Rabbi Mordechai Kraft - The Hebrew Language the DNA of Creation

So tonight's lecture, tonight's lecture is the Hebrew language the DNA of creation and I'd like to thank torahanytime.org.com for once again taping this lecture and allowing it to be seen by Jews all over the world. So tonight's lecture is a very fascinating topic called the Hebrew language the DNA of creation. What does DNA mean? When we think about DNA, what is DNA? Deoxyribonucleic acid. Right, I can't pronounce that but there are many people here who can. But I do know what it is basically. I do know when you study the DNA of a gene for example, you can detect and discover exactly what the thing is. The DNA is like the code that will tell you the symbol of what is there. It will give you the definition of everything you need to know about what you're going to see in that in that cell and perhaps in that person. That's what we talk about when we say DNA. We call the Hebrew language the DNA of creation. What does that mean that the Hebrew language is the DNA of creation? It means like this. The major premise we have as Jews is that Hashem created the world by first creating the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the numbers 0 through 9 and by combining letters together he created the reality of everything that we know. The first creation was the creation of the Hebrew alphabet. So therefore each letter has a spiritual energy and that energy combined produced reality. And you might not be aware of this but we say this in our prayers all the time. Baruch She'amar Hayah Olam. Blessed be the one who said and the world came into existence. He said, he spoke. What does it mean Hashem spoke? He spoke by combining the letters of the aleph-bet together. Or perhaps when we make a blessing, what do we say? We might say you drink a glass of water, baruch atah Hashem Elokeinu Melech Ha'Olam. What do we say? Shehakol nihyeh bidvaro, that everything came out through his davar, his word. It's not just poetry. Hashem actually created letters and spoke those letters together and created reality. That's what we have. And we see a hint of this actually in the Torah. The first line of the Torah opens up and it says Bereishit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve'et ha'aretz. In the beginning God created et. The Zohar says that et is aleph-tav, which means the first creation. Bereishit bara Elohim, in the beginning God created et. He created the aleph through tav. That was the first creation. The creation of the aleph-bet, of the alphabet. So now this is a very interesting premise because it means that if we know the meaning of the aleph-bet, we can know reality. That's what it means. Or truth of the matter is, you know, if even if I didn't know the alphabet, but I knew reality, I knew what something meant, I knew what a chair is, I know what a table is, and I know the particular letters that and what they mean, I would say I would come up with the language myself. That's how specific it is. That's how exact it is. But let me ask you a question. There happens to be one language out there that's very similar, but not exactly the same to Hebrew, to Lashon Hakodesh, the holy tongue. What's that language? What did you say? Aramaic. Okay, Aramaic is a It's a sister language. It's very much like Hebrew. Greek Greek uses Greek is a language that does have a system. Latin also has a has very defined root system, but still we haven't done it. Arab- Arabic is Bahraini, no. No, no, Yiddish definitely not. English for sure not. Armenian, no. Chinese uses symbols and Hebrew does use symbols, we're going to see in a minute. But I'm going to be something a little bit counterintuitive. Egyptian uses hieroglyphics, it's symbolic. But there is a language a little bit It's a little bit of a trick question. Russian, no. The language is the chemical language. The chemical language, for example, if I were to write this formula right here, what does that mean? Water. But it means more than just water, doesn't it? What does it tell me about the property of water? It has two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Or if I were to write NaCl, what's that? Salt. But it's more than just salt, you'll be able to tell me that is sodium and that's chloride. Now there's one difference between the chemical language and the Hebrew language. Why we call hydrogen hydrogen, oxygen oxygen, or sodium or chloride, why we choose those names has nothing to do with the intrinsic nature of those substances, they're just names which we have chosen. The Hebrew language goes deeper because we're going to see in the Hebrew language that the letter means something by what it means, by its shape, by its numerical value, and other sources we'll talk about in a moment. But we have to understand that all other languages don't work like that. All other languages are symbolic. For example, you know, my socks over here, can't see them, hold the camera. My socks are made of nylon. Why am I Why is nylon called nylon? Science majors. Pharmacy majors. Pharmacists. Why is nylon called nylon? Who can tell me? Give me a scientific explanation, Emmanuel. Because what? The people that made nylon, they they had a company in New York and London. Oh. Very, very smart. Nylon is called nylon why? Because the DuPont chemical factory had two offices, one in New York and one in London. Therefore, it's called nylon. Now, if you look back at the camera over there, you'll see a a kind of rubber which sort of connects the um the base of the camera to the stand. That rubber actually is called bakelite. Bakelite. Who can tell me why it's called bakelite, science majors? Why is it called bakelite? What's that? It's selling in bakeries. Oh, no, it's it's actually baked first and then like 50 years ago, they would heat up this material. It's good. That's not That's That's a nice suggestion. Any other suggestions why it's called bakelite? This is the word, guys, science people. Bakelite, why? Bakelite? What do you hear about that? What do you hear in that? Behind the light. Behind the light? Okay, close. Dr. Bakelite happened to invent it. He used his name. So, there's no reason why it's called bakelite except he chose to call it by his own name or we chose to use his name. But again, there's no intrinsic meaning to the name or what it is. Now, what we're going to see in the Hebrew language is that the Hebrew language every letter is going to mean something. Every letter is like an atom. And when you combine it with the other letters, you have a description of reality. That's the premise for tonight's talk. Okay. Now, to get there, we have to have a few fundamentals. Number one, how do we know what a letter means? How do we know what a letter means? So, we basically have five sources. Source number one is the actual meaning of the letter. Aleph means an aluf, a champion, something elevated. Bet, bite, is a house. Gimel, gamal, camel. Dalet, dal, door, etc. What the letter looks like is important. Because the shape of every letter is actually composed of other letters. We're going to look at an aleph in a moment. You're going to notice it's composed of two yuds and above. Every letter is composed of other letters. The shape is very important. And not just the not just the letters that compose it, but what it looks like is important. Another tool that we have is the numerical value of a number. We know that every not every letter not only has a meaning, every letter has a numerical value. Aleph is one, bet is two, gimel is three, dalet four, etc. Chaf is 20, lamed is 30. Goes up to 400. So, numerical values are going to mean something. We also have a famous statement in the Gemara Shabbos when Rabbi Akiva explains letters to us. It's a very important source. And finally, a very, very interesting source, the Gemara in Bava Kamma tells us, is listen carefully. The first time a letter appears in the Torah, where that letter begins the root of a word, that word will teach me the meaning of the letter. I'll say that again. The first time a letter appears in the Torah, where that