KMTT - the Torah Podcast
KMTT - Berachot #09
KMTT - Berachot # 09, by Rav Ezra Bick
KMTT today is Wednesday, TET. TET, TAMOS. And today Shure is in the Sakhad-Brahho, Thalakhava, Bhagadah. This is as you'll be giving the Shure. I am personally still in South Africa. Through the models of nanotechnology, the Shure is going to be delivered in an event. But by necessity, it will be perhaps somewhat shortened in an event. It will not be a midrash. You'll meet the date in midrash afterwards. But for the Shure in Brahod, the Mara says on Dafyud, Ammar Rabiosi bachaninamishum. Oh, that's a vinyakov. Ahli, amor daddambe makom gavoa vitz parell, ela be makomnamur. A person should not stand on endavin, on a high place, but in a low place. And davin in a low place, vitz parellaschin. Ama, mimam, ama kim kiratecha, hashem. As it says, passook o'apami with from Tereim, mimam, mimam, a kim from the depths. I called to you God. Tanya nami hukhi, lo ya amor daddam, lo gabikisai, parellagabishafra, parellagomgavoa vitz parellaschinatavin, on type of a chair, or in a bench, or in any other high place, ela makomnamur, vitz parellas, but you should have it in a low place. Here, the writer adds a reason. The fisha ngavut with nayamakom, for there is no highness. The word in, if I was translating the word out context, not of this context, I would say there is no hoariness. But the word gavoa means hai. Shnathavin in a high place. The fisha ngavut, there is no highness or hoariness before God. Shnayam, ami makim kiratecha, hashem. I called to you from the depths. Virtiv, nalupasuk, tovila, la ani kiyyatov, that tovila, the prophet tovila is tovila, as appropriate to the poor man, to the poorpa, kiyyatov, who wraps himself in his one single garment and calls out, and calls out for help. Okay, so we have alaqah here, that once you're not done in a high place, but in a low place, and examples, once you're done, stand on a chair, on a bench, in davan, but only in a low place. The rambam calls this halah in parake, apil hottvila. I want to first introduce parake, because it's important. The rambam, parake, has a list of things that are important for tvila. They're not in a cave, meaning that if you didn't do them, you don't have to davan again. But this, the way tvila should be. Parake, halah, la pigin, shimonad de valim, sa ri kamit palele, yusahir, bahin, bahin, bahin, bahin, asotanda, eight things that a, someone who davans, someone who plays, should be careful to do them. We may have the hook, oh, nenas, if he couldn't, oh, shah, vavila, so he just didn't do it, ain, makrin. They do not vun, they don't invalidate the tvila. And one of those eight things is called in a rambam, tikun ha maqam. It's important, because the rambam, nisparak, has taken halah out, sperah, all over the early pakim, ha ma sperah, brachat, and organize them into categories which he himself has designated. In other words, this rambam here isn't merely quoting. He's done an organization of various halah out, and the category that we're dealing with is called tikun ha maqam, fixing the place. In other words, when you davan, you should davan in a place that's appropriate, not a place that's inappropriate. So what is the appropriateness of the place? Tikun ha maqam, halahat vav, tikun ha maqam, kizad. Y amor bimakam, namor. The appropriate place to davan is in a low place. Then I'm continuing other halah out, which do not concern us now. You have zero pan of lakotah, you should face the wall, and you should open up windows, different halah out. In lakazain, he returns to our halahat. Lo y amor bimakam, gavor, sperah, shat, spakim, or yotir, vit, palar, you should not davan in a place that's duit, fakim, haa. Here the halahim adds a definition for the height. What is a high place? A high place is something that's more than three, tif fakim, haa. Tif fakim has a hand's breath, the width of a fave of your fist, four fingers without a thumb, duit fakim, anything more than tif fakim is considered to be a high place. The Akbaram explained, there's a general rule that duit fakim, a distinction in height, a bump that's less than tif fakim, haa, is nakasit biamper wall. It's just the way the ground is shaped. As these halahat, which don't necessarily apply here, all kinds of places in suka, in arabhen, in shabbat, anything less than tif fakim, is basically considered to be flat. Because nothing is purely flat, so there are always little bumps and depressions. And tif fakim is the shear, is the amount which defines the flatness of a place. So if it's only 3, less than 3, you're not in a high place at all. More than 3, the mamam says, that's what the government might buy a high place. If you continue to remember, if you were standing on a high place, if it's 4 amat by 4 amat, it's 2 meters by 2 