by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (the Piaseszner Rebbe) I interpolated a personal address to you in the preceding chapter. And now, even if you remember them, nevertheless, it is advisable that you review the earlier chapters, Chapters One through Four. Then skip Chapter Six and continue reading from here onward. To sum up Chapters One to Four, your soul’s feelings and movements never cease—whether the fervor that your soul experiences in learning Torah, performing a mitzvah and being engaged in something holy, or its movements caused by its pain when you cut into it and strike it with your degraded thoughts, speech and actions. Those movements of your soul are within you constantly. But either you are completely unaware of them or you do feel something, but you don’t know what it is—whether it is an impulse to go to the synagogue or the study hall, or an impulse to overeat and engage in other vanities of the world, And so you are drawn after these and engage in them. And so I advised that you create an arena for intense focus and imagery for your feelings, where the sparks of your soul will be visible and be garbed, as a result of which they will maintain their existence. But do not begin by grasping at your small feelings, which you do not feel at all or only somewhat. Instead, begin with those that are large, and then the small ones as well will proceed from your soul to your mind and to your heart. They will coalesce and you will see them within you. ** However much we explain and enumerate the necessity for empowered mindfulness and imagery of holiness in regard to spiritual feeling and sensitivity in general and in regard to divine worship in general, we will not fulfill our obligation. We can merely say, in brief, that without this worship of God is not possible—particular in the Hasidic manner. It is difficult for a person to rule over himself without such a powerful mental focus and holy feeling. A person cannot inspire himself with holy actions and to raise himself in a Hasidic manner if he lacks mental strength and imagery (or, as said above, mental strength, which is imagery). ** I have previously cited the words of our tzaddikim who speak about powerful mindfulness and matters of devotion, that we can succeed in our devotion only when we have mental strength and holy imagery. And now, having reached this point, I can add another point raised by Meor Veshemesh (Pinchas): “How can a person bring forth the sparks of his soul? By always giving himself over, body and soul, to God’s holiness—in performing a mitzvah or in learning Torah and praying, and in particular in the unification of Sh’ma Yisrael. “And to clarify what this means: when a person is alive, he must eat and drink, but in truth he must direct all of his actions only for the sake of God, so that he may gaze on the pleasantness of Hashem, and his soul must thirst to taste that sweetness, that intimacy, that delight of divinity. And his entire life he must yearn: ‘When will I come to see the light of the countenance of the living King?’ And when a person is focused on that goal, when he is praying and removes his thought from this world, his soul tastes some sweetness, some delight form the supernal light, at that time. His soul yearns powerfully, with all its strength to cling to the supernal lights. And when he has such a driving desire, he cares nothing for his life, and if it were possible for him to leave his body behind and cling to the supernal light, he would be glad to do so. And his heart aches because his soul is connected to his body, which keeps him from rising and clinging to the supernal light. At tat time, his body too is purified because it yearns so greatly with a yearning that burns like a flaming fire to be like those supernal beings. His body too rises upward, and this does help him, even though when his prayers come to an end that yearning grows weaker—nevertheless, his body no longer tends toward any physicality. Instead, this person engages in devotion in all his actions—eating, and so forth. And if he constantly keeps an awareness of this desire, and every day strengthens himself to yearn to cling to God, then his body itself becomes spirit.” ** You might say that such a level of devotion is beyond many of us. It is only for the tzaddikim of previous generations. But I said at the outset that we merely want to follow in their holy footsteps and roll in the dust of their feet, although we have not seen them nor their great holiness. But keep this principle in devotion: when you read about or hear about some type of devotional service, and you tell yourself that this is beyond your capabilities, if you decline to engage in devotion because it is beyond you, you must be aware that this is your evil inclination that is trying to cast you away, heaven forbid. But if you say: This is beyond me. Therefore, I must seek some part of this devotional path so that I might have some connection to it and engage in it on my own level with all of my strength, no matter how diminutive, and may Hashem help me rise beyond my present state. That is from the good inclination and the path of serving God. If anyone were to say that shofar blowing is beyond my spiritual capabilities, for it contains great mysteries that are much higher than my level and understanding, and so I won’t hear shofar blowing (heaven forbid)—yes, it is very great. Every mitzvah is very great. Nevertheless, everyone must do whatever he is capable of doing in thought, speech and deed. And the same applies to all manner of devotion. And in Imrei Elimelech, the author writes in the name of his father the tzaddik of Maglenitza, who cited this in the name of his rebbe, the holy rebbe of Mezhibozh, that “whoever desires to serve God—at the very beginning of his journey, even though he is on a low level, he should have the thought that his devotion is necessary to raise God’s Presence from the dust. And he should not say, “who am I to come to such a high level?” In truth, it is every individual’s obligation to raise God’s Presence.” We are not free of any type of devotion, but we must do what we can on our level, no matter how small. ** And regarding the quotation from Meor Veshemesh, everyone knows that Hashem, the source of purity and holiness, transcending all names and titles, didn’t make him so that he could eat, drink and engage in physical activities, like a dog or a mouse—rather, that he should sanctify himself and grow closer to God—that is the purpose of his creation. And when he considers the brief length of his days and that they will soon pass and the days of eternity will come, and he will remain in that world and that state that he had chosen in this world, whether like a lowly dog or mouse or on the highest of levels, in the vicinity of the Elevated and Holy One, amongst holy and pure souls and angels and seraphim. When even a lowly person considers this, his entire body will tremble and his heart will burst. But what counts is whether this person’s thought and imagery are powerful or not. If they are powerful, then his power thought and visualization that focus on and visualize this powerfully and with breadth influence his entire body to yearn at this moment at any rate to separate himself from the physical and to approach the divine and gaze upon the delight of Hashem, and his soul will thirst to taste sweetness, intimacy, the delight of the divine. And even if his yearning is not as great as that described in Meor Veshemesh, he at any rate is yearning, and his yearning affects him, and when he comes to pray his yearning grows, and little by little his body is refined and rises, to the degree that his thought and yearning are powerful. But if his thought is weak, then even if he at first trembles, nevertheless even as he contemplates and trembles, the two are extinguished and are lost without any action or elevation. ** When a person empowers his thought and visualization abilities for holiness and devotion, then in general all of his devotion from the very top plane to the lowest plane is completely transformed. For one thing, his ability is expanded and greater than that of another, for he can control himself more completely. He is able to sense the feelings of his soul. He is more capable of gaining a state of fervor to unveil his soul. Even the simply devotion that everyone engages in—every word of prayer that he pronounces is different than that of someone else. For instance, don’t be like a person whose devotion is something abstract, something outside of himself and greater than he. Your devotion should exist right where you are. You are a tangible human being. And so your devotion must also be tangible within you around you and before you. If a person only engages in mental activity, using his mind to know God and to understand only the intellect Torah or kabbalah or Hasidism, than all of the service of his mind and heart are only in the realm of understanding. And when he says “Every knee bows to You,” or “Praise Hashem form the heavens, praise Him in the heights, praise Him all His angels ... all His host ... sun and moon .. All bright stars,” this only gives him understanding and knowledge. There are only words before him and he only understand what the words mean, since he has only used intellect and knowledge from his mind—meaning that his prayer and service remain merely on the level of knowledge and understanding, and so are beyond him, for he is in this tangible world of being, and his prayer is in the world of intellect and understanding, by itself. ** However, that is not the case when you bring forth and strengthen your mind, visualization and feeling, so much that you can see them. Now your service is absorbed deeply into you, to become tangible, so that you can even see it. And when you say, “Every knee bows to You,” even if you only feel a slight emotion at this point, nevertheless, you will have a visual awareness of yourself together with the entire world bowing before God, and become totally subservient to Him. Similarly, when you recite “Praise Hashem from the heavens” with feeling, then you are standing and commanding the entire world, upper and lower beings who are literally before you: “Stand and praise and sing to Hashem together with us.” This is not to say that you will see an image of angels before you, nor that you will see an image of the sun and moon if they are not there in front you in actuality, but your words, thoughts and feelings coalesce and become something tangible and you feel their tangibility so strongly until you see them. “To you, every knee bows”—how sweet is this phrase—you and all existence