Today we're starting on time, we should do that every week. The topic tonight is to understand the important or the significance of saying Tachanun. We all know what Tachanun means, Tachanun is the part of davenen that comes right after the שמונה עשרה. Shacharit and Minchah during the week after we say the תפילת העמידה, which is the שמונה עשרה, and when you daven with a minyan, the chazan repeats the שמונה עשרה, and after that, the first thing is the section that we call Tachanun. I will explain in a moment where the word Tachanun comes from and what that means, but let me first just say what the Tachanun contains. The Tachanun is made up in our custom, meaning in many people's custom, some have a little different custom, but נוסח ארי and נוסח ספרד and many of נוסח אשכנז have the custom that Tachanun is made up that we start off first with what we call vidui, we say אשמנו, בגדנו. Vidui means confession. Just like on Yom Kippur when you confess, we say the long על חטא, but before that, we always say אשמנו, בגדנו, גזלנו. We mention different sins that we might have done, and we bang at our chest every time we mention another word. That's the first section of the Tachanun. Then comes when we mention the י״ג מדות הרחמים, the 13 attributes of mercy. We mention it, we have the introduction, and then we mention the 13 attributes of mercy. And then we have, that's called י״ג מדות הרחמים, and then the next section we have, that's what we call נפילת אפים, when we put our head down over our hand, and we say a certain section of Tehillim. And then after that, on Mondays and Thursdays, for Shacharit, we have a few pages of different prayers that we say. And after that, there is a prayer that, the conclusion of Tachanun, which we say every day, and that starts with the words ואנחנו לא נדע. First אבינו מלכנו, and then ואנחנו לא נדע מה נעשה, we don't know what to do, etc., etc. This is really what Tachanun is all about. This is what Tachanun is. The word Tachanun means to pray or to beg. And the Tachanun that we say is a special type of prayer which has the title Tachanun, different than tefillah. I guess in the English, I don't know how they translate it, how do you translate the word Tachanun in English? But I see here in the beginning, when we start off the Tachanun, we start off with the words right before we say אשמנו, we start off with a little introduction, and those are the words אלקינו ואלקי אבותינו, God, the God of our fathers, תבא לפניך תפלתנו, let our prayer come to You, ואל תתעלם מתחנתנו, and do not turn away from our supplication. Now, I don't know what that word means, but I imagine that it means that when you pray, you don't just pray like you pray a regular prayer, but it's in the form of begging, in a form of showing how much you really need it, and you really want it, and you really are begging for mercy. That's really what Tachanun is. And this section is called Tachanun because this is a section that comes after the Shemoneh Esrei, and that's the section where we really do the real prayer of praying to Hashem in a way that we really tell Hashem that we are really nothing, and we don't deserve anything, and we're begging You for Your mercy. It's all based, the expression Tachanun is based on a Midrash. The Midrash says, in this Tanchuma, on the פסוק ואתחנן אל השם, in Chumash Devarim, the second parashah of Chumash Devarim, it says that Hashem, Moshe Rabbeinu said, ואתחנן אל השם, I davent to Hashem, and I asked Hashem to please allow me to enter Eretz Yisrael. We know that Moshe Rabbeinu was not allowed to go into Eretz Yisrael because of his sin, so to speak, that he did with the מי מריבה, with the water, that Hashem said to him he should speak to the rock, and he said, instead he hit the rock, and Hashem said because of that you can't go into Eretz Yisrael. So Moshe Rabbeinu begged and begged Hashem that He should let him in, and it didn't help. But when he repeats it, when he reviews, say, he reviews saying that he begged Hashem, he uses the term ואתחנן, which is from the same term as Tachanun. And the Midrash says on this pasuk that there are many, many expressions for tefillah, for davenen, in Hebrew, not other languages, in Hebrew! There is tefillah, and there is בקשה, and there is תחנה, and there is פגיעה, and there is צעקה, and שועה, and all kinds of expressions that we find. Out of all expressions, which expression expression did Moshe Rabbeinu choose to use for his prayer, asking Hashem to let him into Eretz Yisrael? He chose the expression of Tachanun, of תחינה. That's why it says ואתחנן. And the Midrash says the reason why he chose that expression because techinah means when you beg Hashem, you really begging knowing that you don't deserve it. And the Midrash says Moshe Rabbeinu said that had I been not let into Eretz Yisrael because my time has come to pass away from this world, then I would daven and ask, but that's just a simple tefillah. But now I know that that was really before my time, it was because of what I did, so I really felt bad about it and I really gave myself, had this real, we call it self-nullification, the real bitul to Hashem, asking Hashem, please do it, and that's why he used the word tachanun, the word techinah. Besides the fact that it also has to do with the word חינם. חינם means for free, in vain. Moshe Rabbeinu davent, asking for a מתנת חינם, for a present for nothing. Sometimes you ask for something because you feel after all I deserve it. Moshe Rabbeinu knew that he doesn't deserve it. He said, clearly I don't deserve it. I'm asking for a מתנת חינם, and the word חינם comes from the word tachanun. And because of that, he davent in a form of techinah, which means a real, real bitul to Hashem, a real giving himself over to Hashem completely. And that's where the word va'etchanan comes from. And therefore we call this tefillah tachanun, because this is a tefillah, this section of the davenen is the part of davenen that we really, really ask Hashem in a form of techinah. In a form not only of tefillah of davenen. Shemoneh Esrei is called tefillah. We know that this the tefillah, whenever the Gemara talks about tefillah, the mitzvah of tefillah, usually it refers to Shemoneh Esrei. The Amidah, the Shemoneh Esrei, that's tefillah. This comes after the Shemoneh Esrei, this is techinah. This is tachanun. This is a type of tefillah that we daven with such bitul and with such feeling to Hashem, much more even than Shemoneh Esrei. And this comes after the Shemoneh Esrei.

