The topic tonight is the power of speech. It's a topic that we touched upon throughout the classes, but tonight we will discuss specifically this concept of the power of speech, the power of speech of a human being, of a person, of a Yid. We know that every person, and at this point we are talking about Yidden, but the same applies in this case to all human beings, have a group of what we call three levushim, and I'll explain, three garments, which are spiritual garments. When I say spiritual, I don't mean godly, spiritual, not physical, but something more to the spiritual side. Three garments which are called מחשבה, דיבור, ומעשה, thought, speech, and action. And these are garments of the person, meaning garments of the person's nefesh, of the person's life force, which means that the person is made up of a body and a soul. The body is the physical part, and the soul is the life force that's inside the person. And that life force is the source of all the different things that a person has, different attributes. And the way it's divided is, as we learn in Chassidus and in Kabbalah and in all other sefarim, we know that the person basically is made up of two parts, and on top of that we have the three levushim. The two parts are seichel and middos. The person has the intellect and the emotions. The intellect itself is made up of three sections, which is called חכמה, בינה, דעת, three parts of the intellect. And as we understand that when a person sits down to learn a certain subject, there is a process of thought, of understanding, it goes through his mind, and the three parts of that process is called חכמה, בינה, דעת. This is not a class to explain what חכמה, בינה, דעת is, but maybe I'll just mention in short what it is for those who are not familiar. That when you sit down to think about something, to try to understand something, the way it works is that first you get that point of knowledge, which is like a lightning, it comes into your mind before you still understand how this will explain the concept. For instance, if you're learning something and you have different types of questions and things don't make sense to you, and then you sit down and you think about it, what's going to happen is the first thing is, you will get a lightning of thought which will show you that this idea is the answer, the key to everything that you have. You still don't know how this explains it, but that's the key. And that's called חכמה. And then בינה is when you take that point and you develop it. You sit down and you think about it, and you develop it to a thought. And דעת is when you think about it deeper and deeper. But anyway, not to get into the details, there are three parts to the intellect: חכמה, בינה, דעת. And then there are seven emotions that we learn about, which is חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד, ומלכות. And again, not to go into the details of what these emotions are, basically it's made up of two, which is ahavah and yirah, love and fear, and all the rest are branches of these two. But the point is that we have seven parts to the person's emotions. There are seven types of emotions a person might have. So, you have three parts to the intellect, seven parts of the emotions. And then we have three things which are called the three garments. A garment is something that a person gets clothed in. You have the person, and then the person wears a garment, and then he puts himself into the garment. So, too, with the person, you have three parts of the person's nefesh which are called the garments, because the person's intellect and the person's emotions express themselves through these three garments. The intellect and the emotions are what the person is. If you want to know what type of a person it is, you see what kind of intellect he has and the emotions. The three of מחשבה, דיבור, מעשה, thought, speech, and action, are not the person, but these are ways, three ways that the person can express himself. If a person wants to express his understanding, how do you do it? It's, you have to think about it. You can't understand unless you think about it. And let's not confuse thinking and understanding. Understanding is the seichel, the logic, the understanding, and thinking is something that you have to use in order to understand. And therefore, it's possible for a person to think without understanding. It's impossible to understand without thinking, but you could think without understanding. A person could think things that don't make sense, a person could think a picture, a person could think narishkeit, stupidity, things, a person could think about things he knows are not true. And he doesn't understand it, but he could still think. You can't understand unless you think. But if a person wants to understand, in order to use his intellect, you have to have the process of thought. You have to think about the things that you want to understand. Or when you have an idea that you understand and you want to give it over to somebody, you would speak. You sometimes would write it. So there are three ways a person could express his understanding. And the same thing is with a person's emotions. When a person wants to express his emotion, you express it through thinking about it, you could express it through speaking about it, and you could express it through doing something about it. You could think about the feeling, you could speak. If you like somebody and you want to express your feeling to the person, you could say to the person, \"I like you. I love you.\" You express it through speaking, and through an action. You could buy the person a present, or other types of actions that a person could do to express the person's feeling to somebody. So basically what I'm trying to say is that there are 10 parts to the nefesh itself, three parts to the intellect, seven parts to the emotions, and that makes up what the person is, what the nefesh is. And then there are three ways the person can express one of these 10 parts of the person, which is the seichel or the middos, that is through thought, speech, or action. This is just an introduction to what I'm trying to get to. I'm just trying to bring out that there are three parts to the person's levushim, there are three ways a person can express himself, and that is מחשבה, דיבור, and מעשה, thought, speech, and action. Of these three, which of the three is the main one, which of the three is the one that we really say is the true expression of the person? So it says in sefarim that the main one is דיבור, is speech. Not so much is מחשבה, not so much as thought, and not so much the מעשה, not so much the action. And the reason is, because the action, when a person does something, is already out of the person. Usually when you do something, you're giving out from yourself and it's something that's done with somebody else. If a person makes a table, it's something that he does, but concerning something outside of him. מחשבה, thought, is something that's inside a person, and basically, it does not go out of the person to somebody else. So it's only an expression of the person for himself. If his שכל wants to express itself and come out into the open to himself, he uses his מחשבה, he thinks about something, and that makes him understand it. But it's not, excuse me, it's not an expression outside of himself to somebody else. So מחשבה, even though it is a higher level, but not to get into that, it's not the true expression of the person, or as we would call it, not the true true giluy of the person. The person does not reveal himself through thought, because it's only to himself, it's not to somebody else. When a person does something, he does reveal himself, but it's something that goes away from him. It's something that's separated from him. So as much as he reveals himself, but it's really not so much him. It's something that you do outside of yourself. So the problem of מחשבה is that it's in you, not outside. The problem of מעשה, of action, is that it's outside and not really so much you. דיבור, which is the middle one, has both מעלות. דיבור is the expression of the person, and it's not something that goes out. He speaks and it's his mouth, it's not that he does something in something else or to something else. And at the same time, it's an