Thank you. Sounds very official. Thank you very much, and the topic tonight will be the Aron, the holy ark. Lately I've been trying to pick topics that have a connection to the parsha of the week, and this week is Parashat Terumah, where we learn about the Mishkan and the commandment to make the Mishkan, the commandment to make the different kelim, different vessels in the Mishkan. And different vessels we have spoken about on different occasions. I believe we never spoke about the Aron. I don't think we did, so therefore tonight we will discuss the Aron, the holy ark. And as I mentioned many times, this is not a halacha class, so we're not going to discuss the halachot of the Aron. This is more general topics and hashkafah and chasidut and these things. So what I'm going to do first of, we're going to go through some of the details concerning the Aron, and then to elaborate on some of the details that I will mention. First, what is the Aron? We all know that, but I will nevertheless talk about it again anyway. The Aron was the ark, which was the box in which the luchot were laying, the tablets that were given by Hashem to Moshe Rabbeinu by הר, Har Sinai. The Aron, with the luchot obviously, was probably the holiest holiest object that exists and existed ever in the world. The holiest object of the world is the Aron, because it had the luchot. This was the case for the luchot. The luchot is the holiest thing that exists. We know that there are many holy objects in the world. For instance, you have a pair of tefillin, which is holy, a Chumash is holy, a Sefer Torah is holier than that, the holiest is a Sefer Torah. Can imagine the Sefer Torah that was written by Moshe Rabbeinu himself, how holy that Sefer Torah was. But the luchot were even holier, because they were written by Hashem himself. The first luchot were written, made and written by Hashem, but then when the Jews sinned with the חטא העגל, with the golden calf, Moshe Rabbeinu broke the luchot, Hashem told Moshe to carve out another set of luchot, which was carved out by Moshe, but Hashem said וכתבתי, he himself wrote the words, actually carved out the words on the luchot. So imagine, this is an object, something that had words carved out by Hashem himself, so this is the holiest object we could imagine. And therefore, the ארון, which housed the לוחות, is the holiest object that's there in the world. Now the לוחות, the ארון I mean, besides having the לוחות in it, had other things in it, too. Many people are not aware of it. But the Gemara tells us in Bava Basra that according to Rav Meir, inside the ארון was also a ספר תורה, one of the ספר תורה that Moshe Rabbeinu wrote. Moshe Rabbeinu wrote 13 ספרי תורה. One of them was put inside the ארון. That's the opinion of Rav Meir. Rav Yehuda says that no, that ספר תורה was on the outside of the ארון. There was a little, little ledge, ledge sticking out where the ספר תורה was laying. That's the opinion of Rav Yehuda. This argument is based on another argument between Rav Meir and Rav Yehuda. Rav Yehuda says that inside the ארון, besides the לוחות, you had two poles, and in between the two poles you had the לוחות laying and there was no place for anything else, and that's why he says the ספר תורה was not laying inside. While Rav Meir says that these two poles, where we learn out from pesukim that there were two poles, were on the outside, and therefore he says there was place inside for the ספר תורה. And the Gemara actually goes through the whole חשבון, how big the לוחות were, how big the ארון was, and whether it fit or not, and that's the basis of their machloket. One opinion, Rav Yehuda says the poles were inside, and that's why he says the ספר תורה was not there, it was on the outside, but Rav Meir says the poles were on the outside, and that's why there was place for the ספר תורה. Besides that, we know that inside the inside the ארון, you had written the name of Hashem. I guess on a piece of parchment there was the name of Hashem. It says, השם וכל כינויים, and all other nicknames, so to speak, of Hashem were inside the ארון. Hashem's שם המפורש, which is יו״ד ק״י וא״ו ק״י, and the other names were written inside. Then, we also know that the שברי לוחות were inside. The broken luchos, the first set of luchos that were broken were also put inside. But there is a machlokes here exactly when this took place. One opinion says that right away when they made this aron for the Mishkan, they put in the luchos, the second set of luchos, the whole ones, and also the broken pieces. But another opinion says that at that time there was another aron that Moshe Rabbeinu made, and that aron housed the broken luchos, but they were not put in this aron. And that's how it went on till the time of Shlomo Hamelech, when he built the Beis Hamikdash, the first Beis Hamikdash, and then they put the broken pieces of the luchos, the שברי לוחות, inside the aron too. But till then this opinion says it was separate, in a separate aron, and when it says that there was an aron that used to go with the Jews to war, it was the aron with the broken luchos, according to that opinion. Now, we know that there is a mitzvah in making this aron. The pasuk says, \"ועשו ארון\", you should make \"עצי שטים\", so it's a mitzvas aseh, it's one of the positive mitzvos. But nevertheless, there is an argument whether it is counted in the מנין המצוות, whether it's counted in the number of the 248 positive mitzvos. We know that there are 248 positive mitzvos, 365 negative mitzvos. In truth, there are more than 248 positive mitzvos, and there are more than 365 negative mitzvos, but there are rules which mitzvos fall into the category of that number, and which don't. And the Rambam in his Sefer HaMitzvos, which is the sefer where he enumerates all the mitzvos, probably the first half is his introduction, and in the introduction he gives the שרשים. The שרשים means the roots, but it means really the rules. When is it considered a mitzvah in the number, not when is it a mitzvah, when is it part of the number of 613, which means from the 248, the 365, and when is it not? So the Rambam does not count the mitzvah of making the Aron as one of the 248 mitzvot, while the Ramban does count it as one of the 248 mitzvot. The reason the Rambam doesn't count it, there is different opinions in the commentaries, one opinion is because it's a mitzvah that does not apply to all generations. This Aron was made once, never again was there another Aron made, never will it will it be made. And one of the rules the Rambam gives in Sefer HaMitzvot is that only mitzvot which are לדורות, meaning mitzvot which apply for all way the generations, are counted in that number of 613, and therefore this would not be counted. Another reason reason given that according to the Rambam, and we'll elaborate a little bit more on this later, that according to the Rambam, the mitzvah of making the Aron is included in the general mitzvah of making the Beit HaMikdash. There is a mitzvah that we have to build a Beit HaMikdash. The mitzvah is, \"ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם\", Hashem