Now why is it that this comes after the Shemoneh Esrei? Now the truth is in Tanach, in the פסוקים, we find many times when it talks about Shlomo Hamelech or other people davening, it uses these two terms: it uses the term of tefillah and the term of תחינה. And always, always—I can't say there are no exceptions, I'm not, you know, I don't have the whole Tanach in my head—but usually, first comes the word tefillah, then comes the word תחינה. In other words, תחינה comes after tefillah. After you have the level of tefillah, which means you daven to Hashem in a very strong way, but you're just davening in a form of tefillah, then afterwards comes the idea of תחינה, of תחנון, and to daven even stronger. The Abudraham explains, in the Sefer Abudraham who writes all about tefillah, he was a rishon, he was one of the early, early מפרשים, and he gives a reason why תחנון is made after tefillah, after Shemoneh Esrei, he says because this is the order of things: We want to daven to Hashem and show how we give ourselves over to Hashem in all ways, and we go in an order. First, we daven while we sit, so as much as davening means that we are getting closer to Hashem, especially the word tefillah doesn't just mean prayer, the word tefillah also means connection, we connect ourselves to Hashem, davening, it says in the Zohar, is like a ladder that you go up step-by-step, so we're going step-by-step. So we start off davening, getting closer to Hashem. Nevertheless, till Shemoneh Esrei, we sit when we daven. There are certain parts where the custom is to stand up, but you don't have to, according to the real strict halacha you don't have to, there are customs of standing up at ויברך דוד and other places, but the din is that you could sit. Even by Keriat Shema, when we say the Shema, which is one of the most important parts of davenen, we could sit. We're allowed to sit, as a matter of fact, you're not even allowed to stand up for Keriat Shema. You're allowed to stand for Keriat Shema, but if you were sitting till then, you're not allowed to stand up for Keriat Shema, you have to sit. When you sit, that shows that your bitul is not that strong. Imagine you being in front of a king: you wouldn't sit, you'd stand. The fact that we're still allowed to sit shows that at that time you're davening, but you're still davening in the form of sitting. Then you go a step further and you reach the davenen that you have to stand. By Shemoneh Esrei you have to stand. That's tefillah in the form of amidah, of standing. Then comes a higher level of tefillah, the level that we fall on our hands, which he says is the davenen which is even a greater bitul than standing, that's נפילה, when we fall, we fall on our face. You stand in front of a king, that shows how much you are honoring the king and the respect to the king. When you're falling, in the times they used to fall on on on their faces in front of the king, that showed the greatest level level of of bitul, and that's why this comes after tefillah, because this is even a higher level than the tefillah, because you have the falling, which shows our greater connection to Hashem and our greater bitul to Hashem. This is what the Avudraham says. The Rikanati, a great קבלה ספר, the Rikanati writes that the reason we have right after davenen we have Tachanun, he says it's similar to the halacha where it says that you have to מסמיך גאולה לתפילה. There is a halacha that before you say the Shemoneh Esrei, you have to right before that speak about the geulah, about the redemption, and that's actually what we have in the siddur. We say ברוך אתה השם גאל ישראל, and right away we start Shemoneh Esrei. And we say the Shemoneh Esrei right away because we have to have the geulah, which speaks about redemption, right next to the tefillah. So too, right after the tefillah we have to have the geulah. We have to be מסמיך, we have to connect the tefillah to geulah. What is the geulah? The geulah is tachanun. Tachanun is a level where a person feels, or should feel, that his neshamah gets a geulah, gets a redemption. Like this, our neshamah is in exile in our body. The neshamah cannot do what it wants. Meaning, the neshamah would really want to be much closer to Hashem. Because the neshamah is in our body, the body limits it, and it is not that close to Hashem. Geulah, the true redemption, means that your neshamah is not limited to the limitations of the body, but it's really, really close to Hashem. When does the neshamah really, really get close to Hashem? When we say tachanun. More than when we say tefillah, more than Shemoneh Esrei, even though it seems always we learn Shemoneh Esrei is the highest level, tachanun is even higher than that, and that's where you have the geulah. That's where you get closer to Hashem, and you get the geulah. The Shelah, the famous Shelah, he was one of the greatest מקובלים, and he has a siddur. And in his siddur he has all kinds of commentaries, explanations on the siddur. As a matter of fact, the Alter Rebbe, which made our siddur, the Nusach HaAri, based the נוסח that he wrote on the נוסח of the Shelah. And therefore, before they even had the siddur printed, when the Alter Rebbe made those changes, so the chassidim used to use the siddur of the Shelah, which was the closest, and the different changes they wrote on the side till the siddur was printed. The Shelah is actually the foundation of chassidus. The Alter Rebbe said that before he actually started this movement of chassidus Chabad, before he even went to the Baal Shem Tov to become, to the Mezritcher Maggid to become a follower of the Maggid and the Baal Shem Tov, he was completely involved in learning Shlah. And he was called by some people a של״ה איד, a Yid that has a connection to the Shlah. So the Shlah writes, why do we have Tachanun right after tefillah, after Shemoneh Esreh? He says because when we finished Shemoneh Esreh, we cleaned ourselves from everything, all spiritual dirt, now we have to have something to wash it off. Imagine you clean something and you get it out, then you have to make sure you rinse it down. Tachanun will rinse it down. Tachanun will rinse down all the blemishes that might be connected to you which Shemoneh Esreh did not get rid of yet, and Tachanun will get rid of that, will wash it down, that's why Tachanun comes afterwards. The Rebbe once explained why does Tachanun come after Shemoneh Esreh? Because Tachanun is a time when we could recognize certain faults that normally we would not recognize. There are certain faults that a person will not recognize unless he's a higher level. When a person is a lower level, or we say in Yiddish, a grober mensch, a person who is more coarse, will not feel very delicate, sensitive faults. The higher you get, the more you start feeling those sensitive