Okay, so the topic tonight is the true meaning of becoming bar mitzvah. Even though we don't have any bar mitzvah boys here, but it's good to know what becoming bar mitzvah means, and I think that all bar mitzvah boys should really have a chance to review what it means to become bar mitzvah. And I'm thinking now, while I'm saying, maybe I should say it in such a way that it'll make it easier for people to understand it. Even bar mitzvah boys, when they listen to the tape, they should be able to grasp what it means to become bar mitzvah. Bar mitzvah means that when you become 13 years old, you are now obligated to fulfill all the mitzvot of the Torah as an adult, mid'oraita, from the Torah. It's an obligation from the Torah, not only an obligation from derabbanan, from the chachamim, but the Torah obligates you from that day to do all the mitzvot. And the same applies to a girl: when a girl becomes 12 years old, she becomes bat mitzvah, she is obligated to fulfill, to keep all the mitzvot that the Torah gave the Yidden, and she is obligated to keep it mid'oraita. All the mitzvot that women, adults, are obligated to keep, she is obligated to keep from that day on that she becomes 12 years old. And generally speaking, bat mitzvah when you're 12 and bar mitzvah when you're 13 are the same ideas, besides the difference that this is a man and this is a woman, so the difference in what mitzvot. And therefore, whatever I'm going to be talking about, I'm going to be using the term bar mitzvah, but it's not only bar mitzvah, the same applies to bat mitzvah, but we use the general term bar mitzvah for both. And as I said, at that time they become obligated to fulfill all the mitzvot mid'oraita. That means, till a boy is 13, till he becomes bar mitzvah, or a girl till she becomes bat mitzvah at 12, they are also obligated to keep the mitzvot, but only mid'rabbanan. Derabbanan put this obligation, the chachamim put this obligation, because of the mitzvah of chinuch, so they should prepare themselves, they should be able to be educated and by the time they reach the proper time when they are obligated mid'oraita, they should know what to do. So derabbanan obligated them to keep all the mitzvot. But when they become bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah, that's when they are obligated mid'oraita. And even when we say that before they become בר or bat mitzvah, they're obligated mid'rabbanan, there is a big machloket, an argument amongst the Rishonim, what that means: whether the obligation is actually on the child or the obligation is on the father to make sure that the child does the mitzvot. Some hold that the obligation is on the child: mid'oraita the child is obligated to do all the mitzvot when you become Bar Mitzvah, mid'rabbanan they put an obligation on the child before. And some say that before Bar Mitzvah the child is not obligated at all. It is only the parent that has an obligation to make sure that the child does all the mitzvot. Besides one thing: the mitzvah of teaching a child Torah, that is an obligation mid'oraita. That is an obligation from the Torah upon the father to teach his child Torah even while the child is young, while the child is still small before Bar Mitzvah. But as far as the mitzvot, it's only an obligation on the on the father mid'rabbanan to see that his child does the mitzvot. On the other hand, some say that it's an obligation on the child himself. But whichever way, it's only mid'rabbanan, the Chachamim put this obligation on. From the time he becomes Bar Mitzvah, now he is an adult, and is obligated to keep all the mitzvot like any adult, and therefore, God forbid, the punishments that the beit din, when we had a beit din that would punish for doing aveirot, would apply also to this child from the day he becomes Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah, and all the punishments would apply to them too because he is obligated and responsible mid'oraita like an adult.

This time, when a child becomes Bar Mitzvah, is the time, as the Alter Rebbe says in Shulchan Aruch, when there is the גמר כניסת נפש הקדושה, which means this is when the entrance of the holy neshamah finishes its mission, it comes in completely. By the brit, as we spoke about when we spoke about brit milah, that's when is the beginning, the beginning of the entrance of the נפש הקדושה of the holy neshamah into the body, and it finishes at the time of the Bar Mitzvah. And this is the reason why that is the time that you become obligated to do all the mitzvot. And I'll explain the connection between these two, the fact that your neshamah comes in completely, and the fact that you become obligated to do all the mitzvot completely mid'oraita. Because when we say the neshamah comes in completely, what is the neshamah that we're talking about? The neshamah means the נפש האלוקית, the Godly soul, the holy soul. And that is something that's not part of the nature of the world. And I'll explain this. Every human being, human being, not only Yidden, every human being has two parts to himself. Has the body and has the soul. The body is the flesh and blood, physical body, and the life force that gives the person life, that's a nefesh. But that's called the נפש הבהמית, the animalistic soul, or better, the נפש הטבעית, the natural soul. In order to live, you have to have that נפש. But then, besides that, Hashem says, \"I give into every yid another life force which is not needed for him to exist and live naturally, because he could live naturally without an extra נפש. Just the fact that you have a regular נפש like lehavdil a גוי, like an animal, you could exist, you could live. So Hashem says, \"I'm giving a yid another נפש, which is beyond the nature, for as far as nature is concerned, you don't need it. And He gives that to a yid beyond. And that is part of God, that is a חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש. And that is something that is beyond the framework of creation. That is something that comes from the Creator directly, not part of the creation, not connected to the nature of creation, because as far as the nature of creation is concerned, you don't need that. That's something that extra. So it comes out that the נפש הקדושה, this holy נפש, is something that is beyond the nature of the world, that is something that is Godly. Therefore, it is only when the yid has that נשמה completely inside him, that he is able to be obligated to fulfill all the mitzvot completely. Because what are the mitzvot? The mitzvot are Godly, the mitzvot are the will of God. The mitzvot are not part of nature of the world, the mitzvot are something that are beyond the nature. And for a yid to be able to have this obligation to fulfill mitzvot which are completely Godly, you could only do that if you have that Godly נפש. So therefore, before he gets completely that Godly נפש, he is not completely obligated to keep all the mitzvot which are Godly. As we see, lehavdil, a גוי is not obligated to keep the mitzvot. Why? Because a גוי does not have a נפש האלוקית, a גוי does not have a holy soul, he doesn't have a נשמה. So he doesn't have within him that Godly spark, and therefore he cannot be obligated to keep the Godly mitzvot. And even though we do know that גוים have seven mitzvot that they have to keep, so they were given seven mitzvot by God, which are the commandments of God, but nevertheless these seven mitzvot are not beyond the nature. They are not beyond the framework of creation. As a matter of fact, the reason they have these seven mitzvot is a result of creation. The seven mitzvot The difference between the seven mitzvot of the גוים and the mitzvot of the yidden are very simple. The seven mitzvot of the גוים are a result of creation, because God created the world and He wants the world to exist in a normal, civilized way. So as a result of that, He gave them certain laws that by keeping these laws, they will live civilized. So these laws are basically an offspring of the creation. But the mitzvot that we have are not an offspring of creation, the contrary. These mitzvot are the true, essential will of God. Not because there is a world He gave us the mitzvot, it's just the opposite: the world was there in order to keep the mitzvot. The mitzvot are an independent entity. It says בראשית ברא אלוקים את השמים ואת הארץ, \"In the beginning Hashem created heaven and the earth.