Lakewood Series

Rabbi Kessin relates anecdotes, loads of hashgacha and things he learned as he travelled through nine countries of the Arab world. What current events (circa 2011) around the world seem to be mida k'neged mida for what these nations did in the past? Review of the concept of madregos or levels in the World to Come and why they were created, and the "entification" of your sins. What does mercy do? It is so subtle that it often cannot even be sensed. The whole function of the redemption is to undo what mercy did, so in order to understand the redemption we first must understand what was done to us. The first step of redemption is the reversal and gradual elimination of mercy. What is the purpose of the Messianic era? Why do we need that step between this world and the World to Come? The entire purpose is to remove the attribute of mercy and the zohama which Mercy created. The attribute of mercy lies mostly within man's form. It fogs our view and our awareness of ourselves in ways that we don't even realize. It makes us not even know who we are and makes us smaller and smaller. Why? How does this save us? By narrowing what we know and how we feel about ourselves, it changes our free will. If we are not choosing well and are making mistakes, then those things are taken away from us so that we don't hurt ourselves further. Our awareness of spirituality has dropped so drastically throughout history - from the days of our forefathers through the giving of the Torah, the open miracles of the First Temple and the lack thereof in the Second Temple - and today we don't even have a Temple building at all! In reality, we have become the Temple but we are not aware of it. What changed in the world to go from prophecy to nothing? It is all a matter of a level of awareness.

What is תגבורת הרע? How does mercy apply the idea of madregos, levels, throughout history? Mercy diminishes what you are capable of doing. What does the Mashiach, the greatest soul ever, look like today? What kind of person is it and what does he do? He will be the person we least expect to see, because we ourselves are at the bottom of the barrel. His mind and his thinking will be sick, and he will not realize until he is close to the redemption that he is the Mashiach. Our mitzvot are split into two categories, child and adult. Adam was created as an adult so at the time there was no differentiation in mitzvot. A person with full free will is an adult, whereas if you lose that free will then you are considered to be a child. That is zohama, that reduction to the state of a child. A close examination of history proves that there is a move from adult spirituality to child spirituality. Class distinctions among Jews are thinly veiled baseless hatred.

Same as previous lecture, without the chit-chat and questions and answers following the lecture.

The most important topic in hashkafa is an understanding, to the best of our ability, who G-d is. Why is this important? It is impossible to truly fear G-d if you do not know what He is. What G-d expects of us is intertwined with who He is; we are meant to resemble Him. The entire Torah is about gaining the ability to know G-d and the difference between G-d and man. But what can we, with our limited knowledge and understanding, truly get to know about G-d? G-d has nothing to do with spirituality or physicality. Why isn't he spirituality? Even the world of spirituality is bound by laws of time, such as the concept that a person can spend up to 11 months in Gehinnom. G-d is not bound by time or space. The way we understand G-d out of all of this is to compare Him to ourselves and to understand what He is not. Unlike man G-d is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and omnibenevolent; like an expanded, exaggerated and superior version of ourselves. The whole purpose of learning Torah is to come to the understanding of ein od milvado, there is nothing else but Him. Before G-d could create us, he had to first create non-existence and then pull us out into existence. G-d's constant renewal of the world is a constant renewal of the creation of non-existence. What can we learn about G-d from His names? What makes G-d so powerful? Man's existence is always on loan and must be given by G-d over an over again; G-d simply is. We borrow our existence; He is existence. Every self in the world is completely independent and unique from every other self. The purpose of man is not to get in touch with the self; the purpose of man is to have a relationship with Him. The deepest philosophical thinking happens in infants under six months of age who are trying to figure out the world. They do not at first realize that they have a self and that the world is separate from them and outside of them. An infant thinks that when it opens its eyes and sees something, it has created that existence; when it closes its eyes, everything is destroyed. This stage of our lives is really a punishment. It is the one time in our lives when we think we are omnipotent - and yet in truth, we are at our weakest and most vulnerable, unable to do even the smallest task for ourselves.

