chazara

For someone whose lifestyle is secular, you don't have to get up, you don't have to get up, find yourself a podium and a forum and get up and yell about the guy and criticize the guy and insult the person. No. כה תאמרון לאדני לעשו, Adoni Esav, my master Esav. כה אמר עבדך יעקב, your servant Yaakov. Your servant. I, maybe being polite means that you're not being principled? Maybe it means that you're betraying your principle? No. Im Lavan garti. No. I'm polite, civil, we can talk, we can do whatever we have to do together and no. It will be quite clear. It will be quite clear. Im Lavan garti. But then it will never, there will never be any doubt that this means abandoning or sacrificing or compromising principle. That's what Yaakov Avinu says. כה תאמרון לאדני לעשו. Don't insult him. Talk nicely to him. Treat him with derech eretz. Let him see that's the way a frum Jew talks. Avd'cha Yaakov. Let him know that a frum Jew is modest and is humble, not arrogant and not offensive and not attacking people. כה אמר עבדך יעקב. A humble person, anav v’shafal. I, lest he mistake that, lest he mistake that for lack of conviction, for not being a קנאי על דבר השם, so let him know, tell him Im Lavan garti. Im Lavan garti and taryag mitzvos shamarti and that there's no stira between being civil and polite, even being deferential. He's not just being civil and polite. Adoni Esav and Avd'cha Yaakov is more than civility and politeness. He's certainly deferring to him. But it can be made abundantly clear that all the deference notwithstanding, there's not the slightest compromise or the slightest abandonment of principles. And that Chazal tell us that's the, that the parsha of Yaakov and Esav, Parshas Vayishlach, is the paradigm for how you interact with the gentile world. It's also a paradigm for how you interact with the secular world. Adoni l’Esav, כה אמר עבדך יעקב. And yet it's clear. It's clear that the ideas which you say are Torah ideas. You dress like a person who is a Torah observant Jew. And it's quite clear that all of the deference and all the civility and all the sincerity doesn't have to involve any compromise on principle. Usually take a few minutes out to discuss some other inyanim. What I wanted to discuss today is d’var Mishnah. A d’var Mishnah. Sometimes we make a mistake. If it's divrei hashkafa or divrei halacha, everything we say has to be a chiddush. Sometimes it's important just to review and reinforce some basic yesodos she-ein bahem chiddush. Mesillas Yesharim says in his hakdama that Mesillas Yesharim is not meant to be read once. If you read something once, it means that you read it for a chiddush. If the sefer presumes to have some chiddush, so therefore you read it once, you've now assimilated the chiddush, you've learned the chiddush. So to read it the second time, there's no, there's no chiddush. It has nothing to add. Mesillas Yesharim says I don't have any chiddushim. He says, so if that's what you're looking for, so don't bother reading the sefer even once. But rather the point is to reinforce certain basic concepts. And he says these basic concepts need to be constantly reinforced. So the rationale for my sefer, he says, dictates that it shouldn't be studied once, but it should be studied again and again and again. So in that spirit, and hopefully at the beginning of a term, maybe it's דבר בעתו מה טוב. I don't know how many of us, I certainly can't, I hope, I hope many of you are in better standing than I am. I don't know how many of us can say that we do chazara adequately. There are many reasons for being mezalzel in chazara. Number one. Everyone's very busy, which is a hundred percent true. All of these things are true. Everyone's very busy. Certainly, a double program is more than enough to keep you busy, especially when it's so concentrated into two short terms. It's certainly inordinately difficult. No one has extra time during the term. That's a hundred percent correct. If there is a little extra time at night, Baruch Hashem to have a night seder. So everyone wants to have at least two sedarim a day. To have a seder outside of shiur and the night seder. To have a third seder, to have time for chazara on top of that, there's no time for it. That's also true. That's also true. But the problem is, as we all know from painful personal experience, learning is very deceptive. When you learn something and then you chazer it that night and you have the shiur down cold, or you have the sugya you learned in night seder down very clearly, so it's so clear and so vivid that you can't imagine ever lacking that clarity or vividness in thinking of the sugya. So there's no need to chazer. There's no need to chazer. When we first wake up and realize that that clarity and vividness which we had when we first learned the sugya doesn't stay unless it's reinforced, by then we've already lost it and by then it's too late. So the third, the third consideration is that it's very deceptive. It's very deceptive. So right now, it's inconceivable to anyone that they'll ever forget that there's a machlokes between the Rosh and the Rambam about hashacha. Inconceivable. But

אלא מאי כי שאל נא לימים ראשונים אשר היו לפניך.

