We are just finishing the 30th cycle of learning רמב\"ם since the רבי made the תקנה that we should learn רמב\"ם every day, and there are two ways to do it, or to learn three פרקים a day, three chapters a day, and then we finish it within a year, or to learn one פרק a day and we finish it within three years. Now we're celebrating, we just celebrated the end of the 30th cycle of learning three פרקים a day, three chapters a day, and those that learn one chapter a day, we just finished the cycle of, the 10th cycle of learning one chapter a day. And now we are celebrating the סיום, the completion. We know the custom is that whenever you celebrate a סיום, a completion of some special ספר, some special book, for instance like you finish משניות, or when you finish a מסכתא, tractate, so the custom is to learn a little bit of the end of that ספר, the end of the מסכתא, of the tractate that we're finishing, and in this case it would be to learn the end of the רמב\"ם because we are finishing, we're completing the whole cycle of learning the רמב\"ם. But I think before we get to that, I think I would like to explain a little bit about what is the specialty of the רמב\"ם. We know the רמב\"ם, whose name was רבנו משה בן מימון, that's the abbreviation of רמב\"ם, ר' מ' ב' מ', רבנו משה בן מימון, he was one of the greatest צדיקים, one of the greatest sages that lived in Jewish history. And he wrote many, many ספרים, many, many books, but the major work that he wrote was this ספר that we are completing now, which has two names. The רמב\"ם himself called it משנה תורה, and then there's another name for it, יד החזקה. משנה תורה means the second to the תורה, as I will explain in a moment why this is called משנה תורה, and also יד החזקה it's called because the word יד החזקה means the strong hand, but the word יד is made up of two letters, יו\"ד and a דל\"ת. יו\"ד is 10, the numerical value of יו\"ד is 10, and of דל\"ת is 4, 14, because there are 14 sections in this ספר of the רמב\"ם, and that's why it's called יד החזקה. And this is the main works of the רמב\"ם. The רמב\"ם, as we know, as I said, was a great צדיק, was a great sage. The רמב\"ם, just in short, was born in Córdoba, Spain, then he traveled, and with his family finally they ended up in Egypt, מצרים, and there he became the doctor of the sultan and he actually became the chief chief doctor of Cairo. And he became a leader of the Jewish people. As a matter of fact, he was so beloved by the people that around his area that in the קדיש that we say, they mentioned his name. We say in קדיש, יתגדל ויתקדש שמיה רבא, let השם's name be raised, be exalted, and then we say בחייכון וביומיכון ובחיי דכל בית ישראל, that should happen in the lifetime, our lifetime, the lifetime of all the Jews. So in the area of the רמב\"ם, they would even insert in this קדיש the רמב\"ם's name. They would say בחייכון וביומיכון ובחיי דרבנו משה בן מימון, that this should happen in the lifetime of רבנו משה בן מימון, that's how he was beloved. And the רמב\"ם wrote many books, he wrote many ספרים, he wrote even books on medicine, but he wrote some books on the גמרא, interpretation of the Talmud. Mainly, he wrote the פירוש המשניות, which is interpretation of the משנה, and then he wrote ספר המצוות, the ספר, the book that describes all 613 מצוות, and the main work was this ספר. The other books that he wrote were all written by him in Arabic. When we have it in Hebrew, it was a translation translated by others. But this ספר that the רמב\"ם wrote that we are completing now, the רמב\"ם wrote originally in לשון קודש, he wrote it originally in Hebrew. The whole מעלה, the greatness, the specialty of the רמב\"ם is as so, because we know that השם gave us תורה שבכתב and תורה שבעל פה. He gave us the written תורה, the written law, which is the חומש, five books of משה, and then we have the oral תורה, which are the laws, the description of how to do everything. And that, we know, is written in the משניות, in the משנה, also in the Talmud, in the גמרא. The problem is that the way it's written there in the גמרא and in the משנה, we have a lot of arguments and different discussions, and it's very hard to come to a conclusion to realize what is the bottom line, what is the ruling. There are many rules how to get to understand what the הלכה is, what the bottom line, the ruling is, but it's not so simple. Simple people certainly will never get it, and even תלמידי חכמים, sages, not always, scholars would not always get it. And therefore it was very hard to come to a decision by learning the הלכות in the Talmud and in the משניות or in the other parts like the ברייתות. It wasn't simple, and not too many people could reach the conclusion. Also, the way it's written In the גמרא, the problem is that it's not really in an order. Even though there are different tractates on different subjects, for instance, there is a tractate, a מסכתא called שבת, so the laws of שבת, that discusses the laws of שבת, then you have tractate פסחים, which discusses the laws of פסח, tractate ראש השנה, then we have tractates that