meters. Large, it's more than 4 square meters large. This amount, 4 amat by 4 amat, is the minimum definition of a room, of course a house, but the word house here means a room. For instance, what room requires a minimum of 4 amat? The room is smaller than that. It doesn't mean it's not considered to be a living room, a room in which people live. And it's based on sheer, in color, to acula, alba amat. If you're on a high place, but it's more than 4 amat by 4 amat, it's okay. It's not a high place. It's like an attic. It's like the second floor. In other words, a high place has to be a high place relative to something else. Otherwise, you couldn't dive in any place, which there is 100 miles away, a place that's lower. A high place is where you stand there, you feel elevated to the general surveillance which you found. If it's more than 4 amat, the general surveillance which you found is this second story. And if you're not high relative to your general surveillance, so what defines the general surveillance? It has to be at least 4 amat by 4 amat, which is an entire room onto itself. If the high pressure standing on has a wall around it, a fence around it, on all four sides, I wish a number of amat al amat, although it doesn't have the minimum sheer of 4 by 4. But it's also okay. It says the highness, the hotiness of the place, is not prominent. It's not recognized because the fence around it defines this as "a" to "a" as a place onto itself. So you're not in a place and above it. You're in a place that has zero, zero. That's the height of this place. The mean height of the place is where you're standing. So that can become us for one of two ways. You can be making it relatively wide, not so wide, but 4 by 4 amat. So it's a whole place onto itself, all by putting up walls around it, in which case the outside environment doesn't exist anymore. So we don't have 4 by 4 here, but this is where we are. There is no other relative point to compare it to. So this is the Hadamah explained in Salah. And Hadamah said, "The Ramallah's editions are very, very important. For instance, in most shows, in shawl, in all Ashkenazi shows, there is a dimah. There is an elevated portion, we call the dimah, in the middle of the shawl, and the hazzan sometimes davens from there. So the truth is the hazzan is usually daven from there. In normative Ashkenazi minah, hazzan davens from the Amur, which is in front of the shawl, and is not elevated. The dimah is elevated, and that's for Kriyatatara. And the question of the arose, for various reasons, sometimes people wanted the hazzan to daven from the dimah, because since the Amur is in front of the shawl, he was in the middle. So sometimes in very large shawls, it was hard to hear the hazzan in the front. And therefore, the request arose, maybe he should daven from the dimah. So if we ignore the political, religious political ramifications of any change in the big nesset, that was in the 19th century, and the rise of reform in Germany, any change in the normative legislative nesset gave rise to the considerations of public policy and anti-B4 policy, and then there's a whole war of how to protect traditional Jews. If we ignore that consideration, the question is, can kazan daven in the middle? So davening in the middle, in fact, has a very, very good source. The wambam thinks the kazan should always be in the middle. Second question is, what about davening at a high place? Because the mimah is raised. So al-Akhana maysa, there are few reasons why it could be permissible. Two of them are listed in this vambam. If the mimah is more than 4 amat by 4 amat, and they almost always are, again, it's only 2 meters by 2 meters, so then it's not a high place anymore. He's davening on his place. Secondly, if there is a fence around it, very often, and not always, the mimah would have some sort of a banister of a fence in it, which might be considered to be a mritza, so it also would permit it. There's another hat there, very pendant, as we've shown him, mentioned by Beno Manor that treats this whole al-Akhah from a psychological perspective, and this is a very important point. Beno Manor said, "The problem with davening at a high place is someone who wishes to daven on a high place because perhaps he wants to be closer to God." It's a bit illusionary. It's delusionary. But that's probably what's daven on a high place. That's wrong. But if he's davening at a high place because he wants other people to hear him, because he's a chasm, so that's okay. The psychological distortion of being high and elevated, mimah makim kratir haashem, I'd pay to you from the depths, I don't pay to you from the heights, it doesn't apply because he's not davening from the heights, and every little psychologically he's not davening from the