburg. Was a person about 200 years ago, Rafael Hamburger. Rafael Hamburger was known to have a כתב יחוס going back, I don't know to which kohen, which is in the time of the בית המקדש. So those kohanim happen to be meyuchasim. In halachah, I don't know if that document has a value, I don't know who wrote it, but there is such a thing. But generally speaking, all kohanim are כהנים מוחזקים, not meyuchasim. Meyuchas means that it's an established fact that they are kohanim, while muchzak means it's only assumed. Therefore, the kohanim nowadays cannot do anything that a כהן, only a כהן is allowed to do. We only go le'chumra. Le'chumra means to the stricter side. Whatever a כהן is not allowed to do, we tell him, \"Don't do.\" A

כהן is not allowed to become טמא, not allowed to go to a cemetery, not allowed to touch a dead body, not allowed to be under one roof with a dead body, we tell them, \"You can't do that either.\" A כהן cannot marry a divorcee, we tell the כהן, \"You can't marry.\" On the other hand, whatever a כהן could do because he's a כהן and others can't, we wouldn't allow him to do. For instance, originally the דין is you have to take off תרומה. When you take off from the crop that grows, you have to take off a little bit and give it to the כהן. תרומה is holy, and no one could eat it but a כהן. חלה, when you bake bread or חלה, you have to take off a little bit חלה. חלה is holy, only a כהן could eat it. We don't allow the כהנים to eat it. There's another reason, too, because everybody is טמא nowadays, since we don't have the בית המקדש, we don't have the פרה אדומה, the red cow. So therefore, a person who ever became טמא through a dead body, טמא מת, has no way of becoming pure, because the only way he can become טהור is through sprinkling the ashes of this cow together with special water, and now we can't do it. Other types of טומאה, other types of impurity, you just go to the מקוה. That we could do, we have a מקוה now. But טומאת מת, we can't. So therefore, that's another reason why he can't eat. But even if a כהן would be טהור, let's say you would have a כהן who was born and never touched a dead body, and is locked up in a room and he's make he still wouldn't eat תרומה. Why? Because we're not even sure he's a כהן. He wouldn't eat חלה, we wouldn't allow him to eat חלה. If If they are they're not allowed to eat תרומה because it's not allowed to go to טומאת מת if they aren't considered A כהן that's טמא is not allowed to become טמא again. Even though he's טמא, he's not allowed to touch another dead body. That's the דין. A כהן became טמא once. He said, \"Okay, I became tamei once, I could touch again.\" Every time he touches a dead body or is under one roof, he's over another lav. Same like a nazir. And if you warn him, every time he would get malkos, he'd get punished for every time he did it, so that's why he's not allowed anyway. So we have this is the halacha of a Kohen nowadays.