expression of the person that somebody else could hear. When you say something and you express an idea that's in your mind, or you express a feeling, that expression is you being expressed. And that the the Chassidus uses the word, this is the giluy of the person. The revelation of the person is through speech, is through dibur. And actually, in Hebrew the when we speak, you say you speak words, you speak letters. Words are made up of letters. In Hebrew, the word letters is otiyot. An ot is a letter, otiyot are letters. The word ot has another meaning: to bring, to reveal. The idea of words, when you speak words, they reveal. And what do they reveal? So in the person, it reveals the person. So speech is the part of the person that expresses the person himself. And that is the reason why we find that when Hashem created the human being, it says in חומש, ויהי האדם לנפש חיה, that the person became a living nefesh, a living soul. The Targum Yonatan says, what does that mean? לנפש ממללא, a soul that could speak. So out of all qualities of the human being, what does the the Targum express is the human being? The fact that he's able to speak. It's interesting that when we divide the world into four species, and the Rambam does it, he says the whole creation is divided into four parts. And those are דומם, צומח, חי, and מדבר. דומם means those objects that cannot move, like rocks and things like that, that's one category. צומח is plant life, everything that grows. חי is the animal life, that's all the animals. And מדבר is the human being. Now the word מדבר actually means the speaker. And the question is, if we want to show the specialty, the special quality of a human being, of the race, the human race, wouldn't it make more sense if you would call him the משכיל? Normally, we know that what is the special quality of a human being over an animal? The fact that a human being has seichel, has intellect, while the animals don't. So when we divide between the animals, the חי, חי is the animals, between the animals and the humans, we would we have to say חי and משכיל, the living things, which are animals which are alive, and the thinker, the understander. But that's not what the Rambam says. The Rambam calls this fourth category the מדבר, the speaker. Why? Because speech is such a quality that a person has which really expresses the essence of what the person is. First of all, in order to speak, you have to have seichel. A person who doesn't have the intellect can't speak. Why can't an animal speak? Because an animal doesn't have enough seichel to be able to speak, you have to use seichel. We see a child, before the seichel, the intellect develops, the child can't speak either. So you have to have development into seichel. You have to have machshavah. Besides seichel, you have to have thought. A person, before he speaks, it goes through the process of machshavah. First you think and then you speak, even though we don't realize it, but that's the process, first there's machshavah and then dibur. So when we talk about a person being the speaker, this includes already the seichel. If you would say that a person is the משכיל, the understander, this does not include the speaking, because it's possible you should be able to understand and not be able to speak. But if you're able to speak, you certainly are able to understand, otherwise you can't speak. So when you use the word מדבר, it includes everything. It includes thought and speech. But besides that, the reason we refer to a human being as מדבר, because that is a quality, an attribute, a koach, a power that a person has which expresses the whole person. When a person speaks, what does he speak? He speaks things that he is. So when you speak, you express yourself, and in what way? You express your whole self in a way that it goes out to somebody else and it remains you. Not like maaseh, when it goes out of you completely, not like machshavah, which is in you, it expresses you to yourself, so as much as it expresses your your feeling and it can express your understanding, but it's not the expression of you to the outside of you, while dibur has that quality that it is the person and the true expression of the person.

And that's why we find in Torah that the three most important things in Torah and Yiddishkeit have to do with dibur, have to do with speech. The three ת's, the three T's, we have the three T's in Torah: Torah, tefilah, and teshuvah. The three most important parts of Yiddishkeit is Torah, study of Torah, tefilah, which is prayer, and teshuvah, which is repentance, returning to Hashem. These are three things. And when we look at these three things, we'll see how important speaking is in each one of these three things. And let's start with the first, we'll start with Torah. When we learn Torah, you could learn by reading the book, reading the sefer, but the Gemara says that when a person learns, he should verbalize what he is learning, he should say it with his mouth, he should speak the words. The Gemara says in עירובין, חיים הם למוצאיהם, and the גמרא דרש'נס למוצאיהם בפה, which means, I'll translate: חיים הם למוצאיהם is a pasuk that says they are life to those who express them. Those, they, meaning the words of Torah, are life to those who express them. And the Gemara says, what does that mean, those who express them? So the Gemara says, למוציאיהם בפה, those who express them with their mouth, which means that when you learn, it's not enough just to learn, just to read it, but you should bring it out in your mouth. That's why when you learn, the best way to learn is with a chavruta, to learn with a partner. And when you learn with a partner, you speak to one another, you speak. And the Gemara says if a person learns and expresses the words with his mouth, then he could expect that the Torah he learned should stay in his mind. Like this, you know, you learn and then you forget. But it says, אם ערוכה היא בכל רמ״ח איברים, which basically means if you speak it, and automatically you put yourself into it, then היא נשמרת, then it stays. So one of the etzot, one of the advice given to a person who learns and wants to remember what he learns, is you should speak the words. So in learning, speaking the words are important. Besides that, there is a lot of explanations in chasidut to what is accomplished when a person studies dibur, when you speak. And it says like this: there are a lot of times could be that when you think about an inyan in Torah, and you understand it, but when you verbalize it, it will add all kinds of ideas to it that you didn't think about it yourself. And I could tell you, I could say it from experience. A lot of times I could think of something, and I understand it, and when I get up to speak, while I'm speaking, and you never know when it happens, but while I'm speaking, I think of all kinds of ideas, deeper ideas to express it, and it gives much more understanding to the person who speaks. So, we are always used to thinking that speaking is to give it over to somebody else. For yourself, you don't need to speak. For yourself, you could just sit and think about it, read it with your eyes or think about it in your mind. Speaking doesn't do any good. If you want to tell it to somebody else, then you have to speak. It is not true. Even for yourself, if you want the words of Torah that you learn, it should be understood deeper than you think, deeper than you understand it, it is through speaking. There's a sefer called ספר המאמרים תרס״ט-ע״ט, and there he explains at length the idea of dibur, what dibur does. Not that I'm going to go into the deep explanation that he gives, I'll just touch upon it, and I'll just not explain it. If it's understood, it's fine; if not, you'll speak about it and you'll understand. When a person learns, and he uses his brain, his intellect to understand, where does he get the ideas from? Let's say a person has, I'll just give an example, a person learned something and he has a question, he doesn't understand, and when he asks somebody, what should I do? So we tell him, think about it. Think about it, then you'll get an answer. Let's analyze it. What happens when you think about it? How do you get your answer? If it's not you don't understand it, so you think about it. What what does that do? How does thinking