Specialty or the special significance of the כיור. The כיור was the washbasin in the בית המקדש, in the Holy Temple. The Kohanim, the priests, before they would enter, as they would enter, before they were able to do any of the services in the Temple, they had to wash their hands and feet. And this was one of this was the vessel that was used to wash their hands and feet. And without washing their hands and feet from this vessel, they were unable to do the service. As a matter of fact, they were not only unable to do the service, but they were also forbidden to enter inside the Temple, inside the Mishkan or inside the בית המקדש. This כיור is considered one of the specific vessels of the Temple, of the בית המקדש, of the Mishkan. The Rambam says that there are certain things that are very essential to the structure of the בית המקדש. There is the building, and then there are certain vessels which are very essential. And he mentions them, and amongst them he mentions the כיור. But when we look into the function of the כיור, it seems that this vessel was the least important out of all the vessels. And let's go through the list of the vessels that we had in the בית המקדש or in the Mishkan. We had the ארון, the holy ark. We had the menorah, the candelabra where they lit the candles. We had the שולחן, the table. We had the מזבח הזהב, the small מזבח, the altar, and then you had the מזבח הנחושת, the big מזבח made of copper, the altar made of copper. And then you had the כיור. When we look through the functions of the other vessels compared to this one, this one seems to be of least importance because the כיור was only there as a preparation. In itself, it did not function. It didn't have its own function. It was there was no service that was done with the כיור. It was only used that the Kohanim, the priests, should be able to do the service in the בית המקדש with the other vessels. And the other vessels, they served a purpose. The ארון, let's go through the list, the ארון had the לוחות, two tablets inside. And that was the most important vessel of the holy בית המקדש. Then you had the menorah was to light the menorah, so it had it served a purpose for the mitzvah, for the commandment of lighting the menorah. The שולחן served a purpose, its function was to keep the לחם הפנים, the special bread that was there, and all the things that came along with it. The מזבח הזהב, the small מזבח was there that they would sacrifice the incense, the spices on that מזבח every day. And the מזבח הנחושת, the big מזבח, that was used for the sacrifices that they brought every day. So each one had a purpose, a reason in its own right why it was there. But the כיור didn't have its own function. It was only there to wash your hands and feet before you entered in order to do the avodah, to do the service. So this was to clean you. It wasn't to clean you physically, you could be clean, it was to clean you from any spiritual uncleanness that a person, that a Kohen might have. So it's only to enable you to continue, but it doesn't have a service a function in itself. And we also see from the place in the Mishkan or the בית המקדש where it was put, we see the same idea. The other vessels, each one had an important place. The ארון, the holy ark, well, that had the most important place of the whole בית המקדש. It was in the קודש הקדשים, the Holy of Holies, a special area called the Holy of Holies that you're never allowed to enter there, but once a year and with special avodah certainly, and certain things. But that was the holiest. The other three, the menorah and the שולחן and the small מזבח stood inside the אהל מועד. The אהל מועד, that was the sanctuary, so to speak, or in the בית המקדש it was called the היכל. That's where they stood, and that was a very, very important place. The מזבח הזהב, the big מזבח that was used for the sacrifices, did not stand inside the building, or in the Mishkan it did not stand inside the the the tent, it was in the courtyard. But still, it was very, very close to the entrance into the building. It stood very close to the אולם, which was part which was the entrance. And in the Mishkan, it stood very close to the אהל מועד. While the כיור, this washbasin, the כיור, stood all the way in the front, It stood in such a place, obviously, where a kohen was allowed to go without washing his hands and feet. Further than that, you weren't allowed to enter without washing your hands and feet. So the כיור couldn't stand any further because the kohanim wouldn't be able to get there, because you couldn't go there without washing hands and feet. So the כיור stood very, very far, right in the beginning. So this again shows that the כיור was not so special. The כיור had no special significance. It wasn't any special vessel. It was the least important of all vessels. That's what it would seem. And there's another thing from where it seems to be that way. When we look into the חומש to see where does the Torah command us, command the Jews, to make this כיור. Now we're familiar with the set-up of the chapters of the פרשיות of the Torah. In Parashat Terumah, it talks about making of all the vessels and the making of the Mishkan itself, the walls, the roof, all the other things that are connected to the Mishkan. In Parashat Tetzaveh, it talks about the בגדי כהונה. There we find the commandments of how to make the garments of the kohanim, whether it's the the ordinary priests, ordinary kohanim, kohen hedyot, or the kohen gadol, the high priest. Well, that's what it talks about. With the exception of the כיור. The כיור is not spoken about, not in Parashat Terumah, not in Parashat Tetzaveh. That's in Parashat Ki Tisa. Parashat Ki Tisa, which is already after the main portions of the Torah where it talks about making of the Mishkan and making of the בגדי כהונה, of the garments, there, and its own place, the Torah talks about the כיור. Why? So the commentaries explain, for that's very special reason, for there is very same reason, because the כיור had no special significance. It wasn't as important as the rest of the things. The building was important, the vessels were important, the בגדי כהונה, the garments were important, but the כיור was only there as a hachanah. The Hebrew word hachanah means as a preparation. It was only to prepare themselves to be able to go in. But in itself, it had no special meaning. But as I said before, the name of this topic tonight is the specialty, the special significance of the כיור. Now where do we get the special significance of the כיור when the כיור is the least important?

