STONES AND BRICKS

Dear Family,

I hope everyone is well.

Mazal Tov to Hirshy on his birthday on Shabbos. Wishing you a successful year in both physical and spiritual matters Hirshy,

Mazal Tov to Sophia Esther for her birthday 2 days after her Daddy. Wishing you all many simchos BEH!

Mazal Tov to Brian and Sharon, who I believe are travelling to EY next week for the Bar or Batmitzva of grandchildren. Sounds very exciting! Have a wonderful trip Brian and Sharon, and wishing you many more simchos! And Mazal Tov also to Renee and Roy and Family who will be joining Brian and Sharon for the simcha.

We are now in the 3 weeks commemorating the destruction of the Bet HaMikdash, and we have been learning more about the Bet Hamikdash

Firstly I saw a presentation by JLI, which was excellent, and one of the points that came up were pictures of diggings at the base of the kotel showing some of the STONES there. One of them was 44' x 10', and weighed over 500 tons!

The largest stones used to make the pyramids was about 11 ton

How did they cut and move these!?

And then secondly, I learned a sicha from Book 6 of Likutei Sichos parshas Shmos, ON THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN STONES AND BRICKS, which I will try and summarise.

Basically STONES are a natural creation from Hashem, and BRICKS are man made.

In the above-mentioned sedra, Paroah is forcing Bnei Yisrael to make BRICKS for his cities

The question is, if stones are a higher G-dly level than bricks, why did he not make us get stones?

But Paroah was cleverer than we think!

When G-dlines comes down to us and the world there are 2 aspects

1. There is light which penetrates all the way down through the levels of creation
2. Then there is the receptiveness of the creation down below, recognising this flow

It is like a kind person, whose nature is always looking to give and he is pouring out acts, words and thoughts of kindness.

He doesn't really expect anything in return, and gets joy from his nature, but he gets a greater joy when gratitude is expressed from the receivers.

The temporary Temple in the desert ie the Mishkan was made from animal (animal skins) and vegetable - wooden beams etc (animal is a higher level than vegetable in the creation.)

But lower than this is inanimate material, and this is what the permanent Temple was made from.

And this represents this flow of G-dlines penetrating downwards through animal, vegetable, and all the way to the inanimate.

And as we have learnt from the Alte Rebbe, the lowest levels of the creation have this unique direct connection with the highest levels of G-dliness, and hence the Bet Hamikdash being built with STONE.

But there is more to the story.

There is not only the light which comes all the way down, and the creation expressing gratitude, BUT THERE IS ALSO A LEVEL OF CREATION WHERE THERE ARE DARK FORCES WHICH DO NOT RECOGNISE G-D, AND EVEN OPPOSE.

Without going into too much detail, Jews have the ability to penetrate this darkness, and allow the light of Hashem to penetrate even into these very dark areas.

And this is as it were, MAN-MADE.

This man-made work is equivalent to MAKING OF BRICKS, and when used for holy purposes, can reach even greater heights of G-dliness (because its source is even lower than the inanimate)

Paroah understood this and he tried to hijack these forces to the opposite side of holiness!

The Zohar connects this making of bricks to Torah study as follows

1. The word for mortar in Hebrew is chomer, which also refers to a Torah procedure called kal vachomer
2. The word for bricks in Hebrew is leveinim, which can also mean whitening, and in Torah this is the learning to clarify the halachah

May we merit to break the forces of evil with our Torah study, at what ever level we are, and see speedily, the construction of the THIRD BET HAMIKDASH this year during these 3 weeks

Gut Shabbos to all.