discuss monetary discussions, monetary disputes, so it's true that the main discussion in these places are with the subject that it's about, but the truth is it's not 100% because there are so many laws about שבת, for instance, which are found in another מסכתא, in פסחים, found in עירובין. There are many laws about פסח which are found in different מסכתות. In order for somebody to know the laws of שבת, you have to be a בקי, you have to know the whole ש״ס, you have to know all of the תלמוד. Why? Because there're so many הלכות, so many laws that you will not find in מסכת שבת. So there are two problems here. One problem is that it's very hard to come to a decision because there are discussions and arguments, and not too often does the תלמוד actually tell us והלכתא, what the הלכה, what the real law, the bottom line is. So that's one thing that people didn't know what to do. Plus, you wouldn't know all the הלכות just by learning שבת, you wouldn't know the הלכות of שבת. You have to know everything in order to know the הלכות of שבת. You have to know the whole ש״ס in order to know the הלכות of פסח. So what the רמב״ם did was something so special. He knew all the sources, he knew all the rules how to come to a decision, and he learned it all through and came to a decision. And in this book, in this ספר, he wrote down the decisions, and he made it in order. In other words, in the laws of שבת, he took all the laws of שבת that are written in the תלמוד in all the places, whether it's in the tractate שבת or in the tractate פסחים or wherever it is, put it all together under one heading, under הלכות שבת, the laws of שבת. And not only from the תלמוד that we have, which we call the תלמוד בבלי, the Babylonian תלמוד, but there is another תלמוד which is also not learned so much, but it also has a lot of הלכות, a lot of laws, which is called תלמוד ירושלמי, the תלמוד of ירושלים, the ירושלמי, the ירושלים תלמוד, and many הלכות are there, and many people didn't learn it. The רמב״ם knew all that, and he took all the הלכות from all these places, came to the decision in every time that there is a question or every time that there is an argument, he came to a decision based on the rules that he knew how to come to a decision, and he put it all into one area. So now when we have the ספר הרמב״ם, now everything is clear. If you want to know the laws of שבת, you have all the laws of שבת there. If you want to know the laws of פסח, it's all under one heading of הלכות חמץ ומצה, the laws of חמץ ומצה, the laws of פסח. And this is something that was not done before, and this made the תורה much easier. And the רמב״ם's לשון, which means the רמב״ם's language, is so simple, so clear that the commentaries and the codifiers, the פוסקים, they refer to it as לשון הזהב, the golden expressions of the רמב״ם, because he wrote it so clear that when you learn the רמב״ם, you see it so clear. So here we have some monumental work that brought the תורה, the תורה שבעל פה, the oral תורה, to all the people that they're able to learn it. And another thing: there are other people who also wrote books bringing down, showing the הלכות of different things, later than, before the רמב״ם a little bit, mainly after the רמב״ם, like for instance, the שולחן ערוך, רבי יוסף קארו. But there they only wrote the laws that pertain בזמן הזה, which only apply nowadays when we don't have the holy temple, we don't have the בית המקדש, and we don't have the sacrifices. The רמב״ם collected all the הלכות of the whole תורה, including all the laws that have to do with the time of משיח, with the time of the בית המקדש, and put it all into this book. Basically, when you learn this ספר of the רמב״ם, you've learned the whole תורה. And this is what the רמב״ם writes as an introduction. The רמב״ם in the introduction says that the way I wrote my ספר, my book, you could learn the חומש, you could learn the five books of משה רבינו, and straight from there you could come to my ספר and you'll know all the הלכות, you wouldn't even have to learn the גמרא. And the truth is, I have to say that because of this there was an opposition against the רמב״ם. There were some people who claimed that because of the רמב״ם, people will stop studying the תלמוד. Why? Because they don't need a תלמוד, because now they have all the הלכות. The truth is, the reality showed that it's not so. After the רמב״ם wrote his ספר, people started discussing and learning the תלמוד even more, because now when they learn the רמב״ם, they go back to the source of the תלמוד and they say, well, we see according to the רמב״ם's decision, we see how he learned the interpretation of this piece of the תלמוד, how he learned that. And the תלמוד got even stronger because of what the רמב״ם wrote. So all these fears that they had did not materialize because, in truth, it brought תורה even more. And it's interesting to say that the רמב״ם got a הסכמה, הסכמה means an agreement, an acknowledgement. Many people who write different books, ספרים, holy ספרים, usually usually get an acknowledgment, a הסכמה from some great rabbi. Now, I want to tell you who the רמב״ם got his הסכמה from. It says in שם הגדולים, one of the great authors of a ספר that deals with the history of the different rabbis, different sages, tells a story that the רמב״ם worked on his book, on this ספר for 10 years, some say it was 14 years. He was secluded and he worked on it for such a long time. The day that he finished, and as soon as everything was finished, he picked up his head and he looked around and he saw his father standing next to him. His father was already in the other world, had passed away many years, but here his father came to him. And then there's another man standing next to his father, and he asks his father, \"Who is this man?