When Mashiach will come, we'll have the בית המקדש again, we'll need Kohanim to work in the בית המקדש. The din is that a כהן מוחזק is not allowed to work in the בית המקדש, just like we said we're not allowed to eat terumah because we don't know if he's a Kohen or not. So therefore we will have, there will be a job to find out who's a Kohen. And the same thing with a Levi. Now a Levi doesn't have much of a job, there's no special halachot of a Levi. A Kohen has a halacha he can't marry a divorcee, can't become tamei, certain dinim. The only thing a Levi is, he gets the second aliyah, that's as far as it goes. Oh, another thing that if he's a Levi, he does his child or him he doesn't need a פדיון הבן. No, a Levi doesn't, the child of a Levi doesn't. In this case, even if the mother is a Levi, if the mother is a לויה, the child doesn't need a פדיון הבן. That's the only thing, but otherwise But in the time of the בית המקדש, it's important to know who's a Levi, because the Leviim work in the בית המקדש. They There are a few jobs that they had. Some Leviim would sing, sing and play musical instruments. Some Leviim, their their job was to close and open the doors, they're called שוערים. The Leviim also had the job of standing guard in different places, because you know the בית המקדש had guards. The Rambam says not because they were afraid of robbers, but a it's very respectful when a palace has guards. The Rambam says, אינו דומה פלטרין שיש עליו שומרים לפלטרין שאין עליו שומרים, it's not the same to have a palace with guards or without guards. But these jobs the Leviim had to do, no one else was allowed to do. If someone else, there's a halacha, if someone else would do the job of the Levi, he's חייב מיתה. But it doesn't mean מיתה בידי אדם, it doesn't mean that the beit din would kill him, but בידי שמים, Hashem would make the person die. Even within the Leviyim themselves, if a Levi had a job to sing, he wasn't allowed to switch and take the job of opening the doors and closing the doors. And if, it says that the Gemara says that if a Kohen, a Levi was a משורר, singer, and he did the שוער, the שערים, the gates, he's also חייב מיתה. So therefore we have to know what and who the Leviyim are. So Mashiach will come, now he says, through רוח Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have a choice. A Kohen or a Levi can't get a Shishi, yeah? Like this guy, we could get a Shishi. Shishi is a חשובה עלייה. A Kohen can't get a Shishi, nebach. But you can get Maftir. No, we we have less mitzvot. Yeah, but that's not good. When we have more mitzvot, it's better. Anyway, so it says here that Mashiach is going to be מייחס, find everybody their יחוס, ברוח הקודש. ובני לוי מטהר תחילה. The first ones he's going to purify are the children from Levi, means the lineage of Shevet Levi. ואומר, and he will say: זה מיוחס כהן, this person is a Kohen meyuchas, he's a established Kohen; וזה מיוחס לוי, this one is a meyuchas Levi; ודוחה את שאינם מיוחסים לישראל. And those who are not מיוחס, those who do not fit and not really Kohanim, proper Kohanim or Leviyim, he will push them away, he will not recognize them and he will push them to the status of a Yisrael. Now, it doesn't mean that they belong to another shevet. You could be part of Shevet Levi and be from the family of Kohanim and not have the halacha of a Kohen, which is also part of what he's going to do. And it's also part of the problem that we are worried nowadays when we have a Kohen, because a Kohen could become a chalal. If a Kohen marries a divorcee, the child that's born is from שבט לוי, or we would call it the שבט of the Kohanim, because the shevatim follow the father, not the mother. But nevertheless, he loses all the halachot of a Kohen, because he's a chalal. And this is part of what Mashiach is going to do. He's going to say, \"You're a כהן מיוחס, you're not.\" And the rest, he'll say, \"You're a Yisrael.\" Now, it doesn't mean he's going to tell you you're from שבט זבולון, he might tell you you're from שבט לוי, but still you're a Yisrael because of what your father did, or who knows how many generations ago. He lost that special relationship of as a Kohen he lost. Now, one might ask: What's his fault? He didn't do anything, his father did, so why should he lose? That's not a kashya. The same halacha? But he did. But let's say he did. You mean which rabbi? You don't need a rabbi to get married. In halacha, if a man gives a woman Kiddushin and says, \"הרי את מקודשת,\" in front of two witnesses, they're married. I'll tell you even more: even if they're not married, if a Kohen has relations with a גרושה and has a child, that child is a chalal. The child is a Kohen, but a כהן חלל, and he can't do the avodah, he can't do anything. הרי הוא אומר, it says, he quotes a pasuk. The pasuk says: ויאמר התרשתא להם. Hatarshata said to them. Hatarshata happened to be Nechemiah, it was another name. Those Kohanim that he didn't want to accept, this was in the time of the second Beit HaMikdash, he said, \"You'll have to wait עד עמוד הכהן לאורים ותומים, till the Kohen will come to the Urim v'Tumim.\" Now I'll explain it. In the time of the second Beit HaMikdash, they did not have the Urim v'Tumim. Urim v'Tumim was part of the בגדי כהונה, part of the garments of the Kohen Gadol, the High Priest. We know that one of the garments was the חושן, twelve stones. The חושן had inside, it was folded over, it was a piece of cloth folded over, and on one side of the cloth you had the stones and letters were carved out, the names of the שבטים were carved out, and that was folded in. In between the folds, they put in the שם המפורש, a special name of Hashem, and that gave this חושן the special status of the אורים ותומים. And the אורים ותומים had a job to do that whenever they had to find something out from Hashem, they would do it through the אורים ותומים. They would come to the Kohen Gadol, and there was a whole procedure of what they would do. They would ask questions. Let's say, for instance, the Rambam gives the example: they want to know, should we go to war or not? They have a question. They would go and they would do all the things, and then they would get an answer. It would light up. If the answer was yes, a כ and a נ would light up out of all the letters, because it had all the letters of the אלף בית. If the answer was no, a ל and an א, לא, no, would light up. Now, the second Beit Hamikdash, they did not have the אורים ותומים. See, in addition to that, they had few more words. They had the words שבטי י-ה. It says they specially had those words in order to to have all the letters. Yeah. But it was not just the name of the שבטים. Now, the second Beit Hamikdash did not have this אורים ותומים. It says in Rambam in different place that in the second Beit Hamikdash there were five things missing. The main thing that was missing was the ארון. The Holy Ark wasn't even there. There is an argument exactly what happened to it. One opinion is, the opinion of the Rambam is, that it was hidden by the, not by Shlomo, Shlomo when he built the Beit Hamikdash, he built it with special tunnels underground, knowing that when the time, there will be a time when it'll be this Beit Hamikdash will be destroyed, and we don't want the enemy to take away the Holy Ark. So therefore, he built it with tunnels, and later on, Yeshayahu המלך, not the נביא Yeshayahu, Yoshiyahu the king, saw that soon the Beit Hamikdash will be destroyed, he hid it downstairs. Time in the second Beit Hamikdash they didn't find it, so they didn't have it. What we do know according to this opinion that it was hidden directly under the קדש הקדשים, because after all, this ארון gave the קדש הקדשים its kedushah, its holiness. Now if it's missing, where is the holiness? But if it's hidden in a tunnel under it and the kedushah is all the way down till the bottom, so really the ארון קדש is there, just we can't see it. That's one opinion. Another opinion is that the enemies actually took it away. The enemies, the Romans took it, and we don't know where it is. They claim it say it's in some say the Vatican, lately I heard they have an opinion that in one of the other countries that they're there, whatever. But it's not it wasn't there. That's one of the things. Another thing it wasn't there, for instance, is the צנצנת המן. That's That's the story, not really true, but but I'll get into it in a second. The second thing, for instance, it's not important here, but just to mention, the צנצנת המן. One of the things they put into the Beit Hamikdash was a bottle of מן, the מן that they ate in the desert. Hashem said to Moshe, hide a bottle of man that in the future we'll be able to show to the Yidden. And so when Mashiach will come, we'll have it back, we'll all taste it, so we'll all get a taste, and we'll even make a berachah on it. And you know what berachah we'll make? ברוך אתה השם אלקינו מלך העולם המוציא לחם מן השמים. Yeah, yeah, that's what it says. It says the Jews in the desert when they ate the man made the berachah המוציא לחם מן השמים. Huh? What? So that was taken away. The other thing that was taken away was the Urim VeTumim. Now that doesn't mean that the garment, the Choshen wasn't there. The Choshen was there. Even if it wouldn't be there, you can make a new one. And it had to be there because a כהן גדול is not a כהן גדול unless he wears the שמונה בגדים, the eight garments. So that had to be. What was missing from the כהן גדול was the שמן המשחה. How did the כהן גדול become like a high priest? They had special oil, the anointing oil, that shemen said no, the שמן אפרסמון, שמן המשחה they had. שמן המשחה they would anoint the king and the כהן גדול. That was also hidden. So the second בית המקדש the כהן was not called the כהן המשיח, but he was still a כהן גדול because the דין is that as long as he had the extra garments, he is called מרובה בגדים. He's also a כהן גדול. So the Choshen they had. What was missing was that שם that made it light up, so they didn't have the Urim VeTumim. So this is what he said to them, when these כהנים came to be checked out, so those כהנים that they were able to find proof and know that they were מיוחסים, they מייחס them. Those that they weren't, so he said you have to wait till the Urim VeTumim, till Mashiach will come, because then we will have the Urim VeTumim again and then we will be able to check you out. So from this pasuk we see, הנה למדת, so this teaches us, שברוח הקדש מייחסין המוחזקין ומודיעין המיוחסין, that with ruach hakodesh, it's not with proof of witnesses, it's with ruach hakodesh, with the Holy Spirit that we are going to be מייחס, find the lineage of those that המוחזקין, that are only מוחזק, only established, I mean only assumed, ומודיעין המיוחסין, and is going to notify who is the one that's מיוחס, that's actually established to be a Kohen. Since he said, you're going to have to wait till the אורים ותומים, so what does that show? That when the אורים ותומים will come, we'll be able to do it. And this is going to be part of the job of Mashiach. ואינו מייחס ישראל אלא לשבטיהם, he's only going to be מייחס, find the lineage of the Jews according to their shevatim. First ones he'll start he said בשבט לוי because that's the most important one we have to know for the בית המקדש, who the kohanim, who the leviim are. But he's also going to do it to the