heights. His soul is not enlarged and enhanced and exalted because he's really standing. See, he wants people to hear him better. So all these things were quoted through al-Akhah's name to daven, if there was a need, from the bemah. The last point about the psychological nature of d'Akhah is, as we turn to in a second, I think that's our main topic for understanding this Al-Akhah. And this rambam, there is a asagah of the right, there's a critical comment of the right, the right, the right's his father's, rambam said, loyamat makom gavua. Achiyyay, hailik roshutasman, he's going on the entire rambam, including the second part. If there's a fence, well, if it's daradar, darad, then it's okay. If it's four by four, that's okay. Amar avaraham, the raved critiques. Amar avaraham, avaraham said, that's the right. Ubakhlalza, y miyahole, reidlamat ulitpaleir, y reidlamat alayitpaleir. The raved appears to be saying that although the rambam is correct, that if there's a wall around the elevated place, or if it's four by four, one can now be there. But if you can go down, it's better to go down. No, as he's saying, you're right, but it's still better not to. One can daradar in a high place, but one should make an effort, even so, to daradar in a low place, even if it's daradar, darad. There's no question if there was enough the raved is the spewing the rambam, the rambam disagrees with this, whether the rambam would also agree, and then it's because they're unclear because the raved is so he's so tourist, and you don't know exactly what word he's referring to and what, and does he really think that he's that the rambam is disagreeing with him, or he's just adding a comment that, you know, I still think it's better to go down. And even what is the raved really saying? If it's okay, it's okay, but it's not okay, it's not okay. Why should we make an effort to daradar in a low place, especially since, given the spell, which we explained, there is no low place here. I mean, if we're daradar in, let's say, I'm daradar in, in Ishi Vathavatsya. The advantage is on the second story, should we, should we go down, and if you're daradar in, in a shore that's on a hill, so we should all, we should move the shore to the bottom of the hill, if you can, let's say you have to do it, but if you could, even your hug, if you have the opportunity, if you have to go to one of two shores, so you should daradar in a shore in the valley, not that in the hill. The whole idea was, you know, the whole world has high points and low points. The question is, if you're in a place, you should not be in the high place of that place. And I started to explain that daradarar is a place unto itself, as the rhymeim said, rashut la atsmo. So why should one go down, if one can, what is the rhyme it really means? A karmat on the rambha. The rambha, as I pointed out, sput is a rahinte too. Ina Vathav he wrote, tikkunamakom ketsad ya amodamakomamok. The appropriateness of the place is that you should daradar in a low place. Ina Vathav he said, rahimamakom gavua. You should not stand in a high place. Obviously, the opposite of a low place is a high place. It's possible though, that they really are two slightly different halakhati. The continuation of the vav, you should daradar in a low place. You should open up windows. And you should have a makom kavua. You should have a set place. We talked about this a few weeks ago. And you should not daradar in a room. And you should daradar in the back of the shore or outside the back of the shore. Different halakhat. The last one is, you should not sit next to someone who's daradar. I mentioned this one specifically. I think all the lahot I mentioned here, but this one specifically, they don't actually define architecture. They define how you daradar. I think there might be two halakhat in the rambha. One is that certain places are inappropriate for fetthela. Another one is, certain places make you inappropriate fetthela. In other words, a high place is inappropriate fetthela. But a person should also daradar in a low place. Daradar in a low place, isn't that the low place is more appropriate than a high place? Is that when you daradar in a low place, you are daradar properly? In other words, similar to what I mentioned before in the name of Admanuach, there are two different halakhat here. One is the place and one is the psychology. High places are inappropriate. You tell me the same thing after all. Why is the high place inappropriate? Because it has a psychological effect. That's true. But halakhat, they define the high places is inappropriate. But then there's another halakhat that a person should daradar with shiflut. The person should daradar with the psychology of self-belittlement, self-negation. And therefore you should seek, you should