about it give an answer? I I would understand if you don't have an answer to a question, go to a rav and ask him, go to a talmid chacham, go to somebody and find out. He knows it, he'll tell you. Look it up in a sefer, look it up in one of the commentaries. But what will you do when you sit down to think, you put your hands there, you think, so what will happen? How will that answer your question? The answer is very simple. A person in his mind, the way the person's brain works, there are many levels to the person's sechel. When we think with our brain, with our intellect, we're using what we call the כח השכל הגלוי. We're using the revealed part of our intellect. But the person's brain contains in it all true ideas. Any idea that is true, any thing which is a fact in sechel is there essentially in the person's brain. And that is called the כח המשכיל. Every person's brain has the כח המשכיל, that koach, that power of understanding. All thoughts which are true thoughts are contained in the person's brain. But it's hidden there, like in the computer, it's put into that box, into the brain, into the sechel, and it's not revealed. When we sit down to learn and understand something, what we really do, we're peeking into that כח המשכיל, and we're taking out certain thoughts which come out into the כח השכל הגלוי. And the כח המשכיל, that koach of thought, of understanding, everybody has all the ideas. The difference in one person and another is how much of that comes out in the שכל הגלוי. When we talk about, this person has a good head, this person doesn't have such a good head, it's all concerning this revealed part of seichel that just comes into the brain that he's able to understand, how much does that have? But in that hidden part which we call the כח המשכיל, there, all the thoughts are there. What you have to do is, you have to dig into your brain, into your כח כח המשכיל and take out an idea. Just like when you dig for a well for water, there's water wherever you go. Just sometimes you have to dig deeper, sometimes you have to dig less. Same thing, some people it's they have to dig deep in order to get out an idea. Some people have to dig deep, some people not so deep. It depends on what kind of כח השכל הגלוי a person has. And that's why we say sometimes a person doesn't have such a good head, but if he'll work hard, he'll understand. Because if you work hard, you dig deeper. And when we say if you don't understand something, sit down and think about it, what does thinking mean? Thinking means dig into your כח המשכיל, dig deeper into your source of seichel, and from there you will get out to understand in your כח השכל הגלוי, this revealed part of your seichel, and you will be able to understand it. So it says in Chassidus that when a person speaks the words of seichel, that is the best tool to use to dig into your כח המשכיל, to dig into the depth of your seichel. And then you will get out ideas. And therefore, when a person understands something, because his כח השכל הגלוי, because the revealed part, a part of seichel that's in his mind that he understands, that he feels, has touched to a certain degree, a certain level of the source of seichel, and that's why he understands it. When you speak those words that you understand, the words themselves have that power of digging deeper into that source of seichel, and therefore you will understand this much deeper than you did before. So when you study Torah, besides that when you speak, the words remain in your ears, you have the words, other people are also able to hear, you involve more parts of your body, you involve your mouth in it, like this you only involve your head, like this you involve another part of your body, you involve your mouth. But besides all of that, the reason that it's important to talk while you're studying is because that makes you understand it much deeper and much better. The expression that's used in the sefarim is that if you say the words, you will have an understanding much deeper, much longer, and much wider. And these are three expressions that have to do with seichel. A seichel has length, width, and depth. And all three parts can be strengthened, it can go deeper, longer, and wider if you speak. So here what I'm trying to bring out is the koach of dibbur, the koach of speaking concerning the first one of the three, which is concerning Torah. That the Gemara says חיים הם למוצאיהם בפה, you have to speak the words, and when you speak the words, you will understand it better. And I'm just telling you from experience, and try it. When sometimes you want to understand something, and it just doesn't go, you heard something or you learned something, say it out in your mouth, and you'll see that it'll make it easier for you to understand. When you say it, even for yourself. And you see people learning, you could see a person sitting down learning in a yeshivah or in a shul, without a chavrusa, without a friend or a partner, learning by himself, and he'll be screaming on top of his lungs and saying the words. What are you saying it for? Read it with your eyes, the same thing, because when you say it, you understand it much better. So to Torah, speech, speaking is very important studying Torah.

When it comes to tefillah, which is the second of the three, tefillah, davenen, the din is that when you daven, you have to say the words. Not like some people might think that you open the siddur and you read it with your eyes. You're not יוצא דאווענען if you read with your eyes. Somebody who can't read with his mouth, somebody who can't talk, it's a different story, then there's certain cases, the halacha you could be yotzei. But normally, you have to verbalize it, you have to say the words with your lips. And this applies whether you you are davening in Hebrew, or even if you're davening in English. When you daven in English, you can't just read with your eyes the words, you have to say the words with your lips, you have to say the words with your mouth. I don't know how, lehavdil lehavdil, with other religions I know they pray somehow, they think in their mind, I don't know what they do. Al pi halacha we have to say the words. What's the idea behind it? The idea behind it is, what's tefilah? Tefilah is a mitzvah. You have to daven. The fact that you have to daven three times a day, that's מדרבנן, the רבנן said. What's the mitzvah of tefilah from the Torah? The way the Torah said it as far as the mitzvah of tefilah is that when a person is in need, he has to ask Hashem to help him. That's the mitzvah. And there's a famous question that's asked: Why did Hashem give us a mitzvah that we have to ask him to help us? It's for our benefit. So, a person wants to ask Hashem to help him, fine. If he doesn't want, it's his problem. Why did Hashem command us, you have to ask me! If I don't care, so what's wrong if I don't care, so I don't ask Hashem? No, you have to, there is a mitzvah that Hashem gave us, that if you're in need, you have To daven to Hashem. And the answer is, is a very simple answer, it's not just the mitzvah of tefilah. Tefilah is an expression of one's emunah and bitachon. Tefilah is an expression of one's belief in God and trust in God. The fact that you know that when you're in need you have to turn to Hashem, that means that you believe that Hashem is the one that's able to help you. So that's an expression of your belief in the existence of God and your belief that He's the one that's able to help you, and you trust Him. So davenen is not just a mitzvah that if you're in need, if you want to be helped, ask Him. No, whether you want or not, it's a mitzvah, you have to. Why? Hashem wants us, commanded us to express our emunah and bitachon, and that we do through davenen. And that's why we have to daven. But why do we have to say it with our mouth? Why can't a person daven in his mind? Hashem is a יודע מחשבות, השם knows what goes on in our minds. So Hashem, if we think in our mind, \"Please Hashem help me,\" or I take a siddur and I read it with my eyes and in my mind I read the words, so Hashem knows what I have in my mind, why do I have to say it? It's all like I said before. The way a person really, really expresses his feeling is through dibbur. You have to express it so strong that it has to come out outside of