For the people whose ‘diamonds’ turn to dust

I am putting this up ‘out of order’.

It’s another excerpt from the Rav’s shiur on December 20th, (first part HERE), but it really spoke to me a lot, and I think it may speak to you too, dear reader.

It gives so much chizzuk, for all those people (like me….) who have made so many efforts to ‘move forward’ in so many ways – only to keep getting blocked, or for things to fizzle, or for all the ‘achievements’ to apparently just turn into dust.

But that’s just how it looks down here, in the ‘upside-down’ world.

Spiritually, things are very different.

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Also, as always, there are a ton of hints about what is really going on with getting the ‘decrees of caesar’ sweetened in our days, too.

See if you can figure it out.

Lastly, I am just sticking up a reminder (which I will do as a footer on all subsequent posts here for the next little while) that you can help to write the Sefer Torah for the soldiers in the following ways:

20,000 nis – donates a whole section of parchment, and gets your names transcribed as donors.

5,000 nis – donates a page.

OR, donate whatever amount you can afford.

In all cases, just go to THIS link, and make it clear in the comments that the donation is for the Rav’s Sefer Torah.

And may all the decrees be sweetened very, very fast.

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Excerpt of the Rav’s shiur from December 20th, 2023, in Bet Shemesh:

Nachum Ish Gamzu, he was a loafer.

I’m sorry to have to tell you this story, but we need to tell you the truth. A big loafer.

He had a chest filled with diamonds – halavi, I should also have. Then, we’d already pay off all the yeshiva’s debts.

He went to Rome with a chest filled with diamonds, but he didn’t know how to guard the chest. They took the biggest drifter. Now, he went out to the field to do hitbodedut, and he left the chest under the bed.

So the owner of the hotel saw that he left the room, he went into the room to check what was there, found the chest full of diamonds.

Wow, what a merit! What a mitzvah! What joy!

This much joy he’d never seen in his whole life. He started to dance for three, four hours, until he [Nachum Ish Gamzu] returned from the field. Then he filled the chest up with dirt.

And he came back from the field, and he saw a chest that was filled with dirt. They’d touched the chest…

[But he decided to continue on to Rome with the chest full of dirt, anyway.]

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I would have gone home, I wouldn’t have held firm.

I’m telling you – I’m sorry I have to tell you this. But I’m saying, I would have returned home, shut the windows, and the curtains, so no-one could see me, and not get out of my bed for a years, from all the despair.

What, they stole a chest full of diamonds from me!

They collected this together from the whole of Am Yisrael. Every person donated something – this one gave 10 agarot, this one 10 prutot (coins), that’s how it went.

Today, it’s forbidden to receive tzedakah.

[Otherwise] We would have arranged something already, we would have organised such a chest…

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B’kitzur (briefly), what happened is that instead of just going home and getting all depressed, Nachum Ish Gamzu said no! No!! I am going to bring the dust to the king!

This dust – it’s worth more than the diamonds!

There are no ‘coincidences’ in the whole world! That I went and did hitbodedut in the field – so because I went to do hitbodedut, they stole all the diamonds from me?! This just can’t be!

It’s a sign that the dust is worth more than the diamonds!

Because the issue is that a person believes that dust is worth more than diamonds.

So, I will bring this to the king.

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OK, they get to the king, open the chest, and he says: Judea is mocking me!

The Jews are laughing at me, they are humiliating me, they are degrading me – death to all the Jews!!!

The first thing, the very first thing, is to hang Nachum Ish Gamzu! Put him in shackles, then put him up on the tree. Tomorrow, put him [on the gallows] in the main city square, ‘Rome Square’ – this was in Athens….

It was already Romans then, so in ‘Rome’ [Square]. We will put him in Rome, we will hang him in Rome, in the city square, on Capitol Hill. We will hang him on a high tree, 50 amot tall.

And we will annihilate all of the Jews! 10 harsh decrees upon every Jew!

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What did Nachum Ish Gamzu say?

Gam ze le tova! This is also for the good! It’s wonderful!

He said this about everything, that it was ‘wonderful’. Gam ze le tova! This is also for the good! Gam ze le tova!

What ‘good’ are you talking about?! They are going to murder all of the Jews, and hang you!

Gam ze le tova!

He was happy, he danced the whole night.

Gam ze le tova!

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Eliyahu Hanavi came, but he appeared to them as though he was one of the ministers.

He said: I am a big warlord, I am a general, I came from Gaul, or from England, I just came.

So he [Eliyahu HaNavi] was one of the generals in England there. So, a big minister came – this was Eliyahu HaNavi. He said to them:

You don’t know what sort of dust this is. This is the dust of Avraham Avinu!

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If a person says ‘Elokai Avraham, Elokai Yitzhak v’Elokai Yaakov” – he can conquer the whole world.

A person needs to say a bracha. He needs to say: ‘Elokai Avraham, Elokai Yitzhak v’Elokai Yaakov”.

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[The king’s servants] Took the dust.

He [Eliyahu HaNavi] said take it and throw it!

They threw it and it became swords and sabres, and the straw became arrows.

So, they filled the chest up for him [Nachum Ish Gamzu] with diamonds.

It turned out that the [initial] diamonds were worth dust.

If he would have brought diamonds [to Caesar], he wouldn’t even have got a thank you note – because he already had a load of diamonds.

But he brought dust.

So, he received diamonds.

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If a person sees that everything turns to dust – that everything got turned into dust for him, everything that he does – it’s lost. Turned to dust.

So, he should know that now, they are building the Beit HaMikdash for him!

That is the ‘diamonds’ now!

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We are learning this now, on the 10th of Tevet, after Chanukah, that they didn’t have anything.

[The Maccabees] didn’t have guns, they didn’t have arrows, they didn’t have swords – nothing. They didn’t have anything.

And this is Chanukah! That the reshaim fall into the hands of the tzaddikim.

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In this world, the ‘bad cows’ swallow up the good ones.

After all, everything is totally upside-down and backwards here. The reshaim swallow up the tzaddikim, and not the tzaddikim the reshaim – there is no such thing as this.

Always, the reshaim succeed.

The chilonim win [in this world].

The chilonim dished out blows on Yom Kippur – so immediately, there was a shoah (disaster).

[But] Hashem already couldn’t suffer it any more. They gave out blows on Yom Kippur, they said there will be no Hakafot HaShniot[1].

The hakafot cancel out the hatkafot (being attacked).

By way of the hakafot, this is cancelled.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] The Hakafot HaShniot were cancelled in Tel Aviv even before the attacks that occurred on Simchat Torah.

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MY NOTES:

“Dust” is connected to humility.

‘Diamonds’ is connected to bizayon.

Read lesson 1:272 in Likutey Moharan.

‘Accepting an insult with love saves 1,000 Jews.’

But all those ‘diamonds’ in the chest got taken away….

Now, see what ideas bubble up, from the story above.

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