But the truth is, looking at it from another angle, the כיור served a very, very important purpose, and that's the specialty of the כיור. The כיור, as I said, was used only as a hachanah, only as a preparation to the service. The service itself, whichever service it was, whether it was bringing the קרבנות, the sacrifices, or lighting the מנורה, or bringing the קטורת, or doing things with the לחם הפנים, with the bread, those are important, those are the mitzvot themselves. This was only a preparation. But it says in many sefarim that in certain ways the preparation to a mitzvah is more important than the mitzvah itself. Imagine, the preparation to a mitzvah is more important than the mitzvah itself. Now it doesn't mean, God forbid, if somebody's going to say, well, I'm going to prepare myself and make special preparations to put on tefillin and I won't put on tefillin, so I did the most important part. No, that doesn't work. Obviously, if you don't do the mitzvah, you miss the point. The main thing is to do the mitzvah. But still, when you prepare yourself to do the mitzvah, from one angle, looking at it from one perspective, you get more than you do the mitzvah itself. Because one of the things that a mitzvah is supposed to accomplish is that the mitzvah is supposed to make the person feel closer to Hashem, closer to God. The actual word mitzvah, which means commandment, has another meaning. The word mitzvah also means connection. In Hebrew, the word mitzvah comes from the word צותא וחיבור, connection. Every time you do a mitzvah, you connect yourself to Hashem, you connect yourself to God. Otherwise, the connection is very far. Because when we start thinking who Hashem is, what God is, and who we are and what we are, it seems to be very, very far. There seems to be no connection. Imagine you have an ant on the floor. What connection is there between the ant and the human being? As far as an ant is from us, we are further away from Him. The only way we could connect ourselves with Him is if we do what He asks us to do. As the example is given, you might have a great scholar or a great statesman, the President of the United States. And he comes to a place and you have ordinary people. I mean, they look at him, this is the great person in the world, and who am I? And you feel very far away. But imagine if the person, the President would walk over to you and say, \"Mr. So-and-so, I would ask, please do me a favor, do something for me,\" you would feel so great, you'd be in the seventh heaven. And you'd feel, \"Oh, the President asked me to do something for him.\" This makes a connection. So when we do a mitzvah, which was a commandment, is the commandment of God, we connect ourselves to Him. But the problem is, we don't always feel it. We could do a mitzvah, but we don't always feel it. You could put on tefillin, you take the straps and the box and you put it on, but you don't necessarily feel the connection. Or any other mitzvah, Pesach you eat matzah, Rosh Hashanah you blow shofar, or the women light the Shabbos candles Friday, you don't necessarily feel it. What makes you feel the connection is the preparation that you do. If you prepare yourself before, and you anticipate what you're going to do, and you think about what you're going to do, and then you actually go ahead and do it, then what the the mitzvah has the proper effect on the person. Now there is the effect of the mitzvah on the person whether he prepares or not, but that's in the spiritual sense, and that's something that's hidden. But in the revealed fashion it only comes if you really prepare yourself, if you make the proper hachanot, if you prepare yourself to the mitzvah. So when you come to it after anticipation and then you do it, then the mitzvah has the proper effect on the person. The truth is, unfortunately, the same thing is with an aveirah. If a person does an aveirah, you do a sin, certainly it has a terrible negative effect on the person. And all kinds of things as it says in the sefarim. But you don't always feel it. But if a person prepares himself, God forbid, for an aveirah, then the aveirah has a much worse effect. They tell a story of Rav Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev that he once came to a certain place and he met a person, and somehow he found out, or whichever way, that this person did some immoral act with a certain woman that was forbidden. They weren't married. In simple words, they weren't married. So he came over to him and he spoke to him and he said, \"How could you do this and this aveirah?\" So he said, \"Rabbi, Rabbi, don't worry. I had her count seven clean days, and then she went to the mikveh. She was not a niddah.\" So the Berditchever said, \"Oy vey vey vey. Seven days preparing for an aveirah?\" Now for sure if she wouldn't have done it, she wouldn't have prepared herself for the seven days, the aveirah would have been worse. Because she would have been a niddah. At least now she wasn't a niddah, she was not married, so it's a different aveirah. It wasn't as terrible. But as far as the effect on the person, he said, \"Seven days preparing for an aveirah?