faults. So before Shemoneh Esreh, when we are not in that high level yet, we cannot feel certain things. So when we say Shemoneh Esreh, we do teshuvah, we say סלח לנו, we say Hashem please forgive us, we say השיבנו, השם please let us do teshuvah, but there are certain things that we still not will not feel. But after Shemoneh Esreh, when we already reached a higher level, then we could start recognizing certain things that we need a higher level of teshuvah than we had before, and that's what the Tachanun will do. Besides, there are sometimes things that when a person is in a lower level, certain things don't matter, certain blemishes, certain faults don't matter when you are in the lower level. But when a person gets in a higher level, even those small, small problems also are problems. The mashal always is given from a garment. If you have a coarse leather garment, so even a big blemish doesn't matter. If you have a very delicate silk garment, even the smallest stain is already called a stain. So therefore, before you daven Shemoneh Esreh, there are certain things which are considered problems, but certain things you don't have to do teshuvah for because they're not considered problems, and you don't recognize those problems. So after Shemoneh Esreh, now that you reach a higher level, now first you got to say Tachanun. Now first you reach a level where you recognize certain things that you didn't recognize before. And not only for the person's sake a person doesn't recognize, even from Hashem, Hashem will not consider it a fault, a blemish, because you are not in that high of a level. When you reach a higher level, certain things that were not considered a blemish before will start showing up. When you become more become more silky, you become more refined, then certain things come up. So certain things that before Shemoneh Esreh will not come up as a blemish, when you said Shemoneh Esreh already and you reach the high level, now you have certain things come up and now you need the Tachanun to get rid of those blemishes also. There's a famous story written from one of the תלמידים of the Arizal, was one of the great tzadikim. So it says in this in the Kitvei HaArizal it says that this talmid was so great, that as soon as he died, his neshamah went up to the greatest highest levels. And the neshamah was traveling from one level to another and it was going and no problem. Finally at one point it came to one היכל, and wanted to enter one godly palace as they call it in Kabbalah, and they wouldn't let him in. And he wondered why. So they said, \"Because there is a blemish on you that you have to get rid of.\" Says, \"What's the blemish?\" Said that once, one time when you davened and you were saying ובא לציון in davening, and when you came to the words למען לא ניגע לריק ולא נלד לבהלה, you said these words, at that moment you took your mind off the tefillin for a second. That's a problem. And therefore we will not let you to go further till there are certain things done to fix up the problem. So he turned around, he said, \"If that's a problem, why did you remind yourself now? Why didn't you stop me as soon as I came up? Why didn't you stop me and not let me go in, because I have this blemish and you would have cleaned it then?\" So they said, \"This blemish that you had didn't count as a blemish then. Since in the lower levels it wasn't considered a blemish or wasn't considered a fall, so we let you go. But now that you reached such a high level, now it's a problem, and therefore now we have to wash it out so to speak, and then let you go further.\" And the same thing here also: before Shemoneh Esrei there are certain things which are not considered a blemish. When you daven Shemoneh Esrei, now after Shemoneh Esrei, now is first when you say Tachanun. So this are all the reasons why this Tachanun, which is a very important prayer, comes after Shemoneh Esrei. So in other words, that the some reasons are practical reasons, that is before it doesn't apply, and the main reason is because this is a higher level in davening even than Shemoneh Esrei. It's the bitul, it's not tefillah, it's תחינה. Tachanun, we call it Tachanun and it's the level as we'll see later where you put put your head down, which is the greatest bitul, that's why it comes after Shemoneh Esrei. That's besides the practical reasons. There's another practical reason: for instance, some of the mefarshim say the reason why we say Tachanun only after davening, after Shemoneh Esrei, is because when you say Tachanun and you say all these prayers, it puts you in a very, I don't want to use the word sad mood, but in a serious mood, or at least it should. And when it comes to daven, we know that there is a halacha that you אין אין עומדין להתפלל אלא מתוך שמחה. When you go to daven, you have to be in a happy mood. So if you'll say Tachanun before tefillah, before Shemoneh Esrei, you'll be in a too serious or sad mood, so your davening won't be proper. That's why they said first daven Shemoneh Esrei before you say Tachanun, then you daven say Tachanun. That's another practical reason. But the main reason that's given is that this is such a tefillah where you're expected to reach even a higher spiritual level than you reach at the time of Shemoneh Esrei when you say Shemoneh Esrei. Because like I said before, Shemoneh Esrei, it says in many sefarim, especially in Kabbalah veChassidus, is the climax of tefillah. Tefillah is like a ladder. We start off tefillah by saying or מודה אני or הודו להשם, which means we thank Hashem, but besides that it means we agree to Hashem, we admit to Hashem. And the word admitting means you only admit if you first argued. If a person doesn't argue, you don't have to admit. Which means we admit to Hashem shows that in essence we're at a level yet of arguing with Hashem, and we give in. But when you give in, it doesn't mean that in truth this understanding and feeling of closeness to Hashem penetrated into you, it didn't yet. And as you continue davening, what you're supposed to do is go up higher and higher and higher from one step to another to another, getting closer to Hashem and closer, till finally you come to Shemoneh Esrei. When you come to Shemoneh Esrei, Shemoneh Esrei, that is when you stand and you can't move and you can't look out, you're standing in front of the king, you actually feel close to Hashem. And that's how we always learn that it's the highest level. But in truth it says that Tachanun, which comes afterwards, is to a certain degree, at least looking at from a certain perspective, even higher than the Shemoneh Esrei. That's techinah, that's the climax of tefillah. And this is techinah, this is Tachanun where you go even higher. And that the real bitul we get to Hashem, and the real closeness we get to Hashem.