letter begins the root of a word, that letter that word will teach me the meaning of that letter. Okay, first time the bet begins at the root of a word in the Torah? Who can tell me? No, bereishit. Bet there means in. It's a preposition. It's separate from the root of the word. Bereishit bara. Bara means create. And as we know, bet means a house, something you build, something you create. There's going to be consistency like that. As we're going to see. Okay? So, these are our sources that we have. The actual meaning of a letter, every letter means something. Shape of a letter. Numerical value of a letter. Description that Rabbi Akiva gives us. And finally, the when when the letter begins for the first time the root of a word of the Torah, that word teaches me the meaning of the letter. That's how it works. Okay? So, let's begin and see if we can analyze a few different words and see what we come up with. I'd like to start with the word that we have. Something that's relevant to our lives. Us. Who are we? What does it mean to be a human being? So, let's take a look. How do we say human being in Hebrew? Who knows? Adam. Ah? Adam. Now, I'm going to say something very interesting. By these three letters, I can tell you the most important things you need to know about who you are. Just like I can analyze H2O and I can tell you the exact properties of water. How many hydrogen atoms, how many oxygen oxygen atoms there are. I can do the same thing with Adam. Let's take a look. We see three letters that compose the human being. That means when God created Adam, he took an aleph, he took a daleth, he took a mem, the spiritual energies of these letters, and he formed the human being. So, what do we see? First of all, we see an aleph. What's interesting about an aleph? Well, let's take a look at an aleph for a moment. An aleph happens to be numerically what? What is aleph numerically? One. One. Good. If I take a look at an aleph, I notice that it's actually made of three letters, two letters. I have a yud, two yuds, and a vav. Help me along. What's the numerical value of yud? Aleph, bet, gimel, dalet, heh, vav, zayin, chet, tet, yud. So, I have yud, yud. Numerical value of a vav. Aleph, bet, gimel, dalet, heh, vav. Six. That's interesting because that happens to be the same numerical value as this word. Yud, heh, vav, heh. God's name. Yud is 10, heh is five, vav is six, heh is five. You add it together, what do you get? 26. So, we see in the structure of the aleph the same numerical value as God's name. And that's very interesting. Why? Because aleph, of course, is one. Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad. So, it makes sense that whenever you see an aleph, it always has to do with something connecting with the supernal, with the divine, with Hashem. But, let's see if it's consistent with all our rules. What is the first time an aleph begins a root of a word in the Torah? Go with me. Bereshit bara Elohim. What does Elohim mean? Means God. Hashem. So, we see the consistency. First time begins a word in the Torah is an aleph in Elohim. So, the aleph will always be something connected with God. Question. How do you pronounce an aleph? Pronounce an aleph for me. No pronounce. Give me the pronunciation of an aleph. No pronounce. Well, let's see. A bet is a buh, a A is a guh, a dalet is a duh. Pronounce an aleph. Ah. That's what if you have a patach or kamatz under it. Listen how I pronounce an aleph. Did you hear it? There's no sound. It's connected to something above this world. Something which you can't get your hands around. Something totally spiritual. Now, it's interesting. It happens to be that if I were to write out the letters aleph I'd write it spelled like this. aleph, lamed peh The aleph is always going to be connected to Hashem and Hashem's oneness. Everything is from Hashem. Hashem echad. Look at this. Numerical value of aleph? One. Numerical value of lamed? 30. Numerical value of peh? 80. Somebody add it across. I'm going to walk over in this way. Someone add it across from me. 80 + 30 + 1 is 111. 1 1 1. Interesting. Everything going back to the ones, once again. So, whenever we have that aleph, it's going to be something to do with something above this world. Something connected with God. That's what the aleph always represents. And we can even take it a little deeper if you'd like. That if you spell the aleph this way, it spells aleph. But let me ask you a question. If aleph always represents something about God, can we always know everything about God? Or does God always leave something over in our lives which is going to be a mystery, a wonder? True? I mean, we know that everything God does is good. Everything God does is based on love. Everything God does is based on kindness, based on kindness. That's a That's a fundamental Judaism. We know that. So, how do we explain the Holocaust? How do we explain the suicide bombers in Jerusalem? God, I don't understand. It's a wonder to me. In our relationship with God, there's always going to be something which is wondrous and we're not going to understand it. Guess what? If I spell aleph backwards, you know what it spells? Let me spell it backwards for you. It's going to be tough today. I'm going to go back and forth. If I spell it backwards, it spells this word, pella. What does pella mean? Israelis. Pella. What does pella mean? Wonder. It's a wonder. A wonder. So, we see in the letter aleph itself, in the three letters, a description of what God's relationship to us is like as well. He is one, 100%, but there's always going to be an aspect about a pella, something we're not going to understand. Okay? So, this is a foundation. Whenever we see aleph, aleph is always going to relate to Hashem. Oneness. 26. Pella. No pronunciation. You know, it's interesting also, how do we say a thousand in Hebrew? Eleph. Eleph. Exact same three letters. Aleph is one, eleph is a thousand. Question, God has an infinite imagination. Surely he could have thought of two words, one to mean one and one to mean a thousand. Why does God use the exact same word? Cuz God's trying to teach us something. He's trying to teach us that look at the world and you look at the world, you're going to see many, many forces. What are you going to see? You're going to see the ocean. And you're going to see the sun, which is 93 million miles away. It's going to cause evaporation. And evaporation is going to go in the air and it's going to cause condensation. And condensation is going to create clouds. Then wind is going to blow those clouds. And then gravity is going to pull the rain water down. And from the soil is going to produce a mixture of the soil with the water to produce life. You might look at all these forces and think, "Wow, look at all these independent forces." God is teaching us, "No, they're all a manifestation of his oneness. Many, many forces. Aleph, but it's all aleph." Do you hear the consistency? So, whenever we see that aleph, my friends, it's always going to be in relationship to to God. Now, let's take a look at the human being. First thing you have to know about a human being is what? Well, we have an aleph. We have a divine spark. The image of God is inside of us. A human being has to know that. If you think you're just an animal, and you don't realize that you have a divine image, it's telling you that you're a kid, you're never going to find any fulfillment in this world. Because the divine image needs satisfaction. It needs Torah. It needs mitzvot. It needs Shabbat. It needs a connection with its source. That's one thing about the human being. But, look at the second part of the human being. Dam. What does dam mean? Dam means blood. Blood is the physical side of who we are. So, why is blood the perfect description of the physical part of the human being? Question. How many miles of blood vessels do we have in our body if we were to line them up head to toe, head to toe, head to toe? Give me a guess. How many miles of blood vessels do we have in the human body? Doctors? How many? What do we say? 10 miles? 20 miles? 1,000 miles? 