\" And his father says, \"This is none other than משה רבינו, Moses himself.\" And he said he came here, he heard that you wrote such a great book, he wants to see it. So the רמב״ם took the manuscripts and he gave it to משה רבינו to look. משה רבינו opened it, looked through it, and he gave it back to him and he said, \"יישר כח.\" He said, \"Thank you.\" In other words, the רמב״ם has a הסכמה, has an acknowledgment of none other than משה רבינו himself. And this is one of the reasons why on the רמב״ם's מצבה, on the רמב״ם's tombstone, is engraved these words: ממשה עד משה לא קם כמשה. From משה to משה there was no one like משה, meaning from משה רבינו who wrote the חומש to משה בן מיימון, which is the רמב״ם, there was no one like him, because there's a great similarity between the two, besides the fact that they both were called משה. משה רבינו wrote the whole תורה שבכתב, the whole written תורה, and the רמב״ם wrote down the whole תורה שבעל פה, the whole oral תורה, including everything that's written in the משניות, in the both תלמודs, בבלי and ירושלמי, in other parts that are connected to the גמרא called ברייתות and תוספתות. The רמב״ם even included things that were written by the sages after the תלמוד was already finished, which were called רבנן סבוראי or the גאונים, which is another period of גדולי ישראל, of great sages before the רמב״ם. He included all their פסקים, all their decisions in הלכה. He put it all into his ספר. So if someone learns the ספר of the רמב״ם, gets a picture of the whole תורה, of everything, including those הלכות, those laws that don't apply to nowadays. And this is the specialty of the רמב״ם, that the רמב״ם brought the whole תורה closer to all the יידן in a way, as the רמב״ם writes in his introduction, that this is made כקטן כגדול. It's made for the small ones, for the big ones, big scholars, small scholars, simple people, they could all get out of this what they're supposed to get. And since then, since the רמב״ם wrote his ספר רמב״ם, this has been studied by thousands and tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Jews in connection to the תלמוד and in connection to bringing decisions in questions that come up in הלכה. And the רבי, just about I think 28 years ago, came out with a special תקנה saying that we should learn the רמב״ם every year we should finish, or at least once in three years, and this added hundreds of thousands of people learning רמב״ם daily. And this is something special. It says the רמב״ם's נשמה was such a holy נשמה. It says if you learn רמב״ם, it makes you it makes the coming of משיח closer. It says the רמב״ם had a נשמה of משיח, some גדולי ישראל wrote. That the רמב״ם was so special. And this is why it's so important when we finish the רמב״ם to make a big celebration. It's not only a celebration because we finished a special book, but it's a celebration of the תורה. It's celebrating the learning of the whole of תורה שבעל פה. Now, as I said, the custom is that when we make a סיום on the רמב״ם or any other ספר, we learn the end, the last few lines of that ספר. Now, I want to say like I said before, the רמב״ם wrote all the הלכות including the הלכות of the time of משיח. The last section in the רמב״ם is called הלכות מלכים ומלחמותיהם, the laws of the kings, because there are many laws involving the kings that the Jews had and wars that they did. Out of that, called הלכות מלכים ומלחמותיהם, the last two chapters, which is chapter 11 and chapter 12, in some prints of the רמב״ם it has a special title called הלכות מלך המשיח, the laws about משיח, because the רמב״ם wrote the laws about משיח too. And the רמב״ם describes here what משיח is going to be like, what will be in the time when משיח will come. So now let's learn the last הלכה, or maybe let's learn the last two הלכות of the רמב״ם. This is in chapter 12, the fourth הלכה: לא נתאוו החכמים והנביאים לימות המשיח. The reason the great scholars and the prophets desired and were longing, awaiting for the time of משיח, לא כדי שישלטו על כל העולם, it wasn't because they wanted to control the world, ולא כדי שירדו בגוים, not in order that they should control, rule over the nations, ולא כדי שינשאו אותם העמים, and not not because the nations should hold them in high esteem, ולא כדי לאכול ולשתות ולשמוח, not in order to come to a time that they should have a lot to eat and to drink and to be happy, which is all