Now the order of Tachanun the way we have it, as I said before, we have first vidui, as I said before, the confession. We start off אלקינו ואלקי אבותינו, השם, please listen to our tefillot, and we say אשמנו, בגדנו, we mention all the aveirot that we could have done. Then we say the י\"ג מדות הרחמים, השם השם קל רחום וחנון, the thirteen attributes of mercy, with its introduction. And then we put our head down and we cover our eyes and we say the special prayer, those special תחנון נפילת אפים. So let's go through a little bit to explain the order. The first thing is vidui. Why do we say vidui as the beginning of Tachanun? Why do we say this confessions, this אשמנו? It's based on the Zohar. The Zohar says that after every tefillah we should say vidui. And that's על פי קבלה. This is really part of teshuvah. We know that teshuvah is made up of of three parts: accepting upon oneself never to do this sin again, regretting the past that we did it, and vidui, confession. So we do teshuvah. Ai, we just finished davenen שמונה עשרה, but as I said before, we have to after Shemoneh Esrei first doing teshuvah. So we have to start doing teshuvah, so we say vidui. But we have to remember, it says in sefarim if we say when we say vidui by Tachanun, we have to say it with a proper kavanah. We have to know what we're saying, and we have to mean what we're saying. If we don't mean what we're saying when we say אשמנו, number one, it doesn't do any good. Besides that, not only it doesn't do any good, it could make it worse to a certain degree. Why would it make it worse? So in some sefarim we find a mashal, a parable to explain this. And the mashal is of a person who had a garden with beautiful fruit, and the the the birds came along, they were starting to eat from the fruit. So he wanted to get rid of them. So what did he do? He took a few pieces of wood, put them together, and he hung them up in the in a way that when the wind blew, the pieces of wood banged it against each other. So when the birds heard the banging, the ra'ash, the noise, they thought there was some human being there, so they ran away. But after a while, they saw that's a bluff. There's no person there. So what did they do? They didn't care, they started coming back. But not only did they start coming back, it made it even worse, because this noise was like a bell that called them. Sometimes they would even forget about this garden, but every time the wind blew, it made noise, so they heard about it, so they came running. So not only didn't he accomplish anything, but this was a way to call the birds. And this is a mashal, it says in sefarim, concerning the yetzer hara. When the yetzer hara, the evil inclination, sees in a person that he's saying tachanun, he's saying אשמנו, that he's really saying vidui, confessing for his sins, so the yetzer hara gets scared, runs away, doesn't come. But after a while, if he sees it's a bluff, the guy is just saying words, he doesn't really mean it, it's all posteh maasiyos, it's nothing, the yetzer hara is not scared anymore, he comes back. And not only does he come back like in the other way, in any other place, you call him back! When you make this this noise of the tachanun, of the vidui, and you don't really mean it, this is like a bell that rings him and the yetzer hara comes. So you make it worse. So therefore, you have to say the tachanun, the vidui, we start off with the vidui, with the proper kavana, knowing what it means. That's how the tachanun starts. And the custom is that when we say the vidui, the אשמנו, we bang on our chest, on our heart. This comes from the Kitvei HaAri, the HaAri writes we should do that. Why do we do that? So it's based on a midrash. The midrash says that just like when a person he's worried about something, person has pain, or when a person worries about something that might happen to him, so he bangs at himself. That's the nature of a person, to bang. And what's taka the reason? Why does a person bang at his heart when something bad is happening, chas veshalom? A person might not even know why. The real reason is cuz he's showing that everything comes from here. It's because of my yetzer hara that's in here that I listened to, that's why I have all the tzarot. And that's why it says that you should bang when you say אשמנו, saying, this is the guy! It's because of him! And that's why you bang, אשמנו, בגדנו. But we have to remember that has to we have to mean what we're saying, and when we bang, we have to know that we're banging, getting into ourselves to remind us that it's our yetzer hara that's doing this. It's not like the famous story with the Rabbi' Naftali Ropshitzer. Rabbi' Naftali Ropshitzer was once standing in shul and it was very crowded and it was Yom Kippur, and since it was crowded, there were many people standing next to each other. So the person behind him was very close to him. And the guy was saying אשמנו, so the guy who was standing behind him was saying אשמנו with great kavana or something, and every time he hit himself, he banged him! He went like this, so he hit him. A few times. So he turned around, he says, fellow, I don't understand. You sinned and you're hitting me? You're saying אשמנו for your aveirot, so what are you hitting me for? But the idea is that you have to know what you're saying, and when you hit it, you know, you're supposed to know, this is what it means. In Kabbalah, we find another reason why we bang with our hand, our right hand, on our heart when we say אשמנו. And this is what Kabbalah says. And we're going to use the term, the kabbalistic terms. In Kabbalah, it says that we know in the heart we have the middot, we have the emotions. That's the מקום משכן המדות, the middot are in the heart. And we know that the middot start from חסד, גבורה, תפארת, נצח, הוד, יסוד, מלכות, all the middot start from chesed. And now, at this time of the year, we certainly know it, because when we count sefirah, every day we mention another another middah. So we start off from chesed. So chesed is the first. In in the middot, in order for the middot to be in the proper way, you have to have, it says, the המשכת המוחין. We have the intellectual part of the person, and when the intellect is proper, then that has a proper effect on the middot, and the middot are proper. When a person does an aveirah, what happens? The middot are not the way they should be. The מוחין, the true intellect that's behind the middot, leaves the person, and what happens then? The middot, which starts from chesed, and chesed is is the root of all the middot, so that middah and all the middot are not the way they should be, because the מוחין, the true part of the middah leaves. That's what happens in an aveirah. Tachanun, vidui is the teshuvah. So what the teshuvah is, we have to bring back that the middot should be in the right way in the heart, which means we have to make a המשכה to bring down from source into the heart that we should have the proper middot. It says that the way the מידת החסד, which is the source of all middot, is in the root, is made up of five levels, it's called ה' חסדים, five levels of chesed, and that's really what we're trying to do. We're trying to be ממשיך, to bring down the source of chesed, which is in the מוחין, and bring it down into the heart that we should have the proper middot, which went away when we did an aveirah. And that's why we take the hand, the right hand, the right hand represents chesed. The five fingers represent the ה' חסדים, the five levels of chesed, the way they are in the shoresh, in the root of chesed, and we take it, and we bang it on the heart. This is to show that we're being mamshich, we're bringing down the hei' chasadim, the five chasadim from the source into the heart, into the middot, and that's what we're replacing, we're bringing it back. And this is what is accomplished when we say, when we bang, because this is what we're supposed to accomplish through saying Tachanun, and this is what we do when we start off with vidui. So vidui is the beginning of the Tachanun, and as I repeat it again, Tachanun is a very holy tefillah, which