other Jews, to find out from which shevet. And like I said before, because it's important to have the shevatim divided into proper division in order to have all the halachot. But that's all he's going to do. שמודיע he's going to notify שזה משבט פלוני that this person is from this שבט, וזה משבט פלוני this is from this shevet. אבל אינו אומר, but he's not going to say על שהן בחזקת כשרות on any person who has an established status of being kasher, he's not going to say זה ממזר, that he's a ממזר, וזה עבד that he's an עבד. Because it's very possible that during the course of years, a person who was a mamzer hid the fact that he was a mamzer, went to some city and got married, and in truth when a mamzer gets married, his child is a mamzer. And this There's it's an impossibility. It can never change. A mamzer all generations are a mamzer. And the same is with an עבד. A גויישע עבד, they lived in the Jewish home, עבד כנעני. They were raised like Jews, they were actually obligated to keep mitzvot like women. Even the male עבדים, slaves, had an obligation to keep mitzvot like women. So they knew all the halachot. So you never know, maybe an עבד got mixed into some Jewish family. So you never know, maybe I'm maybe my great-grandfather a thousand years ago, who knows what happened? So Mashiach is not going to come, even though with ruach hakodesh he will be able to know whether, well, this family is pasul, this family is kasher, he's not going to do that, שהדין הוא, because the law is, שהמשפחה שנטמעה, נטמעה, and any family that was intermingled remains intermingled. And therefore, if we don't know in simple way that this family is not a kasher family, they remain halachically kasher. That's the halacha. So therefore Mashiach is not going to bother, because the halacha says that they're kasher. But by a Kohen and a Levi it doesn't say that. By Kohen and Levi it doesn't say that if we forgot and they got mixed in and no one knows whether they're Kohanim or Leviim, whether they're kasher or not, they remain kasher, it doesn't say. So therefore Mashiach will have to straighten that out. But by ממזר and עבד or any פסול, and it says even more by a goy. Let's say one of the families, maybe there was a a woman, a goyishe woman who claimed she was Jewish, got married and the children are are goyim. And as long as there was no conversion, all generations down the children are goyim. The halacha is that if it got mixed in, in halacha it's kasher. So Mashiach is not going to get involved in that. He's going to just divide everybody according to their shevatim, starting with שבט לוי and שבט כהנים and Leviim. Now in this halacha, I just want to mention a few points here.