says, \"Make for me a Mikdash\", and the mitzvah of making an Aron, and as I will explain later, since making the Aron is part of and the completion of the Beit HaMikdash as a whole, so it's included in that mitzvah, so it's not a separate mitzvah. While according to the Ramban, he counts the mitzvah of making the Aron separate. It's interesting the Ramban does not count the mitzvah of making a Mizbeach as a separate mitzvah, he does not count the mitzvah of making the Shulchan, the table, as a separate mitzvah, he does not count the mitzvah of making a Menorah as a separate mitzvah, but making an Aron he does count, and he gives a different reason. He says the reason I don't count making a Mizbeach as a mitzvah, because the purpose of the Mizbeach was to bring korbanot, so that's really not a mitzvah on its own, it's only, he calls it a הכשר מצוה, only a means to an end. The purpose of a mizbeach is to have a place for korbanot. Why doesn't he count making the menorah? Because the menorah is not an is not an end in itself, it's a means to an end. There is a mitzvah of lighting the candles, so you have to have a menorah where to light the candles, that's why we have to have a menorah. There is a mitzvah of having the לחם הפנים, the bread, you have to have a place where to put the bread, so you have to have the shulchan, the table. So the table is not a separate mitzvah. But the aron, he says, is a mitzvah, and he counts it as a separate mitzvah. While the Rambam, as we said, does not count it as a separate mitzvah in the number of the תרי\"ג מצוות, of the 300 613, meaning from the 248 positive מצוות. Like I said, I will go through some of the details concerning the aron. We all know that the aron, which held the luchot and whatever else, stood in the קדש הקדשים, in the Holy of Holies. We know in the בית המקדש, let's start with the Mishkan first, the Mishkan was made up of many compartments. You had the courtyard, the חצר outside. Then you had the Ohel Moed was the structure, wasn't a permanent structure, temporary structure, but it was there, so you had the Ohel Moed. In the Ohel Moed, you had the menorah and a small mizbeach, and you had the shulchan. And then there was another compartment further than that called the קודש הקדשים, the Holy of Holies. That's where the aron stood. In the בית המקדש, we had something similar, not exactly the same, similar. You had the עזרה with many compartments of that itself, which was the outside, a courtyard, a big wall around it, which was called עזרה. There was עזרת נשים, עזרת ישראל, עזרת כהנים, different areas. Then you had the building. And the building had three compartments. The beginning of the building was the אולם, called the אולם, that was the first section. אולם really means a hall. It was basically empty. In further than that, deeper than that, you had the קודש or the היכל, as it's called. In the היכל, you had the three: the small mizbeach, the menorah, and the שולחן. And then you had further than that, you had the קודש הקדשים, the Holy of Holies. And the aron stood in the קודש הקדשים. And we know that in the Beit Hamikdash, in the קודש הקדשים, there was a rock called the אבן שתיה. The reason it's called אבן שתיה, the word שתיה comes from the word הושתת, that means founded. This was the rock with which the world was founded. When Hashem created the world, the first thing that the earth, the first thing that create that was created was this rock, and from this rock, the whole universe formed. And this rock was inside the קודש הקדשים, and on top of this rock stood the aron. Now, the aron was there, and I'll go through the list of how long were how long the aron stood in this place. Starting off with the mishkan again, the forty years in the desert, the aron was in its place. When they crossed the desert and they put up the mishkan for fourteen years in Gilgal, the aron was there. Then they built a mishkan in Shilo, because the other mishkan, the first mishkan was a very temporary, is made of wood, structure that was able to be taken apart. But then they built a structure, a building in Shilo. The only thing it didn't have was a roof, so the roof were the יריעות, the same יריעות, the same covering that was in the mishkan, the original mishkan, was there, and and that stood for three hundred and and and sixty, שס״ט, three hundred and sixty-nine years, the aron was there. But then when they had at the end of those years, when they had a fight with the Pelishtim, they took the aron out, and the aron was taken away, and that's when Shilo was destroyed. And when Shilo was destroyed, they rebuild the mishkan for a little bit in Nov, an area called Nov, then in an area called Givon, and after that, the Beit Hamikdash was built. While the mishkan was in Nov and Givon, they did not have the aron there. The aron was someplace else. First, for twenty years, the aron was in in in Yaarim, what's the name of the city? Whatever. And then for another thirty-seven years it was in Ir Tzion, it wasn't in its place. When Shlomo Hamelech built the Beit Hamikdash, they brought the aron into the Beit Hamikdash and it stood in the Beit Hamikdash in the Kodesh Hakodashim. But then when the Beit Hamikdash was destroyed, came to the second Beit Hamikdash, there was no aron. It was one of the five things that were missing in the second Beit Hamikdash. The Gemara quotes the pasuk where it says, ואכבדה, השם says I will become honored again through building, through having a new Beit Hamikdash, but the word ואכבדה is missing a ה. That ה is five, it was missing five things. And one of the things was the aron, there was no aron there. So they had the אבן שתיה, the place of the aron, but there was no aron there. And when the kohen gadol would go into the Kodesh Hakodashim on Yom Kippur, so and he would have to do a certain avodah there, bring in the pan with the ketoret, so when the aron was there, he would put it down on the aron and then when he had to sprinkle the blood of the korban, he would do it for the towards the aron. In the second Beit Hamikdash, when there was no aron, so he would put it down on the אבן שתיה, on this rock, and do everything on the rock. It wasn't the aron wasn't there. When did the aron leave? So one opinion is that the aron went to galut in Bavel, that when they destroyed the Beit Hamikdash, when Bavel destroyed the Beit Hamikdash, Nevuchadnetzar destroyed the Beit Hamikdash, Nevuchadnetzar was from Bavel, Babylon. So and they took away the kelim of the Beit Hamikdash, they also took away the ארון. And according to this opinion, it comes out that all four hundred and ten years that the first בית המקדש stood, they had the ארון, but when the בית המקדש was destroyed, that's when we lost it, and since then we don't have it. But then there's another opinion, and that is that Yoshiyahu Hamelech, who was one of the kings in the time of the first בית המקדש, realized that soon the time will come when the בית המקדש will be destroyed, he didn't want the enemy to take it, so he then already hid the ארון. So, towards the later part of the first בית המקדש there