Travelling over the world one can see humans on all levels, from the highest and purest to the lowest of the low. The attribute of mercy is very deep. For each of the attributes of mercy and justice, what happens to a person if he sins or when he does a mitzvah? A sin is fundamentally saying that yes, G-d is bigger than me and outside of me, but I can also do things. It is as if you are saying that you are the same as G-d. We see the world through two lenses, through spirituality and physicality. Before his sin, Adam saw the world through both lenses at the same time. Spirituality and physicality were not separated. After he sinned, however, the physicality lens remained clear and the spirituality lens had a filter put over it and became clouded. What did G-d do with our sins in order to keep us from being annihilated from them? Our sins were taken out of us and given their own being and self-awareness. The sin then begins to suck your energy out of you to try to take your kedusha and become alive himself. Ultimately he is annihilated in this way. If it were to stay in you, it would lower your madrega. The fact that it is outside of you, it does not become part of you and it is annihilated. Unfortunately, this introduces evil into the world and causes great suffering. Suffering is G-d's way of saving us by destroying our sins on their own, without affecting our madrega. But what happens if your mitzva becomes a malach, on the other hand? This is not a good thing, either. Keeping your mitzvot as part of you helps you; having them separate from you and become malachim is actually a way of punishing you.

The critical aspect of hashkafa is the understanding of lovingkindness, justice and mercy. We allude to these three attributes every day in the Shmoneh Esrei. What is the meaning of the word nora, awesome? Mercy is the solution to a problem created by justice. Justice is responsible for your destiny and creates the conditions in which you can merit the World to Come or not. Justice says that if you do what's correct, you will receive eternity without an obstacle of nahama d'kisufa. If you do not merit it, then you will earn instead annihilation - meaning you in terms of your consciousness completely disappear from existence. This is not death. Death is the separation of body and soul. Annihilation means that both your body and your soul are gone, wiped out. Justice takes nahama d'kisufa and externalizes it, turning it into two options. If nahama d'kisufa is your nature, you cannot eliminate it because it is an integral part of who you are and governs how you react to things. But if we cannot change the nahama d'kisufa, then how do we understand it vis-a-vis our free will? What's the idea of madregot, of levels? How do sins and the performance of mitzvot affect your madrega? What governs what the attribute of mercy does? When does it work? Under what conditions? Mercy is the greatest of all the attributes because it goes against the laws of existence, in order to save man.

How does the attribute of mercy work? What is the nature of evil, and why do we suffer? What is zohama? The answers to these questions are some of the most hidden of all. Mercy was only introduced into the world after Adam sinned. If he had been governed only by justice, he would have been totally annihilated. Instead, the idea of madregos was introduced. If you don't make it on one level, you're bound to make it on the other. Whatever madrega a person gets to, he has to earn that madrega. Madrega is an institution of mercy; when justice and lovingkindness got together and discussed the idea of madrega, that was the first instance of mercy. Over time an entire madrega system was created in order to allow a person to survive if he sins. When good happens to good people and bad happens to bad people, that's the madrega system. But when bad happens to good people and good happens to bad people, that's zohama. Zohama is an anti-unity entity. What does this mean? When we sin, in order to save us G-d separates us from our sin and then takes our sin and makes it into a being unto itself, which can have a discussion with us. That's zohama, where our sins can actually "come alive". But there are two types of mercy here, the one when we are lowered a madrega and the other is zohama. How do we know when each one is used? In the former case the sin or mitzvah becomes a part of you, and in the latter they are separate from you.