2,000 miles? Try this number right here. 33,000. We have enough blood vessels in our body if we were to line them up head to head to toe, they circle the globe twice. Now, it's pretty good that God created a way so he created a way that he compacts it into a you know a 35-in Okay, 36. Whatever. Which waistline? That's pretty good. But that's why blood is the perfect description of the physical side of who we are. Now, let me ask you a question. If a person thinks, "Look, I just want to be spiritual. I just want to meditate all day. I want to go off on a mountain and communicate with God. And I don't need friends, and I don't need family, and I don't need relationships, and I don't need delicious foods. I just want to be a spiritual being. I don't want to get married. I just want to go off somewhere and communicate with God my entire life. Do you think such a person is going to be happy?" No. No. Maybe they've involved their aleph, but they've forgotten the second side of who they are, which is their the physical side, the dam. So, the first thing we see about the human being just from these three letters is exactly who we are. We're both spiritual and we're physical. And the challenge of life is to blend these three these two elements perfectly. To make it appear that the spiritual and the physical are the same thing. Like on Shabbat. You know, is Shabbat a physical day or is it a spiritual day? What is it? Well, it's a spiritual day, but we spend it eating. Right? So, what is it? There's a beautiful blend of what we say is physical and spiritual. Now, let me show you how deep this goes. Where do we get the blood from? Who gives us the blood of life? Well, we get it from who? We get it from our mother. Our aim. And we get it from our our father, our av. Numerical value of aleph is what? One. Numerical value of mem is 40. 41. Numerical value of aleph, one. Numerical value of bet, two. It's three. What do we see? four. That's interesting. Daleth numerical value, four. Mem numerical value, 40. 44. What a coincidence. The dam is provided by whom? Av em. Numerical value, 44. But it makes sense. Why? Because if God took these three letters and formed the human being, obviously it would make sense that the source of the physical side will correspond with the providers of the physical side of who we are. Now, let me ask you a question. What is the job of the human being? What's our job? Are we supposed to stay the way we are? Are we supposed to grow? In fact, we're born with a lot of potential. Tremendous potential. But our job is to take ourselves and become something greater. Now, that's interesting. Does an animal have that challenge? An animal? Does your dog ever have to become more than just a dog? Does your cow ever have to become more than a cow? Right? When I was little, my mother used to say to me, you know, "Don't eat with your fingers. You know, bring the food to your mouth, not the mouth to your food." I've never heard anyone say that to their dog. The dog does exactly what they're supposed to do. In fact, they do what they do. In fact, they serve God beautifully. Animals serve God beautifully. There's no resistance. There's no need to be anything but they are. That's interesting, by the way, because the word for an animal in Hebrew is a Well, that's a a domesticated animal is a behe behema. Which is an interesting word. Why? Because it means ba ma. In it is what it is. Bama. In it is what it is. That's all it is. No need to change, no need to grow. But look at the human being. If we flip around these letters a little bit, what do we see? If I were to put the men before the aleph, what does this letter spell? What does this word spell? Ma. Old. What does old mean in Hebrew? It means more. The job of the human being is to become ma'od, more. The human being is created in potential. But our job is to make ourselves something greater, to refine ourselves, to perfect ourselves, to take the raw material God gave us and to give it back as a completely different creation. That's our job. Not to stand still, but to grow, to become me'od. Then look how beautifully God expresses this. God God created man from what? It's called Adam because he created him from the ada ma. Ada ma. What does adama mean? Adama means the the earth. Adama, the earth. Tell me something. What's the difference between the earth on 55th and Lexington and the same earth in some field out in Nebraska? Or out in Tashkent. What's the difference? If you're going to do a chemical analysis of that dirt, tell me the difference between the dirt on 57th and Lexington and the dirt out somewhere in Kansas. What's the difference between that dirt? It's the exact same thing. So why does the dirt on 57th and Lexington cost you a million dollars a square foot? And the land and the dirt out in Kansas or Nebraska cost you maybe, I don't know, $10 a square foot? What's the difference? The difference is what you choose to do with that dirt. If I take dirt and I build a skyscraper on it or I use the or I use the dirt to create a beautiful field, it's worth something. But, the dirt has no real value by itself. Its value is what I choose to do with it. Now, that's interesting. That's why God created man from the adamah. Because adamah is something that exists in potential. It's up to you to decide what you want to do with it. Now, it's very interesting. Look at this. I can vowel these four letters a little differently. And Israelis, watch this very closely. If I vowel if I vowel it like this, a da na, what does a da na mean? Israelis? What? Adamah means earth, ground. What does a da na mean? Listen carefully. In Hebrew, a da na means I will be similar. I will resemble. Or I will be domeh. Domeh in Hebrew means similar. I will be domeh to Aleph. I will resemble Hashem. I can either be dirt or I can resemble God. Right in the same four letters, it has both descriptions. God created man from the adamah because the human being has free choice. You could choose to be dirt or you can choose to be adamah, to resemble the Almighty. That's up to you. You hear how it works, everybody? Go a little deeper with it? What did I say If I would ask you a question, what are we? Are we bodies with souls or we souls with bodies? Am I a body that happens to have a soul or am I a soul that needs a body in order to fulfill its purpose in life? What's the real me? What am I taking with me forever? We've all been to many funerals. What lies in the ground and decays? The body. What lives on forever? We happen to be souls that need bodies to accomplish our mission. The soul comes here for a specific purpose, to become greater, to give God back something more that he gave us, and thereby be worthy of the reward God wants to give us forever. But in order to fulfill that mission, I need a body. I have a body that has temptations and challenges and passions and drives and fights with my soul all the time. So that's what I need the body for. But the real me is what? It's the soul. True? That's the real me. Is the soul. Now, let me show you something so beautiful about the word Adam. What did we say is the name for God? What's the name we got for God we use all the time? We don't say it, but I'm going to write it out. Yud. Hey. Vav. Hey. I don't want to pronounce it. We say Ado Sham, right? We say Hashem. I don't want to say the word, but in prayer we would pronounce it. Now, we could break up this word even further. Let's write it out. If I were to spell out a yud, how would I write it? I'd write it like this. I'd write yud, vav, vav. If I were to spell out a hey, I would write it like this. Hey, alef. If I were to write a vav, I'd write it like this. Vav, alef, vav. If I were to write a hey, I'd write it like this. Hey, alef. Okay. Yud, hey, vav, hey. I'm just spelling out the letter. That's the way you spell these letters. Now, let's do a little numerical analysis of this, everybody. Yud is what? 10. Vav is what? Six. Dalet is what? Together it is? 20. Hey is what? Five. Aleph is? Six. Vav is what? Six. Aleph? Vav? Together is 12 + 1 is? 13. Hey? Five. Aleph? Six. Add this