Lekutey Halakhos Shiur with Rabbi Nasan Maimon - October 9, 2026

By telling over ancient stories, a person can awaken and inspire people who are spiritually asleep.

There are many people who sleep away their lives.

And there are even people who are learning Torah and davening, and yet their Torah and tefillah is considered like sleep.

It's without chias.

Ayin Shom, take a look in the Kutumran where Abbe Nisrael expounds on this.

We need to wake them up from their sleep.

There are some people that have fallen into this spiritual sleep as a result of sins that they committed, bad things that they've done.

There's another category, religious people.

However, they fell into a state of sleep, spiritual sleep, as a result of eating or drinking something improperly.

The story of Noyach, who drank wine, and then fell into a stupor, and then his son came in and desecrated him.

The story of the Eitz Hadass, that Odom and Chava ate from the Eitz Hadass, and Hashem decreed death.

Death is a very powerful form of sleep.

Because when a person eats food that's not yet ready for human consumption, The person can lose their face.

Their face means their light, their wisdom, their sechel.

And to fall into a state of spiritual sleep.

Because the real definition of sleep, according to the Torah, means where the person's mind shuts down.

The majority of the person's intellect shuts down.

That's what's being referred to as the face.

The knowledge and wisdom of a person is what lights up the face of the person.

and being awakened from sleep, could be accomplished especially by telling stories.

What really is needed to wake these people up is Torah.

Rabbeinu Zal says in one of the earlier chapters in the Kut Emran that the way to bring people close to Hashem is through Torah.

However, when a person falls into this kind of sleep, if you try to give him Torah directly, it won't work.

And Rabbeinu Zal explains that you have to be able to hide the Torah, to cloak the Torah in a story or stories.

so that the tzaddik is hiding the light of Torah in stories.