Nahama d'kisufa refers to a certain experience of shame. Why is it so important? The entire physical universe and the concept of a body, of justice and mercy, all exist because of this concept. Nahama d'kisufa is a problem which requires a resolution, and the world was created to address this problem. How can we understand all of creation then if we don't understand what it comes out from? A search through the texts turns up several different descriptions of nahama d'kisufa. One opinion is that it is a problem of pride; we make the mistake of thinking that we control success and we control existence, when really it is all in G-d's hands. Who gets greater reward for a mitzvah, someone who is commanded to do it and does it or someone who is not commanded to do it and does it anyways? The one who is commanded to do it receives greater reward, because he had to fight against his evil inclination in order to get it done. Another concept of nahama d'kisufa is that it is shame. The soul cannot accept the World to Come because it did not earn it and did not work for it, so then the World to Come evinces feelings of shame. It's a problem of taking something not actually earned. The world was created with the attribute of lovingkindness, but that left an imperfection on the soul and mercy and justice had to be added in order to correct this imperfection. There are two ways we can view our relationship with G-d. We can view it as either the way an egg relates to a chicken, i.e. the egg came from the chicken but is completely separate from it; or we can view it as a drop that's part of a wave - a distinct being which is part of the greater being as a whole. The first way causes insecurity because it is detached, whereas the second gives a strong sense of security and connection to the source of all existence. What happens when we compare ourselves to G-d? The evil inclination can try to make us see G-d as an equal, and not as Divine. All of the theories of nahama d'kisufa can be integrated into a single big picture to provide a rounded theory. How does our own free will factor into this equation?

What is nahama d'kisufa? Literally it means bread of shame. It is mentioned in the Zohar and in the Gemara. Why is this concept so important? It is because of nahama d'kisufa that the entire physical and spiritual universes were created. It is the reason why G-d went beyond the World to Come to create this world. The attributes of justice and mercy both serve nahama d'kisufa. There are six ways to look at nahama d'kisufa. What are the specific elements required to truly understand this concept? What is the definition of nahama d'kisufa? Why do we even have it; can't G-d get around the problem without it? What fixes nahama d'kisufa? What is the relationship of nahama d'kisufa to the three Divine attributes? In order to have truth one must have intellectual honesty, or the ability to say, I don't know. When we say Hashem echad, that G-d is one, there is no implication of He is one but there could be another. It is a declaration of G-d's complete and utter uniqueness and oneness. What is the concept of self? A person who is aware of himself makes a differentiation between self and everything else. An infant thinks that everything is himself until he is about six months old and finally realizes that not everything is attached to him. G-d says, "There's nothing but Me", and yet when we look at G-d outside of ourselves we say, "Not me". How can it be both? Are we ourselves or are we our soul? What is the difference between the two?

Everything that we see in the world and how we see it has something to do with nahama d'kisufa. We are all composed of a self, and we are aware of both ourselves and the reality around us. G-d created self, and all the rest of creation comes from the original self that existed. Three attributes came into being in order to run the world: lovingkindness, justice and mercy. Lovingkindness was unconditional existence, that G-d wants to fundamentally give existence while asking nothing in return. This led to the presence of nahama d'kisufa, which then led to the need for justice. That attribute requires the zulaso to earn what it receives in order to correct the nahama d'kisufa. Mercy emerges only if justice fails, meaning that if you fail to correct the nahama d'kisufa then according to justice you should be annihilated - so the mercy comes into play to save us. Nahama d'kisufa is a duality of two thoughts within the zulaso that merge in such a way that cuases confusion. The zulaso at this stage is still not a soul as we understand it today. It is a self-aware self, but not yet a soul, body, spirituality or physicality. Once we progressed into souls and bodies, into the physical world, we then had two lenses through which to view the world and G-d. The world of physicality and the world of spirituality are separate but connected. The separation is what allows free will. What is the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew? Adam, Noach, Avraham - were they Jews or non-Jews? Every person in the world until the giving of the Torah was fundamentally Jewish. It was only once the Torah was given that something was taken away from the non-Jews and they were made, in a way, into a different species.

