Ikarei Emunah #3

We began a few weeks ago in conjunction with Parashas Yisro Anochi Hashem Elokecha to discuss ikarei emuna. The truth is that it's impossible to do so without a very strong sense of ambivalence and mixed feelings. The prospect Rachmana Litzlan of making a mistake in discussing and attempting to understand these inyanim is very terrifying. M'idach gisa, ignorance in these inyanim is not really an option either. So because of that we're trying on our very basic level to understand the p'shuto shel davar. And Halevai we should have the Talmud Torah always requires tefillah. It's interesting in the Yud Gimmel Ikkarim when the Rambam has the yesod hashmini of Torah Min HaShamayim it's an amazing thing. So the Rambam mentions as part of the yesod of Torah Min HaShamayim, so the Rambam says that Torah uniformly is min hashamayim, is uniformly represents and embodies chochmas Hashem. And so we see it, the pesukim Anochi Hashem Elokecha,

שמע ישראל ה' אלקינו ה' אחד, לא תעשה כל מלאכה,

so we see the a little bit, we see the tip of the iceberg of the chochmas Hashem. Other pesukim, other pesukim, V'Simna hoysah pilegesh, so we don't really, we don't really see. So the Rambam says, and he says this as part of the yesod, he doesn't just say this in a letter of hadracha to one of his talmidim. He says it as part of the Yud Gimmel Ikkarim, he says

ואין לו לאדם אלא להתפלל כמו דוד משיח אלקי יעקב שהתפלל גל עיני ואביטה נפלאות מתורתך.

The Mishnah of רבי נחוניה בן הקנה היה מתפלל בכניסתו וביציאתו, so Talmud Torah is always mechayev in tefillah. There's a special inyan of tefillah lgabei lgabei Talmud Torah that a person should come. Torah is ratzon Hashem, chochmas Hashem. That the sechel enoshi should grasp anything of chochmas Hashem, ratzon Hashem requires special tefillah. L'chora that's hinted at in the Gemara in Brachos when it lists the different brachos of Birkas HaTorah, so then the Gemara mentions, thank you, the Gemara mentions that the final brachah of Asher Bachar Banu. So Rav Pappa says mai mivarech?

אמר יהודה אמר שמואל שקדשנו במצותיו וצונו לעסוק בדברי תורה,

al divrei Torah. That's what Shmuel says.

רבי יוחנן מסיים בהכי הערב נא ה' אלקינו ברוך אתה ה' המלמד תורה לעמו ישראל.