\" So Rashi says בראשית means בשביל ב' ראשית, because of two ראשית. The world was created because of two things which are called ראשית: it's because of the Torah, which is called ראשית, and because of the Yidden. Which means the world was created because of the Torah u'mitzvot, not Torah u'mitzvot is given because of the world. By the goyim it's the opposite: the reason they have mitzvot is because there is a world, and they're in the world, Hashem gave them mitzvot. And therefore, they are able to have their seven mitzvot without having a Godly soul, because their mitzvot are not Godly. It's given by God, true, there is something there, but it's not the essential will of God מצד Himself beyond the world. But the mitzvot that we Yidden have, because those are mitzvot which are essential will of God beyond the creation, who is able to fulfill these mitzvot? Only somebody who has that holy neshama in him, which is beyond creation. He is able to have this obligation to fulfill these mitzvot. which are beyond creation. But then the question will be asked, so how is it possible that before Bar Mitzvah, when you don't have completely that holy neshama, you should still be obligated to keep the מצוות מדרבנן, which is also the will of God, not in the same level as the mitzvot of the Torah, but it's still the will of God, but they don't have the neshama? But that is not true. Before the Bar Mitzvah they also have the neshama. As we said, before at the time of the Bar Mitzvah it's only the גמר כניסת נפש הקדושה. It's only the time when the neshama is there completely. But before that, from the brit on, the entrance of the neshama is there, so the neshama goes into the body from the brit. So he has the neshama already to a certain degree. And as I explained when we spoke about brit, even before the brit, while the person the fetus is still inside the mother, already the neshama is there to a certain degree. The best proof is it says in the Gemara that when the neshama the the the fetus is inside, it lays rolled up like a ball, the head is between his feet, there's a candle burning on his head, it says, and the malach teaches the child the whole Torah. In order for the malach to teach the child the whole Torah, obviously the child has a neshama. If he wouldn't have a neshama, can't teach a Torah. So the neshama is there already. The difference is the neshama didn't become, as I explained, united with the body. It's there in a form of מקיף, in a superficial way, which is the reason why it says that there's a candle on top of its head. What does a candle mean? There is no candle inside a mother's stomach burning. The candle means the נשמה, נר ה' נשמת אדם. The candle of השם is the neshama, but it's on top of the head, meaning it's מקיף. So there is a neshama there already from the moment of conception, but it's in a מקיף form. From the moment of the brit, it goes into the body, becomes united with the body, but still not completely. At the time of the Bar Mitzvah, it goes in completely. And therefore, as long as it didn't go in completely, but since it's there already, this child could be obligated to keep the mitzvot at least mid'rabbanan. But to have the obligation to keep these mitzvot which are Godly to its fullest degree, it could only happen when the neshama goes in completely and he has this holy neshama to its fullest degree. So when a Yid has the the neshama to its fullest degree at the time of the Bar Mitzvah, that's when, and this neshama is Godly beyond creation, beyond nature, that's when this child is obligated to keep all the mitzvot which are beyond nature, which are beyond the creation, which are Godly. And that happens at the time when you become Bar Mitzvah. That's why the two things are at the same time: the neshama enters your body and the obligation of the mitzvot come together, because when the neshama enters completely, that's when you're able to be obligated to do the mitzvot completely. And this is what we know that the yetzer tov comes in at a time of a Bar Mitzvah. We always know that the yetzer hara is there from the beginning of birth, that's the evil inclination. The yetzer tov, the good inclination, comes in the time of the Bar Mitzvah. What is this yetzer tov? This yetzer tov is the neshama. The neshama that's there is your good inclination that makes you do good. So the yetzer hara is there from beginning, from the beginning of birth, because the neshamah is not there a hundred percent yet, but the yetzer hara is there a hundred percent, which is the נפש הבהמית actually, the animalistic soul. That is the yetzer hara. That is the evil inclination that tells you to do animalistic things. That is there from the beginning of conception and from the beginning of birth, and the yetzer tov comes in at the time of Bar Mitzvah, which means the neshamah comes in at that time. That's why the yetzer hara is called in the פסוק מלך זקן וכסיל, the old foolish king, because he is older with 13 or 12 years than the yetzer tov. The yetzer tov is called ילד מסכן, he's called a child, cuz he's younger. And the yetzer hara is called מלך זקן, he's a king. By the time of the Bar Mitzvah, he's already a king, he already is doing his job for many years, and he's old. He's foolish, but he's old. And the yetzer tov comes in, the neshamah comes in at the time at the Bar Mitzvah, and that's why he's called young. And this is the reason why in Tanya, in the beginning of Tanya, when he talks about the two neshamot every Jew has, two nefashot, he says the first one is the נפש הבהמית, the animalistic soul. And then the second פרק of Tanya starts ונפש השנית בישראל היא חלק אלוקה ממעל ממש, the second נפש, a second soul, is the Godly soul. And those the commentaries on Tanya ask, why does it refer to the Godly soul as the second? Shouldn't that be the first? Isn't that the main one? And one of the explanations is that it's called second because it comes in later. It comes in 12 or 13 years later after that animalistic soul. But it comes in at the time of This is the general idea of what it means to become Bar Mitzvah. To become Bar Mitzvah means when you get the godly soul. To become Bar Mitzvah means you are obligated now fully mi'de'oraita to keep all the mitzvot.