together for me. 45. Now that's interesting. You know why? Let's take a look over here. Dalet is four. Mem is 40. Aleph is? What's the numerical value of mem? 45, which happens to be the exact same numerical value of God's name spelled out. What is the essence of the human being? The physical of who we are, or the fact that we're created in the image of of God. Coincidence or design? Nice coincidence, isn't it? Do you hear that? Yod, hey, vav, hey spelled out is 45, the exact numerical value of human being. Because the real me is the fact that God is inside me. That's what it means to have a neshama. But let me take you a little deeper if you haven't been impressed yet. What makes us different than the animals? What makes us What What really makes us different than the animal kingdom? What? Well, I'm going to tell you what makes us different. What makes us different from the animal kingdom is that we can have a relationship with the almighty. A real relationship. An animal can't. An animal does the will of God, but there's no real relationship. An animal's like a robot in many ways. It will always do what it's programmed to do. What it's What's innate. What's instinctive. The human being can have a real relationship with God. Why? Because we choose to have that relationship. We could choose to ignore God or we could choose to bring God into our lives. It's up to me. That's a relationship. Relationship is something that you have to choose and you have to nurture and you have to develop. We have a vehicle through which we nurture that relationship three times a day. What's that called? It's called prayer. In Hebrew we call it tefilah or the verb is lehitpallel. Now, it's a very interesting word. Lehitpallel I'll write it out. Meet palel the human being is meet pa lel. Can anybody read that? Meet palel means to be in a state of prayer, but it means more than that. Palel in Hebrew actually means a judge. In fact, what we're doing when we're praying is we are judging ourselves. We're becoming before Hashem and we're asking God for our needs in life, but as we ask we're really asking why do I need it? Hashem, I need money. So, if I'm asking this to God, I have to ask myself, well, why do I need money? Do I need money because I want to buy the 2009 BMW? Right? Like Roman has over here. Or do I or do I daven for money because I want an expansion to my house because I want more guests? As I come before God, I have to judge. What's my motivation? What am I doing with my life? Where am I going? If I'm asking you for things, you know, it's silly if I'm asking for silly things. So, prayer is the opportunity to come before the Almighty to ask before the Almighty, to judge myself, and to build that relationship. And that's what makes us human and that's what allows us to be the most that allows us to have the deepest relationship we can have in this world, which is a relationship with God. And that's what makes the human being special, different, and a totally different creature. So, let me ask you a question, everybody. The whole premise of tonight's lecture is that when God created reality he took the aleph-bet, the spiritual energies of the aleph-bet of the letters, and he formed them. So, here's my question to you. God formed the human being by combining an aleph, a daleth, and a mem. Now, if what really makes me human is that I can have a relationship with God through prayer. Mitpallel means prayer. Mitpallel, tefillah. Where do I see mitpallel, that I have a relationship with God through my prayer, where do I see it in these three letters? And if I can't show it to you, I haven't proved anything to you. Because my whole premise tonight, the premise of the Torah, is a premise that says this is the DNA of creation. I can analyze the DNA and tell you exactly what's before me. I have to be able to analyze these three letters and tell you everything that you have to know which is essential about the human being. And I think we succeeded so far, right? We've seen that the yud heh vav heh is in there, it's 45. We've seen that aleph, we've seen a daleth. We've seen daleth mem relates to the gematria of parents. But where do I see that the essence of the human being is that I have a relationship with God in prayer? How do I see it in those three letters? Can anybody tell me? And if I can't tell you, I've failed tonight. Can anybody tell me? Please help me because I don't want to fail. Where do I see mitpallel, prayer, in these three letters? Can somebody tell me that? Please help me. Somebody. Manuel. Or somebody. The mem? Doesn't do it. Watch this, everybody. If I'm going to write these three letters out, watch what happens. I'm going to write the letters out. Aleph. Daleth. Mem. Okay. Aleph, Daleth, Mem. If I were to write these three letters, Aleph, Daleth, Mem, that's how you spell them. So, watch this. If I take the first three letters, what do I have? Adam. Look at the letters backwards. What do those letters spell? Mem, Tav, Lamed, Pe, Lamed. What do those letters spell? Mitpalel. What makes the human being different than the animal kingdom? That we could have a relationship with God through prayer. What a coincidence that we find the exact letters that spell Mitpalel in the exact order, almost with one letter out of order, which means prayer, right there in the three letters that compose the human being. Design or coincidence? Could a human being have created this language? Is there too much reality packed in these three letters, which tells me everything I need to know about the human being? What do you say? Should we go on? Let's go on. Okay. So, that's Adam. Now, what's interesting, by the way, just, you know, there are many different names for the human being in the Torah. One thing we see, of course, we just said, we see Adam. Another name for a human being is a is an Enosh. Another name for a human being is an Ish. An Ish. So, it's interesting, all these things have to do with an Aleph. You could be an Adam. That's somebody who exists in potential, hasn't yet actualized who they are. You could be an Enosh. Enosh means he's fallen away from the Aleph. Somebody who was at a very low level is Enosh, you see in the Torah. At the time of the flood, they were called Enoshim because they had fallen away from the aleph. They forgot that they're divine. They thought they were just animals. You could have an ish, yesh aleph. There is an aleph. That's a very high-level human being. Again, the human being is always described in relationship to how he is living his aleph. Are you living like God? Are you living like an animal? Who are you? That's what God's always looking to see. Let's try this one. Somebody please define for me give me a definition of love. Of love. Not the word. Give me a definition. Definition of love. Love is giving. Good. What What's another definition? What did you say back there? A disease cured by marriage. A disease cured by marriage. Okay. Disease cured by It's very funny. I got it. Give me a definition. I remember when I was growing up, there were some popular songs, right? I remember one was Love Is a Second Hand Emotion. Love is all you need. Right. Love is all you need. Love is a four-letter word. Again. She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Give me a definition. Give me a definition. Somebody give me a definition. Define it for me. Can we define love? We'd be married. What's that? If we could, we'd be married. If you could, you'd be married. The best definition I heard was like something that marriage cures. Okay. But let's see over here. Let's see if we can give a better definition than that. How do we say love in Hebrew? Okay, let's look at the first one. Look at the verb. Ahav. Ahav. These three letters are the three letters that Hashem used to create the reality called love. So, let's see if we can understand it. You know, in English, we say very interesting things. For example, we say, you know, I love fish. When a person says he loves fish, what does that mean? Right, he loves the taste of boiled fish flesh going down his throat. He doesn't love