Okay, thank you. Now, first thing I always mention is the topic. What is tonight's topic? Well, someone had asked me before, what is the how do you select topics? Well, I made a joke. It wasn't really a joke. I said it's the discussion about the unpopular halacha of reciting שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. And the person asked me, \"What? What's that?\" Well, let me explain to you what that is. And then I'll explain why it's call I call it unpopular. There is a halacha, and this halacha applies actually only for men, that every week a person must review, read through the whole parasha that is going to be read in the Torah on Shabbos, and it must be read שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. Every pasuk of the parasha has to be read twice, and then once the Targum. We know that, if you notice in the Chumash we have Targum Onkelos. In Aramaic, the translation of the Chumash is called Targum, and it was written by Onkelos HaGer. Onkelos was a convert, and he was a great tzadik, a great person, a great chacham, and he wrote this Targum. And we are obligated, it's a halacha, that we must read every week twice every pasuk and once Targum the parasha that is going to be read in the shul on the in the Torah. And this is a halacha that is for men, but nevertheless I think the women also should know about it. First of all, they should make sure the men do it. Besides that, it is an interesting halacha and we learn about all kinds of halachot even if it doesn't apply physically. For instance, we learn about halachot of the Beit HaMikdash, and we don't bring korbanot now, we don't have a Beit HaMikdash. Same thing, the women also hear about different halachot that apply, even though it's not directly to them, but there's a lot that they could learn from it and they could know what this halacha is. So anyway, getting back to the point, we're discussing the halacha, the simple peshat and the deeper peshat in the halacha of a person being obligated to review, to recite, we call it שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, twice the Mikra, twice the Chumash, and once the Targum, or it is known when you just speak in regular language, stam talk, not in the halacha, we refer to it as being מעביר the סדרה. Everyone knows that on Friday you're מעביר the סדרה. מעביר the סדרה means you go through the whole סדרה, and what the סדרה is the פרשה, and what it means is you have to do שנים מקרא, twice the pasuk and once the תרגום. I would like to start discussing this halacha step by step. First, the source, that's why I brought paper, because I want to read the expression of the Gemara. This is a Gemara in Berachos. Now I'll read the Gemara. The Gemara says, אמר רב הונא בר יהודה אמר רב אמי, רב הונא בר יהודה said in the name of רב אמי, לעולם ישלים אדם פרשיותיו עם הצבור, a person should always finish the פרשיות with the community, שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, twice the pasuk and once the תרגום. And it says ואפילו עטרות ודיבון, even though there are some pesukim that are just names, so when you look in the תרגום it only repeats the names, there is nothing to say in a different language, you have to say those pesukim too, three times. In other words, you say twice the pasuk and once in the תרגום, which is really the same thing. And then the Gemara finishes off, שכל המשלים פרשיותיו עם הצבור, anybody who finishes the פרשיות with the community, does it, מאריכין לו ימיו ושנותיו, we'll have אריכות ימים, will live long, it will lengthen his days and his years. And the Gemara even tells there that there was an אמורא, Rav Bibi bar Abaye, and he said, \"Maybe I should read all the פרשיות in one or two Shabbos. I manage to do it.\" So they told him, ההוא סבא, a certain older חכם told him that it says that we have to read it on its time, provided שלא יקדים ושלא יאחר, not earlier, not later, has to be in the week of the פרשה. Now, the expression I quoted from the Gemara was that he should do it עם הצבור, with the community. What do we mean with the community? But the mefarshim explain that there used to be a custom that on Shabbos, before קריאת התורה in שול, before they would read the Torah, they would stop, whatever they would stop the davenen, everyone would sit down, and the whole community would be ma'avir the סדרה. Everybody would go through the whole parashah, twice the pasuk and once the Targum, and afterward they have קריאת התורה. That's why they call it עם הצבור. But the accepted custom, as we will see later, is not to do it Shabbos afternoon before קריאת התורה, but as we'll see later, Friday. But this is the idea of being ma'avir the סדרה, that's what we call ma'avir the סדרה. Now, the Rambam quotes, I'll quote the Rambam, and this is what the Rambam says: אף על פי שאדם שומע כל התורה כולה כל שבת בציבור, even though a person hears the reading of the whole Torah every שבת, חייב לקרות לעצמו בכל שבוע, must read to himself every week, כל שבוע ושבוע, every week, סדרה של אותה שבת, the סדרה of that שבת, שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, twice the pasuk and once the Targum. And he adds: A pasuk doesn't have Targum, then you say it three times, the third time instead of the Targum. This is the takkanah, this is the din. Now let's go step-by-step. First of all, when was this din established? We know that it's not from the Torah, it's not one of the mitzvot of d'oraita, it's a mitzvah d'rabbanan. At what period in history did the chachamim establish this takkanah? Now, there are some that say that it started from the time of these amora'im, we call it, some there, some think that amora'im, amora'im were the chachamim of the Gemara that lived after the period of the Mishnah. It goes back let's say about 1600 years ago, these are the chachamim that established it. But not dating back to the tanna'im, not to the mishnayot. On the other hand, some say it's not so because we find in a midrash, the midrash says that Rabbi, the famous Rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, that Rabbi said to his children: Make sure that on Shabbos you don't eat till you go through the whole סדרה, till you מעביר the סדרה. And as the mefarshim say, he didn't mean