Rabbi Natan explains: In these days, we need to open the way to the "Tree of Life." In these holy days, we need to strengthen ourselves, break through, and reveal the way to the "Tree of Life" - wonderful holy words for Parshat Haazinu and the holiness of the festival days from our teacher, the esteemed righteous Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a

The Way to the Tree of Life

All of a person's work during these days, which are Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Hoshanah Rabbah, Shemini Atzeret, and Simchat Torah, is to merit the "Tree of Life," which is the service of Hashem. Because after Adam HaRishon sinned, the way to the "Tree of Life" was sealed; Hashem placed the "flaming sword which turned every way" and the cherubim to guard the way leading to the "Tree of Life." Since then, anyone who wishes to enter the "Tree of Life" (service of Hashem) faces obstacles and delays by the cherubim and the "flaming sword which turned every way."

Rashi explains: "The cherubim" (=angels of destruction) "the flaming sword which turned every way" (=threatening him from entering the garden again), threatening and frightening him from entering the "Tree of Life." A person is afraid to study Torah, afraid to rise at midnight, to do Hitbodedut, to go to the field, afraid to travel to the graves of tzaddikim, afraid of Arabs. What are Arabs?! Arabs do not exist at all, as it is written "Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket and are counted as the small dust of the balance" (Isaiah 40:15) they do not exist at all.

Rabbi Natan explains: In these days, we need to open the way to the "Tree of Life." In these holy days, we need to strengthen ourselves, break through, and reveal the way to the "Tree of Life," the way to serve Hashem. As long as a person is in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, he has obstacles, fears, doubts, confusions, he does not know advice for his soul, and through emunah in the sages, one merits to enter the Tree of Life, as Rabbi Natan says: "And complete advice in the service of Hashem is impossible to merit except through the true tzaddikim of the generation" (Likutei Halachot Sukkah, 3).

A person needs to find a tzaddik who can bring him directly to the "Tree of Life," who will impart to him the intellect from the Tree of Life, who will bring him into the "Tree of Life," and then he will have no conflicting advice, no confusion, no fears, and he will merit to overcome all obstacles, all delays that come from the cherubim and the "flaming sword which turned every way" and will enter the service of Hashem.

"A foolish and unwise people" (Deuteronomy 32:6)

"The main thing and the foundation upon which everything depends is to connect oneself to the tzaddik of the generation and to accept his words on everything he says, whether it is a small matter or a great matter, and not to deviate, God forbid" (Likutei Moharan 123).

Everything that a person goes through in life depends on whether he merits to believe in the tzaddik of the generation; everything stands on emunah in the tzaddik. A person needs to nullify all his thoughts, all his desires, to nullify his personality to the tzaddik. To accept his words on everything he says, even if he tells him the opposite of his own understanding, whether it is a great or small matter.

And one needs to cast away all wisdoms, because a person is born with wisdoms, everyone has their own wisdom, and this wisdom prevents him from drawing close to the tzaddik and returning to Hashem, and he needs to set aside his understanding as if he has no intellect, because the tzaddik imparts all intellects, and as long as he has any personal intellect, he is not considered completely connected to the tzaddik. The moment a person has any drop of intellect, a drop of understanding of his own, he is not connected to the tzaddik.

"And Israel at the time of receiving the Torah had great wisdoms" (there), Israel knew all the wisdoms of all the magicians, they learned from the magicians and knew how to calculate the constellations, they knew how to calculate everything.

Therefore, the "Bnei Yissaschar" explains that Moses had to say "about midnight" (Exodus 11:4), specifically "about midnight," and not at midnight, because Pharaoh calculated the time when that midnight falls between Mars and Jupiter - Mars is judgment, might, Jupiter is mercy. Exactly when Mars ends and Jupiter begins, that is the point of midnight according to Pharaoh's method. And if Moses had said at midnight, then Pharaoh would have said that Moses is doing sorcery, drawing powers from Mars to perform the plague of the firstborn. Therefore, Moses wanted to shift the time of midnight by a few seconds, by half a minute, so that Jupiter's constellation would already enter, and then everyone would know that it is the hand of Hashem and not wisdoms, not sorcery, and therefore he said "about midnight."

And so it was with Korach, that the people of Israel said about Moses and Aaron "You have killed the people of Hashem" (Numbers 17:6), you are telling stories that Hashem opened the earth..., you caused the earth to open through wisdom! Because through wisdoms, it is possible to open the earth! Until they saw that everyone was dying, then they understood that it was the hand of Hashem.

And indeed, the people of Israel at the time of receiving the Torah cast away all wisdoms, believed in Hashem and in Moses His servant, and this is what Onkelos translated "a foolish and unwise people" (Deuteronomy 32:6) - "a people who received the Torah and were not wise," because the main acceptance of the Torah was through "and were not wise." A person is born with much wisdom, and every person has much intellect, and this intellect is only to understand Gemara, to understand the early and later sages, and only in the Torah to place the intellect.

And this is what is written "foolish" - heart of paths, which hints at the holy Torah, which is the true wisdom before which all wisdoms are nullified. To make an atomic bomb and kill millions of people at once is murder, it is not wisdom. The wisdom is to save millions of people! Because indeed, through one letter of the Torah, it is possible to save millions of people, through one letter it is possible to heal billions, all the wisdoms of the world are nullified compared to one letter of the holy Torah.