V'Rav Hamnuna amar Asher Bachar Banu, ברוך אתה ה' נותן התורה. Amar Rav Hamnuna זוהי מעולה שבברכות hilkach limru l'kulah. It's a strange thing. So Rav Hamnuna comes and says the brachah of Asher Bachar Banu, this is the muvchar, this is the choicest of brachos. So again, if the next line, if the manuscripts were torn here, so we would have thought that the next three words is hilkach say Asher Bachar Banu and you don't need the others. And yet the punchline is hilkach limru l'kulah. So how does how does that follow? So l'chora the pashshus is like this. Again, not now is not the time or place to calculate whether or not what we're suggesting works out according to all Rishonim but l'chora the p'shat is like this. אשר קדשנו במצותיו וצונו לעסוק בדברי תורה you have to have because Torah is. You need to say a beracha in Torah, you need to say a beracha and let's even say leaving Reb Chaim's yesod aside for the moment, you need a simple birkat hamitzvah on talmud torah. Fine. So the fact that asher bachar banu which highlights the relationship between bechirat yisrael and Torah is me'ula shebeberachot, that in no way substitutes for simple birkat hamitzvah. Now either the continuation or the second beracha depending upon the machloket rishonim what it is, veha'arev na, that's the yesod of the Rambam here in the yud gimmel ikkarim, you have to have bakasha. Again, the me'ula shebeberachot which expresses again the kesher between bechirat yisrael and Torah can't substitute for bakasha. There has to be bakasha in birkat hatorah. When you make a beracha on netilat lulav, you don't have to say a special bakasha Ribbono Shel Olam help me hold the minim kederech gedelatan and help me do the na'anuim correctly. Not an inyan of a special bakasha. But Torah requires a special bakasha. Oh. So that's pshat in the Gemara that the first two berachot are necessary goes without saying. The chiddush is maybe asher bachar banu is superfluous? ka mashma lan no, asher bachar banu since as a shavach it's me'ula shebeberachot, it's konah mekoma. And therefore הלכך לא מינהו לכולהו because there's no hava amina that we could dispense with the simple birkat hamitzvah or that we could dispense with the bakasha because Torah is mechayev tefillah. Torah is mechayev in bakasha. And lichora this is reflected in ר' נחוניא בן הקנה also about היה מתפלל בכניסתו לבית המדרש. So if this is true for etzomai mikan uleha'ba and מכל שכן למפרע נפסול, it's certainly true when dealing with the yud gimmel ikkarim. So Halavai that even the devarim peshutim that we're going to try to understand and discuss so we'll gehelfen that we should do it accurately la'amito shel Torah. Ultimately, I'm not sure if we're going to get there tonight. We're talking about yichud Hashem not only because it comes on the heels of Anochi, but ultimately it also links up according to the Rambam with parshat hashavua. I'm not sure if we'll get there but we'll see. So the way the Rambam formulates here in Rav Kapach's translation in Perek Chelek היסוד השני אחדותו יתעלה והוא שזה עילת הכל אחד. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu who is the cause and the source of all existence is echad. Now when we say that Hashem is echad, it means לא כאחדות המין ולא כאחדות הסוג. So he has a note on the bottom, achdut hamin means min as in right in English we distinguish between a genus and a species. Right the category of fruit is an overall category and within it you have different types of fruits. You have citrus fruits and other types of fruits. So min means the genus. So it's not that we say that Hashem is one let's say within fruit groups. So neniach I don't know whether there is such a case but neniach that you had you have fruits and you have vegetables and you have ich veis legumes and then so in fruits and then you have another category. So it doesn't mean we don't say that Hashem is one in the sense of ich veis that there's one that he's a separate genus. Nor do we mean velo k'achdut hasug. We don't say that well again within the category of fruits there are different types of fruits. So it's not as it's not comparable to saying well this fruit is a species unto itself. That citrus fruits there are lots of different types of citrus fruits, but this fruit is within the category of fruits is a species unto itself. You don't mean that Hashem is one in that sense either. Both of these ones are not absolute. Absolute ones but they're relative ones, right? To say again, when you say that ich veis there are many citrus fruits, but of this species of fruit there's only one fruit, so again, the very definition of one that you're giving is in relation to something else. So when we say Hashem is echad, it can't mean, it doesn't mean, only in relation to something else, right? So that's why it doesn't mean again, that it doesn't mean, well, it's not comparable to, well many fruits, many foods are classified under the heading of food, and many are classified under the heading of vegetables, and many are classified under the heading of grain, and this has its own heading, but that's also a relative depiction and definition of echad. The same way within fruits, if you say well many fruits can be classified as citrus fruits and many can be classified as ich veis cold weather fruits, and this one fruit has its own definition, is its own species, that's also a relative depiction and definition of one. That's not what it means when we say Hashem echad. Moreover, says the Rambam, ולא כדבר האחד המורכב שהוא מחולק לאחדים רבים. It also doesn't mean let's say this table. So this table is one, but the emes is it really has constituent parts. It has the top board, it has the legs. It's also it's one, but it's not a simple oneness. It's a composite oneness. So when we talk about Hakadosh Baruch Hu, it doesn't mean one in the sense of composite oneness either.

ולא אחד בגוף הפשוט שהוא אחד במספר אבל מקבל החלוקה והפיצול.