Friday night, he meant Shabbos morning. That Shabbos morning, he said, don't eat till you מעביר the סדרה. Obviously, in the time of Rabbi, who was one of the Tannaim from the Mishnah, already this takanah was there, this halachah was there. Some say it dates back even earlier, it dates back to the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah, the same chachamim who established the davenen. And those were the Anshei Knesset HaGedolah that lived in the time, the period of the end of the first בית המקדש, the time of גלות בבל, after the חורבן of the first בית המקדש, they also lived in the beginning of the second בית המקדש, in that period. And they established the berachot and they established many, many things, including the davenen. They were the ones that established that we have to do this halachah of reading through the parashah every Friday, every week. Some say it dates back even earlier. It goes together with the takanah, with the halachah of derabbanan of קריאת התורה, reading the Torah. Who was the one that established reading the Torah? Again, it's not a mitzvah from the Torah, not a mitzvah from chumash, from de'oraita. It's a mitzvah that the רבנן established. Which of the רבנן established? There were many רבנן that lived through many, to thousands of years. Who, which chacham of the chachamim established the mitzvah of reading the Torah? Very big chacham, and from the very early ones. Moshe Rabbeinu himself! Moshe Rabbeinu, besides being the one that received the Torah from Hashem and just gave over to us what Hashem said, Hashem said to him also: Tell the chachamim that when they see need, let them establish new halachot. Moshe Rabbeinu himself started it. He already saw a need, he saw there is a need to read the Torah. So he established that every Shabbos we have to read the Torah. So some say that when he established the chiyuv, the obligation of reading the Torah, together with that, he established the obligation that we have to that week every individual, besides hearing the Torah, has to go through the parsha, which we call shnayim mikra v'echad targum, has to be ma'avir the sidra. Well, at that time the targum, it says the targum came from משה מסיני, it was forgotten, Onkelos brought it back, and this was the takanah. What is the reason for this takanah? There are different reasons given. I'll just mention a few, there are many reasons given in the poskim. One reason is that just in case when you will come to קריאת התורה, you will not be able to be mechaven, you're not able to concentrate properly. You know it's very important to concentrate at קריאת התורה. Obviously, not to talk during קריאת התורה. You have to listen to every word, and not just listen to every word, you have to concentrate. And it might be that you will not concentrate, so you will not be really familiar with what they read. So because of that, before that, you have to read on your own. And you have to read it twice Chumash and once the targum. Why twice Chumash and once targum? Twice Chumash is because when they read the Torah, you have two people reading. You have the baal keriah, the one that's reading, and the one that gets the aliyah reads along with him. So you have to read it twice. And in the time of the Gemara, in addition to reading from the Chumash, from the Sefer Torah, they used to read Somebody would translate it into targum. So since by קריאת התורה they have two readings and one targum, so each person, to make sure that he will have it, has to do the same. Some say the opposite: It's not because you might not concentrate. It will help you concentrate. If you will do it before, you will prepare yourself before, you will be able to concentrate better. Some say that the reason we do it is not only because of the should concentrate, we should become baki, we should, everyone should know the parsha. And there are many other reasons given why the chachamim, whoever, one of the חבורות who established this. We even find remezim, certain hints to this takanah. One of the remezim is it says in the Midrash that Hashem himself, before he gave over the Torah to Moshe Rabbeinu, he would say it over to himself two times. Hashem practiced. Just like somebody who says a speech practices, he practiced. And how did he practice? He said over each thing twice. And therefore, we too have to say it over twice, and then to make sure that we understand it, we have to say it with the Targum, because in those days the Targum was the way people understood, that was the translation. If they would have established the halachah now, it would have been say it in English, then they said it say it in Targum. We also know that when Hashem gave the Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu gave it over to the Yidden, he gave it over first of all by Har Sinai once, the second time says in Ohel Moed, in the Mishkan the Torah was given over. And then it says the third time it was given over was later before the Yidden went in ערבות מואב, before the Yidden entered Eretz Yisrael. And the third time, when Moshe Rabbeinu gave over the Torah the third time, it says he gave it over באר היטב. באר היטב means with great understanding, with great explanation. So we too do it twice, and the third time it's with an explanation, the third time we do it with the Targum. Also the Gemara says in one place that a person really should learn everything over four times in order to make sure you know it. So that is the reason we say over twice the pasuk, the third time Targum, then we hear Kriyat haTorah, so together we have four times. And the halachah says other things also why we say twice the pasuk: one is because there were two luchot, one says because the Yidden said נעשה ונשמע, all kinds of remezim to this inyan. But this is definitely a very, both important obligation, and the Gemara says a person is mechuyav, a person is supposed to do it. I said in the beginning that this is an unpopular halachah because, unfortunately, I don't know why, many people are not careful in doing it. It is halachah like any other halachah that they have to do, and as I said, according to some opinions, it dates back to Moshe Rabbeinu. So it is very important to do.

