20 Av - three explanations from the Baal Hahilula zi"e on the number eighty

00:01 And since we’re talking about eighty years since the passing—the yahrzeit—of Reb Levik, eighty is an important number. With the Rebbe’s father, everything has meaning, an explanation, and depth, and he explains everything according to Kabbalah. We see this in Reb Levik’s well-known writings: he explains all the details of his life according to Kabbalah, getting to the root of the matter with every last detail. We also saw that over the years, the Rebbe would often speak about the number of years and explain the number according to Kabbalah. When it was forty years, in 5744, the Rebbe spoke about the significance of forty; and when it reached forty-five years, the Rebbe explained the number forty-five. Since it is now eighty, surely a chossid wants to know: What does Reb Levik say about the number eighty? So that’s what we’ll discuss today. I found three places—presumably there are more than three—where Reb Levik discusses the number eighty. I’ll start with one. If there’s time, we’ll discuss the second, and if there’s time, the third as well. One place is in the Zohar, about Yosef HaTzaddik. Everything Reb Levik writes is immense. I know that many bochurim find it difficult to look into Reb Levik’s books because there are so many Kabbalistic concepts and so on. But once you get used to his style, there is so much pleasure, so much depth, so much geshmak, because everything is precise down to the finest detail in a most remarkable way. So first we’ll discuss what Reb Levik says about Yosef HaTzaddik. It’s in the Zohar on Parshas Vayishlach, pages 144–145. The Zohar speaks there about Yosef, who lived 110

02:19 years. It speaks about Yosef being Yaakov’s son: “These are the descendants of Yaakov: Yosef.” The Zohar says that Yosef really should have lived 147 years, like Yaakov, but in practice he lived only 110 years because he gave away thirty-seven years as a gift. As is known, Yosef gave thirty-seven years of his life to King David. So, regarding Yosef HaTzaddik and his 110 years: what exactly is this number, 110? Where does eighty come into it? If we look at Yosef’s life, it divides into two parts. Up to age thirty, Yosef went through his whole story. It begins with Yosef being born while they were with Lavan. After that, they fled from Lavan. At seventeen, he was tending the flock with his brothers. After seventeen years, they sold him to Pharaoh—sorry, to Potiphar the Egyptian. There Yosef spent thirteen years, including his time in prison. He was with Potiphar, and there was all that turmoil. So how old was he when all the turmoil in his life ended? Thirty. Seventeen plus thirteen is thirty. It also says explicitly in the Torah, in Parshas Mikeitz: “Yosef was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh.” Then he became viceroy. So his first thirty years were the years of Yosef’s sale, his time with Potiphar, and his imprisonment. That took him to age thirty. From thirty until 110—yes, 110—was eighty years, during which he was viceroy, at the height of his greatness. So we find eighty years in Yosef’s life: eighty years as viceroy. Reb Levik asks: What do these numbers mean, thirty years and eighty years? He says that Yosef is Yesod: “A tzaddik is the foundation

04:43 of the world.” Yosef is called Yosef HaTzaddik—“a tzaddik is the foundation of the world”—the sefirah of Yesod. We all know that among the sefiros, among the middos, Yosef is the sixth sefirah: Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, Yosef. Yosef is sixth because he is Yesod. That is why Yosef had the whole episode at Potiphar’s house, the test involving Potiphar’s wife: Yosef rectified the matter of Yesod. Yesod has a numerical value of eighty: yud, samech, vav, daled—that comes to eighty. Those are the eighty years Yosef was viceroy. Now, Yosef’s source is in Yaakov Avinu. Yesod receives from Tiferes. Yaakov is the sefirah of Tiferes. Avraham is Chesed, Yitzchak is Gevurah, and Yaakov is Tiferes. So Yaakov represents the middah of Tiferes, while Yosef is Yesod. Yesod and Tiferes are on the same line, the same middle line. The—letter. Which letter? It’s the letter associated with Yaakov and Yosef in the name Havayah. After all, the name Havayah is present in every sefirah, everywhere. The name Havayah associated with Yaakov and Yosef is Havayah spelled out with alefs. Which name is Havayah spelled out with alefs? It is Mah. And the letter alef is the letter of truth: “Grant truth to Yaakov.” “Grant truth to Yaakov.” Emes, “truth,” is alef, mem, tav. Take away the alef, and it becomes mes, “dead.” Add the alef, and it becomes emes, “truth.” “Yaakov Avinu did not die,” right? Because Yaakov Avinu lived, for he had truth. If you look at the words “emes l’Yaakov,” “truth to Yaakov”—look at the letters alef, mem, tav, lamed, Yaakov—“emes l’Yaakov” has the same letters as “Yaakov lo mes,” “Yaakov did not die.” Yes? In other words, the words “emes l’Yaakov” contain the idea that Yaakov did not die. Because the alef joins mem and tav. So the alef is the letter that gives