\" Sometimes, you know, you have a yetzer hara, your evil inclination, you can't help it, you do the aveirah. It's wrong, and you got to do teshuvah. It's terrible. But seven days preparing for an aveirah, that affects the nefesh, the person's soul, even worse than doing the aveirah itself. And the same is in the good side. Preparing yourself for a mitzvah has an effect more than the mitzvah itself because you're anticipating, you're waiting to do this mitzvah. So when the mitzvah comes after waiting, you feel what the mitzvah is. Which is, by the way, the reason why the חכמים have established the concept of making a berachah, a blessing, before we do a mitzvah. Before we do any mitzvah we make a berachah. From the Torah, there is no berachot. The whole concept of making berachot is mid'rabbanan, derabbanan added. From the Torah you put on tefillin without a berachah. There is no concept of a berachah. The only berachah that comes from the Torah is Birkat Hamazon. Grace after meal, that's in the Torah. It says \"ואכלת ושבעת וברכת את ה' אלקיך\", you shall eat and be satisfied and bless God. So then it's from the Torah, from the Bible, from the Chumash itself. But to make a blessing before we put on tefillin, before we blow shofar, before we light Shabbos candles, before we eat matzah, before any mitzvah that we do, the Rabbanan added that. Why did the Rabbanan add that? So it says in sefarim, because by doing that, they said by doing that you will be ready to do the mitzvah. What is the blessing? The blessing, let's analyze it. The blessing is ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם, blessed are You, God our God, King of the universe, אשר קדשנו במצותיו, that You made us holy with your commandments, וצונו, and You commanded us, whatever the next word is, commanded us to put on tefillin, commanded us to blow shofar, whatever the mitzvah is. So when we say these words, this makes us think. What are we going to do now? We're going to do the commandment of God. He made us holy by giving us the commandment, and we're thanking God, the King of the universe, God our God, all these different concepts that are here. So when we make the berachah, we prepare ourselves to the mitzvah. That's why the law is that when you do a mitzvah, the berachah has to be said before you do the מצוה, עובר לעשייתן, before you do the mitzvah, because the whole concept of the berachah is to prepare yourself to the mitzvah. And then when you prepare yourself, then you have more, it affects you more than if you would not have prepared yourself. And whenever I talk about this, I always tell this something of my own simple experience. We all know that we used to stand always in line to get a dollar from the Rebbe, or we would stand in line to get lekach from the Rebbe. And everyone knew that, that if you were standing there, and sometimes it took an hour or two hours till you got your turn came, and you were standing, waiting, and waiting, and got closer, and closer, and closer, and finally got to the Rebbe, and you can imagine that moment, it was only probably only lasted 30 seconds. But those 30 seconds had such an impact on the person who stood there and the Rebbe gave you and looked at you and he said berachah vehatzlachah and gave you a berachah, it was worth it. But I want to tell you, one of the most important parts what made you feel that special feeling was the fact that you stood in line before for an hour or two. Now, remember once it was Chol Hamoed Sukkos and the Rebbe gave lekach and I had come from here and I didn't get lekach before Yom Kippur so it was I had to get lekach then. And I was sitting in my brother's house and I was talking to Rabbi Mentel. Mr. Mentel who is who translated the Tanya, the great scholar. And I really enjoyed talking to him and I knew the line was getting longer and longer, but I wasn't worried. Why? Because he was one of the Rebbe's secretaries. So when he would come, they would let him in right from the front. So I would go with him, so I would go right in. So I wasn't worried, and that's exactly what happened. We sat there till we saw that it's getting already late, so we got up and I was walking together with him and we came to 770. And we came, and right away as soon as they saw him and I was with him, so they opened the door straight from the front, and I walked in straight with him. And as we walked in, we walked straight over to the Rebbe, and the Rebbe gave us lekach and we walked away. And I turned around and I said, ah, after. Why didn't he feel there was nothing the Rebbe gave lekach but all I could turn around I had a piece of cake. I I missed the feeling. Why? Because it took a second that if you stand in line and you think and you anticipate and you prepare, and this you feel that this makes it possible for you to do the mitzvah, then you get the feeling of what the mitzvah is. So therefore, it says in sefarim that the preparation to a mitzvah, looking at from one angle, is more than the mitzvah itself. Obviously if you do the mitzvah. If you don't do the mitzvah, you prepare yourself then you have nothing. If you do the mitzvah then the preparation add much more to the feeling, not to the actual act, but to the feeling, more than the mitzvah itself. And that's why the כיור, which was only the preparation to the service in the Beit Hamikdash, this makes the kohanim feel that in order to get into the Beit Hamikdash, in order to do the service, whichever service it would be, they have to get ready, they have to wash their hands, they have to wash their feet. This made them anticipate and this gave them more feeling than actual doing of the avodah of bringing the korbanot. So this is one specialty of the kiyor.