What is the source? Where do we get this source that you have, that a Bar Mitzvah is at 13, and Bat Mitzvah, a girl is at 12? Where does it come from? So there are two opinions in the מפרשים. The Rosh says in the שאלות ותשובות that it is one of the shiurim which are הלכה למשה מסיני. We know that all the measurements that we have were all given by Hashem to Moshe Rabbeinu at Har Sinai. They're not mentioned in the Torah. They were given orally to Moshe Rabbeinu. The shiurim meaning, how do you know that when there's a mitzvah to eat something you have to eat a kezayit? When there's a mitzvah to drink something you have to drink a revi'it? When there is a mitzvah to give a certain amount of money, you have to give a שוה פרוטה, the worth of a perutah? When there is a mitzvah of a space, there is a concept of ד׳ אמות, four אמות? When there is a concept of tefachim, there is ג׳ טפחים, three tefachim makes it connected up to three, all kinds of shiurim, all kinds of measurements. So all measurements are Halacha l'Moshe miSinai, they were given over by Hashem to Moshe Rabbeinu orally at Har Sinai. So the Rosh says one of those measurements is 13 and 12, that Hashem gave to Moshe Rabbeinu that when does this obligation come? When a child, the boy becomes 12, or when the girl, the boy becomes 13 or the girl becomes 12. That's one opinion. The other opinion is that it's actually, it's Rashi's opinion that it's actually learned out from a pasuk. And that is from the pasuk where it says by Shechem, when Shechem kidnapped Dinah, and Shimon and Levi told him to circumcise, and then it says when it was the third day from their circumcision, ויקחו שמעון ולוי איש חרבו, Shimon and Levi, each man took his sword and went out to kill the whole city of Shechem. So the Torah refers to them already as each man. How old was Levi at the time? Levi was 13 years old. So it's the the youngest person that the Torah calls with the title man is Levi at this time. And we can make a very simple cheshbon, where do we get that Levi was 13 years old? Because when Yaakov Avinu came to Lavan, it took seven years till he married Rachel and Leah. As soon as, after seven years were up, he married Rachel and Leah, and Leah, within the next two and a half years, had three children: Reuven, Shimon, and Levi, about two and a half years. When the story of Shechem happened, it was about 22 years after Yaakov came to Lavan. That means this was nine and a half, and this was 22, so it's about 13. So Levi was, there's a cheshbon exactly how it is, but generally speaking, Levi was 13 years old, and is the youngest person in the Torah which is called איש. So from there we know that the youngest age that you become a man, which automatically means you're obligated to do everything, is at the time of 13. There is a question asked, there is another pasuk in Tanach where it says the word איש, and he's 12. When David Hamelech passed away, and he gave his last will, testimony to his son Shlomo, he told him, וחזקת והיית לאיש, you should be strong and be a man, and he was only 12 years old at that time, Shlomo. So here we see that a 12-year-old is called איש. But that's not a question at all, because he didn't say, \"You are a man,\" you should be a man, וחזקת והיית לאיש, obviously he was not. So the youngest person in Tanach that we find that's called איש is 13 years old, and from there we learn out that at 13-year-old you become bar mitzvah. And a girl, so there are two reasons: one reason it says in the in the poskim is because since usually women the lifespan of women is shorter than of men, so therefore everything in proportion is earlier, so it's earlier than 13, so it must be 12, everything. And another reason is because the Gemara says בינה יתירה ניתנה באשה יותר מבאיש, that a woman has more wisdom than a man. And therefore she becomes developed and smarter, which we see in truth, in actuality, earlier, younger than a boy, a girl younger than a boy. So if it's by a boy it's 13, by a girl it's 12. That's the source. So we have two opinions in the source of how we know that a boy becomes bar mitzvah and then a girl bat mitzvah. There is a nafka mina, a big difference halacha between these two opinions. The difference is concerning a goy. When a goy, we know a goy is obligated to keep his mitzvot, at what age does a goy become 100% obligated to keep the mitzvot? Now, if we say that the age of bar mitzvah comes from halacha leMoshe miSinai, because Hashem told Moshe Rabbeinu, among all the shiurim, amongst all the measurements, this does not apply to a goy, because the shiurim were not told to goyim. So, there is no such thing as 13 or 12 by a goy. So, when would a goy become obligated? Well, every goy, when he, every individual person, when he becomes developed, when the court will feel that he is developed and he is already able to accept responsibilities. According to the second opinion, that the Torah tells us that at the age of 13 you become an איש, that Torah tells us that the age of 13 is the average time that a person's mind is developed, so that applies to a goy also, because it tells us a natural thing, that naturally, איש, when are you an איש? When you're 13. That's not a halacha, that's a natural thing that the Torah tells us. So, therefore, it would apply to a goy also. So, that would be the difference between these two opinions, but generally these are the two opinions of how we know the concept of becoming bar mitzvah at this age and becoming bat mitzvah at this age. But whichever way we're going to learn, whether it's from the pasuk, from Shimon v'Levi, or it comes from the הלכה למשה מסיני, the idea is that at the time of bar mitzvah, that's when the development of the child is, that he's able to receive obligations and responsibilities, because that's when his mind is developed. But some ask, you could see a lot of times a child that's very smart and he is under 13, could be 12 and 11, and he's just as smart or maybe even smarter than a 13-year-old boy. So, why isn't he obligated to do the mitzvot if we see it? If the whole idea is that at that time he is developed, that he's able to take, even if we say it's הלכה למשה מסיני, but there is a reason behind it. הלכה למשה מסיני tells us that this is the halacha