you. I explained before that dibbur is more than machshavah. Speaking is more than thought. Thought is an expression of the person. If a person feels bad about something and he thinks about it, it's an expression of his feeling, or if he feels good about something and he thinks about it, it's an expression of his feeling. But the expression is not so strong, it only is to a limit. It's an expression within himself. The real expression, if it's so strong, then it comes out of you. But when it comes to maaseh, then it's completely away. So dibbur is the expression of what a person thinks about, what a person understands, what the person feels, a real, real, complete expression. This is what the person is. And that's like I said: what's a נפש חיה? What's a living person? נפש ממללא, the speaking part of the person. And therefore, Hashem wants us that when we express our emunah and bitachon in Hashem, it should be done through speaking. Because then you really, really express it. And that's why speaking the words of davenen is a very, very important part of davenen. So much so that it says in Rambam that chachamim, we know, made up the nusach, the order the davenen, the words of davenen were made up by the chachamim. Until the chachamim made up, what did people do when they wanted to daven? Everyone davend on his own, everyone prayed to Hashem whichever words he wanted. Then the chachamim realized that people are not able to express themselves properly. So they made up the nusach, what we're supposed to say in davenen, the 18 berachot, the 19 berachot, and the rest of the things that they made up. So the whole siddur is made up of a way because people did not know how to express their feelings properly to Hashem, how to express their emunah and bitachon in Hashem, so they made a siddur, they made davenen. So the davenen, the way we have it now, are the proper words to express properly to the King our feelings. Especially remember, when you're talking to a King you can't just blabber, you can't just say, well, you say, I'll say all kinds of things and then finally he'll understand what I'm talking about. Before you go to the King you have to make sure exactly what you're saying. There's a pasuk that says concerning Hashem, says like this: אלקים בשמים ואתה על הארץ על כן יהיו דבריך מעטים. Hashem is in heaven, you're down here, so your words should be few. Don't talk too much. When you go to a King, you don't expect, you just say three, five words and you're supposed to express everything. So the chachamim decided that we can't allow people to express themselves their own way, because they blabber, they don't know what to say. So they made up a nusach how we're supposed to say, and these words of davenen include everything that a person could feel, everything that a person could understand in those few words. But those few words that we say, very few, how much how long does it take to daven in the morning, a half hour, very few words, Minchah, Maariv, but those few words have to be expressed properly, not only the proper words, but they have to be said. Because when you say it, not because Hashem doesn't hear you. As a matter of fact, by Shemoneh Esrei you have to say it quietly. The Gemara says, כל המשמיע קולו בתפלתו הרי זה מקטני אמנה. If a person says Shemoneh Esrei out loud, it shows he doesn't really have true emunah in Hashem. As if he feels Hashem can't hear me unless I scream. Hashem hears us when we say it quietly, too. So we have to say it quietly, Shemoneh Esrei is supposed to be said quietly. And at the same time, we have to say it, you can't just not say it and just think in your mind. If you have to say it quietly, the best thing is don't say it at all, think about it in your mind. No good. You have to say it with your mouth. Because when you Express the words, when you verbalize it, you are expressing the feeling that you have completely in the best possible way. In tefillah.

And when we go to the Tav, to the other Tav, which is teshuvah. And we know that's one of the foundations of Yiddishkeit, if a person does something wrong, he's able to do teshuvah. He's able to repent. What is teshuvah made out of? So we know teshuvah has three parts: חרטה על העבר, קבלה על ההבא, and vidui. חרטה על העבר means regret for the past. קבלה על ההבא is acceptance for the future. And vidui, which is in English they call it confession, but I don't like that expression, doesn't, sounds too goyish. What it means is you have to verbalize and say, \"I sinned.\" And the best way to do is even mention the sin that you did. That's what we do basically on Yom Kippur. We say many times על חטא שחטאנו, and we bang ourselves for the sin that we did and for this sin and for that sin. We have to verbalize. Now the main part of teshuvah is the acceptance for the future, but nevertheless the other parts are also important. So when it comes to teshuvah, you have to have the feeling. You have to regret what you did, and you have to accept upon yourself the future, whether it's for one aveirah, one sin a person did, or for a lifestyle, like we have, Baruch Hashem, nowadays thousands and tens of thousands of baalei teshuvah. What does a baal teshuvah mean? A person who changes, he has to accept upon himself for the future to behave properly. But besides that, you have to have vidui. Vidui is an expression with your mouth. Why does a person have to have vidui? Why is it so important? The truth is, I'll go a step further. According to some opinions, the mitzvah of teshuvah is the vidui. Like I said, there are three parts to teshuvah. The Minchat Chinuch holds that according to the Rambam, the mitzvah, the commandment of teshuvah is that if you decide to do teshuvah, you have to verbalize it. The doing teshuvah is not a mitzvah. Doing teshuvah is up to you. If you want to stay with your sin and suffer the consequences, it's your business. Hashem didn't command you to do teshuvah. But if you do decide to do teshuvah, you are commanded to say vidui. The truth is the Alter Rebbe doesn't hold that way. The Rabbi explains that it's not like that. The Alter Rebbe says that the returning itself is part of the mitzvah. That means Hashem wants us to return. You don't say, \"Well, I did an aveirah, it's my business. If I want to suffer the consequence, it's my business.\" No, Hashem said, \"I want you to do teshuvah.\" And therefore, if a person does an aveirah and doesn't do teshuvah, he has two aveirot: the aveirah and the aveirah of not doing teshuvah. But still, vidui is one of the things that you have to do. So according to the other opinion, vidui is the mitzvah, and according to this opinion, it's not the mitzvah, but it's one of the three points. Why is it important for a person to say vidui? The answer is because if a person really, really feels bad about what he did and really, really wants, means to accept upon himself, when is it really truth, in truth, when is the whole person involved in it? If he says, \"I sinned, and I will not do it again.\" If you say it in your words and you express it, and you bring it out of you, so it's not only in your mind. A person can think about it in his mind. If you say it, then it is the whole person. Then your whole person is involved, then the teshuvah is a complete teshuvah. Where do you think they got in the when you go to the Alcoholics Anonymous? First thing they tell you that you have to get up and you have to admit that you're an alcoholic. That's the first thing they tell you. And many people don't do that, and in their mind they think they can't verbalize and say, \"I am an alcoholic.\" Can't admit to it. And even if they know it, and they in their mind know it, and in their mind they admit, and they can't say it. And some people can't say it because in public. Some people can't even say it for themselves. In their own privacy, they won't say it. They'll think about it. \"Yeah, it's a problem.\" They think in their mind. \"Say it! Say it!\" No, you can't say it. Why? Because that really, really is their true admission and their true feeling. So therefore, in halachah of teshuvah, there is a din of vidui. You have to say it, because then the teshuvah is a real teshuvah. So here we see the power of of what the importance rather of speaking in Torah, in tefillah, and in teshuvah.