It's so crucial. It's so crucial. Especially to take a double program and not to go to another college where you can spend a hundred percent of your time on your college studies and you can be easier to get your higher grades and be easier to gain admission. So it's mesirus nefesh. It's mesirus nefesh. Tremendous mesirus nefesh. What would be if someone would moseir nefesh to acquire a sefer, to acquire a shas so he'd be able to learn? And then someone came and stole from him what he had acquired through his mesirus nefesh? So I don't think we could imagine a more devastating or horrifying act to do. Someone's moseir nefesh and then you deprive him of what he was moseir nefesh for? Meila, he won the lottery, so easy come easy go. But the person's moseir nefesh, he's moseir nefesh. To be in Syms and to learn requires mesirus nefesh. It certainly does. Any of the difficult majors. It certainly does. But even תורתי שלמדתי באף, which is only, so we have to reinforce it. We have to reinforce that when you graduate, im yirtzeh Hashem stay for smicha. After smicha, or whenever it is, that you should be able to look back and say, not only was I moseir nefesh to learn Torah, but אשרי מי שבא לכאן ותלמודו בידו, so it should be true at every stage. It should be true at every stage. And precisely because everyone here is so moseir nefesh to learn and because every hour which they invest in talmud Torah is so precious. Rishonim like to teitch on kavati itim latorah that in Malachi the word hayikba adam elokim, it means to steal. So kavati itim latorah, so the Rishonim darshen you have to steal time for Torah. You have to steal time away from other things. You have to... we could be preoccupied with other things, but we take time away, we take time away to learn Torah. So precisely because the hours... which you spend in Torah as so precious, so that's all the more reason why one has to do one's best to ensure and guarantee that the Torah learned in those hours will be a Torah that endures with us and won't and won't dissipate with the with the passing of time. There's nothing more depressing than having worked on a sugya, figured it out, understood it, and then looking at the sugya and... I once knew this. You find all the time gedolim might... kasheh atika mechadata. You find all the time gedolim might they wrote a teshuvah, not just on azuvay kiya kamonu, but gedolim might when they write they wrote a teshuvah and then the teshuvah was lost or destroyed or something and then they're asked the same shaylah, so they write, kasheh atika mechadata. That it's very hard for them to go back and try to write the same teshuvah again, to write the same teshuvah again. So it's so important, it's so important that we do our best to ensure that the Torah which you're moser nefesh to learn, that that Torah stay with you. And that everyone when they look back on their years in yeshivah, not just that I learned Shavuos or I learned... I don't even remember what we learned last week, what'd we learn last year? Or we learned Bava Basra or whatever it is that whatever we learned, not just that I learned, but a person should be able to say, a person should be able to say I know Shavuos and I know Bava Basra. That's what one of the goals for graduating should be, not just to have learned, but to know, to know that I know Shavuos, I know Shavuos and I know Bava Basra, and I know Shevuos Edus, and I know HaShutfim, and I know Chazakas Habatim, and whatever next year's masechta is, to know, okay, whether it's a perek, two perakim, three perakim, however much it is, it's not just to have learned, but to know it. And it won't happen by itself. It won't... the mesiras nefesh to learn it won't guarantee the mesiras nefesh to hold onto it, to retain it. That requires its own mesiras nefesh. And there's no question, there's no question that that having adequate time for chazarah is certainly docheh erev sadorim. There's no question about that. It's certainly docheh erev sadorim. To to pile on erev sadorim without having ample time for chazarah so is like the mashal of pouring something into a kli with a hole on the bottom. So ain hachi nami you pour more and more and more because you want to have more and more and more but if there's no capacity for retention so we're only deluding ourselves. So there's no question in terms of setting up yesod hayom that part of your learning time, find as many hours for learning as possible, however many hours that is, a day, over the weekend, however many hours is realistic, is possible, so enough of that time has to be set aside for chazarah. If if your college load is so difficult that bekoshi you maintain the integrity of morning seder, then part of morning seder, if you can't find enough time on Shabbos or Friday, then part of morning seder should be for chazarah. Part of morning seder should be for chazarah. If Baruch Hashem things are more there's