And the daf is Vayeshev Miketz? Yes. וזהו וירא יעקב כי יש שבר. So the pshat from mikra is shever is food. So it also means lashon shvira, breaking, שהם נובלות חכמה של מעלה שהם נובלות חכמה של מעלה
Torah. Novlos like in the first kapitel of Tehillim that olehu lo yibol, and novlos are things that fall off the tree. So the Torah is referred to as Etz Chayim. So when when Torah on a low level, when it's understood on a low level, so it's described as novlos, right? It's not that we're not we're not elevating to to the high level, to the to the top of the tree, and and relating to Torah there, but Torah as it sort of is simplified on our low madreiga is referred to as נובלות חכמה של מעלה. So so again, וזהו וירא יעקב כי יש שבר lashon shvira. shehem what's broken? It refers to again, that it broke off the tree as it were, שהם נובלות חכמה של מעלה dash Torah. מה שנפל ונשבר כל מה דנחית מדרגיה, whatever it is lowered from its natural level, ikarei shvira. B'Mitzrayim, meitzar yam. Again, I think we had that already yesterday, that that not yet, maybe we anticipated it. That again, meitzar is a gvul, so it's the sort of the barrier, that there's a barrier in front of the Yam HaChochma. She-ba sham, Yaakov Avinu discerned in Mitzrayim נובלות התורה שנפלה שם שצריכה להתברר ולהעלות ואמר רדו שמה להעלות ונחת להביא אל חיות השרש ועצמי.
So what does it mean that there are novlos ha-Torah which which need to be misbarer? So borer here is similar to in melacha Shabbos, right? So borer means when you separate, let's say in melacha Shabbos, so borer is you're separating ochel mitoch psolet, the food from the from the chaff. So let's say משל ולמה הוא דומה. The Gemara, where's the Gemara, in Berachos, no? That a chalom is אחד מששים בנבואה. You can have a true dream which is אחד מששים בנבואה, but on the other hand, אין חלום בלא דברים בטלים. So if you would perform the melacha borer as it were on the dream, so it would mean to recognize the kernel in the dream which is emes and to distinguish it, to separate it out as it were, again separate out I say again, all the physical vocabulary is just a metaphor, right? At every point, at every point it's only a metaphor, so to separate out the kernel of emes within that dream from the devarim betelim. So that would be the the intellectual analog to what borer represents physically. So in the opening lines that we in quotation marks learned yesterday, so the Meor Einayim introduced us to the idea... that in, in everything, everything exists because of Hashem, from Hashem, koach hapoel banifal. Again, everything is distinct from Hashem. Hashem is Hashem and the world is the world, but the chiyus of the world is from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The existence of the world is from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So to recognize that dimension of existence is to be borer the nitzotzos hakedushah within something. That's what, again, very roughly, very superficially, that's what it is. Again, he's following up on this idea of ואתה מחיה את כולם, so there is a, there is even, even in Mitzrayim with all of the layers of tumah, כמעשה ארץ מצרים אשר ישבתם בה לא תעשו, but there was some chiyus, and וירא יעקב כי יש שבר במצרים to recognize, to discern that chiyus. And again, and the chiyus is through the Torah, right? That be'oraysa bara alma is what it means to be borer. Let's say to give a mashal for that. This is, I mean, what we're talking about is on a deeper level, but to give a mashal, let's say you'd have someone who, I don't know whether koach hatorah shebo or maybe even has ruach hakodesh, whatever, that he was able to, well, just with the chochmas hatorah, let's say he's able to discern in world events. So we see in world events, we see it on a natural level, right? We see that Putin is a rasha who wants to reconstitute the Soviet Union. And he wants to do it before he dies, so he's got to go. So the first thing he did was he, in pursuit of that, of his vanity and glory, so he invaded, he invaded Ukraine. So that's the level on which we see it. Obviously something that momentous, which shakes the world when one of the world's nuclear powers is involved and and absorbing a lot, a lot of casualties in a war, so obviously there's a hashgacha in what's going on. So if someone was able to look into that and know with certitude what the hashgacha is of that, that it's not just the geopolitics, and not, it is that also on a natural level, and not just the vanity of a human and the rishus of a rasha, it is that also on a natural level, but was able to understand that hidden dimension of what the hashgacha is and how it and how all this is leading to or shel mashiach, whenever that's going to be, so that would be a type of being borer. It's again, recognizing the, again, this is a what the Me'or Einayim is talking about, we're not talking about because we don't understand it, what the Me'or Einayim is talking about is on a deeper level. But that's a little bit of a mashal. And that's this again is following through on the understanding, again, of ואתה מחיה את כולם, that Hakadosh Baruch Hu through the Torah created everything and since koach hapoel banifal... so there is that dimension of that chayus from the Torah in everything and to recognize it is the is the avodah of borei u'ma'aleh. I wonder I don't know if this is ignorant speculation. So apparently they clearly were somehow more nitzutzos hachochma which were hidden and needed to be again identified, needed to be discerned, needed to be recognized in Mitzrayim than elsewhere. It's also the case right if you remember your your world history from whatever grade you learned world history in. So ancient Egypt was one of the cradles of of Western civilization, right? Ad hayom hazeh in geometry you learn the