means it's a time when we really get close to Hashem, so the beginning of the Tachanun of our true closeness to Hashem is when we say vidui, which means we do teshuvah, and we're mamshich this great hamshachah, we bring down this great Godly light that we're supposed to bring down. What comes after that? After that comes the י״ג מידות הרחמים. When we say them, we do what we're supposed to before, we reach the level of the thirteen attributes of mercy, and again, those are very, very high levels, not only על פי קבלה and על פי חסידות, even in simple peshat, in Rashi, it says that the י״ג מידות הרחמים represent a level that אינם חוזרות ריקם. Hashem said when you mention these thirteen attributes of mercy, I will never turn you away. This is something that's higher other to other things that you ask for, or if you ask for from Me in the zechut, in the merit of other things, not always will I listen to you, because sometimes what the level that you're the merit that you're mentioning is not so strong, cannot influence Me to listen to your tefillot. י״ג מידות הרחמים, when you mention that, I'll always answer you, because that's connected to Hashem so deeply, in the etzem, in the essence of Hashem. Certainly, according to Kabbalah and Chassidut, at the level of למעלה מהשתלשלות, and all kind of different expressions it says concerning the י״ג מידות הרחמים. Moshe Rabbeinu was taught the י״ג מידות הרחמים by the חטא העגל, and Kabbalah says it's the very highest level, and this is actually what happens: we come from the level of vidui, in other words, after Shemoneh Esrei, when we reach this high, high level of bitul to Hashem, we first come to the vidui, after the vidui we come to the י״ג מידות הרחמים, and after that, the next level is when we say that paragraph of where we say נפילת אפים, where we bend our head, hand down. This is something that we have to discuss. נפילת אפים is mentioned in the Gemara in many different places, on many occasions. But we must say that the way we do נפילת אפים now is different than the way it was done in the time of the Gemara. In the time of the Gemara, two things: number one, there was no set tefillah that everyone said when they would fall by נפילת אפים, everyone used his own words, and begged and prayed to the Aibershter whatever he felt when he did his נפילת אפים. Number two, they would actually fall on the floor, they would fall on their face, נפילת אפים means falling on your face, they would fall on their face. And this went on, this custom went on for quite a while, it went on even to the time of the Geonim, which is years after the Gemara. It was still later when it changed, and what happened was that they only, we only do נפילת אפים the way we do it, and I'll explain it in a moment. And when did it change that we have a set prayer for נפילת אפים? Seems like it changed from the time of the Maharam miRothenburg, which live, who lived about place probably about 600 years ago, that's when they set a special tefillah. Which is the special tefillah that is said? So a certain chapter of Tehillim was chosen, which is very appropriate to this occasion, to this thing that we do, and that was chosen. But there are two customs, there are two chapters: some have say chapter כ״ה, 25, that's נוסח האר״י and נוסח ספרד, some say chapter 6, that's נוסח אשכנז. Really it says that chapter 25 is the main one that we should say, but I hate to say this, that it says in Kabbalah that if someone says by נפילת אפים chapter 25 and is not mechaven properly and doesn't say every word clearly, so what it says is, and I don't even really want to say it, but I'll just say because it says in Torah, this person will not live long. And that's why many people changed to accept the other custom of saying chapter 6. The אלטר רבי in the siddur chose chapter 25 because he hopes that we're all going to have the proper kavanah, and also I guess gives all the berachot that nothing chas veshalom should happen. But these are the two customs. So now our custom is that we do have a specific prayer to do. It's similar, not exactly, but I give you as an example that before the chachamim established Shemoneh Esrei, there was also a mitzvah of davenen. But there was no set tefillah, no set berachah to say. Everybody davenet whatever he wanted. What made them change, what made the chachamim decide to set a special נוסח, a special wording of davenen? They saw that people aren't capable of really expressing themselves properly to Hashem. They are not capable of using the right words that will express what they need, express what they have to need, what they should really want and need. So the the chachamim said, \"You know what? Let us establish tefillah, and we'll use such words that will contain all the possible needs a person might have spiritually or physically, and let's put it all into Shemoneh Esrei.\" Similarly, it could be here, I assume, I didn't see this, but I assume, that because they saw that people, when they said the tachanun, they said נפילת אפים, they said their own words, they weren't always capable of using the right words, they said, \"Let's stick to a certain chapter of Tehillim which has all the needs for Tachanun, and we'll give it to the people to say, and that's when it started.\" In other words, to Hashem. We do that too, but we don't really fall on the floor. We bend our heads. And the reason, probably, is because we are not in the same level as they used to be. We cannot reach the real real climax ultimate level of bitul to Hashem that we should fall on the floor. I mean, we can lay down on the floor, but that doesn't mean anything. It has to be an a representation of where we are really at in the true level. Since we cannot reach a very very high level of bitul, so at least we bend our head. But bending our head towards the table, towards down, is also a form of bitul, which is also called nefilah, we fall, plus we cover our eyes. When we do that, we cover our eyes. The simple reason why we cover our eyes is because we should be able to concentrate. Just like when we say Shema, we cover our eyes, and the simple reason we cover our eyes is because Shema is a pasuk that we really have to concentrate to every word that we say. So here too, in order to be able to concentrate in what you're saying, especially we who say קפיטל כ\"ה, we have to concentrate, so that's why we close our eyes. So the main thing is not closing the eye, covering the eyes. The main thing is the bending your head. Because I saw some people, I must mention this, I saw some people they they sit they say Tachanun, they they sit, they keep their head up, and they go like this. You didn't do נפילת אפים if you just sit with your face with your head up, just covering your eyes. You have to bend your head. Beside bending your head, you also have to cover your eyes. But the main thing is the bitul. Since this tefillah is such a strong tefillah, a part of the davenen which shows our true Tachanun, our true bitul to Hashem, and after you said vidui and after the י\"ג מדות הרחמים, now you first fall on the face. So we have to really bend ourselves physically to show that we're really bending ourselves to Hashem. על פי קבלה it says you should sit when you say נפילת אפים. It says if you can't, for some reason, then you're allowed to stand, and therefore some places where it's crowded you could stand, but you have to bend your head. I remember when we used to daven with the רבי'ס מנין always, so many people didn't want to sit in front of the רבי, so they would say Tachanun while standing, but you bend your head. And then you cover your eyes so you should be able to concentrate. There is really another reason why we cover our eyes. Some מפרשים say the reason is because it says in the Gemara that in the Beit HaMikdash when they used to bow down, and during the time when they used to bow down they used to say vidui. Each one would confess for his on his sin, not to any human being, chas veshalom, to Hashem. And they didn't want that one person should hear from the other what the other one is saying. So therefore they said that you have to