The essence of Pesach is the first redemption, the exodus from Egypt. The Haggadah speaks very vaguely about the whole story, and seems to skip over the most important question: why were we in Egypt in the first place? We don't need saving if we aren't put into suffering to begin with. So why were the Jews put into that position in Egypt to begin with? They didn't need the experience in order to become a nation, because they were righteous people when they went down to Egypt. What would have been added by 210 years of exile? What were they supposed to be doing? What was the purpose of the 10 plagues? What is the theme of this entire story? Most people accept the superficial meaning of the events; what is the deeper meaning? What is the conflict between lovingkindness and justice? justice includes the notions of existence and annihilation, whereas lovingkindness only includes the notion of existence. Follow this balance from Adam through Noach's generation and the flood, all the way to the exodus from Egypt. Again and again in Breishit we see the changing nature of the zulaso and of the World to Come, and the levels that will be included in the World to Come. There is a fundamental shift in the pattern once Avraham comes around and G-d decides to choose a single nation for this rather than all of mankind. What's the difference between a Jew and a non-Jew? Once G-d limited the World to Come to only the Jews, they had to take over the portions of all the other people who were now excluded - but first they had to clean those portions of the zuhama that blemished them. Which of the plagues frightened the Egyptians the most and why? The plague of darkness scared them the most because they worshipped the sun, and this was definitive proof that G-d is greater than what they thought was their greatest G-d. This was closely followed by the Death of the Firstborn, which in essence was the transfer of power of the Shechina from all the firstborn of Egypt to the firstborn of the Israelites. What is the power in the modern world of the nations of the world? How do the Western and Eastern worlds affect us Jews? For example, until Hinduism dissolves we will not have redemption because there is real power there.

What are the important attributes of Mashiach? What will happen in the Messianic era? What is the Messianic era and how will it move us to the World to Come? In every generation there are two people born who have the ability to become a Mashiach, should that generation merit it. How do we know that there will be two Mashiachs? A brief discussion on false Messiahs in history. What were the tikkunim instituted because of Adam's sin? The tikkun of the snake was instituted by the attribute of justice, while the zohama was instituted by mercy. The Mashiach these days will be a lowly, suffering being. How can he then rise up to his proper heights? The Mashiach reflects the damage of Israel in the exact place where they had the most damage, usually that of improper relations. His job is to pass the test on all levels. What other kinds of suffering are involved for the Mashiach? In current politics in Israel, such as with Gush Katif, how can we apply our knowledge of the redemptive process to understand what happened?

We all have a rather simplified view of who the Mashiach is and how the process will happen. In reality, it is a complicated and long drawn out process. If we are guaranteed redemption by the year 6000 and that's less than 300 years away, then what is happening? Why hasn't he arrived yet? He wants to wait until all the Jews merit the Mashiach. What is the World to Come? What is zichuch? We are all aware of ourselves and separately of reality, but that was not always true. We used to have awareness only of ourselves, until the nahama d'kisufa was separated from us and then by necessity we became aware of reality as well. In the Messianic era, spirituality and physicality will once again merge and reality will once again merge with our self. That is zichuch. The Mashiach can eliminate the processes of justice, mercy, and zohama. How is this done and why can't it be done now?

An extended review of the lessons to date. The compromise between mercy and justice is called madrega, level; this is what saves us when we sin. An oft-misunderstood aspect of hashkafa is that evil actually changes through three different forms. Lovingkindness, justice and mercy each change evil in different ways in order to save us. Whenever we do a sin or a mitzvah, we create an angel who becomes either an accusing angel against us (for a sin) or who speaks in our favor (for a mitzvah). The Satan is both the angel of justice and the angel of mercy. How is this possible? How can one angel be trying both to destroy us and to save us? It is one angel who can enter two different modes of consciousness. What are the three different phases through which nahama d'kisufa or evil travel? What happens during each phase, and how does it affect us in the physical world? In a way, the Satan becomes your auditor as the representation of the externalisation of your nahama d'kisufa. The separation of the physical and the spiritual is death. Why was death created to begin with? What made it necessary? And what happens with the zohama? We die so that we will not be annihilated. The angel of justice is an executioner; the angel of mercy is a parasite who wants to feed from us. How can we better understand these concepts through looking at the snake and at his unique punishment after Adam's sin? How will this whole dynamic between us and the angels and evil change after the resurrection of the dead?