true, it's all going to happen, but that's not the reason they waited for משיח, אלא כדי שיהיו פנויים בתורה וחכמתה, only in order they should have they should be free, have time to study תורה and study the wisdom of תורה, ולא יהיה נוגש ומבטל, and they should not have any obstacles. No one will hurt them, no one will stop them, no one will make it hard for them to learn, כדי שיזכו לחיי העולם הבא, in order that if they learn so much תורה, they will merit to have the world to come, כמו שביארנו בהלכות תשובה, the רמב״ם says, like I explained in the earlier laws, the laws that have to do with תשובה, with repentance. And then the last הלכה is, ובאותו הזמן, at that time, meaning the time when משיח will come, לא יהיה שם לא רעב, there will be no hunger, ולא מלחמה, there will be no wars, ולא קנאה ותחרות, there will be no jealousy, no competition, שהטובה תהיה מושפעת הרבה, because the good will be so plentiful, there will be no reason for people to argue, because everyone is going to have everything, וכל המעדנים מצויין כעפר, and all the goodies, all the tasty things and all the good things will be plenty like the dust. And if it's so much, then people will be satisfied, and there will be no reason for people to fight, people to argue, people won't be hungry. I want to add that on this line, the רבי has an interesting interpretation. When the רמב״ם says that all the מעדנים, all the good things will be plenty like dust, so the simple interpretation, like I said, means it'll be so much like dust, there's so much sand in the world, billions and billions, it'll be so much. The רבי said there's another meaning here. When we burn the חמץ before פסח, we know that we have to search for the חמץ and then we burn it, and then we are מבטל the חמץ, then we nullify the חמץ in our mind. And there is a whole thing that we say called כל חמירא, and there we use the term that we decide in our mind that the חמץ should be בטל, should be nullified, should be nothing, ולהוי הפקר כעפרא דארעא, and it should be it should be ownerless like the sand of the ground. What do we mean when we say like the sand, like the dust? We mean that it's worthless, it has no meaning. And the רבי says that's what the רמב״ם means here, too. Not only they're going to be plenty of goodies and all the things will be a lot, but they will be so meaningless to us, because when משיח will come, we'll be in a much higher level that all this, the physical good and the physical pleasures will not mean to us anything, they will be like עפר. And that's what the רמב״ם continues: ולא יהיה עסק כל העולם, the occupation of the whole world will only be לדעת את ה׳ בלבד. People will be only occupied in knowing ה׳, knowing God. That's what they're going to think about and care about. And that's why, like I said before, everything else is not going to mean much. ולפיכך, and therefore, יהיו ישראל חכמים גדולים, the יידן, the Jews are going to be great scholars, ויודעים דברים הסתומים, and they're going to know all the hidden things, וישיגו דעת בוראם כפי כח האדם, and they're going to grasp the understanding of their Creator as much as a human being can, שנאמר, like the פסוק says in ישעיה, כי מלאה הארץ דעה את ה׳, that the earth will be full of knowledge of ה׳, of God, כמים לים מכסים, like the water covers the sea, and when it covers the sea there is nothing left but the water, so too everything the world will be full of knowledge of ה׳. And this is how the רמב״ם finishes his ספר, and then the רמב״ם adds: נשלמו הלכות מלכים והחיבור כולו, הלכות מלכים which is the last section was just finished, and the whole book, the whole ספר is finished. ברוך שאמר והיה העולם בפרט ובכלל, we thank ה׳, God, who said and He created the world in detail and general. תם ונשלם שבח לאל בורא עולם, we just finished and we thank ה׳ for finishing. And by doing this, we finish the רמב״ם. And this is now that just a few days ago, we finished the רמב״ם, so now when this is over, we are able to start a new cycle. Like the סדר is, usually the order is that when you finish one thing, you don't stop there, because by us יידן, there's no such thing as finishing in learning. Finishing means you finished one stage, you're ready to go to the next stage, to a higher stage. So now, we're starting the רמב״ם over again, and we're going to learn the רמב״ם even better, and this is going to be the thirty-first cycle. So after thirty, thirty is a very special number, and those that learn one פרק a day, it's ten cycles already, which is also a very special number, and we hope that by the time we're going to continue learning this cycle, we won't have to wait till the end of the cycle, but משיח is going to come before the end of the cycle. It will come very soon, and all the things that the רמב״ם tells us about משיח, we're not going to have to learn about it in the book, but we'll actually see it with our own physical eyes, and then we will continue learning רמב״ם in a much Much higher and deeper level, and may השם help that it should happen very, very soon, בקרוב ממש במהרה בימינו, very, very soon. Thank you.