daradmimah makim. And we all know, I think, that that person should daradar with shiflut. The person should daradar with the psychology of self-belittlement, self-negation. And therefore you should seek, you should daradmimah makim. Out of the depths, I quote out to you God, it means out of the depths of my soul, out of the night, out of the shallowness, out of the depression, in which I'm found I call out to you most high God. What Khazala doing is they're saying that geography and architecture and physical reflection is an outward manifestation and reflection and also a cause of the psychological position that David Amelah described in me makim kratikha Hashem. I'm suggesting that there are two very closely related but different halakhat. And in fact, I would say that even from the point of view of the drascha, that reflect in the tupsukim. One is me makim makim kratikha Hashem. And now, ignore what this says is dapshat, but the drascha, you should daven from low and not high, the shiv tufilala anikhiya tauf, here no place is mentioned. Tufilala is the tufilala of the pauper who wraps himself in his single garment. There's nothing here about place at all. What this is expressing is how one davens, you don't daven with hoariness, with self satisfaction, with self confidence, you daven, broken, without anything to depend on. What is the anikhiya tauf, a man who has only one piece of clothing to his name to cover himself with? He has nothing to make him depend on. So, who does he depend on? Avinu Shabbat shamein. Ein landu ella, ella, lisha ein, ein landu ami visha ein, ella, ala vinu shabbat shamein. So, one alahaha is fine and appropriate place to daven. The other one is, in one way or another, your tufilala should be anikhiya tauf. You should daven with the feeling that you are nothing and you have nothing and everything depends on a karish bhacham. So, I think perhaps, I'm not sure, I think perhaps the Ramam has divided alahaha into. One is, yitbala makham namok, that's a psychological recommendation. It has applications. You should look for a low place to daven because if you daven in a high place, your heart is going to be affected. So, therefore, look for a low place to daven. That's similar to daven. That's what it says. Don't sit next to someone who's standing in fila, because you'll affect his fila and open the windows. And then, it's a trick, so to speak, that we do, to put us into the right frame of mind for davening. Alahaha zayyin is a more formal alahaha. Certain places, basically for the same reason. Let's take a different reason. Certain places have been disqualified by trizah, at least like a prizal. Such as, davening on top of a chair, on top of a bench, on top of a couch. Certain places are defined as being makham gavel. And so, here, the rivalry, again, I'm not saying the Ramam disagrees. Many commentators say that the Ramam would agree to the rivalry, the way it is saying, is that, in the point of disqualification, there's a formal way to save the place. If you have a place that is formally disqualified, because it's elevated, more than three fucking, but if it's more than four by four, I'm not large, then it's not formally disqualified. Because someone who is standing there is technically not in a high place. But now there's a question as to, he has to ask himself. Does it affect him? And the way it says, if you can, go to a lower place to daven. You're not davening in a wrong place. But if you look around, you're liable to get this feeling of elevation. I don't mean altitude elevation, but I mean psychological elevation. Am I elevated among above other people? And for that, the daven are downloaded. Four amateurs, four amateurs, doesn't help all that much. And having a makhitsa around you won't help that much either. If you're, if you're davening in a larger room and the makhitsa is more or less merely symbolic. I think we've all, or many of us have probably experienced this, that, you know, you could be in, you climb a mountain. And you're top of the mountain. The mountain top is more than four amateurs and four amateurs. And maybe there's a wall. But we all know the feeling of grander, of magnificence that one invites when standing on a mountain top and the Alps or the Adirondacks. Or for those of you who have been to Everest on the roof of the world and the Himalayas. I haven't done it yet. There's, I mean, we all know, well, I think we all know what I'm talking about now. You know, you get to the top of the mountain, top of the world and you look down and, and you're filled with this, this magnificent feeling inside. Now, I'm not saying, I'm not talking about someone who when he gets up there thinks he's King of the world and therefore he's too haughty to diamond because he thinks he's greater than