From Curse to Blessing: The Power of Teshuvah ראה אנכי נותן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה Rabbi Minkowicz

Welcome to our class onus. We're going to be learning a beautiful discourse from the Reb. The name of the discourse is called the Reb said this discourse. That year was the 25th day of the month of it was also the shabas that blessed the month of in the year 54 years ago. So again the discourse is based on the opening verse in this week's Torah portion where it says a give a look I myself the essence of giving you today a blessing and a curse. So we have to understand why does it say specifically the language of the I the essence of Hashem which is it's not the normal term that's used in the Torah usually it says Hashem it says and especially in the book of that's question number one but deeper it's not understood he goes on to say what are we giving a blessing and a curse in other words that means you there's division already there's a blessing and there's a curse and uh not only a division but It's opposites. Blessing is a blessing and curse is the opposite. However, when you deal with theem that's above any levels and that's why when God gave the says I the of God your God because there was a revelation above any levels etc. So why is it used the expression over here also when he continues on to say the blessing what's the blessing that you're going to listen to the mitzvah of hashem the commandments of hashem now commandments where do they apply in this physical world which means in Hebrew it's called the way things flow down to this world so then that's the case back to the same question why does it say the term also we know the question that's asked in different discourses and of the discourse after afterwards because kazal tell us anytime it says it's everlasting forever. So the question is what's the everlasting message over here also when it says in front of you said to you what it means in front of you to your face what does that mean you can explain the the the idea in in these two questions they that they have if it was talking about above above any levels okay so you can understand why it says everlasting and and that's why it says to you internal in your internal part and like we find in the it says you're going to put in front of them what does that mean to your internal self because you know is source on high but since we're dealing with mitzvah which is in the physical world so why say and then also why does it say today which is everlasting we're dealing with a blessing and a curse which comes into the level of of division and in the and limitation of time also me know the question that's asked. It says so you give [clears throat] a look today I'm giving you a blessing and a curse says okay a blessing I understand but with but what is the connection between a curse and the hashem because we know the expression is nothing bad comes out from the there's coming a curse what does that mean says and he explained as follows like it's explained theic discourses that when god gave the to the Jewish people. What does it say? I the essence of Hashem and God your God. In other words, when God gave the T, what got drawn down the essence above any levels like the expression is it's not limited to a letter or a D or anything and that essence becomes your God. What becomes your your [music] power and your strength of every single Jewish person. In other words, what comes down is from the from the highest part which is not limited to anything. And it comes into the essence of every single Jewish person. When when did that happen? When we received the Tory. In other words, the main drawing down when God gave the Torah was from where? From the essence of Hashem. And then afterwards it came into which is the four letters which represent the four different levels of way things come down from one level to the next and then you have four levels in the soul and that's why he says I am giving to you know the essence of hashem is coming to internal part and like it says face to face spoke to us that we're drawing down by m the essence of hashem and the internal part on high into the essence and to the eternal part of the soul. Now, so that's what happened to M Tyra. The highest part, the essence came into our our essence. But that's all the way came down when God gave the Torah and he gave us the ten commandments. And that's the connection between of the with the of the Jewish people. However, in this Torah portion, there's something revolutionary that he's trying to introduce that the revelation of theem is also connected to say the way things flow from one level to the next and also in the physical mitzv. And not only that, that it's connected in a way that hashem is giving it to us and even into the level of a curse. So that's what's taking place here. The essence of hem to our essence and it was on a spiritual level. Here is the essence of hem comes down to the lowest level. What does that mean? So explains as follows. It's brought down the Mishna that says that it's better one moment to return to Hashem and do good deeds in this world than the whole world to come. Why? Because specifically when we go ahead and we do a physical mitzvah in this physical world, we draw down the essence of Hashem in Hebrew it's called the atmos of Hashem himself. How is that? Because an expression in Kabala it says the end is wedged in the beginning. The beginning is wedged into the end and specifically the end and the end of the lowest levels. That's where you connect to the essence of Hashem. And because of that, it says which is connected to our physical mitzvah and what physical the blessings that we could do that we're going to listen to Hashem. And not only that, it's also referring to the curse because tell us based on what it says when Hashem created the world. It says on the when the creation of the sixth day. So what does it say in the sixth day? It wasn't just regular good. It was very very good. What is what is very very good? So the Talmud says regular good. That's the that's the that's the angel of life. Very good. That's the angel of death. Think about that. And that's actually a greater wonder. And what does that mean? Because the ultimate reason why God created evil and negativity is not for the evil to exist. that we should take that evil and that negativity and transform it into good. And like it says in we have one heart. What does it mean? And the answer is no. But would be both sides of your heart. The godly side and the animal side. And like we know that the [clears throat] evil was created from the essence of Hashem. And it's explained that the sin the primordial sin of eating of the tree of knowledge comes what's the source when God diminished the the the the the son and the source is basically the breaking the shattering of the vessels of tou where God created the world and destroyed it and the the it wasn't an accident that was Hashem's intent to begin to begin with to go ahead and to break it in order to build even something greater why because The ultimate purpose of evil is to transform it to good. And that's when you see and you experience a challenge and you see something negative, don't run away. Embrace it. Because when you transform that into something positive, you create the you create the highest light. And that's why God gave us the curse, which basically means giving us evil so that we can turn it into good. And that's why it says ano the essence of Hashem because we go ahead and we transform the negativity and we transform the evil. We bring in the highest part of Hashem. Because when a person goes ahead and does chuva, returns to Hashem and transforms his negative to something positive, what gets revealed? The most powerful lights that cannot be internalized in the world up to the point even what gets revealed because the blessing, what's a blessing? Yeah, we everyone likes a blessing. We enjoy it. It's internalized. And like we know when it comes to the blessing of fill in however when it comes to transforming a curse we actually bring in from mak just like with the the energy we bring in by not transgressing a negative precept. So this is revolutionaryizing idea and he's saying like this that the ultimate goal is to embrace the challenge to embrace the negativity because when you transform and embrace negativity you're actually bringing in from makif not only from pi pi yeah something that's good it tastes good oh it's good but when something's a challenge something's negative and you transform it you're bringing in from mak so [cough and clears throat] what do you see from here what hashem is saying is I'm giving you myself and I'm giving it to you myself. We're when it comes down to the physical world and it comes down into places that are curses and we transform it that creates the greatest elevation. So, thanks so much for joining us for our class on this. Let's hope we do our job transforming the world. We have the coming of Msiah. Our next class will be have a great and blessed week.