When is the time that you have to do it? But there are different opinions. Some say it starts from Sunday on. From Sunday morning on you could start being ma'avir sedrah slowly. Every day you could do a little bit, you could do a parashah, twice the pasuk and once the targum. Some say you shouldn't start till Thursday, some say till Thursday night. The most accepted way to do it is Friday afternoon. The Rebbe writes that the Rebbeim used to start Thursday night, they used to be ma'avir sedra from the beginning till שני, then Friday afternoon they would start over again from the beginning and repeat it and say the whole thing, and then Shabbos morning, before davenen, they would repeat again from שביעי to the end, which means they did all opinions. But Friday afternoon is the time when they did the whole thing. But the main accepted opinion is that we do it on Friday afternoon. My birthday comes out pretty often on Friday. So some of the times when I went into yechidus to the Rebbe, before my birthday, we used to go in private audience, the Rebbe would give instructions what you should do on your birthday. So more than once, the Rebbe told me, \"Since your birthday is on Friday, make sure to be ma'avir sedra on Friday this week. Don't leave it over for Shabbos.\" So what do we see from here? Number one, we see from here that if you do it on Shabbos, it's nisht geferlich, because otherwise you have to do it on Friday. Why would the Rebbe tell me to do it on Friday just this time, make sure to do it on Friday? But on the other hand, we see that it's important, that it's an hiddur, it's definitely better if you do it on Friday. The Rebbe, the Frierdiker Rebbe in Sefer HaSichos תרצ״ב writes that the main thing is it should be done before Shabbos morning. But the accepted opinion is like it's on a Friday, but at least it should be done before the meal of Shabbos. As I mentioned before that the Midrash says that the Rebbe said to his children, \"Make sure not to eat the meal on Shabbos,\" and he meant the Shabbos morning meal, \"don't eat the meal before you are ma'avir sedra.\" If a person missed and didn't do it, you could be משלים, you could finish it, do it later after Shabbos. They say you should try to do it at least till Tuesday. If you didn't do it till Tuesday, to do it till next Shabbos. The end is if you didn't do it even till next Shabbos and you missed a parsha, you could still do it till Simchat Torah. They even tell the story of this great chassid, that it, when it came Hoshana Rabbah at night, the night before Shemini Atzeret, and he remembered that a few parshiyot he didn't say because he was very busy, so it was a certain chumash. He didn't even remember which parsha, he knew it was in that chumash. So he sat down in Hoshana Rabbah at night, was מעביר the סדרה of the whole chumash, of that whole chumash, to make sure. And there were people asking him, why are you doing this? Sit and learn, a shtikel, do the Gemara, learn a מאמר חסידות, and he said, this is halacha. Halacha comes before everything. If the halacha is that you have to do it, you have to do it. Because being ma'avir the sedra is is, like I said, very important על פי הלכה, and it's a very big segulah, it's a segulah for אריכות ימים. The Rebbe writes in the Reshimos that he gave out, he writes in the Reshimos that the Frierdiker Rebbe told him that his father, when he was ma'avir the sedra, you could see on him, first of all you could see that his mind was away from everything. It was completely involved in, he was involved completely in being ma'avir the sedra, and the geshmak that you could see in his being ma'avir the sedra was something unbelievable. The Tzemach Tzedek said, the Rebbe writes in the Reshimos, that he made sure on the week of Parshas Bereishis to be ma'avir the sedra extra special. Why? Because we have the famous statement, ווי מען שטעלט זיך אוועק שבת בראשית, אזוי גייט עס א גאנץ יאר. Shabbos Bereishis is the first week, as you start off Shabbos Bereishis, that's how it goes on a whole year, and therefore if you Shabbos Bereishis do it with a geshmak, then it happens like that a whole year, it's more geshmak and it's easier to do it. The way to do it is, there are different opinions how exactly to do it. Some books say go through the whole parsha once, go through the whole parsha again, and then go through the whole parsha in Targum. But the accepted opinion is that you read pasuk and then read the pasuk again and then you say the Targum of the pasuk, then you go to the next pasuk, that's why שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. It says best is not to interrupt in middle till you finish the whole thing. On the other hand, some say that since there is not a bracha, so you are allowed to, if you have to you're allowed to interrupt, and therefore some have the custom they do interrupt, some they don't interrupt. Some have a custom and many of us do that, that before you start being ma'avir the sedra, you say a pasuk. The פסוק, ואתם הדבקים בה׳ אלקיכם חיים כולכם היום, the pasuk which says you are connected to Hashem and you are all alive, so that's the pasuk you say before you start. And then it says in many opinions hold that when you finish, don't finish with Targum. After you finish the last pasuk twice the Chumash and once the Targum, say the pasuk over again. But the Rebbe writes in the Reshimot that the Rebbeim did not do that, and some say that the Rebbe himself also did not do that. Really you don't have to say the haftorah when you say shnayim mikra v'echad targum, but it says better to say it, why, just in case you'll be called up to maftir the next day, on Shabbos, and you won't know it, so the idea is the best thing is that you prepare.

