Rabbi Mordechai Kraft - Secrets Of The Hebrew Language Part 2

Okay, so let's begin. What I want to do now is part two of the Hebrew language lecture. A quick review of some of the ideas that we need is that we understand that we're a nation of a language. When I'm Kadosh, Hashem chose us, he chose us of all the other nations, and he chose us more than the languages. Tavacha tanu mikol amim v'chol lashonot, all the languages. Meaning Hashem gave us as part of our treasure, he gave us a system through which we can understand the world in with scientific you know, specificness. That's what we say, if there's any other language like the Hebrew language, it's the chemical language. Because the chemical language is able to describe reality for you. In the same way, Hebrew defines reality. God created 22 letters, and with those 22 letters, he formed the cosmos, he formed us, he formed the world, he formed all of reality. So when we study the 22 letters and we understand their meaning and their depth, and we combine them, what are we really doing is we're really studying reality, we're studying life. So the study of the Hebrew language has always been one of the major sources of of wisdom as Jews. Where do we get the information from? So there's one book which is a book that preceded the Kabbalah, which was written by Avraham Avinu called Sefer Yetzirah. And in it, it's one of the deepest works that we still have in our possession, and it contains a lot of these concepts. It's very difficult to to comprehend, but that's where a lot of the wisdom is, from Avraham, Abraham, going back over over 3,400 years ago. But there are more simple ways of accessing the wisdom. One is of course the name of the letter. The name, the simple name means something. Number two, the shape of the letter. Number three, the numerical value of the letter. Number four, the first time a letter appears in the Torah where it starts the root of a word. And I'll explain what that means as we go along a little more. When you combine these four things together, in addition to a a bright that Rabbi Akiva brings for us in the Shabbos, and he explains even further, when you put it all together, you begin to grasp the depth of a letter. And it's like you get the chemical tool now to start analyzing other words. And the more we do this together, the more you'll begin to appreciate and build it yourself. And it's not as difficult as you think, and you begin to gain your own insight into into what's happening. So first of all, you know, just just a quick idea, you know, we mentioned that the closest language to Hebrew is the chemical language. You know, so let me just give you example of what that means even just, you know, for example, if I would write H2O, of course we know that means that two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule. Now, it's interesting. If I were to write the word mayim, which means water, H2O is water, the word in Hebrew is this word right here. Mayim. Which is just very interesting because I find it fascinating because if you note mayim, it has two mems and one yud. As if to indicate to us that what? There's two of something and one of the other. Just as we know the chemical language tells us there's two hydrogen molecules and one oxygen molecule. Pretty fascinating. You know, if you look at the word in Hebrew for example for snow, snow, snow in the Hebrew is sheleg. Sheleg. Do you know how I read that? My Yeah, are you with me? Sheleg. Why is that the perfect description of the chemical property of snow? Well, it's something that's very simple. Numerically, shin is 300. Numerically, lamed 30. Numerically gimel is three. Now, that's interesting. and three. If you think about it, in the process of formation of snow, what happens? Water contracts. Correct? Water, which is usually wants the molecules usually want to expand. When water freezes, there is a contraction. So, the word sheleg is indicating that contraction. It goes from 300 down to 30 down to three. As if to describe to us the process of the formation of snow. The contraction of the molecules. 333. You hear how that works? You hear the description of reality? Or, for example, what did I say? Okay. Is that all right? There's also expansion. Expansion, but there's a contraction also. We've had this discussion. There's a contraction also. Now, if you I'll give you just this one this one you can't argue with. The word for pregnancy in Hebrew is herayon. Hey ray yon. That means pregnancy. If we do a little numerical numerical analysis of it, hey is five, raysh is 200, yud is 10, vav is six, and nun is 50. We add it all together, we get What do we get? 271, which is a very interesting number because 271 days is the exact amount of days in pregnancy. Right? Nine months is 30 and the day itself of delivery is 271. Yeah, you're with me? So, do you hear the specificity of the Hebrew language in describing reality? It's it's it's remarkable. It's it's remarkable. It just But, let's take it let's go a little bit deeper now. But you know, we could go many angles to it. There are many approaches to it and I'm going to give you a you know, smattering and hopefully at the end we'll see some system in it. Let's just review something very important. We begin with the aleph and a little bit of review but I'll We have our aleph over here as we've seen. Aleph. So, aleph, whenever we see an aleph in the word, we've discussed this many times. Aleph always represents the connection of something spiritual to the physical. And that makes sense because aleph let's go through our system of analysis. Numerically, aleph is is one. First time we see aleph in the Torah is Bereshit bara Elo kim, right? Which means God. Good. We take a look at the letters themselves and the letters are composed of other letters. Aleph is actually composed of a vav and two yuds. Numerically, vav is six, yud is 10. We add that together, that's 26, which is an interesting number because that of course is the same number of Yud Hey Vav Hey, which is another name for God. Right? Yud Hey Vav Hey Adonai. Which is 26, right? Two 12s right? 10 20, that's a yud. 10 20 and five is five is 26. So, again, we have our 26. And then we go a little deeper into it and we notice that it's actually describing reality. God is the source of all reality. God is the makom, right? The world God is the place of the world. Right? We look over here. So, the deeper literature tells us that the yud represents the 10 sefirot of the upper world coming down connecting, the vav is the letter of connection, it actually means and in Hebrew, Connecting to this world with another vav, another yud, sending those 10 emanations back. God gives connects the upper world down to the lower world, lower world up to the upper world. All the connection which God does right there in the aleph. And then of course we take it a little deeper and we're stuck by something a little bit of a problem. You know, aleph when we spell out the letters aleph right? Sorry. aleph We spell it out like that. Another source for the fact that we see God's oneness in it, we do a little gematria of the letter spelled out. Aleph is one. Lamed is 30. Pay is 80. We add it together. 80 + 30 + 1 is 111. Back to the one. See here? 1 1 1, right? Everything is bringing us back to our oneness. God God is the one. Shema Yisrael. Now it's interesting also that aleph means one but aleph if you vowel it a little differently, aleph also means 1,000. In fact, when we talk about multiplicity, the way the Hebrew language works, aleph is one. Alephim are thousands. Aleph alephim are many thousands. The same word that means one is also the word the Hebrew language uses to mean many of thousands. So again, it's the question we always have to ask. God, you have an infinite imagination. Why couldn't you create two words? One word that means one and one word that means thousands. Why what is God trying to communicate to us by using the same word which means the same letter that means one and the same letter means thousands? What's the connection? Well, the connection is is that Hashem wants us to look at the thousands of powers in this world, there's the power of the sun, there's the power of the wind, there's the power of gravity, there's the power of rain, right? There's There's the power of fertilization. There's many powers that are acting in this world. But don't look at them as isolated events. See how they're all unified by one unifying source, God. You know, the mistake that the idol worshipers would make in life is they would look at the sun, they would look at the moon, they would see the power manifested by those vehicles. And they are are powerful. In fact, God uses these things to bring blessing to the world. That's what we call in Hebrew mazel. Mazel. But you have to see that behind all the mazel, well, I shouldn't say that actually, God is actually flowing to the rest of the world. Let me show you what that means. If aleph means one, right? Aleph. It means one and it means 1,000. Why? Because in the thousands of multiple forces, there's one unifying force. Now, the earlier idolaters, what the mistake they made is that God created the planetary system. In Hebrew we call them mazalot, the word mazel. This word here, mazel. Excuse me, mazel. Mazel. Right? What do we say when you're at a wedding? What do you say to the bride and groom? Mazel tov. When you go to a bris milah, what do you say? Mazel tov, right? Somebody gets married, gets engaged, what do you say? Mazel tov. How do you translate that into English? Good luck. Say good luck, right? So, I'll tell you that to say good luck to somebody is the greatest insult you can give them. It's insulting even to an idol worshiper. Even idol worshipers don't believe in luck. You know, a person gets married, you know, under the good luck. You have a one in two chance of making it for the next 40 years. There's over a 50% divorce rate. Good luck. Right? Isn't that What an insult. What an insult. That's not mazel means. Mazel comes from the Hebrew word nozel. Nozel. Nozel in Hebrew means Woah. Thank you. You got them in 10? You good? So, you can come on a ski trip. You're coordinated, I see. That was a test. Okay. Microtouch. Yeah, is that what you Is that what you Do you study? I think Yeah, this This is one is What's going on? Wait, wait. Other way. I can put them lower. Just need to Yeah, okay. Yeah, we're good. Okay, tactical support, guys. Thank you. Okay. That's good. That's okay. Next to me. All good? Okay, good. Oh, they turn like that. Okay. Uh-huh. Just want to check. Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you. So, the word mazel, rebbe, comes from the Hebrew word nozel. Nozel in Hebrew means flow. God created the planets and the sun and the moon and everything like that and the stars. He uses them to flow energy down to the world. The mistake idol worshipers made was they looked at those stars and they saw the flow, so they started worshiping the flow instead of realizing that God is behind the flow. So, idol worshipers in the past were not crazy. If somebody bows down to a rock or a stone, that person is not an idol worshiper. That's That person is is clinically insane. Right? That person belongs in Creedmoor. When the early idol worshipers worshiped idols, they were not insane. What they were capable of seeing was, yes, there is a flow emanating from Mars. There's a flow emanating from Saturn. Right? There's a flow emanating when Jupiter is aligned with Mars. They understood this and they saw when it's aligned that way, yeah, the crops grow. They were in tune to it. But instead of realizing that God is the source of it all, he's the one unifying power behind the thousand multiplicities, they started worshiping the individual forces. See how that works? So, God creates the letter aleph. It means one and it means a thousand. So, we should not make that mistake. Never make that mistake. To think that the forces are independent of are independent of God. Okay, so aleph, as we understand it, always represents the most spiritual force in the universe. And whenever we see an aleph in any word, we understand it's going to represent something about God, something about Hashem. Now, if aleph represents the highest point of spirituality, what do you letter do you think represents the lowest point of spirituality? Well, it would be the letter which is the furthest from the aleph. What's the letter furthest from the aleph in the Hebrew alphabet? The tav. That's interesting, the tav. And in fact, the first time we see the tav in the Torah is in a word that says tohu. Tohu, the world was tohu va bohu, which means empty. Empty. The physical world by itself, physicality, without God in it, without a spiritual push, without a spiritual underpinning, is empty. It's empty. Perhaps that's why most marriages do fail. It's because a person goes into marriage without saying the purpose of marriage is to bring God and to bring us closer to something spiritual, it's a physical relationship. A physical relationship without God is empty. Now, it's interesting Look at this. The word in Hebrew for letter is this word. Oat. Oat. Did everybody see that? An oat in Hebrew is a letter. If I want to say the letter aleph, oat aleph, oat bet. Interesting. Look how perfectly that those three letters describe what the Hebrew letter is. What's a Hebrew letter? It's something spiritual which God has linked to form something physical. God created the letters and with those letters he joined them to create a physical reality. And the letter vav, as we know, letter vav is the means a hook, it looks like a hook. It means above, the first time you see in the Torah is vave hamishkan, the hooks of the curtains in the Mishkan. It looks like a hook and even in the Hebrew language it What does it mean? It means and. You connect something with it. So, what's an oat, a letter? It's something spiritual connected to something physical. It's also a sign. When God says I'm going to make a sign with the Jewish people, oat bene bene cho, a sign between me and you, oat. What's a sign? God says I want you to do something physical which connects you up to something spiritual, like shabbos. It's a sign of our relationship. Our men, brit milah. Do something physical that connects you, hooks you to something spiritual. Yeah. I still don't understand how this tet represents something physical. Tet, if aleph represents the point of God, something this the spiritual manifestation in in the world, the letter which is furthest from it would represent the lowest point of physicality, which would be the tet. I was wondering if the way we isolated an aleph as something spiritual by actually getting the letters the parts of the letters Yeah, so so right. So we could do with the tet also. Um but for this for this discussion, let's just take it in in in this way that it's the furthest point from the aleph. The furthest point from the aleph. Numerically it happens to be 400. Cuz I'm going to show you why that's going to be important in a moment. But let's just think of that for a moment. But see how things work so beautifully. I did another example with you last week, but I think it's worth mentioning. We have a Yeah. So in this um interpretation of how we read Are you saying that bet since it's the second to it that if the first and the first word in the Torah, Bereshit, it's something spiritual-like? it could be. Yeah, we we'll show you in a second. You'll you'll see that. Let's take a look at another word. Very good point. Let's take a word at this word. This is a word for truth. Look at the word for truth. What's the word for truth? Emet. Right, the name of our organization. Emet. Do you like my calligraphy? Okay. I know you're talented. Okay, emet, truth. Let's take a look at why these three letters are the perfect description of truth. Okay. First of all, aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Tet is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, 22. Mem happens to be the exact middle of the above men. That's interesting. Exact middle point. What is truth? First of all, truth is when you can see the beginning, the middle, and the end. Right? If you're going to look and just see a part of something, is that truth? If you just see the end, is that truth? If you see the middle, is that truth? No. Truth means you see the beginning, the middle, and the end. Which is what God says to Job. When Job is going through all of his pain and all of his is is you know, tribulation. So finally, God turns to him and says, "Listen Job, if you really want to understand why you have to go through this pain, you have to have seen it all from the beginning. We have to go back to the beginning of creation and show you the whole movie through. But the truth can be understood when you see the beginning, the middle, and how it's going to play out. Sometimes in our lives, we have pain and we have difficulties and we say, "God, why are you doing it to me?" The answer is when we see the end, we'll understand exactly what was happening in the middle. But because our perspective is so limited, we can't say that we have the truth. We have to trust. We have to know the truth and the goodness is coming. Truth means you can see beginning, middle, and end. Which is a very interesting description of it. Now, it's interesting, our rabbis tell us if there are three things that we know about life. Number one, that we're born from a mother. Number two, we're going to die. And number three, that we're going to have to give an accounting before God. Those are the three truths of life. It's interesting, those three truths are right here. If you divide the first two letters, it spells aim, which means mother. We're born from a mother. If we divide it this way, it spells mate, which means death. And of course, the word together, emet, is one of the descriptions of God. Who Elohim emet, he is a God of truth. Now, interestingly, if we take a numerical analysis, aleph is one, mem is 40, tav is 400. 444. 441. We do what's called a gematria katan. We add them across. 4 + 4 is 8 + 1 is is 9. Why is 9 a very unique number in It's 9 is interesting number because 9 is the only number when you multiply by any other number, it always go back to 9. 9 * 1 is 9. 9 + 2 is 27. So, 2 + 7 is 9. 9 * 3 is 9 + 2 is 18. 1 + 8 is 9. 9 * 3 is 27. 2 + 7 is 9. 9 * 4 is 36. 3 + 6 is 9. Thank you. 9 * 5 is 45. 4 + 5 is 9. 9 * 6 is 54. 5 + 4 is 9. 9 * 7 is 63. 6 + 3 is 9. 9 * 8 is 72. Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. 7 + 2 is 9. 9 * 9 is 81. 8 + 1 is 9. 9 * 10 is 90. 9 + 0 is 9. 9 * 11 is 99. 9 + 9 is 18. 