Animals must act according to their preprogrammed nature. Its self is completely immersed in its nature. An angel has a self, like a person; but it also has a nature. An angel has no free will. It must do what it is programmed to do. Man, on the other hand, has a self and has free will. We are not guided solely by our nature and instincts. Each angel represents something different or is the messenger of a different attribute. That will guide his actions.

What do many South Korean households have a set of the Talmud in their houses? Do non-Jews really understand the importance of the Jews in the world? What about the Jews themselves? Where will the redemption begin, and who will be the first to recognize it? Are the South Koreans recognizing something about us that we ourselves don't yet see? What does zohama look like, and why do we need to know? The world before Adam's sin and after is really a contrast between justice and mercy. If we don't understand these two attributes and how they affect us, we don't understand life at all. Even if Adam hadn't sinned, he still would have had children and expanded. What is the zulaso and how does its form change through history and before and after Adam's sin? The sin changed what Adam physically is and what he is capable of knowing. What information do we receive through our senses, and how is that limited? How do babies view the world, and why is childhood a form of punishment? Moving from child to adult changes the ratio of how we see reality as opposed to self. At the beginning it is all self, and once we are grown we realize that everything is actually reality and we are part of that reality. When it is said that a child is completely the evil inclination, it means that the child is 100% egocentric. Everything is for him, and he is his frame of reference. A child does not recognize G-d and all He does. In this way, a child is almost like a different species than an adult. The individuation process for a child, where they finally begin to understand that reality is more important than self, begins only in adolescence. Each of us, as an adult, still has some percentage of child hidden within us. The higher the ratio of child within a person, the worse off he is. Someone who is still mostly child could even be mentally ill. This also comes with a lowering of free will and a level of suffering. Would we rather be existentially annihilated, or live with a little voice in our head that makes us miserable at times but allows us to live? When Mashiach comes, what will he do in terms of this inner child?

Everything that happens in the world happens because of one of the three hanhagos, which represent energies with a specific goal. The attribute of lovingkindness is the way in which G-d creates and grants existence unconditionally; the attribute of justice allows the soul to construct its own existence by eliminating the problem of nahama d'kisufa and making existence conditional; the attribute of mercy comes to reconcile the two previous attributes that seem to be mutually exclusive. What is the difference between Jews and non-Jews? What happens when Mashiach comes? How can we understand good people who receive bad and bad people who receive good? What determines someone's fate? Why is there pain and suffering? What is evil? What is good? Questions like these are the key to hashkafa. The purpose of doing mitzvos is to change your consciousness, called yiras shamayim - a clear understanding that nothing that happens in this world could happen without G-d power, and that we trust that everything G-d does is for the best and for good. Throughout history all these different scientists attempted to explain the apparent phenomena in creation. In reality, what they were doing is explaining G-d's creation. Their path of explaining this is called wisdom. A wise man explains an event that he sees. The only difference between the concept of Torah and the concept of physics is that the Torah talks about a completely different set of phenomena which have to do with the spiritual world, which is invisible. When the madregos were introduced into the world, a certain darkness was also introduced. How does this darkness manifest in the Torah and all of the later writings? Could this have been the true basis for the disagreements between Hillel and Shamai? How is the Talmud Bavli part of this tremendous darkness? How does its format contribute to this darkness? In what parts of life can we see Divine providence? What is the true concept of galus, of exile? By answering all of these questions, we can begin to understand what the attribute of Mercy did to the Torah.