Now, there are different remezim in the Torah, different hints in the Torah to this, besides being a halacha. The פסוק, ואלה שמות בני ישראל, these are the names of the בני ישראל. ואלה שמות is a roshei teivot is abbreviation: וחייב אדם לקרות הפרשה שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. Again, ואלה: ו׳, א׳, ל׳, ה׳; ש׳, מ׳, ו׳, ת׳. So it's וחייב אדם לקרות הפרשה, that's ואלה, and then שמות is שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. The pasuk says מפני שיבה תקום, you shall stand up in front of an older man, והדרת פני זקן, and you should give honor to the older person. So the first four words, מפני שיבה תקום והדרת, the first letters are ש׳, מ׳, ו׳, ת׳, a little different order, but שמות, which is שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. And I hate to say this, but I'll say just because it says that not, chas veshalom, I'm saying anything, but it says in sefarim about this. It says if you look at the end of the four words, maybe I'll leave it to yourself to figure out which four letters we have at the end of the words מפני שיבה תקום והדרת. מפני finishes with a י׳, שיבה finishes with a ה׳, תקום with a ם׳, and והדרת with a ת׳. So it has the four letters of מ׳, י׳, ת׳, ה׳. And it says that chas veshalom if someone doesn't do it, then it's it's dangerous. That's what it says. So that's another remez. We see in the Gemara they refer to it as שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. Twice מקרא, מקרא means the Chumash. So why don't we say שנים חומש ואחד תרגום? Why don't we say שנים תורה ואחד תרגום? Why the word mikra? So it says in sefarim that the word מקרא מקרא is a and a gematria of 341, which is the same gematria as יאריך ימים, that you will live long. Because as we said before, that from the segulot of this mitzvah, fulfilling this mitzvah, is to have אריכות ימים ושנים. And this the Gemara says, it's not a segulah said by some person which if he's only a tzadik it means something, but the Gemara says that this is for אריכות ימים. There is a story told in a sefer about two brothers, both great people, and one brother passed away young. So the brother, the surviving brother was very worried, who knows what's going to happen to him. So his other brother came to him in his dream, and he said, I see that you're worried about your life, don't be worried. If you're only going to be careful to fulfill the, I mean like the, the mitzvah I mean the halachah of שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, you will have אריכות ימים. And this person lived into the 90s, and we're talking about hundreds of years ago when it wasn't so common, because he fulfilled this. The Tzemach Tzedek writes that to do this mitzvah of שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום is like ketoret. Ketoret, the incense that they brought, the spices that they brought into the Beit Hamikdash, which was out of all the things that they did in Beit Hamikdash, this was the holiest, this is what this is. And what the quality of ketoret? It says in Chumash that ketoret has the quality of holding back a מגפה, a plague, which means this is the עצה, the segulah against a plague. It says it's a segulah for yirat shamayim. If you read the parashah of שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום properly, it says you are guaranteed not to do aveirot for all the week. It brings יראת שמים. It says if you do שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, so it says all, amongst all the other things that are going to happen, it says if you do that, then you will, besides not doing aveirot, when it comes to Shabbos, your נשמה יתירה will be stronger. And we know on Shabbos we have a נשמה יתירה, we have an extra נשמה. The נשמה יתירה will be stronger if we do it on Shabbos, if we are מעביר the סדרה that week. Now we said before, to be מעביר the סדרה it means two times פסוק and once תרגום. There is an opinion that you have to say it with Rashi. After Rashi wrote his commentary, and that's the way to understand the פסוק, you have to do it with Rashi. I believe, and this is my own idea, that one of the reasons for Chitas, that throughout the week we learn every day the פרשה of חומש with Rashi, because by doing that, we also fulfill this שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, this commandment, with Rashi. Because we said before, there are many opinions that hold you could start from Sunday. So even though we try not to follow that opinion, and we are מעביר the סדרה on Friday, but at least because there are such opinions and we do it, so we are יוצא שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום through Chitas by doing it with Rashi. And it says with Rashi it's definitely a segulah for יראת שמים, for the person's יראת שמים not to do any aveirot. These are all the ענינים, the simple, the הלכה or the things it says in ספרים. But as we always try to do, we go into the more esoteric, kabbalistic, חסידישע explanations in any of these of these מצות or these ענינים that we talk about. So concerning the ענין of שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, the Maharal of Prague writes that why do we have three, he says it's כנגד ג׳ עולמות, it's כנגד the three worlds. And the way he puts it, is a little bit different than we learn in חסידות. He says there are three worlds: עולם הזה, this world, then you have עולם העליון, the top world, and then you have עולם האמצעי, the middle world. And the three times are k'neged, are parallel to these three worlds. And he says the Targum is the highest. We would imagine the Targum, being that it's in Aramaic, it's not in the original Hebrew, not in the original text, so we would imagine that that would be the lowest. He says this is the highest, and he explains the connection between this this and the three worlds. But when we look a little bit deeper, more into Chassidus, we know that the three worlds are the worlds of בריאה, יצירה and עשיה. The three, besides the higher world, which is אצילות, which is the top one of the four, but that's already a world which is called עולם האלקות, the world of Godliness, עולם האחדות, the world of unity. But otherwise we have, beginning of סדר השתלשלות, beginning of the order of the worlds, we start from עולם הבריאה, then you go to יצירה, then go to עשיה. These three times that we're supposed to read each pasuk are parallel to these three worlds, and the Targum is parallel to עולם העשיה, because Targum is the lowest. It says in Chassidus, the difference between Targum, which is Aramaic, and לשון קודש and the holy tongue and the original Hebrew, is similar it says, to the difference between אבנים and לבנים. אבנים are rocks, and לבנים are bricks. The difference between rocks and bricks: rocks are chopped out of a