07:17 life. Without the alef, what remains is “dead”; with the alef, it becomes life. How do you spell the letter alef? Alef, lamed, pei. Alef, lamed, pei. How much do lamed and pei add up to? 110. Those are Yosef’s years: the thirty years until he became viceroy, and the eighty years after he became viceroy. So Yosef’s entire story is found in the word alef. Reb Levik says that for Yosef HaTzaddik, it wasn’t only the last eighty years that were good years, when he was viceroy, Yaakov was with him, and everything else. The truth is that Yosef’s first thirty years were also good years. Yes, they sold him, and he was with Potiphar. But when we look at the verses, we see what the Torah says. Of the first seventeen years, it says, “He was a youth tending the flock.” He tended the flock while he was with his father. So he had a good life; he was with his father Yaakov. After they sold him, it says that he “found favor in Potiphar’s eyes.” At Potiphar’s house, he had the best possible life. Potiphar looked after him and entrusted things to him; he was “a successful man.” And during the thirteen years—the, ah, twelve years he was in prison—it says there too that Hashem “granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden,” who entrusted him with everything. In other words, all of Yosef’s years, even the difficult ones, were years of kindness. For Yosef’s whole essence is Yesod, life, and so he always had life, in every situation: both in the thirty years before he became viceroy and in the eighty years afterward. All this signifies the flow of blessing, the kindness Yosef experienced, all the good things he had. He also brings that, according to Kabbalah, a particular name is associated with the sefirah of Yesod. Every sefirah,

09:24 every middah, has a name, right? The name E-l is Chesed; the name Havayah is—the name Elokim is Gevurah; the name Havayah is Tiferes. As we said earlier, Tiferes is Yaakov. What is the name of Yesod? Do you know which name belongs to the sefirah of Yesod? The name of Yesod is Sh-dai. Sh-dai is the name of the sefirah of Yesod. What is the numerical value of Sh-dai? Tzaddik is 204, and if you add 110 to that, you get 314. Tzaddik has a numerical value of 204. Two hundred and four plus 110 is 314, the value of Sh-dai, the name of the sefirah of Yesod. So Yosef, who is Yosef HaTzaddik, together with the 110—the lamed and pei, the 110 years he lived—makes the name Sh-dai, the name of the sefirah of Yesod, which is Yosef’s name. So that is one explanation concerning the eighty years. And by Divine Providence, if I, Asher Farkash, may add something: this year, on 20 Menachem Av, we’re also talking about thirty years. Both numbers feature this year. On one hand, we’re talking about thirty years and the significance of thirty years; on the other, we also have Reb Levik’s eighty years. It fits perfectly with the teaching he explains here about Yosef HaTzaddik. Of course, we need to bring in the alef. That is the idea of bringing the alef into golah, exile, to make Geulah, as the Rebbe said: bringing in the alef, Alufo Shel Olam, the Master of the World. Bringing life into the lamed and pei makes alef, Alufo Shel Olam. That is the Geulah—may we merit the complete Geulah. That is one teaching of Reb Levik in—this was Parshas Vayeishev.

11:24 About Yosef Hatzaddik. After that, there’s a letter that the Rebbe’s father, Reb Levik, wrote to the Rebbe in 5695—yes, about ninety years ago, on the eve of Shavuos. It’s about the Meiri, Rav Yosef. A very, very geshmak letter. In it, he explains Rabbah and Rav Yosef. We spoke generally about names: one of the things you see in the Rebbe’s father is his tremendous genius in all areas, including the names of the Amoraim and Tannaim, through which he explains their entire approach, their whole way of thinking. So we know that the Gemara has Rabbah and Rav Yosef. What does the Gemara say is the difference between them? Rabbah was an “uprooter of mountains,” while Rav Yosef was “Sinai.” In other words, Rabbah’s approach to learning was through pilpul, uprooting mountains, whereas Rav Yosef was Sinai. “Sinai” means that his approach was based on a wealth of halachos and knowledge. “Sinai takes precedence”: you need someone who has the grain, who knows the entire Torah. In other words, Rav Yosef was a master of halachos, a master of knowledge, and that was his special quality. Reb Levik says that the names Yosef and Rabbah reflect the difference between them. Rabbah is related to ribui, increase. So with Rabbah, the emphasis was on uprooting mountains. Rabbah corresponds to the sefirah of—of binah, where everything is the other way around: he tries to raise questions, engage in pilpul, and delve deeply. Who was Rav Yosef? Rav Yosef was Sinai. His strength was knowing the entire Torah. According to one view, Sinai takes precedence. So what is the idea of Rav Yosef? Sorry, I made a mistake. I said Rabbah is binah. Rabbah is chochmah. Yes, Rabbah corresponds to the sefirah of chochmah. Uprooting mountains goes with chochmah, not binah. I was mistaken. He says that Rabbah has the same numerical value as raz, “secret.” Raz is chochmah; or, “light,” raz, and Rabbah all have the same numerical value,