in the heavens and below on earth bow at this moment together to God. ** And do not say, “If that is the case, this is merely the fruit of my imagination, that only in my imagination does it appear that all of us together, upper and lower beings, are bowing and prostrating ourselves, are singing and making melody together before Him, may He be blessed. But be silent and hear the words of the living God stated in the holy books, that a Jew, if he serves Hashem with the inspiration of love or another other trait, even if it only appears to him that he is inspired with genuine love, although it is not genuine, that is also good. Because the inner being of his holy spirit is truly aroused to Hashem, and only the bodily [spirit] hides it, and because the bodily [spirit] too is aroused, the concealment before it has already ceased, and [the arousal] is genuine from the aspect of the holy spirit within him. See Tanya part one chapter 44, and the introduction to Part Two of Shaarei Hayichud Veha’emunah, who brings in the name of the holy rabbi (may the memory of a holy tzaddik be for a blessing) on the verse, “my dove, my perfect one” (Song of Songs]), that the word for “dove,” yonah, is related to ona’ah, “imposition,” so that “every unification in serving Him, etc., even if imposed, is nevertheless perfect.” And so too in the above, it is not solely the fruit of your imagination, only that since indeed you see in your feeling and in your imagination that has been sanctified and strengthened, then it is truly, genuinely so, angels of God in the heights—all of them beloved, all of them clear, all of them holy, ophanim and holy chayot with great commotion, the sun and the moon, the earth and its fullness, and you in their midst say together and with one voice songs and praises to Hashem. ** Also, the contemplation of giving one’s life to God during the recital of Sh’ma should not be merely a thought, but a tangible image and vision. The pyre burns before your eyes and you leap into it to sanctify God’s name. As we cited the holy words of Noam Elimelech’s Tzetl Hakatan earlier: “image and visualize...”—not only with a thought but with image and vision and that kind of willingness to give one’s all for God is considered to be actual, a tangible thought that fills your entire body with feeling, so that at times your body actually jumps as you mentally leap into the pyre. ** When Hashem helps and you feel and you see, then you will realize that this is not a great level nor an elevation that is difficult to reach. ** Be silent and take heed, and do not err. We have already cautioned you above that our intent is not that when you feel some feeling within yourself that you will then begin to soar in your mind and seek some image or another that fits this feeling of yours, heaven forbid. For as a result of this your feeling would change, and also because he images that come as a result of a search, are merely actions of the mind, but we want in this that Hashem will help us to the sight of the spirit that is higher than the mind. Only a sort of metaphor that the mind generates to compare one matter to another matter, a metaphor to the meaning of the metaphor, is what you imagine and generate in your mind. But we want to merit to reveal a spark of the sight of the students of the prophets within ourselves. And to this end, we must reveal and bring forth within ourselves a strong thought and image of holiness. We have quoted for you above holy texts how one must visualize holy sights as though they are before his eyes. A strong thought, not madichim illusions, and not empty illusions (fantasies) that have nothing to them, and that are far from the spirit of holiness will entice you, rather, visualizations of the spirit and sights of holiness will you arouse within yourself. And then when you are moved and your spirit hidden within you will be a little revealed, and extend a hand and foot into your mind and heard your heart, you will find the thought and holy visualization of the students of the prophets and you will see the sights of your emotions, even of your fervor. ** For every person, in accordance with the power of his thought and his imagination, his feelings of themselves appear to him, whether at a time that he is frightened or at a time that he is joyful, when he is afraid, terrible thoughts and images appear to him, and when he is joyful, his thoughts and visions are merry. In every individual, in accordance with the measure of the strength of his thought, if it is great, then his thoughts are more clear and longer, and his visualizations are more numerous and more developed, and if his thought is weak, they too are weak and brief. And we already demonstrated above the relationship of thought to the actions of a person and how it [the thought] is revealed and developed by them [the actions], to the degree that old people, even when they cease engaging in their business activities and their crafts that they had been accustomed to, even then, every new feeling that occurs within themselves in the thoughts and visualizations of their actions that they had been accustomed to, do they see. That means that as a result of their previous actions, a commercial thought or craft-related, one or the other develops in them, until of themselves this thought and vision within them arises without any search after them. and how much more that you, who have a holy spirit within yourself, with a spark of the students of the prophets, that when you strengthen yourself, expand and spread out your holy thought, that all of the feelings of your holy spirit will appear and stand in thoughts and holy visions within you, and will, furthermore, increase to arouse you and to sanctify your body as well. And not only holy feelings, but there is also of the feelings of the mundane, your holy thought will awaken and show you visions of holiness, if you add and increase to strengthen it more, for the cohenet will not be like an innkeeper woman if the merchants and craftsmen in all feelings, even if they are not commercial and crafts-related absolutely, see the simple commercial and crafts-related visions of their spirit, how much more you in visions of holiness from every feeling that is sights of holiness will you see.
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by Avraham Stern Translated by Shoshana Shulman After the Baal Shem Tov was revealed, he spent his time in the villages which fell under the governance of Tchortkov. At that time, the rabbi of Tchortkov was the gaon (Torah genius), Rabbi Hirshele. (He was the father of the two holy gaonim, Rabbi Shmelke of Nikolsburg and Rabbi Pinchas of Frankfurt-am-Main.) The Torah leaders of that time wrote to Rabbi Hirshele that he should prevent the Baal Shem Tov from performing wonders and giving amulets. Rabbi Hirshele ignored this. One time there came before him a halachic question regarding a woman who wished to go that night to the mikveh, and he gave her permission to do so. Rabbi Hirshele was one of the marei dechushbana: one of those who every night before going to sleep take an account of what they have accomplished that day. It seemed to him that according to Jewish law he had been mistaken in his ruling and wrongly answered the woman’s question. He ran and knocked at the woman’s house. Through the window, he let her know that her immersion in the mikveh had been ineffective, for he had made a mistake. But the woman’s husband told him that he was too late, for they had already been together. Rabbi Hirshele went home with great bitterness, and he began to consider: What sin had he committed before, which—with the power of “one sin brings forth another sin”—had brought him to this mistaken judgment? He finally decided that this had occurred because he had not obeyed the leaders of the generation who had instructed him to harass the Baal Shem Tov. He woke his assistant and soon that same night traveled to the village in his governance where the Baal Shem Tov could be found. When he entered the Baal Shem Tov’s room, he found a large gathering of people. He saw a woman crying before the Baal Shem Tov that it was already several years since her husband had abandoned her, and she had been left an agunah. The Baal Shem Tov got up, went to out to the street and to an unclean place [to relieve himself], and then returned to the house. Without washing his hands, he again looked at the agunah’s kvittel, her note, and told her the name of the place where her husband could be found. He told her to travel to him and blessed her that she should easily come to an agreement with him: either to get back together with him or else to receive a divorce. No one there knew Rabbi Hirshele. He stood frightened and astounded at the door, and thought to himself that the Torah leaders who wished to harass the Baal Shem Tov were entirely correct. One really saw that these miracles were not from the clean side. But immediately the Baal Shem Tov called for water. He washed his hands and said the blessing, asher yatzar [recited after one goes to the bathroom]. He then went over to Rabbi Hirshele and said, “Shalom Aleichem, Rabbi Hirshele Tchortkover! Your suffering and concern regarding the question from yesterday is unnecessary, because you answered correctly.” And the Baal Shem Tov quoted by heart a Tosafos in Gemara Nidah, which permits a woman in such a case to go to the mikveh. “And you should also not wonder,” the Baal Shem Tov continued, “that in the middle of [reading] the kvittel, I interrupted with uncleanliness, and looked at it a second time without having washed my hands. You should know that I looked for her husband in the next world and didn’t find him—neither in Gan Eden nor in Gehinnom. After that, I looked for him where Jews are found, in all the holy places in this world, and didn’t find him there either. I had to bring myself down to the unclean places of this world. There I found him. It is a great danger, but what will one not do to save a Jewish soul, and also so that a Jewish daughter should not remain an agunah?” Rabbi Hirshele traveled home a happy man, and he cautioned others not to bother the Baal Shem Tov. by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (the Piaseszner Rebbe) This particular topic of thoughts needs greater explanation and broader guidance—for, as we learn in the holy Zohar and other holy works, the entirety of who you are depends on your thoughts, but the more confused a person’s thoughts are, then the more control his evil inclination has over him. It is my prayer that God will help me and illumine my eyes to explain this more fully elsewhere. Nevertheless, since I am