fish, does he? He loves himself. If a person really loved the fish, what should he do? He should throw it back. So, when we use the word love, it really means I love me. That's a very interesting definition, right? Now, it's interesting. Perhaps the Torah wants us to define this concept completely differently. And we might have to turn our heads around for this. Watch the way it works. Let's do a little numerical value, numerical analysis. Aleph. What's the number aleph? Aleph is a is one. Let's skip the hey. Bet? Two. Now, we said that letters not only have numerical have numbers, numerical signs, they also have meanings. Aleph, we know, is a loaf, something elevated, champion, Hashem. Bet, bite. Gimmel, a camel. Dalet, dalet, door. Hey, what's letter hey mean? Well, let's see. Let's use our Let's use our our sources. Where is the first time that a hey begins the root of a word in the Torah where that root actually is a a strong word? Where is that? Can anyone tell me? It's a little difficult because we see it in the beginning of Genesis in a few different ways. One is as the hey is a definite article, I say, like hakise al shulchan, that's the. But the first time we see it to begin of a root of a strong verb is way deep into the book of Genesis in parshas Vayigash, when the brothers are down in Egypt, and Joseph turns to his servants, and he says to the servants, listen carefully, hey lachem ochel. Hey lachem ochel. He uses it like this. The Torah says Hey. Hey, lechem ochel. And you look at the Aramaic translation on the side, it says hav, which means give. It means give. The letter hey actually means give. That's interesting. So, look what love is. What's love? When one gives to one gives to two. What's love? Love is a function or product of giving to somebody else. When we say I love fish, I don't love the fish, I love me. Love means that I'm willing to give to somebody else. And the more you give, the more you love. And that's why the Torah tells us that a mother will love a child more than the child loves the mother. Because who gives more? The child or the mother? The mother spends many, many years and nights giving. A child spends many years, many nights taking. A parent will love a child more than the child loves the parent. Because the more you give, the more you love. When one gives to the other, the other becomes you, and you love. So, love isn't just a an emotion. Love actually is the process of being in a state of giving. When you're in that state of giving, you will start to identify so completely with the other that you'll feel like that other is you. And that's why, Yebbo, Is there another word for love or like when you say, "I love fish."? You don't use a ahava? You don't say Well, you don't say you have dog, it doesn't mean anything. But what do you say in Hebrew? You said uh What would I say? Dog to him, "Lee." Taste good to me. To me. But but not that I love it. I love me. That's what love is. Love from God's definition is completely opposite the way we use it in English. Now, it's interesting, by the way, if I were just to add one more letter here, I would have ahava. Ahava is the noun, which means love. If I do a little numerical analysis, what do I see? Aleph is one, hey is five, bet is two. What do I get? 13. That's interesting cuz that's the same numerical value as this word, which is echad. Echad in Hebrew means Hashem echad. Hashem is one. Aleph is one, chet is eight, dalet is four. It's 13. Why? Because what's love? When you become me. When I give so much to you that I can't separate between me and you, and therefore I see you as a part of me. I love you. We're one. That's what it is. That's why it says in the Torah, "Vi'ahavta derecha kamocha." Love another like yourself. Really, the only love you can have is self-love. But the way I'm going to love you is I'm going to make you part of me. Then I'm going to love you. I'm going to make you one with me. Ahava is 13. Echad is 13. If you can be part of me, I'll love you. But the way you're going to be part of me is only if I invest in you through giving. That's what it is. If you don't give, there's no love. Let's take it a little deeper, if that's not deep enough. We'll go a little deeper with it. Let me ask everybody a question over here. What do you think generates what type of gift do you think generates a deeper connection, a deeper bond in marriage? The gift of the house in Great Neck, the Lexus, the vacation home in the Caribbean, or a word of Torah. A home where together you're able to keep Shabbat. A compliment. A soul that you might sing together on Shabbat. What do you think builds the bond deeper? Is giving something physical or giving something which we call spiritual? What do you think? But don't tell me. Analyze it from these three letters. Tell me the answer from these three letters. Don't guess it. Analyze it from these three letters. So it's something I said or something I said? Mhm? Was it something I said? No. People are so sensitive. I have to be so careful. You got to like Okay. So What What Just tell me from these three letters. What do I What builds the bond deeper? Giving something spiritual or giving something physical? I know you know what it is. You've been through enough Abbott lectures. But tell me from an analysis. I don't want you to tell me. I want you to tell me from these three letters. What's the answer? Can you spell it out? Uh it's simpler than that. This one's even simpler. There's the word home in there and Mhm. Interesting. Okay. A little deeper. Just much simpler. What do we say hey means? It means give. When you give the other an aleph. What's an aleph? What do we say aleph is? Aleph always has to do something with the aleph, something with God. Something connected, something above this world. Give him or give her an aleph. How do you give an aleph? You bring Torah into the home. You bring Shabbat into the home. You tell the person about their aleph. Oh, you have such beautiful qualities. You're such a giver. You're so generous. You're so kind. I didn't know how selfless you are. You make them appreciate their aleph. Give them their aleph. Remind them of what their aleph is, the spiritual side of who they are. Oh, that really builds the relationship. Maybe we understand why in America there's 65% divorce rate. Maybe we understand it. Maybe people are too busy giving houses and cars and vacation homes, but they're not giving the gift that really builds love. A connection with God. Together we can build a relationship, we can build a connection that we couldn't build by ourselves. Interesting. Now, it's interesting also, if you look over here, that the letter hey also means haya. Haya is the first time we see it actually in the Torah. Haya means it's a verb to hayot. Means to be. What does it mean to be? You can get up and jump, you can get up and run, you can get up and and sing. Get up and be. What does it mean to get up and be? Doesn't mean anything. It means a state of existence. That's what it is. It's a state of existence. Haya like is. Right? In in Russian we don't have that verb. In Hebrew they have haya. Haya means it is. It's in a state of being. So, look at this. What do we say love is? When I make you a part of me. Love is when one is two. I give to you to such an extent where one becomes or is the other. That's when I love you, because you're me. Because we're like going to love myself, but I would expand myself to include you as part of me. That's it. One gives to the other, one becomes the other, one gives the aleph. Wow, then you really have something in life. It's too bad people don't know this, right? Because popular songs you hear all about really loving myself. She makes me feel this way, he makes me feel that way. Never do you hear, you know, lines like, you know, I'm giving. I'm going to stay up all night and talk to you. Right? I'm going to spend my the night in the hospital with you, you know. You don't hear lines like that. Because people think love is about themselves, not about giving. But we see from the holy tongue, what? No, it's the other