13:56 because chochmah is associated with light and with secrets. On the contrary, chochmah is the aspect of uprooting mountains. What, then, is Rav Yosef? If you look at the name Rav Yosef, its letters are yud, vav, samech, peh. That is the aspect of Sinai. How many tractates are there in the Mishnah? The number given is sixty—sixty tractates. So, broadly speaking, the Mishnah has sixty tractates. How many collections of beraisos are there? The Midrash says there are eighty. There is a verse in Shir Hashirim: “There are sixty queens and eighty concubines, and maidens without number.” The Midrash says that “sixty queens” refers to the Mishnayos, and “eighty concubines” to the beraisos. Reb Levi Yitzchak says: yud, vav, samech, peh. Yud times vav has the numerical value of samech: ten times six is sixty, corresponding to the sixty tractates. Peh is the “eighty concubines,” the beraisos. So the letter peh is connected with the beraisos. Then he says there is another Torah connection to the letter peh: peh is twice mem, two mems, or the letter mem written out in full. You write mem as a mem followed by a final mem. Together they equal eighty. What is written about the letter mem? What does the Gemara in Shabbos say about the open mem and the closed mem? The open mem, the closed mem. Yes. These forms of the letter mem refer to Torah. The open mem is the revealed Torah; the closed mem is the Torah’s secrets. These are the two aspects of Torah. So this idea is found in Rav Yosef’s name: he had the whole dimension of knowing Torah—Written Torah and Oral Torah, Mishnah and beraisos. That is the meaning of his being Sinai, and it is alluded to

16:30 in his name. Yes. He says something else about samech and mem. We said that peh is twice mem, or mem itself written out as mem and final mem. Samech and final mem are round and square. They are similar letters: samech is round, and final mem is square. Chassidus and the Zohar explain that these, too, are two levels in Torah. Yes. What is the difference between samech and mem? The final mem is square. A square can be settled into place; it fits. But a samech is round, so it does not settle into place. What does that mean? It is what we discussed: Torah contains matters that can be grasped in an orderly way, and matters that are beyond that. Chukim, mishpatim—there are various ways to describe it. These are two aspects of Torah, the circle and the square. So that is what he says. It is written, after all, that the samech and final mem in the Tablets stood by a miracle. In any case, all of this is in Rav Yosef’s name. He has the letter peh, and yud times vav equals samech. That is the samech aspect of Torah, while mem is its square aspect, the Torah that can be grasped in an orderly way. In any case, mem written as a mem and a final mem has the numerical value of peh, and that is part of the name Yosef. So this is another point connected with eighty years. The Rebbe once spoke about this at the eightieth anniversary of Tomchei Temimim. The Rebbe referred to Reb Levi Yitzchak, to both of the— I think to both of them. I’m not certain; definitely to one, but it needs to be checked. There is an edited sicha of the Rebbe in Likkutei Sichos, volume 14, and there is a sicha connected with the eightieth anniversary of Tomchei Temimim. That was in 5737. On 18 Elul, it was eighty years since the founding of Tomchei Temimim. And the Rebbe