First of all, Mashiach we say he's going to do this with the Urim VeTumim, with ruach hakodesh. Now, the question that comes up here is, halachically, is that valid? Can we pasken a halacha with ruach hakodesh? No. Usually not. We discussed that once before, תורה לא בשמים היא, תורה is not in shamayim, and we have to pasken halachot according to the כללי ההלכה, to the rules of halacha. If a great tzadik will come with ruach hakodesh and he'll figure something out, let's say he will find let's say in the time of the Beit Hamikdash, when they would punish a person for doing an עבירה, a person committed murder, they would kill him. How would they kill him? Two witnesses would come and testify, and they testified, and they investigated עדות, then they would kill him. What happens if one of the Sanhedrin was a great tzadik and with ruach hakodesh he knew that this person killed somebody? Would that person be able to be punished? Never, because in halacha there are rules and regulations how you're supposed to do it, and you can't do it with with ruach hakodesh. And the question is, how come here he could? Here there's a question in halacha. Is this כהן a כהן מיוחס or is he not a כהן מיוחס? So you say he's going to do it with רוח הקודש. So obviously it seems from here that knowing whether he's a מיוחס or not is one of those הלכות that you don't need witnesses, but

all you need is a גילוי מילתא, we call it. All you need is some kind of revelation of not of proof, physical proof, but you have to know that this person is a כהן. Now, most cases you cannot know unless witnesses come. But in the case where somebody with רוח הקודש would be able to know, this would be enough. There are certain times when all you need is a גילוי מילתא. Let me just think of an example. Let's say you find something and somebody with רוח הקודש was able to tell him, \"I know who the owner is,\" he would have an obligation to give it back even though in הלכה this רוח הקודש doesn't apply. Because there are certain things which are הלכה, and certain things are, we call it, a גילוי מילתא, it's only revelation. That's one way to explain it. But then there's another way. It is not clear that it means that the אורים ותומים or the רוח הקודש of משיח is going to actually tell him, \"He's a כהן, okay, you're a כהן, you're not, you are, you are,\" it doesn't. It could mean that the רוח הקודש is going to guide him to all the things that will bring the proof that he is a כהן or not. Now, then it's okay. If let's say with רוח הקודש, let's say there are witnesses someplace in the end of the world that happen to know if he's a כהן or not, but I'm sitting here and we're judging a case. Now, nowadays we don't have witnesses. What do we do? We don't know what to do. But if I'll have רוח הקודש, and say רוח הקודש tells me that if you go to China, you'll find someplace there a witness. There's nothing wrong with that, then I could go there, and I could ask him, and he'll testify, then it's a regular legal testimony. The רוח הקודש is only going to lead him how to get there. Which is another answer to one of the questions I asked once earlier, not something that the Rambam doesn't bring, but in the ענין of משיח it says in Tanach that משיח is going to have a special quality, ומורח ודיין. That means he's going to smell, and that's how he's going to judge. When he'll come to judge cases, he won't have to wait for witnesses, he won't have to, you know, go into a whole investigation. Person will come, he'll give a smell, and he'll say, \"Guilty, innocent.\" So we ask that same question: how could you paskan that way? It's against halacha. So one of the answers is his smell is not going to say guilty or innocent. He's going to be able to smell out the evidence. Like this, let's say we don't know if this person is guilty or innocent, and we don't even know where to get the evidence. He's going to know, he's going to have this feeling of knowing where to come and directly go to the evidence, and he'll find it. So the פסק דין, the verdict, is going to be based on regular testimony, halachic testimony. This will just guide him to it. The same as the This is also an answer to the other question. It says משיח will come, Eliyahu HaNavi is going to answer all our questions. Any question we have nowadays, משיח will and Eliyahu will answer. Teiku. We