But what if we say this board, this tabletop is one? So that's not really composite, it's just one piece of oak. It's one piece of oak, but that's a divisible one. And when we talk about Hakadosh Baruch Hu being one, we don't mean in any divisible sense Rachmana litzlan. If you have one tabletop, one piece of oak, so you can cut it down into smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller parts. So basically what the Rambam is saying is that when we speak about Hashem echad, you can't define the echad in relation to anything else. Let's say if when we talk about echad in any other sense, we usually mean echad in relation to something else. We say about someone, oh he's one of a kind. He's one of a kind in his asmidus, he's one of a kind in his chesed, he's one of a kind in this or that. He's one of a kind meaning that basically the definition of echad is in relation, so it's a comparative or relative use of echad. Or sometimes echad means again, we use it as a number, but there too, it doesn't mean what it does by Hashem. What does it mean by Hashem? What it means is simple and absolute. That when we say Hashem's achdus, it's not in any relative sense. It's not relative to anything else. It's not when you compare this species of fruit to the species of citrus fruits. It's not echad in the sense of well this is one piece of wood, not two pieces of wood, because again that just means one in number. When we say Hashem echad, it means that Hashem is in the most simple sense of the word absolutely one. That His existence is unique and indivisible. That's what it means. That Hashem's existence is unique, not echad in relation to anything else, echad umeyuchad, and indivisible, and in the most simple and absolute sense of the term.

וזה היסוד השני מורה עליו מה שנאמר שמע ישראל ה' אלהינו ה' אחד.

