Part 5 · Chapter 22

Kindness Through Judgment (גבורה שבחסד) 0:00

וכן להיפך, and so too the opposite, בבחינת גבורה שבחסד, that the גבורה of חסד is the strongest חסד. שמעשה של חסד נעשה במדת הדין, and this is when the act of kindness is done in a way through a means of דין, להיות ביתר תוקף ועוז, so that it'll be stronger. כמו גבורות גשמים, like the severities of the, the גבורות of the rain, שבאים בצמצום כדי שיומשך בריבוי.

So the rain comes in small drops, but the fact that the kindness is given out in little measured way, that is what allows a lot of rain to come. If the rain would come in one big, if it rains too fast, so first of all it would flood, and second of all, the ground needs to first be lightly wetted by like soft, like a drizzle first for a few days, and then when the ground is moist, then it's able to absorb heavy rain, which will really grow the plants.

If you, but sometimes when there's like a drought, and it doesn't, there's no light rain for a long time, the ground becomes parched, and it becomes very dry. And then for a few days even, there can be heavy, heavy rain, but it won't get absorbed into the ground, it will just run off. Like the top layer of the ground will get muddy and it will just slide off the ground, because the the the ground is became hard and it's not able to, it's not able to absorb the water properly.

It's like a waste. וכמו צמצום אור השפע בכל מקום כדי שיתקבל. And this is like the צמצום of the light when it's being, something is being given over in any place, any anytime that it's being given over, that's that's being made small so that it'll be able to received. So for example, like a teacher, when he limits his intellect to explain it simply to the student, the more that he limits it and the more that he brings it down to the student, the bigger kindness it is.

Teacher Limiting Knowledge to Help Students 1:57

He's making it easier and more understandable to the student. And the less that he does that, the the the less of a kindness he's doing.

I mean like, you know, the whole reason that you have the teacher is to help make, bring it down to your level. If you wanted it on his level, you could read it from the book yourself. You could just go get some, you know, very advanced textbook and read it yourself.

The whole thing is you want it to bring, to be brought down. וכן התחלקות ע"ב גשרים וכולי. And the same thing, the idea the division of the 72 bridges.

Like if you have a bridge that spans a big river, so it has like a whole bunch of arcs, and then there's like a bunch of pillars that go into the ground, so it's like a whole bunch of small bridges attached.

So the idea of of doing that is that it slows down the water, you know, because it's like divided up, and it like calms the water and it slows it down. So it makes it like be able to flow nicer.

So that's the idea of the light of חסד coming into a כלי of גבורה, that when the חסד is comes out in like a small, in a divided, limited way. וכן יסורים של אהבה. And the same thing with the with a like afflictions of love, like when like God gives somebody challenges, but it's really to bring out their inner potential and strength, or like when somebody's harsh on somebody because he knows that they really have more potential and he wants to bring it out in them.

Afflictions of Love as Tough Kindness 3:34

וכאב את בן ירצה, and like it says that a father that that wants, that desires his son, that loves his son, וייסרו, he rebukes him. שהחסד נעשה בלבוש דמדת הדין דווקא, that there the kindness is done specifically through the garment of דין.

So really it's a total חסד, but it's done by being tough and being harsh and and forceful to, but it's really to bring out the the, for the benefit. And this is like, you know, the thing of taking a knife away from a child, or like a doctor that's doing like harsh treatments and things, but it's really for the benefit of the person and, you know, any type of tough love thing.

והרי זו דווקא תוקף החסד יותר מעצם החסד, and this is really shows on a stronger kindness, and it's like a stronger love than the actual kindness itself. So just to be like nice and give somebody lollipops and presents, that's not such a big חסד. If you really love the person though, you're willing to do something like mean for them. You're willing to be tough with them, because if you just want, if you just have an immature חסד, and which is really for yourself, that you want to be looked at as kind, and you want it to look, them to feel like you love them,

so then you're only going to do things that are outwardly kind because you want them to realize that it's kindness. But if you really love them and you really care that they should be benefited, even if they're going to think that you're being mean, then you'll be willing to do things that are outwardly mean for their benefit.