The Shechina, the presence of G-d in the world, goes into exile just as the Jews do. What does that mean? What does the Torah look like when the Shechina is in exile versus when it's not? The 50th gate reaches the level of the light of Mashiach, the highest level possible. How can we comprehend what this looks like? We see many righteous people who suffer and evil people who prosper; how do we understand that? Overview of scientists through history who tried to explain and understand the universe's phenomena. What is tiferes? It is seeing a large, unified picture which emerges from all the small facts or pieces. When the Shechina went into exile we lost all its attributes - strength, beauty, seeing the big picture. The nations of the world have power over us because they received the strength of the exiled Shechina. The Torah refers to the Jews as poor people, becuase the Shechina is in exile and we no longer have the ability to put pieces together and to see the whole. Another verse says that the Jews live in a cemetery. This refers to the Talmud Bavli, why? What have we lost? Moshe broke the first luchos, which was the Torah of the 50th gate. Then he received the second luchos, which actually had the first ones within them. You can find the light of the Mashiach by looking into the Torah itself, since the first tablets are contained within it. Later on in history, Rabbi Akiva failed to bring the redemption. So then what happened to the Torah? What did Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai do with the Torah, and why do we celebrate/mourn him on Lag B'Omer? Why did Christianity have such a resounding success? Is this a punishment for us? Did the exiled Shechina go to them? What happens to Christianity when there is logic and science and wisdom? In the Middle Ages, some of the tiferes began to return to us with the finding of the Zohar and with the writing of the Mishna Torah, a highly organized and sequenced set of all the halachot. In the Messianic era, finally the Torah and wisdom will once again come together, the Torah as the bridegroom and wisdom as the bride.

Who was the Ramchal? What was his purpose? There were three tikkunim that came down to the world: that of R' Shimon bar Yochai in the Zohar; the second was R' Yitzchak Luria, the Ari, in the Kisvei Ari; the third was the Ramchal himself. R' Shimon bar Yochai and the Ari were not allowed to reveal the meaning of the symbols and metaphors of Kabbalah. The Ramchal was the first who was allowed to begin to explain everything; that was his purpose in this world. Once you begin to learn the parables, you can see that there is a successive level of parables within parables. Through our five senses we take in the physical world around us. But what about the psychic or spiritual worlds? In the first blessing of the Shemoneh Esrei we call G-d hagadol hagibor v'hanora, or great, mighty and awesome. Each of these descriptives refers to a different level. Discuss in-depth what these different levels are and how they manifest. The world was created to correct nahama d'kisufa; what is it? Where does our free will come from, and why is it that humans alone in all creation have it? If we are meant to be spiritual beings, then why do we go to the World to Come with our bodies? The evil inclination is rooted in the body. Doing mitzvot is saying no to your impulses and your body, and yes to your soul and to G-d. G-d's attribute of justice is nothing more than an assessment tool to see whether we are listening to body or soul. If we strengthen our bodies, we are choosing not to be. When we strengthen our souls, we are choosing to be. The Ramchal was the one who put together the entire tapestry of hashkafa so that it can be understood as a whole. When we learn we have to decide whether to look at the big picture and have a great overall understanding, or whether to look at each small piece individually and miss the big picture. Where does the evil inclination come from? What is evil? Any person who tries to say that he is like G-d instantly removes himself from existence. That is the beginning of evil, and it comes out of the nahama d'kisufa that each person is born with. G-d addresses this problem by creating the attribute of justice. What happens if a person doesn't get rid of his evil inclination? That is the purpose of mercy? It has to block the ability of evil justice to annihilate you, and it has to get rid of the evil justice by causing the evil to annihilate itself. What is the process by which this evil, this part of a person saying that he is like G-d, goes on to destroy itself? G-d doesn't want everyone to be able to understand hashkafa, because understanding it could delay the redemption. The redemption will come either in a generation where everyone is righteous, or in a generation where everyone is ignorant.