Then there is another point when we talk about the specialty of the kiyor. The kiyor, what it did was, it was to use to wash your hands and feet. To wash the hands and feet meant to clean their hands and feet. As I said before, it doesn't mean to clean it physically. But spiritual impurities that would be there, the washing from the kiyor would wash off the impurities. While doing the service in the Beit Hamikdash was not a service of getting rid of impurities. That was as we would say going higher and higher in the good itself. There are two levels. There is a level of washing away something that's negative, and then there is doing positive. The service in the Beit Hamikdash were all positive acts. The washing of the hands and feet, which meant the washing off the dirt, that represent the getting rid of the negative things that are there. The fighting with the negativity. While doing that, the Beit Hamikdash is not fighting overcoming negativity, that is doing good. Now, which of the two is greater? Now, on one hand, we imagine that doing good and continuing and growing and growing and doing more good and more good is greater because you don't have to fight with the negative. There is no negative to begin with that you have to get rid of, while on this level, it means there is still a kind of negativity and you got to get rid of it. So on one hand, that is a higher level, but on the other hand, we learn in chasidut that the effort that you put in in order to fight the negative, you get more reward, because here you are overcoming the negative, overcoming the yetzer hara, overcoming the evil inclination, fighting the negativity. There you are constantly working for Hashem, working for God, doing something for the sake of God. While when you don't have to fight, you're not really putting in so much effort because there is nobody that is nothing to disturbing. And that is the specialty of the kiyor, for the kiyor represents the washing off the negativity, fighting the negativity and getting rid of it, and obviously overcoming it, cleansing yourself, while doing the service later on is only growing higher and higher. And we know that this is a higher level, from one perspective, than actually just growing in goodness from one level to another. Which is similar, it says in Gemara, in Rambam, who's greater, a tzadik or a baal teshuva? Now, we know that a tzadik definitely is greater on one hand. A tzadik is a person who never sinned, always does the will of God, he's a person that is close to God, learned a lot, a great scholar, a person who has only God in his mind, has no evil or anything negative within him. While a baal teshuva is a person who returned from being turned away from God, doing things that he is not allowed to do, but then he decides to turn back. So this person fought, has to fight with the negativity that's within him, he has all kinds of evil forces within him, and he has to overcome it. So obviously the tzadik is higher. Nevertheless, the Rambam פסקנ׳ס and he says, במקום שבעלי תשובה עומדים צדיקים גמורים אינם יכולין לעמוד. The level of a baal teshuva, is a tzadik gamur, a complete tzadik doesn't stand there. Why? For the same reason, because a tzadik constantly grows and grows in goodness, and that's all. So his effort is not so strong. He doesn't really have to fight his yetzer hara, his evil inclination, while a baal teshuva does have to fight. And since he has to fight, he gets A for effort while a baal teshuva—the tzadik does not. And fighting the yetzer hara is something that Hashem loves. Hashem is happy when a person overcomes his yetzer hara, which is the whole purpose of why God gave us the Torah. When God was ready to give us the Torah, Moshe Rabbeinu went up to heaven to receive the Torah, it says in the Gemara that the malachim said to Moshe, to Hashem, \"Why are you giving it to them? Why not give the Torah to us?\" And Hashem said to Moshe, \"Answer them.\" Moshe was scared. Hashem said, \"Don't be scared, hold onto my throne, and answer them.\" So Moshe answered them and he said to them like this: כלום יצר הרע יש ביניכם? Do you have a yetzer hara? There's no purpose in giving you the Torah. Now the malachim might have used the Torah in a spiritual way and reached higher levels through having the Torah, but one thing they don't have: they don't have a yetzer hara, an evil inclination that they have to overcome. So there was no reason, Hashem said, to give you the Torah, because the whole purpose is fighting the yetzer hara. And who fights the yetzer hara? The baal teshuvah fights it more than the tzaddik. In order to become the way he is, he had to fight, so baal teshuvah is higher. Which is also similar to what it says in Tanya, the difference between a tzaddik and a beinoni. And not to go into the details of what it says in Tanya, we all know that, but just to mention it. A beinoni is a person who never does anything wrong, not with his action, not with his speech, not with his thoughts, but he still has an evil inclination. His evil inclination is there, the yetzer hara still comes to him and says, \"Why don't you do something wrong?\" But he doesn't, he doesn't listen to him. A tzaddik is a person that already overcame his yetzer hara and it's finished. As the expression there is, he killed his yetzer hara. So now he's just good and doing the right things. And in Tanya he quotes a pasuk, where the pasuk says, ושבתם וראיתם בין צדיק לרשע, sit down and look at the difference between a tzaddik, a righteous person, and a rasha, an evil person, בין עובד אלקים לאשר לא עבדו, and see the difference between someone that serves God and someone that doesn't serve Him. Now, he asks the question, it seems like double talk, you're saying the same thing: a tzaddik serves God, a rasha doesn't. So if he says look at the difference between a tzaddik and a rasha, why does he have to repeat himself in the pasuk and say look at the difference between someone that serves God and someone that doesn't? So he says, \"No, it's not the same thing. First he says the difference between tzaddik and a rasha. Then he says, 'Look at the difference between a tsat—a person who serves God and a person that doesn't is the difference between a beinoni and a tzaddik.'