that he becomes developed, but we see it's not true, sometimes he becomes developed earlier. The answer is very simple: it says that a child of bar mitzvah becomes a bar daat. Now, we know when it comes to שכל, there are three expressions: חכמה, בינה, and דעת. It doesn't say he becomes a חכם, it doesn't say he becomes a מבין, a בר חכמה, a בר בינה. It becomes a bar daat, he gets דעת. What is the difference between חכמה, בינה, and דעת? The difference is very simple, it says in Chassidut. חכמה is when you start when you're thinking, it's the form of understanding, when you start understanding and There is something that you don't understand and you start understanding, you could get the נקודה of שכל, you get the beginning of the understanding. בינה represents when you develop the שכל. דעת is not another stage in understanding. דעת is after you understand, you feel it. דעת, it says, is מלשון הרגשה, feeling. דעת comes from the meaning of an אפלייג, something that's clear in your mind. There's a feeling that is there after you understand, and that's what's missing in a child till he becomes bar mitzvah. He could understand, he could have חכמה, he could have בינה, but what he doesn't have is he doesn't have the דעת, the אפלייג, to be clear, the feeling. And the example given in Chassidut is, for instance, the importance of money. You could have children who know what money is and they understand how you make money and what you use money for, but they don't have that feeling to money. And when you become a little older, you have that feeling, so it's not a level in your שכל of understanding, it's a level of feeling. So, a child under bar mitzvah could understand what the Torah is, he could understand what the mitzvot are, could have chochmah, could have binah, but is not ready to have the daat, the feeling to the Godliness that's there in the mitzvot and in the Torah. And when you become Bar Mitzvah, at that age, there is he becomes a בר דעת, that's the time when he gets the feeling. And this is why the expression is at that time the neshamah is נכנס, גמר כניסת נפש, it goes into the person. Going in means it becomes one with him completely that you really feel it, something that you really feel inside you. The neshamah, which is Godly, is felt inside the person and therefore he is able to feel what mitzvot are. Till then, he could understand, and actually the רבנן, when they gave the mitzvah of chinuch, that you have to make the children even before Bar Mitzvah do the mitzvot, what is the age? The age is from when they start understanding. Every mitzvah is different. Whenever a child starts understanding what this mitzvah means, you have to start asking him to do it. So, understanding you can understand from a small young age. A child can understand what tzitzit are from when he's three years old, and that's why we start him wearing a טלית קטן from three. But the feeling, to have an אפלייג, what we say in Yiddish, it should be completely to enter and penetrate into his mind and become part of him, to feel the whole That is only when the neshamah enters completely and becomes part of him, so the kedushah is part of him, that's when he's able to really be obligated to do all the mitzvot in a way that he feels the kedushah, and that's when the Torah said he becomes Bar Mitzvah.

From all this, it comes out that becoming Bar Mitzvah is basically a personal Matan Torah. It's exactly like Matan Torah. What took place by Matan Torah? What happened to the Jews by Matan Torah? Two things basically took place: number one, we got the neshamah. By Matan Torah, it says Hashem chose us as a nation, which means he gave us a neshamah. That's why when we daven and we say the words ובנו בחרת, that he chose us, it says in Shulchan Aruch, you have to keep in mind, think about Matan Torah, cuz at the time of Matan Torah, he chose us, he gave us a neshamah. At the time of Matan Torah, he obligated us to do all the mitzvot, which is exactly what happens to a בחור who becomes Bar Mitzvah: he gets a neshamah, and he becomes obligated to do all the mitzvot. And just like by מתן תורה, before מתן תורה, they also had a neshamah. We know that a neshamah didn't actually start by מתן תורה. It started from Avraham Avinu, and already the Yidden were a עם ישראל, were a Jewish nation with a neshamah before מתן תורה. What happened by מתן תורה, that's when the completion came, and that's when it became one with the Yidden completely, exactly like by a בר מצוה בחור. A בר מצוה בחור, before he becomes בר מצוה, and the girl, before she becomes בת מצוה, has a neshamah, too, like we said before, from the bris on, or even earlier, from conception. But it's not there completely; it's not part, one, and 100% one with the person. At the time of the בר מצוה, it becomes one, which is exactly like מתן תורה. So it's really basically a personal מתן תורה. Whatever took place by מתן תורה to the Jewish nation as a whole, to a certain degree takes place by every בר מצוה בחור when he becomes בר מצוה. And therefore, the same preparation that you need, that the Yidden needed by מתן תורה, every בר מצוה בחור needs when he becomes בר מצוה. What was the main preparation by מתן תורה? הקדמת נעשה לנשמע. The Yidden had to say, as they did, we will do, and we will listen, and we will understand, קבלת עול מלכות שמים, to accept the yoke of Hashem by saying נעשה ונשמע. This is the beginning and the preparation at the beginning of the מתן תורה. What, how did Hashem start the עשרת הדברות, which is the beginning? With the words אנכי השם אלקיך, I am Hashem, your God. And the Midrash says, why did Hashem start with these words? So the Midrash gives a mashal, a mashal of a king who had a war, conquered a city. When he came into the city, the people greeted him, this is their new king, and they asked him, please, now that you are our new king, גזור עלינו גזירות, give us rules, give us, tell us what you want us to do. So he answered them, listen here, he said, תחילה קבלו מלכותי, ואחר כך אגזור עליכם גזירות. First accept my kingship, and then I will give you mitzvot, I will tell you what to do, I will command you what to do. So that's what Hashem did. The first thing he did, he said, אנכי השם אלקיך, I am your God. Accept my, my rulership, accept me as your