Good morning Rabosai. I think we're going to look im yirtzeh hashem at the Igros the number kuf aleph. ידוע היא המליצה ספר בלי הקדמה כגוף בלי נשמה. The famous melitza so the ספר הוא הגוף וההקדמה היא הנשמה right in terms of the analogy. בנוגע למכתבי זה מאמר זה איננו מליצה כלל וכלל. It's not just a nice figure of speech but ela uvda peshuta, it's not just a nice figure of speech but a simple fact. נשמתו של מכתב זה הצורה היא בעניינים שקדמו לו. The soul the essence of this letter is contained in matters that have preceded it. שעתה של ההקדמה למכתב זה משכלת מיום שקיבלתי מכתבך המבשר על אודות קביעת התיישבותך בארץ.
The time of the hakdama to this letter begins from the day I received your letter which reports on your settling in Eretz Yisroel. תכף מקריאת מכתבך עבר עלי גל של רצון להביע דברי שמחה וברכה לרגל החלטתך.
Immediately upon receipt of your letter a wave of desire swept over me to express words of joy and bracha on this decision to go to Eretz Yisroel. אולם כפי שנודע לך לא יצא העניין מתחום הרצון. But you know from the fact that you didn't receive a letter from me that it never made it beyond the realm of desire. מדוע איפוא לא בא רצון זה לכל ממש? Why is that? ההרגשה שהשמיטה את הקולמוס מידי יש לה שם פשוט מאוד פחד.
The feeling which took the pen out of my hand has a very simple name or label pachad fear. אינני נוהג ללכת אצל פסוקים ולבקש מהם עזרה להבעת הרגשותי.
It's not my custom to look for a pasuk and to be assisted by a pasuk in expressing my feelings. אבל הפעם הזאת הנה הפסוק בא אצלי עד שאי אפשר לי לתאר את הרגשתי אלא בעזרתו.
But this time the pasuk just so captures the again sort of the complex reaction that I can only describe my feelings with the help of that pasuk. hineh hu hapasuk בישעיה קפיטל ס פסוק ה אז תראי ונהרת ופחד ורחב לבבך.
So he's focusing on that second half of the pasuk. Is the audio clear this morning? Yes. Thank you. u'kayadua as is well known גורם הוא הפחד כווץ הלב. When a person is afraid so it causes constriction right that's why stress or or fear can be the source of psychosomatic pain because if things constrict if the if the arteries of the blood vessels constrict so then so then because of the narrow passage that can cause a heart ache so kayadua pachad causes constriction. וזוהי העריבותא בפסוק הזה and that's the chiddush within this posuk that there's a dialectic in this posuk מצב של התרחבות והתכווצות הלב בנשימה אחת. In one breath, you have simultaneously both the expansiveness as well as the constriction. Upachad on the one hand, upachad, fear which causes constriction, which causes narrowing, which causes things to shut down, but umei'idach urevach levavecha. This expansiveness. Kama rachav levavi, how much my heart expanded in the sense of enjoying, in the sense of simcha, simcha is always identified with hispashtus, with spreading, it's something which spills over and spills outward. כמה רחב לבבי לקראת הציור של השתקעותך בארץ חמדה. How much rachvas halev did I experience upon hearing, reading the description of your settling in Eretz Yisrael, the Eretz Chemda, the land that's so coveted. Chemdas elyonim vesachtonim. It's coveted in shamayim, it's coveted by us down here. מתוך סידור נאה של חיים מרווחים and things are well organized, a comfortable life. However, bo basha'ah, כמה פחד לבבי לקראת הצלחתך בעסקיך. Apparently the Talmud had described how successful he's been in business, and Hutner we'll see why, Rav Hutner says, but how much fear did I experience reading the description of your success in business. Beyodi, because I know, עד כמה נוטה הוא טבע האדם להתייחס אל המקצוע אשר בו הוא מצליח כמו אל מטרת חייו.
There is a natural human tendency, a natural human susceptibility to relate to that area in which he enjoys success as though that were the goal of his life. Ho lo yadata, if only you knew, ahuvi chavivi, kama umlal hayisi, how unfortunate I was, how demoralized, ברגע שהתגבר בדמיוני הציור של אישיותך כשהיא מעמידה במרכז עולמה את ההצלחה בעסקים.
How unfortunate, how depressed I was when I saw you placing at the center of your life your success in business. והלא יודע אנוכי נאמנה, I know very well, כי כוחותיה וכשרונותיה הברוכים של הנפש של נפש גדולה המשוקעים בענין שאינו אלא אמצעי,
the kochos hanefesh, the abilities, the blessed kochos, the blessed abilities of a great nefesh which are invested in something which is eino ela emtza'i. It has its place, it has its role, but its place and its role is as an instrument, as a vehicle. הרי מיד כשהם נכתרים בהצלחה, when they're crowned with success, הם מחליפים בנפש בעליהם את האמצעי במטרה ואת המטרה באמצעי.