more latitude and the pressure is not so great and there's also time at night for learning, so certainly before yes it's it's good to learn Nedarim in conjunction with Shavuos and in conjunction with Shevuos HaDayan and it's good to learn parts of Bava Metzia and... it's good to learn everything. But certainly there's a din kadima, there has to be priority for chazarah. There has to be a priority for chazarah. To chazar once the night after the shiur, chazar a second time the night before the bechinah, so it may it may serve you in good stead for the bechinah. It may not. But either way it certainly won't it won't serve you in good stead long-range. I was looking for for... his younger brother. And he writes how happy he was to hear about his learning but that he shuddered when he read that his brother wrote him that he only chazers every sugya three times. He was shuddering when he read that he only chazers it three times and he writes him minimally, minimally not less than 10. Whatever whatever the makor for that is, I don't know, the Gemara talks about 40, the Gemara talks about different numbers, whatever whatever the makor is, so he writes there in his teshuva, he instructs his younger brother not less than 10, not less than 10. Otherwise, so that's ridiculous, you'll never learn anything. When it takes me an hour to learn, so then 10 hours for chazara, I'm never going to learn anything. So obviously it doesn't take as long to chazer as it does to learn, to learn. So it's, I don't know, it's like when you learn how to read, so it takes it takes three hours to say all of Shema. And then when you know how to read, so it takes two minutes to say all of Shema. So it's not the chazara is not as time-consuming, it is time-consuming, but obviously not not at the same rate as as learning new inyanim. So please, at the beginning of zman, beginning of zman, I don't know where everyone here is at different stages in their in their studies, but whatever stage you're at, please integrate and again it has a din kadima, it has a din kadima before any learning, before no matter how many sedarim you have, don't have more sedarim than you have enough time for chazara for. It has a din kadima, it takes priority over all other things. It's very simple. There are no chidushim in in what we're discussing but it's so, so crucial. The other, the other point. I know I once mentioned this a couple of years ago, a year or two ago. This incident, I was once discussing with some balabatim what for a certain shiur, what the shiur should be on. Whether the shiur should be on a perek and we should go consecutively in a perek, or whether it should be different inyanim. So I said, rightly or wrongly, I don't know which, that maybe going consecutively in a perek, maybe that's more conducive to chazara because you know whenever you you know what you've learned, you're learning this perek, whenever you have a few minutes you pick up and you chazer this. Mai shekein an inyan here and an inyan there, it's less cohesive, less cohesive, maybe it's less conducive to chazara. So they looked at me and they started laughing and they said, "Who are you kidding? No one's going to chazer, no one chazers any shiur. You think anyone's going to chazer the shiur? You kidding? No one's going to chazer the shiur!" לא תהא ולא תהיה. It's absolutely totally irrelevant. Nisht kashben, so forget about it. Moving on back then and so therefore the discussion went forward without any without paying any attention to which would be more conducive to chazara, because balabatim don't chazer, that's what they told me. So I I hope that's somewhat of an overstatement. But clearly clearly the habit for chazara has to be developed now because throughout throughout our lives the chiyuv is not only to learn Torah but the chiyuv is to know as much Torah as we can and to retain as much Torah as we can. Not just to learn it, but to know it and to retain it as much as we possibly can. So the same priorities now that no matter how much time you have for learning, enough of it must be must be devoted to chazara so that applies at every stage of life and even at later stages of life, if there will be less time for learning, so at that stage also there has to be enough time set aside for chazara. The benefits are inestimable. אלו דברים שאין להם שיעור. The benefits which will accrue from from doing it is you can't, it's difficult to exaggerate the benefits. So it's just a plea again, if for this term lichora it certainly should be possible to have the right allotment of time that at the end of that in a few years from now we should be able to say not only that we learned Shavuos Edus, but we know Shavuos Edus because we learned it this year. Take twelve. First of the aseret hadibrot, anochi Hashem elokecha. Rambam says very beginning of Mishneh Torah,

יסוד היסודות ועמוד החכמות לידע שיש שם מצוי ראשון והוא ממציא כל נמצא.