God, and then we'll go on further, and I'll give you mitzvot, which is basically the idea of קבלת עול מלכות שמים, accepting the yoke of Hashem. This was the preparation at the beginning of מתן תורה. Being that when a bachur becomes bar mitzvah, it's his personal matan Torah, he has to have the same preparation, and this is the beginning of his becoming bar mitzvah. There is a famous vort: why is it that the Shas, the Mishnayot, starts, Berachot starts with מאימתי קורין את שמע בערבין? The first thing starts, when are you allowed to read the Shema in the evening? We know there's a mitzvah of saying Shema in the evening. At what time are you allowed to start reading the Shema? And they ask, why is this the first thing that the Gemara starts with? And the answer is very simple: because this is the first, first mitzvah a person becomes obligated when he becomes bar mitzvah. The first obligation, the moment the שקיעה comes, the night comes, and you become bar mitzvah, the first mitzvah that enters, that you that you have you come to, is the mitzvah of saying Shema in the evening. That's why the Gemara, the Mishnayot, starts with that mitzvah. What does that tell us? That the first beginning of the bar mitzvah bachur is exactly like the beginning of the עשרת הדברות: with קבלת עול מלכות שמים, with accepting the yoke of Hashem, like Hashem said, אנכי אלקיך, השם אלקיך. And the truth is, when we start comparing it, it's even closer. That has to be י״ג שנה ויום אחד, 13 years and a day, it doesn't mean that the day of his birthday, the day when he becomes 13, that's the day he becomes bar mitzvah, but they hold that you have to wait another day, the day after his birthday, that's 13 years and one day. But most poskim hold that's not what it means, it actually means the day of his birthday because that's considered 13 and a day, because before the birthday, that's when your 13 years are up. The day of the birthday is already the first day into the 14th year. That's what we mean when we say י״ג שנה ויום אחד, 13 years and one day. So, the first night when he becomes bar mitzvah, the night when his birthday is, the night of his birthday, the night of the 13th birthday, that's the when he becomes bar mitzvah, so the first mitzvah that he has to do is the mitzvah of קריאת שמע, which as we said before, is the same idea as matan Torah. That first he has to be mekabel, accept upon himself עול מלכות שמים, the yoke of the kingship of Hashem, the yoke of Hashem, and then he's mekabel upon himself עול מצוות, the yoke of the mitzvot. And this is why the first mitzvah is the mitzvah of Keriat Shema, and that's why as I said before, Shas, Mishnayot starts with this Mishnah of מאימתי קורין שמע בערבית, from when do you read שמע בערבית, because this is the first mitzvah that the בר מצוה בחור comes to. Especially according to the peshat that's known in the name of the Malach, the son of the Maggid, who said to the Alter Rebbe, that when they were learning Mishnayot he said that he has another peshat in this Mishnah: מאימתי קורין שמע בערבית, the simple peshat is from when, from what time can you start saying Shema at night, but he said the word מאימתי means from fear, from the word eimah, which means that when you say Shema you have to have the proper fear, the proper yirat shamayim, which is the beginning, the foundation of the בר מצוה בחור's life. As we said before, because that's his personal Matan Torah. But then there's another point concerning this Mishnah of Keriat Shema and the connection to the בר מצוה בחור. We know that when he becomes 13 years old, besides the fact that now he is an adult, and therefore he gets the neshamah, the כניסת נפש הקדושה with all the things as we explained before, but physically his body is also developing and his yetzer hara gets stronger. And it's self-understood, because he got now the yetzer tov, he has now completely the נפש אלקית, automatically the yetzer hara gets stronger. We know there's a balance of power. When the kedushah is stronger, the other side, the evil side, the kelipah side gets stronger. So from the time of the בר מצוה on, the yetzer hara is also stronger. And as we see physically that there are new inyanim in the person that he did not have, new taavot, the yetzer hara gets stronger that he did not have before and he has now. And therefore he needs extra koachot. And this is why the first mitzvah is the mitzvah of Kriat Shema at night. Night, darkness represents evil. We know that kedushah is light, day, and the evil, the ta'avot, the yetzer hara, that represents night. And the Mishnah starts מאימתי קורין שמע בערבית, when do you read Shema at night. In other words, he has the special kochot now of kabalat ol malchut shamayim in connection to the night, in connection to his level now that he is now entering a stage where he has more night, where he has more ta'avot, the yetzer hara is stronger, so now he gets the koach to be mekabel, to accept upon himself the yoke of Hashem, that he should not be persuaded by the yetzer hara, but he should be able to follow and do the right thing as he is supposed to do. This is also connected to another Mishnah. The first Mishnah in Pesachim is אור לי״ד, אור לארבעה עשר בודקין את החמץ לאור הנר. The simple peshat is that the night to the 14th, which means the 14th day of Nisan, which is Erev Pesach, you have to search for chametz using the light of a candle. But the mefarshim, some sefarim say, the Shelah says, that this is a remez to the bar mitzvah. אור לארבעה עשר, the night to the 14th, which means when you're 13, that's when you become bar mitzvah. בודקין את החמץ, you have to search for chametz. Chametz, we all know, represents evil, represents the yetzer hara. You have to search the yetzer hara, you have to work hard to get rid of the yetzer hara, as we said before, because it's getting stronger. And you have to do this לאור הנר, with the light of the candle, that represents the neshamah, as we said before, the neshamah is נר ה' נשמת אדם, the candle of ה' is the neshamah of a person. So you have to use the new neshamah that you got, the new koach that the neshamah gave the person by entering into the body, that has to be used now in order to search out and get rid of the yetzer hara that is getting stronger now.