mountain, rocks are natural, meaning made by Hashem, we call it מעשה ידי שמים. Bricks are When you take cement, and you mix it with water, and you make it into bricks, that's called מעשה ידי אדם. And the same thing is with the languages: the Hebrew language, which is the original language of the Torah, is מעשה ידי שמים, that's not a language made up by human beings, that's the language of Hashem, that's the original language of heaven. Other languages, starting from the best one, in halacha the best one is Aramaic, it's מעשה ידי אדם, it's made up by people. People decided that this and this word should mean so and so, and you make more words, and you turn it into a language. So this, לשון קודש is like אבנים, and this is like לבנים. So we can imagine that לשון קודש is much holier, it's ידי שמים. Nevertheless, he says there is something special if you learn Torah in other languages, because by learning Torah in other languages, what you're doing is you're mevarer, you're elevating the מעשה ידי אדם, you're elevating the things which are made by people, which are lower, and you're elevating it. Because of that, the Targum, which represents the מעשה ידי אדם, something that's made by people, because it's a language made by people, that's why it represents עולם העשיה, the world of עשיה. Because when we learn Chassidus, we realize that these three worlds, starting from השתלשלות, it's just like this: everything is a mixture from the beginning of creation, the highest level of creation, which starts from עולם הבריאה, has a mixture of טוב ורע, a mixture of good and bad. The difference is, in עולם הבריאה, which is the first, it's רובו טוב, most of it is good, there is a little bit of bad. עולם היצירה is מחצה על מחצה, half and half, half good and half bad. עולם העשיה, the lowest world, עולם העשיה, is רובו רע, most of it is bad. And we're not even referring to עשיה meaning the physical world, which we know most of things are bad, but even in the spiritual עשיה. What it means is that in the world of בריאה, the revelation of godliness is much stronger, the majority is good. When we speak of good and bad, we don't mean good somebody who behaves nicely and bad means someone punches you in the face. Good and bad means good is the truth, as I explained in another shiur, light. Good means godliness, that's the truth. Bad means it's darkness, which is the opposite of the truth of godliness. In the world of בריאה, there godliness is revealed. That's what we mean there is רובו טוב, the most of it is good. In עולם היצירה, it's 50-50, means there is already a lot of concealment on godliness, but it's still 50-50. In עשיה, רובו רע means the most, the majority is bad, means there the concealment is very strong. And that's what happens, that's what Targum is. Targum is the level of עשיה, and that's what we have to elevate when we say Targum, when we learn in a different language and especially when we learn a Targum, is the elevation of עשיה. But we have to remember that even though עשיה is the lowest, but when we elevate עשיה, we reach the highest. The whole tachlit, the whole goal of what Hashem wants of us is that we should elevate the lowest. So on one hand עשיה is the lowest, but through עשיה you could reach אצילות. אצילות, which is the first of the four, higher than השתלשלות, higher than the first part of creation, which is beyond creation, so by doing in עשיה what we're supposed to, we reach the highest. We reach אצילות. And it's interesting, there is a pasuk that Chassidus brings that is the source of these four worlds. The pasuk says that לכבודי, כל הנקרא בשמי ולכבודי, whatever is called in My name and My honor, בראתיו יצרתיו אף עשיתיו. בראתיו means I created it, the word בריאה, יצרתיו I formed it, אף עשיתיו I also made it. And here we have the three words: בראתיו is בריאה, the three worlds, יצרתיו יצירה, עשיתיו is עשיה. And the question that some places in maamarim ask, what about אצילות? Where is אצילות? How come it's not mentioned? So some places it says that the first words כל הנקרא בשמי ולכבודי, it starts off by saying things which are called in My name, in My kavod, that's אצילות. But you know what it says in other places? That when it says בראתיו יצרתיו אף עשיתיו, the word אף, the extra word, אף means, בראתיו means I created it, יצרתיו means I formed it, אף עשיתיו, also I made it. Also is an addition. When you say also, it means you add, it adds something. What does it add? That there is another world, the world of אצילות. But the question is, if we're going to add the world of אצילות, why is it added next to עשיה? If anything, it should be hinted in a word right above בריאה. Why is it בריאה, יצירה, and right next to עשיה we have אצילות? The answer is because when we do the right thing in עשיה, that's when we're able to reach the highest level of אצילות. אצילות is right next to עשיה. We find that in the Haggadah, in the Haggadah we have four sons, and it says the four sons are keneged the four worlds. Pesach everything is four: four cups, and four sons, and four kushiyot, four. And it says these four are keneged the four worlds. Now, if we look at the four sons, we have חכם, רשע, תם, שאינו יודע לשאול. What's the order? חכם is אצילות, תם is בריאה, שאינו יודע לשאול is יצירה. The רשע, which we could imagine is the lowest, is עשיה. So why is the רשע next to the חכם? Because when you accomplish with the רשע, with עשיה, what you're supposed to, he connects himself to the חכם, he reaches the level of אצילות. And that's why it's hinted in the word אף. It's interesting, the word אף, אף also means anger. What does anger mean? Rashi says in Chumash on the word Charan, there was a city called Charan. חרן was where Lavan lived. It was the most terrible place in the world. So why was it called חרן? חרן comes from the word charon af. Charon af is anger. It was the place where Hashem' was angry at. Out of all the places in the world, this is where Hashem's anger was. That's called אף. So here, the word אף, which is that word that represents אצילות, means anger, the anger of Hashem'. Yes, when we work with the level which is the lowest, where Hashem' had His anger, that's where we are able to reach אצילות, the highest levels. There's another pasuk similar: Shlomo HaMelech says אף in משלי, אף חכמתי עמדה לי. Also my chochmah stood for me, my wisdom stood for me. And the Gemara says what he meant was the chochmah that he learned באף, that chochmah that I learned with anger, meaning the chochmah that was very hard for me to learn because I had a lot of obstacles. עשיה is the lowest, Targum is the lowest, but it reaches the highest, which fits to what the Maharal in Netiv HaTorah says that Targum represents the highest world, because it is through this that we reach the highest world.

