Q:
What’s so special about the aleph beis that Ashrei was written in order according to the aleph beis?
A:
You know, when you’re walking in the street or sitting on the bus or sometimes you’re home and you have visitors, they’re relatives and you can’t kick them out, but they’re wasting your time. So what are you going to do?
You’re sitting and thinking in the dvar Hashem. That’s what you have to do. You want to think into something but it’s hard to remember. You can’t haul out a siddur and look in the siddur and snub your guests. But they’re talking a mile a minute about cousin Jenny and what she said to Aunt Mimi and the precious hours are going by. You live only one time, this life – what are you going to do?
So you remember something, a good opportunity. You know ashrei by memory and you want a certain possuk to think about. And since you know the Aleph Beis – we presume you do — so you go through it until you come to the possuk where you left off the last time when cousin Jenny was here; you were thinking the possuk before, a certain letter of the aleph beis, so now you go to the next possuk.
The aleph beis is the mnemonic device. It helps you remember. In the days when people didn’t have siddurim, they remembered. They remembered ashrei because of the aleph beis.
Now, that’s a very big thing. When people want to study ashrei – and you should by the way; it’s a very big undertaking but you should study ashrei, a half a passuk a day until you go through it. And then you’ll say ashrei with a different kind of kavanah. But it’s the aleph beis that helps you carry that out. And that’s a great accomplishment.
But there’s something more mysterious than that. There’s a segulah in the aleph beis. The letters of the aleph beis, these are the letters of the Torah. The gemara says that. The letters of the aleph beis are the letters of the Torah and when we activate the aleph beis, we’re activating the letters whereby the Torah is written.
Now this I’m not able to explain to you. That’s already in the realm of mysticism but it’s a truth that we find repeated over and over again many times. And therefore when you say according to the letters of the aleph beis, there’s a special segulah. You’re maf’il, you put into action, certain forces of olamos haelyonim, the upper worlds. I’m not able to tell you anymore, but that’s one of the segulas of saying the things with aleph beis.
TAPE # 215