Besides all the things that we said before, I just want to mention that there is a letter from the Rebbe to a Bar Mitzvah bachur. This is a letter that was found in the Reshimos. We know that the Rebbe left things that he wrote, which was never publicized, no one even knew about it, but after ג' תמוז, they found hundreds of pages of things that the Rebbe wrote, so among those pages, they found a letter that the Rebbe wrote to a cousin of his called Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to his Bar Mitzvah. This was written in the צ's, I believe, which is in the 1930s. And there, the Rebbe tells him certain רמזים, certain hints that we find concerning the Bar Mitzvah. And I'm going to mention some of the points. One point he writes there is that, לכאורה, the day of the Bar Mitzvah, which is such a special day, should be a day that we shouldn't say Tachanun. It should be a day, it should be like a Yom Tov, we should not be able to work, like a Yom Tov which is אסור במלאכה, and we should, so to speak, party all day. Why is it that we say Tachanun, and we do not party all day, we do not do that, we have our regular seder, we have to learn and daven and work, and whatever you're supposed to do, you do on the day of the Bar Mitzvah? Why is it? And the Rebbe answered that this is a רמז to tell the Bar Mitzvah bachur, don't think that life that you're starting now is going to be like a party, that there are people who think that they just have a good time all their life, and they forget about their mission in life, that they have a job to do. So we tell the Bar Mitzvah bachur, no, you have to work. It's not אסור במלאכה, you have to work. And it's a day of Tachanun, that you have to really take serious, and you have to do teshuvah, because you have to know that this is the foundation of your life, and it's not that you party, and therefore, it's not a day that you have a good time, but it's a day that you strengthen your avodah, you do, you work more. This is not obviously a contradiction to the fact that it says you should make a party on the day of the Bar Mitzvah. It's taken from the Zohar, where it says that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai made a very big party on the day that his son Rabbi Elazar became Bar Mitzvah, and it actually says the party was כבי הלולא, it was like a chasunah. And from there, the poskim take out that you should make a party on the day of the Bar Mitzvah. But that's not a contradiction. There, we say we have to make the party to show our appreciation and thanks to Hashem' for helping the, the bachur, the Bar Mitzvah bachur reach this point in life, reach a point where he becomes מחוייב במצוות, and he gets the neshamah completely, etc., etc. So we have to do that. And it has to be like a chasunah, because this is similar to a chasunah. Why is the chasunah so special? Because that is another level of ירידת הנשמה למטה, it says, the neshamah comes down again, because at the time of a chasunah, the two halves of the neshamah become united. We all know that it says that it's really one neshamah that was split and came down into this world into two bodies, the body of the man, the body of the woman, and when they get married, the two neshamot unite again. And therefore, the time of the chasunah is when the neshamah becomes complete, it gets its other half, and that's the great simchah. A bar mitzvah is similar to that, as we said before, it's the entrance of the neshamah into the body completely, so it's a level in the completion of the neshamah. And therefore, the day of the bar mitzvah, the party, which means the simchah, the seudah, the appreciation we show to Hashem', has to be similar to a chasunah. Which, by the way, means that therefore we should not lose focus on what the party is, not like some people who the party becomes into just a simple party, forgetting about what the reason of the party is. And as some say, by a bar mitzvah, some people stress the bar more than the mitzvah. It's supposed to, the stress is supposed to be the fact that you become מחוייב במצוות, not in the bar, which is the party, because the party really is just to show our appreciation to Hashem', and this is the beginning of our life as far as mitzvah and חיוב מצוות, etc., etc. And this is supposed to be similar to the chasunah, because the chasunah is the same. But as far as the day itself is concerned, the day has to be a day in which we work to show that this is going to be our whole life, that we're going to accomplish the mission that was given upon us. And there are a few more points that the Rebbe brings out in the letter. He says we should take remezim, hints, from the different bar mitzvot that are mentioned in the Torah. And we find basically three bar mitzvot in the Torah: the bar mitzvah of Yitzchak, when it says that Avraham Avinu made a party ביום הגמל את יצחק, So there are different opinions what that was. One opinion is the simple pshat, הגמל means when he was weaned off from his mother milk, from nursing. Another pshat is this is the day of his brit. And the remez is the word הגמל means ה' ג' מל. מל means circumcised, ה' ג', ה' is five, ג' is three, together it's eight, that means he was circumcised on the eighth day. That's when Avraham Avinu made the party. But then there's another peshat in Chazal that this is the day of his Bar Mitzvah, that הגמל means he was weaned off from only having the yetzer hara, but it's the day that he also got the yetzer tov, which is the day of his Bar Mitzvah. Then we have another Bar Mitzvah mentioned in the Torah by Yaakov and Esav. It says ויגדלו הנערים, that the children, the twins, Yaakov and Esav, grew up, and that's the time when they became Bar Mitzvah. And the third Bar Mitzvah is, as we said before, the hint of שמעון ולוי, ויקחו שמעון ולוי איש חרבו, that Shimon and Levi took their swords, and there we have a hint to the inyan of Bar Mitzvah. And the Rebbe says from the first Bar Mitzvah the hint is that we know what Chazal say at the time when Avraham made the party for Yitzchak, Og Melech HaBashan, the great giant was there. And he was making fun and he said, \"Big deal, with one finger, with my small finger, I could destroy them all. I could destroy Yitzchak. The big party was made for Yitzchak, I could destroy him.