\" And which one serves God? The beinoni is called the one that serves God, and the tzaddik is called the one that doesn't. The tzaddik doesn't work. The tzaddik is a person that worked already. The tzaddik is referred to, he says in Tanya, as an עבד אלקים, an עבד, a servant of God. And the beinoni is called oved Elokim, the one that serves God, because the tzaddik finished, he is not working anymore, he overcame. But the beinoni, he is the one that's working. And who's higher? Well, obviously a tzaddik is greater, but on the other hand it says in Tanya that there is something special in a beinoni that he always has to overcome his yetzer hara. And the fact that he always has to fight with his yetzer hara, because it's not finished, so he gets reward and he's acknowledged by Hashem for the effort that he has to put in, and this is what Hashem wants, this is what Hashem And this is what the kiyor represents. So, when we're wondering, what is so special about the kiyor? So, number one, the kiyor is the hachana, the preparation, which has much more than the mitzvah itself. The kiyor is the one that represents the washing off of the evil, the fighting with the evil, which is greater, to a certain degree, from the service itself.

This fact of the kiyor is also seen in what the kiyor was made out of. It's very interesting. Before they built the Mishkan, Hashem said to Moshe Rabbeinu, \"Go to the Jews and tell them they should all give donations. Let them donate כסף וזהב ונחשת, silver, gold, copper, all kinds of other materials.\" And they made the Mishkan and all the vessels from all the different materials that were donated by the Jews. Then it says in this week's parashah actually, what was the kiyor made of? The kiyor was copper. When Hashem commanded him to make the kiyor, he said it should be made of copper. So it says in Chumash they were made of which copper? Not just of the regular donations of the Jews. It was made from a specific type of copper. I don't mean a specific quality of copper, but it was made from certain things that were copper. And what were they? The מראות הצובאות. מראות הצובאות were the copper mirrors. And Rashi explains, what were they? These were mirrors used by the Jewish women in Egypt. When Paro made the Jews work very hard, hard labor, mainly it was the men. So the men worked very hard in the field all day, and Paro came out with his decrees against the Jewish children. So the Jewish men said there is no reason for us to continue and bring a new generation into this world. What for? They're going to be slaves. Why should we bring more slaves into this world? And especially who knows what Paro is going to do. And especially imagine after a full day of hard labor, slave labor, you could imagine how they felt in the evening. And they said, \"We're not doing anything,\" and they said, \"We're going to stay away from our wives and we're not going to bring anymore children into this world.\" The women were clever. They would dress up, put on makeup, and dress up, and go out into the fields, and visit their husbands in the fields, and bring along little mirrors, shiny, little, copper mirrors. And they would speak to their husbands and make it so that they should reflect themselves, they should be seen in the mirrors. And she would say to her husband, \"Look at this. Don't we look nice together?\" And by doing that, they would convince them, and that brought about the next generation, who went out of Mitzrayim. When the women donated these mirrors, when Hashem said, \"Give donations,\" men, women, children, they donated, all the women donated these mirrors. So Rashi says Moshe Rabbeinu did not want to take it. He asks, \"These mirrors should be used for a for vessel, or for the Mishkan?\" And he said, \"These are mirrors used for the yetzer hara. They're mirrors used for the yetzer hara, for the evil inclination to entice their husbands, which is not something I want.\" Hashem said, \"No, you take these mirrors. חביבים עלי. These mirrors are more beloved to me than everything else, because these are the mirrors that were used to raise and bring a new generation of Jews into the world. And they were these mirrors that were used to make the kiyor.\" Now this fits to the concept of the kiyor. As we said, the whole concept of the kiyor was the washing away of the yetzer hara, fighting the yetzer hara, which means taking concepts, things which are seemingly connected to the yetzer hara, and using them for kedushah, using them for holiness, elevating them. That's what Hashem wants, to overcome the evil inclination and turn it into good. This is exactly what these mirrors were. These mirrors were used for this purpose. The women used the mirrors for something that seems to be the yetzer hara, but really it wasn't the yetzer hara. It was seemingly the yetzer hara, but it was turned around, transformed into something holy, which is something that is very beloved by Hashem. And Hashem said, \"I love these mirrors more than I like the other gold and silver, because the other gold and silver are fine, but it doesn't have this concept as we said before of having to overcome the yetzer hara and getting the effort involved as these mirrors.