Lag B’omer. Emmes.

וישבו יהודה ויוסי ושמעון. וישבו יהודה ויוסי ושמעון. וישב יהודה בן גרים גבייהו.

So the Tannaim, Rabbi Yehuda, Rabbi Yosei, and Rabbi Shimon were sitting. I'm just having some Melava Malka and what not. וישב יהודה בן גרים גבייהו. And Yehuda, or רבי יהודה בן גרים, was also with them.

פתח רבי יהודה ואמר כמה נאים מעשיהן של אומה זו.

How nice are the initiatives and the actions of the Roman Empire. Tiknu shvakim, tiknu gesharim, tiknu merchatzos. Look at all the marketplaces they've established, the bridges they've built, the bathhouses they provide. Rabbi Yosei shatak. Rabbi Yosei kept quiet.

נענה רבי שמעון בר יוחאי ואמר כל מה שתיקנו לא תיקנו אלא לצורך עצמן.

Everything they did was for purely selfish and immoral purposes. תקנו שווקים להושיב בהן זונות. That's what they want out of the marketplaces: to have a place to station the zonos. Merchatzos for a hedonistic impulse, leaden bahen atzman. גשרים ליטול מהן מכס. And the only reason they're interested in bridges is to charge you eight dollars every time you go over the bridge. Okay. הלך יהודה בן גרים וסיפר דבריהם ונשמעו למלכות. So Yehuda ben Geirim went and he repeated it. Rashi says he didn't repeat it, he didn't go to mossar to the Roman Empire.

סיפר דבריהם לתלמידיו או לאביו ולאמו ולא להשמיע למלכות ונשמע על ידו למלכות.

I think the Kessef Mishneh quotes it, but the Chafetz Chaim certainly quotes that this Gemara illustrates one of the definitions the Rambam gives of Lashon hara. Even if a person is not saying anything which is really negative, but a person is saying something that if it will be heard and repeated will cause damage to someone, so that's also Lashon hara. Okay, so we know the rest of the story that the Roman Empire issues a death sentence, a death verdict, for רבי שמעון בר יוחאי. And then he runs away with his son, רבי אלעזר בר רבי שמעון. Goes to the cave, spends twelve years there, and that's where he composes the Zohar Hakadosh. So let's try perhaps to understand a little bit the sequence, the Hishtalshelus hadvarim here. It's interesting that this same dialogue which we have here between Rabbi Yehuda and רבי שמעון בר יוחאי, so the famous Gemara in Avodah Zarah tells us that that same dialogue takes place Le'asid lavo between Hakadosh Baruch Hu Le'asid lavo takes a Sefer Torah Kivayachol Umanicho becheiko ואומר מי שעסק בו יבוא ויטול שכרו. Whoever has been osek and whoever was osek in Torah should come and collect his reward. So all the Umos ha'olam come. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says let them come one by one. The Roman Empire comes and says that Harbei shvakim tikinnu, תקנינו הרבה מרחצאות עשינו. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu answers them: Shotim sheba'olam

כל מה שעשיתם לצורך עצמכם עשיתם. תקנתם שווקים להושיב בהן זונות מרחצאות לעדן בהן עצמכם.

And then Malchus Paras comes, the Persians come, and they say Harbei gesharim gisharnu, we built many bridges. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells them:

כל מה שעשיתם לצורך עצמכם עשיתם. תקנתם גשרים ליטול מהן מכס.