\" And what do we see? The end was that Og himself fell into the hands, was destroyed by the hands of the children of Yitzchak. And the remez here is that when you become Bar Mitzvah, you should know that there are certain things that might cause a person to get afraid, certain things, certain obstacles that come up in life that make it very big and make it hard for us, and we feel that how can we accomplish against so many odds? So here we have the remez that here we had Og Melech HaBashan, the great giant against Yitzchak who was just a small child, just 13 years old, and who won? Yitzchak won. So there's nothing to get scared, we have the koach of Hashem to overcome. From the second one, which is ויגדלו הנערים by Yaakov and Esav, there too we see that what happened? They grew up, they became Bar Mitzvah. Esav became an איש שדה, went out into the field, became a man of the world, so to speak. And Yaakov was איש תם יושב אוהלים, he sat in home, he sat in the yeshiva, he sat and learned. So some people might think, look, better to be like Esav. Go out into the world, you become a big man, you have all kinds of things. So here we see what happened to the end of Esav? Esav's family, Esav's grandchildren fell again into the hands of the children of Yaakov. So who overcame? It was Yaakov who overcame. So we too, a bar mitzvah bachur has to know that we too should not care to go out and become big people in the world. We have a job to do as far as תורה ומצוות, and that's what will win, even though sometimes it seems it takes a while, but the end is that this side will definitely win. And concerning the third bar mitzvah, which is Shimon v'Levi, so there we see right away what is the רמז? That when you start your life and you become bar mitzvah and you're starting your adult life, it has to start with the foundation of knowing that you have to go on mesirut nefesh. They went on mesirut nefesh, they actually were ready to give up their life for what they thought, they knew was right. And that's what a bar mitzvah bachur has to know, that his life should be based on the foundation that you have to do everything in your power, not care about your own welfare, but do everything what is right, what Hashem wants. And another point, what they did was not even concerning something themselves, it was concerning something for somebody else. They felt that there was something wrong done to Dinah, and because of that they went on mesirut nefesh. It was their sister, but it was still not themselves. This shows how important the mitzvah of אהבת ישראל is and how far you have to go to do that. Then I want to mention another point. We know we always connect bar mitzvah to the mitzvah of tefillin. Now, in truth, there is no connection between bar mitzvah and the mitzvah of tefillin. The reason we connect it is because this is the only mitzvah that the child did not do before, and it starts only from bar mitzvah and as a preparation just a short while, two months before bar mitzvah, but it actually starts from the bar mitzvah. Now, in truth, in Gemara it says that when a child is of age of chinuch, just like he's obligated to do all the mitzvot, his father has to make sure he does all the mitzvot, hears shofar on Rosh Hashanah and eats matzah on Pesach and does all the other mitzvot, the father has to buy him a pair of tefillin. And therefore he should put on tefillin from young age because of the mitzvah of chinuch. Nevertheless, the custom is not to do that because there are a lot of things that make it hard. There are a lot of restrictions, so to speak, you have to have a גוף נקי, you have to have a clean body, etc., etc., and we're afraid the child won't be able to do it, and therefore we do not put on tefillin on a child. And that starts from bar mitzvah. But in truth it has nothing to do with the actual becoming bar mitzvah. But nevertheless, being that the fact is that that's the only mitzvah that starts from Bar Mitzvah, and by כלל ישראל we know we always connect Bar Mitzvah to tefillin, so there must be a רמז in the tefillin that's connected to the Bar Mitzvah. And the רמז is very simple. As we said before, when you start your life and you become Bar Mitzvah, which is the personal מתן תורה, you have to have the הקדמת נעשה לנשמע, you have have to have the קבלת עול מלכות שמים right in the beginning. And that's the רמז in the mitzvah of tefillin. We know that what is the meaning of the mitzvah of tefillin? We know you put the tefillin on your head and on your hands to show the שעבוד המוח והלב, that shows that you give over your brain and your heart to Hashem. The תפילין של ראש is on top of, is on the head, which represents the brain, the intellect. The תפילין של יד on the hand is right by the heart, represents the heart, the מדות. It's also on the hand, which represents the action. And what we do is we show to, we say to Hashem that we're showing you that we're giving over our brains, which means our intellect, and our emotions and our actions to Hashem. That's one point. Then there's another point in the mitzvah of tefillin, that it shows the המשכה of מוחין למידות. And that's more cabalistic, but let me explain it. A person in his mind many times feels, understands—not feels, but understands actually—that he wants to do the right thing. But when it comes to the feeling in the heart and to the action in the hand, it just somehow doesn't get there. You don't bring into action and into feeling what you understand in your mind. And one of the reasons it says is because we have a מצר הגרון, there is like a blockade in the middle. Just like בגשמיות between the head and the heart, there's a very narrow path. So too in in in in feeling, from the head, from the way you understand it in your mind, until it comes down into your heart, it narrows down and it becomes much less. And many times when it comes down, it doesn't have any effect. The idea of tefillin is the המשכה from מוחין למידות, it's to bring down from your intellect into the מדות, into the person's emotions. על פי קבלה this is also the spiritual meaning of tefillin, as we say in the בר מצוה מאמר, that in אצילות in the higher levels, we have the level of מוחין, חכמה בינה דעת of אצילות, and then you have the מדות of אצילות. And when you put on tefillin, this causes a great המשכה השפעה, a great light that comes from the great level of חכמה בינה דעת into the lower level of חסד גבורה תפארת, etc., etc. And in practical terms, not in kabbalah concerning Shamayim and higher worlds, but concerning the person, what it means is that this gives the koach the person to be able to bring down from the intellect into the into the heart. And this is why on the תפילין של ראש we have the ש. ש has three lines, made up of three lines, represents חכמה בינה דעת. Because that's supposed to represent the intellect, which are the three parts of the intellect, as we said before. And the tefillin has the רצועות which come down, which means the hamshachah from the three, from חכמה בינה דעת, into down to the heart, which is represented by the תפילין של יד. And besides that, one of the ש's, there's a ש on both sides, one of the ש's has not three lines, but has four lines. And it says in kabbalah the reason is because the third part of the intellect, which is daat, is sometimes