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Don’t Be Afraid of Your Broken Places; That’s Where the Light Is Hiding

You Must Search in the Place Where You Lost Your Treasure

1 hr 12 min

Class Summary:

This text-based class, on the Maamar Ani Ledodi by the Alter Rebbe, was presented by Rabbi YY Jacobson on Thursday, Parshas Ki Seitzei, 11 Elul, 5781, August 19, 2021, live from his home in Monsey, NY.

Please leave your comment below!

  • S

    sam -2 years ago

    Love it: I am ruled by my infinity!

    That is what a Jew is: Yisroel. My Kal is my Sar. Wow.

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  • YZ

    Yehuda Zimmerman -2 years ago

    וירחמהו

    A beautiful class as always. One small point. The word וירחמהו means, and he will have mercy on Him - not that He will have mercy on you. That would be וירחמך. This appears in Devarim 13:18: ונתן לך רחמים ורחמך and even more clearly Dvarim 30:3: ושב ה' אלקיך את שבותך ורחמך. Therefore the usage of the word וירחמהו clearly means that we will have mercy on Him.

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  • SG

    Sarah Goldberg -2 years ago

    Sure, the lion roars and is scary

    But the lion cares for his or her children. The cubs are not scared 

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    • Z

      ziporah -2 years ago

      I daresay, the cub would run back if the Father roared for the sake of saving it from danger. 

      The mashal is not comparing Hashem to a lion. Lion in Hebrew is spelled 

      Aleph -- for the month of Elul (אלול)

      Reish  and Heh-- for Rosh Hashanah  and 

      Yud -- for Yom Kippur.  

      when the days of Elul and the Days of Awe are upon us. 

      We don't quake because the lions are all behind bars in the zoo.

      When our hearts are numb to the pain of the Shechina our hearts do not quake.  We all have some account up there.  The need is to push the heart to long for us to miss Hashem so much that we'll do what it takes to fix our lives.  We don't love Him enough.  

      A few days a year it behooves us to develop a little healthy fear of our own negligent behavior.  It might enrich our lives!

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  • Anonymous -2 years ago

    essay

    see https://www.theyeshiva.net/jewish/903/essay-parshas-eikve-elul-never-broken

    The Final Month

    In less than two weeks, we will commence the last month of the Hebrew calendar, known as the month of Elul, when we bid farewell to a year gone by, and prepare to embrace a new one in its stead, beginning on Rosh Hashanah.The great sage and mystic Rabbi Nathan Shapiro (d. 1640 in Krakow, Poland) writes[1] that the four Hebrew letters of the name Elul (spelled Aleph, Lamed, Vuv, Lamed) is the acronym of the four Hebrew words “Aron, Luchos, V’shevrei, Luchos” (which also begin with the Hebrew letters Aleph, Lamed, Vuv, Lamed). These words, quoted from the Talmud[2], mean this: “The Ark containing the whole tablets and the broken tablets.”What does this mean? In the book of Exodus, the Torah captures the dramatic tale of how, following the Revelation at Sinai, G-d carved out two tablets, engraved the Ten Commandments on them, and presented them to Moses on Mount Sinai. When Moses descended the mountain, however, he observed that the Israelites had created a golden calf as an idol. Seeing this, Moses threw the tablets from his hands and smashed them on the ground. After a powerful confrontation with G-d, Moses persuades Him, as it were, to forgive the Jewish people for their betrayal. Moses then, acting on G-d’s instructions, carves out a second pair of tablets, to replace the now smashed first ones. When the Ark was built to be located inside the holiest chamber in the Tabernacle the Jews erected in the desert, both sets of tablets were placed therein: the second whole pair of tablets, as well as the fragmented pieces of the first smashed tablets (2).But what is the connection to the month of Elul? Why does the name of this month symbolize this idea of the Ark containing both sets of Tablets, the complete ones, and the broken ones?The above story can provide insight. The unique power of the final month of the year, the name of which spells out the words “The Ark containing the whole Tablets and the broken Tablets” is this: This is the month that allows you to build in your personal life an “ark” which will contain not only your second complete tablets but will also embrace the broken pieces of your first tablets. This is the time when you are empowered and can pick up the broken pieces of your life and discover that there is a part of yourself that was never really broken.What is more, during this month you may lift up with tender love every broken component of your life, learning how each of them constituted another hue of wholesomeness.

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  • SG

    Sarah Goldberg -2 years ago

    "Go to the broken places" to heal

    This is said about the individual. 

    But....it is also true about Creation in general. The  world was made and the vessels shattered, the sparks scattered. The job of the collective is to gather the sparks and the shattered pieces back to a unified whole 

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Chassidus: Likkutei Torah Ani Ledodi #2

Rabbi YY Jacobson

  • August 19, 2021
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  • 11 Elul 5781
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  • 1651 views

Dedicated by Rosalie Osian in honor of Rabbi Pesach and Chanie Scheiner of Boulder, Colorado.

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