\" And that's why they used the mirrors for the כיור, because it fits to what the כיור stands for. The כיור stands for the washing of the hands and feet, wash washing away the evil, which makes it possible for you to continue. It's like the baal teshuvah before he becomes a tzadik, the beinoni before he becomes a tzadik, so this is what it was made out of. And then we see more points in the כיור which reflects the same idea. As I said, the כיור was made of נחשת. It was made of copper. Now we know among the metals, we have gold, silver, and copper. Copper is the least expensive. Copper is the lowest of the three. So it says that copper represents a very low level. Actually, the word נחשת in Hebrew comes from the word נחש. נחש means a snake. The moment we mention snake, what comes to our mind? The yetzer hara, the נחש הקדמוני, the first snake, that snake that caused all the trouble in the world. All the trouble that we have is from the fact that Adam and Chavah ate from the tree. Who convinced them to eat from the tree? The נחש, that snake. And that snake is represented in in sefarim, in Kabbalah, in the Zohar, all over. It represents the evil forces of the world, because that brought evil into the world. And נחשת in Hebrew, which is copper, has the same made up of the same letters as נחש, the snake. So נחשת represents the snake, but when the נחשת is used in the Mishkan, what does it mean? It, which is fighting the yetzer hara and overcoming the yetzer hara, that's what it means. Just like generally the Mishkan had the same concept, but not as much as the כיור. The Mishkan, the walls were made of קרשים. That's what they were called. The walls, the wooden walls were made of קרשים. Each one was called a קרש. Now, the word קרש is ק, ר, ש, the three Hebrew letters, which are the same letters as שקר, ש, ק, ר, which is a lie. And the idea is to transform from שקר into a Mishkan, into קרש. Now, as much as it was in the בית המקדש, in the Mishkan generally, the כיור represented it even more. So the כיור, which represents the idea of changing, transforming things of the yetzer hara into good, was made of נחשת, was made of copper, made of that metal which represents the נחש. And that, as we said before, is a higher level than the rest, because doing that you connect yourself to Hashem even closer. And that's why we see something very interesting: that the word נחש, נ, ח, ש, is the same gematria as Mashiach, has the same numerical value as Mashiach. נחש is 50, the נ is 50, the ח is 8, 58, and ש is 300, 358. And Mashiach: מ is 40, ש is 300, 340, י is 10, 350, and the ח is 8, 358. What does that mean? That Mashiach will come not so much from continuing to do good, but because of those people who overcome the yetzer hara, who fight the נחש. That will bring Mashiach, because that's a higher level. And that's what the כיור represents. So here we see how many aspects of the כיור represent this idea: the fact that it was only a preparation, the fact that it was made that it was to wash off the dirt, so to speak, the fact that it was made from copper, the fact that it was made from these mirrors which were made for the yetzer hara. And then there is another point here. Every aspect of the נחש of the I'm sorry, of the כיור fits to this philosophy, to this idea. The כיור was made of copper, we said, but not just plain copper, mirrors. What's the idea of it being mirrors? We don't find anywhere of but any of the other vessels or anything else that was made that we should say it was mirrors. I'm sure they all shined. I'm sure they all were, you know, they were polished and they were nice and they shined, but we don't find mirrors. So one reason is because it's supposed to show us of the mirrors that they used in מצרים. But it has another meaning in Kabbalah, it says, the concept of it being a mirror. And we'll have to get a little bit into some of the details that it says in Kabbalah. And this, when we explain this, we'll see why Moshe Rabbeinu did not want to take them, didn't want to take these mirrors, and Hashem said to him, \"Take them.\"

The difference between A mirror and a glass. When you look in a mirror, you also see different things. You could see whatever you want to see in the mirror. Let's say a person, you look in the mirror, and you see the person. When you look at the person through a glass, you will also see the person. The difference is, when you look straight through the glass, you see the person, the person himself. That's what you see. Right? If I look through a window, and I see someone walking outside, I actually see the person. But when I have a mirror, and the mirror reflects the person, I see everything about the person, but I don't see the person. I see an image of the person, a reflection of the person. This is not the person himself. And it says in Kabbalah that the difference between these two, a glass, a see-through glass and a mirror, are two levels it speaks about in נבואה. In prophecy, there are two levels of prophecy. One is called אספקלריא המאירה. One level of prophecy is called אספקלריא המאירה, means which a glass which you could see through. And one is אספקלריא שאינה מאירה, which is a mirror. And it says that Moshe Rabbeinu, his level of נבואה, his level of prophecy, was in such a way that he saw, he saw באספקלריא המאירה. He saw Godliness, which we don't know what and how, because it's beyond us, but whatever he saw, he didn't see an image, he saw the real thing. Other prophets, it says he was an exception. Other prophets, they saw באספקלריא שאינה מאירה. They saw, too. They saw prophecy, but what they saw was not the thing itself. It was only a reflection of what was shown to them. That's a lower level. And that's why it says by Moshe Rabbeinu when he prophesied, he used the word זה. He would say, when he would start his נבואה, he would say, \"זה הדבר אשר צוה השם. This is the thing that Hashem commanded.