already was no ארון there. Actually, the Rambam paskent like this opinion, and the Rambam elaborates and I'll tell you what the Rambam says. The Rambam says like this: that Shlomo Hamelech, this is in the fourth beginning of the fourth פרק of Hilchot Beit Habechirah, the Rambam says that Shlomo Hamelech, when he built the בית המקדש, when he built it, he knew that the בית המקדש will eventually get destroyed. So what he did was, he built caves, tunnels, underground, under the בית המקדש, and the Rambam says deep, crooked tunnels, that when the time will come and they will have to hide the ארון, they should have a place to hide it. And the Rambam says exactly what happened: Yoshiyahu Hamelech saw the time is nearing, so he took the ארון and he hid it in the tunnels right under the קדש הקדשים, and that's how the Rambam says, that's how it was. So this is where the ארון is, according to the Rambam, since the time when they hid it. Some of the more details of the ארון, and then we'll elaborate on some of the details of פרטים, is the size of the ארון. The ארון, as we learn in the parashah, was two and a half amot long, one and a half amah wide, and one and a half amah high. It was made of wood, cedar wood, covered with gold. And the way it was made, Rashi says, that they made three boxes: one box of wood, then a box of gold a little bit smaller than box of wood, and another box of gold a little bit bigger. And what they did was, they had the bigger box of gold, they took the wooden box and put it in, then they took the smaller box of gold and put it into that. So now you had the wood covered from both sides with gold, they closed up the top and or stuck out, whatever they, and that's how you had the the ארון. Besides that, the ארון had taba'ot, had rings, and badim. Badim were the poles that were there to carry the ארון with. And there is a special din that they were never allowed to remove these badim. And the truth is, they weren't even able to remove it, because the way the בדים the way the בדים were made, they were narrow inside and wider on the outside, like a lot of times you have poles which are narrower in the middle and wider on the outside. The size of the rings was the size of the narrow part, so you couldn't even pull the בדים out. But it was clearly a איסור, לא יסורו בדים מהארון, you're not allowed to take those בדים out. It was an an issur. And the Aron, when it was carried, was not allowed to be carried on a wagon. It was only allowed to be carried by the shoulder, בכתף ישאו. There were other things also in the Chumash we learn of the Mishkan that they had to carry with their shoulder, they couldn't carry it on a wagon, but the main one is by the Aron. By the Aron it says they had to carry it on the shoulder. Now the truth is, an interesting thing, we know that who carried the Mishkan was the Leviim, Shevet Levi. But it says clearly in the Gemara that the Aron really was supposed to be carried by the Kohanim. And in the time after the Midbar, if they ever had to carry it, the Kohanim had to carry it. The reason they didn't tell the Kohanim to carry it in the Midbar, because there were very very few Kohanim there. How many Kohanim were there in the Midbar? In the beginning for sure, in the beginning all you had was Aharon, and you didn't even have Nadav va'Avihu, you just had them for a short while, Elazar ve'Itamar, and then Pinchas became a kohen, and then when the children were born, but very few Kohanim, so they didn't give the Kohanim this job. So really, that's why the Leviim had, but be'emet, it's the job of the Kohanim to carry the Aron. But there's a special issur that you're not allowed to carry the Aron beside the shoulder, you can't carry on a wagon. And David HaMelech made a mistake when they brought the Aron of Kiryat Ye'arim, and I'm thinking now, I remember the name of the city, so when they brought the Aron, he put it on a wagon. And one of the people that carried it was Uzza, and פרץ ה׳ בעזא, ה׳ killed Uzza because of this sin of having the Aron on a wagon. The Aron was not allowed to go on a wagon, it was supposed to be בכתף ישאו, on the shoulder. These are the general details concerning the Aron. Now I want to discuss some of them, whether in halacha aspects of it or the חסידישע aspect of it, and we'll go into some of the details of the ארון. Number one, we said that the size of the ארון was two and a half by one and a half by one and a half. Interesting that it was all halves. Usually, especially when it comes to the בית המקדש, עבודה in the בית המקדש, קרבנות, everything has to be whole. We know a קרבן has Has to be תמים, has to be complete. The kohen has to be complete, you can't have a מום. Everything has to be whole. Why would Hashem want there should be only broken measurements? One and a half, one and a half, two and a half. So the sefarim say that this is to teach us that when it comes to Torah, because the ארון represents Torah, Rashi actually says in Chumash that they had a little crown in the on top of the ארון was to to hint to כתר תורה, the crown of Torah. When it comes to learning Torah, the only way a person could succeed in learning Torah is if he feels broken. A person who considers himself whole, complete, a בעל גאוה, a person who is arrogant, who thinks of himself as something, will never succeed in learning Torah. You have to have half. A half means that you feel that you're not complete, you're missing. Like we always know the vort, why do we call a person who's learned a talmid chacham? Why don't we call him a חכם? Why a talmid chacham? Because a person who thinks he's a חכם, he's a ווייטער חכם, he's no חכם. You always have to feel yourself as you're a תלמיד. You always have to learn, you're never complete, you still have a lot, a lot to get, a lot to gain, because you're not complete. That's the same thing here, it's for half. It's like the famous expression that the Rabbi Maharash said, he used to say different ווערטלעך, a play on words, said different things. One of the things he said: נישטא קיין גאנצערע זאך ווי א צובראכענע הארץ. There is nothing more whole than a broken heart. In other words, a broken heart is important, but not only is it important, that's what really is complete. When is a person complete? If he has a לב נשבר ונדכה, a broken heart. And to teach us that you cannot succeed in learning Torah if you're not don't have that broken heart, that לב נשבר ונדכה, that broken heart, and not feeling you know, you should feel good about yourself, but not feeling גאוה׳דיק and my מציאות and my ישות and my being, I am something. Like the Gemara says: אין התורה מתקיימת, the Torah will not exist במי ש-, that whoever is a בעל גאוה, a בעל גאוה cannot learn Torah. And that's what we see in the fact that it was broken, the measurements were all broken. That's concerning this detail.