always know the word teiku in the Gemara. A lot of times there are questions that remain unanswered. The word that the Gemara uses for an unanswered question is teiku. Simple peshat it means it stays. You have a question, it stays a question. We don't know. The ספרים say that the word teiku is an abbreviation: תשבי, which is אליהו הנביא, יתרץ, ת, ת, י, ק, ו, תשבי יתרץ קושיות ואיבעיות. איבעיא is a question in the Gemara. תשבי will answer. So we have the same question: what do you mean Eliyahu is going to answer? To answer a question in halacha, you have to have halachic proof. You have to look into the Gemara, and you have to look into the pesukim, and you have to you have to all based on the rules that Hashem gave us how to learn the halacha, that's how you answer. What's Eliyahu going to do? He's a navi. So he'll come and say with his nevuah that the halacha is so-and-so. So we went into at length last time, one of the shiurim here, that you can't pasken a halacha with a nevuah, you have to pasken a halacha with the rules of halacha. And I explained it then, but one of the answers that I'm saying now is what it could mean is Eliyahu Hanavi will get, with his nevuah, the direction exactly where the proof will come from. Like this, you sit down and you have to answer a question, you have to know what can I compare it to, where do I look, and what do I do, you work very hard. And there's certain questions that we don't Every question has an answer, we just don't know it because we're not so familiar with exactly how to get to it. Eliyahu Hanavi will come and with nevuah they're going to tell him, \"Well, open this and this pasuk and this and this מפרש, and you look in the Gemara here and look in the Gemara there, that's your answer.\" Oh! So what's he going to do? He's going to look everything up, so the answer will come not because of nevuah, the answer will come because he looked it up and he has the proof, the halachic proof. But nevertheless, we couldn't do it because we did not know how to get to it, and he knew how to get to it. And the same thing here could be, that Eliyahu Hanavi, I mean Mashiach with Urim VeTumim will get to the proper proof, and that's how he's going to be מייחס, you're from שבט זבולון, you're from שבט יהודה, you're a Levi, you're a kohen, etc., etc. You were going to ask something? Pasuk says דברי חלומות לא מעלין ולא מורידין. Words of dreams you can't rely on. Yeah, but a dream, you see, it's It's not exactly the same, because a dream is really nothing, but nevuah is something. Still, it's still only a dream. That's a different type of dream. It's not a dream like we have. That's a nevuah'dike dream. Moshe Rabbeinu, it says, his nevuah came, his prophecy came without a dream. He was awake and בהקיץ, and he was able to stand. Other nevi'im couldn't stand, they would fall down, they would fall asleep, it would come But that's a different That's not like a dream where we nowadays, we just sleep and ruach hakodesh is a lower level of nevuah. Within nevuah, yeah. Nevuah is a higher level and ruach hakodesh is a level within nevuah, but it's called a It's a lower level. There is The HaAri z"l has a ספר called Shaar Ruach Hakodesh. There he goes to all the different levels of nevuah and ruach hakodesh. Anyway, so a dream is lower than that. It says חלומות שוא ידברון. Now, it