Besides that, speech בכלל has a very strong power. It all started from the first, first speech. Who gave the first speech? Hashem created the world with speech. הוא אמר ויהי. Hashem said and the world was created. בעשרה מאמרות נברא העולם, the world was created with ten statements. Hashem spoke And He created the world. The whole creation came through the concept of speech. That shows the power of speech, but here we're talking about the power of speech of Hashem. So when Hashem spoke, it became. But in truth, even us human beings, being that we are created with the image of Hashem, so Hashem put into us certain things which are similar to the way it is by Hashem. So He gave us that power of speech, too. There's a power, and when we say words, that those words have a real, real, strong power. They have an effect. Like I said before, the word אותיות, words, means גילוי, revealing. Words have the power of revealing. Just like when Hashem created the world, He spoke, which means that brought the revelation of the creation. The creation was in a hidden form, was a potential form, and it revealed it from its potential stage to a revealed stage. That's speech. We have that power, too. And when we speak, our words have the power of revealing things, of, I wouldn't use the word creating, but of making things come out to be, even if they were not really in a form that they were revealed. We have that power. And we have that power in the good side, and unfortunately, we have that power in the bad side. We have the power in the good side. When a person says something good, that reveals good in the world. I'll just give you an example. The Mezeritcher Maggid, from time to time, would say certain things, certain deep ideas of Torah. And he would say it, and no one understood what he was talking about. So someone asked him, Rabbi, why do you say it? No one understands it anyway. So if it's for yourself, why don't you think about it in your mind, why you have to say it? And if it's for us, we don't gain anything from it anyway. So he answered, I'll tell you what. This is a thought that came to my mind, and I want to reveal it in the world. So now when I said it, it's there. Now you have to think about it, someone else might pick it up. It's there. People could pick it up, and now that they pick it up, they could understand it. Maybe eventually you'll understand it. But if I wouldn't say it, it would not be revealed in the world, and the world wouldn't have it. So when you say it, it brings it into the world. Now other people could think about it. Like the famous story I mentioned many times with the Beit Yosef. I'll repeat it again. The Beis Yosef, the famous, famous, great Beis Yosef, he once had a question on a piece of Gemara and couldn't understand, and he worked hard and worked and couldn't understand, a very deep question. He fasted, I think, for 40 days, and he daven. Finally, finally afterwards, it was revealed to him. We know the Beis Yosef was so great, he had a malach, called a maggid, learned with him. And that malach, that angel, came to him and told him the pshat. Imagine how happy he was after 40 days of fasting and davening and all kinds of things he did, and he finally got it. A while later he happened to be walking by a shul and he heard somebody teaching Torah. He walked in, there was a person, not a great man, a stam a Yid, teaching a piece of Gemara to students. And it was that Gemara that he had difficulties with. And one of the students raised his hand and asked the question that bothered him! He's standing and watching, what's going to happen now? And on the spot, that teacher answered him the answer that he had thought of, that he had worked for 40 days to get! He felt very, very bad. I mean, it shows that something wrong with him, that he couldn't understand, and here the simple teacher was able to think of that answer! So what did he do? Next time he met with his maggid, he asked him, what's the, what happened here? So he said, after you said that answer, you brought it into the world! Now anyone could pick it up. You revealed it, anybody can pick it up. So this guy, he could pick it up just like that! But you brought it, and had you not worked on it so hard, it wouldn't have come. And how did he bring it out? Because he said the words, and when he said the words, he brought it out into the world. So speaking is able to bring out good things. Unfortunately, on the other side, it says, אל תפתח פה לשטן, don't open your mouth to prosecute. Don't say things which are not good, because that itself might make it happen. And like I mentioned many times, we know how careful we have to be with the way we speak. Don't ever tell somebody, don't walk there because you're going to fall. You never know. These words could reveal it, could bring it about, and that could cause him to fall. What you should say is, don't walk there, it's dangerous, one might fall, or be careful not to fall. That, yeah. But don't say don't go there, you'll fall! Because when you say that, these words mean something. The Gemara says, קללת חכם אפילו על תנאי הוא בא. If a chacham, and really every Jew could fall into that category, curses, and even if it's on a condition, if this will happen then I want you to be cursed, and it doesn't happen, the curse could still come true, because the word that a person says has a power. Just like Hashem's words had the power of creating, the words that we have has a power. If you give a person a berachah, a blessing, those words could come true. Now when a tzaddik gives a berachah, his words are certainly the greatest. We know צדיק גוזר הקדוש ברוך הוא מקיים. When the tzaddik says a berachah, Hashem will keep it. That's what the Gemara says. But that's by a tzaddik, but even by a simple Jew, the Gemara says אל תהי ברכת הדיוט קלה בעיניך, the berachah of an ordinary Jew should not be light in your eyes, because a berachah that a Jew gives has the power, the words have the power. A person should never on himself say certain things. Like some people don't think what they're saying and they say, \"Well, I promise you I didn't do this.\" If someone says, \"Did you do this?\" \"I promise, and if I did, this and this should happen to me.