way around. Beautiful. Let's go a little deeper. We're talking about love. Let's talk about men and women for a moment. In Hebrew, the word for man is ish. The word for woman is isha. What's the letter that man has that a woman doesn't have? He has a He has a yud. Letter the woman has that a man doesn't have is a hey. Yud hey together, we know, are is one of the names of of God. So, what do we see in marriage? A man can bring his yud. A woman can bring her hey. And together they can bring God in. If the goal of the marriage is that I'm going to bring my connection with God that only I can have as a man, and you're going to bring your connection with God that only you can bring and provide as a woman, wow, we really have something new. We could have a unity with God like we couldn't have by ourselves. What a beautiful state of existence. But look at this. If people say, "Look, let's get married, but who needs God? I just want to live a life of pleasure. I want to live a life of money. I want to live a life about me and us and just just do what we want to do. Who needs God in the picture? Forget Shabbat. Forget kashrut. Forget taharat mishpachah. Forget it all. It's all about us and me. I'll do whatever I want to do. Look at what we're left with. What does esh mean? Fire. You see double fire. Well, what does fire do when it's in touch with another fire? Explosion. Conflagration. And we understand again why there's 65% divorce rate. People aren't bringing God into the picture. What do they have? Two fires. Two selfish human beings that just want things for themselves. They burn up and they burn out and they gone. Now, it's interesting that a man's letter happens to be in this combination happens to be a a yud. A woman's letter is a is a hey. Tells us something a little bit about men and women as well. A man's letter is a yud. If you notice a yud, a yud happens to be the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It doesn't touch the top of the line. It doesn't touch the bottom of the line. It just hangs there in space. Yud always represents the idea of a a thought. An idea. Like a thought. It just It hangs there. It doesn't touch the top or the bottom. It just It just hangs. Numerically, yud is 10. It's interesting why? Because zero through nine are all natural, meaning we have a symbol that describes them. Once we get to 10, we have to use our mind, so to speak, to construct it. We have to put it together by one and a zero. Called a thought number. Yud always represents the idea of an idea of thought. So, gentlemen, the vision of a man in this world is to be in thought. That's why men have a greater mitzvah to learn Torah. They have to reach up, so to speak, and and bring ideas down. They have to spend time learning the theoretical aspects of Torah, of halakha, of law. They have to sort of reach up and and and pull ideas down. That's why a man's tefillin goes above his head. It's the idea that I want to connect my head so to speak up further and kind of draw ideas down. That's a man's vision. A woman's vision is different. A woman's vision is to be a hey. Now, it's interesting. If you look at a hey, a hey is really composed of two letters. It's a dalet with a yud inside of it. Dalet in Hebrew in the language means delet, it means a door. It's the first letter that starts expressing itself in four directions, north, south, east, west. It's actually always the symbol of the physical world. The dalet is always a symbol of the physical. Physical world, four directions. And that's why it means delet, dalet, door. Why is a door the perfect description of the physical world? Is this world the end or is this world the doorway to something else? You know, when you go to a funeral sometimes, people will say, "This isn't the end. The grave isn't the end. The grave is the beginning. The grave is the doorway." This world is a doorway to another world. It's a "Prusa d'Orah l'Olam Haba" we say. That's why we make a big deal about doorways. What mitzvah do we do on every doorway in our house? Mezuzah. Because we want to remember every time I go through my doorway, it's a dalet, it's the physical world. This world is something which is a you know? This world is a doorway. I'm going somewhere. A door is only there to lead me somewhere. A door is not an end in itself, is it? A door without a room is meaningless. The physical world is a dalet. It's a door. Now, look at a hey. A hey contains a dalet and a yud. What does that mean? First of all, how do you say hand in Hebrew? Yad. What two letters are there? Yud and dalet. That's interesting. What did I say yud represents? Yud represents an idea. What did I say daled represents? Something physical, the physical world. What does a hand do? It opens the door. It takes an idea and it brings out into the world. Right? It takes an idea, it brings it out into the world. That's what a yad does. Perfect description. Now, look what a woman is. A woman is a She's a hey. A woman is this over here. She's a hey. She's a daled that contains a yud. That's a hey. A daled with a yud. What's a woman's job? A woman's role in a sort of a cosmic sense is that she's supposed to take a man's idea and make it real in the world. Like in procreation. A man provides an idea, the seed. A woman takes that seed and expresses it out into the world. Which is more important? The idea or the expression into the world? Well, if you don't have an idea, you don't have an expression. If you don't have an expression, the idea is meaningless. Obviously, they're both equally important. But a man's vision is the yud. A woman's vision is to be that hey. To be out there in the world, express the idea out in the world. If a man's job might be to learn the theoretical concept of Shabbos, a woman's vision might be to make that idea so real in the world that I can touch it. There's a home, there's a feeling. There's a There's a taste, there's a smell. You could go into this house and you feel holiness. That's a woman's world. Here, it works so beautifully in combination. So, a man has a yud, a woman has a hey. They combine it, they have God. Let me ask you another question. Let's go a little further in men and women. There's another letter that represents a man in terms of his relationship in marriage. Do you know what that letter is? It's this letter here. It's called Zion. Zion. Zion Does Zion make that word? A Zion. A Zion is a male letter. Let me explain why. Male letter in marriage. What does Zion mean? It means zan. Zan in Hebrew means to provide, to nourish. A man's job maybe historically or maybe even today is to go out into the world and make sure the family has food. La zan la zoon. Zan at the olden times bituval. A man provides the food. He's zan. He's a Zion. That's a man's vision. Interesting, the first time a Zion appears in the Torah, guess what word happens to be? It's this word right here. Zera. What does zera mean? Seed. First time you see a Zion in the Torah, seed, zera. Who provides the seed of creation? The man. True? Zion is the male letter. What's the female letter in marriage? You know what it is? It's this letter right here. A gimel. Now, why a gimel? Gimel actually means gamal, it means camel. Gomel means to give. Gimel means to take your child and stop the child nursing, to wean the child. So, let me ask you a question. What's the connection to those three ideas? Gamal, which is a camel, gamal, which is to give, and gimel, which means to stop a child from nursing, to stop giving. Support. So, here's my question. God, you have an infinite imagination. You could have come up with three different words. Camel, give, wean off from giving. Why does God use the exact same word, which actually what a gimel means? It actually looks a little like a camel, I think. That's what they say, right? You know? Not bad. Okay. Why is the exact three Why is the exact word that means three things? It means a camel, it means to give, and it means to stop giving. What do the three have in common? Anything? Brothers. Well, let's just take it to giving aspect. Gamal means to give, gimel means