doesn't mean that a dream can't mean something, but halachically a dream is nothing. What? Huh? 'Cause it could be a siman that something might happen, but you can't rely in any halachic way. It could be a siman. First of all it says nowadays bichlal we shouldn't worry. Sometimes could be, could happen. Yeah, I'm not saying a dream is definitely nothing, a dream could be something, could be not. But since we don't know, so halachically you cannot rely on a dream in any way. It says, for instance, if your father comes to you in your dream and he says, \"You know, I have, in halacha, in the Gemara, I have there's certain food in this and this corner, in this and this drawer, and this and this amount of fruit exactly, and you should know that it's terumah, that's holy fruit,\" and you go there and you happen to open the drawer and it's exactly where it is and exactly the way he said, it's not terumah. Halacha, you don't have to give it to the kohen, and you could eat it, because dreams are not It doesn't mean that a dream can't be a siman, but you can't rely on it. Says nowadays, I just want to mention by the way, since you brought up dreams, nowadays, says bichlal we should not be afraid of dreams, and dreams don't really mean much. One of the reasons given why now it's different, because the Gemara says that a dream is a נבואה קטנה sometimes. It's a miniature prophecy. But on the other hand, a person dreams what you think about during the day. In olden times, when people were much greater, higher level, a person was able to know exactly what he thought about during the day. And I know I didn't think about this today during the day at all. And therefore, if it came to me as a dream, how did it come? Obviously, it came min hashamayim. And therefore we had to worry about it. Nowadays, I can't tell you what I thought in the last half hour. I should tell you what I thought about the whole day and which מחשבות came to my mind? We're not at all in control of our thoughts. So who knows, maybe did think about it, he didn't. So it says that nowadays bichlal we shouldn't rely on dreams. Because of that reason, one of the reasons. Other reasons also that when kedushah is stronger and there is more revelation, nowadays that the level is so low that this revelations don't really count. But a simple reason is because what comes from what you think about. There's a story in Gemara that one of the kings asked which Tanna was it, I forgot his name. He says, \"I heard you're great. Could you tell me what I'm going to dream about tonight?\" So he said, \"Sure. What? That you're going to had go to war, you're going to lose.\" And that night he had the dream. Came back to the Tanna, he says, \"Wow.\" He says, \"It wasn't a trick. I'll tell you what happened. I knew if I'll tell this to you, you'll think about it all day.\" And that's what you did, so you thought so you dreamt it at night. That's all. Anyway, we're talking here about nevuah, that nevuah which a navi says, and if a navi comes with nevuah, and he says כה אמר ה' that ה' told me so and so, you must listen to him. That yes. Even if he tells you to do against the Torah. He tells you that ה' told me you have to be מחלל שבת this Shabbos, and if he is an established navi, you have to listen to him. Because nevuah does mean something. If he comes and says ה' said that from now on ה' told me to take Shabbos away permanently, then you know he's a liar. If he comes הוראת שעה, for time being, for now, you listen to the navi. No, that's there are halachot. There are halachot how to determine who's a navi, who's a נביא אמת. Sure. It's only after you determine he's a נביא אמת, then there's a halachah you must listen to him, even if it's against the Torah, as long as it's הוראת שעה, it's only for a time being, for a certain specific reason. But then you have to listen to him. So I'm saying nevuah is a very important thing. Nevertheless, to paskan a din with nevuah, you can't. But if the nevuah is only a גילוי מילתא we call it, only to reveal a fact, to direct you someplace, that's not a problem. So therefore here Mashiach is allowed to do it with ruach hakodesh, because all it is is to reveal a fact. That's one. Yeah, but not הוראת שעה. Yeah, but if that's the halachah of nevuah, nevuah itself is a halachah. The halachah is if a navi

tells you הוראת שעה to do something, you must listen to him. But if it's not if he doesn't come as a הוראת שעה, he comes and says, \"Well, I'm telling you with nevuah the halachah is so and so,\" don't listen to him. Or if he tells you Hashem' told me to change a mitzvah, that's then you know he's a נביא שקר. Anything. Anything. Anything except avodah zarah. Even if he doesn't give you the reason. Even if he doesn't Right. He tells you there is a reason, but even if he doesn't give you. The example given always is from אליהו בהר הכרמל. When Eliyahu, the story with Eliyahu, who had this debate with the נביאי הבעל, with the prophets of the בעל, and he brought a korban, a sacrifice, on the altar in הר on הר הכרמל, and the fire came down from heaven. At that time, it was forbidden to bring a korbanot outside of the בית המקדש. It's an aveirah. How are they allowed to do it? How was Eliyahu allowed to do it? He did it as a navi. So he did as a נביא, הוראת שעה he said, that today Hashem' told me with nevuah that I'm allowed to do it. So had he come and said that Hashem' told me from now on you're allowed to bring korbanot anywhere you want, we know he's a navi sheker, he's a false navi. But if he said it's only today, then you're allowed. The same is, I think it says this, I'm not even sure, but I think it says by Mordechai, Mordechai had a din of a navi, Mordechai HaTzaddik, and when they fasted the three days, it was Pesach. The three days were Pesach. And it says ויעבר מרדכי. He was over, he did an aveirah. So how were they allowed to do it? So I'm not sure, but I think it's mentioned someplace that also, as a hora'at sha'ah you're allowed. So a navi, when he comes with nevuah, it's no question that his nevuah is holy. Certainly if he comes and tells you something has nothing to do with halachah. If a navi comes to you and says, \"I'm telling you as a navi, Hashem' told me that you should go across the street,\" you must listen to him. אליו תשמעון, it says you must listen to him. There's a chiyuv. But when he comes and say, \"Well, I'm telling you with nevuah that there's a she'eilah that you asked the rav a she'eilah, kasher or a tereifah, well, I'm telling you with nevuah that it's kasher, you don't have to listen to him because no, no, that's against the halachah. The halachah is that a navi can't. תורה לא בשמים היא. It's similar to the story I told last time in the Gemara when there was an argument with ר' Eliezer in a certain case of tumah, and they had an argument with the Chachamim. He said it's tamei, they said tahor, and they couldn't resolve the question. And he got up and he said, מן השמים יוכיחו, I want proof from heaven that I'm right. יצתה בת קול, a voice from heaven came out and said הלכה כר' Eliezer. Imagine, a voice from heaven! עמד ר' יהושע על רגליו, ר' Yehoshua got up and he said, אין משגיחין בבת קול. We don't care about a בת קול. תורה לא בשמים היא. And not because he made it up. Hashem, when He gave the Torah, He gave kelalim, rules how to learn, and one of the rules is that it's not bashamayim. Therefore Hashem Himself says, \"I am bound with what the chachamim down here are going to paskan in questions.\" So getting back here, how is Mashiach able to do it with nevuah? So I'm saying it's because it's only a gilui milta. Now, another point. The