So number one, we have to believe that Hakadosh Baruch Hu exists eternally. Number two, והוא ממציא כל נמצא, that he is responsible for everything else that exists. He created them. He creates them,

וכל הנמצאים משמים וארץ ומה שביניהם לא נמצאו אלא מאמתת המצאו.

He created them and he's responsible for their ongoing existence. אם יעלה על הדעת שהוא אינו מצוי. If one thinks, if one would think hypothetically for a moment that Hashem didn't exist, so then אין דבר אחר יכול להמצא. Nothing else could exist either. ואם יעלה על הדעת שאין כל הנמצאים מלבדו מצויים. If on the other hand we would imagine that the whole world, the whole universe did not exist, הוא לבדו יהיה מצוי. He would exist, שכל הנמצאים צריכים לו. Everything that exists is dependent upon him. However, הוא ברוך הוא אינו צריך להם ולא לאחד מהם. But he is, his existence is totally independent, independent.

הוא שהנביא אומר וה' אלהים אמת. הוא לבדו האמת ואין לאחר אמת כאמתתו. והוא שהתורה אומרת אין עוד מלבדו.

When we say ein od milvado, it means אין שם מצוי אמת מלבדו כמהו. The only one who truly exists because his existence is independent and absolute is the Ribono Shel Olam. וידיעת דבר זה מצות עשה שנאמר אנכי ה' אלהיך. And many monei hamitzvot were massig against the Rambam for counting anochi Hashem elokecha in the minyan taryag. Rav Chasdai Crescas in his sefer Or Hashem says that the mitzvah is circular. In order to have a mitzvah it means that prior to the mitzvah you already recognize the metzaveh. In order to have a mitzvah it means that you recognize the Ribono Shel Olam who is commanding us. But how can you have a mitzvah to recognize the Ribono Shel Olam when that's circular? How can you say the Ribono Shel Olam commands us to recognize him? No, we first have to recognize him and then we can accept and submit ourselves to tzivuyav. So therefore, he says that anochi Hashem elokecha doesn't belong in the minyan taryag. Doesn't belong in the minyan taryag because as it were, it's something which is a preliminary to all mitzvot and can't be one of the mitzvot themselves. So there are many, many of this, there's one basic answer and there are many, many details to the answer. The basic answer is that ein hachi nami, what he says is certainly correct, but the Rambam's mitzvat asei of anochi Hashem elokecha, the Rambam's mitzvat asei of anochi Hashem elokecha goes beyond belief. And that even once a person has the necessary belief, so there's still a mitzvah of anochi Hashem elokecha which goes beyond that. What does that mean? So first of all, the Malbim talks about this in in this week's parsha, others as well. First of all, the Rambam says ידיעת דבר זה מצות עשה. He doesn't just say האמנת דבר זה מצות עשה. It's not just that the mitzvah is to believe. With the utmost conviction and the utmost certitude, not merely to say well, I'll believe it. As the famous saying from one of the chachmei umot haolam that he makes the following wager and says that let's say a person doesn't know whether to believe or not to believe. So if a person chooses to believe and then turns out to be wrong, so what did he lose? He lost a little bit of hana'at olam hazeh. Okay, so those are the stakes if he's wrong there. What if a person chooses not to believe and turns out to be wrong? So then he's going to be condemned for all eternity to the fires of Gehinnom. So he says if you make your wager he says you're better off placing your bets and believing rather than not believing. So the Rambam is saying ידיעת דבר זה מצוות עשה means not merely to accept it on faith or not merely to accept it because if you make a wager you're better off accepting it, but the mitzvah aseh of anochi Hashem elokecha, the mitzvah aseh of anochi Hashem elokecha is that a person should strive not only because he was trained to believe, but a person should strive to know, to know this ikar emunah with the utmost conviction and the utmost certitude. So that already clearly resolves the hasagah against the Rambam of how can you have a mitzvah. You have to first believe in order to have a mitzvah. So the teirutz is that yeah, ein hachi nami, you need a certain degree of belief before you can talk about a mitzvah, but the Rambam's mitzvah goes well beyond that. The Rambam's mitzvah is yedi'at davar zeh. So what does yedi'at davar zeh mean? How is a person mekayem it? How is a person mekayem it? There's certainly no more important mitzvah in the Torah. So how is a person mekayem this mitzvah? One way in which the mitzvah can and should be fulfilled, one way in which a person's belief is one with total