But then let's get to another detail, and that is: why is it that the ארון was not allowed to be carried on a wagon, and it had to be carried on your shoulders? And it's interesting, this din that you have to carry it on your shoulders, that you can't carry on a wagon, is said, like I said, to other things too, the shulchan, it says in Chumash. Kehat, see, the Shevet Levi was divided into three groups. Kehat did not get any wagons. Gershon and Merari got wagons, Kehat didn't. And it says why? Because they carried the holy objects. They carried the shulchan, they carried the menorah, they carried the aron. So all of them fell into the category that you have to carry it on your shoulders. Nevertheless, if you look in the Rambam, in Hilchot Klei HaMikdash, פרק ב׳, the Rambam does not mention anything about the menorah, anything about the shulchan, המזבח, nothing. The Rambam says that the aron must be carried בכתף, must be carried on your shoulders. And since the Rambam says it, obviously it's a halacha that applies to all the time, whenever there is an aron. And some even hold that this halacha only applied to the aron. In the desert, all holy objects, the special holy objects were supposed to be carried by the shoulder, but later on, if they ever had to carry it years later, there was no halacha to carry on the shoulders. The aron always had this halacha. The question is: why? What's so special, why is the aron דווקא, specifically the aron have this halacha? And another thing is interesting: the Rambam, when he says this halacha that you have to carry the aron by shoulder, not by wagon, says it seemingly not in the right place. See, in Hilchot Klei HaMikdash, there is a section where in the beginning, פרק ב׳, the Rambam talks about how to make the ketoret and how to make the shemen hamishcha, all kinds of things he says how to make. Later on, he talks about the job of the kohanim, the job of the leviim. Now, since the kohanim had to carry the aron, where would it make sense the Rambam should put this halacha? When he talks about the job of the kohanim, he should write: one of the things they had to do is carry the aron. The Rambam doesn't do that. The Rambam writes it earlier, in the place where he talks about different objects of the Mishkan, of the Beit Hamikdash, that's where he mentions that the aron has to be carried on shoulder, and doesn't even mention there who carries it. So the Rebbe has an interesting peshat and explains it like this. He says: you know why? The fact that you were supposed to carry the aron by shoulder is a special din in the aron. It's not a din in the gavra, meaning in the person, in the kohanim, that it's their obligation to carry the aron, or even if it's the leviim, but it's a din in the aron itself. Now I'll explain what it means. The aron was so holy that the aron deserved a special place always. And when we say the aron deserved a special place, the Rambam is telling us not only when the aron rested it deserved a special place, but even when it was carried it deserved a special place. In other words, the fact that the aron was carried by shoulder is not a halacha of how to carry the aron, but it's a halacha of where the aron is supposed to be placed. The aron needs a chashuve place to be. If it's resting, it's resting in the קודש הקדשים. If it's being carried, it also has a special place. So it's not because we want to carry it this way or carry it that way. If you're carrying it, you have to put it in a special place. That's why the Rambam doesn't write this amongst the obligations of the kohanim, because it's not a din in how the kohanim should carry it. He writes it in the place where he talks about the different specific things, so he talks about the aron being carried, this is the place of the aron. Because the aron was so holy, it needed a place, a specific place every moment of its existence. So when it's carried, it also needs a specific place, a special place, and that's not the wagon, and that is the shoulders. This is the simple halachic peshat in why the aron had to be carried by shoulder. But then let's get a little bit deeper, as we try to do always in this class, a little bit more in the kabbalistic, chassidishe explanation of this inyan of carrying the aron on your shoulder. We know, as we said before, the aron, the aron held the luchot. It says in Chumash that the luchot were written משני עבריהם. Was written from both sides. Actually, it says from all four sides. You could read the words of the luchot, any side you looked at the לוחות. In other words, the לוחות had no front and no back. As the לשון is: כולו פנים. Was all the face, was all the front. In one place we find an expression in Zechariah: והיא כתובה פנים ואחור. There was a certain Megillah was written front and back. And here, there was no back. There was no אחוריים, there was no back by the לוחות, the לוחות was כולו פנים. Why was it physically that the לוחות was only face, only front, no back? Because spiritually, the לוחות were connected, and came from such a high, godly, spiritual level, that had no level of אחוריים. Like this we know that in every level there are so many, so many worlds and spiritual, godly worlds, higher and higher and higher, and in all the worlds you have different מדרגות, different levels. You have a level where there's a lot of גילוי אלוקות, a lot of godly revelation, a lot of גילוי אור, a lot of revelation of this אור אין סוף, of this godly, infinite light, and then there are levels within every world which is only a little bit. That's called the אחור, the back. What's the difference between the front and the back of a person? The front has the true features of what the person is. You could see the revelation of the person. When you look at the back, you don't see it, because there's nothing there, no specific features, it's all one big piece. Now, you could tell the person from the back, too, but it's not בגלוי, not in a revealed way. Actually, I'm quoting this from Chassidus, but the Rambam says this clearly. The Rambam in the beginning of Rambam says that when Moshe Rabbeinu asked Hashem', הראני כבודך, I want to see Your face, and Hashem' said, \"You can't see My face, but I'll show you My back.\" So the Rambam says, \"What do you mean Hashem' has a face, Hashem' has a back? He wanted to see His face, He said you can't see My face, you see My back. What does this all mean?\" So the Rambam says the face represents the fact just like a face has all the features, you could tell specifically, the exact details of the person, Moshe Rabbeinu said to Hashem', \"I want to know the details of Hashem', I want to recognize You clearly, I want to have the true revelation of You.\" Hashem' said, \"That's not possible. I'll show you My back.\" That means that in the back, you could tell, recognize a person, but not so detailed, not so exact, not so revealed. That's what Hashem' said, \"At least I'll give you that.