last thing that the Rambam said in the halachah we just finished learning was that he is not going to change the status of a kasher Jew or not kasher. He's going to change the status of a kohen or a Levi, but not of a kasher. Why? Because the halachah is that a mishpachah that was integrated into Jewish nation stays that way. I want to, a little bit, you know, talk about this, because on one hand, one may ask, well after all, if this family is mamzerim, they're mamzerim. And if this family is avadim, they're avadim, or if it's a goy, goyish family, so they're goyim. So who cares if no one knows about it? So if no one knows about something wrong, it's not wrong? I mean, if someone eats non-kasher meat, but he didn't know about it, that means it wasn't kasher? I mean, it became kasher because no one knew? But the truth is this is similar to the concept of bitul, bitul barov or bitul bashishim, similar. In other words, the same Torah that said that a mamzer cannot marry, and their children are mamzerim, the same Torah says that if he gets mixed into a family that we don't know about, it's kasher. In other words, it's not because they say in Yiddish, vos men veyst nisht iz nisht kayn shaden, whatever you don't know will not harm you. That's not true, that's like a joke. Because you don't know, it won't harm you? Someone eats poison not knowing it's poison, won't harm him? So in truth, it's not so, but it's the halachah itself! The halachah that says that the person is a mamzer in certain cases, that same Torah says that in a case where it got mixed in, he's not a mamzer. So mimela the Torah פסקנט he's not, so he is not a mamzer, so this becomes a kasher family. And on one hand, it's even greater than the other one, and I'll explain it. I gave the example of bitul, when non-kasher food gets mixed into kosher food, the law is that if it's mixed into 60 times as much, then the whole thing becomes kosher. So

what's the pshat? The Torah says it becomes kosher. Some מפרשים say that if a person says, \"I don't want to eat this because there's some treif in here,\" you're not allowed to do that! What do you mean there's some treif in there? The Torah said it's kosher! Why do you want to eat kosher? Because the Torah said! The same Hashem, the same Torah, says that it's kosher. Or in certain cases בטל ברוב, if there is a majority. See, by לח בלח, by liquids, it's בטל בשישים, or when some taste is absorbed. יבש ביבש, if it's dry stuff, it's חד בתרי, one into two, ברוב. If you have one piece of treifah meat that gets mixed with two pieces of kosher meat and you don't know which one it is, so the halachah is you take one and you throw it away, and the other two are kosher. איי, who knows which one, you might be eating the treifah! But the Torah says it's kosher, so it becomes kosher! If you find out, then the Torah says it's not. But as long as you didn't find out, it's not because you didn't know so who cares, the Torah says that it's kosher. The truth is nowadays where we don't have to get into this into because in years before, when every piece of meat or everything was so expensive, sure, they would do it. And this is just, by the way, it's not important to this ענין, but I remember, this goes back about 10-12 years ago, when the shochatim in, the Crown Heights shochatim, Lubavitcher shochatim went to שחט, they used to שחט in Buffalo, I think. So they used to go there beginning of the week, stay there during a few days of the week, and then they would travel back home to New York. So I remembered

when this maaseh happened, because my father was involved in the ועד הכשרות of the רבנים, so he told me the story then, that they שחט'ד 20 גלאט כשר בהמות. When it came to the tongues, there were 21. Somehow a tongue from or a non-כשר בהמה or from not גלאט, because that slaughterhouse had all kinds of, you know, other people שחט'ינג and it was all kinds of treifah, got mixed in somehow and they didn't know. So they didn't know what to do. The Rav was Rabbi' Zalman Shimon Dworkin ע״ה, So they called him up, so he told them the halacha is that it's batel b'rov. It's nullified in the majority, but take one, one throw away, or put it אוועק as treif. Take one out, and then the other 20 is. So they did it, and that did that day they were going home, so they took a taxi I think to the airport, but it bothered them, you know, after all, you know, it got mixed in. So what did they, they started thinking and one of them realized that there is a way to figure out at this to compare number, I don't know exactly, they had some kind of סימן to figure out which is the kosher one. So they took the taxi right back, and they came, and guess what happened? The

one they threw away was the treifah. This is interesting, isn't it? It just shows that the כח of Torah, that was the treifah, the non-kosher one. So we see Hashem directs it in the right way, but anyway, so there it says, what I was trying to bring up was actually another point, so it says when something that's treif becomes batel, to a certain degree, there is something special in that over a real real kosher one, why? When we eat food, Chassidus tells us we are מברר the ניצוצות, we elevate the food. There are holy sparks in everything, and by eating it we elevate it. Now it says in Tanya, anybody who learned a little bit of Tanya knows, that there are two types of things, two types of קליפה, two types of of evil. There is קליפת נוגה, that's the evil that's mixed with good, and there's שלש קליפות הטמאות לגמרי, and there are certain things which are completely קליפה, completely evil. And it says in Tanya that food, kosher food, is from קליפת נוגה. Non-kosher food is from the קליפות הטמאות לגמרי, the lower ones.