There's another thing it says in קבלה concerning the specialty of saying שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, two times the Chumash and once the Targum. It says this is the way a person is מברר קליפת נוגה. That's what it says. It's through saying this, is מברר. What does that mean? מברר קליפת נוגה means we purify the קליפת נוגה. When we learn Chassidut, and we all know that, there are two levels of kelipah. Kelipah means the evil forces of the world are called kelipot. You have one level which is called שלוש קליפות הטמאות לגמרי, שלוש קליפות הטמאות. It's completely tamei, there is no good within it, it's completely bad. Then you have a level which is called קליפת נוגה. נוגה means a shine. קליפת נוגה means a kelipah, but it has a shine of kedushah, it's a mixture of good and bad. And it says that things which are permissible are connected to קליפת נוגה. Things which are forbidden: חזיר, חמץ on Pesach, any forbidden food, any forbidden act, all that is שלוש קליפות הטמאות, it's the three קליפות which is tamei. Things which are permissible, that's קליפת נוגה. You have things which are not only permissible, but you are obligated to do. Then it's not קליפה, then it's kedushah, it's holy. But with things which are permissible, like a piece of bread, a regular piece of bread, a regular piece of bread is not holy. Shabbos, when you make a brachah over it, it's a mitzvah to eat, holy. During the week it's regular, קליפת נוגה. So קליפת נוגה is something that's in between. It's not holy, so it's called קליפה, but it has a shine, it's a mixture of good and bad. And it's up to the person to decide what will he do with it. Will he elevate it from קליפת נוגה, which is the middle between the kedushah and the שלוש קליפות הטמאות, or will he lower it? It depends on him. If he uses it the proper way, he will elevate it to kedushah. If he doesn't, then he lowers it. I always tell the story of the Frierdiker Rebbe that once there was an אסיפה, a meeting, and for certain things, and there were people there, they served tea. And one of the people there drank the cup of tea and he only drank half. So someone turned around to him and made a joke and he said, \"You know, this half is jealous of the other half, the half that you ate.\" The Frierdiker Rebbe overheard, he turns around and he says, \"Well, I wonder which half is jealous of which half. It's possible that the half that you did drink is jealous of the half that you didn't, because if you drank it not l'shem shamayim, not in the proper way, then you lowered that to קליפה, to שלוש קליפות הטמאות. While this, it's still in the cup, no one touched it, this is still קליפת נוגה.\" And it says the neshamah of a ger, the neshamah of a ger, of a convert, is originally, even before the convert converted, is also not from the three קליפות הטמאות. It says a goy, his nefesh is from שלוש קליפות הטמאות לגמרי, from pure קליפה, no kedushah, that's what it says in Tanya. A ger shows that his neshamah, even before he converted, was קליפת נוגה. And it was his decision whether that should he should stay a goy and continue and connect himself to the שלוש קליפות הטמאות, or to elevate that קליפת נוגה and turn it into a holy neshamah. Onkelos, the one that wrote the תרגום, he was a ger. He was a convert. He was from the biggest converts that ever existed in Jewish history. So he wrote the תרגום because the Targum has the same idea. By using the Targum, Targum is not Hebrew, as we said before, so Targum, being that it's another language, is not קליפה, it's not bad, it's just not קדושה. Lashon Kodesh, the holy tongue, is holy. All the other languages are neutral, קליפת נוגה. If you use them to say wrong things, bad things, ניבול פה, then you lower it into קליפות שלוש טמאות. If you use it for holy things, you elevate it. So by saying the Targum, what you're really doing, you're elevating the קליפת נוגה. And it's connected to Targum, and it's connected to the fact that this was made by Onkelos who was a ger, who did that. He he elevated the קליפת נוגה in his lifetime to קדושה because he became a ger. And that's the pshat when we say that saying Shnayim Mikra v'Echad Targum is a segulah for yirat Shamayim. It helps you have yirat Shamayim. What does that mean? What is the meaning of lack of yirat Shamayim? Lack of yirat Shamayim means that your קליפת נוגה is pulling you down. That's what it means. A Yid has in himself a נפש הבהמית, an animalistic soul, and that's קליפת נוגה. If you have yirat Shamayim, what you do is you elevate everything that you do which is natural, not a mitzvah, you elevate it. That's yirat Shamayim means you learn, you eat in order to have koach to learn, so you elevate the food that you eat, you elevate the drink that you drink, you elevate everything that you do. If you don't have yirat Shamayim, it means that you're lowering it. It is through saying Shnayim Mikra v'Echad Targum that you elevate the קליפת נוגה, and that's why it's a segulah for yirat Shamayim. Segulah for yirat Shamayim means it gives you the koach to elevate the קליפת נוגה. That's what it says in Kabbalah. It gives you this koach to overcome, which is also the deeper meaning when it says that this helps you neshamah yeteirah. It strengthens your extra neshamah on Shabbos. What do we mean it strengthens your extra neshamah on Shabbos? What does it mean extra neshama? What's a neshama? Neshama is the godliness that we have within us. The problem is we don't necessarily feel it. We all have this neshama, but we don't necessarily feel it. Shabbos, we have an extra neshama. What does that mean? People think, \"Well, we have two neshamot.