divided into two: chesed and gevurah, which are the two main emotions, the way they are in daat. In other words, just to be short, daat is part of the intellect, but it's the part of the intellect that connects the מוחין and the מדות. And that's why sometimes we have daat itself divided into two, chesed and gevurah, even though they are the מדות, because daat itself is the intellect, but the way it's connected to the מדות. And we have that on the תפילין של ראש to show that the idea of the tefillin is to bring from the מוחין into the מדות. And that means for the bar mitzvah bachur, when he starts putting on tefillin, that your whole life has to be that way: that, first of all, you have to give over your intellect and your emotions and your actions to Hashem, which is קבלת עול. And in that itself you have to remember that you have to make sure that when you have the proper intellect, make sure that it should enter into the feelings, that it should not get stopped and not come למעשה בפועל, come into action or into feeling. Then there's another point that I want to make. And that is that we use the term bar mitzvah, that you become bar mitzvah. The actual translation of bar mitzvah, the word bar means \"son\". Bar mitzvah means בן מצוה, the son of mitzvah. Well, it doesn't mean the son of a mitzvah, but the expression bar means a person that is, like we use the term בר דעת, a person that has da'at, that has understanding. Same here: bar mitzvah means a person of mitzvah. And the question is, he's not a person of mitzvah, he is a person that's obligated to do mitzvot. So the term should have been בר מחוייב במצוות. Why do we say bar mitzvah, the bar meaning the son or the person of mitzvah? And the same thing by a girl, bat mitzvah, which doesn't mean the daughter of a mitzvah, it means the woman of mitzvah, but it should have said the woman who is obligated to do mitzvot. And the answer is very simple. They're trying to tell us that when the person, the bachur, becomes bar mitzvah, he should know that when he's going to do the mitzvot, now that he's obligated to do the mitzvot, it should not be that he is a separate entity and he does the mitzvah, which is a separate entity. He has to strive to reach a level that he and the mitzvah become one, it becomes his whole being. It's not that he is a bar of מחויב במצות. A person that's now obligated to do mitzvot, but he should be a person that the mitzvah is part of him. Like it says in Chassidut, that a mashal of the way you could write something with ink on a piece of paper or on parchment, or you could carve out letters in a rock. The difference is when you write something on a piece of paper, the ink, which are the letters, and the paper are two separate entities. They're very close. Now they're really almost like one, but they're still not really one. You could erase the ink. But when you carve out letters in stone, in a rock, the letters are not separate, they're part of the rock itself. And that's how a Yid is supposed to do mitzvot. That's why the Luchot, it says חרות על הלוחות, it was carved out to show us that we have to be carved out, the mitzvot have to be part of us. And that's why it says אם בחקתי תלכו. The word בחקתי, which means חוקים, but also comes from the word חקיקה, the Alter Rebbe says, which means carved out. We have to learn Torah and do mitzvot in a form of חקיקה. And that's what we tell the bar mitzvah bachur, that you are now bar mitzvah, you are a person that should become one with the mitzvah. And then one and last point that I want to make. We said before that bar mitzvah, the day of a bar mitzvah is like a personal matan Torah. Concerning matan Torah, we know it says that it's a פעולה נמשכת, it means not that the Torah was given once and that's it, and now we have the Torah, but Hashem repeats מתן תורה, every day he gives the Torah over again. And that's why in the berachah we say ברוך אתה השם נותן התורה, we thank Hashem who's giving the Torah, not נתן התורה that gave the Torah, because Hashem constantly gives the Torah. So every day we have to feel the pe'ulah of Torah, of מתן תורה. So, too, a bar mitzvah bachur has to feel every day again the renewal of his becoming מחויב במצות. But besides that, we know that even though every day Hashem gives the Torah again, but once a year on Shavuot this is even in a stronger form. That's why Shavuot is called זמן מתן תורתנו, and every year, when the same day of מתן תורה comes, the sixth day of Sivan, that it repeats itself and Hashem gives us the Torah again. So, too, a bar mitzvah bachur, every year when his birthday comes, after his bar mitzvah, besides being the birthday, the day he was born, this is also a repeat of the day that he became bar mitzvah. So, this inyan of מתן תורה that he has is a repeat, and every year by the birthday he has to feel not only the idea that today is the day that he was born and all the things that come along with it, he has to feel that today is the day that he was given the Torah, that his חיוב מצות came. And this is actually what the Rebbe writes in the sichah that he explains the importance of celebrating a birthday, so he gives all kinds of reasons and sources and all kinds of things what birthday means, appreciation to Hashem for sending his neshamah down to this world, all kinds of things, but he adds another point, that from bar mitzvah on, there's another point in the day of your birthday: this is the day that is the repeat of your bar mitzvah, because we know it says והימים האלה נזכרים ונעשים, anything that happens, so when that same day comes again, it repeats itself in a רוחניותדיקע sense. So, every year in the day of the birthday, he becomes bar mitzvah over again, and bar mitzvah, which is מתן תורה, and the beginning of חיוב מצות and entrance of the neshamah, so every year on the day of the birthday you have to feel it again, and therefore thank Hashem again for that, and therefore all the things that come along with it have to be repeated. The קבלת עול מלכות שמים, the הקדמת נעשה לנשמע, all the things have to be repeated every year by the birthday just the same way it was on the day of the bar mitzvah. And when we do that, and we constantly feel the מתן תורה, so then Hashem will say, \"Well, let me give you, not chas veshalom again מתן תורה, but it says when Mashiach will come, then there will be a new תורה that will be taught, not a new תורה, חס ושלום, but in this תורה that we have, new insights that were never brought into this world will be taught, which is called תורה חדשה.\" And by repeating and feeling every year the מתן תורה, besides Shavuos, which is the כללותדיקע מתן תורה, but the personal מתן תורה, we will be zocheh that Hashem will bring Mashiach and give us again this concept of תורה, תורה חדשה מאתי תצא במהרה בימינו אמן.