conviction and total certitude, is if a person looks for the yad Hashem in his own life. If a person looks to experience the yad Hashem, so there's no more powerful conviction than that which a person experiences. If a person experiences yad Hashem, so that's a very, very powerful source of yedi'ah. A very powerful source of yedi'ah. To experience yad Hashem, a person has to look for it, a person has to search for it. The Gemara in Berachot says גדול הנהנה מיגיע כפו יותר מירא שמים that a person who lives beze'at apecha is gadol miyere shamayim. So obviously the Gemara means, obviously the Gemara means that a yere shamayim who's neh'neh miyegi'ah kapo is gadol from someone who's just a yere shamayim. Okay, but the question is what's the whole comparison? What's the whole association of the two? I don't know, so you could say גדול המניח תפילין יותר מירא שמים because this guy's just a yere shamayim and this guy's a yere shamayim who's maniach tefillin. He has an extra point. He's just got, he's got a 90 and he's got a 91. So what does it mean גדול הנהנה מיגיע כפו יותר מירא שמים? So the teirutz is as follows. We all know that when it comes to parnassah, when it comes to parnassah, so a person is obligated to make hishtadlut to support himself. A person is not allowed simply to wait for the, not supposed to wait for the. mon to come down from shamayim. He's supposed to make hishtadlus to support himself. Even though כל מזונותיו של אדם קצובים לו that in Aseres Yemei Teshuva it's decreed how much parnassa a person is going to have in the coming year. So it's all min hashamayim and the hishtadlus doesn't determine, but nevertheless, that's the mitzvah that a person should make the hishtadlus. A person should equip himself to earn a parnassa and a person should look for a job and he should get a job and he should be ne'eneh miyegia kapav. But even though none of that is koveia, even though none of that is koveia, even though it's כל מזונותיו של אדם קצובים, it's not כחו ועצם ידו עשה לו את החיל הזה. Never, ever, it's כל מזונותיו של אדם קצובים. It's what the Ribbono Shel Olam sends a person. Problem is, there's a little bit of a danger there. Once you have a mitzvah of hishtadlus, so then we get very caught up in the hishtadlus. We get very caught up in the hishtadlus. So you work hard in college to maintain your GPA because it's part of the hishtadlus. And then you work hard in professional school to get the degree you want because again, it's part of the hishtadlus, and it is part of the hishtadlus. And then you interview and you have mock interviews and all of this a person is supposed to do as part of the hishtadlus. Ella mai, you spend so much time on the hishtadlus and it's a mitzvah too. You spend so much time on the hishtadlus, the danger is that a person ceases to remember that it's only hishtadlus and begins to think that this actually determines. And a person begins to think, 'Oh, you know why I'm successful?' Maybe out of habit he'll say Baruch Hashem, maybe out of habit, maybe he won't say Baruch Hashem. But a person thinks, 'Why am I successful? I worked very hard and I had a 3.9 and I got into blank, fill in the blank, medical school, law school, business school, and then I worked hard there. And now, now I'm successful. Now I'm successful.' As much as a person, and again, all of this a person is supposed to make all this hishtadlus. But it's so important that while making this hishtadlus, a person be constantly looking for the signs of the Yad Hashem which are always there, which are always there in every single person's life. I can't give you examples from your lives, everyone has to look into their own life but I can tell you on a daily basis a person sees Yad Hashem in his life. A person sees hashgacha pratis on a daily basis in his own life. גדול הנהנה מיגיע כפיו יותר מירא שמים. A yere shamayim who says, 'I have bitachon and I'm going to wait for the mon and the mon comes down.' So that's a madreiga. He has tremendous emuna. He has emuna that everything comes from the Ribbono Shel Olam. But a person who's ne'eneh miyegia kapav, who maintains that same yiras shamayim and that same bitachon and that same awareness that everything comes from the Ribbono Shel Olam even while making the hishtadlus, even while involved in channels, in opening channels which the Ribbono Shel Olam told us that he'll use to send us our parnassa seemingly derech hateva. So that person's on a much higher madreiga in yiras shamayim. It's not this one has yiras shamayim and this one has yiras shamayim plus. No, in the yiras