Okay. So that's one component of achdus Hashem. Now elsewhere and in this is all the Rambam includes here in the again the formulation of the second of the Yud Gimmel Ikrim. Now elsewhere and in... Until we indicate differently, everything we're discussing is either in Perush Hamishnayos and or Mishneh Torah and or the Yad Hachazakah, meaning it wasn't something that the Rambam thought was for Bnei Aliyah. He intended it for us as well. The Rambam says in the end of Shmona Perakim as well as both in Yesodei HaTorah and Hilchos Teshuva that another application or implication, I guess, of Hashem Echad is that Hashem knows. When we speak of Yidias Hashem, it means something which is fundamentally different and unique than when we talk about our knowing. And the Rambam says this to elucidate Rabbi Akiva's statement that הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה, that the fact that Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows the future in no way impinges upon our Bechira Chofshis. So the Rambam's explanation basically is that the question is a mistake. Right? The question which we all ask or how is it possible if Hashem knows the future, so doesn't that mean that the future is predetermined? So doesn't that mean that we have no Bechira Chofshis? And the Rambam says that basically the question is a mistake. He doesn't so much answer the question as he does say that the question is a mistake. Right? There are different ways of responding to questions. Right? Who was it? I think the Beis Halevi said it about Rav Chaim. That when people come to other Roshei Yeshiva with a kasha, the Rosh Yeshiva gives them a teretz. You walk away feeling like a million bucks because you had such a gevaldige kasha and takeh your kasha stimulated a tremendous chiddush. But when you came to Rav Chaim with a kasha, so Rav Chaim showed you how you never understood the yesod hadin in the first place, you never understood the amkus of the sugya in the first place, and if only you would understand the amkus hasugya, you'd realize that the question was no question. So you walk away feeling like an am haaretz. So the Rambam here is it's a brisker response. He says the question is a mistake. Why? Because the Rambam says as follows. He says by a person, so what does it mean to know? What does it mean to know? So a person knows what is, right? I know that there are six bookcases facing me because I'm looking at because there are six bookcases there and I'm looking at it. So I know it. Right? So a person knows things which are external to him and he therefore he knows because they are. Right? If it weren't six bookcases, if it weren't the fact on the ground, if it weren't, right? Then I couldn't know it because a person knows what's chutz mimenu. That's the way that's the way we know, right? The fact that the bookcases are there is not part of me, that's not intrinsic to me, that's something external. The only way I can know it is because it's there. Now with that understanding of knowledge, of cognition, so to know the future means that the future is there. That the future is set and the future is determined. Hence, we all have the question how can it be that הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה. If it's known, it's there. Because again, how do I know, how can I know that there are six bookcases there? Because they're there. So if I can state that in five minutes from now there's going to be a seventh bookcase there, so that that has to be a fact also. If that's a fact, so then the future is determined. Says the Rambam, but that's not the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu knows because when you speak about Hakadosh Baruch Hu again now come back here. Hashem Echad means again Hashem is absolutely one in the most simple sense of the term, most simple sense of the term. When we say a person is one, he's not one in the most simple sense of the term. He's one, but he's multifaceted. There's him, there's his knowledge, there's his personality, there's... He's one in a multi-dimensional sense. But when we talk about Hashem Echad, Hashem is echad in the most simple and absolute sense imaginable. Hashem is echad. That means, says the Rambam, there isn't Hashem and his knowledge and his life, but there's Hashem and Hashem's knowledge is part of Hashem. You can't distinguish, you can't draw a line between Hashem and his knowledge because that would compromise rachmana litzlan the notion of achdus Hashem. So Hashem doesn't know what's external or extrinsic. Because Hashem is infinite, Hashem knows everything. But hu veda'ato echad in the Rambam's formulation. Rambam says we can't really understand this. This is beyond us. But nevertheless, apparently the Rambam feels this is the answer to the Ra'avad's hasaga. The Ra'avad is massig and says if we can't understand it, so why broach it? He criticizes the Rambam very sharply, says לא נהג כמנהג חכמים ולא נהג כדרך החכמים. He says there's no point in raising a question if you can't answer it adequately. If ultimately you're going to say we don't really understand it, what's the point? So apparently what the Rambam's point is just to realize that the question, he's not coming to answer the question, he's coming again, as we said, to show that the question is a mistake, that the question is based upon our transposing onto Hashem our way of knowing something. And the Rambam's point is that achdus Hashem tells us that's not the case. achdus Hashem tells us that Hashem hu veda'ato echad because otherwise, if there was hu veda'ato, it wouldn't be Hashem echad anymore. It wouldn't be Hashem echad in that absolute simple sense of the term. And that being the case, that means that Hashem doesn't know the way we know. Hashem doesn't know the way we know, so then there's no reason... so do we understand how Hashem knows? No. Ilu yedativ hayitiv. We can't understand how Hashem knows, but what we can understand, the Rambam tells us, again, he wrote Mishneh Torah for all of us, he wrote Peirush Hamishnayos for all of us, but apparently what we can understand a little bit is to recognize that the question is a mistake, that the question is a mistake because again it transposes our way of knowing and what knowing means to us with what knowing means for Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And it doesn't mean the same thing. Can we really understand how Hashem knows? No we can't. But we can understand, based on the principle of Hashem echad, that it's not the way we know. And the kasha, the whole kasha of if it's known doesn't that mean that it is, is a kasha which is rooted in our way of knowing. So the Rambam both in Peirush Hamishnayos, again albeit not in Perek Chelek, and why we're emphasizing that we'll get to yet, I hope bli neder, either this week or next, the Rambam doesn't mention in Perek Chelek, he does have it at the end of Shmonah Perakim and he does have it in the Yad in perek beis of Yesodei Hatorah as well as in perek hei of Hilchos Teshuva. Okay. There is another sort of, I guess, extending what we just discussed in terms of Hashem hu veda'ato, there is another again, whether we should call it a third... The implication, a third se'if in our understanding of Hashem echad, whether it's really continuation of the second se'if is a little bit of semantics. This the Rambam the emes says it's between the lines in Hilchos De'os, it's not mamish not mamish in the lines. And and and here it comes to Parshas Hashavua. The Rambam discusses what did Moshe Rabbeinu? Moshe Rabbeinu, I think it's around Shlishi, makes two requests of the Ribono Shel Olam. He says הודיעני נא את דרכך and he says הראני נא את כבודך. He makes two two distinct bakashos. The Ribono Shel Olam tells him that הודיעני נא את דרכך, the Ribono Shel Olam exceeds that request. הראני נא את כבודך, so there is something interpolated, but then the Ribono Shel Olam says כי לא יראני האדם וחי, but

לא תוכל לראות את פני כי לא יראני האדם וחי.

So the Rambam explains as follows: Darkei Hashem which is the same as Middos Hashem are descriptions not of Hashem himself but how Hashem interacts with the world. How Hashem is revealed in the world, how we perceive him in the world. They're not descriptions of Hashem himself. When we say

