Forgetting

"Ki ikar ha-shichcha hu bemakom she-rocho yoser mi-ruchniyus." Because the whole concept of forgetting takes effect more so when something is further away from ruchniyus, from spirituality.

"U'kamay shokot ov Rabbeinu Saul," as Rabbeinu Saul writes in chapter one hundred and ten in Likutei Moharan, "al pasuk 'Lo yomush Sefer HaTorah zeh mi-picha.'" Do not allow the Torah that you're learning to be yomush, to become mamoshut, to become physical, to become materialistic.

"Shebe-makom sheyes mamoshut ve-gashmiut be-yoser-" "שם שכחה בי יסר." The, the more that there's physicality and gashmius, the more sh- the more prevalent is the שכחה, the forgetting.

The pasuk "לא ימוש ספר התורה מפיך" means you shouldn't forget the Torah.

But again, it uses the word ימוש because the more mamoshis, the more involved you'll be in physicality, in materialism, the greater the potential for שכחה.

"ובפרט בבחינת עבדות" especially if we're talking about somebody who's really a worker, the one who has to work the field, [clears throat] "שהוא בחינת שינה." We learned in the previous year based on Torah Nun Daled that eved is synonymous with sleep.

The avodah got nine meas- nine out of ten measures of sleep.

בחינת שכחה, which is associated with forgetting.

But on the other hand, we are taught in Pirkei Avot, "If anyone forgets even a single word of his learning, the Torah considers it as if he had forfeited his life." So clearly, there's forgetting that is just natural and fine, and then there's forgetting that's actually really dangerous.

Rabbi Norman Lamm in Derashot LeDorot cites the Gerrer Rebbe in a type of forgetting that is dictated with respect to Amalek.

In Rabbi Lamm's words, "Forgetfulness," he says, "often depends on man, for we are not speaking here of the simple recollection of facts, but the kind of forgetfulness that implies emptying out of the mind, the catharsis of the heart of its most basic spiritual principles, of the very props of its identity, and this kind of forgetfulness has its roots in arrogance." End quote.

So what he's saying here is that when we focus on ourselves, we don't have a lot of room for other things, and we forget them.

The Gematria of Amalek is 240, which is the same as the word Ram, as in Ram Levevecha, your heart will be haughty.