talking about this now, I will at least make reference to this matter, so that you will be aware of how much you have to protect yourself against its dangers at every moment. ** Working on your thoughts is a very difficult task. It is difficult to straighten out twisted thoughts—and difficult even to recognize them. Many thoughts rush through a person’s mind and he cannot tell whether they are sanctified to God so that he should work to always have them in mind, or whether they are the “progeny of Satan” and he should get rid of them. ** For instance, perhaps you are not engaged in degraded thoughts—but you are thinking about the evil and depravity of someone else. “Oh, how disgusting that person is, and this thing that he did and the other are so disgusting, he says ugly words like this and that.” And so there pass through your mind all of these degraded actions and words—not only those that you saw and heard and saw in that low person, but in addition what you imagine he has been up to. And you sigh over how far that person has fallen and in your thoughts you imagine yourself giving him a good talking to. Clearly, after you’ve thought about this and how you’ll rebuke this person, after you have sighed such heartfelt sighs, you see yourself as an elevated personality who cannot bear even bear the evil of the flaws of another person, and so you sigh and rebuke him at least in your thoughts—and if you only could, you would rebuke him in real life and tear out his hair! ** Were I to meet you as these thoughts were going through your mind, I would whisper into your ear, “all of these thoughts that you are having about someone else are your thoughts. You are the so-and-so about whom you are thinking, you are the one who wants to do all those things, to speak or at least think such negative thoughts, and since you refrain from them, your desires and thoughts are fooling you and disguise themselves as someone else so that you can justify thinking about them. Look inside yourself and you will see that you will find it difficult to let go of those thoughts.” ** The wiles of the Satan in thoughts such as these are legion, subtle and ever-more subtle, it is difficult to straighten them out and difficult even to be aware of them. And if a person doesn’t recognize them, he will be entirely filled with negative thoughts, at first disguised as thoughts about someone else, and later on just as they are. His desires will flare up, and he will not know their source, because at the beginning he had thought that he is guarding himself from them. But if he recognizes them he should grasp them by the back of the neck and in a bitter voice from the depth of his heart he should cry out, “You murderers who seek my blood, why do you deceive me to pollute me and to cast me down into the pit, heaven forbid? One, two, three...”—rebuke them and then, with God’s help, they will not dare deceive you and to pollute you while in disguise. ** In general, in all of your thoughts, if you are not aware of them in general and in detail, then it is almost impossible for you to have any control over them, and it will be very difficult for you to straighten them out. It is important to discuss this at length, with God’s help. But here, I want to speak only about the first steps and about the realm of holy thought. ** I considered that within the framework of this short work, it should suffice to instruct you on how to look within yourself and how to tell whether you have indeed reached a state of divine fervor or at least godly feeling, or whether not even one feather of the wings of your soul has made the slightest move. I have told you how difficult it is to see yourself, and I alerted you to the danger of allowing your self-interest to color your reflections on yourself. But I still am not certain that you will hear what I am saying due to your possible laziness and lack of effort. I am not so sure that what I have to say will help you. I find it difficult to suspect you of this, since I have already in Chovat Hatalmidim spoken about how important it is to be motivated and enthusiastic and how negative the trait of laziness is, and even simple sloppiness. So how can I now suspect you of such slovenliness, and particularly since in this work I am addressing a young person who has reached maturity? But what can I do? The facts speak for themselves that nowadays people seek superficiality and not effort, to accomplish things easily and not through hard work. And this doesn’t only refer to merchants who are pursuing an income, but also to young unmarried and married men who are being supported by their parents and who do not want to make an effort and really apply themselves in serving God. Some of them only pick easy texts of Torah to learn, and when they reach a passage that needs to be studied carefully, they either skip it or just skim it with bare understanding. Other young people may work hard in their Torah learning, but when it comes to service of God, they make do with superficiality. Some people may wish to listen, learn, and know the deepest and highest teachings, in simple matters or in Hasidism. Astonishingly, some even love to receive the most brutal criticism. But when it comes to girding their loins and striving to control their every thought, speech and action, to remove the evil from themselves and transform it to holiness—that is something that they do not do. Perhaps this is because they were only taught to work hard in their childhood when it comes to learning Torah, whereas they were been habituated from their youth to work hard in serving God, and so they don’t. Or more simply, since the purpose of their learning is to serve God, to subjugate and oblige themselves and every part of themselves to the holiness of God and His service, their evil inclination works hard and does not allow them to exert themselves. ** I have nothing to add to what I have said on this topic. And even if I do add anything, what good will it do, if these people have developed such a pleasure of listening to and being moved by sharp criticism, like those who enjoy drinking strong liquor or sitting in a steaming hot mikvah, and who get pleasure from the drink as it burns their throat or the water as it burns their skin? They may feel rebuked and aroused by my words, but that will still not inspire them to exert themselves. But look at the words of the holy tzaddikim of past generations to see that the main thing is serving God through exertion. In his Igrot Hakodesh, the Baal Hatanya writes that the word for “service” of God is “avodah”—literally, work. Avodah refers only to an activity that a person engages in with great effort against his nature, setting aside his own nature and desire before the supernal desire of God, such as making an effort in learning Torah and praying to the point that his soul is exhausted.” Even the holy tzaddikim only reached their great holiness by engaging in difficult work. And not only in regard to their elevated level, but in order to reach any sort of purity or holiness—as this applies to every individual on his own level—one needs work. ** The holy texts offer many different strategies necessary for serving God. The Baal Shem Tov is cited in the holy Toldot Yaakov Yosef (Chukot) that one wages war only with strategies. And the holy Meor V’shemesh (Balak) states even more broadly that we constantly need new strategies, for all of the strategies that a person employs in his service of God are skylights that he opens in the heights to draw down God’s light and holiness upon himself, whereas the hostile forces grow stronger and close those skylights, and so he must engage in new strategies. This is such a difficult service and battle that one needs various strategies to apply it; and a strategy that has been presented in the past is not enough for the entirety of one’s life, but one needs new approaches. ** If you imagine that you can create such excellent strategies that you will no longer have to work hard and toil, you are making a terrible and dangerous error. The intent of our service and the fact that the Torah was given to us and not to angels is because of our toil with our body and struggle with our will, something that does not pertain to the angels. It is precisely this toil that God requires of us. In general, the entire topic of generating strategies and ideas is only for being able to toil in order to succeed, and also to draw down the holy, elevated worship of past generations to ourselves, with our impoverished abilities and our limited intellects. We cannot learn and understand the four levels of the Torah as did the holy ones of previous generations, and we cannot afflict ourselves and toil in our worship of God as they did. But we must subjugate the abilities that we do possess, our traits and our minds, by toiling in God’s holy service, and by bringing them as a pleasing sacrifice upon the altar of God. ** And if you are such a spiritual person, a servant of God who toils in God’s service, whether in learning Torah or in active service, whether with your mind or with our body, or you intend to start to be such a person from this moment on, then you are one of the elect and the choice of our generation, and you shall be the holy treasury of Israel. And you of course do not deny your flaws—to the contrary, you look for them so that you can recognize and correct them. ** But let me tell you, nevertheless, since now one sees you now and there is no one before whom to be ashamed—even if you search your faults in order to correct them, nevertheless, neither you nor I can yet be sure that my words will change you. Not that you will purposely reject my words behind your back—but, rather, without meaning to—and possibly, due to your nature, you will turn aside from the straight road without even knowing that you have done so. The cause of your crooked vision is alluded to in the Talmud (Ketuvot 17), “The School of Hillel said to the School of Shammai, ‘According to you, if someone has bought an inferior item, should someone else praise it or deprecate it in his presence? I would think he should praise it in his presence.’