God. He has for Shalom. He's not right about somebody like that. On the contrary, when you are standing on the mountain top and the Alps looking down, if you have a religious personality, you might be filled with reverence for God. Because God has created all this, you're getting a view of God's world. When we're down in our little holes, so we only see the Alba Amot vis-a-vib, we only see our own immediate for Amot. When you're on top of the mountain, you have a chance to see God's great world and if you're going to proper answer towards God, you're, you're honoring me even more. But none the rest has now thought the fact that you think God is greater than you doesn't mean you can dominate. You have to dive in in a feeling of, of self-negation. Not that God is greater than me, but that I'm, I'm, I'm nothing. I have nothing. And for that, you should really feel, you're diving from a little teeny hole. It has less feelings of grander, less feelings of August and mighty and awesome relationship with the world. Anikiyata, you don't expect the poor person who has only one garment to clothe him that he should be able to express great reverential poetry. He doesn't know what he's going to eat tomorrow. If you ask him, "What are you talking about?" he'll say, "I'm hungry." As opposed to the poet who is crying to the mountaintop, looking over God's world to create perhaps a beautiful poem, a bad God, a pepper poem. The love of South Asia, if you still talk about something, I think, similar in terms of Tikkun Amakom, he talked about instituting church architecture and shoe architecture. It was once a suggestion in the fifties to build in the United States a interfaith chapel for the army. The question was whether the Jews should participate. And so they thought it would be a problem of about a Zara would be in the chapel and the website and that, it's not a problem. The problem is he said, basic, basic architecture. Christian churches are built to inspire you with grander. The way the apps sweep, the way it sweeps you up to the front, reaching up to heavens. You're supposed to walk in and feel, "Take a deep breath." She was done doing that. She was aren't supposed to do that. It's the feel of the only kiyata. You're not supposed to feel elevated when you're done. You're supposed to feel depressed when you're done. And so it could be that technically you're in a place which is dollar-out-dollar. Many years ago, in 2009, to be exact, I went on a teal, went on a little trip with some other... I was in my twenties then, with some young men from the Ishiva, we went to spend five days in Sinai in the Sinai desert, camping out, and you come to a mountain called Jebel Musa, the mountain of Moshe, which is not our tradition. There's a Christian tradition that that's Hasinai. There's a monastery at its foot called Nabi Musa, the perfect Moshe. And the fact of the reason why they chose was because it's the tallest mountain. It's the tallest mountain in the area. So Kazal said that Hasinai is not the tallest mountain, that it was one of the low mountains for a given reason. But it's a nice mountain. And so the customers like this, you get up at four o'clock in the morning. It's a little bit hot in the Sinai desert in the summer. You get up at four o'clock in the morning, you climb the mountain. I don't want you to think they did. Mountain climbing, there were steps carved out into the mountain. And the monks said nothing else to do. They carved these steps up. A couple of thousand steps. And you climb up, you get to the top of the mountain just before sunrise. It's beautiful. The sun is rising over the mountains, over the desert. The landscape is like from another world. You can see for, I don't know, hundreds of miles around. The sun rises, you don't have to be taken. You don't have the first thing crack of the one. So that's what we did. It was okay. It was a mother. It was more than for Amot. Why there? The feeling that you have when you dive in there is, I think, not to feel other Anikiyata. You have very reverential, very spiritual feelings. Kazal didn't think that's the way you should have it. I think that's what the writer is saying. You could be. It's okay. But if you can, put yourself down. Look for a lower place. I think the Ramam really does agree, because that seems to be in Allah. Allah says, "Davan in a low place." Allah says, "You're not Allah Davan in a high place." You should point down in conclusion that there's another halacha that's been sort of tacked onto this halacha, quoted by the Bechah Self, the name of the Mabiyya Buhav. Mabiyya Buhav wanted to know why he's linked to the tour, but it's actually very similar to the Ramam. In fact, he's basically even on the Gamala. It says, "You should dive in in a low place, not in a high