\" Don't ever say that, because these words have a meaning and you never know what these words could cause. We find stories in the Gemara and different stories of things like that. I don't even tell the stories because they're too scary, of things that people would say and later it came true even though it was nothing really wrong, but the fact that they expressed themselves. That's the power of speech. So you have it in both sides, in the good side and chas veshalom on the bad side. We know that a navi, a navi, a prophet, when a prophet prophesies, which means he gives over the prophecy that was given to him by Hashem, it definitely comes true. So it says, you know what makes it come true? The fact that he said it. If a navi would not give over the prophecy, it would not happen. The speaking is the giluy. We said before words are megaleh, this words that the navi says, that brings it out to the world. It's one of the pshatim it says in sefarim concerning the big, the prophet Yonah. Yonah the prophet, Hashem told him to go to Nineveh and tell them that Hashem said that Nineveh will be turned over in 40 days if they don't do teshuvah. And he ran away. He didn't want to say it. He didn't want it to happen. It's one of the peshatim what happened. There's another story that I told many times of this dibuk. There was a person that a dibuk, which means a soul, neshamah came into him and was speaking and from this person and made him a lot of pain. So they brought him to one of the tzadikim, I think it was to the Ziditchover if I'm not mistaken, I think it was the Ziditchover. And he asked him, \"What is going on? Why are you in this body?\" He says, \"I have no peace and I finally found myself here and I came into this body.\" And he says, \"No, you have to get out.\" And he didn't want to get out. So the Ziditchover, I think it was him, started doing all kind of spiritual things with his tzitzit, he started being מייחד ייחודים, all kind of spiritual things. And while he's doing it, that neshamah that was in that body started laughing. And he says, \"What are you laughing about?\" He says, \"You think you're a big tzadik nowadays, you know how to do these things. In my time, every ordinary person knew how to do this. That's how great we were.\" So he says, \"Who are you?\" He said, \"I'll tell you who I am. I lived in the time of Zechariah Hanavi. Zechariah prophesied about the חורבן בית המקדש and they, the people, the Yidden killed him. I was the first one that ran over to him and slapped him in the face. And after I ran, other people came and then finally we killed him.\" So he says to him, \"I don't understand. If you guys were so great, if you say that every one of you knew how to do these things, why did you kill the נביא?\" He says, \"I'll tell you what we did. We know that if a נביא does not give over his prophecy, it doesn't come true. Now a נביא has to give over his prophecy, that's a halachah. If a נביא כובש את נבואתו, he doesn't give over his prophecy, he's חייב מיתה, he deserves to die. So he has to. But we felt that this navi, Zechariah, should go on mesirut nefesh. This נביא should give up his spiritual well-being, he should not give over the prophecy, and he would have done an aveirah in order for the prophecy not to come true. And we felt he did that wrong and that's why we killed him.\" So when he heard this, he said, \"Well, now I finally find a limud zechut on you.\" And he davent for him and then the dibuk left him and he said, \"I'm going to learn mishnayot for you and say Kaddish and you should have your peace, etc.\" But what I'm trying to bring out here that it's the words of the נביא that make it happen when the נביא says it. That's the power of speech, even though it's because Hashem said so, obviously by itself it won't happen, but it's the words that bring it out. And we have that koach too in our words. If we say words which are good, we bring out something good, which touches, just a couple of minutes, which touches the concept of lashon hara. Speaking lashon hara, how the Gemara says speaking lashon hara affects three people: it affects the speaker, the one that listens, and the one that is spoken about. And the Baal Shem Tov explains it as follows. He asks a question: the one that speaks does an aveirah, certainly he is going to be punished. The one that listens, certainly be punished, you are not allowed to listen. You can't speak lashon hara, you can't listen to lashon hara. It's one of the reasons the Gemara says why the fingers are made pointy, so if you hear lashon hara, you just put your fingers in your ears. That's why the bottom part of the ear is soft, so if you hear lashon hara, you just pick it up so you won't be able to hear. That's what the Gemara says in Ketubot, yes. So you are not allowed to listen to lashon hara. So you are not allowed to speak, and you are not allowed to listen. But what about the one that they spoke about? Why is What What happens to him? So the simple peshat is that if you speak bad about somebody, then certainly it will affect him. Other people will hear that he is bad, they won't do any business with him, who knows, and it sure can affect him. But the Baal Shem Tov says that's not the peshat, the peshat is much deeper than that. When you speak bad about somebody, that has the power of revealing the bad that might be hidden within him. Sometimes a person might have some kind of bad attribute, but he doesn't act upon it. It's someway hidden in his nefesh, but he does never behaves that way. It's hidden. It's suppressed, which is good. It's a bad middah, and if he doesn't never do it. If you speak and reveal in words, say in words that this person has this bad middah, that itself could bring it out into the open. So that person who you speak about is affected by this. You bring out those words into the open, that middah into the open. And that's what the Gemara means, it affects the one that spoke, the one that heard, and the one that was spoken about, because that makes him takeh have now a bad middah which he didn't have before. He had it maybe hidden, but it wasn't out in the open and you brought it out into the open through speaking, because words have that power of bringing out something בגלוי.