have ד' אמות, four cubits, between each person. So similarly, when we say our Tachanun, we want that it should be as if we're private and has nothing to do with somebody else, so we cover our eyes as if all private, all for ourselves. That's the reason why we cover our eyes. But the main thing is to bend your head down. And it says that when you cover your eyes and while you're bending, you should do it with a garment. You can't do it with your hand. You can't do like this. It's not like Shema. I wonder why, I don't know why. By Shema, you could cover your eyes, we do cover our eyes with our hand. By Tachanun, by נפילת אפים it says you shouldn't cover your eyes with your hand, There should be some garment, and that's why in the morning when we wear a tallit, we cover it with the tallit. By Minchah, when we don't have a tallit, but we have the sleeves, so we do it on the sleeve. But if somebody has a short-sleeve shirt and he's davenen for some reason without a jacket, for some reason, I don't know, it shouldn't happen, but if it happens, and you say nefilat apayim on your bare hand, no good. Says you should have it over a garment. But the idea is that you should cover your eyes, and your own bare hand is not called a covering. It's not called covering. It's like covering yourself, you have to have something else to cover, and you have to cover your eyes, therefore you have to have a garment. And on which hand do we do it? So we do it, it says really you should do it on the left hand. All kinds of reasons why it should be on the left, to get rid of the left, no leftovers or represents the evil, we want to get rid of the evil, so you should do it on your left. But in the morning since we're wearing tefillin on our left hand, so we do it on the right hand. And the reason is, it says, because if you do it on the left hand where you have the tefillin, it'll be a בזיון, it'll be an embarrassment for the tefillin. Now let's understand, why is it an embarrassment to tefillin? What's wrong? Adaraba, it's an embarrassment for the tefillin? It's something good! You're saying tachanun and you're praying to Hashem, and you're being mevatel yourself to Hashem, what's wrong with that? Why do we have to turn to the other side? What's wrong if you do it on the tefillin? But the pshat is like this: we don't say tachanun on Shabbos, we don't say tachanun on Yom Tov, we don't say tachanun on any special holidays. And the reason is, because those days are so holy, we don't want to awaken any judgment, and we stay away from tachanun. Especially, which the Rebbe explains, that if it's a day that you don't say tachanun, and tachanun accomplishes great things, it can't be that because it's a Yom Tov or a Shabbos, we'll be missing that great accomplishment. It can't be Hashem wouldn't make that because it's so holy, it's a special day, you're going to miss out something special, this tachanun that we're going to miss out. So, obviously, on a Yom Tov, Shabbos and Yom Tov, the accomplishment that usually is accomplished through tachanun happens by itself. Hashem makes it happen by itself. So it comes out that Shabbos and Yom Tov are able to accomplish it. Shabbos and Yom Tov are considered, it says in pasuk, an ot, a sign between the Yidden and Hashem. Tefillin is also a sign between the Yidden and Hashem. And that's why on Shabbos and Yom Tov we don't wear tefillin. If we'll say tachanun on the hand with the tefillin, it's as if we're showing that the tefillin sign is not good and it doesn't accomplish. If Shabbos and Yom Tov accomplishes and you don't have to say Tachanun, then maybe the tefillin should accomplish it too. It doesn't, but at least let's not push it into the tefillin, put it on the side of the tefillin to show it. And therefore we do it on the other hand, to show that now we don't have that Shabbos, Yom Tov, and we have to on our own reach this great level that we're going to reach through Tachanun. And that's why we do it on the right hand. On the other hand, when we daven Mincha when we're not wearing tefillin, then we say Tachanun and we do it on our left hand. Then there are more inyanim that it says concerning the specialty of nefilas apayim. In the Zohar it says that when you have nefilas apayim and you fall by Tachanun, you have to feel as if you're giving up your life for Hashem. Which coincides, which fits to what I said before, is the highest level of bitul, but there it's as clear, it's like mesiras nefesh. You have to feel like you're bending down and you're falling for Hashem. And it's all based on a pasuk it says by Moshe Rabbeinu, after the story of Korach, when the Yidden, Korach argued against Moshe, so it says that Moshe and אהרן, ויפלו על פניהם, they fell on their face. Says they fell on their face. And the Zohar says that at that moment they were ready to give their lives to Hashem, they said, \"Hashem, we're giving up our lives to you.\" And the same it says every time you have nefilas apayim, it's mamash, it's as if you're giving, you're supposed to feel that you are ready for mesiras nefesh to give up your life for Hashem. And that's why this time, based on everything we said before, the time of Tachanun, and especially nefilas apayim, it says in the Zohar is an eis ratzon, you know eis ratzon means auspicious time. It says in the Zohar that if you have any special bakashos, special things that you want from Hashem, and you want to daven for it, at the time of nefilas apayim is the best time. That's when you have reached the highest level, and therefore this is the best time to daven. And it says if you cry by nefilas apayim, ooh! So that's the highest level possible. You know what it says? Crying by nefilas apayim is equivalent to ניסוך המים. When tears come out of your eyes, it's equivalent to the time when they poured the water on the מזבח in the בית המקדש. We all know that Sukkos time there was שמחת בית השואבה, there was this great joy in connection to the water. What was the water used for? They used to pour water on the מזבח. All year round they would pour wine on the מזבח, on Sukkos in addition to the wine they would pour water. And the simcha was so great. And it says that the great Godly revelation that took place at that time was unbelievable. It says nevi'im, nevi'im, the prophets got their prophecy from participating in שמחת בית השואבה. Yonah, Yonah, the famous Yonah, you we make a whole טומל, Maftir Yonah. Yonah was a navi. It says, where did Yonah get his nevuah? From participating in שמחת בית השואבה. Why is it called שמחת בית השואבה? The simple translation is the simcha in connection to the drawing. Drawing of what? The drawing of the water. They used to draw water from the well. Yerushalmi says, you know why it's called בית השואבה? שמשם שואבים רוח הקודש, that at that time you could draw Holy Spirit. That's how great it was. Nowadays, we don't have שמחת בית השואבה, so what's instead? It says בכלל, if a person cries during davenen, especially when he cries during נפילת אפים, the water, the tear that comes down accomplishes the same thing as שמחת בית השואבה accomplishes, ניסוך המים. And it's all connected, because at the time of שמחת בית השואבה they had great godly revelation, and when you say Tachanun in the proper way and have all the כוונות, then you'll have that great godly revelation too. And that's why it says in many sefarim that there are so many things, great things that we could accomplish through נפילת אפים. And one of the things it's כדאי, worthwhile to mention that this helps a person understand Torah. We all want, when we learn, to be able to understand it. Some people have a hard time understanding a piece of Gemara, have a hard time understanding a מאמר חסידות, have a hard time understanding a פסוק חומש, or because of their background, or because of their head, or because they didn't work, or whatever it is. So one of the kind of the segulot that we could are able to do in order to bring about that we should understand Torah, so the Zohar says, no, this is from the Arizal, it's through נפילת אפים. So that's the last step of this Tachanun, it comes to נפילת אפים.