Basically we have three categories in the world, let's make it very clear. There is kedushah, certain things are holy, that's one extreme. Then you have certain things which are completely קליפה. Chazir, non-kosher foods, or non-kosher acts come from שלש קליפות הטמאות. Then we have the in in between, neutral, kosher food. Kosher food is not holy, but it's not evil. It depends on the person. If the person eats it with the proper intention, l'shem Shamayim, you elevate it to kedushah. If you eat it for your תאוה and not l'shem Shamayim, then you lower it to שלש קליפות הטמאות. So there are neutral things in between. So kosher food is קליפת נוגה. When we eat, if a person goes in the normal way, he could only affect קליפת נוגה. You could only elevate the holy sparks from קליפת נוגה. You could eat kosher food, which is קליפת נוגה, and by eating it with the proper intention, you elevate it. You cannot elevate שלש קליפות הטמאות לגמרי. We're not allowed to eat it. There's no way you could in a direct way elevate the ניצוצות הקדושה of שלש קליפות הטמאות. What could you do, eat chazir? The only effect a Yid could have on שלש קליפות הטמאות is by pushing it away. Someone will offer you chazir and you say, please, take it away. At that moment there is some kind of elevation of the food, but it's very indirect, it's not direct. Directly, you can't. The only one that could do it is a baal teshuvah. A baal teshuvah who ate non-kosher food, and as we know, you are what you eat. So, you are. If a person eats chazir and all kinds of things, his body is made of chazir. Pretty bad. But then you do teshuvah and you learn and daven, so you're using your energy and your body to serve Hashem, and since you're doing teshuvah, so then you elevate the chazir that you ate. That's the peshat it says זדונות נעשו לו כזכיות, the aveirot turn into mitzvot, because the aveirot you did before helps you now serve Hashem, so you elevate. So the

only way you could elevate שלש קליפות הטמאות לגמרי is through is being a baal teshuvah. That's one of the peshatim, one of when it says that במקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים צדיקים גמורים אינם יכולים לעמוד, that where a baal teshuvah stands, even tzadikim can't stand. What's the specialty of a baal teshuvah? So, a lot of inyanim there, a lot of explanations, but one of the things is that a baal teshuvah has the ability to elevate even those ניצוצות הקדושה, those holy sparks that fell very low. Hashem wants us to elevate the world. He made the world for a דירה בתחתונים, that we should elevate the low parts of the world, but there is a limit how much we could do it. Hashem said, I want you to do it, but up to a limit. Kosher food, kosher things. Non-kosher things, stay away. Don't get involved, don't elevate it. So we can't actually lower ourselves so low and elevate the lower elements of the world. But a baal teshuvah could. Not willingly, but because what he did before. And now he's going to get up go up, so he's going to elevate. So that's a maalah, something a baal teshuvah has that a tzadik doesn't have. But the question is, so what happens to a tzadik? Can't he So a tzadik is missing! Comes out that the sinner gains! So what what about the tzadik? So one peshat that everyone says, if a person, not a baal teshuvah, helps somebody else become a baal teshuvah, you have a share in that person's things, and therefore you also have. That's one thing. But that's not the point I was trying to make.

Another thing is, if non-kosher food gets It's mixed in and it's בטל בשישים. You're allowed to eat it. So now you're elevating even the שלוש קליפות הטמאות לגמרי. Now, you can't do it lechatchilah, but in that case someone will say, \"Okay, let me take, bring treifah home and let me mix it in, and we'll, there's a halachah: אין מבטלין איסור לכתחילה.\" You're not allowed to do it, but if it happened, then you're allowed to eat it and you elevate it. That's special. Same thing with the families, going back to the Rambam here. If a family of a mamzer or an eved, or even a גוי got mixed in the Jewish family and it stayed that way and no one knows, it's kasher. And that is an elevation of families which, because he has some defect, he's a mamzer, he has a defect, so this shows that this is more שייכות, connected to קליפה, and this is an elevation even of the קליפה, the lowest קליפה, that it could be elevated and becomes part of כלל ישראל. Like this, there is no way that a ממזר could ever become tahor. But this is the way. So

when Mashiach will come, being, that's when actually we'll feel it, being when Mashiach will come, that's when will come the culmination of all the ניצוצות דקדושה elevated, this will be part of it, that the