\" So the same thing in every level we find פנים ואחור. We find the levels of Hashem', of אור אין סוף in the world which is more revealed, and then you have a level which is less revealed. But the very, very highest level in the עצם, the עצם of Hashem, there is no פנים ואחור, there is only פנים. There is only, there is nothing there but the essence, and there is no אחור, nothing that's called the back, no concealment which makes the revelation very little. And I'll explain this maybe even more detail, we have a few moments, I'll explain it. We know that the בית המקדש is considered the place where the Shechinah rests. Everyone knows that. ושכנתי בתוכם, Hashem said, I will rest in the Beis Hamikdash, in the Mishkan, the Beis Hamikdash. Within the Beis Hamikdash itself, within the Mishkan itself, where was the main, main place where it rested? Was the Kodesh Hakodashim, on top of the ארון, where the Luchot were. That's what it says. Let's stop for a moment and think: What does that mean that the Shechinah rests there? Where is there no Shechinah? The Shechinah doesn't rest all over the world? מלא כל הארץ כבודו, the world is full of Hashem, wherever he is. You know the song, where is, Hashem is up, up, up, down, down, around, here, Hashem is all over. They say I think they asked, I don't remember who, I think the Avnei Nezer, or one of the poilishe great tzadikim, when he was a kid, someone came over to him and he asked him, \"I'll give you a ruble if you tell me where Hashem is.\" So he said to him, \"I'll give you two ruble if you tell me where Hashem is not.\" Hashem is all over. Towards the very end of the first section of Likutey Amarim, I'm going to just repeat a few words of what it says there, the Alter Rebbe explains this, and this is what he says: He gives a mashal, a parable. A human being, human being has a body, and has limbs and veins and organs and everything, and it's all alive. Where does it get its life from? From the nefesh. The nefesh, which is the source of life, gives it life. And the nefesh comes into every part of the body according to the level of that part of the body. In the eyes comes in the nefesh in a form of giving it not only being alive, but being having eyesight. The ears have ability to hear, heart to to pump and to chest to breathe, and the hands to move, and all kinds, every part has. And all this, the life that every part of the body has comes from the nefesh. Now, the nefesh itself, we can't say has these individual things. You can't say the nefesh, the essence of life has sight, and has hearing, and has all the other things, and emotions, and It's there, but not in a form of an individual thing as sight. But from the nefesh, it all comes into the different places of the body. But there is one place, one organ in the body where the essence of the nefesh comes and from there it spreads throughout the whole body, and that is the brain. Although the brain itself is one of the separate organs, one of the specific organs, like you have the brain, you have the heart, but that one specific organ or specific, I don't know if the English word organ is right, I'm not not so good in English, but whatever it is, let's use that word, that part of the body, the brain, which is one specific thing, but and it's one of the, let's say, it says there are 248 limbs, I don't know if it's called a limb or whatever, but it's one of those, so it contains one specific thing which is connected to that part, just like the eyes take the sight, and the heart takes whatever, and the hands take whatever it takes, besides that, the life that comes into the brain has the essence of the whole life, and that's why all other parts of the body get their life from the brain. And the brain controls it, the brain feels it, everything registers in the brain, because in the brain you have the השראה, he calls it, the resting of the essence of the nefesh. So even though the brain is one specific place, and one specific organ, and has its own thing that it is as an individual organ, but besides that, it is the place where the essence rests of the nefesh, of the life, and from there it comes to all parts of the body. And the same is concerning Hashem. This is a mashal to Hashem, because we know Hashem's relationship to the world is similar to the relationship of the nefesh to the body. The Gemara says this: מה הנשמה ממלאה את הגוף, כך הקדוש ברוך הוא ממלא את העולם. Just like the nefesh, the soul, the life force fills up the body, so too Hashem fills up the world. So you have the same thing. You have the spreading, so to speak, of the life of Hashem which comes all over, like we said, מלא כל הארץ כבודו, all over you have the nefesh, in this case, Hashem, who comes to every single piece. Everything in the world only exists because Hashem gives it its existence, its life. Never the Less, in every world, there is one part of that spiritual world or whatever world, which is like the brain, and the resting of Hashem is there in an essential way, and from there it spreads throughout the whole world. And the same is with this physical world. This physical world has, every part of the world has Hashem in it, has the life force, godliness in it. But there is one place which is like the brain, and in that place rests the essence of this life force, like the brain, in this case the essence of Hashem that's there. That's what we mean that in the Kodesh Hakodashim you have the השראת השכינה, the Shechinah rests there. איי, the Shechinah rests all over? Not the same. All over, it's like all parts of the body that also get from the nefesh. They're all, every part of the body is alive, and only because of the nefesh. Every part of the world is there only because Hashem is there, but it's not the brain. In the Kodesh Hakodashim, where the luchos were, that's where you have the brain of the whole world, and that's where the essence of Hashem was. That's what we mean that the luchos is כולי פנים. The luchos had no פנים ואחור, had no front and back, because this is the essence. See, front and back means back means less revelation. So, in the levels of the other parts which get only some kind of ray of godliness, you could have more and less, like in the nefesh, some parts of the body gets more of the nefesh, some parts of the body gets less, but the brain itself, that has the nefesh itself. So the Kodesh Hakodashim, the luchos, that was כולי פנים, there was only פנים. And that's why, since this is where the luchos came from spiritually, so physically they reflected what the level spiritually is, and therefore the luchos was כולי פנים. And it says in Chassidus, this is the reason why you have to carry the luchos, which the aron that had the luchos, on your shoulder, because it would show that even the shoulder, which represents the back, the אחור, is also there for the luchos, that it changes, so to speak, the אחוריים, the back, the כתפיים, the shoulders, into being something part of the aron. Or basically, I'll make it even better. The Rambam says that when they carried the aron, they stood face to face. They weren't carrying like you carry something, one face is this way and the other face is behind him looking at his back. They were standing face to face, that means one person was walking straight and one person was walking backwards, with his back. Face to face! Because the whole idea was to take, to show that there is no אחוריים. So you have to take the אחור which represented by the כתף, and use that to carry the aron in the form of face to face. And that was what the