There is a way of thinking whereby you really begin to understand the truth, and there's another way of thinking where you begin to touch on the truth but really have no idea what's going on. Most people learn things horizontally. Vertical learning is when you're not only seeing pieces of information, but you're seeing two ideas are connected so that each one supports the other idea. The brain is not comfortable with all the separate pieces of information, so it is always searching for truth and for unity of the ideas. This difference in thought is like the difference between what a fly walking on a painting can see, versus what you can see of the painting standing a few feet away - the big picture. Begin to explore 11 different "threads" which together will give the complete picture of what hashkafa really is. We all perceive things differently. What is our sense of self? Your mind is the blackboard of all existence, without exception. Does G-d know that He's G-d, does He know Himself? G-d's awareness of self actually creates existence. Man, as a creature who knows existence and non-existence, has trouble grasping the concept of G-d who is existence itself. He is so much existence that even His name is existence, shem hahavaya. Discussion of construction of an entity and the essence of entities. Delve deeply into what existence means. G-d put us into existence but if He were to walk away and leave us be, we'd pop right back into non-existence. He has constant oversight over all of us. Man is completely dependant on G-d for our conitnued existence, whereas He is completely independent of anything. Our truth is non-existence.

What are the fundamentals of hashkafa? It is the study of the most important questions that have to do with your life and your existence. How can we understand something about G-d Himself? Can we understand why He created existence and how He guides it? Can we understand how the Jews are different than the nations of the world? Can we understand how the history of the world fits together? Can we understand where the world is leading? Can we understand the Messianic era and the World to Come? All of our learning is very text-based, but in order to understand the big picture we must take all those pieces, raise our heads from the books, and think how everything fits together. What type of thinking is this and how do we learn it and foster it? How can we begin to see things that aren't so obvious or so clear? Practice this unique way of thinking through exploring the medrash about the 4 exiles the Jews went through. What is exile? The mechanism of exile is the Jews sin, the connection to the Shechina is taken away and put in another place, the Jews go into that place and are given a test - if they pass, they are able to pull the Shechina back. That is the redemption. The timing of the destruction of the Second Temple and the ris of Christianity is no coincidence; they are directly connected. What went wrong in the time of Rabbi Akiva that caused him and his students to all die, instead of being Mashiach? Depending on whether the Jews merit it or not, there could be either a positive or a negative redemption. What is the role of Esau in all of this?

Are the erev rav in control of the Israeli government? Was the Gush Katif expulsion a test from G-d to see who is worthy of the Redemption and who is not? Has mankind degraded to such an extent that all we have to do to merit redemption is not kill each other? In what way did the introduction of mercy to the world in the time of Adam distort things? How are the two Mashiachs even greater than all of the greatest Jews to date? A brief overview of the spiritual aspects of the Holocaust and of Amalek's role in the Redemption. The Holocaust was a battle between the Jews and Amalek about who would bring the Redemption. What parallels can be drawn between the exodus from Egypt and the Holocaust?

Are the erev rav in control of the Israeli government? Was the Gush Katif expulsion a test from G-d to see who is worthy of the Redemption and who is not? Has mankind degraded to such an extent that all we have to do to merit redemption is not kill each other? In what way did the introduction of mercy to the world in the time of Adam distort things? How are the two Mashiachs even greater than all of the greatest Jews to date? A brief overview of the spiritual aspects of the Holocaust and of Amalek's role in the Redemption. The Holocaust was a battle between the Jews and Amalek about who would bring the Redemption. What parallels can be drawn between the exodus from Egypt and the Holocaust?

One of the most central concepts in Torah is the essence of yiras shamayim, the fear of heaven. What's the purpose of a Jew? To elevate consciousness, to become aware of something that normally you're not aware of. We must become aware of the Presence. How does one accomplish this awareness? If the world worked in such a way that good people received good things and bad people received bad things, then G-d's presence would be obvious. However, in our world we see bad people receiving good and good people receiving bad - it's no wonder then that logical thinkers cannot perceive G-d. When we see things in our lives that don't make sense, we begin to get angry whether we realize it or not. That puts up a wall between us and G-d. During the creation of the world, there was a disagreement between the attributes of justice and of lovingkindness over how to create the world. In the end the two were able to compromise with the concept of madrega, or spiritual levels. A sin therefore causes a person to drop a level, instead of to drop out of existence. G-d will only allow this descent of levels for 6000 years, by which we will have dropped as far as is possible. At that point Mashiach must arrive or everything would be lost. Rosh Hashana is the ultimate audit of the end result of all of our actions, good and bad. How do we survive it? G-d created a special period of time, the month of Elul, in which the attribute of mercy outweighs the attribute of justice, in order to give us a chance to do teshuva. Why do we blow the shofar on Rosh Hashana? And why is justice suspended on Shabbos? How does the holiday of Sukkos make sense? What does camping have to do with Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur? The sukkah represents what the world will become when the Mashiach arrives. The whole process beginning in Elul and going through Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur culminates on Sukkot. We aren't camping outside; we have arrived at our destination.