\" He would use the word זה, this. All other prophets would use the words, \"כה אמר השם.\" The word כה is means like. זה is this. When you say זה, it means you're showing at something. זה הדבר means look, I'm pointing at it, I see it. When you say כה, it means like this, it's only an image. Moshe Rabbeinu's level of prophecy was זה. It was the level of prophecy called אספקלריא המאירה, seeing through a glass. And the level of the other נביאים was seeing through a mirror, which is only a reflection of an image, which it says is similar to the difference in prophecy in Avraham Avinu himself. Avraham Avinu, in the beginning when it speaks in Chumash about Avraham, it says that he saw Hashem, and he saw the prophecy במחזה. במחזה means in a vision. Then later it says, \"וירא אליו השם,\" Hashem revealed himself. The difference between מחזה and וירא, מחזה means to see a vision and וירא means to see. מחזה is in Aramaic and וירא is in Hebrew, which means that וירא is a higher level of sight when you really see it. Hebrew, לשון הקודש, the holy tongue, is the language of God. So when Avraham saw and we use the Hebrew term, it means that he saw it in a much higher level. When the term is used במחזה, which is Aramaic, it's a lower level. And it says clearly, when did it happen? Before the ברית מילה, before he had the ברית, before he had the circumcision, he saw במחזה, he saw on the lower level. After the circumcision, he saw on the higher level. Circumcision meant that he became much closer to God. Circumcision is the sign, the seal in the human body, the Jewish body, that shows that he belongs to God. So before Avraham Avinu had it, his vision wasn't that strong. And later, after he circumcised, when Hashem commanded him to circumcise, his vision became stronger, that's a higher level. It also says this is the difference between the way we are able to connect to God before the חטא עץ הדעת, before the sin of Adam Harishon eating from the tree, and after the חטא עץ הדעת. Before the חטא עץ הדעת, things were clear. You were able to see the truth, to see it, to see it not in an image form, which is not the real thing. You were able to see it clear. After Adam Harishon and Chavah ate from the tree, what they did was that brought about a certain clouding, a certain concealment to the truth of God that now it's harder to see. So therefore, even those people who do recognize God, they don't recognize it in such a way like it used to be before the חטא עץ הדעת, before the sin. Moshe Rabbeinu was at the same level as it used to be before the sin. But normally, even the נביאים can't reach that level. So again, before the sin, the level was in a way that you were able to see clear, clear like a clear glass, and afterwards it's a lower level, it's only like a reflection. Why is it? Because before the sin there was no יצר הרע. There was no evil inclination. Only one thing for this commandment of eating from the tree, of not to eat from the tree, but like this there was no evil inclination. After the sin, what it what happened was it brought evil into the world. Now became an evil inclination, now we have to fight it. Now we have to fight evil inclination. There is a garment, so to speak, a curtain that blocks the truth, and we can't see it. Which is, by the way, one of the reasons it says that the diff- one of the differences that took place before the sin and after the sin, that before the sin they didn't need clothes. After the sin, they needed clothes. Now, there are many reasons, simple reasons, but one of the reasons is this shows that before that there were no לבושים. You could see the truth without any garment, without any curtain. Afterwards, in order to There's a curtain that blocks, and when you try to see the truth, you have to fight the darkness that covers up, the clothes that covers it up, after the sin. So, in other words, the mirror represents the fact that you have to fight the yetzer hara. If you don't have to fight the yetzer hara, you see the truth. That's the glass. The mirror represents that you have to fight the yetzer hara. And this is the reason why the כיור was made from mirrors. Because as we said before, the כיור, the meaning of the כיור was that you have to wash away the evil, you have to fight the dirt, you have to get rid of it. So this is why it was made of mirrors. And just like we said before that on one hand, it's a lower level because you're fighting the yetzer hara, you have a yetzer hara, there is an evil inclination, but on the other hand, we said this is higher because that's where you get Hashem gives your reward for your effort, and this is where Hashem is happy with when you fight the yetzer hara, we see that by the mirror too. On one hand, a mirror is a lower level, like I said, when you look through the glass, you see the thing itself. You look through the mirror, it's only a reflection. But there is something that the mirror could do that a glass can't do. The glass you only can look straight ahead. The mirror could reflect something that's behind you too. That means that the mirror could bring you to see things that through the glass you couldn't see. It's a lower level of seeing, you don't see the real thing, but you could see things which normally you cannot see, you can see through the mirror. And the reason Another point here, the reason why you're able to see something that's behind you on the mirror, because it reflect, it bounces back. Whatever is there, bounces through the mirror, and it bounces back to you. In Chassidus and Kabbalah, that's called אור חוזר, the light that bounces back. It says in Kabbalah, and just in short, just for