18:36 then spoke about how, according to this teaching, the significance of eighty years is the open mem and the closed mem. That is the idea of Tomchei Temimim: the joining of the revealed Torah and the inner dimension of Torah as one Torah. We can take this as a lesson we need to learn from the Rebbe’s father. As we have already discussed, in Reb Levi Yitzchak you could actually see the joining of the revealed and inner dimensions of Torah, halachah and Kabbalah. That, in fact, is the idea of Tomchei Temimim: we need to live with both dimensions together as one Torah, the revealed and the hidden. Now let’s discuss a third point from Reb Levi Yitzchak about eighty years. It’s very, very geshmak. We’ll discuss at least a few details of it. It’s wonderful how precise everything is. In Toras Levi Yitzchak, Reb Levi Yitzchak discusses a passage in the Gemara in Chullin. He brings a teaching of our Sages from the Gemara and explains it in a most wonderful way. Here we really see wonders in Torah. The Gemara in Chullin, page 24b, asks: Who is considered a child? By “child,” it means a young person. There are halachos there concerning various matters, including tumah and taharah, where particular laws apply to a child or an older person. So the Gemara asks: Until when is a person considered a child—that is, young? These halachic definitions are relevant to several areas of halachah. The Gemara says that Rabbi Chanina said: As long as he can stand on one leg and take off and put on his shoes. In the Gemara’s words, “Anyone who stands on one leg, removes his shoes, and puts on his shoes.” A person who can stand on one leg, take off his shoes, and put them back on without falling is considered a young person, a child. In halachah, he has the status of a child. And the Gemara continues: They told him about Rabbi

21:00 Rabbi Chanina was eighty years old. Are you listening? Rabbi Chanina was eighty, and he could stand on one leg and take off and put on his shoes. At eighty, he could take his shoes off and put them back on. Rabbi Chanina said about himself: Where did I get the strength, at eighty, to stand on one leg and take off and put on my shoes? Rabbi Chanina said: “The hot water and oil my mother used to bathe and anoint me in my childhood sustained me in my old age.” The hot water and oil. Oil means perfumed oil; it means soap. Yes, soap used for cleaning, for bathing. Not just oil—like today, shampoo, whatever people use when they bathe. “The hot water and oil my mother used to bathe and anoint me in my childhood sustained me in my old age.” The hot water and oil my mother used to wash and anoint me with when I was a child gave me the strength in my old age, so that today, at eighty, I can stand on one leg and take off and put on my shoes. Good. That’s the Gemara. What do we learn from this? There’s the matter of eighty years: he was eighty and could—what’s going on here? Rabbi Levi Yitzchak comes along and gives a whole interpretation. I’ll put it briefly; he discusses it at length. I’ll try at least to sum up his thought. He divides it into three parts. First, he discusses who Rabbi Chanina was. What does Rabbi Chanina represent according to Kabbalah? What do his eighty years represent? What do his mother, and the oil and hot water she gave him, represent according to Kabbalah? That’s the first part. In the second part, he explains this passage in connection

23:33 with Yom Kippur. He explains the allusion here to Yom Kippur. And in the third part, he explains it in connection with education. He sees in it a lesson about how to educate a child. So, first, the first point. He says: a child—according to Kabbalah, what does a child represent? The legs, sorry. A child—the legs. What do the legs represent according to Kabbalah? We all know what it says in Patach Eliyahu: Netzach and Hod. It says in Patach Eliyahu, which we say on Erev Shabbos, that the two legs are Netzach and Hod. Why? Because the legs are outside the body; they hold the body up. The intellect—Chochmah, Binah, Daas—is the head. Then there is the body, which is Chessed, Gevurah, Tiferes. The right arm, left arm, and heart are Chessed, Gevurah, Tiferes. The legs are Netzach and Hod. On the one hand, Netzach and Hod are the sefiros on which the world stands. They must convey influence downward, and they must be strong. Netzach and Hod hold up the whole body, like the legs on which the whole body stands. “She girds her loins with strength.” As explained in Tanya, this is the strength that fortifies the whole body—the power of Netzach and Hod. Now, Rabbi Chanina was eighty years old. What is significant about eighty? Eighty is connected with the sefirah of Binah. There are seven middos. Seventy years corresponds to the seven middos—the work of refining them. Seven middos, each comprising ten, make seventy. Once you finish refining the middos, at eighty you reach the work of the intellect, Binah. So at eighty, he stands on his legs. At eighty, with Binah, he can stand on one leg and take off and put on his shoes. What does taking off and putting on his shoes mean? Rabbi