\" We still have the same one neshama, but that one neshama is doubled, because the neshama, which stands for godliness, is strong in us. We feel godliness on Shabbos more, we all know that. We feel more godliness. So what helps this extra neshama, that we should feel godliness and do everything for the sake of Hashem? שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. Because it has the quality of elevating the קליפת נוגה, which means bringing the קליפת נוגה to kedusha, which means bringing out godliness. So that's what it means that it helps you neshama yeterah. It helps you feel the kedusha and elevate things which are not holy into kedusha. Because anyway, this is the meaning of neshama yeterah. Ask a person who ever studies, and he knows that there is such a thing as an extra neshama on Shabbos, ask him what it means. I'll tell you what they'll say. Look at the Rashi in Chumash, in Gemara, not in Chumash, in Gemara. Rashi says that when you have an extra neshama on Shabbos, it means the food tastes better on Shabbos. It says the food has a better taste. You'll have more appetite, be able to eat. That's what it says. That's the פשט נשמה יתירה. That's what somebody who did not learn chassidut will tell you. And he's not lying. It's true! That's what it says. But I'm asking you, is that what you can imagine is neshama you talk about a neshama? Neshama is a חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, a chelek of Hashem! So the neshama, the extra neshama I have is you'll have another piece of cholent, and the kugel will be so tasty! That's what we're worried about? That's what we talk about a neshama yeterah on Shabbos? That's not what it means! It is what it means, but not what it means. What it really means is that your godliness is stronger, and it gives you an extra koach to turn normal the the normal things which are not holy, secular things, into kedusha. It means that you should feel the food of Shabbos holy. That when you eat a piece of chicken on Shabbos, it should not be a mere eating of chicken, but you should feel Shabbosdik with it, you should feel holiness, that you're doing a mitzvah. That's what נשמה יתירה means. And that's connected to what we're saying here, that this שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום gives you the feeling of extra of the נשמה יתירה, it means it gives you this koach of what תרגום stands for. תרגום stands for elevation of the קליפת נוגה, which Onkelos HaGer made. And when we say that, after we say twice the pasuk, and when you say something twice it makes it stronger, so we have the original pasuk, and we say it again to make sure we have it strong, and then we use that, we come to the תרגום when we have that, then we are taking before Shabbos to elevate and get rid of all the קליפות. And that's Shabbos. Because Shabbos is the time, it says in Zohar, and we say that every Friday night in davenen, כגוונא. What do we say? If you read the translation of כגוונא, that all the קליפות on Shabbos run away, and there's nothing there, and they're all not here. And that's why, what helps those קליפות to run away, and not only the evil קליפות, שלש קליפות הטמאות, the קליפת נוגה, it is through שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום that we say before. And besides that, it says in Kabbalah that when we say שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, it says every person has his connection to Torah. And when we read pesukim in the Torah, you bring an elevation to the words of the Torah. It says there are holy Sparks that get elevated through reading the pesukim, and it affects you and makes you higher, that's what it says. That's why we have to read the pesukim, and you have to read it twice to make sure it's stronger, and if to some people, it's hard for them to directly connect themselves to the pesukim, that's why they say, you know what? Read תרגום. Some people have to do it through some kind of לבוש, some kind of garment because they can't directly connect, so they have the תרגום. So you have שנים מקרא, twice מקרא, and אחד תרגום, and once תרגום. Now, this explains also, what is the inner meaning that it says through reading שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, which we call being מעביר the סדרה, מאריכים לו ימיו, you get long days, your days and years are long. Now simple peshat is that you live long, but there's a deeper pshat. When it says long years, it means you have a lot of years. What do we mean long days? I know days have a limit, 24 hours a day. How do you get long days? Your days become longer? So it says yes, if the days are holier, if the days have more kedushah in it, they're longer days. They're longer, it means they have much more to it. They tell a story that one, I think it was after the Sfas Emes passed away, was the one of the first Gerer Rebbes, he was young, so on the way from the funeral, one of the brothers turned there were two brothers, one of them took over as being Rebbe, turned around to his brother and said, \"You know, our father had arichut yamim.\" Looked at him, said, \"You know what you're talking about? He was pretty young when he died.\" He said, \"I didn't say arichut shanim, I said arichut yamim. Didn't say long years, I said long days. It means every day of him was filled, filled to capacity of kedushah. That's long days.