ה' ה' אל רחום וחנון ארך אפים ורב חסד ואמת,

we're not describing Hakadosh Baruch Hu himself. We're rather describing pe'ulosav. The to'arei Hashem, the descriptions of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, are descriptions of pe'ulosav, of his actions, of how he interacts in the world. That Moshe Rabbeinu asked for and Hakadosh Baruch Hu said yes, I'll tell you that. I'll give you a a complete understanding of everything of how I, of how I, of how I'm revealed in in the world, more or less. הראני נא את כבודך is an attempt to understand Hashem's essence with the same vividness and clarity. The Rambam gives a mashal. Let's say you look at a person, right? So ksheim shepartzufeihem shonim, so everyone sort of has a distinct distinct look. No one has the same collection of facial features and and physical characteristics, partzufeihem shonim. So if if you really hone in on someone, so then you know that person and recognize him and and see the uniqueness, right? Because because again the composite of his of of of all the physical features is unique. So if you really get a good look at someone, so then that that understanding is chakok bach. You you have it with vividness, with clarity, and and you won't mistake him for someone else. So Moshe Rabbeinu wanted to have such a hassaga of Hashem's essence. Hashem said no, you can't. That's beyond human comprehension. A human being who's murkav miguf vanefesh can't have such a comprehension. Now let's come back to point number one. Why is it, and the Rambam is very adamant on this, why is it so crucial to understand that when we describe Hakadosh Baruch Hu we're describing pe'ulosav, we're not describing him? The Rambam says the same point: because if you describe that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, if if we were to make the mistake of thinking that we're saying Hakadosh Baruch Hu himself is rachum, Hakadosh Baruch Hu himself is chanun, Hakadosh Baruch Hu himself is erech apayim, as opposed to saying Hakadosh Baruch Hu acts in the world the way a person whom we would describe as a rachaman acts, the way a person whom we would describe as a chanun acts. Because if you attribute the midos to Hashem as opposed to pe'ulosav, it also contradicts the principle of simple achdus. Again, a person is multifaceted. He's ich veis, he's kind, he's witty, he's he's he's moody, he's whatever, so he has different, he has different traits, okay? Because we're not one in any simple or absolute sense of the term. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is achdus pshuta. Achdus pshuta, you can't break it down into different midos.

משל למה הדבר דומה... משל למה הדבר דומה. משל למה הדבר דומה.

Let's say, let's say, talmidim have a rebbi. The only time they ever see the rebbi is in the shiur. They never ever glimpse the rebbi outside of the shiur. The rules of the yeshiva are that the הרב נכנס אחרון ויוצא ראשון. They only see him, he appears in the classroom, he appears in the shiur, says the shiur, and then he leaves. During the time of the shiur, so they glimpse chochma she'ein kemosah. Mamash chochma she'ein kemosah. They see the way he's metapel with the talmidim, they see a gvaltdige expression of what we describe as rachmanus and chanina and erech apayim and commitment to emes. They never ever see the rebbi in any other context. So if you ask, you then ask the talmidim, so tell us about your rebbi. So they'll tell you chacham she'ein kamoho, charif she'ein kamoho, baki she'ein kamoho, רחום וחנון וארך אפים, איש אמת שאין כמוהו. However, to be intellectually honest, I have to tell you that that's how we perceive him in the classroom. And it's clear to us, it's clear to us based on how he is in the classroom that obviously he's someone perfect, but we can't tell you that we know him because there's more to him than just the time or the dimension of being in the classroom, and we can't glimpse those other dimensions because he's נכנס אחרון ויוצא ראשון and our perception of him, our interaction of him is limited, is confined to the classroom. So the nimshal is the world is the classroom. So we perceive Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we perceive Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the world. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is kadosh kadosh, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is transcendent, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is beyond the world. We don't perceive and we can't and therefore we don't and we can't understand Hakadosh Baruch Hu's achdus peshuta as it is. But we can describe and we do describe again but it's toarei pe'ulosav, it's toarei pe'ulosav. So that's why the Rambam says it's very important to recognize that when we talk about again rachum vechanun that we mean toarei pe'ulosav. We mean that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, we perceive Hakadosh Baruch Hu acting the way someone whom we would describe as a rachum acts. We perceive Hakadosh Baruch Hu acting the the way someone whom we would know to be a chanun acts. But we can't be describing Hakadosh Baruch Hu because איך שהוא והקדוש ברוך הוא all of this is part of a simple achdus and that's beyond us. And that simple achdus, to define that simple achdus in positive terms is beyond us. It's beyond us. We're finite, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is infinite. That's beyond us. In fact the Rambam, I think the Rav points this out in the Yahrtzeit Shiur on v'halachta bidrachav, I think maybe it's in u'vikashtem misham also. The Rambam in פרק א הלכות דעות seems to say that the whole heter that sifrei nevi'im describe Hakadosh Baruch Hu is because the descriptions of Hakadosh Baruch Hu are the basis for the, flesh out the mitzvah of v'halachta bidrachav. But otherwise the emes is since it's misleading in the sense that Hakadosh Baruch Hu's perfection is above and beyond all these descriptions. It's above and beyond all these descriptions, but the descriptions are what we can relate to, right? The descriptions are what we can relate to in terms of emulating, in terms of v'halachta bidrachav. Okay. In fact, there's a gvaltdige gvaltdige diyuk in the lashon of Where the Rambam compresses this to the Derech haKodesh at the end of Perek Aleph, Hilchos Deios,