to stop giving. God, you have an infinite imagination. What are you doing to me? Give me two separate words. Why is it the same word? Let me ask you a question. What's the greatest kindness you can do for somebody? Is giving the greatest kindness you could always do? No. If I'm helping my little 4-year-old ride his bicycle, what am I going to do? I'm going to run behind him to make sure he doesn't fall. I want to get him off those training wheels on a two-wheeler. I'm going to run behind him and make sure he doesn't fall. Am I giving? Yes or no, am I giving? Yes. Yes. If I If I see my 17-year-old on a bicycle, and I run behind her to make sure she doesn't fall, am I giving, or am I setting the stage for future future psychotherapy? What am I doing? Because you know what the purpose of giving is? The purpose of giving is to give to the point where the person doesn't need you anymore. To create independence. I want to give to the point where I can give the real gift. You don't need me. I stop giving. Real giving is to create an independent person. And that's what the Rambam says so beautifully. The highest form of charity is what? It's to set somebody up in a business. To give where they don't need you anymore. So, now we understand why the word gimel, it means to give, and gimel means to stop giving. Because that is the highest form of charity. That's why if you write out the word gimel, by the way, I'd write it out like this. Gimel, mem, nun. which is very interesting because I said what did I say gimmel means? Gimmel means to give. Mal in Hebrew means to like milah to cut off. Milah, mal. Give to the point where you can cut off from giving. That's real giving. Create independence. Yeah, it works. Very beautiful. You see the consistency? So, gimmel is a female letter. Because the job of a woman is the job of a mother is to give and give and give. Man provides the zera, the seed. The woman then gives and gives and gives, but gives in order you till you can cut off from giving. To create independence. Now, let me ask you a question. How do you say a married couple in Hebrew? Well, there's one more letter you need to know. There's a letter in Hebrew which is the letter of connection. It's called a vav. It means a hook. It looks like a hook, doesn't it? First time you see it in the Torah, it's part of the root word, vaveha mishkan. The curtains, the hooks of the mishkan. The hooks. Does it look like a hook? Vav in Hebrew means and. It's conjunctive, it's connective. So, what vav always means to connect two things together. Vav, it's a hook. So, how do you say a married couple in Hebrew? Zug. A zayin connected to a gimmel. Married couple. The zayin, by coincidence, what do we have? Zayin. Looks like zayin to me. Let's take a few more examples. Quick examples. You know, I always whenever I speak, I always speak about how much God loves us. One time I was speaking about God's love and a little old lady in the back of the audience, she raised her hand and she said, "Rabbi, love, love, love, you sound like one of those missionaries in the subway. Enough with this love already." And I said, "Well, you know, God's love is our message. It's not their message, it's our message. But let me ask you a question. When I say the word punishment, does that make you feel connected to God or distant from God? Distant. God's punishment makes you have that warm fuzzy feeling how much God loves you? Or do you feel kind of um I'd rather stay a little bit away? Which one? Second one. Second one. Now, this is an example of how the English language destroys the meaning of really what's happening. What's the word for love in Hebrew? What's the Hebrew word for punishment in Hebrew? Onish. Let's analyze this word. Onish means punishment. Let's analyze it. First of all, we have an ayin. Ayin in Hebrew means a eye. An eye or eyes. Whenever you see an ayin in any word in the Hebrew language, it has something to do with an eye. What does an eye do? An eye looks, it examines. Iyun is analysis. Hitbonen is to to think deeply about something. The eye has to do with looking deeply, analyzing. This two-letter root, nash, the nun means something, the shin means something, but for tonight's discussion, let's just analyze it as a root. Nash. Well, how do I know what this root means? Let's look Let's look for the consistency. Let's try to discover this root in other words in the Hebrew language. Well, let's see. We have a root, we have a word, nesher. What's a nesher? A nesher is a an eagle. Why is it called a nesher? Because nash actually means to fall off. Nash Resh. Resh means Rosh, head. Why is it called a bald eagle? It was born with a feather and the feather fell off. Something fell off from the head. We have another word. Nishar in Hebrew. Nishar means to take a sheep and shear it. That means to cause the wool to nash, to fall off. Another word we have is Nashel. Nashel in Hebrew means, for example, the Torah says you take an axe, you take the axe back like this and the head the axe head falls back and kills somebody, it's called Nashel Hagarzen. The falling back of the axe. Nun Shin together always means when something falls back or falls off. Let's analyze the word punishment. What did I say Ayin meant? To look with your eye, to see, to perceive, to analyze. What did I say Nun Shin always means? To fall back. So, what's an Onish? What's a punishment? God brings pain in our life sometimes in order that we should look and perceive that we've fallen. You've fallen. Get up. Wake up. You're on the wrong path in life. You're going after money, you're going after materialism. You forgot this world is a means to get you somewhere. So, I'm bringing pain. It's not because I have any desire to have retribution, you know, to to give to cause you pain. I have no desire to cause you punishment, whatever that means. Cuz I love you. Look deeply that you've fallen. Is that a manifestation of of of God's distance or his love? That's a manifestation of what? Of love. It's like you're teaching a class. You know, if you have a very good student and the student falls asleep on you, what do you do? Got to wake up. I really want you to know this material. Because I care about you, cuz you have potential. Ayin, look deeply Nash that you've fallen. Pain we experience in life is a manifestation of God's love. Do you hear how it rings so differently when you analyze it under the language under the microscope of the Hebrew language? When you say it in English, it doesn't ring at all, does it? Punishment. You say ownership, it's a completely different philosophical meaning. has not cognition. Oh, punishment, very good. That's true. We could find traits of every language of of of the Hebrew in every language because when God created the world, right, he created the Hebrew language. At the time up to the flood, there was only one language. It was Hebrew. I should be talking about the Tower of Babel. After the Tower of Babel, what God did was he mixed up the Hebrew language and created 70 other languages. So, English is mixed up Hebrew. Right? Spanish is mixed up Hebrew. Russian is mixed up Hebrew. Bukharian for sure is mixed up Hebrew, right? You know, but I can I can give you just a like, you know, one quick example of of what that means. You know, how do you say snake in Hebrew? Nachash. It's interesting. If God mixed up these three letters and created the English language, look at what he might have done. He puts the shin first, then nun in the middle, and the chet at the end, and you just pronounce it a little differently, what do you say? Se- nekh. Snake. Interesting. We could give you many many examples of that, how everything came from the Hebrew language. Everything. Ooh. So, let me just give you a few quick ideas. We're getting close to the end over here. Interesting. How do you say sin in Hebrew? A sin. Sin is this. Chet. Which letter is silent? Ooh, that's interesting, isn't it? What do we say an aleph represents? Hashem. When does a person sin? When they forget about God. Ooh, God is silent. I don't hear God here anymore. I forgot about