1 + 8 is 9. You can multiply 9 by any combination of numbers that exist. Try it if you want on calculators. Do it later. Trust me on it. It will come back to 9. Now, what does 9 have to do with truth? What's interesting, if something is true, you can't hide it. If something is true, it doesn't matter what form it's in, you will see that this is truth. Truth is there. Truth identifies itself. It speaks. It speaks out loud and clear. When a person does something right, when we do something right in this world, we don't have to tell anybody. It will speak out, believe me. The truth speaks. Goodness speaks. Doing something which is truthful, which is serving God, which is right, which is correct, you don't have to brag. You don't have to tell anybody. It will be seen. It will be known. Truth speaks. Truth will be visible. And it's always visible. And that's why every generation, you know, you've had systems that have tried to corrupt humanity and society and people. It always falls in the end because truth comes through. Truth will always break itself through. It will always be noticed. Now, it's interesting. If you notice these letters of emet, they're all letters that have a base. Very solid. Truth is something which can stand. See all the feet there? Everything has two legs to stand on. Let's contrast that with the word for falseness in the Hebrew alphabet, which is sheqer. Sheqer. What's interesting about the word for sheqer, which is falseness, is notice there's only one leg. You see that? Something is false, it's baseless. It's also interesting, by the way, whereas emet, truth, is first, middle, and last. The word for falseness happens to be three letters in the Hebrew alphabet, which are right next to each other. Qof, resh, shin in the Hebrew alphabet are right next to each other, but in the wrong order. Qof here, it's shin, qof, resh. Really, it should be qof, resh, shin. So, sheqer is something where you're only seeing one part of the picture. That's falseness. You're seeing a little teeny piece. It's like you look through a a a a um a keyhole, and you think you know the whole story? No. You're seeing one isolated event. You look through a keyhole, right? You see a man with a mask, and you see him, he's holding a knife, and he's ready to stab. What are you about to do? You call 911, you call the police, the police kick down the door, and what do they see? It's a dentist. It's a dentist. You know, you hear a scream, and you hear the drill, and you hear the yell, and he has a knife. He's You know, he's helping him. But you thought he was killing him because you're looking through a keyhole. That's falseness. When you see one part of the story, that's sheqer. Truth means you have to see the entire vision. You have to see what's going on. Now, it's interesting the truth of life is when you can take God and you can transport God all the way into everything you do in the physical world. Aleph is God, represents the highest point of spirituality. Tav represents the lowest point of spirituality, the physical world. Mem is my favorite letter. Not just because my name is Mordecai. And my wife's name is Monica. Mem is my favorite letter because mem happens to be numerically 40. And it means mayim. It means water. What is water? What's the property of water? Water always wants to be in motion. It always wants to move. Right? Water doesn't like to you know, you spill a cup of water, it doesn't the molecules don't like to come together and join together. They want to expand out. Rivers want to flow. Right? Water wants to move. It's always in motion. Definition of water, it's in something moving, in motion. Now, it's interesting. mem happens to be the middle point of the Hebrew language. The mem is the middle point. Now, look at mem. Mem numerically is 40. Now, what's interesting about that is in Judaism, is 40 an important number for us? Well, let's think for a second. How many years in the desert? 40, right? The midbar. The midbar was 40 years. Let's think. How many days at Har Sinai, the mountain of Sinai, when we received the Torah? 40. Matan Torah. Right? Matan Torah. The giving of the Torah. 40. Let's keep going. How many days of rain were there when God destroyed the world? In the Mabul there, how many days of rain? 40. Mabul. That's interesting. 40. If you have a mikvah, 40 se'ah. In order for a mikvah to be kosher, you know mikvah is a it's a gathering of water that has to be rain water. It has to be gathered in a cistern that's into the ground, and it has to be purely rain water of 40 se'ah. It has to be 40 se'ah. 40 se'ah is approximately the weight of a human being. 40 se'ah for to be kosher. So, a mikvah, which again is the men, has to be se'ah, it's called. Now, what's interesting also, we know from the Gamara Brachot that after a certain number of days, you should stop davening for a boy because the sex has already been determined. How many days does it take for the sex to be determined? It's actually a medical fact as well. 40 days. 40 days. The point of gestation where there's you go from cellular life to actual human life is 40 days. We call it may eemo. May may eemo. The womb of the mother, stomach of the mother. 40 days of gestation. There's interesting. Why all these 40s? 40 40 40 40. The the midbar desert was 40. 40 days in the heart about the Torah is 40. 40 days of the flood. 40 days of uh 40 se'ah in the mikvah. 40 days in of gestation in in the womb to go from cellular life to to human life. And notice that they all begin with a mem. Very interesting. All begin with a mem and they're all 40. So, what is happening? What's special about all What's the common denominator of all of these events. Covenant is Transformation. transformation. In order to go from a slave nation to a free nation, we need 40 years. In order to go from a nation before Torah to a nation, a holy nation of Torah, we need 40 days. In order to go from a world which was so corrupt it needed destruction to a world which now merits to exist again, you need 40 days of cleansing. In order for a woman to go from a state of impurity to purity, she needs a 40 saw. In order for a baby to transform from sailor life to let's say human life, it requires 40 days. Then, the number 40 for us always represents the idea of change, of transformation, of expressing something out, of bringing something out anew. Now, that's interesting because if you look at certain words, we look at emet. One of the truth of life, which is really the job of the Jewish people, is we have to take the aleph, we have to take you, God, the vision that God is everywhere, and we have to transform, and we have to bring God out into the physical world in everything that we do. Isn't that beautiful? That's the job of a Jew. Express God out in anything, the physical aspects of your life. In your work, in the way you eat, in the way you interact with people, the way you interact with your spouse. Express God out into everything. Bring him through. Now, it's interesting. Everyone with me? Everyone with me, everybody? The word in Hebrew for the human being is this word. It's Adam. Adam. Okay, there we go. Adam. Why did I write that? What letter am I interested in over here? What letter am I interested in? Let's analyze Adam for a minute. Adam is the human being. So, first thing we notice about a human being is there's an aleph. Right? That's interesting. The most basic element we have to know about every human being is that we have we're created in the image of of God. If you miss that part in another human being, you've missed the human being. You can't see godliness in another human being. Uh you know, our eyes are not trained properly. Our eyes have to notice godliness in another human being. We have to notice in ourselves. The second part, of course, is that we're dam. Dam is blood. Now, we mentioned last week, I believe, or 2 weeks ago that dam is the perfect description of the physical part of who we are. Why? Because we know we have 33,000 mi of veins and arteries in the human body. The human body, the veins and arteries in one human body can circle the world twice. Twice. Twice. Remarkable. That's part of the creation. Shem's briah. Shem's, you know, just share this for a second. The word for Sorry if we're out of order. The word for The word for the creation in Hebrew is briah. Briah means the creation. Ri'ah. You know what's interesting about this word? Briah. If you change the letters around a little bit, it spells this. Beit. B' yirah. B' yirah. Briah means the creation. The physical creation is the briah. Right? If you change the same letters around, it's b' yirah, which means for the sake of awe. You say we there's yirei shamayim. First of all, yirei shamayim. They fear God. Yirah doesn't mean fear of God. It means ri'ah. He sees. He's in awe of what he sees. That's what it means to have yirah. Person Person who said this person is a yirei shamayim. It's not that he's afraid. He might be in awe, and the awe causes him to tremble. Who wouldn't tremble if you're in awe of God? But here it works. If you look at creation correctly, that should bring you to yirah, awe of the creator. The creation contains yirah. Study the creation. Think about it for 10 minutes that there are 33,000 miles of arteries and veins in my body that could circle the world twice. And it's compact in such a system that uh we don't even notice. That should bring us to a little bit of awe of the creator, of yirah. Here it works. Here the Hebrew language speaks it out so perfectly. Study creation, but the purpose of studying creation is for the sake Both means for the sake of yirah, of awe of God. Beautiful. So, let's go back for a second. Adam. We have the aleph. Human being is created in the image of God. We have the blood, which is the dam, the physical part of who we are. Dam, of course, we know is the gematria 44. Yes, which is the gematria of av, which means father, and em, which means mother. Av means father. Aleph plus vav is three. Em. Aleph plus mem is 40. Yeah, add them together. No, excuse me, 41. Sorry, excuse my math. 44, right? Beautiful, right? Cuz we know that there are three parts of the creation. God supplies the soul, and mother and father supply the the physical component, dam. Now, our rabbis tell us, of course, that if a person thinks they're only physical, and just goes after the physical body, and thinks they're only dam, dam happens to be the same root in Hebrew as nidam, which means dead, or