“ Why? In order to acquiesce to the desire of the buyer, as we see from Rashi’s explanation. And why does the buyer want his purchase to be praised before him, so much so that the School of Hillel says that one should praise it even if it does not merit praise? The answer is that it is a person’s nature not to want to think that he has wasted his money. He doesn’t want to throw away an object whose material is valuable, such as silver, or an object whose value is not in the material but in its artful construction. Thus, if someone starts criticizing it as not being beautiful or valuable, the person will feel very bad. And if it is so hard for a person to hear that an object of his is not valuable, how much more is it difficult for him to be told that his own personal being, value and beauty are lacking? And whether or not anyone else sees him, whether he is being confronted by a person standing in front of him or whether he is reading some text whispering into his heart, it can be difficult for a person, a ben Torah, a Hasid who considers himself a Hasid and who is known to his friends as a Hasid, to realize that this is not in fact the case and he is not really a hasid, and to acknowledge that he has a long way to go, and to see that his thoughts are not as holy as he had though they were, and that his Hasidic fervor, which he had thought rose up within him to the heart of heaven, is not fervor and not flame, and that even his simple religious sensitivity, his will, his awe and love of God that he feels on occasion, need a great deal of improvement, and for now he should pray simply without fervor—just with effort. And so I am afraid that you will hear me—but not really hear me. It is possible that my words will pull at your heart, but you will thrust them aside, and cool down this summons to your heart and the small amount of inspiration that has risen up in you, by minimizing and laughing at it. ** But if you have a heart that can hear, then pay attention and listen. If I did not know of your abilities, that your heart yearns for God, that your soul cries out from the depths, “Bring me close to You, Hashem,” without ceasing, then I wouldn’t have addressed you and I wouldn’t have asked anything of you. We learn in Midrash Rabbah (Nasso, Chapter 7), “We only strengthen the strong and we only encourage those who are already interested.” And really you are one of the strong and one of the interested. But a person can have a fire yet not know what to do with it, so he eats his food raw and cold in his cold room, where he freezes and gropes in the darkness, and he might even cause a conflagration with his fire. But there is someone else who does know how to use his fire. He uses it to cook his food, and to warm and illumine his room. And the same holds for you: it is all within you: the fire and light of holiness, Torah, will, feeling, etc.—it is all within you. But you have to know how to use it—and then you will be well‑off. Your light that illumines your head does not allow me to remain silent. I gaze at the peak of your elevated being to which you are able to rise, and that fills me with fervor and impels me to speak to you. “Stand and arise, for Hashem is with you, might warrior!” by Avraham Stern Story #1 Story 1: THREE LEADERS OF THE GENERATION When the Baal Shem Tov was still hidden, he learned by means of the holy spirit that there were three men who were the leaders of the generation: (1) the author of Tevuos Shor, (2) Rabbi Yitzchak Drabitsher, and (3) Rabbi Ephraim, who was maggid of Brode. To perform the mitzvah of serving Torah scholars, the Baal Shem Tov went to all three of them. The Baal Shem Tov called the author of Tevuos Shor the genius of the generation. Clothed in the garments of a simple person, he served him by lighting his pipe. The Baal Shem Tov called Rabbi Yitzchak Drabitsher the tzaddik of the generation. He served him by bringing him tea. Once, when he returned the empty glasses to the kitchen, Rabbi Yitzchak’s rebbetzin asked him, “Why do you trouble yourself?” He replied, “One of the services of the cohen gadol on Yom Kippur was to remove the containers from the Holy of Holies and return them to their place. And he did this while wearing simple clothing.” The rebbetzin understood that he was not a simple man. (Later, the Baal Shem Tov succeeded in drawing Rabbi Yitzchak to his path of serving God.) The following is a letter that Rabbi Yitzchak wrote to the Baal Shem Tov after the Baal Shem Tov was revealed. Thank God. The first day of Chanukah 5515 (1744), Drabitsh To the great man, the man of God, the wonder of the generation, the admor, who daily finds new insights in the law of the Holy One, blessed be He, Rabbi of all Jews in the exile, etc., etc., the teacher and rabbi, Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, may he live. These are the names of the children of Israel who come to take refuge in the shadow of the Holy of Holies, may he live: Yaakov ben Chayah, Reuven ben Sarah, Chayim Chaikl ben Malkah, Yerucham Fishel ben Menuchah, Avraham ben Kayla. Each has given eighteen gold coins—in all, ninety gold coins [another version adds: and I have given one gold coin—in all, ninety-one gold coins]. These are the words of the smallest amongst his students, Yitzchak ben Rivkah, who lives here in the holy community of Drabitsh, his son Yechiel Mechil, son of Trani. I [the author] copied this letter from a text in the Kiev Criminal Archive, which I found amidst the manuscripts of Rabbi Israel of Rizhin, who was arrested during the time of Nicholas the First. When the present Russian government took over, it allowed Jews to copy them. The Baal Shem Tov called the third head of the generation, Rabbi Ephraim, the maggid of the holy community of Brod, the wise man of the generation. The Baal Shem Tov once said, “The Chacham Tzvi of blessed memory left behind four sons. They all possess the holy spirit. Rabbi Yaakov Emdener, the Ashkenazi, walks about in heaven. But with his holy spirit, Rabbi Ephraim is literally ‘a scholar, who is superior to a prophet’ (Bava Basra 12a).” (In my Sefer Kevutzas Kisvei Aggadah, pp. 60-61, I write about a wondrous occurrence that took place between him and Rabbi Liber of Barditshev). Rabbi Ephraim had thin blood. He was always cold. So in his house, benches were built along the wall, one above the other, as in a bathhouse, and he used to sit on the highest chair to warm himself. One winter, the Baal Shem Tov put on a peasant coat and a straw belt, and went to serve Rabbi Ephraim. Coming into Rabbi Ephraim’s house, he found him shivering in the cold. The Baal Shem Tov told him, “Rebbe, may I warm up the fireplace [grube] to warm you?” Rabbi Ephraim answered, “In the house, there are only unchopped logs.” The Baal Shem Tov said, “I know the work.” Immediately, he got a saw and an axe, chopped the thickest log and warmed up the house. Because of their difficult circumstances, Rabbi Ephraim’s wife sold bagels, fruits and brooms in the marketplace to earn money. This day, she happened to come home from the marketplace. She found her husband talking with the guest and felt the delicious warmth of the house. When she counted the logs, she saw that the biggest one was missing. Considering their poverty, she saw this as extravagant—to burn so much wood at one time? Angrily, she picked up a broom to drive out the guest, for she understood that this was his work. Until that moment, Rabbi Ephraim had pretended to notice nothing, but he continued to speak with the guest as with a simple person, and thanked him for having revived him. But now, when the rebbetzin was about to strike the guest with the broom, Rabbi Ephraim told her: “If you touch him, you will destroy the world. He is a very holy man.” And he took hold of the guest and left the house with him. Then Rabbi Ephraim told the Baal Shem Tov, “I know that you will be a leader of Israel. Every word of yours, even every thought of yours, is taken seriously in heaven. So I beg you not to be angry at my rebbetzin, for she is embittered by our great poverty. But you must know that one can profit even from a bad wife. One time, I rose up to heaven, where I found the heavenly court judging a Jewish soul. Whenever he was shown the wrong that he had done, he answered, ‘I had a bad wife, and she brought me to all of this.’ The heavenly court was about to accept this defense, but then an accusing angel came and asked, ‘Why did this man obey his wife rather than keep the Torah?’ So I replied to the angel, ‘Have you ever withstood the test of a bad wife?’ My answer pleased the heavenly court, and it delivered a decision that this angel should descend to earth and marry a bad wife. And only afterwards, when he returned to the upper world, would they know what to do with that Jewish soul. “I knew where this incarnated angel was born and grew up, until he married a bad wife, who caused him to contract a lung disease. He was a pious person. I kept an eye on him. He obeyed me and divorced his wife, so that she would not have to undergo the chalitzah ceremony. [He knew that he was dying; they did not have any children, and so his widow would have to undergo chalitzah with his brother.] He died two weeks ago. Before he died, I told him that he had been the accusing angel. At that point, he was on a high level, and he remembered everything, as he told me. He told me that he would no longer be an accuser—particularly, against a defense of a bad wife.” And Rabbi Ephraim concluded, cautioning the Baal Shem Tov as future leader, “See to it that you defend Jews as much as you can.” May their merit protect us and all Israel, amen. Story 2 I heard a similar story regarding instruction to a leader from a person whose father was a Dinover Hasid. When the Holy Jew—the Yid Hakadosh—began to travel to the rebbe of Lublin [the Chozeh], a few of the students in Lublin were drawn to him, amongst them Rabbi Shlomo Leib Lentshner. As a result, there was a split, and the other principal students in Lublin [i.e., followers of the Chozeh of Lublin] separated themselves from this group. One time, a Jew in Lublin made a feast to celebrate his son’s circumcision. He invited both Rabbi Shlomo Leib and the rabbi of Dinov (the author of Benei Yissaschar and many other works) to the meal. When the Ropshitzer, one of the great students in Lublin, learned of this, he sent a messenger to the Dinover rabbi telling him to leave the meal so as not to sit together with Rabbi Shlomo Leib. But the Dinover rabbi did not obey. Instead, he remained at the meal, for he did not want to shame Rabbi Shlomo Leib. The Ropshitzer sent a second message, this time telling the Dinover that if he would not obey, the Ropshitzer would take away all of the Dinover’s spiritual attainments. To this, the Dinover replied, “I did not gain my spiritual attainments from any rebbe. I took them directly from the Gemara.” After the meal, the Dinover went to the Ropshitzer to appease him. He said, “At the test of the akeidah—the sacrifice of Isaac—’God tested Avraham and said to him....’ God Himself spoke with Avraham. But when Avraham was prevented from slaughtering Yitzchak, the verse says, ‘an angel called to him…’ After Avraham withstood such a great test and obeyed God’s command to sacrifice his son, he must have risen to a new height. So it would have been more appropriate that the test be administered by an angel, when Avraham was on a lower level, and that after Avraham rose to a higher level, God Himself would come to prevent the sacrifice. But it took place the way it did in order to teach us the following lesson. To save a human life, it is enough that one hears from an angel. But unless one hears a command from God Himself, one may not slaughter a person. The Gemara says, ‘One who shames his fellow in public is considered as though he had spilled his blood’ (Bava Metzia 58b). You can therefore understand, Ropshitzer Rabbi, that even though I consider you an angel, I could not obey your order to leave in the middle of the meal, which would have shamed Rabbi Shlomo Leib.” However, feeling that the Ropshitzer was still upset with him, the Dinover rabbi added, “When God appeared to Moshe Rabbeinu for the first time, He told him, ‘Remove your shoes.’ We learn, ‘Warm yourself in the light of the sages, but beware of their coals, lest you be burnt—for their bite [neshichatan] is the bite of the fox, their sting [akitzatan] is the sting of the scorpion, and their hiss [lekhishatan] is the hiss of the serpent’ (Pirkei Avot 2:15). From this, we learn that wise men can, heaven forbid, punish in three ways: with a bite, a sting, and a hiss. The acronym of these three words is na’al, shoe. God said to Moshe, ‘I am now making you into a leader of Israel. I ask of you, throw away the word na’al, which means biting, stinging, and hissing; and promise never to punish a Jew, heaven forbid.’” And then the Ropshitzer was appeased by the Dinover rabbi. May their merit protect us and all Israel. By Avraham ben R. Yissachar Stern
Author of Eidus Biyisrael and Kevutzas Kisvei Aggadah Which he himself heard from Hasidim and elders True stories About the Baal Shem Tov and his students (translated from the Yiddish) Introduction An Introduction to this book of Hasidic Tales, with an explanation by the story-teller of the reason for this book and its purpose “King Solomon wrote three divinely-inspired works: the Song of Songs, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes. Which one did he write first? R. Yonasan said that first he wrote the Song of Songs [the ‘Holy of Holies’--Yadaim 3:5], then Proverbs, and finally Ecclesiastes. R. Yonasan deduced this from the way of the world. When a person is young, he recites poetry. When he grows older, he cites proverbs. And when he is old, he speaks of emptiness” (Midrash Rabbah, Shir Hashirim 1). From this, you might think that Ecclesiastes contains foolish, empty matters—heaven forbid! The truth is, however, that “the older a Torah sage grows, the more knowledge does he gain” (end of Kinim). And we are told that Solomon “grew wiser than any other man” (Kings I 5:11). And so in his old age, he was certainly wise. So what is this “vanity of vanities” that he speaks about? We learn from the Kabbalah the great secrets that are hidden and concealed in the seven “vanities” that Solomon refers to (cf. Tikunei Zohar 29). Or, according to its simple meaning, the book of Ecclesiastes is addressed at keeping a person away from the three harmful traits of envy, lust and ego. And so after Solomon has described these “vanities” with all their details, he concludes in the final verse, “the end of the matter will be clear to all: fear God and keep His commandments, for that is the entirety of a human being.” When you learn Rashi’s commentary on Ecclesiastes and, even more, when you learn through the lengthy Midrash Rabbah on Ecclesiastes, you feel for the first time the great wisdom of King Solomon’s divine inspiration, for he describes every individual [and] the entire Jewish people, as well as the exile and the complete redemption (may it come swiftly in our days, amen, God willing) and the way of the entire world. He explains why the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper by referring to the secret of reincarnation. “Therefore, I saw the wicked buried and coming” (8:10). After they are buried, they come back again. Three leaders led the Jews for periods of forty years: Moshe Rabbeinu, Dovid Hamelech and Shlomo Hamelech [King Solomon]. The letter “mem” has the numerical value of forty, and it has a connection to the Jewish redemption (cf. Sanhedrin 94). Moshe Rabbeinu, the first redeemer, lay the groundwork for all redemptions. He alludes to them in the Song at the Sea, in quotes from the prophecy of Bilaam and, finally, at the end of the song, “Ha’azinu.” Also, the holy Zohar teaches that the blessings of the sedra V’Zot Habrachah hint that Moshe himself will be the future redeemer. Shlomo Hamelech (King Solomon) alluded to this when he wrote, “That which was will be” (Ecclesiastes): “Mah shehayah, hu sheyihiyeh.” The acronym of these words is “Moshe” (cf. Ohr Hachaim on Exodus). And of course, Dovid (the ever-living King of Israel, chai vakayam) is also connected to the coming of the messiah, as the Gemara learns from the verse, “Dovid, My servant, will be their prince forever” (Sanhedrin 98). In his time, Shlomo Hamelech was an exemplar of the messianic king. Like a merchant who places a sign before his store that shows the merchandise in the store, [he showed what the messiah would be like]. In his time, there was peace amidst the Jews, as well as in the entire world. All the nations paid allegiance to him, solely as a result of his great wisdom. And so will it be with the messianic king. “The spirit of Hashem, the spirit of wisdom, will rest upon him...no nation will lift the sword against any other nation...” Therefore, the poet and Kabbalist, R. Avraham Maimon, wrote, “Please, swiftly set up the kingdom of Dovid and Shlomo” (Mistateir, first poem). And that is also why Dovid Hamelech wrote the seventy-second chapter of Tehillim about the two of them together: Shlomo and the messianic king. Why was this chapter of Tehillim the seventy-second? The answer is that the true redemption comes from the divine name of seventy-two letters. The splitting of the Red Sea was the climax of the exodus from Egypt. As long as the Egyptians were not dead, the Jews were not yet certain that they would succeed. Thus, the splitting of the Red Sea comprised the complete redemption. And from it came the letter-combination of the seventy-two letter name, which is composed from three verses, “And he traveled...and he came...and he stretched out” (cf. Rashi in Succah 45a and R. Avraham ibn Ezra in his commentary on Beshalach; also, now that we have the Zohar—thank God—we can see this explicitly in the section on Beshalach). The number forty is mentioned in a statement that “the days of messiah are forty years” (Sanhedrin 99a). However, we do not know how long the days at that time will be. So other opinions are that they are seventy years, three generations, three hundred and sixty five years, four hundred years, the years from the days of Noach till now, or the years from the days of the creation of the world until now. All of this comes to define those forty years. At the beginning of Shlomo’s forty-year rule, he built the Beit Hamikdash and merited to see the congregation of Israel (which is compared to a bride) united with God (Who is compared to a groom). This was the open manifestation of God’s Presence before the eyes of all the Jews in the Beit Hamikdash. “The cloud filled the house of Hashem, and the cohanim could not...for the glory of Hashem filled the house of Hashem” (Kings I 8:10-11). At that time, Shlomo composed Shir Hashirim (the Song of Songs), which states, “I held on to him and I would not let go. I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine. I am my beloved’s and his desire is towards me.” They reached the highest level of union, when “my soul went out when he spoke,” as occurred with Nadav and Avihu on the days that the Tabernacle was completed, “when they came close before Hashem.” through page 3 p. 3-9 The Book of the Three Ply Cords The Baal Shem Tov said, “Three mitzvos are good even without proper intent: Torah learning, charity, and mikveh. Torah learning—even if you lack the proper intent, you are at any rate learning. Charity—even if you lack the proper intent, you are at any rate keeping a Jew alive. Mikveh—even if you lack the proper intent, you are at any rate pure.” Rabbi Alyeh Naster of Tishvitz once told me a Hasidic tradition that the secret of the mikveh is that “one takes oneself off and one puts oneself back on.” This means that one casts off uncleanness and then clothes oneself in purity and holiness. Story #1 Story 1: THREE LEADERS OF THE GENERATION When the Baal Shem Tov was still hidden, he learned by means of the holy spirit that there were three men who were the leaders of the generation: (1) the author of Tevuos Shor, (2) Rabbi Yitzchak Drabitsher, and (3) Rabbi Ephraim, who was maggid of Brode. To perform the mitzvah of serving Torah scholars, the Baal Shem Tov went to all three of them. The Baal Shem Tov called the author of Tevuos Shor the genius of the generation. Clothed in the garments of a simple person, he served him by lighting his pipe. The Baal Shem Tov called Rabbi Yitzchak Drabitsher the tzaddik of the generation. He served him by bringing him tea. Once, when he returned the empty glasses to the kitchen, Rabbi Yitzchak’s rebbetzin asked him, “Why do you trouble yourself?” He replied, “One of the services of the cohen gadol on Yom Kippur was to remove the containers from the Holy of Holies and return them to their place. And he did this while wearing simple clothing.” The rebbetzin understood that he was not a simple man. (Later, the Baal Shem Tov succeeded in drawing Rabbi Yitzchak to his path of serving God.) The following is a letter that Rabbi Yitzchak wrote to the Baal Shem Tov after the Baal Shem Tov was revealed. Thank God. The first day of Chanukah 5515 (1744), Drabitsh To the great man, the man of God, the wonder of the generation, the admor, who daily finds new insights in the law of the Holy One, blessed be He, Rabbi of all Jews in the exile, etc., etc., the teacher and rabbi, Yisrael Baal Shem Tov, may he live. These are the names of the children of Israel who come to take refuge in the shadow of the Holy of Holies, may he live: Yaakov ben Chayah, Reuven ben Sarah, Chayim Chaikl ben Malkah, Yerucham Fishel ben Menuchah, Avraham ben Kayla. Each has given eighteen gold coins—in all, ninety gold coins [another version adds: and I have given one gold coin—in all, ninety-one gold coins]. These are the words of the