From that we understand, in the opposite direction, that if you say something good about somebody, you could affect that person in a good way. Sometimes you can have a person that has certain good middot, and he doesn't act upon it. It just doesn't come out into the open. You have people who don't behave properly, but essentially inside they are good, they just you know, somehow the yetzer hara doesn't let them and it's hidden. If you say to somebody, \"You see this guy? I think this guy is so good, he has certain middot,\" that itself will help to bring it out into the open, and this person might become good. Yes, this will help the person to become good. A interesting peshat the Rebbe says, it says, \"הוי דן את כל האדם לכף זכות.\" A person should always judge everybody favorably. When you see some somebody doing something, always find a good excuse for the person. And the Rebbe explains this is that there's much more to it than that. It says in Tanya, based on Pirkei Avot where it says, \"אל תדין את חברך עד שתגיע למקומו.\" Don't judge your friend till you reach his place. In other words, until you are in his shoes, but the expression is: don't judge him until you're in his place. You see somebody sitting in the street and selling things, and you see here this person does things which you don't think are nice, think about it: maybe it's the place that he's in, maybe it's because of his business, because of the type of his job. Had you been in his place, you might have been worse. So you have to always judge the person favorably and think about the person, don't judge him till you reach in his place. So the Rebbe says the peshat is like this: If the person is found in a situation that he was put into where things bring him to greater nisyonot, to more tests, obviously he has the koach to overcome it. We know a rule: Hashem will not put somebody in a test, in a position that he can't overcome. So when you see a person is in a position where he has has to go through strong tests, shows that he has a stronger power, he has a stronger koach to overcome it. You see, you have two people: one person is not in the street someplace dealing with all kinds of goyim and things, who knows what goes on, and another person is dealing with it. So obviously the person that's outside there has a certain power that a person inside the yeshiva doesn't have. And that's why him Hashem didn't put there, because he wouldn't be able to withstand the test. This guy who is put there, obviously he has that koach. But you look around, you see this guy might have the koach, but he doesn't use it, because you see he doesn't pass the test. If we will sit here and say about this person, \"You see, he doesn't pass the He's only put into a test, but it's not really his fault, and really he has the power to withstand, to pass the test,\" just by us saying it, that will give him the koach to pass the test. That's what it means, אל תדין that that you should be דן את כל האדם לכף זכות, judge everybody not just favorably, bring out a zechut, bring out something positive in him! How do you bring out something positive in another person? Through speaking good about another person. by saying that potentially this person has the koach, and that itself could help him come out, because speech has that power. After all this is said and done, there are a lot of not more to this. There are different stories in the Gemara, stories that we know, different stories that we have from experience. Things that words could do. In Yiddish, there is an expression, a a vort vert nisht farfaln. A word does not get lost. Even in simple ways as when you say something to somebody and it's one word for 5 seconds and it doesn't mean much, you never know what that word could do to the person in both ways. Sometimes a bad word you say to somebody can have a terrible effect. Truth is you don't even have to say a word. Like the famous expression, the vort the velt says: כי באפם הרגו איש. It's a pasuk that says כי באפם הרגו איש, which means with their nose, you kill a person. Sometimes when you kill a person just with a movement of your nose, someone asks you about somebody, this guy, you just go with your nose. That's all you need, that guy is dead, that guy is finished. Certainly if you say a word. And sometimes a shidduch, exactly. Sometimes when you say a good word to somebody, the effect that that could have that stays with the person. But that's when you speak to the person, but even if you don't speak to the person, but you speak about the person, chas v'shalom, a bad word, lashon hara, who knows what that could do. And a good word about a person, that could bring out good middot in a person, but that like power of speech. So, basically, after everything is said and done, we have to be very careful what we do. The whole idea of of vows of nedarim, which is a very, very important thing. Erev Rosh Hashanah, we have התרת נדרים. The whole Yom Kippur starts off with Kol Nidrei. What's Kol Nidrei? Nullifying your vows. What are vows? I said something, I said. When you say something, those words mean and those words are very important and have a lot of power, a lot of strength. So, we have to be careful what we say, we have to be careful how we say it, we have to be careful who we talk about and what we talk about. Just finish off with one little story, that's a known story. Once chasidim were traveling to wherever, and on the way, they stopped off at an inn that was owned by a Jew. And the chasidim were sitting around the table thinking whether they could eat in this guy's place. And one guy says, \"Nah, how could you eat here? Look, I saw this guy and he did this, and this guy says he did this.\" And there was some drunk laying under the table, picks up his head and says, \"I don't understand you. You're so careful about what goes into your mouth, how come you're not so careful about what's going what goes out of your mouth?\" Because they were saying all kinds of things they shouldn't have said. We have to be careful of what goes out of our mouth. And that's concerning lashon hara, concerning speaking good about Yidden, and also cursing, obviously, ניבול פה. ניבול פה means speaking profane language. The Gemara says, הכל יודעים כלה למה נכנסה לחופה. Everybody knows why a כלה gets married, everyone knows what's going to happen. אבל המנבל את פיו, but anybody talks about it, אין לו חלק לעולם הבא, has no share in the world to come. If you go into these personal matters which are not nice to talk about, it's not a secret, but to say it is אין לו חלק לעולם הבא, you don't have a share in the world to come if this person speaks ניבול פה. This is all because of what speech means. So, from here, we have to take out the importance of being careful in what we speak, and certainly it goes on a rabbi, speeches that he makes, yes, no, the power of speech. Okay, now we'll take questions. Yes. No, truth is it's basically the same, and to a certain degree, it goes even a step further. But, on the other hand, if the written word is not spoken, it doesn't have that power. It has basically the same idea, they bring out certain ideas, but it's only on a paper, it's not in the air, in the world. But when you speak, speak it, then then it comes into the airways, it becomes part of the world. Yes. Okay. Yeah, okay. Okay, let me answer that first. The Gemara does say that. Gemara says that a person shouldn't even speak good about somebody else, because מתוך שבחו אתה בא לידי גנותו, from praising him, you will come to his embarrassment. I'll tell you actually what the Gemara says. The Gemara tells a story that there was once a document that was written, and I think Rabbi, Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, asked his son who wrote it, and it wasn't such nice such a nice document. So he said, \"Did you write it?