ומצווים אנו ללכת בדרכים אלו הבינונים והם הדרכים הטובים והישרים שנאמר והלכת בדרכיו כך למדו בפירוש מצוה זו.

Now listen carefully Rabbosai

מה הוא נקרא חנון אף אתה היה חנון מה הוא נקרא רחום אף אתה היה רחום מה הוא נקרא קדוש אף אתה היה קדוש.

The Rambam doesn't quite quote verbatim here. Rambam says מה הוא נקרא חנון אף אתה היה חנון. It should have been why why the discrepancy? It should have been מה הוא נקרא חנון אף אתה tikarei chanun or it should have been מה הוא חנון אף אתה היה חנון. But the teretz is no, that's exactly it. HaKadosh Baruch Hu is nikra chanun because it's a description. He's called chanun because it's a description of pe'ulosav. We are metzuvei. We don't have this kind of achdus pshuta. That's not a human being isn't capable of that. So we're taka supposed to be rachum, we're taka supposed to be chanun. So it's

מה הוא נקרא חנון אף אתה היה חנון מה הוא נקרא רחום אף אתה היה רחום.

Okay. All right. So what we've discussed is that echad means simple and absolute. Simple and absolute. That echad therefore implies hu veda'ato echad, which erases the question about הכל צפוי והרשות נתונה and that again since echad is simple and absolute all the to'arim of Hashem are the to'arim of how we perceive Hashem, of the to'arim of how Hashem acts within this world. But we can't give a positive description of how all of this is contained in a shleimus which transcends it, in a perfection which transcends it of the simple achdus. And hence the understanding that to'arei Hashem is nikra chanun, nikra rachum, nikra kadosh. Now I just want to end for tonight as there's much much more to discuss here. But Rav Pinkus in the Nefesh Shimshon on inyanei emuna raises a very very yesodustike question. He says just to backtrack for a minute. Rav Chaim explains one of the questions raised with regard to the Rambam's Yud Gimmel Ikkarim is that given that the ikkar of Torah min haShamayim says that a person has to, can't deny anything in Torah, so what's unique about the Yud Gimmel Ikkarim? If a person says rachmana litzlan that Noach didn't have three sons, he only had two sons, he didn't have three sons, so he's a kofer. So what's unique about the Yud Gimmel Ikkarim? So Rav Chaim explains as follows. Let's say a person doesn't insist that Noach had two sons. You ask him how many sons Noach had, he says he doesn't know. He doesn't know. There was no שניים מקרא ואחד תרגום bechinon on Parshas Noach, so he doesn't know how many, he doesn't know how many, doesn't know how many sons Noach had. Okay. So is he lacking in emuna? No, he's lacking in yedias haTorah. He's lacking in yedias haTorah. He's not lacking in emuna. We wouldn't say that he's not a ma'amin baHashem. There's a Sif Kattan in the Shach. Imagine that there was a Jew that there was a Sif Kattan in the Shach that he didn't know. So you'd say that he was, you'd say that he was lacking in yedias haTorah. You wouldn't say that he's lacking in emuna. If he tells you against a pasuk, he's taka a kofer. If he doesn't know a pasuk he's lacking in emuna, excuse me if he doesn't know a pasuk he's lacking in yedias haTorah. Rav Chaim says what the Rambam felt was unique about the Yud Gimmel Ikkarim is if a person doesn't know he's not just lacking in yedias haTorah, he's lacking in emuna. Okay. Now so that then raises the question. So exactly how sophisticated an understanding of achdus Hashem is included in. In that definition that what a person doesn't know is not just a chisaron in yedias hatorah but is a chisaron in emunah, that he doesn't have adequate emunah in Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So that's a question Rav Pinkus raises. He raised it in one of the shmuzen which is transcribed, and then they reprinted in the sefer also, he wrote about it once. So where he wrote about it, so he says ktzas raya that one that in terms of the ikrei emunah that one's understanding, and this is mamash הרבה הרבה יותר ממה שאנו אומרים צריך להיאמר פה, but Rav Pinkus says like this: The gemara says in Brachos, agav, the הן בהלכה הן בעיקרי הדת in Maseches Brachos are many, many, many. There's it's a tremendous, tremendous limud. The gemara says in terms of halacha if you want to know if a person is a talmid chacham, you see whether he's baki be'brachos. And there's so much just in terms of yesodos. For instance, the Rambam says that when he's talking about how the to'arim shouldn't be misunderstood as to'arim of Hashem, he says that's the pshat in the gemara. The gemara says in Ein Omdin that ההוא דנחית קמיה דרבי חנינא that a shliach tzibbur went down before Rabbi Chanina and instead of just saying הקל הגדול הגבור והנורא he began with a whole arichus: izzuz, isuz, yiruy and the whole string. For some reason Rabbi Chanina didn't didn't stop him, which is an interesting question, but Rabbi Chanina doesn't doesn't cut him off. And then when he finishes, so then he rebukes him and says סיימתינהו לכולהו שבחי דמרך and says that even hagadol hagibor vehanora that if Moshe Rabbeinu hadn't said it in the Chumash and Anshei Knesses Hagedolah hadn't introduced it, we couldn't even say that. Couldn't even say that. So what's pshat in the gemara? What's pshat in the gemara? Why is that? Let's say in the at the end of the bracha of Yotzer Meoros:

קל ההודאות פועל גבורות עושה חדשות בעל מלחמות זורע צדקות מצמיח ישועות בורא רפואות.

A whole a whole string there also, no one no one cuts us off. No one cuts us off. Within the bracha of Avos gufo:

גומל חסדים טובים וקונה הכל וזוכר חסדי אבות ומביא גואל לבני בניהם.

So why is it such a terrible thing that in addition to the hagadol hagibor vehanora he listed many other adjectives? The teretz is no.

פועל גבורות עושה חדשות מצמיח ישועות בורא רפואות גומל חסדים טובים וקונה הכל

are clearly descriptions of Hakadosh Baruch Hu's pe'ulos. There's no room for misunderstanding. There's no room for misunderstanding. The adjectives can be misunderstood and when you're saying the adjectives in a bracha of shevach, in a bracha of shevach, which is what Birkas Avos is, so that already can be misunderstood and therefore were it not for the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu had said it in the Chumash and that the Anshei Knesses Hagedolah had said it that we should introduce it in our Shemoneh Esrei, we wouldn't be able to say it. It's also a limud, a limud. Al kol panim, so how much of the how sophisticated an understanding of achdus Hashem does one have to have again to comply with the Yud Gimmel Ikkarim not to be lacking in emunah? So Rav Pinkus suggests ktzas raya, ktzas raya he says. The gemara says in the beginning of Haya Korei that about being ma'arich be'echad, right? To draw out a little bit the dalet, maybe a little bit the ches also, to'os in that, but to be ma'arich be'echad. So the gemara says that כיון דאמליכתיה בשמים ובארץ ובד' רוחות תו לא צריכת. That once in saying the word echad, so a person thinks to himself that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is אחד בשמים ובארץ ובד' רוחות, that's enough. He doesn't have to doesn't have to go through the rest of Moreh Nevuchim. So Rav Pinkus says ktzas raya, he says... שמע ישראל השם אלקינו השם אחד is the the statement of the of Yichud Hashem. Is statement of Yichud Hashem? So ktzas raya that that that understanding is the is already adequate. Again, he doesn't claim that this is mamash a raya nitzachas, it's a ktzas raya, but that's that's his suggestion, okay, and then we'll continue.