26:03 Levi Yitzchak explains the significance of shoes. Why do we need shoes? To prevent the external forces from drawing nourishment. Physically, why does a person wear shoes? So his feet won’t get dirty or hurt by stones or other things on the ground. Shoes protect the feet. Netzach and Hod are connected with the world; they are sefiros that descend below, channels through which influence is conveyed. So the external forces could draw nourishment from them. Shoes provide protection against that. Where did I get the strength to take off and put on shoes while standing on one leg? The point is that he had the fortitude to do it. And specifically one leg, says Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, represents Netzach. The right leg is the one he stands on, because Netzach—victory—is what a person needs in order to overcome all the forces opposed to holiness, the sitra achra. Standing on one leg is the attribute of Netzach. And the shoe is on the left leg. He stands on his right leg, and on the left leg he takes off and puts on the shoe. So the right leg is Netzach; the left leg is Hod. Hod needs more protection, because it is on the left side and the external forces have a greater opportunity to draw nourishment from it. That is why it needs more protection—the shoes. Now, “my mother” represents Binah. Among the sefiros, father and mother are Chochmah and Binah. So “my mother” is Binah. From Binah, his mother gave him oil and hot water. What are oil and hot water? Oil represents chassadim. Oil belongs to the right side, Chessed, light. Oil produces light. Hot water—sorry—represents gevurot. So the chassadim and gevurot, “the oil and hot water my mother used to bathe and anoint me with”: he received the influence of chassadim and gevurot from Binah. From Binah he received all the influence he needed, and that gave him the strength

28:16 to shoe his foot, to take off and put on his shoes—meaning, to know how to prevent the external forces from drawing nourishment, and to do things as they should be done. There are many more details here, but that is one point, at least. He also connects this to the verse that says Moshe and Aharon were eighty and eighty-three when they became the shepherds of Israel. Moshe was eighty years old when he stood before Pharaoh; Aharon was eighty-three. That is to say, at eighty they reached the completion of their refinement, the completion of the work of shoeing their feet. All of that is in one section. The second section concerns Yom Kippur. He says: Yom Kippur, as we know, is a day of teshuvah. Teshuvah is connected with the sefirah of Binah; as Tanya says in Igeres Hateshuvah, there is a higher teshuvah. Yom Kippur is a day of higher teshuvah, connected with Binah. In Kabbalah, Yom Kippur is a day when the sefirah of Binah shines especially strongly. Therefore, the main teshuvah of Yom Kippur is higher teshuvah. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak makes a very interesting observation: where do we see Binah, the “mother,” in the Yom Kippur prayers? The first verse with which the Yom Kippur prayers begin is, “Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright of heart.” At Kol Nidrei, where does the chazzan begin in a loud voice? “Light is sown for the righteous, and joy for the upright of heart.” “Or,” light, begins with alef. And how do we end Ne’ilah? What is the final letter? “Next year in Jerusalem.” It begins with alef and ends with a final mem. Together they spell “mother”—Binah. Yom Kippur is a day connected with Binah. Yom Kippur is when the mother washes us. It is the time of teshuvah. Teshuvah means washing—with oil and water. Sorry, oil and hot water. Yom Kippur is the day when we do teshuvah, when we are washed: “Hashem will wash away”—the matter of washing,

30:38 That is when we wash away all the things that are not good. “Hashem will wash away the filth of the daughters of Zion.” This is during the days of Yom Kippur—sorry, Selichos. Rachatz, “washed”—reish, ches, tzaddik—has the same numerical value as rachamim, mercy. Rachamim also contains reish, ches, and mayim, water. So here we have the theme of Yom Kippur: reaching the attribute of mercy through washing. If you look at the word rachamim, which has the same numerical value as rachatz, you also find oil and hot water there. In rachamim, the last three letters are mayim, water. That is one side of it. Reish and ches have the same numerical value as Yitzchak. In other words, there is both gevurah and chessed here—kindness and severity. Rachamim is tiferes, and tiferes contains both chessed and gevurah. Reish and ches have the numerical value of Yitzchak, the attribute of gevurah, while water represents chessed. Tiferes is the blending of chessed and gevurah. But the gevurah is present only through the numerical value of reish and ches; the chessed is more openly expressed, as water. For tiferes contains both chessed and gevurah, but the main thing is chessed. Oil and hot water also represent these two things: chessed and gevurah. Rabbi Chanina—what is there in Rabbi Chanina’s name? He was the one who made this statement. Chanina is related to “chaneinu,” “be gracious to us,” which we say on Yom Kippur. There is a prayer recited on Yom Kippur: “[unclear].” Do you know that wording? It includes “chaneinu” in the Yom Kippur prayers. The root of Chanina is ches, nun, nun, the same root as chaneinu. “The children whom G-d has graciously given your servant.” That is why he speaks about his childhood, about when he was a child. Chanan can also be read as initials for “removes a shoe, puts on a shoe.” Both removing and putting on a shoe are found in the word chaneinu.