smallest amongst his students, Yitzchak ben Rivkah, who lives here in the holy community of Drabitsh, his son Yechiel Mechil, son of Trani. I [the author] copied this letter from a text in the Kiev Criminal Archive, which I found amidst the manuscripts of Rabbi Israel of Rizhin, who was arrested during the time of Nicholas the First. When the present Russian government took over, it allowed Jews to copy them. The Baal Shem Tov called the third head of the generation, Rabbi Ephraim, the maggid of the holy community of Brod, the wise man of the generation. The Baal Shem Tov once said, “The Chacham Tzvi of blessed memory left behind four sons. They all possess the holy spirit. Rabbi Yaakov Emdener, the Ashkenazi, walks about in heaven. But with his holy spirit, Rabbi Ephraim is literally ‘a scholar, who is superior to a prophet’ (Bava Basra 12a).” (In my Sefer Kevutzas Kisvei Aggadah, pp. 60-61, I write about a wondrous occurrence that took place between him and Rabbi Liber of Barditshev). Rabbi Ephraim had thin blood. He was always cold. So in his house, benches were built along the wall, one above the other, as in a bathhouse, and he used to sit on the highest chair to warm himself. One winter, the Baal Shem Tov put on a peasant coat and a straw belt, and went to serve Rabbi Ephraim. Coming into Rabbi Ephraim’s house, he found him shivering in the cold. The Baal Shem Tov told him, “Rebbe, may I warm up the fireplace [grube] to warm you?” Rabbi Ephraim answered, “In the house, there are only unchopped logs.” The Baal Shem Tov said, “I know the work.” Immediately, he got a saw and an axe, chopped the thickest log and warmed up the house. Because of their difficult circumstances, Rabbi Ephraim’s wife sold bagels, fruits and brooms in the marketplace to earn money. This day, she happened to come home from the marketplace. She found her husband talking with the guest and felt the delicious warmth of the house. When she counted the logs, she saw that the biggest one was missing. Considering their poverty, she saw this as extravagant—to burn so much wood at one time? Angrily, she picked up a broom to drive out the guest, for she understood that this was his work. Until that moment, Rabbi Ephraim had pretended to notice nothing, but he continued to speak with the guest as with a simple person, and thanked him for having revived him. But now, when the rebbetzin was about to strike the guest with the broom, Rabbi Ephraim told her: “If you touch him, you will destroy the world. He is a very holy man.” And he took hold of the guest and left the house with him. Then Rabbi Ephraim told the Baal Shem Tov, “I know that you will be a leader of Israel. Every word of yours, even every thought of yours, is taken seriously in heaven. So I beg you not to be angry at my rebbetzin, for she is embittered by our great poverty. But you must know that one can profit even from a bad wife. One time, I rose up to heaven, where I found the heavenly court judging a Jewish soul. Whenever he was shown the wrong that he had done, he answered, ‘I had a bad wife, and she brought me to all of this.’ The heavenly court was about to accept this defense, but then an accusing angel came and asked, ‘Why did this man obey his wife rather than keep the Torah?’ So I replied to the angel, ‘Have you ever withstood the test of a bad wife?’ My answer pleased the heavenly court, and it delivered a decision that this angel should descend to earth and marry a bad wife. And only afterwards, when he returned to the upper world, would they know what to do with that Jewish soul. “I knew where this incarnated angel was born and grew up, until he married a bad wife, who caused him to contract a lung disease. He was a pious person. I kept an eye on him. He obeyed me and divorced his wife, so that she would not have to undergo the chalitzah ceremony. [He knew that he was dying; they did not have any children, and so his widow would have to undergo chalitzah with his brother.] He died two weeks ago. Before he died, I told him that he had been the accusing angel. At that point, he was on a high level, and he remembered everything, as he told me. He told me that he would no longer be an accuser—particularly, against a defense of a bad wife.” And Rabbi Ephraim concluded, cautioning the Baal Shem Tov as future leader, “See to it that you defend Jews as much as you can.” May their merit protect us and all Israel, amen. A poem that bounces off Pablo Neruda's Nothing but Death.
There are ships that are lethargic, Berths full of sailors that do not move a muscle. The lungs soaring through an escarpment, In it mist, mist, mist, Like a caravan we travel diving into our pores, As though we were cascading inside our lungs, As though we skimmed from the air into the cavities of thought. And there are sailors, Eyes made of blazing and hot lamps, Ocean is inside the ligaments, Like a thunder where there are no clouds, Coming out from buoys somewhere, from sea gull avenues, Blossoming from the waterspout like breath of grain. Always I feel a company Caavans beneath leafy trees, Sailing with the ruddy soldiers, with children whose faces are alight, With goldsmiths who are as dusky as shadows, And unwed sisters who feed their pensive animals, The barques streaming along the horizontal highway of living thought, The alley of steel red, Cranked up the side of the building, pacing the golden scribbles of air, Emptied by the scent of tomorrow, which is invisible. Life descends among all that light Like a nut with no husk around it, like a sun with no planets around it, Arrives and smokes, singing a song with no sound in it, with no frequency in it, Flares and scents with no smoke, with no yesterday, with no coarse earth. Its valerian violet fragrance unfurls And its hair sparkles in the amber dawn, like a bee. Of this I am sure, my understanding is an empty light, what I see is the crystalness Knowing that its vision has the roughness of hot tiles, Of tiles that are uncertain in the spires, Because the veneer of life is yellow, And the intense hearing of life is yellow, With the perambulating heat of a tile green And the vibrant impress of a snow without thought. But life also pierces through the vacuum like a handful of pebbles, Rolling on the boulder, gathering saved sailors, Life is inside the boulder, The boulder is the hand of life being sought by the sailors, It is the ripe avocado seeking its stars. Life is inside the ladybugs: It spins the strands of death into a quickened grass, In the matted fecund scent, and imperceptibly relents: It spins a waterspout of white scribble traces that swing the ship And the cemetery shakes its hair To meet the captain, standing at attention before the chair. by Rabbi Kalonymus Kalman Shapira (the Piaseszner Rebbe) I would now like to quote the holy words from Avodat Yisrael (Chayei): “When a person grows so upset by his wrong behavior that he is cheapened in his own eyes—particularly during the long winter nights after midnight when person gets up, and he is alone before God.... ** “...And he thinks about the emptiness in his life, and his years that slip away like swift ships, and that he has not pleased his maker, but actually has caused damage with his deeds, from his head to his feet, and the day is short, and the moment when he must leave this world grows ever closer, when he will have to give an account for every moment in his life, and as a result he considers all this and regrets his deeds and weeps with a broken heart before his Father in heaven, and he is cheapened in his own eyes (for the word ‘cheapened’—zal—is the milui of sag)—when he says in his heart that he is full of dross (sig). “The essence of confession is leaving the sin and accepting the yoke of the kingdom of heaven from this day onwards, so as not to e amongst the wicked, who even when alive are called dead, but with the righteous, who even in their deaths are called living. That is to say, throughout the course of their lives, they prepare for the moment of separation, the moment that they will leave this world in purity and sanctity. As the Zohar states, ‘Those righteous ones, consider in their hearts as though today is the day that they will leave the world....’ “But those who have wasted their days and whose years have been unhappy, can at least be inspired to return before the sun sets below the horizon. And the sign that one has truly repented and regretted is when he is cheapened in his own eyes as he recalls his many wrong deeds. And then he comes to a new spirit of life, of the days to come when he will sin no more. “[In the verse, ‘And there were, [in] the life of Sarah, one hundred and twenty and seven years,] the word yih’yu (‘and there were’) has the same numerical value as does the word ‘cheapened,’ zal. “Then one is said to be alive—’[in] the life...’ “‘One hundred’ refers to keter—i.e., after repenting a person is inspired with a new will to serve God, and that will is called keter. “And then ‘twenty’ years—for it is carved into his mind to serve God with chochmah and binah, called ‘gates’ (sha’arim) because this is in accord with the measure (shiur) of one’s heart. Each individual measures out his own rules for rectifying what he had damaged. “And then one comes to ‘seven years’—these are the seven traits with which to make God King: with love, fear, pride, confidence, humility and clinging to God. “But the wicked person is not like this as he gazes at everything within his field of vision, as every day disappears and his soul is further removed from God, and he sins so profusely that he becomes like a blind man tapping his way through the dark, adding misdeed to sin, considering himself righteous because he sees himself as serving God, but he forgets all of the wrong things that he does. He remembers the easy mitzvot that he performs thoughtlessly, and that in fact he performs with ulterior motives, and yet he seeks great reward for doing so. “And so have we found and heard of a wicked person who boasts, ‘Thank God, I put on a prayer shawl and tefillin and I prayed and I recited Psalms and the ma’amadot, and I learned a chapter of mishnah and I gave a coin for charity and so who is as righteous and upright as me?’ “And so the Haftorah states, ‘Adoniyah, son of Chagit, elevated himself, saying, “I will rule”‘—i.e., ‘I’ refers to the kingship of the Creator, and I make Him King. ‘And he sacrificed sheep and oxen and fatling...’