domem, which means lifeless. If you think you're just physical, you're dead. Or dumb. Or dumb. Right, that's right. That's right. That's a good Very good. Very good. The beauty of the human being is the balance between the the three. Bringing the aleph out into the physical part of who we are. Now, our rabbis tell us that Adam is a very important word because if you change the letters around a little bit, Adam, you switch the letters, it spells me'od. Me'od in Hebrew means means very or more. More. Me'od, more. The essence of the human being is we're born in potential, and we have to become me'od. Me'od. Interesting. That's who we are. An animal in contrast is called a behema. A behema, which means ba ma. In it is what it is. An animal doesn't need to change. You never say say to a dog, you know, "Stop eating off the floor." I say to my little son all the time, "Stop eating off the floor." Right, you know? You know, why? Because we have expectations that our job is to become somebody great. We're born with potential. We have to become me'od. Now, it's interesting. Adam is the same letters as adama, cuz God created us from the ada ma, the earth. Question, does earth have any real value of its own? I dare say no. What's the value of the mud under the Chrysler Building or under the Empire State Building or under 56 then 1st Avenue versus the same chemical composition of the mud in some field out in um I don't know, Nebraska. Is it the same dirt? I would say it's the same dirt. Same composition. So, why is one you know, square mile worth you know, 100 million and one square mile is worth uh $100? Location, location. I think I have real estate people here. Location, location, location, meaning the potential of what you can do with it determines its value, true? Dirt, adamah, is the perfect description of something which has potential. God created man from the adamah. Why? Because the essence of the human being is we're created with potential. But it's our job to actualize our potential. Now, look at the word adamah. Adamah, if you vowel it a little differently, it spells this word. A-da-meh. A-da-meh. Hebrew speakers. A-da-meh. What does adamah mean? Adamah means dirt. Adamah means I have to know a little bit of Hebrew for it. But I'll tell you, it means I will be domeh. I will be comparable. I shall compare myself. Adamah means dirt. Adamah means in Hebrew I will compare myself. Who will I be comparing myself to? I will be domeh to the aleph. So, domeh in Hebrew means similar. I will be similar to Hashem. That's the potential of a human being. A person can be dirt, but in the same word that means dirt is the exact same letters in almost the same order that means I shall compare myself to God. I will be adamah. I will be comparable. Domeh, comparable to the aleph, to God. That's the potential of a human being. What are you going to be? Are you going to be dirt or are you going to be God-like? That's our free choice. That's the power of free choice in a human being. And there it is in the word, adam, adame, same word. Ground and I shall compare myself or be comparable to God. Don't omit the aleph. Do you hear the the the Do you hear this language? Interesting language. Now, let's take a look at the aleph for a moment. It's interesting that aleph is written like this. The letter aleph, of course, we means the highest point of spirituality. How do we pronounce an aleph, by the way? Listen to my Listen to my aleph. You hear it? Hear my aleph? Did you hear it? You heard it? No sound. Silent, right? Because something spiritual doesn't have a sound. The highest point of spirituality has no physicality. The aleph has no physicality, it's the highest point of spirituality. All the other letters have sounds. Ba, ga, da. Ha, kha, ta, right? Now, interesting. What's the mission of the human being? A person is born Adam. He's born with an aleph and he's born with blood. Physicality, spirituality. The mission of the human being is to become me'od. Meaning, what does it mean to become me'od? It means transfer that aleph that you have, that godliness you have, into everything you do out in the physical world. Look at the word me'od. What did I tell you the letter mem meant? Mem is the letter of mayim, right? 40, transformation. Transfer out that aleph into the dalet. The dalet in the Hebrew language always represents the physical world. Why? Well, let's see. First of all, the way it's shaped. It has the four directions. It's the first letter to start expressing itself in four directions. Up, down, right? North, South, East, West. Numerically, it means four, which is the four directions. It means dalet means a dalet, a door. A door. Why is a door the perfect description of the physical world? For example. What? Why is a door if I can describe this world the perfect description of this world is a door? It leads you somewhere. The purpose of this world is a purpose door, the olam haba. The purpose of this world is a doorway to lead us somewhere else. That's this world. This world isn't an end in itself. A doorway has to get you somewhere. That's why we make a big deal about doorways in Judaism. What do we What do we put in every doorway on our house? A mezuzah, which has most important fundamental fundamental statement of the Jewish people. Hashem, everything is you. Shema Yisrael, right? Why? Because doorways illustrate to us what this world is. So, the world the word letter that means the physical world happens to be the dalet, which means delet, which means door. So, the job of the human being is you're born Adam. You're in potential. Your aleph is over here. Your job, however, is to become the yud. Transport that aleph onto the physical world in everything that you do. Bring the spiritual side of who you are into your life everywhere. That's what it means to become the yud. You everybody? Good. Let's take a look at men and women for a moment. There's a word we use for man, which is called ish. It's a word we use for women called ishah. What letter does a man have that a woman doesn't have? Man's got No. No. No. Just just No. Just a hey. What letter does a woman have? Hey. She has a hey. Okay. Let's do a little analysis here. Ish means man. Isha means woman. Simple analysis is, of course, that a man has a yud and a woman has a hey. At the point of marriage, a man combines his yud with a woman's hey, and you have God's name. Kah. Yah. One of the names of God, of course, we know is, right? It's Kah. It's one of the names of God. Marriage is a man bringing something, a part of God, woman bringing a part of God, and together they can discover God in a way that neither of them can do alone. If a man and woman enter marriage without wanting to bring God into the picture, we don't care about spiritual life, we don't want to care about Shabbat, we don't care about kashrut, the goal of our marriage is to vacation in Tahiti all the time, or to live in wherever, right? Or to have fancy whatever. If that's the goal of the marriage, let's remove the yud and the hey. What does it spell? Esh, which means fire. You have two fires that consume and burn each other up. And you know, the there's a 65% divorce rate in the world. Maybe it's due to the fact that instead of bringing out God and bringing a relationship with God that can only come when a man and woman combine, if God isn't part of the equation, there's fire. There's conflagration. There's just two people burning each other up. And who wants to be in that type of environment? Better get out. Better run for your life. So, we see something very interesting just in the shape of the letters. Ish Isha. You bring God in, you get something beautiful. You take God out, you have fire. Now, let's take it a little deeper. Yeah. Quick question, can you Can you describe the hay, like what the hay represents? Yeah. Yeah, good good question. Hold on a sec. That's very excellent question. Let's go a little deeper on it. First, let's understand why is a yud the male letter? The yud is the male letter. So, the yud is a very interesting letter because the yud, as you notice, when you write a yud, a yud never touches the top of the line. It never touches the bottom of the line. It just hangs there. A yud is actually just a dot. If I'm going to form any letter, I first have to have a point, and then from that point, I can do whatever I want, right? Yud is just a point. That's all it is. The deeper literature tells us that yud represents the idea of thought. It represents the idea of an idea, a thought. Numerically, it's 10. 