So that shows that it's like the strongest love. וכמו הקדים רפואה למכה, like it says that God made the cure before the מכה. That whenever, with any type of a sickness or affliction or problem, God always made the cure first, because the real thing that He wants is the cure, because really He loves us. וכמו שכתוב כי הוא יך וירפאנו, that God hits us, afflicts us, and heals us.

ולכאורה למה צריך להכאה כלל? So if so, why did God make the problem? If the whole thing is He wanted to to to to fix it, so why would He make the problem in the first place? Why would He make the affliction in the first place? אך על ידי רפואה יברא ויתחזק יתר, but through being healed, then he becomes stronger.

There's an expression, they say that anything that doesn't kill you makes you stronger. כי החולי הוא בחינת הדין הקשה, because the sickness is a is a harsh דין, a harsh severity, ויעבר על ידי מידת הדין שבחסד, and it's taken away through the דין of חסד, which is like harsh treatment, שהוא הרפואה מדברים קשים וכולי.

That's healing through harsh things, the harsh medicines that are like dangerous to a healthy person, or different treatments and surgeries and things like that. וכהאי גוונא בכל מיתוק הדין בשרשו דוקא, and this is the idea with the the sweetening of דין is always in its source, היינו בדין שבחסד דוקא, which is the דין of חסד. So the real source of all דין is really in דין of חסד.

ויתר תוקפו של חסד לגבר על הדין ולהמתיקו וכולי והבן.

And this is, in other words, that the real reason that God made bad things in the world is a challenge in order that we should overcome them.

So it's like like when you're playing a game, it's not so much fun to just get, let's say, play basketball yourself and just practice and get the ball in the hoop. So okay, so it's not such a big deal, so you get you practice and get good at it, you're able to get it in the hoop. But if you have somebody else opposing you, so it's much harder for you to get it in, but then it's more you enjoy it more, it's more of an accomplishment.

So it's like a bigger חסד when you get it in. So since the biggest חסד is the דין of חסד, when the חסד is able to come even though there's like a challenge opposing it, so that's why you want like the opposition to make a challenge, to overcome.

And that's the whole thing of like our world. It says that our world is the idea of דין of חסד, is that we should overcome a challenge and have to do עבודה. Says like the world of תהו was like חסד of חסד, and now the world of תיקון is גבורה of חסד. Because it explains that there's that there's different שמיטות.

So it says we're the second שמיטה of the first יובל. So that means that the the first יובל is all is all חסד, and within that, we're in the second שמיטה, which is גבורה of חסד.

So the first שמיטה was תהו, and then we're in the second שמיטה, which is גבורה of חסד.

That's why it says that the world is full of, you know, bad things happening and evil people and doing bad things, and they seem to succeed, and it's like a very dark, difficult, challenging world, you know? It's like It's like one of those video games or something where there's like a bunch of bad guys and there's like one good guy, you know?

And like then he goes and somehow manages to like dodge all the bullets and kill all the bad guys and win.

That's like what it's like. That's like the odds are way against us, in a way. But, yeah, that in a way is the biggest thing, that it's such a big challenge and yet we're able to do it, it's like a big חידוש.

But that's what it says, that in our world, זאת חוקת התורה. The idea of like the what's the idea of the פרה אדומה? That in order to make one person pure, you have to make somebody else impure.

So the question is, why does it have to be that the חסד comes through a דין? That there's like a sacrifice in order to accomplish the goal.

Because like a ירידה לצורך עליה, why does it have to be a ירידה? So it says, זאת חוקת התורה, that is the one חק, because that is the whole thing of our world, is that it's like that. Not just like the גזירה that, you know, says like השם said, שתוק, כך עלה ברצוני, you know, that's the way I wanted to make the world, and if you don't like it, too bad.