—and in this way he filled his heart with joy, since he is serving God, and so he was now permitted to enjoy this world, with its eating and drinking, and his spirit would not be broken within him. “But to the contrary, he trails after his desire, which is near ‘Ein Rogel’—’rogel’ has a secondary meaning of ‘slander’—i.e., now that his spirit is haughty and his belly and throat are full, his tongue will smoothly speak slander ... “But the opposite of that, the approach to do the will of God, comes when a person breaks his spirit within himself and recognizes how far he is place from God. And because he is so far, he approaches and clings to his Creator.” ** It seems to me that there is no need to speak with you at greater length on this topic, for these holy words have already had their holy effect on you. Nevertheless, I will add some words, in the spirit of “rebuke your son, and he will give you comfort” (Proverbs 29)—and, as the Talmud says, “even though he learns” (Makkot 8b). ** The Zohar states (Tikkunei Zohar 10) that “Torah without fear and love does not rise up.” And the Zohar also states (Tikun 70) that Torah or prayer without fear arouses divine anger, heaven forbid. Someone who learns Torah in a degraded fashion is “cast to the dogs,” heaven forbid—i.e., he is cast over to the Other Side, God have mercy. But, young man, let us assume that your Torah learning is good—then you are indeed fortunate, and who can be compared to you, beloved of God? However, in addition to Torah learning, we must also serve God with our thought, speech and deed. Who can be compared to the sages of the Talmud, who sacrificed everything to learn Torah? Yet, recall the words of R. Elazar (Shabbat 31b) who said, ‘Let us stand before [R. Yaakov], for he is a man who fears sin.” R. Simon answered, “Let us stand before him for he is a man of Torah.” R. Elazar was taken aback and said to him, “I said that he is a man who fears sin and [you give a reason to stand before him that is less persuasive, as though you think it is more persuasive—i.e.], that he is a man of Torah!” ** It is true that the Talmud says that “Torah protects and defends a person more than mitzvot do.” Yet we learn in Sanhedrin (106b), “In the days of R. Yehudah, all of the learning [in the academies] was in Nezikin [on civil law], whereas we learn [much more, including] a great deal of Uktzin [on ritual impurity]. Moreover, when R. Yehudah would quote the mishnah regarding “a woman who preserves vegetables in a pot, etc.,” he would say, “I saw [a need for] the inquiries of Rav and Samuel [because he himself didn’t understand it sufficiently], yet we learn Uktzin in 13 academies. Despite that, [in times of drought,] when R. Yehudah took off his shoes [as a sign of affliction] the rain came down. Yet [in times of drought, even when] we cry out, no heed is taken. And so [we must conclude that ultimately] the Holy One, blessed be He, desires the heart, etc.” And Rashi explains that “[the earlier generations] were more pious than we.” And we learn in Berachot (20) that “the early generations sacrificed themselves to sanctify God’s name.” In other words, learning Torah alone does not suffice—one must also be pious—a chasid-and that is the main thing. ** And what does chasidut depend on? On the heart—“the Compassionate One desires the heart.” And how can one attain chasidut and the heart? By means of total commitment—“the early generations sacrificed themselves to sanctify God’s name.” The holy work, Beit Aaron, explains that the term we use for self-sacrifice literally means “giving over the soul” and not “giving up the body”—for self-sacrifice, total commitment, is not just something that takes place when one is faced with physical martyrdom. Rather, all of one’s service throughout one’s life—one’s entire being, one’s will, one’s thought, one’s emotions and body—are given over to God and to His service. As we see there in the Talmud, it was not a test of forced heresy that brought them to self-sacrifice, but facing a simple sin, and not for oneself but of another, and not that others wanted to kill him but that he himself gave himself over, for he saw a gentile woman wearing a scarlet garment and, thinking that she was a Jewish woman, he tore it off her. ** Learning Torah with consistency is very great, and serving God is great—service in general and the service of the heart, which is prayer—in particular. Our sages said that “prayer is greater than good deeds and sacrifices” (Berachot 32). And the Baal Shem Tov said that he attained his greatness in holiness through prayer. And the Torah and the mitzvot themselves require prayer, just as prayer requires Torah. And see the siddur of Rav Zalman Schneur of Liadi, (in the Gate of Hanukkah and the Zohar that he cites) that through prayer, the light of Torah is drawn down to us, and the mitzvot that we perform with its inspiration rise up, and the unification is complete. These are great accomplishments and it is not easy to reach them. ** We learn in Noam Elimelech (Vayishlach) on the verse, “I delayed until now” that Jacob “continued his service of God day after day and year after year, even as it grew ever-later. Another verse states, ‘“Please God,’ and his voice was heard’—meaning, that a person must cry out for a long period, ‘Please, God, help me to serve you truly, and only then is his voice heard’—but not after a few days.” And in the name of the great and holy R. Asher of Stolin, we learn regarding the verse, “Cry out, cry out to Me and I will hear, indeed, I will hear,” “Why are the phrases repeated? The reason is that a person must cry out thousands and thousands of times without fooling himself that he is truly crying out, when he has not yet reached that state. Every prayer must be repeated a number of times until one comes to pray in truth from a deep heart.” ** One must exert oneself before being able to truly pray from a depth of one’s heart and soul. It is true that we cited the Zohar earlier that any inspiration comes from the soul—but not all inspirations are equal. There is the beginning of an awakening, and then something greater than that—and it is not easy to finally reach inspiration and a true will that comes from the depth of the heart. R. Schneur Zalman teaches, “The Song of Songs mentions the phrase ‘until it be desired’ twice—to tell us that everyone must desire and desire until that desire comes forth of itself.” In particular one must arouse oneself, fill oneself with feeling and desire when one chooses to do so, when one wants to inspire oneself. ** The service of God, prayer, is a great matter, and not so easy to come to. So how can you think that you are already a Hasid and that you already pray with fervor? I don’t see you right now, young man, so don’t be ashamed before yourself. I won’t speak of those dead prayers that you rattle off without paying any attention to what you are saying, without even remembering that you are standing before God, you are calling out to God and pleading with him, while your heart is somewhere far off—far from Him and far from yourself. I am not speaking of the prayers during which, practically from beginning to end, you are thinking trivial and unimportant thoughts, and sometimes a repulsive thought that gets drawn in with them. There is no need to make an accounting of this, because you yourself can see what they are worth, and what you are worth as a result. But I want to speak of your good prayers, of those prayers with which you fool yourself and say, I prayed with fervor and am a Hasid. Let us speak of them and look at them. Look into yourself—is it true that you fervently pray and perform mitzvot? Or is it only that you want to force yourself to be fervent—yet there is no flame, no fire? Maybe you yourself don’t recognize what is happening to you, and so you fool yourself that you are fervent. So allow me to describe to you some of what is happening within yourself as you pray, so that you can look a this as something happening outside of yourself, as though it is happening to someone else—and then you will recognize that you are not feeling fervor, not even emotion. ** You wish to pray as a Hasid, so you do away with all other thoughts at this moment to pray before God in truth. You yearn for the conversation of prayer. You wish to speak directly form your heart to God. You have determined that you will pray fervently, and so before you pray, you visualize that this is how your prayer experience will be. But when you begin, it is as though a stone lies upon your heart. Yes, it is true that this moment of prayer is superior to other moments, or superior to other prayers and your thoughts are not racing so much, since you have prepared yourself for prayer, and you resolved and you determined to do away with every foreign thought. But there is no soul-talk, and there is certainly no fervor. And so you start to force it, you want that fervor, so you shake your entire body violently or you also wrap yourself entirely in your prayer shawl, you squint your eyes, purse our mouth, squeeze your face, in order to force it. Or else you may speak the words of the prayer by squeezing them out, and saying them with great precision and you draw out the words as though you wished to squeeze them out of your mouth, your heart and your entire being. ** At times there is some faint feeling within yourself when you come upon a verse or a word in your prayer. But since this feeling is so brief and faint, passing like the blink of an eye, it isn’t possible to be sure and to say that it was a spark of feeling for it might have merely been a sigh because your heart is so embittered that you are asleep and that your prayer is so dry, without the slightest trace of emotion. And for the most part, you don’t even experience that. But a few weeks or months pass as you engage in all sorts of physical gyrations trying to inspire yourself to pray with feeling. But you have been trying so long without results and your fervor has never materialized. You don’t even know what fervor is and what it isn’t. As a result of this extended effort, your awareness will be damaged and weakened until you mistakenly come to think that your vigorous motions constitute the requisite fervor for prayer and that you are quite a pious individual. ** So listen and take heed of what I have to say. It isn’t easy to look at yourself. Even if you have some sort of technique to examine yourself, you still can’t be sure that you’ll see yourself clearly and truthfully . If something is physical and tangible and the way of measuring it is tangible as well, we can determine what we know or don’t know. For instance, if there is a cup filled with liquid and we don’t know whether it’s vinegar or just water and we don’t want to taste it, we can put in some baking soda. If the liquid bubbles, we’ll that it’s vinegar. If not, it’s water. The object of investigation is