Pythagorean theorem, right? A squared plus B squared equals C squared in a in a right triangle. So one wonders if if there's any correlation between those two facts that somehow that that there was, I don't know if it was from when Avraham Avinu was there or however this unfolded, however it evolved, but these nitzutzos haTorah are the what were also the the source of the chochma that that did flourish in Mitzrayim. I don't know, is that true? וזהו עניין וימת יוסף. There is a I think in Ish HaHalacha in the in the I think it's in a footnote that the Rav quotes there's a line in the Zohar Hakadosh that that says that all the stories, question is why the Torah has all the stories of Sefer Bereishis. So there are many different complementary yesodostike answers to that question. Maybe the most the simplest answer again, simplest not in chas v'shalom in any demeaning way, but in terms of being exoteric, is what the Ramban writes in the hakdama to the Parshas HaTorah. Not what he tells us later in the parsha itself, but in the hakdama that we learn midos, we learn emunah from from all the stories. We learn midos, we learn emunah from from all the stories. That that's that's that's one approach. But the Zohar Hakadosh says that every story in addition to being factually true also is a is a metaphor for something and it's that level of interpretation that that we're about to again that we've seen here with וירא יעקב כי יש שבר במצרים that on one level it means that yes there's a famine and Yaakov Avinu sees that there's food in Mitzrayim but on a deeper level the same way Yaakov Avinu was seeing on a physical level that there's that there's something to be had in Mitzrayim, so on a deeper level he's seeing that there's something on a spiritual level as well. So there you have these two different levels of understanding of interpretation, so that's what the Meor Einayim is following through as well. This is not again not to negate the pshat, but but that that what's factually true is simultaneously also metaphorically means something much much deeper as well. So וזהו עניין וימת יוסף כי מה שירדה התורה עד סוף המדרגה נקרא מיתה.
The fact again that these nitzutzos hachochma, again which is Torah, that that they were so deeply buried as it were in in Mitzrayim which again was the the capital of immorality in the ancient world. דנחת מדרגי קרי ביה וימת. Vayachantu oso, right, the darshaning the last passuk in Sefer Bereishis. So again, the literal meaning seems to be that they embalmed him. שהתורה נקרא עץ חיים, Torah's referred to as etz chaim, ובאילן אזלינן בתר חנטה. Right, in the seven year shemita cycle, so in terms of maasros, so whether you give maaser ani or whether you give maaser sheni depends which year the produce grew in. But which stage of growth is koveiah as to whether or not this is produce of the second year and should be maaser sheni or whether it's produce of the third year and should be maaser ani? So be-ilan, so but בירק אזלינן בתר לקיטה. Be-yerak, it depends when you picked it. And be-ilan, it doesn't depend upon when you picked the fruit from the tree, but it's basar chanata. It's when you have the first, the fruit first emerging, that first, what do you call it, a bud or whatever, the smallest stage of the fruit has emerged. So ובאילן אזלינן בתר חנטה. So says the Meor Einayim, so Vayachantu oso means that they as it were, they gathered the fruit, that they, that they, they found, they identified, they discerned the fruit. ובאילן אזלינן בתר חנטה, rotzeh lomar אף שירד לסוף המדרגה נחנט. Vayusam ba-aron, again in the pshuto shel mikra, so Yosef's body was placed in, in a coffin. So Vayusam ba-aron, ke-ma-amaram zal, as Chazal say, לוחות ושברי לוחות מונחים בארון. Not only were the luchos sheniyos in the aron, but the shivrei luchos harishonos were also in the aron. So too here, Vayusam ba-aron, again this whole passuk again is describing what Yosef Hatzaddik's mission, what his task was in Mitzrayim, that afilu hanoflos, which are being described again as shivrei luchos, right? Because they, they fell. מה שנפל ונשבר, אפילו הנופלות יש להם עליה, lihyos ba-aron, כמו הלוחות שהיא התורה העצמית. The idea of noflos ha-chochmah here in the note that they quote from what the Meor Einayim is going to say later in Parshas Shmos, I'll just read you a couple lines from it. כי התורה שאנו רואין אצל רוב בני אדם נקרא נופלות החכמה.
Ve-hamuvan hu, I skipped one line, כי החכמה האמיתית העליונה אי אפשר להשיג כי אם שיבא תחלה להשער שהיא היראה. אך שבני העליה הזוכים לזה הם מועטים.
To understand Torah on its highest level, so very few people are zocheh to that. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu, hu yisbarach, again I'm skipping around a little bit, והוא יתברך שמו חפץ שישיגו אותו גם כן שם כפי בחינת שכלם ומדרגתם באשר הוא שם.
But Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted that we should all be able to understand Torah. So that's what the idea again of noflos ha-chochmah is. That again there are yechidei segulah, you have the Arizal, you have yechidei segulah, you have Rav Chaim, you have yechidei segulah who understand Torah, not noflos ha-chochmah. Like they go to the top of the tree, they go up in the cherry picker to the top of the tree, and then the rest of us understand Torah on a, again it is lowered to our level the same way let's say if you want to tell a child a story. So if you want to tell a child a story, so you don't tell the story the same way you would tell the story to the adult. You're not fictionalizing the story, you know, you're telling the child a true version of the story, but you're making the story intelligible and accessible to the child on his level. That's what this idea of noflos ha-chochmah is. Okay, so bezras Hashem we'll pick up with the venachzor le-inyan tomorrow.