\" And what helps a person to have long days? It is שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום that we do, and that's what Kabbalah says, besides the halachah. But beside all that, not all of us are such holy people that when we tell a person, \"Oh, this is this is such a holy thing and it'll reach you high levels,\" we don't really get excited over it. So therefore, why we have to know that everything that it says means peshuto k'mashma'o. Pshat it says that through reading שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום you live long, exactly what it means, that it's a segulah for arichut yamim, it's a segulah for living long, it gives a person living a long life, like the story that I told before. And like the Tzemach Tzedek says, like ketoret that stops all plagues, if a person has, and plague means any type of plague, a person has a tzarah, has a problem, and he wants to get rid of his problem, so we know all kinds of eitzot, give tzedakah, learn extra Torah. So now there's another eitzah that says, that the ketoret to get rid of all the problems is to be careful with שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. And another thing, if ever your birthday comes out on Friday, make sure that on that Friday you're ma'avir the sedra and don't leave it for Shabbos. But whichever way, this is a very important thing. Besides everything, you have to do it. Let me look at the לשון again that I quoted from the Rambam. The Rambam says, אף על פי שאדם שומע כל התורה כולה כל שבת בציבור, even though a person hears the Torah on Shabbos in the מנין, חייב לקרות לעצמו, חייב, he's obligated to read for himself בכל שבוע ושבוע, every week, סדר של אותה שבת, שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום, the סדרה of that Shabbos. So besides all the good things about it, it's an obligation. It's like any halachah. When it's halachah, we have to keep the halachah. But we tell Hashem, you know, we keep the halachah, but You do Your part. You give us all the berachot, and we hope Hashem will give us all the berachot, and the biggest berachah that He will bring משיח צדקנו. Amen.

Yes. Why why we don't read in the שול תרגום? Huh? That stopped years, years ago, because it's not our language anymore. Yeah, but the Teimanim... Yeah, yeah, yes, the Teimanim kept many customs that they had in the time of the Gemara, and they didn't change. It's interesting. Yeah, very few communities. Some of the Sephardim, but among the Sephardim themselves, the Teimanim are the ones that kept the customs, from you know why? But you know why? I'll tell you why the Teimanim kept it more. Because all other communities, the Jews were chased from place to place. They came to a place, they lived there for 50 years, 100 years, then the goyim came, chased them out, they had to run someplace else, they run the Ashkenazishe Jews more, the Sephardim less, but still they ran, for example, from Spain to Africa. The Teimanim, the community for the Teimanim are there from the time of the Beit Hamikdash. Shlomo Hamelech. From the Beit Hamikdash time, from the first Beit Hamikdash yet. So, therefore, their customs remained like it used to be, and therefore, many of the customs, not all, but many, and therefore, some of them still read תרגום, but most people stop reading תרגום. Yes. When you said to read תרגום, one מקרא read in one day of the week, and the other מקרא the other day of the week, is that... You could be yotzei that way. That's not the best way to do it, but you could. You said to read twice... Right, right, you could be yotzei that way bediavad. I'll tell you beside that, the right way to do it is to read it with the trop, to read it with the ta'amim, with the with the tune, with the proper tune. But if you can't read the tune because you don't know... How I read doing, then you read without the tune. The main thing is to say the words, but the right way is to do it with the trop. When we do Chitas, we don't do it with the trop. So that's why I don't know if we should rely on the reading of the chumash with Chitas for the chumash. But for the Rashi part, because as that he did the Rashi, were you yotzei? Would be yotzei, very good. Yes. And the תרגום? No, no. We do Chitas, that's once chumash, and then we read the Rashi. It have to be twice chumash and once תרגום. So even if you want to rely on Chitas as once, you would have to read once more plus the Targum. But anyway, I'm saying not to rely on Chitas, because the right way to do it is Friday afternoon, and Chitas we do earlier through the week. So not to rely on the Chitas for it. And have a whole minhag before the mikveh, something after the mikveh, whole kinds of things על פי קבלה. Yes. Yes, that's true, because Targum, which is in another language, is only taking what the Torah has, and repeating it in different words. So it's mekabel from the Torah. The Torah is the משפיע, the one that gives, and the Targum is the מקבל. So it says על פי קבלה that the Torah is like ז״א and Targum is מלכות. That's if we don't look at it as the worlds, when we apply it to the ספירות, so this is ז״א and this is מלכות. This is the משפיע, and this is מקבל. And when we have both, that's what we have יחוד ז״א ונוקבא. We have לשם יחוד קודשא בריך הוא ושכינתיה. We have we say always that's the שנים מקרא ואחד תרגום. Yes. The תם is יצירה, and the שאינו יודע לשאול is no, sorry. The חכם is אצילות, and the תם is בריאה, שאינו יודע לשאול is יצירה, and the רשע is עשיה. Where is it from? I think it's from Kohelet. I think, I have to look, I have to look up. You know, you can find it in the end of Pirkei Avot. It's brought down, you look in the bottom of the Chumash at the of the Siddur, you'll find it where it is.