physical and tangible, as is the means of investigation. No matter how much a person may want to the glass to contain water or vinegar, that doesn’t affect the test. But in self-examination a person isn’t looking at something tangible but at something spiritual. And this isn’t even a non-physical thing such as fact-based concepts, like Talmudical discussions of partial monetary admission or a goring ox, where a person considers a concrete case and tries to derive abstract conclusions. In addition, in that case, a person can discuss the matter with someone else and gain another person’s perspective on whether or not he’s correct, because the truth being discussed is belongs to a shared reality that can be judged equally by everyone. ** But self-examination is difficult because it is the examination of something non-physical with almost no concrete aspect. In addition to that, each person is unique. A person doesn’t contemplate the word “awe” or the concept of awe. Instead he is looking at his inner being and its activity to determine whether he has awe of God. Does he have a feeling that is genuine awe—or is he deceiving himself? Such a self-examination is unique to every individual. One person can’t ask another to tell him if his feelings of awe and love are genuine or not, as he could about some logical construct. ** And when a person has his own self-interest at stake (as who does not?) then that will color everything so as to keep him from seeing himself as he really is. Even if he has some sort of technique to measure himself and his feelings, he will pervert them and deceive himself because of his self-interest, since such techniques are not tangible either, but consist of a sense of oneself, and are unique to oneself. A person may imagine that he had a certain feeling and a certain attainment because that is what he would like to be true, not because it really is the case. So even when using techniques, one needs a great deal of effort to examine oneself. And not only that, but first of all, a person should look at himself suspiciously, as though he were dealing with a thief who he suspects is trying to deceive him (but this is only when he is examining himself, not while he is serving God, as we will discuss, God willing). So remember what I am telling you here. Impress it in your heart. And with God’s help, your path will be clear. ** Let me offer you a technique which you can use to determine whether or not you are experiencing fervor and feeling. But if you use this along with your own self-interest, you will pervert this technique too and you won’t come to the truth. ** Before I presented you with a way of measuring your fervor to some degree and distinguish between fervor and feeling. To review: if your emotions are so great and strong that you cannot hold yourself back and you cannot prevent yourself from praying or you cannot allow yourself to pray mechanically, that is what we call fervor for our purposes. But when you make all sorts of physical motions to arouse your fervor and you imagine that you are aflame with ecstasy for God, try stopping all of those movements. If you really have reached a state of fervor, your burning spirit will not let you rest, you will cry out, moan, cry, rejoice, as though a stormy sea is moving within you. But if after you stop your movements, everything stops, nothing is pushing you, you experience no feelings, everything is still, and if not for the fact that you are in the middle of your prayers you could start a trivial conversation, that certainly indicates that you were just forcing yourself to no avail. ** You cannot measure your feeling, for a person’s feeling is no greater and stronger than he himself. But at any rate if after you stop your movements you fall so low that you could actually enter into a trivial conversation, and that doesn’t bother you in the least, that means that you have not even experienced feeling. For if a person’s prayer is at least accompanied by feeling, when he suddenly stops, he will feel a sort of pain in his heart that comes out of his yearnings for God, to approach and connect himself to God’s holiness, a pain no less than that which he may at times feel when taking leave of his parents or his children. ** And there is another sign that you can make use of. You should be aware that only the greatest people can go through the entire prayer service in a state of a fervor, unlike other people—in particular, a beginner. Even if he concentrates on the meaning of every word, he will find it impossible to experience fervor throughout the entire prayer, but only at certain points. And certainly, a person who can only experience feeling cannot keep on that level throughout the entire prayer. And so if you think that your prayer was entirely filled with fervor, then you should be aware that you didn’t even experience feeling. But if you experienced heights and depths, lights and shadows, ascents and descents, then it is possible that you experienced genuine feeling. ** But if you believe that I am advising you to seek experiences of fervor in your prayer, and you examine yourself in various ways to see if you have in fact experienced fervor, you are making an error. I previously cited the holy texts that in prayer one should not seek fervor, but only a simple, powerful, intent prayer, and then the fervor will come of its own. In addition, if a Jew prays and senses that his prayer is smooth and he is filled with feeling, he won’t be involved with self-analysis, he won’t be measuring himself to see whether he was truly fervent and the like, because if these kinds of analytical thoughts come up in his mind, his prayer will disappear and all he will have will be his analysis. And when he prays however it may be but without examination, even if he doesn’t have an entirely successful payer session, some parts will have been successful. And even if the entire prayer was a failure, the next or the one after that will succeed. And we learn in the holy text, Beit Aaron, that when a person’s evil inclination comes to him while he is in the middle of his prayers, i.e., that he decides to analyze himself in the midst of prayer, then he should push it off to a later time. But when a person isn’t praying then he can analyze himself in whatever way he would like. Perhaps when you examine yourself you will mistakenly only see good in yourself: you are good and your prayer seems pure, fervent and ascending. As a result you will remain on your low level forever, heaven forbid. You will never rise or experience feeling. Your soul will remain in its grave and without a soul you won’t be able to overcome your evil inclination. And this is what we must deal with in our self-examination. In particular if you fid that your spirit is so hardened that you boast of being a Torah personality, a pious personality, then, in order that you don’t throw away your entire life by living a lie, examine yourself, just once in a while. ** But remember this well: if you examine yourself and find yourself wanting, if you make a personal accounting and find yourself to be a “sinner” (heaven forbid), then take it very much to heart; sigh and experience the bitterness until your heart melts; and despise a life of such a compromised quality, repugnant in the eyes of God and those who love Him. But do not remain sad—for just as bitterness and repentance are necessary, so is the lingering presence of sadness forbidden, taking you far from holiness and the service of God in general, and from the service of the heart and the Hasidic path in particular. Repent and make a personal commitment to improve from this moment and onward. And trust God to accept your repentance. As R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi writes in Igrot Hateshuvah (11), “When it is doubtful whether one should recite a prayer, one should not say it rather than possibly recite God’s name in vain. Nevertheless, three times a day, every day, we recite in the Shmoneh Esrei ‘Blessed are You, Hashem, merciful and greatly forgiving.’ We say this blessing because there isn’t the slightest doubt that Hashem will forgive you.” And in addition trust the power of your holiness as a Jew. Even though you have made resolutions in the past to improve yourself yet have stumbled, still, when you hold firm now, suddenly the light of Israel and its holiness hidden within you will flash forth, and you will be transformed into a tzaddik who serves God. Haven’t you heard of people who repented, people who had been degraded for years and years, and yet who in one hour or one moment rose to a place where even complete tzaddikim cannot stand? So: taking things to heart and being embittered, strengthening yourself and rejoicing in God—that is a major principle of the Hasidic way of worship. ** May God have compassion and help me with these words to grow closer to Hasidism and to bring you closer to Hasidism—to understand and to walk in the footsteps of our masters, our holy forefathers. ** Now is not the time to discuss other issues and inner aspects of your emotions in detail. My words here are only meant to discuss how to make a start of it and how to prepare yourself to be able afterwards to rise and become a Hasid, God willing. Here, I only speak of the beginning—the beginning on which everything depends—the beginning of holy feeling, the feeling of love and fear of God and of everything that causes you to tremble in the presence of the holy. And so here I will only conclude by responding to your objections. ** You have objected that I am bothering you pointlessly, since all of your thoughts are good. Even when you walk through the street you meditate on words of Torah and concentrate on complex Torah issues. But you are mistaken. Yes, there are great Torah Jews and tzaddikim whose thoughts are constantly on the Torah—but only such leaders and tzaddkim of Israel—not you, young man. My one message to you is: don’t fool yourself and don’t be ashamed, for no one but God sees you now. Sometimes you want to force yourself to meditate on Torah thoughts even as you walk in the street, and with your first footsteps out of the house you start to think about Torah ideas, but as quickly as snow melting in the sun, these Torah thoughts melt away, and in their place a multitude of trivial thoughts and sometimes even degraded thoughts spring into your mind, one linked to the next, one pushing aside the next and one gaining strength from the next, so that sometimes they stream by with such rapidity that they are like a herd of wild donkeys stampeding through your brain. |
Yaacov David Shulman
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