aron was. And that's connected what I said before, that carrying the aron on the shoulder is the place for the aron. It wasn't just a din of how to carry the aron. You see, just like when it stood in the Kodesh Hakodashim, this was the level of the aron, the level of the luchos. The Kodesh Hakodashim, the life brain of the world, when you carried it, it also had to be in such a way, and that's why you carried it this way. Now this was concerning the aron. In truth, when we say that the Shechinah, the essence of the Shechinah rested in the Kodesh Hakodashim, really, to a certain degree it was in the whole Beis Hamikdash. The whole Beis Hamikdash is considered the brain of the world. In the brain itself, this is the brain of the brain, so to speak, but there's the whole Beis Hamikdash. And that's why, as I said before, the Rambam does not count the mitzvah of making an ארון as a separate mitzvah. He includes it in the mitzvah of making a בית המקדש, because the fact that you had to make a בית המקדש includes the ארון, because the purpose of the בית המקדש is being a place for the Shechinah, which came through the ארון. So the ארון is the completion of the building. See, it's not like other כלים. Other vessels in the בית המקדש were, let's compare it to furniture of a house. You have two things: you have a house, and you have furniture in the house. So you had the בית המקדש, which was the building, and then you had the furniture of Hashem in the building, which was the שולחן and the מנורה, just like lehavdil in a human being's home. You have a table, and you have a מנורה, you have the light, you have the kitchen, where they brought the קרבנות, you have everything, they're all the furniture of the home. The ארון was not one of the כלים. As a matter of fact, interesting, the Rambam in the beginning of Hilchot Beit Habechirah, the laws of the בית המקדש, described very general this, the how the structure... And then he said in the בית המקדש you had to have different vessels, and he names them. You had to have a מנורה, you had to have a שולחן, and you had to have a מזבח. Doesn't mention the ארון. Well, I would imagine that the first thing he should mention is the ארון, cuz the ארון was not a vessel, not one of the furniture of the building. That is the building. What makes the building into a בית המקדש is the ארון. Because the ארון which the was was the brain of the world, and the whole בית המקדש basically was the brain, this was like the brain of the brain.

And that could explain the reason why the Rambam says that when Shlomo Hamelech built the בית המקדש, he originally knew that it will be destroyed, so he built these tunnels, and later Yoshiyahu Hamelech took it there. Now, the Rambam פסק'נט that, I'll ask a few questions on the Rambam and then I'll explain the connection. From the Rambam it seems that he did it on his own. It says, Shlomo Hamelech knew it'll be destroyed, so he made these tunnels. As if saying, since he knew it, he wanted to protect the ארון, so he made these tunnels. How could he do it on his own? We know that the בית המקדש, the blueprints of the בית המקדש was given from Hashem to David Hamelech. Hakol, is a pasuk, it says הכל מיד ה׳ עלי השכיל. Everything came from Hashem, so how could he on his own decide to make a change or make a certain, like tunnels in the בית המקדש? That's number one. And the second thing, when the Rambam talks about where the aron was put, what he did and where it was put, he put he writes this in the beginning of the fourth chapter of Beit Habechirah. The chapter where he discusses the building. See, there are perakim, chapters, first where he discusses the shulchan and the menorah, the different kelim, and then in פרק ד׳ he discusses the building. When he discusses the building, he talks about where the aron was put. I'll tell you what the peshat is. Since the building is not complete unless you have an aron, as I said, the whole purpose of the building is the aron, and this is not a kli, this is part of the aron, there's a big problem. The second בית המקדש did not have the aron. How was it a בית המקדש? How could it be a בית המקדש if it didn't have an aron? And if the without the aron, there's no בית המקדש. Without a shulchan, it's still a בית המקדש, it's missing a vessel. It's missing one of the pieces of furniture. But when it's missing the aron, it's missing the whole בית המקדש. So, how did the second בית המקדש have it? That's why the Rambam comes and says, it did have it. Shlomo Hamelech, when he built the בית המקדש, he knew that it's going to be destroyed. He built under the קדש הקדשים a tunnel, which was originally made where to put the aron. In other words, the aron had two original official places. It had to be in the קדש הקדשים. There was one place where it would be in the open, and if not, it would be there hidden. So, it was built and that's, it was built to begin with that way. It was put into the building. And the Rambam says that he knew it would be destroyed, not that it doesn't mean that he decided on his own to do it. It was told to do. But the Rambam said he had to know why he's doing it. See, if he would just look at the blueprints and see that there are tunnels made, so he would make tunnels. But then the tunnels would not have the kedushah of the קדש הקדשים, because they're tunnels. He knew the Rambam he knew that the aron would eventually have to go there, so he made it lechatchilah that this is part of the kedushah of the קדש הקדשים. So, the ארון had originally in the building two places where it is, and it's part of the building. If you're able to have it in the open place, it would be in the open, on top, and if for some reason you can't, because you're afraid of enemies, it would go under in the tunnel, but it's still in the בית המקדש. And it's all because without an ארון, there is no בית המקדש. So, even the second בית המקדש had the ארון. It just didn't have it in a place where you could see, but it had the ארון under. Which this comes out, tells us something very, very fantastic, very great: that, number one, that the second בית המקדש had an ארון. We always know the second בית המקדש had no ארון. The second בית המקדש had the ארון, you just couldn't see it. It was there, in the same place, just under, and שלמה המלך made was מקדש, made that holy, and therefore this had a דין of קדש הקדשים. And beside that, it teaches us something else: that there's no such thing as a destruction of the בית המקדש. Because when they destroyed the בית המקדש, the first בית המקדש, the ארון was there, and this is the essence of the בית המקדש, so in truth, The walls were broken, but the essence of the building still remained. And when they build the second בית המקדש, it was not a new בית המקדש. It was the rebuilding of the old one, because the עצם of it was still there. And when the third בית המקדש will come, it's not a new בית המקדש. It's the same בית המקדש rebuilt. And I'll give you an example. The example of תחיית המתים. תחיית המתים is the resurrection of the dead. It doesn't say Hashem will give us new bodies, then it's not תחיית המתים, Hashem will give you