10 is Mathematicians tell us this is a cognitive number, a thought number. Why? Because 0 through 9 have natural symbols. Once you get to 10, you have to start using thought to formulate it, to create it. Do you hear that? 0 through 9 have their own shape. Once you get to 10, you have to start combining other numbers to create it. You have to use thought to create this new system now beyond 9. And it represents the idea of thought now. It's a thought number. That's a cognitive number. It's also interesting that when you any want to form something in the future, if I want to say something will happen in the future, in the right in the third person, what do I say? For example, he will sing. What do I say? Who yoshir. He will go. Who yalech. He will stand. Who yakum. Whenever you want to say something will happen, you use the yud. Yud represents the idea of an idea, of thought. Now, this is the male letter. Yud. Because the job of a man in this world is to be involved in ideas. Notice what I'm careful I'm going to say. A man's vision in this world, gentlemen, is to take big ideas and pull them down. Bring down the inspiration of godliness into the world. Be connected to Torah, be connected to thought. That's why learning Torah is the key mitzvah for a man. Bring down the ideas. Reach up and bring ideas down. That's the vision of a man. To extend upward, make a connection, a root connection, so to speak, with God, and therefore allow God to flow his ideas into the world. That's a man's job. Reach up and to bring down. Bring ideas down. Men live in the world of ideas. That's the vision of a man. It's interesting. On that thought, we'll come back to this on that I'm not leaving it, don't worry. A man has a mitzvah of tefillin. Correct? So, when a man puts the tefillin on, right? He's putting a box up here. Big box? Yeah. He's putting a big box up there. And on that big box there's a shin on this side. There's a shin on this side. And he's putting his head between the shin. What's the word for head in Hebrew? rosh rosh, which is the meaning of the letter resh, right? The letter resh means rosh, means head. So, when a man puts his head, his rosh in the middle it actually spells something. It spells shoresh. Shoresh in Hebrew means roots. A man is reaching up. He's making a root connection. He's linking his roots up to the higher world in order that God should bring ideas down. And that's what the film straps extend all the way down a man's body. Right? They extend all the way down man's body to the loins, past the lower part of where he is. Right? Make a root connection, connect with God upstairs. Allow God's sap, so to speak, his ideas to penetrate you and to come all the way through you. Bring ideas down deep. Bring it down. That's the vision of man. That's the vision of a yud. A yud is an idea. That's a yud. That's all a yud is. It's a thought. Just hangs there, like an idea. But you can't live in the world of ideas alone, can you? The world of ideas alone are very lonely places. Right? You need to do something with an idea. An idea needs to be brought out into the world. A woman has a letter. Is everyone with me? A woman has a hey. Now, a hey is a very fascinating letter. Because if you look at a hey, you'll notice that a hey is composed of a daleth and a yod. That's the way you write a hey in the Torah. It's a daleth and a yod. What did we say the daleth represented? Four. It means daleth, a wor- right? A door, which represents the idea of the physical world. And what did we say a yod represents the idea of? Thought. So, what do What is a hey? A hey is a letter that shows a thought, an idea being expressed out into the physical world. Right? That's what a hey is. A hey is an idea being expressed out into the physical world. By the way, right? If I were to take my yod and my daleth and I would write them like this, it spells hand. Why is the yod and the daleth the perfect description of a hand? What does a hand do? The job of a hand is to take your ideas and express them out into the world. The hand is the interface of my ideas and the physical reality. True? That's what a hand does. A hand expresses my ideas out into the world. That's what a hand purpose of a hand. It's also interesting, by the way, nu- numerically, a yod is 10. Daleth is four, which is 14. Why is 14 the perfect description of a hand? Right. 14 points of connection. 14 joints. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14. Right? 14 points in which I make my connection out to the world. But, so if a man's job is to be a yod, to bring an idea down. A woman's job is to to take that idea and make it real in the world. Right, perfect example of course is is reproduction. A man provides the seed. Genetic composition which kept it going, the idea so to speak. A woman then takes that idea and nurtures it and nourishes it and forms it and shapes it and after 9 months expresses that idea out of the world in form of a child. Do you know how it works? A man is the idea. I'll say it anyway. If you look under a microscope, you'll notice that right, a man's seed looks like a yud. And if you look under a microscope, you'll notice that a woman's egg happens to be the shape of a hey. So, right, the physical reality is describing the spiritual system. Spiritual system, the spiritual world is the system the spiritual the physical world of course intersect, they meet. So, a man's vision is to be involved in the world of ideas. A woman's vision is to take those ideas and express them out. So, whereby a man might learn the intricacy of the laws of Shabbos and might be involved in the theoretical aspect of Shabbos, a woman's vision will be to take a home and transform that idea in a way that yeah, there's an environment here that that lives it. You live it. Right, that's the beauty of marriage. A man could be in big ideas and woman could take his big ideas and I can make it real. Which is more important? Right, ideas are life. Right, you need both. You need The They're both super important. But the vision of male and female. Idea verse expressing that idea out into the world. Now, it's interesting. God created the world it says with the letter hey. Torah says the hey baram. Which means he created them, but our rabbis explain that word to mean bahey baram. With a hey God created the world. Why did God choose to create the world with the letter hey? Why? Because what's the description of the physical world? Description of the physical world is you have a physical reality that contains a spiritual idea within it. There's a spiritual idea within the physical shape of the world, anything in the world. So, the hey is the perfect description of the creation of this world. Now, we looked last week at a word for love. And let's take it a little deeper this week. And we said that the word for love is ahav. Right? Ahav, love. So, why is this the perfect description of love? Right simply, we said, well, numerically aleph is one. Numerically bet is two. And we said, of course, every letter not only has numerical value, it has a meaning. We said that the letter hey means give. Right? Letter hey means give. We see it the first time the hey begins the root of a word. It's the parsha for Yigash when the brothers are down in in in Egypt. So, Joseph wants to give them food. Joseph says hey lahem ochel. Which means give them food. Hey lahem. Give. So, it's consistent. But if you look at the letter hey, why does this letter mean give? What does it mean give? Well, first of all, what? What is a gift? Give with your hands. First of all, right. First of all, when you give, the point of giving of course is your hand, right? That's true. And and and what what is a gift really? A gift is giving something from me to you. It's a giving of a gift. What's the point of a gift? A gift isn't the physical object, is it? The beauty of a gift is what is behind that gift. Right? When something comes for you, the idea behind it. What did you have in mind? Your intention. When you give something from you, your thought, your your your spirit, right? It's coming from your heart. When that gets out into the physical world, it gets out to somebody else. That's what giving is all about. You're giving something the deepest part of you, your idea of your love. You're expressing something out to the other. One gives to two. One gives to the other. And of course, we mentioned that what's the way of really building love? When you give to the other an aleph. You give something spiritual to somebody else. You create a much deeper feeling of love. Why? Because love is going to be a function of, you know, if you can give something of greater value, the love will be greater. The greatest thing of value we give to somebody is when we give that person an aleph. What's What's an aleph? Either we give them a home in which we bring God down deep. We show that person that there's an aleph inside themselves. We make them aware of their greatness, of their talents, of something we have that's special. We give them an aleph. We give them a divine Torah. We give them a way to connect up to God deeper. That of course generates and builds the love in a much much deeper fashion. Good. Let's go into the word world of prayer for a moment. We said there was a letter that represents the male. In addition to the yud, there's another male letter. That letter is a zayin. Zayin. Now, zayin in Hebrew, it looks like a sword, means a sword. It also means zan, which means to nourish. What's the idea of a sword? Sword is something you use with for conflict, right? You use to to fight. So, the job of man in this world basically is either he has to fight to defend or he has to fight to bring food to the table. It's not always an easy job. Zan. We mentioned that there was a letter for a woman, which was a gimel, another letter. The gimel. Gimel is the Hebrew letter. That's not a good gimel. That's not a good gimel. Yeah, okay, decent. Yeah. Okay. Gimel If we write the gimel out, gimel actually means Gimel means to give. Gomel chesedim. It also happens the same word as gimel, which means to wean a child off milk. Question. Why did God choose the same word, which means to give, gomel, and gimel, which means to stop giving? Gomel means to give and gimel means to stop giving, to wean a child off milk, stop milk. Why is the same word in the holy tongue? God has an infinite imagination. Why didn't he choose two different words? So, what's the inner core? What's the inner connection between the two? What's the greatest kindness you can do for somebody? When you give it to them. When you can stop giving. When you can create independence. That's the greatest kindness. The greatest giving is to give to a point where the person is full, they don't need you anymore. You can wean them off of you. That's independence. Right? If I'm going to be helping my, let's say, 5-year-old