33:35 At eighty, that was his age when he stood on one foot. And the word shemonim, “eighty,” contains shemen, “oil”—the oil he received in his childhood. And in the word chamin, “hot water,” there is a mem. Shemen also has the numerical value of shemonim, as we said earlier. And the chani of chaneinu is found in chamin. So Rabbi Chanina’s name is also included here in the oil and hot water. In any case—sorry—there are several more allusions here. The point is that Yom Kippur is the day when we take off our shoes, right? That is why he tells us he could take off his shoes and put them on. It relates to Yom Kippur, the day when shoes are removed, and that also explains how he describes it. The Gemara says that Rav Chanina took off his shoes and put them on. The question is: isn’t the order the other way around? First you put on shoes, and then you take them off. You cannot take them off before you have put them on. So it should have said that he first put on his shoes and then took them off. Why does it say the reverse? He explains that because this is about Yom Kippur, you first take off your shoes on the eve of Yom Kippur, and after Yom Kippur you put them on again. That is why it says he took off his shoe and put it on. But wait—Rabbi Levi does not stop there. He also gives a straightforward explanation for why it says he took off his shoe and put it on, removal first and putting it on afterward. Rabbi Levi says: At what point could he take off his shoes? When he turned eighty. When did he turn eighty? At night, right? A birthday begins at night. So at night he took off his shoes. In the morning he had still been seventy-nine. When he took off his shoes, it was nighttime. So first he took them off, and the next morning he put them on. That is why it first says he took off his shoe and then put it on.

35:55 In short, the final point Reb Levik makes here is this: we said there are lessons about education here. Reb Levik says that the basis of the story Rav Chanina tells is what is written in the introduction to Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah in Tanya—the verse in Mishlei, “Educate a child according to his way; even when he grows old, he will not depart from it.” “Educate a child according to his way” refers to his mother washing him with oil and hot water. What, Reb Levik asks, are oil and hot water? Oil is love; oil is light, chessed. Hot water is gevurah. A good education includes both chessed and gevurah. His mother gave him oil, chessed. She raised him with light. On the other hand, she also gave him hot water when he needed to be washed and the dirt removed—like the mother who wipes away her child’s filth. So she gave him hot water too, when both chessed and gevurah were needed. But the main thing was the oil, not the hot water. How do we know that the oil, the chessed, was the main thing? Because he says, “the oil and hot water with which my mother anointed me.” “Anointed me” refers to oil. It does not say, “She washed me”; it says she anointed me. In other words, the main emphasis in his mother’s education was on chessed and light. And that is what is written in Tanya, in Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah: the main way to educate a child is through love. That is the introduction to Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, right? The love of Hashem he was taught is what gives him strength throughout his life. What does the Alter Rebbe say there in the introduction? “Though a righteous person falls seven times, he rises.” Afterward, in life, you have ups and downs. “Though a righteous person falls seven times, he rises”; “though he falls, he will not be cast down.”

38:03 “Though a righteous person falls seven times, he rises” refers to the seventy years in which he struggled, with ups and downs. After those seventy years—“though a righteous person falls seven times, he rises”—he stands on his feet. So that is the meaning of the Gemara: at eighty, after going through “though a righteous person falls seven times, he rises,” seventy years of struggles with the yetzer, he stands on his feet, and then he can take off and put on his shoes. In other words, at eighty he had the strength to stand on his own feet, to hold his ground. All of this was thanks to the education his mother gave him when he was small. “Educate a child according to his way”: the love and awe he was taught in childhood remained with him. Who said this? Rabbi Chanina. Why specifically Rabbi Chanina? Because Chanina is related to chinuch, education. How do we know? There is an explicit verse in the Chumash. What does it say there? When Yosef saw Binyamin, what did he say? “May G-d be gracious to you, my son”—yechuneka. That is related to chinuch, right? Yechuneka. What does Rashi say yechuneka means? It comes from chen, grace: he blessed him that he should find favor. Yaakov Avinu had said, “The children whom G-d has graciously given your servant”—chen, grace. That was before Binyamin was born. Binyamin lacked that blessing of finding favor, so Yosef gave it to him: yechuneka. So we see that chinuch is rooted in the word chen, and Chanina is related to chen. That is why Rabbi Chanina gave the example of what a good education should be: you have to give both oil and hot water. Precisely through that, at eighty a person can stand on his own feet. “Educate a child according to his way; even when he grows old, he will not depart from it.”