a new body. It says He will rebuild the old ones. How will He do it? So it says because every person has the עצם לוז. There is this bone that's in the back, the head of every person, that never gets destroyed. And from that bone, Hashem is going to rebuild the same body. Years ago it sounded very strange, how could that be? Nowadays with with the with the cells, with DNA, with this, you know, with the cloning, we see it's possible. You take one cell, and the whole same body is rebuilt. So Hashem, because the essence is still there, He will rebuild the same body. It's exactly what happened to the בית המקדש. The first בית המקדש was destroyed, really wasn't destroyed, because the עצם, the קודש, the ארון was still there. And He rebuilt the same one. And when that was destroyed, He's going to rebuild the same one, a better one, a stronger one that'll never be destroyed in any form or shape. Like תחיית המתים, we will get our our old bodies back, but it'll be much better, much stronger, will never die again. And the same thing with the בית המקדש. So really it's all, all one בית המקדש. So this shows the נצחיות, the eternity of the בית המקדש. Always we think of the eternity of the בית המקדש in a different way, that there was a בית המקדש, was destroyed. Eternity means that eventually we'll get a Beit HaMikdash back that will stay forever. According to this, the eternity means it never was destroyed. It's always, the essence of the Beit HaMikdash was always there, and it's all one long continuation. There's not one, two, and three, three בתי מקדש. Physically, superficially there is, that's why we say בית המקדש הראשון, השני, השלישי, but it's really all one. Another point to make here, we'll go over a few minutes, another point in the inyan of the Beit HaMikdash, in this, that when the Rambam mentions that he made tunnels, crooked, deep, down tunnels, there is a deeper meaning to it, too. When did he do, when did, when was the Aron put there? When the Beit HaMikdash was going to be destroyed. Why was the Beit HaMikdash going to be destroyed? Because of the aveirot. Yidden sinned, מפני חטאינו גלינו מארצנו, because of our sins. So hiding the Aron there was supposed to be the koach to do teshuvah. Hiding it, it means it should not be destroyed, that's the power of teshuvah. What happens when a Yid does teshuvah? When a Yid does teshuvah, it says you reach very, very deep מדרגות. Through the crookedness of a Yid, when you do teshuvah, when you do an aveirah, you're crooked. A person who's who's a tzadik, does everything correct, is הולך ישר, goes straight. Person does aveirot, goes crooked. But when you do teshuvah on those crooked ways, you reach the deepest, deepest godly levels. Like it says, עמוק עמוק מי ימצאנו, it's so deep that you can't even find it. Or like we say, שיר המעלות, ממעמקים קראתיך השם, there is this depth that comes from teshuvah. And that's the hint that the Rambam gives us here. He says that when they hid the the Aron, they hid it in the deep, crooked, deep tunnels, to to show us that through hiding it, which means the koach of teshuvah, you could reach this high מדרגות.

And one more point that we could make here is, that we always say that the physical Beit HaMikdash was destroyed, but the spiritual Beit HaMikdash that's in the heart of every single Jew, that could that's always there. The building of of of bricks was destroyed, but the spiritual Beit HaMikdash is always there. But the question is, if we see that the physical Beit HaMikdash could have been destroyed, maybe the spiritual Beit HaMikdash could also be destroyed? Maybe it's possible, 'cause usually they're parallel, one reflects the other. So maybe the fact that every Yid has a Beit HaMikdash in his heart, as Chazal say, ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם, Hashem says that make a mikdash and I will rest between them, amongst them, not amongst it, in it, but amongst them, it means every Yid in his heart has a Beit HaMikdash, maybe you could destroy that too. We always tell a Yid, as far as you are, as bad as you are, you still have that pintele Yid, you still have that depth of the Beit HaMikdash in your heart. Maybe he'll say, my heart, my Beit HaMikdash was destroyed. The answer is, the Beit HaMikdash was never destroyed, it can't, and the Beit HaMikdash that's in every Yid's heart can't be destroyed. Why? Because just like the physical Beit HaMikdash, deep, deep, deep down, in the depth of the Beit HaMikdash, the Aron is there, and never was destroyed, in the depth of the Yiddishe heart, it can never be destroyed. So when we say to a Yid, your your Beit HaMikdash is there, he can't answer, \"It's destroyed,\" there's no such thing. The depth and the essence of the Beit HaMikdash cannot be destroyed, not from the physical Beit HaMikdash and not from the spiritual Beit HaMikdash. And one more thing here, you have to remember that our obligation is not only to care about our Beit HaMikdash, but to care about another Yid's Beit HaMikdash. And this is one of the things we said that there is a prohibition in taking out the poles from the Aron. What's the reason? So the Sefer HaChinuch says the reason is, a very simple reason he says, because sometimes the time will come that you'll have to run and you'll have to shlep the Aron, so you might, if you don't have always the poles there, it'll take you a while till you get the poles in, and you might not be tight enough, and you might drop it. So in order to be able to run, you always have to have poles ready. In other words, the Aron always has to be ready to run, which is a remez, a hint. The Aron represents people who study Torah. As much as you're sitting and studying Torah, you always have to have in mind, I might have to run to a place to help somebody, and I always have to be ready to help somebody else. And it has to be fast, because you can't waste time, the other person needs my help. And if we do everything spiritually to the Aron and the Beit HaMikdash that we have in our heart, we are sure that the Eibershter will give us the physical Beit HaMikdash and bring משיח צדקנו במהרה בימינו. Any questions? Yeah? You couldn't take them out. It's a nes. It was a nes. That's the nes. In other words, when it was put in, it was narrow, and after it came out, it became wide. It was a nes, yeah. Thank you everybody for coming. Again, for those who weren't here at the beginning, question? Where is the Shechinah of Hashem? Should we spend a minute on it? Do people have time, or? Okay. The question is that the Shechinah that was there, and now we have no Beit HaMikdash, where is it now? So first of all, I'll make a few points. First of all, the Midrash says, שכינה לא זזה מכותל זה. The Shechinah never left the Kotel HaMa'aravi. So the Kotel HaMa'aravi has the Shechinah as it used to have, as the Shechinah never moved. Actually, there is a halachah in Rambam that the kedushah of the Beit HaMikdash still stays, and that's why all the prohibitions that applied in the time of the Beit HaMikdash, a tamei can't go on there now either. That's one thing. And then I'll tell you a story, and this story will answer your question. There was a תלמיד of the Mezeritch, of the of the Baal Shem Tov, his name was Rav Wolf Kitzes, who had a strong desire to go to Eretz Yisrael, because in Eretz Yisrael the kedushah is very great, he wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael. He asked the Baal Shem Tov to go, and the Baal Shem Tov did not agree. So he didn't go. But then he had another yearning, later on, desire, he asked again the Baal Shem Tov, and the Baal Shem Tov again said no. He asked the third time, finally the Baal Shem Tov said, \"You know what? You want to go, go. But with one condition: Before you go, I want you to go to the mikveh.