Parashat Truma

TRUMA

So I want to tell you a fast Kotzker Torah. I want you to know something, a few weeks ago they put together Torahs from the grandson of the Kotzker and the great-grandson, just came in, and it’s just unbelievable. The Kotzker Rebbe’s great grandson was mamesh beyond… beyond, he was sharp like his grandfather, sharp, and yet in Kotzk a simple person was not so much welcomed, and he was like the smallest little yidele, he had time for every person in the world. I was once in a big reform synagogue in Miami Beach, and I told a story of the Kotzker Rebbe’s great grandson, Reb Itzik’l from Sokolov.

You know the story Moishele The Water Carrier? This is the link to the story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZqKGDc26Lc

Suddenly I see that the rabbi is crying, so after the concert he slowly takes me into his room and he says ‘look at the wall’.
I look at the walls and I see a tree, an eitz chayim.
On the top it says ‘Reb Mendel of Kotzk’, and he is the great-great-grandson of this Sokolover Rebbe.
So he says: ‘I want you to know, the story is true because I heard it in our family, and secondly it was so good to be reminded of my grandfather.’
One of the most heartbreaking things in the world… in Poland, it’s just so heartbreaking. A lot of non-jews came up and wrote me letters, stories which they remember from the holocaust. Friday night, on non-Jewish holy brother walks in and he says ‘there is one story which I saw with my eyes when I was seven, and I wanted to tell it to somebody, and I want to tell it to you.’ He was waiting for a Jew to come. It was very special, we invited him Friday night, and he sat next to me. As long as we can honor a human being, give him a little kavod. This week I got so many letters… but this is the cutest story in the world. In Biyala there were two young therapists talking to me, very special ladies, you could see there was something special. I got a letter from a young man in Biyala and he says to me ‘I want you to know, it’s so hard for me to find a girl which I like. I saw you talking to this therapist with this long black hair and I was too bashful to go up and ask her for her number, could you please send me her number?’. You know what that means, a shmendrik like me… the Ribbono Shel Olam sends me to Biyala to give a concert, so those two should meet, because the Gemara says that for two people to meet, if G-d wants two people to meet G-d is turning over heaven and earth. .. G-d is turning over heaven and earth, unbelievable.
You know what the biggest miracle in the world is? I called up this therapist with the black hair and she says to me: ‘you know something, it’s so hard to find somebody I like.
So the pasuk says ‘Veyikchu Li Teruma’, take for me Truma, and the Kotzker Rebbe says don’t take G-d the way you take apples, or the way you take Coca Cola. You want to take G-d? Teruma…. gevalt, it’s so deep. You see, the world takes everything the same, all in the same way. So this was Kotzk,
Now let me tell you what the Ishbitzer says . Ishbitz and Kotzk learned together their whole lives, they were all together then they split.
He says something else. Next Shabbos we are reading that if someone’s ox G-d forbid kills a person, they have to pay everything which has to do with my possessions.
Lets Imagine, I walk into somebody’s house and the dog jumps on me, what does it mean? You know what the dog is really telling me? ‘let me tell you’, he says, ‘don’t go in here, they don’t want you to come in, they don’t love you. They might smile at you and tell you that they are so glad you came, but they don’t mean it.’
Because animals don’t pick up the consciousness, they pick up the unconsciousness of people. That means that if a person is unconsciously a murderer his ox will go out and kill somebody. Imagine I’ll walk in here, kick somebody and really hurt somebody G-d forbid. I’ll say ‘I didn’t mean it’, yeah, consciously you didn’t mean it, but obviously your unconsciousness is not close to you, because if your unconsciousness would be completely clean, you really couldn’t even move to hurt someone like that.
Sometimes you hurt somebody’s feelings and you say ‘I didn’t mean it’, it’s a poor excuse because if you would be completely cleansed inside it wouldn’t happen, it wouldn’t happen.
I want you to know something so deep. Why was Esther privileged to save all the Jews? Because on the level of being inside cleansed unconsciously she was cleansed, she was absolutely cleansed form anything unholy. She was mamesh living for the sake of G-d, for the sake of Israel.
So here the Ishbitser comes and says that after the yidden heard that you have to cleanse yourself unconsciously also so yidden were crying ‘how does it work.’ So Moshe Rabbeinu told them Veyikchu Li Truma. He says ‘you know what cleanses your unconsciousness? Every time you give something with all your heart consciously also cleanses you unconsciousness.
Sometimes it’s hard to give, but you better give, because if you don’t want to give it means that gevalt your unconsciousness is not in the right place.
So he says that the whole building of the Beis Hamikdash was not to cleanse us consciously, that you can do through the Torah and mitzvahs (commandments).
The Holy Temple is: ‘Veshachanti Besocham’, insideof them, inside, inside.
So the Kotzker Rebbe says that Vayikchu Li Truma means that they should take G-d on a high consciousness level, and the Ishbitser says that you should reach this consciousness level, to be cleaned inside.
You know friends, it’s such a privilege. Sometimes you meet people, you could really see where their consciousness is, inside mamesh, inside.
I want you to know, it’s very simple, how do you know how cleansed inside they are? If in their presence you feel more pure that means their consciousness is also more pure.
sometimes you feel purer And sometimes you sit next to people and nothing happens to you.
One of the biggest Rebbes I had the privilege to see….the Amshinover Rebbe, gevalt. He was a boy who grew up in Brooklyn, his grandfather was the old Amshinover Rebbe.
Suddenly one day he decided he wants to be a servant of G-d, mamesh and ‘oived Hashem’. That he wants to deticate his life to serve g-d.
When he talks to a person nobody exists but this person. You should see the way he talks to people.
I once took a couple from America who didn’t have children for fifteen years.
So the Rebbe was blessing everyone, I askled the rebbe to bless this couple here. I wish you could see how he turns his whole heart to them. I said: ‘They are married for fifteen years, they don’t have children.’ You could see mamesh… he was white like a sheet, mamesh (really) hurt him so much the pain of these people. Not like a fake krechtsch, he felt their pain in the deepest depths of his heart.
Another time I was in Amshinov and there were five girls who were really desperate to get married, they were standing by the door, and I told them that they can talk to the Rebbe and ask him for a bracha, but they said ‘no, you do it for us.’ So I am going up the rebbe, it was so sweet and I said ‘Rebbe, there are some young ladies here who would like you to bless them.’ So he says ‘tell me their names.’ I told him the five names. The first three he told me to tell him maybe five times. The last two he didn’t ask anymore. The craziest thing is those three girls got married within four weeks, they met somebody and mamesh got married. It was unbelievable, and the second they met it was clear that this was their soulmate. It was not a shadchan or anyone talking them into it. The other two are nebech still struggling. (someone from crowd says ‘you should have repeated the names). Obviously you could feel the Rebbe wasn’t feeling clear yet in heaven, he didn’t open the gates yet. How long do you daven Aleinu? It takes more than two three seconds…and this is already good. The Amshinover Rebbe had a tisch, it was his grandfather’s yahrtzeit. They told me I should come to the tisch at twelve -one o’clock. I’m coming at one o’clock, and they said ‘the Rebbe is just beginning Aleinu. So I think ‘how long does Aleinu take? , I come back a little later.. he finished at a quarter to four. When he said Ve’al Kein Nekave Lecha Hashem Elokienu’ mamesh we hope to you G-d… it was heartbreaking the way he said it, mamesh hoping. Liros Meheira Beisferes Uzecha, to mamesh see the glory of your strength. When you heard the words coming out of his holy mouth…