shamayim gufa, this person has a high, this person is on a higher madreiga. A person who realizes that, yes, I worked hard, and yes, and yes then I went to this prestigious graduate school and I worked hard there and then I interviewed and I've worked hard in my career throughout. And a person realizes that hakol me'ito yisbarach and all that hishtadlus notwithstanding, a person never loses sight that everything was siyata d'shmaya and that everything that he did was only, was only in the category of hishtadlus. But it's all the Ribbono Shel Olam gives us the ability and then the Ribbono Shel Olam crowns our efforts with success. So that's certainly a higher madreiga in yiras shamayim, a much higher madreiga in yiras shamayim. To recognize nissim nistarim is a higher madreiga than to recognize nissim gluim, than to recognize nissim gluim. A person has to constantly be looking for the... precisely because, precisely because we are obligated to make hishtadlus, and precisely because v'rapo yerapei, so when you're sick you go to the doctor, and when you're and when you need money so you look for ways to make money. Precisely because we have those chiyuvim, there's also a danger that a person will chas v'shalom begin to forget of what the real source for everything is and what really determines what happens. And it's very important, it's very important that a person constantly be on the lookout for the yad Hashem in his life. And it's amazing, you find it in seemingly small things, you find it in big things. A couple of weeks ago someone called me at night that her husband had just been admitted to the intensive care unit and they diagnosed him as having had a serious heart attack. And I didn't get the name of the hospital. So then later that night I wanted to go to go there to see, to give a little chizuk. So I called the hospital where I thought he was, judged on the description I'd been given, and they checked the computer and they transferred me from admissions to emergency room to I spoke to everyone except the president of the hospital. And everyone told me that no such person here. No such person here. And they and they checked every possible thing if he were there, they checked every possible list, he's not there. He's not there. Okay, what can you do? So next morning I tried again. And the next morning, so sure enough they they found him somewhere in the computer. He had been lost in the computer and they found him somewhere in the computer. So then I went later that morning to visit. I apologized, I said I had wanted to come last night, but they they misled me, they told me they told me that that you weren't here. So his wife told me, it's good you didn't come last night. The roads were very icy and the driving was very dangerous. And this morning already got warmer, it melted, and it wasn't dangerous. So I'm convinced, I'm convinced, and this is a little thing, this is these things happen every second, a person doesn't see. So everything is yad Hashem. Everything is yad Hashem. So how does it happen all of a sudden that you get wrong information? Everything is yad Hashem. Everything is yad Hashem. Everything, dvarim ktanim, it's dvarim gedolim, much, much bigger things also. Much, much bigger things also. Everything is yad Hashem. Ela mai, a person has to be looking for it. A person has to be in a in a frame of mind where he doesn't just take things for granted and just doesn't dismiss things superficially as coincidence and a person will see just how how totally and thoroughly and constantly involved yad Hashem is in directing him in his life. Clearly when a person experiences yad Hashem time and time again, so it it reinforces his emunah in a very, very powerful fashion. Very powerful fashion. And blo guzma, very vigorously, I really think that to again to to reflect on one's life and to notice the yad Hashem in it is bechalal the mitzvah of yedias dvar Hashem, of yedias dvar Hashem. It's bechalal the mitzvah. Another along the same line, this is more generic, less personal, the first is very personal. Everyone has to look in his own life. Throughout the world, throughout the briah, Hakadosh Baruch Hu implanted many, many reminders that the world was created for ratzon Hashem. And those You go mountain climbing they have on the trees they put the arrow telling you where the trail goes. So those kinds of trail markers are all over in Olam Hazeh. But again a person has to, if a person is looking for trail marks so then he sees them. If a person is not looking for trail marks so he thinks that some