After that, normally other every other day, but Monday and Thursday, we go to אבינו מלכנו, saying Hashem' you are our father, our king, and then we say ואנחנו לא נדע מה נעשה. So the end is, we don't know what to do. And the sefarim say, why do we finish off we don't know what to do? Because we're turning around to Hashem' and we say, we tried all types of tefilot already. We did everything. First we had the tefilah through sitting, then we had the tefilah through standing, then we had the tefilah through falling, that's it, what else can we do? ואנחנו לא נדע מה נעשה, we don't know anything else, now it's in your hand. But on Mondays and Thursdays, we have many, many more prayers in the middle, and there's not enough time to go through the meaning of the prayers, but just the general idea. These are extra prayers that were established by chachamim to say on special days. Monday and Thursday are special days. Monday and Thursday the Sanhedrin, the beit din used to sit. Monday and Thursday is a special et ratzon, because Mondays and Thursdays, if you have to fast, it should be a Monday or a Thursday. As a matter of fact, today is actually a fast day. Today is the first day of bahab, you know, after every Yom Tov טוב, Pesach and Sukkot, they used to fast three days, Monday, Thursday, and Monday, ב' ה' ב', bahab. And the first Monday after ראש חודש, ניסן you can't fast, so you have to wait after ראש חודש, so today is the first Monday of ראש חודש, so there are people who fast today bahab, and then Thursday will be, and the next Monday. So fasting so Monday and Thursday are special days, so that's why they made special tefilot that we should add. Who established this tefilot? So it says in different sefarim that there were three גדולי ישראל, three great tzadikim that lived at the time of the חורבן בית המקדש. Their names were, I think one was Rav Amitai, one was Rav Shefatyah, and one was Rav Yosefah. And they were taken away from Yerushalayim with Titus, and they lived very long it says. And after Titus, תכף Titus died, there was a time there was no king in Rome, and the situation for the Jews became even worse, so these three established the tefilot that we say, the extra tefilot from Vehu Rachum on until the extra that we add. And it says even exactly which one Rav Amitai made, which part, and which part Rav Shefatyah made, and which one Rav Yosefah made. In other places it says the story a little bit different. It says that after the חורבן בית המקדש the Yidden spread out, and the different gedolim came to a certain place, and the king of that faraway place asked them, \"Where are you from, and who are you?\" So they said, \"We're Jews, and we're descendants from Avraham Avinu.\" So he said, \"Yeah, you're descendants from Avraham Avinu, let's test you. Avraham Avinu, I know,\" he says, \"was thrown into the furnace and he survived. Let's see if you guys can do that too.\" And so they said, \"We have to think about it.\" He said, \"I'll give you three days to think.\" And he put the three gedolim into prison for three days, and then he said he would do this. At night, when they woke up in the morning after the night, each one said to the other, \"Did you have a dream?\" He said, \"Yeah. What was your dream?\" And he said, \"My dream was that I was told, go into the fire and you will not be burned.\" So they said, \"Ah, Baruch Hashem', we know it's going to be safe.\" And when the king came after the three days, he threw them into the furnace and they were safe, but while they were praying, they established these extra prayers that we have that we say on Monday and Thursday, this special tefilot. And after that, we finish off the tachanun by saying ואנחנו לא נדע. All this brings out how important tachanun is and what we accomplish, what level we reach through the tachanun, which is the reason, the explanation of what the Rebbe once said, that we know that by other chassidim there is a custom that if you have a day of a yahrzeit of a tzaddik, you don't say tachanun. So the Rebbe says he went to ask the Frierdiker Rebbe, how come that we don't have that custom? So the Frierdiker Rebbe said to him, in Yiddish, \"וואו איז דא נאך א טאג בעסער? אויב בעט מען זיך אויף אזא טאג.\" If a day of a yahrzeit of a tzaddik is so special, isn't it the best opportunity for us to say tachanun and accomplish what we're supposed to accomplish? It seems like that Yom Tov is a different story, when it's Yom Tov it's accomplished by itself. But if it's not a Yom Tov, and it doesn't happen by itself, then even if it's a special day we still have to say it, on the contrary, that's the best time to say it, because then we have extra power, extra strength to accomplish what tachanun is supposed to accomplish because it's a special yahrzeit of a tzaddik. Because tachanun is so great, so we want to say it specifically then.