You were just interested in collecting the tolls. Parenthetically, this is not what we're going to talk about, seems like if their motivation had been pure in building the shvakim and the merchatzos and the gesharim, so that would have been an answer to Hakadosh Baruch Hu's invitation was that מי שעסק בתורה יבוא ויטול שכרו. So they should have come and they should have said we farened for this kashya of Reb Akiva Eiger and we and we were mepalpel in this Ktzos. No, they come and say... That we built, that we built merchatzos, that we built shvokim כדי שיעסקו ישראל בתורה. Sounds like from the Gemara, had that been true, they taka would have been entitled to the schar even though the invite was for מי שעסק בתורה. Peleh, haloh davar hu. But what's fascinating here is that what ר' שמעון בר יוחאי said, what he said in when he was sitting together with Reb Yehuda and Reb Yosi is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu says le'asid lavo. So ר' שמעון בר יוחאי, ר' שמעון בר יוחאי still in Olam Hazeh was able to understand and project that perspective which Chazal associate with le'asid lavo. And yitachen hapshat is as follows. In Olam Hazeh, the Gemara at the end of the third perek in Pesachim, it's an olam hafuch, there's an olam sheker. And ר' שמעון בר יוחאי had both the gadlus and the courage to have a perspective which transcended Olam Hazeh. It's interesting. The Gemara in Berachos has a discussion whether it's muttar lehisgaros or assur lehisgaros with reshaim in Olam Hazeh. Again, whenever you have the lashon Olam Hazeh, again, it means because of the imperfection that exists. So Reb Yochanan says besheim ר' שמעון בר יוחאי that מותר להתגרות ברשעים בעולם הזה. So again, what ר' שמעון בר יוחאי's gadlus was, what ר' שמעון בר יוחאי had the courage again to, he was able to transcend the Olam Hazeh-dike perspective. And what Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to say le'asid lavo, ר' שמעון בר יוחאי was already saying in Olam Hazeh. So now let's come back to that famous Gemara in Shabbos. Maybe we can understand a little bit omek hadvarim. If we try to give a, albeit simplistic and it's a little bit of a tarti de'sasri, but an esoteric, a nigla-dike definition of nistar. So let's try to take again a esoteric definition of nistar. So what would that be? So it could be it would run something as follows. Let's say mitzvas tefillin, hilchos tefillin. So on a level of nigla, so we deal with halachos. You have an arm, you have a kibores, you have to know where to place the tefillin shel yad on the kibores, where the tefillin shel rosh go on the head. So nigla relates to, relates Torah to Olam Hazeh. Relates Torah to Olam Hazeh. Toras hanistar relates Torah to other spheres and other levels and other worlds which we don't necessarily see. It comes and tells us what sfiros the tefillin shel yad correspond to and what sfiros the tefillin shel rosh correspond to. Not an Olam Hazeh-dike perspective. So Toras hanistar again, it tells us, it interprets Torah, it relates Torah to other levels of existence which transcend Olam Hazeh. Oh, a pshat is like this. ר' שמעון בר יוחאי, again, he had the gadlus, he had the courage, again, they were living under the iron fist and the iron rule of the malchus hareshaa of the Roman government and nevertheless, he had the gadlus and the courage to have a perspective which transcended Olam Hazeh, right? Which is the perspective that Hakadosh Baruch Hu le'asid lavo is going to articulate. So what was the midda keneged midda? So what happened? It wasn't stam that he ran away to the cave and bizchus that, right? Bizchus that courage and that insistence and that determination. Again to have a perspective which transcends the sheker of the here and now, because he had that perspective, again, beyond the Olam Hazah-dik perspective, beyond that, so רבי שמעון בר יוחאי was mechaber the Zohar and was zocha to the pnimiyus of Torah. So אם כן אם דברינו אלו, so Lag Ba'omer is a day to reflect a little bit on this middah of emes. To reflect on middah of emes in terms of to what extent do we find ourselves or others sort of water down or adulterate parts of Torah which don't seem to go so well with our own subjective inclinations, with the world and society in which we find ourselves. That's one area where to look for emes. Another area to look for emes. The Gemara in Shabbos, again, famously says that each of the letters which comprise the word sheker, each stand on one leg; right, the shin actually converges to one point, as do the kuf, the resh, they each stand on one, meaning something easily knocked over. Ma she'ein kein the letters of which comprise the word emes, so that's ko-i. So that's they have, they're more stable and more deeply rooted. So the pshat is that to be emes, so something has to not only be factually true, but to be emes, it has to be something that's enduring, and something which has no kiyum is not emes; it may be factually true, but is not emes. So another, again, Lag Ba'omer, the yom tov of רבי שמעון בר יוחאי, the hilula of רבי שמעון בר יוחאי, a day of emes, it's also a chance to look into our lives and see to what extent we're geared, we're focused on that quality which defines emes, mean that it's ko-i, that it's something which lasts and which endures, and to last and to endure means that the perspective that we have to have is that perspective which Rashbi had, a perspective which transcends Olam Hazah-dik concerns and considerations, but rather a perspective which will hopefully converge with that that the Ribono Shel Olam is going to tell us le-asid lavo. Gut voch.