Welcome to daily bittachon . We're in חובות הלבבות שער הבחינה, Chapter 3. And he now tells us that the signs of wisdom in creation show up in three types of areas. Area number one is signs that are quite apparent to everybody, and even the fool pick up on them, surely the wiser people. And his example is the sun. The power of the sun to light up the lands, to heat up the lands. And he quotes pesukim to that effect. The sun comes up, the sun goes out, people go to work, and this is wonders of wonders. And Rabbeinu Bechaye points out something very interesting. He says, we only think about the sun if we have a vegetable patch. That was his mashal . Or I'll add, we think about the sun if we have a wedding, especially an outdoor wedding. I don't want it to rain, I want a nice sunny day. Or I'm going on vacation, I want there to be sun. Hold on, that's all you care about is your vegetable patch and your wedding? Do you not realize that without the sun, everything in the world would cease to exist? We would freeze to death. There'd be no plants growing without the photosynthesis. Sun is extremely important, yet we don't think about it at all. Point number one. Rabbeinu Bechaye made another point, where he asks his students: Why don't we make a berachah on the sun? If the sun is so important, we should be making a berachah every single day. We should say just like borei pri ha'etz , borei et hashemesh . We should thank Hashem for the sun. Voice said, "Hey, that's a great question." And his answer was, "We do! יוצר אור ובורא חושך." Every day we talk about the light and the darkness. Yotzeir hame'orot . God created the luminaries. It's in our daily prayers. How many people think about that? Just like I'm taking an apple and take a bite out of the apple, I make a berachah first. Take a bite out of the sun every morning. I'm appreciating the sun, I'm taking a berachah for it. But again, not only don't we appreciate the sun, Rabbeinu was adding, we don't even appreciate the blessing on the sun that we make to remind us of the sun. So we have a lot of hard work to do in appreciation of the wonders that Hashem made. And we'll be talking some time about the sun. Now again, for those people that are not science buffs and are not interested in these things, there are a lot of great shiurim to listen to, but if you're interested in, then we'll talk about it. So first of all, what is the sun made out of? What is the sun exactly? It's very large, it's the source of all energy and life on earth. It's 109 times the size of the earth. And what's it made of exactly? It's made of 73% hydrogen, 25% helium, with some other small quantities of oxygen, carbon, neon and iron. And this, these gases are constantly burning. Now I was bothered by a question when I was preparing this class because you're supposed to be curious. How does this mass of gas just stay together? Why doesn't it just dissipate? If you have gas, what's holding it together? Good question. And to come to the end of the story, the sun is really a self-sustaining furnace where gravity holds the fuel in place and the energy from burning that fuel creates the pressure needed to counteract gravity. What's that mean? That means gravity holds it together, that's why it doesn't spread out, but then the energy that's burning causes it to go against gravity and that's why it shines. If the gravity would hold it in, it would never shine. So it's this interesting effect of the gravity holding it in and the heat created allowing the sun's energy to shine out. Let's say it in a little bit more scientific terms: the gravity pulls it inward, and the nuclear fusion in the core creates the outward pressure, and this stable balance is called hydrostatic equilibrium that prevents the gas from dissipating and allowing the fusion to occur in the hot dense plasma. And this self-regulation has been going on for thousands of years. Now what is gravity pray tell? This inward pull? What is that? What does that mean? Gravity? And the answer is, gravity is another way of saying Hashem . That's what gravity is. The sun is another way of saying Hashem . Ham'ir la'aretz . God is the one that shines the sun. And this is an unbelievable thought that the Maharsha ... The Maharsha says. We're all familiar with the story of the great רבי מאיר בעל הנס. Where he made a miracle. What was the miracle? The miracle was he was going to redeem his the daughter of רבי חנינא בן תרדיון who was taken captive. And he paid somebody off and gave him the ability to withstand whatever pressure he had and he said if you get stuck say the following words: Elaka D'Meir Aneini . The God of Meir answer me. Now this is very strange. Rabbis don't go bragging and saying the God of Meir, me. And we say Elaka D'Meir Aneini , at least many people say that without saying Elaka Di'Rebbi Meir . Are you calling him by his first name just because he said Elaka D'Meir Aneini ? And the Maharsha says Meir does not mean Rebbi Meir . Meir means God who is Meir , God that causes the sun to shine. That's what it means: Elaka D'Meir Aneini . God is the one that makes the sun shine. So you see the sun shining on you, God's shining on you because there is no explanation why these gases stay together and don't just dissipate into the atmosphere. It's a wonder of wonders. There's no ball in the middle, you think oh the sun's like this hard ball in the middle and it's a hot hard ball, no it's not. It's all gas. There's no if you'd have a plane that would be heat resistant it would fly right through the sun, there's nothing there. I don't know how many people think about that. The sun has nothing there, it's not like the earth that has a hard mass. There's nothing there. It's just gas staying together with gravity and having this self-regulation and burning for thousands of years. Wonders of wonders.