place." Then it says, "You should not dive in on a chair, bench, or bed." What are you these examples for? So the Mabiyya Buhav claimed there's a two different halacha, why you should dive in in a low place, not in a high place because of the psychological attitude of true Jewish tfilah. Not someone who's moved by granda, but someone who was depressed by his total dependence, total lack of security that he has. He's not greater than anything. He's the smallest thing in the world when he dabbens. There's another halacha that if you dive in on a chair, you simply will be psychologically disturbed because you're afraid you're going to be disturbed. No, there's not filah on the kiyatof. It's don't dive in on a chair, which is shaky. Even if the chair is not shaky, if you do good, but even being standing on a small chair above the ground is going to have trouble with kavan. There's a whole separate other halacha, many halacha which say that when that's the damage to the way, it will not be disturbed. For that reason, we should not dive in on a chair. So basically, maybe we'll be able to have made this up because in the grower, it's clear that that's not the context. But it's called a lakhalamaisa, and for that purpose, it won't actually help unless it's wide enough to give you a feeling of security. So it's different than the 4 amat by 4 amat. You should dive in a place where psychologically, you aren't worried about falling off it. You're far away enough from the edges that you can feel secure and not have to think about how I'm standing. So that's how lakhalamaisa quoted initial kanach as well. Although, frankly, it doesn't have a real basis, a contextual basis in the gamma ray that we are being in. In conclusion, this halacha, which has halacha definitions which I mentioned based on the random, and the lakhal just quoted now as to where one should dive in. Oh, I'd like to add something. Excuse me. There's also halacha quoted in the name that we've shown him, not universally agreed upon, that there's only possibly divining in your house. If you're divining in a shul, there's no problem. Why not? Because a shul is makam trila. If the problem is basically psychological, then if it's an ad hack price, you need to establish psychological environment. That's appropriate. But if you're in a shul, it automatically puts you in the right mood because a shul puts you in the right mood. It's not so clear that that's really true. I think that there are better shuls and worse shuls. But some parts came across that lakhalacha. The main point is that I think there's a real hiddish here about what is a psychological basis with vitvila. The language of the gamma ray, 'enga vut vifnayam makam', there is no hoariness before God. I'm claiming, doesn't mean that you can't doubt it if you think that you're better than God. That doesn't need to be said. That's clear. That's like push it. 'enga vut vifnayam makam', a person who has any feeling of, and hoariness is too strong a word, any feeling of highness, any feeling that he's worth more than zero, which is appropriate in many contexts. Really, Khasasham, the person should think that he's nothing all the time. But lifnayam makam, when you're standing before God, yeah, you're supposed to feel that you're there. Why? It's good for tufila. Tufila comes out of 'stwetching out me makamakam', 'kratikrasham'. I call to you from the bottom of the pit, out to you, God who are above high and in heaven. And it's not, I think, 100% clear to everybody that there is the appropriate way to tufila. It's a nice way to daven. But many people would like to daven. As I point out, I think this is essential in the Christian tradition in which we've unfortunately also absorbed a lot. That tufila comes from hitramumutaruach, from the expansion of the song. Hitramut is even better, from the rising of the song. Hitramay means to be exalted, to be elevated. And people could then do daven. Sometimes, wonderful tufila, not people who are being cynical. But a beautiful tufila that comes from hitramumutaruach, from the exultiveness of our soul. But it's also that it's not good tufila. Tufila comes from the emptiness of the song, from the depression of the song. The lonely call of the impoverished pauper in the night, from the depths, from the matzah, from the pressure, from the straights, from the matzah kara tika, from the makim kratikrashan, tufila dani ki yataf. And that's all for today. As I said, there's no major shiomi, until I come back from South Africa. We'll be back in here as well soon. Next week, we'll go back to having the midrashayomi. This has been Esruvik. Tumara of the Bipashata Shabua. Until then, call to the bakata toranitsion. You were listening to KMTT The Torah Podcast. Kimitsion, titsay tora, udvarashami ushadaim.