God. That's the cause of sin. The more you focus on Hashem, I can't sin. Look, the the aleph is silent. That's interesting. How do you say anger in Hebrew? Kas. Kas. You know, if I rearrange these letters a little bit, I could write it like this. Kas ayin. What did I say ayin means? Eye. But look, the eye. Perceive, think. Kas in Hebrew means what? Lekhasah means to to cover. What's anger? When I've covered my eye, I'm not thinking anymore. Wait a minute. If God is actively involved in every moment, every moment of my life, if everything happens to me is directly from Hashem, why am I getting so upset that the guy cut off me and cut me off in traffic? Why am I getting so upset that guy insulted me? Why am I getting so upset at that sales clerk who who I mean, everything is from you, Hashem. It's all there from you. So, what am I getting so angry about? You know why I'm getting so angry? Cuz I'm putting my head in the sand. I'm not looking. I'm not thinking that everything is from God. I'm kas ayin. I'm covering my thoughts, my eyes. That's what anger is. I'm not thinking. The more I realize everything is from Hashem, I won't get angry. Interesting. Let's go over a few few more over here. You know, it's interesting. We said that the essence of the human being is that we have free choice, right? The word for choice in Hebrew is ba khar. Now, what's interesting? Free choice means that I can either choose to come close to God, or I can choose to distance myself from God. It's interesting, if I rearrange these three letters and I put the khet first, what does that spell? It spells khaver. I could use my free choice to make God my friend. Or I could spell it differently, cherev. I could use my free choice to have a sword between me and God. That's the power of free choice. You see those three letters are defining exactly where man's free choice lies. Is God going to be my friend or is God going to be my enemy? What am I going to choose? Interesting. You know, I think it's kind of cute that the word for pregnancy in Hebrew is this. How do you spell pregnancy? Hey, yod. How many days does it take to go from conception to birth? It's 9 months and 1 day, which is 200 and 71. Let's do a numerical value here. Hey is five. Resh is 200. Yod is 10. I should have There's an aleph there. Vav is six. One and 50. Let's add that together. What do we have? 250, 260, 265, 271. That's interesting. Let's do another one. This is a cute one. The word for snow in Hebrew is sheleg. What is sheleg? What is snow? Well, snow is water molecules that actually get contract, right? The water molecules that are like thin and spread out like this. I think I'm saying it right. Science majors, if I am, help me along. That they are thin They're the water is like kind of The molecules are separate. And what happens is as they freeze, they become contracting, more dense, they're close together. You hear what I'm saying it right? Am I saying it correctly? That's interesting cuz look at these three numbers. Shin is what? 300. Lamed is? 30. Gimmel is? Three. What do we see? A contraction. Going from something large to something small. Okay, cute. Cute. Okay, let's keep going. What makes a tzaddik a tzaddik? What makes a righteous person a righteous person? His mind is over his What makes a righteous person a righteous person is we mentioned the two parts of who we are. There's a body and there's God. A righteous person is somebody who who rules over his body. So, it's interesting. If we write tzaddik I write like this. Tzaddik kuf. You know, the letter kuf, I love that letter. Why? Because letter kuf in Hebrew means a monkey. One of the 22 letters of creation is a monkey. What's so special about a monkey? They're very cute. And they look very human-like. You know, as Jews, and I don't mean to shock anybody, we don't believe in evolution of the monkey to the human being. We believe in devolution. That it's possible for us to go back and be like a monkey. And we forget that we're created in the image of God. The monkey is there to remind us what you're not supposed to be. He looks just like you, but he's not you. He doesn't have a soul. He has no challenge. Are you there? No. It goes tzaddik tzaddik, the root of tzaddik tzaddik, the root of tzaddik, right. The The monkey just lives by his desires. Whatever he wants to do, he does. He's programmed to do. He has a temptation, he does it. He wants to eat a banana, he eats it. He doesn't make a blessing. He does whatever he wants to do. That's a kuf, that's a monkey. But you know the human being is, a righteous person is? He's a kuf, you're right. The human being does have a monkey. We are very physical. If you look at the DNA of an ape and you look at our DNA, I think it might be the same DNA. They look very human-oid, very human-like. But a tzaddik is the two-letter root tzadd in Hebrew comes from tzud. What does tzud mean? To hunt. Or to trap. Tzadd means side. The way you trap something is you create sides around it. Tzud means to hunt, to trap. So, what's a tzaddik? Somebody who traps, who harnesses, who controls his monkey. A tzaddik is somebody who rules over the animal who he is. That's a tzaddik. He doesn't let the animal rule him. I'm not going to go after my desires. I'm not going to go after my passions, my temptations. I'm going to let God's word rule me. Rule over the monkey. Controls it, traps it, hunts it. Harnesses it. See how it works? That's a tzaddik. So, then all the human beings are tzaddiks? Every human being has the potential to be a tzaddik. Nobody's born a tzaddik. Otherwise, you're a monkey. You know, little children do what they want to do. We train children now to rule over the animal in who they are. We get to train them to say a blessing, to say thank you, to hesitate before they eat. They're beginning to rule the body, to rule the monkey. And eventually, they get to a point where every decision we make in life is, "God, what do you want?" Not what does my stomach want. That's the goal of life. You know, we said that the premise of this talk is that God created the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. And with those 22 letters, he created all of reality. And I think we're seeing that a little bit tonight, are we? A little bit. Just a taste of it tonight. There's so much more we can do. Time is Time is In every language, tell me, when you want to create something from nothing, what do you say? A magician goes, "Same." He takes a hat. He says, "I'm going to pull a rabbit out of this hat." What does he say? Abracadabra. Abraca dabra. I will create something from nothing, right? How do you say it in Russian? abracadabra How do you say it in any language? Bukharian, how do you say abracadabra Listen this to this. Sefer Yetzirah one of the oldest books of the Zohar which is attributed to Avram, Avram Avinu, Abraham. The safer we have called the book of creation. At the beginning of the book of creation he describes how God created the world. That's to say God created the aleph-bet and then spoke the aleph-bet, spoke out the letters and by speaking out those letters created reality. And listen to what the Zohar says, the Sefer Yetzirah says. Kodesh Baruch Hu said the following. abara I shall create. ka dabra bra abara, I shall create. ka dabra through speech. abara cadabra, I will create as I speak. abracadabra First I think we should all say it tonight. You know, if we're looking for divine authorship in this world to see that there is a creator that there's a language that could not have been created by the human being. I think we found it tonight. And if we need any proof that there is a creator, one who can line up letters in a way that they describe reality perfectly. Perhaps it shows that the creator is the source of the language. And if the creator is the source of the language, he's the creator and the source of it all. If we need proof for the existence of God, perhaps we need to look no further than the Hebrew language itself. And that's a gift that we have as the Jewish people. Thank you for listening everybody. Enjoyed speaking.