The Ramchal introduced several unique ideas. He introduced the concept of a skill, which is something you learn and develop; and there's also chochma. The Ramchal says that Torah is a skill. Critical thinking is a skill. Many times emotions and ego get in the way of thinking and of truth, and the skill is to be able to work through them and past them to think clearly and logically. When you look at many facts together, you must figure out how to arrange them and how to find the critical elements. Indeed, even learning Gemara is a skill and a different way of thinking. The Ramchal believed very strongly in the theory of teaching someone to do something, and not just handing it to them ready-made. In order to truly understand something, you must have holistic thinking - big picture thinking. We should strive to come to resemble G-d. G-d is the awareness of existence; man is the existence of self-awareness. That's the difference. Why are lashon hara and sinas chinam so deadly? Because they directly destroy the resemblance to G-d. Explore how time and space are illusions and why G-d wants us. Understand how childhood is a curse and how when Mashiach comes, childhood will end.

Discussion of the format of the Torah today, split into the written and oral Torahs. What will be the Torah in the Messianic era? The Torah is capable of change, though it can be dangerous if you don't know the boundaries of what change is allowed. Does the Torah really change? How? Why? There's a beraisa which splits all of human history into 6000 years. The first 2000 are tohu, the next 2000 are Torah and the last 2000 are the Messianic era - and at the year 7000 the whole world will be destroyed and only the World to Come will be left. This leaves us with many questions. The world was meant to end after the giving of the Torah and Moshe was meant to be a Mashiach, but then Israel sinned with the Golden Calf. Why is Torah so critical to the existence of the world? The Torah is meant to correct the issue of nahama d'kisufa, the shame of the soul that it was given the World to Come without working to earn it first. The world was created only with the attribute of justice, but then the attribute of mercy was added. The world could not exist without mercy. What is greater, love or truth? G-d must hide the attribute of mercy from the attribute of justice, then it cannot function. Why is there so much suffering and darkness in the world? It exists to hide existence from truth. What's the idea between the two sheep sacrificed on Yom Kippur, one for life and one for Azazel? Why do we have an entire "storybook" as the first part of the Torah, instead of simply the parts that deal with the 613 mitzvos? What is a Jew? What is a Jew's power?

Audience questions after the Shavuot lecture. What is the balance between mercy, justice and lovingkindness in the world? What is evil? G-d created the Torah in such a way that it enables disputes and baseless hatred and even complete lies such as Christianity - all in an effort to protect the Jews. How could the Jews commit the sin of the Golden Calf? What exactly was the sin?

When Jews sin, G-d then confiscates certain gifts that were given to us. The main gift taken away is hashkafa. What is it that hashkafa provides us with? Why is it so important to learn? Explore the period of mourning during the counting of the Omer. What happened to Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 students and why? The common understanding is that the students spoke lashon hara and had baseless hatred. Why have we been mourning this tragedy for the 2000 years since then? What is so special specifically about this tragedy? We must go back and understand the purpose of creation and the Messianic cycle. Discuss the process and the Torah personalities that led from the one mitzvah that Adam had to the 613 mitzvot we have today. Jews are referred to in the Torah as mamlechet kohanim v'goy kadosh, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation - what does this mean? And what does it mean that all of Israel are responsible for one another? With answers to all of these questions, we can then return to the question of Rabbi Akiva's 24,000 students who died and understand it in a new light.