\" He says, \"אנא לא כתבי, יהודה חייטא כתבי. I didn't write it, this guy Yehuda Chayata wrote it.\" So his father says to him, \"Hey, כלאך מלשון הרע, don't speak lashon hara.\" Then there was another story, that was another document, that was written very nicely. So Rabbi asked his son, \"Did you write it?\" He said, \"No, I didn't write it, Yehuda Chayata wrote it.\" So he says, \"כלאך מלשון הרע, don't speak lashon hara.\" So he says, \"lashon hara? Why is this lashon hara?\" So he said to him, \"Don't speak good about him either, מתוך שבחיה אתה בא לגנותיה. From speaking praise, eventually you come to his, to speak bad about him.\" On the other hand, the Rambam in Hilchot De'ot at length discusses how a person should be מספר בשבח חבירו. A person should talk about the praise of his friends. Now that's a contradiction. Well, that depends how you do it. In the story in the Gemara, it was a way that could lead up. You talk about this guy, who wrote this? So you say, \"Oh, this is very nice, who wrote it?\" \"Yeah, but the other one wasn't so nice.\" That's how it goes. This one happened to be nice, and right away somebody says, \"Yeah, but really it wasn't, he just heard it from somebody, I don't know what.\" You go on. That's if it's spoken that way. But if you stam get to speak about somebody and you bring out a ma'alah of somebody and you tell somebody else, \"Look at this Jew, look how good he is,\" not in a way that you're discussing that person. Here it was discussing the person. Don't discuss other people. But if you're trying to bring out a good quality of another Jew, then the Rambam says, he even says the chacham, a siman, the Rambam is the siman, a sign of a chacham, that he doesn't speak ever בגנות חבירו, in embarrassment of his friend, ומרבה לספר בשבח חבירו, speaks of it. But that's in a different form, in in a way where it doesn't lead up to discuss the person with all the details, just bring out the quality. And the truth is you have to be very careful. Just in case you see it's leading to it, you have to stop. But there were two more questions. Let's let's... So that's vidui. Sure. So there were three, by every korban there was machshavah, dibur, u'maaseh. I don't know. Without a korban it's nothing, but the main thing was, the Rambam says that you have to have in mind that you're doing teshuvah, and it's not for If really what's done to the korban should have been done to you, and that's what helps. But you have to bring the korban. And vidui, which is part of the teshuvah, is the most important part, it's a very important part. I can't say the most important because if a person will say vidui without a korban, it wouldn't work. But they had all three there, and what we have now, which of the three do we have? We have the dibur part in the tefilah. The thought and the dibur, but if it doesn't come to dibur, it's not enough, it has to come into dibur. When someone speaks and you hear, that's like dibur. We have a halachah: shomea ke'oneh. That if you hear a berachah, you have to make a berachah let's say, and you hear the berachah from somebody else, it's as if you said the berachah. But you have to hear it. If you see the person making the berachah or you see the berachah printed, that's not enough. But hearing is like speaking. And that's why by לשון הרע speaking is an aveirah and hearing is an aveirah. So both are, and it's the same. And hearing also is very essential, just like speaking, but we can't get into that now. That's an easier way to get into the into the כח המשכיל, that the שכל הגלוי should get into the כח המשכיל, it's through dibur or through shemi'ah. No, that's בכלל what kind of head you have. A person if he has a better head, it's easier to dig. No, that's a gift, true. But then it's up to him. If he speaks, it makes it even easier. And if he doesn't speak, it's not that easy. Speaking helps out. Yes, who's next? I think we'll take from the men's side for a moment. You have two hands up, so... No. What? Ayin hara has nothing to do with it. That's not That's not speaking, that's an ayin, that's that's seeing. No, we say bli ayin hara. We say that it shouldn't be an ayin hara. Kein ayin hara or בלי עין הרע, that whatever you said should not should not be an עין הרע, because an עין הרע is with the eye, you have an evil eye. And by saying that, it takes away, it doesn't allow the עין הרע to happen. No, the speech If you say It does, it does, it does. עין הרע is not speech. The saying, the words, that's that is that takes it away. Yes, by saying it, it takes it away. Oh that speech, but that's for sure. The words could stop the עין הרע. Okay. Okay. Also, not the same. Power Thought has a power and thought has a The truth is when we have a class on thought, then I'll explain what thought has, but it's not the same as speech. Speech has a stronger power than thought, because speech goes out, it's more concrete, and thought is in you, and it's still more abstract, so it doesn't have that concrete effect. But it does. On other people, if you think about somebody, it could have an effect. And the greater the person is, his thought will have an effect on others stronger, but speech has even more. Personally, I heard it said that there is, I think in Mishnah, if credited in Mishnah? No, no. Somebody just said that there's there there's No, that It doesn't become like a נדר unless you say it, but I never heard of that. Can I take someone back to what he said for a second? I'm not on any kind of Torah development. I just want to hear the I just want to comprehend more about A human can't speak. He doesn't speak the English language, also, or any language. Also, if you put a a human being in with other creatures, that human being will learn how to communicate with other creatures. Okay. So, then what is speech? I mean, are we You understand what I'm trying to ask you? Yeah, but that's communication. Communication doesn't necessarily have to come through speech. You could communicate with the eyes, communicate with your hands. But we're talking about the actual כח of speaking words. Human being words. And human being words. What about a person who can't hear and then can't speak? So they don't have that power. Doesn't mean that the נפש doesn't have it, but in גילוי they don't have it. And they don't have it for whatever reason it could be: from a sickness or for other reason, but it You wanted to ask something? Okay, yeah. Oh. Yeah, it's Well, there In truth is you're talking about Shemoneh Esreh. Shemoneh Esreh it says you should say quietly, but Shema you could say loud. But by Shemoneh Esreh it says you should say it quietly, and in Shulchan Aruch it says it should be loud enough that you yourself should hear it. על פי קבלה it says, Zohar says you should not even hear it. And there is a big machloket here in the שאלות as what we do, but certainly if you hear it, then you have both: you have the speaking and the hearing, and hearing is part of speaking, so you have like a double כח. That's one of the reasons why you should hear it for yourself. According to halachah it should be, yes. Huh? Is speak is speech, yes. Even if you don't hear it. But if you hear it, then you have the maalah of שמיעה, שומע כעונה, so shemi'ah is also a המשך to dibbur. But you have to hear it with your ears? You can hear it with your head. No. According to halachah you should say it loud enough that you can hear it with your ears, but quietly. על פי זוהר you shouldn't. What? which are called מחשבה, דיבור ומעשה.