Excerpt of a shiur from Wednesday night, Parshat Eikev, 5785

The Tzaddik turns everything into ‘honey’.

By way of the Tzaddik, everything becomes honey [i.e. sweetened]. R’ Natan explains this in Likutey Halachot, halachot Yoreh Deah[1]. Let’s bring Likutey Halachot, Yoreh Deah, that the Tzaddik can turn things into honey.

There is nothing in the world, that he can’t transform into honey.

The ikker (main thing) is to know, who is the Tzaddik HaEmet (True Tzaddik)…

Each person should learn this with their wives. R’ Natan explains that the Tzaddik, he can turn every single thing [i.e. harsh judgement] into honey!

Every single thing!

There is nothing else like this.

==

Shimshon went to take a wife from the land of the Phillistines, and on the way he met a lion, and he cleft it, like you would split a gidi (kid goat).

He asked them [the Phillistines]: “From the eater came forth food; and from the strong came forth sweetness.”[2]

==

[skipping some]

Shimshon [did this] on the way to the Phillistines, because the Tzaddik can subdue the Phillistines.

When he goes there, so then he can demonstrate to everyone that he can turn a lion into honey, ‘from the eater came forth food’, and from then on, sweetness comes out, and these are the ways of Hashem.

==

And so, one eats honey on Rosh Hashana, because Tu B’Av is Rosh Hashana, mamash.

Now, we have sweetened everything. Tu B’Av has sweetened everything.

==

We are meriting this, by way of teshuva.

Because to turn a lion into honey – a lion is a dangerous animal. That this was turned into honey by way of the Tzaddik, who shows that all the transgressions in the world can be transformed into merits.

If a person says 7 Tikkun Haklalis on a single day, for 40 days, they can atone for all the sins in the world – even the hardest one!

Everything will be transformed into merits, into purity.

And so, the gematria of shofar is the same as dvash (honey).

Because by way of the shofar, we announce our ‘wisdom’, that by way of the Tzaddik it’s possible to transform everything.

Translated and excerpted from Shivivei Or, 421.

==

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Likutey Halachot, Yoreh Deah, halachot simanei behema v’haya tahora, part 4.

[2] Judges 14:14. Samson first killed the lion: “a young lion was roaring toward him. The spirit of Hashem came over him and he tore it apart as one tears apart a kid, though he had nothing in his hand.” (14:5-6.) Then on the way to the Phlllistines, later on: “he turned aside to see the fallen carcass of the lion, and behold, a swarm of bees was in the body of the lion, with honey. He scraped it into his hands and went walking and eating.” (14:8-9). Then, when he’s looking for a pretext to go to war against the Phillistines, he poses them a riddle, above, Judges 14:14, that they can’t solve until Samson’s Phillistine wife is sent to get the solution out of him.