Then there is one more point I want to make concerning tachanun. Not concerning tachanun per se, but concerning tachanun as being the beginning of the second half of davenen. We know davenen has two parts to it. First we have from the beginning to Shemoneh Esrei. There's many parts, but I'm saying this is one section so to speak, and then the second half. Now if you go to a shul, you see that till Shemoneh Esrei, everything is fine, everyone after Shemoneh Esrei, oof, they don't even chap, it's getting late, it's already there's guys half out of the door, and it's it's already the second half is like nothing. In truth, the second half of davenen is very important, and to a certain degree, it's even more important than the first part of davenen. Why? So it says like this, as I mentioned before, it says in the Zohar that davenen is like a ladder. You go up step by step. So we start off and it says by the ladder of Yaakov Avinu when he had a dream, it says there was a ladder standing on the ground, סולם מוצב ארצה וראשו מגיע השמימה, and the tip touched the shamayim. So we, when we start off our day, we are not at a very high spiritual level. We start off on the ground, not only on the ground, ארצה, ארצה means in the earth, deep in the earth. And then we start climbing. And we're supposed to climb up not just to shamayim, but השמימה, it says וראשו מגיע into the deep, deep in the שמים. So it says when we go step by step, we go from one level to another level. עפ״י קבלה there are first we go from עולם העשיה, and then we go to עולם היצירה, עולם הבריאה, finally Shemoneh Esrei we reach the highest level of אצילות. We go all the way up. This is one of the reasons why עפ״י קבלה, if you come to shul and they're holding by Shemoneh Esrei, so you look at Shulchan Aruch, it seems as if you have to skip around to make sure you daven Shemoneh Esrei with the minyan, and then later you'll finish off what you missed. קבלה says, \"What are you talking? How can you do this? Did you ever hear of a ladder you'll go, jump from the bottom to the fourth step, and then you go to the third, you go back up, you go down, you get confused? S'iz a gantze mishmash, you can't do that.\" You go step by step. But finally we reach Shemoneh Esrei. Shemoneh Esrei is the climax, that's the time when we reach אצילות. But, Hashem doesn't want us to stay in אצילות. Hashem wants us to be down here. And what He wants us to do is to take those great, lofty, spiritual, godly levels that we reached when we come to אצילות, and come down the ladder again, but come down and bring along some of the merchandise that you got in אצילות, and bring it down here into this world, and behave in the world with the merchandise you received in אצילות. The next day you'll do the same thing again. So Shemoneh Esrei is when you come to the top. In Chassidus we would call it, this is the רצוא. You're going higher, there is a רצוא, running to Hashem. But it says you have to have a רצוא and a שוב. רצוא, you mean you have to run and go, go to Hashem, but then Hashem wants שוב, to return, taking it along. So when after Shemoneh Esrei starts the descent, go down. That's the hardest part. To go up is one thing, but to come down back to the world, taking along the package that we have in אצילות, that's not so easy. And there starts the hard avodah. The Maggid of Mezritch would not daven with the minyan שחרית. Would not daven. He davens himself for hours, כוונות. But when he finished Shemoneh Esrei, he said he from Shemoneh Esrei till the end of davenen, he said he need a minyan. And he said why? Because himself he says, \"I can't do it. When you daven with a minyan, then we're all one and you have the help from other people in the in in in the minyan.\" He says, \"Coming down is harder for me than going up. And I need help.\" So he said that's he used he used to daven with the minyan only from Shemoneh Esrei and and down, and on. Which is the first part of after Shemoneh Esrei? Which is the first changeover from going up to going down, which is the hardest part? That's the Tachanun. That's the beginning. So from Tachanun we start. Ai, we said before that Tachanun is even a higher level than Shemoneh Esrei, now we're saying it's coming down, it's not a contradiction. To be able to come down from Atzilut taking along this, you have to be in a higher level. You have to have much more power. To be able to stay in the same level and still come down, that's what Tachanun is. And this is the importance of Tachanun. That's why we shouldn't feel so bad when we have to say Tachanun, because usually it's a day that we don't say Tachanun, everyone is so happy, no Tachanun, right? There's a chatan in the shul, no Tachanun, there's a bris today, no Tachanun. this, we're we're happy. Okay, the truth is, as I said before, if the halachah says that you don't have to say, then obviously, you've accomplished without saying. The Torah wouldn't say, don't say it and miss something out. But on the other hand, if you do have to say, it's nisht geferlach, it's not bad, it's a very, very high level, it's a very great madregah of bitul to Hashem. And when we have that bitul to Hashem, Hashem says like it says in Pirkei Avot, if you're mevatel your ratzon to me, your will to me, I will be mevatel my will to you. And when we have a real bitul, up to the level of Tachanun, that's when Hashem will answer our prayers, like it says in the Zohar, that's a time to ask, because if we're mevatel our ratzon to him, he will be mevatel our ratzon, his ratzon to us, and give us everything that we need. Yes? It becomes a Yom Tov. It becomes a Yom Tov. A chatan and a bris, that's a Yom Tov. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't want to go into halachot because this shiur was not a halacha shiur. There're so many halachot in Tachanun. Lemashel, if there's no ספר תורה, it's a big she'eilah. Some say there are sefarim. Our custom is that there are sefarim in the room, you do it. You don't, if there is no sefarim, then you say it, but you don't bend your head down. And there are all all kinds of other halachot. Do you say י״ג מדות הרחמים without a minyan? You don't, you say it with the טראפ, and it's okay, I mean, all kinds of this. Yes? Okay. There's certain that use the straps when they're not, they don't have tallit. I think, is a מנהג שטות, it has no source. Actually, I've seen printed lately from somebody who writes that. Writes, he saw this and I want to tell everybody this is not a, there's no reason for it. And I don't remember in my time even to do it, it's a new thing, it's it's a, it's a modern minhag, to take the, to take the the the strap of tefillin. Got to win, what do you need to got for? Why do you need to got for? What's wrong with, what's wrong with your sleeve? If that's called the garment, I don't know. I don't know. Except Ma'ariv. It's okay, at night we shouldn't, that's a separate That's, yeah, because that's we get to the next morning already. It's explained, if at night you shouldn't say vidui, except in Yom Kippur, we do, and that's why Ma'ariv not, there's a whole discussion about Ma'ariv, it looks like that's what it should be, yeah. No, I think you should sit down and learn it in English first, and then say it in ivrit. Every letter, yeah, alef-beis, true, true. It says, yeah. But even there is even a long vidui, that has many, many ashamnu, plus many, many more things with an alef. I forgot who it's meyuchas to, somebody of, they have it printed, before Yom Kippur, they printed those. Before tefillah, you have to have simcha, but when you do teshuvah, you have to have on one hand simcha, but they have to have crime, because in the Zohar you have to have חדוה תקיעא בלבאי מסטרא דא, בכיה תקיעא בלבאי מסטרא דא. Simcha on one side, and crying on the other side. You have to have the feeling of regret, and crying, at the same time, you have to do it with simcha. He does tamtzit. Dies. That's vidui. That's so if someone dies after Shacharit, and then he has done his vidui, yeah.