two minutes, this talks about Godly light, but it gives mashalim, and parables from simple life. That when you have a light that comes straight, it has a certain power. But when the light bounces off something, it has a double power. It comes to it, so you have the light that's there plus it comes here, you have a double power. That's called אור חוזר. As we see, in Chassidus it says, I don't know what science says about this, but Chassidus says that what's the reason why closer down here it's hotter, and when you go up further in the atmosphere it gets colder? Shouldn't be the opposite? When you go up higher, you're getting closer to the sun. The heat comes from the sun, so the closer you get, you should get closer to the sun. So you should be hotter. Why is that when you go up, it's colder? So Chassidus says this is the reason: Because the sun is far away. So when you go up high, you're still far away from the sun, it's not hot. But when that light of the sun or heat of the sun bounces off the ground, so then at that point on the earth where it bounces off, it is stronger than it is higher, because אור חוזר has a much stronger power. Example given, when you throw a ball at a wall, you could be standing close, but when you throw it and it bounces back, and it'll go much further. So when it bounces back, that goes further. What does that mean? When you have to fight for your yetzer hara, that means why what's what is the meaning of of bouncing off? Why does it bounce off? Because there is something blocking. If you throw the ball and there wouldn't be a wall, it would go further. It would go wherever you're throwing it. When there is something that's blocking, and the blockage makes it go, it's stronger. Or like when you have a flow of water, a river, so it goes at a certain speed, a certain strength. When you put up a blockade, put up a dam, so then the water gathers, gathers, and if it comes to a point where the water world becomes so strong it'll break it through, you know what kind of power is going to go later? Much stronger. Which is a mashal given in sefarim that when you fight your yetzer hara, you become much stronger. You get much more. Even though it's a lower level, you have to fight the yetzer hara, but it's much stronger. So this is represented also in the mirror. The mirror is אור חוזר, the mirror reflects back, and the כיור, which was the vessel that was used to wash off the dirt, that had the reflection, the אור חוזר, which is a higher level. So from all this, what do we get? That even though on one hand it seems that the כיור is the least important of all the vessels, the truth is this was the most important from looking from one angle, because it was the preparation, and because this represents the washing away of the evil, and this is the highest level, and that's why it was made from copper, made from mirrors, made from the mirrors that were given by the Bnei Yisrael, by the women, and here we see the power of the women. It was the women that did it. And when we talk about the Mishkan, let's just mention, it was the women, when it says Hashem said, \"Bring donations,\" who came first? The women came. They brought the most. The men came after the women. It's the women that came first, and the women were the ones that understood in Mitzrayim what to do. Look at the other side. When it came to give the gold to make the calf, the golden calf, the idol, the women wouldn't give. It was the men that gave. So the women have this power. So the women have the power of אור חוזר stronger than the men, so they have to utilize it. And when Mashiach will come, it says that the women are going to be higher than the men, because they have this power, as I explained once before in one of the shiurim, and the the the role of the women in the redemption. But basically, concerning the point here that we're making is that this shows the important the specialty, the special importance of the כיור. Any question? Yes. Right, right. When we speaking about this, he says, \"What we do find,\" I said that in the Beit Hamikdash the service was all growing in goodness, while the כיור was to fight negativity, but we do find that the korbanot represented fighting negativity, and all other things, the ketoret. The truth is we're talking relatively. This was much Oh, technically, you're right. And I mentioned myself before that the קרשים themselves represent that, that it's they changing from שקר to קרש. But between the two, which one was more? The כיור was much more. The כיור's avodah represented it, the washing away of our own evil, while the others didn't. Adaraba, in the others as well, also, because after all we're still in this world, so we always have to fight. Even a tzadik, who is a very high madregah, he still has to fight his yetzer hara, that's why he says even the tzadik says every day, \"ואל תביאנו לידי נסיון, don't bring me to a test,\" because you never know what could happen on a higher level. So, but when we speak about relative between the two, this represents much more the the fighting the evil, and the and the other services is more the good. Yes? בידי שמים. בידי שמים, מיתה בידי שמים. Hashem would make them die. No, no, it's a physical death, they would die at a young age, but Hashem would make them die, right. Yes? Oh, we say so many berachot in davening, and davening itself is made up of berachot. I understand. Baruch She'amar, and Shemoneh Esrei are berachot. Oh, they're 18, 19 berachot, that's what they are. We don't Oh, we don't make a berachah for a berachah! This is would be a berachah for a berachah, we don't do that. There was a minimum amount of water you had to have there, but they had enough for many kohanim, and then they would fill it up again. Okay.