Again, human there's a susceptibility we have upon being blessed with and enjoying success to confuse confuse and to goal the goals and the means, the means and the goal. To have parnasa is a means, a crucial mean and important means, a means that one is supposed to engage in, but it's not the goal. And yet teva ha'adam is such that when a person enjoys success, it too easily happens that the means and the goal become interchanged. מחליפים בנפש בעליהם את האמצעי במטרה ואת המטרה באמצעי. הביטוי הטבעי של התרחבות הלב מתוך עונג הוא מילה.
The natural expression of this, again, expansiveness because of delight, is the word. Habitui hativ'i, the natural expression של התכווצות הלב מתוך פחד, the natural expression for that constriction of the heart as a result of fear hu tze'aka. It is a cry. הגע בעצמך כשהלב מתפחד ומתרחב כאחד when simultaneously the heart experiences both fear and this harchava, this sense of expansiveness, this harchavat hada'at, so what happens? הרי הצעקה חונקת את המילים. The tze'aka drowns out, it stifles, it suppresses the words. וככה נשאר מכתבך בלא תשובה and it's because of that that your letter went unanswered. Maybe we'll skip to the last paragraph of the letter, the last short paragraph. Here he reminisces about חבל חבל מאד על שנגד רצוני ולמרות חפצי יצא מידי מכתב שיש לו צלצול של דברי ספרות.
Right, so he's bemoaning the fact that involuntarily the letter that emerged has a certain literary ring to it, a certain literary quality to it. Lo hitkavanti lesifrut. I wasn't looking to achieve that. לא רציתי להשמיע דברים יפים. I didn't want to be lyrical, poetic. Hayiti meushar, I would be very content, very happy אם היה בידי לזרוק את הקליפה היפה של מכתבי זה
if I could throw away the beautiful outer shell of this letter uleharot lecha and to show you את הגרעין הפנימי בבירורו ובמערומו with clarity. כוונתי במכתב זה הייתה רק אחת to distill the whole letter and to highlight what the essence of it is, so what I'm trying to communicate is Gevalt! אל תחליף עולם עובר בעולם קיים. Don't exchange an eternal world, Olam Haba, for a transient world of Olam Hazeh. This letter is a very good balance to the letter we looked at yesterday. The letter we looked at yesterday talks about how it is a natural transition, one of the transitions which Hakadosh Baruch Hu wove into the fabric of life, that a person at a certain point does assume responsibility for parnassa, does have to make hishtadlus for parnassa. In a previous letter we had seen about how that shouldn't be misunderstood as some kind of double life but as a broad life. And here Rav Hutner highlights the challenge of that stage of life. Every stage of life has its own challenges. One of the challenges of that stage of life again is that there's a susceptibility that if a person is matzliach, that a person begins to think of that area in which he's experiencing hatzlacha that that's the goal. The goal is to have more and more hatzlacha. And obviously when the area of success is in the area of gashmiyus, so clearly that's only a means. It's never ever an end unto itself. As a means, it can be kadosh vetahor but never ever as an end unto itself. How does a person sort of look to safeguard himself given the fact that this susceptibility is implanted within us? There is such a weakness that we have. So a person looks both to find external checks and balances and of course internal checks and balances. The external checks and balances are that as much as possible a person wants to live in a community. Where other people have the same values and aspirations and goals, that same they have a similar spiritual orientation, a similar understanding of the relationship between Olam Hazeh and Olam Haba. By trying as much as possible, again there are obviously many factors that go into this decision, but by trying as much as possible, sorry forgot that click, by trying as much as possible to live in such a community, even if it's not true of the community as a whole, to davven in such a shul when times allow for that, to be part of such a Beis Medrash, so all that gives a person a chizuk and helps him resist that temptation, helps him overcome that weakness to confuse means and ends. But as much as we're supposed to look for an external support system, an external structure, ultimately a person always has to rely on himself. אין הדבר תלוי אלא בי. A person can never be relying on the society around him to keep him on the straight and narrow, not to become again too drawn in to his career, too caught up with financial success, ultimately אין הדבר תלוי אלא בי. A person can't rely on the externals as much as a person should look to have the right support system in place, but ultimately אין הדבר תלוי אלא בי. A person has to be koveia itim, koveia itim for a little bit of mussar, a little bit of cheshbon hanefesh. A person can only, we're all prone to wandering and losing our way, but משל למה הדבר דומה. Let's say you're going for a hike, but there isn't, the markers on the trail are not so clear. But you do know the direction in which you're supposed to be headed and you have a compass. So if you check your compass once every eight hours, you could get very lost because if shortly after the last time you checked your compass, you made a wrong turn, it might have even been a somewhat subtle wrong turn, could be the turn was off by five or ten degrees. Doesn't mean that the turn was necessarily off by 90 degrees. But if a person makes that wrong turn, he's off five ten degrees and then he hikes for eight hours before he bothers checking his compass again, he can get very lost. If a person checks his compass very regularly, so then even if the person will have made a wrong turn, he's gonna discover that mistake and he's gonna recognize that mistake in very short order before he can drift too far afield. The nimshal, the analogue to the compass, is that a person learns mussar, a person makes has time for cheshbon hanefesh. If there are people in that person's life with whom he can be misyayeitz, that he does that periodically, and all of that is bebechinas haba letaher and then we have a havtacha that that mesayin lo also and in the person's derech in life. Okay, so we'll stop here for now and im yirtzeh Hashem we'll