ride a bicycle, ride a two-wheeler, so I'm going to be running after her, trying to hold her up, you know, running down the street, and I'm doing kindness. Now, if I'm going to do that for my 17-year-old, am I doing kindness? No. Big and overprotective nut, right? And And that's ridiculous. Real giving is you want to give to a point where you create independence. Now, it's interesting that's why the first time we see the gimel in the Torah, it's because it's this word, which means gadol. Gadol means big. The whole purpose of giving is to create somebody to be a gadol. Big. They don't need you anymore. In fact, if you break the letters down of gadol, it means you give to a dal, you give to somebody who's poor, till they become a gadol. Now, it's interesting, by the way, the letter gimel also means gamal. Gamal means a camel. What's the connection with the camel and giving and not giving? What's the connection with the camel? What does a camel have to do with the whole picture? What's unique about a camel? Drink water. It can contain water and basically go about 30 days, I think, without drinking. It has the capacity to be self-su- fficient. What's the greatest kindness you can do for somebody? To create self-sufficiency, independence. Do you like your sisters? Kiss a sister. So, gimel represents the female letter. I I don't like that. Let's try again. So, we have the male letter, which is Zion. We have the female letter, which is the the gimel. Now, we mentioned that the letter of connection in Hebrew is a vav. Right? Because of vav, first of all, it looks like a hook. It means a hook. Vav is a letter of connection. Vav in a mishkan. How do we say married couple in Hebrew? We say a Right? A zug. Zug. The male is connected, hooked up with the the female. That's a married couple, right? The male energy hooked it with the female. Now, I know I showed you that last week, but the reason I showed it to you again is because I want to discuss the Zion. The Zion, again, we mentioned looks like a sword. Right? It means a sword. It's interesting. The letter chet in Hebrew, the next letter, is this letter right here. That's a chet. See where the chet in the Torah What letter do you see in the chet? What do you see? You see two two Zions. Correct? Two Zions facing each other, as if two people with swords in combat, fighting. Yet, unified by a canopy. The chet always represents to us two opposites, which become unified. Two things that are potentially in disharmony finding unity in them. Two things of a fight, but no, we're going to unify it. That's a het. Two swords facing each other unified by a canopy. Now, it's interesting. The first time we see the the first time we see the het in the Torah is by the word hoshech. Hoshech. Which means darkness. You know why? Because in life, if you can't unify certain ideas, you're going to be in darkness. You know, if if you're going to you're going to look and you know, look, God, I know you're all about love and goodness, but like why does happen to happen to me? I'm I'm in darkness. If you can't unify and look for deeper explanations, it's going to create darkness. You're going to have opposition and that's going to create darkness. But other times we use the word het, it's for chaim. A het can mean that actually the letter means chiyut. Het means chiyut. Which means life. If you can unify the opposites in your life, you can find harmony and find God in everything that happens, even the difficult areas of life. Right? You're going to have chiyut, you'll have life. That gives you life. So, you could either be in darkness or you'll have life. But het is all about unifying two opposites. Now, it's interesting. What's the What's the thing, you know, we had a wedding last week, right? What the bride and the groom stand under this canopy? What's that canopy called? Chuppah. Chuppah means the wedding canopy. If you break those letters down, you know what it really means? Chet po. What does po mean? Here. The chet is here. Oh, you have a husband, you have a man. You have a woman. You have two beings which potentially can be in opposition to each other. Women have their strengths, men have their strengths, women have their disadvantages, men have their disadvantages. Right? Men have their weaknesses, women have their weaknesses. Men There's a lot of differences. Men are from where? Mars. Women are from where? Venus. That's right. We have a lot of differences. Two things that potentially could be in disharmony. What does the chuppah do? It unites it. Unifies it. Don't worry. Chet po. The unity is over here. Chet po. You know that's what chuppah is? Bringing two people that potentially be adversaries, bring them together in a union and in a life where each and our strengths will complement the other. And help bring the other to a place we couldn't have gotten alone. The chet is here. Chet is po. The unity between two opposites is present. That's what a chuppah is. How did I say it? Chet po, that's your chuppah. Chet po, chuppah is it. Yeah. Doesn't chet also mean sin? Chet can also mean sin. But when you say chet, like you have a lot of chet. Right. Chet can mean chiyut, it can mean life. It can mean chet. It's a different different spelling. But you're right. It can be an aspect of sin. Sin is when you can't unify these two opposites in life. Right? You have your own drives and your own passions and your own wants and needs and it's God's word and I don't want to put it together. There's a fight, there's a conflict. That's chet. That's why by the word, you know, the word for chet is actually this word over here. If I would write out the word for chet, which means sin. Chet is is like this. Chet. Right? Chet. Which letter is silent? Ooh, that's interesting. What's the source of all sin? When you choose to silence God. You don't want to listen to God. You know, when we're very aware of God, we don't sin. When we're aware of people, we don't sin, right? Is that true? You know, all of the sudden, you know, you're doing something wrong, somebody walks in the room, whoa, whoa. You know? We sin because we choose not to see that God is watching us. That's the sin that's silence God. God is present, but we choose not to focus on it. Free choice means that we can focus. And we can see, or we can choose not to see. That's chet, that's sin. Silence the God, silence the aleph. As simple as that. Yeah. I have a question. Not to ask like, what's worse, knowing that you're doing something wrong and doing it or choosing not to see that you're doing something wrong, you know, like Choosing not to see. So, if you know that you're doing something wrong, and God is watching, but you're still going along with it, is it better to Yeah, look, no one does something wrong. If you know you're doing something wrong, you're there's not a path towards chuva. I know I'm doing something wrong. God tries to stop. The person chooses to deny, that's okay. When one rationalizes what I'm doing wrong is really right, then the person's in danger. But of course, our rabbis tell us that you do something three times, you rationalize that that we say. You do something once, it says, you know, oh my gosh, I can't believe I did that. Two times, ooh, I feel a little bad. Three times, what I did was a mitzvah. It says shlosha ba'amin hotrei bo, so it says hotrei bo. You made it a mitzvah. It's permitted to you. Let's get more connected. You made a mitzvah. What if you don't regret it? No, you don't regret it. Third time you don't regret it anymore. Third time it's a mitzvah. It's a mitzvah. Ah, it's a mitzvah. You know what? It's a mitzvah. You know, first time you feel bad, second time, you know, first time you regret it, second time you feel a little bad, third time, I'll I'll tell you exactly why just did was a mitzvah. It's amazing. It's amazing. You know why? Because and the reason is the reason is very very deep. The reason is because the human being is so holy. The essence of who we are is the soul. And when we do something that that is wrong, then we silence the olive so to speak. We we cause a blemish on the soul. There's such pain that we're experiencing inside ourselves. The only way to deal with that pain is to rationalize what we did is really right. Because we can't live with ourselves to feel that I've done something that's rebelled against God. The soul can't tolerate that. We can't tolerate that really. The only way to to live with ourselves is to say, "I didn't do anything wrong. I did a mitzvah. I did a mitzvah for I did what was right. I had to scream at him. You know, how would he learn if I didn't scream? Right? It's the only way to teach. It's not for me, it's for him. You know, I I got to that, right? To that. I you can rationalize anything away, you know? Think about your life. Anything. You know, immorality, whatever it is, you know? Helps the marriage. Oh. People can rationalize anything away. Because they can't live with themselves in the feeling that they've they've they've rebelled against God. That's the power of rationalization. That's why we have to be very careful. And the core of spiritual growth is really being in touch with our rationalizations. And believe me, we have power to rationalize anything. Anything. Three times it's a mitzvah. Does it keep in mind to keep in mind everything that we do in life. Okay, let me take you through one more point over here. I want to take you through the most important thing that we say every day as Jews. Twice a day we have a mitzvah to say Shema. Twice a day. Right. Just before I do that. Right. Let me show the power of free choice for a second. The power of free choice. What's the word for choice in Hebrew? Right. To choose is bachar. That's interesting. In these three letters contain everything we know today about free choice. Bachar. I could write these letters as chaver, which means a friend. If I make the correct free choice decisions, I could be a friend with God. Or we could write the same three letters as cherev, which means a sword. If I make incorrect free choice decisions, I am a in conflict with God. I could battle with God. In opposition with God. Right? Free choice bachar, you could either choose to be a chaver, or you could choose to be a a cherev, like a sword, in opposition to God. That's That's the power of free choice. Okay. Let's take a look at Shema Yisrael for a second. Twice a day we say this word, Shema Yisrael. Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad Okay. Sh'ma Yisrael Hashem Eloheinu Hashem Echad. What's that I'd like to say for one moment. First of all, Sh'ma. Sh'ma in Hebrew means Listen. Listen. Listen Israel, Sh'ma Eloheinu Sh'ma Echad. What are we really saying? The word Sh'ma if you look at it, it actually contains Shin Mem Ayin. Shin Mem in Hebrew means a name. It means Shin Mem means the essence of something. Shamayim is heaven, right? Sham means there. So, it's the same thing. The essence of life is Sham, it's there. Shamayim, it's heaven. The word for joy in the is Simcha, which is the same Shin Mem. Simcha, joy. When you get in touch with what's there, Sham, Shamayim, with the essence of life, you'll have joy. Sh'ma means essence, Shin Mem Ayin. What's Ayin? Ayin is the eyes. What's the job of the eyes? To look, to see, to understand. Ayin Shin Mem Sh'ma Ayin the essence. Look at the essence of the world. Sh'ma The job of the ears is to gather together all of the facts of this world and create some form of harmony in our head. You know, the eye looks and perceives something outside the body. The ear takes something inside. And when we speak, it's a very fascinating thing, because you're taking my words and you're using your mind to construct, to formulate, and analyze what I'm saying. Vision is a clear perspective. Yeah, I can I can see outside. Listening means I have to take what I see and bring it on the inside. And form reality. That's why the word vayishama actually means another root of yishama means to gather together. Saul Shalem elected also to be shama et ha'am. Gather the arm. It didn't say listen to the nation. Yishama means to gather. Sham. Shama, listen. Ayin. Look out and perceive the essence of the world. Look and see. Look and perceive the essence. Look at the essence of the world. Think about the world a little bit. Shama. Shama, listen. Listen, not just listen. Perceive essence. Look at the world and discover what's going on in the world. Discover the essence of the world. Go to the zoo. Right, go to the zoo. Go look at a giraffe. And ask yourself a simple question. A giraffe has a neck which is about 4 and 1/2 5 ft. And the giraffe has a job. It has to pump blood uphill. Uphill. Now, things like to go downhill. It's called gravity, right? How does that giraffe pump blood 5 ft uphill against gravity? Difficult job. So, it so happens that the giraffe happens to have, guess what? A second pump. Where is the second pump? Right at the base of its neck. The heart pumps the blood all around the body, 33,000 mi. Giraffe is probably about 60 66,000 mi, right? Goes around the body. It reaches the base of the neck. All of a sudden, the second pump kicks in and pumps the blood from the neck up to the brain. Which came first, the 5-ft neck or the auxiliary pump? Well, let's think, you're right. If the 5-ft neck was there without the auxiliary pump, you'd have giraffes which are brain dead. An auxiliary pump is there without the 5-ft neck, what's it doing there? Like when you see two things that acting in in harmony, in tandem, what do you say? You say designer. It happens to have a perfect pump right at the point of a 5-ft neck to pump the blood from here to there. Beautiful. Go to a zoo and think about that. Think don't have to be God created the world in a way where if we'll look and think about the essence, we'll come and we will discover God in the world. And we'll have balance in life. That's what listening is. Listening is gathering all that information of how we're supposed to live our lives, which is interesting by the way. I want to come back to this for a second. What's the word for ear in Hebrew? The word for ear is ozen. There was interesting. Ozen means ear. It also means in Hebrew izain means what? Means balance, a scale. A scale here was called an izain. Right? Just so happens the word for ear means ear, ozen, and it means balance. Where is the physical point of balance in the human body? In the ear, right? When was that discovered scientifically? Moshe. In 1910, something? Yeah. 1940? Of course we've had it in the Hebrew language for the last 5,000 uh and something years, right? 577 years. Right? The force of physical balance is the ear. Where's the point of spiritual balance in the ear in the body? Well, let's see. When you need spiritual balance, what do you do? Come to a Torah class. Come to a lecture. Right? The ear is the point of spiritual balance, which is very interesting by the way because aleph means what? Aleph always means Hashem, something about Hashem. Zan in Hebrew means Zan at the whole of the whole of the whole of the whole of the to nourish the whole world. Hashem nourishes. Hashem provides spiritual balance, right? That's what you have at the end of Hashem, nourishes. Gathering the information about the world, which means thinking about it, is how we perceive God. Shma, listen, Israel. Not just listen, gather up that information. Look into the essence of the world. Go to the zoo and think about that valve, that pump at the base of the neck of the giraffe. Right? Or look at your own stomachs and notice that right? Any PA's here, right? Medical students? Yeah. We have a lot of hydrochloric acid in our stomachs. And that's why when we go to a wedding and we get served a samsa or something like that or this chi- You know, this wedding mess. I couldn't this wedding by the way. You know, I was at this wedding. And first it's like lamb came out. And it was so good. I had a big chunk of that. And I was like, "Oh, that was great, you know." I was full. And all of a sudden they start bringing out samsas. Like So I have to take a samsa. I thought, "That was great. I'm getting really stuffed over And and then I go to dance. I come back to table. They have this plate of of onions with the this cube Yeah. Whatever. I got to try it. I thought, "Well, that was really good, you know, but I can't do this much longer." So I I go to um My wife's getting ready to leave. So I'm the only one who does this with the the But I go down to the kitchen to get to get tin foil. You know, You know, so Come back with the tin foil there to start wrapping up some stuff. All of a sudden they they come with another platter of uh of this What was on the platter? I didn't Chicken and meat and that. I was like I was like "Wow, this is I mean I was like, you know, I was in heaven. I was like I was I was like I was I was in heaven. But I couldn't I wasted it all on that first piece of of lamb or there. I blew it. I should have been smarter. I should have been smarter. And I thought that was it. I thought that was the end. I thought I was great. A piece of lamb. Go home. I should have known better. You see you I'm always learning. But how did I get into that? Then they can Please trace me back for a second here. Let's let's try. Motion to me. Oh yeah, how do I thank you all? Good. Thank you very much. There we go. So in any case, hydrochloric acid. So the way I was able to eat that piece of lamb is that we have hydrochloric acid in our stomachs. The question, hydrochloric acid is a very strong acid as we know, why doesn't it burn right through the walls of my stomach? The answer is yeah, we have a coat of mucus that surrounds hydrochloric acid. That's it. The job of that mucus is to contain and to protect it. So the lamb the semsa goes down, but it stays right where it's supposed to stay. And the hydrochloric acid doesn't burn through the wall of my stomach. Sometimes it does, it's called an ulcer. Right, sometimes it does. That's ulcers. Right, cream soda. But in general it doesn't. Which came first, my friends? Which came first? The hydrochloric acid or the mucus? Well, I mean medical science will tell you by the way ask my sister he's a doctor. Whole purpose of that mucus its main function is to contain the hydrochloric acid. So if the hydrochloric acid came without the mucus, right, no semsas. If the mucus came without the hydrochloric acid, there's no purpose of the mucus. So again, you see two things interacting in perfect harmony. What do you say? Say designer. That's what it says. Listen, look at the world, think about the world, think about the essence of the world, take it inside yourself. Shma. Bring it inside yourself and understand all these facts. Put it together. Right, shma Israel. Shma, listen. Focus on the essence of what's happening. Wake up. Sh'ma. Yisrael. Interesting. You know, in Hebrew all words in Hebrew have three letter roots. When you see a 1 2 3 4 5, a five letter word obviously you know it has to be contained of two words. That's a rule. Yisrael actually means, if you break up the letter word Yisrael Yosha El. Which means Yosha El, which means God is straight. Yosha El, God is straight. God, you are straight. I'm the one who's crooked. If I can't perceive you, God, in my life it's not because you're not being straight. It's because I'm choosing not to see you. I'm crooked. I have to focus a little bit to discover you, God. You