\" Fine. He's getting ready to go, he went to the mikveh. The way he used to טובל himself was with open eyes. People, some people can keep their eyes open in the water. So he had his eyes open. He goes down. As he, and he has his eyes open, he sees a vision. He sees himself traveling to Eretz Yisrael. And in a vision things go very fast. He sees himself going to Eretz Yisrael, he sees the road, finally comes in Eretz Yisrael. Then he sees him traveling further and sees himself coming to Jerusalem. Then he goes further, he sees himself coming to the Beit HaMikdash. Imagine, he sees himself walking into the Beit HaMikdash! And he sees himself walking from the Beit HaMikdash further and further into the the עזרה, and then he goes into the היכל, and finally he goes into the קדש הקדשים. He sees himself! And guess what? The ארון isn't there! Very scared, he knew Beit HaMikdash has the ארון. So he walks out, and he asks somebody, it's all seeing in seconds he sees this vision, he looks around and he says to somebody, \"Where's the ארון? Where's the ארון? What happened to the ארון?\" He said, \"The ארון? The ארון is in Mezhibuzh!\" Mezhibuzh is where the Baal Shem Tov lived. \"You're looking for the ארון? The ארון is there!\" So you can understand, he didn't go to Eretz Yisrael. What was he looking for? He was looking for the kedushah and looking for that special Shechinah that's there. So they he was told that by the Rebbe, that's where the Shechinah is, that in time of גלות, that's where it is. And we have, there's a long story in sefer, in Hatamim told about this חסיד, Rav Shmuel Ber Berisover, he told that his father when he was a kid, his father took him to the Tzemach Tzedek. Anyway, there's a long, long story, but the point of the story was, one of the parts of the story was that his father went into yechidut, and he went and describes how yechidut was. And after yechidut, they would come out of yechidut of the Rebbe, there was a dance that the chasidim used to dance, and they used to call it The yechidut tants. And they were dancing. And he was a little kid, he says, he asked his father on the side, \"Why is Why are we dancing?\" So his father started explaining to him that, you know, we used to, in the olden days, have a בית המקדש, and the kedushah, the Shechinah was there, and they had all the great things there, and then the בית המקדש was destroyed. And as they're talking, one of the chasidim pulls his father by his hand, shlept him into the circle, and he was left in the middle of the discussion. So now he really couldn't understand: Why are they dancing? Because the בית המקדש was destroyed? He started telling, בית המקדש, why are they dancing? So finally, later, he got to his father, and he said, \"Tell me. Finish off. We used to have a בית המקדש and it was destroyed, and now instead of the In the place where we have such kedushah is the Rebbe's room. That's our קדש הקדשים, and the Rebbe is like the לוחות, and that's why, imagine when you come out of the yechidut, that's why we're dancing, because we had the zechut to be there.\" And actually, there's a Midrash that says that אבן שישב עליה רבי אלעזר, the the stone that Rabbi Elazar, one of the talmidim said, well, the stone that this תנא sat on is like Har Sinai. Imagine, because this תנא sat, like Har Sinai. What was Har Sinai? The place where the Shechinah rested. So, obviously we could understand that by the Rebbe, that's where the Shechinah is, and that's why we have we call it בית רבינו שבבבל, the house of the Rebbe in Bavel in חוץ לארץ, you have the Shechinah is there. בכלל it says from חורבן בית המקדש, when the בית המקדש was destroyed, the Shechinah is in every shul. Every shul, every yeshivah is called a בית מקדש מעט, a miniature בית המקדש. But between the miniature בית המקדש, you have more miniature and less miniature, and you have the big miniature one or not even miniature. And that's the place of the בית הכנסת and the בית המדרש of where the Rebbe is. And it says that the תפילות all go through the כותל המערבי. Every tefillah we daven, why do we face מזרח? Because we go to Yerushalayim, and the תפילות that we daven go through the כותל המערבי, because that's where the Shechinah is and still now. So I just want to tell you what I heard. There was a rabbi in New York, is is is one of the mashgichim at Torah Vodaath, his name is Rabbi Wolfson. So someone told me that he had a talmid, not a few years ago, who had a sick child, I think, anyway he traveled to Eretz Yisrael to go to the all the קברים of the צדיקים to daven. And from there he happened to call his Rosh Yeshivah, his mashgiach, Rabbi Wolfson, speaks to him, so he says, \"I'm in Eretz Yisrael.\" and he says, \"Why did you go there?\" So he says, \"I went there because I wanted to daven at the קברי צדיקים.\" So he says to him, and with this I'm going to finish, he says to him, \"Don't you know that since ג' תמוז all the תפילות go through the אוהל?\" Okay, and that's it. There's one more thing I would like to say about the ארון, and that is there was a special miracle done in connection to the ארון, which we don't find any other place, and that was that there was נמנע הנמנעות. The ארון didn't take up place and took up place at the same time. That means, as the Gemara says, that the ארון, if you measure it from one side of the ארון to the end of the room and from the other side of the ארון, let's say in the אהל מועד, which was 10 by 10, so on one side it was 5 amot, on the other side was 5 amot, the Aron itself took up the width, let's say 1 1/2. So, from one end of the Aron was 5 amot to the wall, from the other end was 5 amot, if you measured the Aron itself, it was 1 1/2, and then when you measured from one wall to the other, it was 10. In other words, the Aron did not take up a place, and at the same time, it took up a place. And this is the concept of נמנע הנמנעות, which means that there is an impossibility of impossibility concerning Hashem, that there is nothing that's impossible. Even though it's a contradiction taking up a place and not taking up a place at the same time, nevertheless, this happened in connection to the Aron. And it's all because, as we said before, that the Aron was connected to such a high level, the level of Hashem himself, the way he's beyond all limitations and beyond all העלמות והסתרים, all concealments, and therefore, the truth of being beyond any impossibilities was expressed in the Aron.