bark fell off the tree. But if a person is looking for a trail mark so then he sees that the arrow is pointing along a specific trail. There are many many instincts which people just about universally have which don't seem to make too much sense. Let's say it's yaduah that fear of death is a very real and powerful force. Most people are very very afraid of death. And this crosses lines from religious to secular. It's an instinct. When you think about it it's a very irrational one. Very irrational one. Certainly from a secular perspective it doesn't make any sense. From a secular perspective so when a person dies so there's nothing. There's nothing. There's nothing. So what's to be afraid of? Let's say a person is doing something he likes. He went to a baseball game. I don't know. He's doing something he likes. So he enjoys going to it. So therefore the baseball game's going to last two hours. Does he sit there for the two hours being afraid of when it's going to end? No. He goes for two hours, has fun. Okay, it's over. So finish, so it's over. So the absence of something is nothing to be afraid of. Certainly if a person is not going to feel anything, know anything, but a person just ceases to exist. That so many people should be afraid of death and should have this instinct is just amazingly it just defies understanding. Defies understanding. Ela mai but if you're looking for trail markers along our path in Olam Hazeh so if a person knows, believes and knows that we all give la-ateid lavo, but that we all give din vecheshbon so then there's something to think about and then there's a basis for fear of death if a person has not prepared himself for the Yom Hadin, for the Yom Hatochacha. אוי לנו מיום הדין אוי לנו מיום התוכחה. There's nothing irrational about that. That's perfectly understandable, perfectly comprehensible. So the Ribbono Shel Olam gave us this instinct. He gave us this instinct and that's really what, that's the true basis for the instinct for the fear of death that we have is because after death it isn't nothingness. After death the person gives a din vecheshbon. And that's why the Ribbono Shel Olam implants within us that fear of death is a way of saying that לאחר כל ימי חלדו so then a person stands before the Ribbono Shel Olam and stands alone to give a din vecheshbon. If a person's looking for trail markers, looking for Yad Hashem, so he sees it even in instincts. See, once we say instincts so we figure it's just a given and we forget about it. But that's not the case. I think on other occasions we once discussed another very powerful instinct which people have which also goes beyond and transcends borders of rationality is the instinct for having children. The instinct for having children. All the technology and all the research that's done to try to cure infertility. Such a strong strong impulse and instinct which people have to have children. People whose lifestyles are very self-centered, very much interested in self-gratification and nevertheless nevertheless they subject themselves to operation after operation and the money involved is astronomical. The sums involved are astronomical. And they don't they don't believe that Mashiach comes

עד שיכלו כל הנשמות שבגוף. עד שיכלו כל נשמות שבגוף.

That's not what's driving them. That's not what's driving them. They don't believe in anything. Total nihilists. And they have this powerful, irrational impulse that they can't resist to have children, to have children. And what does the having a child mean? So then it means it's a cramp on their lifestyle, and it's a tremendous responsibility, and it eats up tremendous amounts of time, and when a person is at the height of his powers, it doesn't make any sense. Ella mai, Ribono shel Olam has a plan for the world. The world is for the retzon Hashem. לא תהו בראה לשבת יצרה. Ribono shel Olam wants the world to continue. He didn't create the world that people should become extinct. לא תהו בראה לשבת יצרה. To ensure the continuity of the world, so the Ribono shel Olam implanted within us that instinct. That instinct, again, if you're looking for a trail marker, you're looking for signs that this is the Ribono shel Olam's world and that the world is here to do retzon Hashem. So those signs are here, but we just if you're not looking for them, so then you don't notice the trail marker along the way and then you get lost. But if you're looking, so whenever you come to a crossroads, there absolutely is a trail marker. There absolutely is a trail marker. And it's very very important, it's very important.