The Hillula of the Ben Ish Chai {HaChaim V"Hashalom}

Amen. >> [clears throat] >> The shows It's the first for me just to be in the dollar of the rub. One of the greatest rub in my The rub is later. Is one of the greatest in our neighborhood and in the whole world. Today, what he did in this neighborhood is the Ishmael and the should continue the whole world. >> I just want to tell you I have a blessing of over 15,000 showing in 20 time. 15,000 so if you want to go go to any time and you you're going to search and you're going to see who is the real rub. Everybody >> So Actually I I sat down here at 6:15 cuz I have a share tonight. I sat down to prepare my share. The next thing I know there's a whole surrounding me for the sky. So it's a It was the the sky of the sky. The practice. First of all you need to know the is very connected to the of Morocco. Very connected. You know there's a tradition that on the day that the passed away that was born. There's a rub. Okay. Now The mother had a hard time having children. She went all the way from Babylon from to get a from the to have the so the came to this world from the Morocco. So the creation was from Morocco. >> We came prepared. >> Yeah. You knew that already. >> Not only we knew that, we we live that. >> You you live that. Okay. >> [laughter] >> Okay, I'm happy you know. The Ben Ish Hai's yardzeit Yergimel Elul, we know that during the month of Elul the Arizal teaches that the Yergimel midos harachamim are very strong, are very prevalent. One of the reasons we say L'David Hashem over Yishai is in L'David Hashem you have Yergimel times the shem of Hakadosh Baruchu, connected with Yergimel midos harachamim. So, it's not a coincidence that the yardzeit of Ben Ish Hai is Yergimel Elul. The Ben Ish Hai's writing his torim that he produced was lemala min hateiva. His literary output is can't even be described. One of his talmidim, Rabbi Ephraim Cohen writes that there were certain achronim that had a koach of hashbaas kulmus. Hashbaas kulmus means you make the pen take a shvua to write for you. That's how they were able to write so much. But, he says the Ben Ish Hai his writing cannot even be explained by hashbaas kulmus. His yaata d'shmaya was lemala min hateiva. He wrote Now, of all the tzaddikim whoever lived, the Ben Ish Hai deserves to have a very important hilula because he wrote torim to commemorate the hilula of other tzaddikim. He has a sefer for the hilula of the Rashbi. He has a sefer for the hilula of the Arizal. He has a sefer for the hilula of Rabbi Meir Baal Haness. So, nobody more than the Ben Ish Hai was mashiv the hilula of other tzaddikim. So, it's our responsibility to recognize and appreciate his hilula on Yergimel Elul. He writes at a certain time of his life, you know, he was very wealthy because his brothers were in a business in India and the Ben Ish Hai was a silent partner in the business. However, at one point in time, the Ben Ish Hai was implicated on a certain business transaction. He was actually arrested and the Ben Ish Hai was put in jail for a certain amount of time. The Ben Ish Hai alludes to this in many of his writings where he writes about a certain Sadiq who had to sit in a prison cell and he was doing a certain Tikunim. When the Ben Ish Hai came out of the jail, he did not leave his house for a long period of time. Ben Ish Hai, we have a tradition, had the Sha'ash Nishama of Yosef HaTzadik. There are many similarities between the life of the Ben Ish Hai and Yosef HaTzadik. First of all, when the Ben Ish Hai was a young man, when it [clears throat] was a young child, he fell into a pit. He fell into a bar and he needed to be rescued from the pit like Yosef HaTzadik. Also, Reb Shimon Agassi writes that just like Yosef HaTzadik was first buried in Mitzrayim and then buried in Shechem so he had two places of Kevura. The Ben Ish Hai also has two Kevarem. He has a Kever in Baghdad and he has a Kever on Har HaZeitim. You can go to Har HaZeitim today and you'll see there's a Kever from the Ben Ish Hai. How did he get there? There's a whole story how he got there. Somebody saw a Chalom that he was moved but the concept that he has two Kevarem is because he had Nishmas Yosef HaTzadik also. Nishmas Rebbi Yehuda HaNasi who also has a Kever in Tzippori and a Kever in Beit Shearim. Ben Ish Hai actually writes on this week's Parsha, "Ulai Tzedka Elyon." Yeah, "Ulai Tzedka Elyon." He says the word Elyon is a compound word. Elyon stands for Al Yavan, Al Yavan. That it's a reference to Klal Yisrael transcends all the Umos HaOlam even Yavan. More than anything, the Ben Ish Hai says it hurt him that he was not able to publish his swaram. Even though the Ben Ish Hai published many swaram, there's still many manuscripts of Ben Ish Hai that have not been published. Actually, one of the most recent publication of Ben Ish Hai was Birchas Hareach. Birchas Hareach, you know where they got it from? They found it in Saddam Hussein's compound in Baghdad actually during the war against Iraq. The American army bombed Saddam Hussein's compound. It hit a water pipe. It flooded the whole compound. And then all of the library of Saddam Hussein became flooded. When the Americans came in, they had to separate what they thought was shamus from what was sifrei kodesh. And they took certain manuscripts of the Ben Ish Hai and they put it in shamus. Until afterwards it was discovered it wasn't shamus. It was a It was a safer that was never published. It's in the holy library of Achai Ma'ashalom. They have safer Birchas Hareach. You can look in the introduction. They took the manuscript out of Saddam Hussein's military compound. Ben Ish Hai wrote that his biggest pain in life was he wasn't [clears throat] able to publish his swaram. He had an ancient safer Torah from hundreds [clears throat] of years ago. He wrote to a certain wealthy woman, I think from the Sassoon family, that he's willing to sell the safer Torah in exchange for money to be able to publish his swaram. Okay, I'll end with just one important idea. We're approaching the Yom Hadin. We're approaching Rosh Hashanah. And we know one of the greatest mitzvahs we have is v'talmud Torah. Can I get a column? Each word of talmud Torah is equal to all 613 mitzvahs. However, the Ben Ish Hai teaches there's one mitzvah that's greater than talmud Torah. I was shocked. A mitzvah that's great in Talmud Torah. Says the Ben Ish Hai, you ready for this? Now listen to how the Ben Ish Hai interprets it. In a place where a baal teshuvah stands, a complete tzaddik cannot stand. Says the Ben Ish Hai, a complete tzaddik is somebody who sits in their four amos and learns Torah and davens and does mitzvot, but he's pretty good. You know what a greater thing is? A baal teshuvah. What's a baal teshuvah? Someone who turns to God and says, "Hashem, the Jewish people did this aveira. They have this excuse. They have that excuse." He defends Klal Yisrael. He's a defense attorney for the Jewish people. A baal teshuvah. He argues with Hashem. You know, we had the Klausenberger Rebbe, if you heard some tapes of the Klausenberger Rebbe, during his reading of Megillas Esther, he would start speaking to Hashem and defending us to Hakadosh Baruchu. Says the Ben Ish Hai, "Bimkom shebaalei teshuvah omdim." In the place of baalei teshuvah, tzaddikim who defend, like Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev was known as the defense attorney of the Jewish people, "Ein tzaddikim gemurim yecholim laamod." This was a a very important teaching of the Ben Ish Hai. The highest level of the tzaddik is someone who could defend Klal Yisrael. And uh in our generation, that's a very big zchus to try to be mispallel to Hashem and speak to Hashem and tell Hashem about all the good merits that Klal Yisrael has. And most of them in our area take place right over here in this holy uh makom in the zchus of the Rav Shlita. Hashem should give him yarich yamim al mamlachto And the zchus of the tzaddik should be megen for all of us and all of our Israel. Amen. >> Amen. Amen.