are straight, but I can be crooked if I want to be. I could choose not to see, I could have my own drives, my own passions, my own wants. I don't want to see you, God, today. I want to do something else. But God is straight. Sh'ma Yisrael. Sh'ma, gather up, think deeply that God is straight. We're the ones that are crooked in our lives sometimes. Sh'ma Yisrael. Hashem, God, you are Yud Hey Vav Hey. If you take those letters for God, Yud Hey Vav Hey they actually express haya hoveh viyiyeh. Haya means past hoveh means present, viyiyeh means future. God, you are past, present, future all at the same time. And people always ask me the question, "Rabbi if God knows the future, how do I have free choice?" Right? "If God knows the future" I've heard this question you know, I was almost in the middle of giving like a seminar. "Rabbi, I have to talk to you. I'm really bothered philosophically." So I go, "Guess what? Let me guess. Let me guess. If God knows the future, how do I have free choice?" How'd you know that? How'd you know that? Yeah. You know, that's everyone's major question. The answer to non-starter. Why is it non-starter? God is past, present, future at the same time. You would have over here. In the spiritual realm, there's no past, present, future. It merges into one. Time is a function of a physical reality. Time is something which is only relevant when you have a physical domain. Once you're out of the physical and the spiritual, you could have past, present, and future being the exact same thing. Can your minds comprehend that? No. I can't either. My piece of mush up here can't comprehend that. But that's God. God, the name of God indicates that his past, present, future all at the same time. So, if God knows the future, there's no future. Just from our vantage point, there's a future. So, don't get stuck by the question. It's not a question. Just to accept that the spiritual world does not operate this way. God does not operate the way we operate, and we just have to go with that. Sh'ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. Now, let me show you this word Echad. Echad means what? One. It means one. When we say this, we put our eyes over our hands over our eyes. Look at the word Echad. Echad, what do we say the Aleph represents? Spiritual, good. What did we say the Dalet represents? Physical world, beautiful. What did we say the Chet represented? That was a Hey. The Chet was two swords battling each other. It was the battle of two opposites. That's the way I remember Chet. When we're saying Sh'ma Echad, what are we saying? God, you are one. Meaning I can discover you in every aspect of the physical world. There's nothing in the physical reality or in any reality which is not you. Hashem echad. But oneness means in order to perceive oneness, it means you got to get that aleph all the way out of the dalet. But to get there you have to pass through a chet. And a chet, as we know, is two opposites fighting. It's two fight There's a fight. There's a fight. Because to perceive God in the world, in any aspect of the world, there's going to be a fight inside yourself. There's going to be a fight. There has to be a fight. God, if you're all about love and kindness, then why do you bring that sickness? God, if you're all about mercy, why do you bring the Holocaust? Right? God, if you're all about Yeah. Like there going to be questions in our lives. That's echad. But if you're going to see God's oneness, oneness means is you have to bring with that aleph all the way out the dalet, but you have to first pass through the chet. Echad. Oneness. I got it's a fight to see God's oneness in the world is a fight. There's going to be a battle inside your minds. God, I know you're all about love, but why is happening to me? And that's what you think that's what we're saying. Gather up all the information. Know that God is straight. He's past, present, and future, and there are no questions. And he's one. All of reality is him. Take that aleph. Oneness means see that aleph out of the physical world, but to bring it out into the physical world you got to have to pass through that fight of the chet. There's going to be a battle in your mind. God, I don't understand it all. Now, guess what? When we say Shema Yisrael by the way, what do we do? We cover our eyes. Why do we cover our eyes? Because God, to say that you're one, is something that I can't always perceive. And therefore I cover my eyes to indicate I'm really in the darkness. And if I'm in the darkness, I'm going to have to use my heart to trust where my mind can't go. God, I don't see it. But I can't see everything in this world about you. I don't understand everything about you, God. I'm going to have to use my heart to trust my mind can't see. In Hebrew, we call that emunah. What letter, by the way, represents trust? Excuse me, what color represents trust? What color? White. Lavan. Lavan represents trust. If you'll notice, by the way, the root of the word white is lev, which is heart. And nun, when it's written like this, happens to be the longest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It extends really far. Lavan. White represents trust. Why? Because what's trust? Trust is taking your heart as deep as it can go. Where my mind can no longer go. But reason where reason ends, faith begins, the Rebbe says. Where my mind can't perceive, I'm going to have to let my heart trust. God, I don't understand. I'm just going to have to trust. But you know, in any relationship, it's really what we don't know about the other which is the point of the real strength of the relationship. If you love somebody for what you know about that person, that's not loving the other, that's loving yourself. I'm loving my mind's definition of you. When you really love someone, you love what you don't know. I know enough about you to know that even what I don't know is something worth loving. That's real love. That's trust. White for us always symbolizes the idea of of of trust. Where my mind can't go, my heart has to go. It's interesting, by the way, white, you know, there's seven colors in a in a the spectrum. Like, red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo, and violet. However, when they all merge together, they're all white, right? White light, if you were to refract it, really contains seven other colors. So, it's interesting. White light contains something beneath it, but you can't see it. White always indicates there's something more than my eye can't penetrate. Which is the idea of trust. I can't perceive it, but it's there. What's the color that represents for us belief in God through using the mind and the intellect? Blue. Kachol. If you break that letter down, that that word down, it's koach of lamed. The koach of lamed. What does koach mean in Hebrew? The strength of lamed. The letter lamed in Hebrew means lamed means limed, study. The strength of study. Blue always represents the idea of using the mind and studying God's ways. Using the intellect to go as far as you can go. In fact, the color that the eye can see before the eye can no longer detect colors, is what color? Happens to be blue. That's when you look at anything from a distance, what color do things appear? When you look at the ocean from a distance, what color is it? Blue. When you get close up, hey, this isn't blue, right? You look at the sky from a distance, what color is it? Blue. When you go up in an airplane, you go, hey, this isn't blue. What's going on? Seeing out towards something, the eye can perceive only up to blue. Blue always indicates the koach of lamed. Lamed limed, the koach of study. Now, it's interesting. We have a mitzvah in the Torah to have the word tzitzit. Tzitzit are composed of eight strings. Right? You have a four-cornered garment. And on the corner, you have to put eight strings. That's four strings folded over. And then, there's a mitzvah from the Torah to take one blue string and to thread it around. The tzitzit is symbolized to us the base of life has to be the white. The base of life has to be trust. Because you're never going to perceive everything about God. You're never going to discover it. You're going to have to trust. And a real relationship is only built through trust. But once you have that basis of understanding, I'm not going to see it all. Okay. Then take your blue. Take your koach of intellect. Take your mind and go as deep as you can go. Use your mind. Use that powerful machine we have here called the brain. Try to study. Try to understand. But always understand there's always going to be something you will never get to. And that's why when we look at the aleph, and we spell it backwards, aleph means God. You spell it the other way, it means pele. Pele means wonder. There's always going to be something about God which is going to be a wonder. You're never going to get there fully with intellect. And that's why when we say Shema Yisrael, we cover our eyes. God, I know it's all you. I know everything is you. There's nothing in this world which isn't a manifestation of your oneness. It's all you. And I'm going to declare it echad. I'm going to fight to see it. I'm going to bring that aleph out to the dalet. I'm going to have to pass it through that chet. There's going to be a battle. And that's when you say echad, you say echad cuz you're thinking, "I want to bring the Aleph all the way up to the Dalet. But my eyes have to be covered. Why? Because ultimately I'm not going to be able to perceive it all. And where the mind can't go to I'm going to have to let the heart trust. And that's what it symbolizes. Okay, everybody. Another little taste of the Hebrew language. Thank you very much for listening.