The 6 Mitzvos You Must Do Every Day

Welcome to our weekly Mitzvah Shabbos program.

We are now a few days before Yud Tes Kislev. This is a Yom Tov not only for Chabad — this is a Yom Tov for Chassidim generally. There is a sefer that he wrote — I think it's called "Shuchuayim" [unclear] — and he said it will come a time that Yud Tes Kislev will be a Yom Tov for all of Israel. This was written by Arish [?].

So the question is: why is this geulah, this redemption, such a big Yom Tov? There were many other tzaddikim in prison. When I say tzaddik, I mean anybody who is not Chabad is also called a tzaddik — other Rebbes, tzaddikim, were in prison and went through a lot, and we don't make such a big Yom Tov for them. So what's so special about Yud Tes Kislev, that even Arish [?] wrote it would become a Yom Tov for all of Israel? And as a matter of fact, the Frierdiker Rebbe said that it is higher — it's higher, it's higher.

So what is so special about Yud Tes Kislev that it's such a big Yom Tov?

So the answer is: Yud Tes Kislev was the beginning. If not for Yud Tes Kislev, I wouldn't be here, you wouldn't be here. I'm talking about — even Shabbos wouldn't be the same today if not for Yud Tes Kislev. It changed — it changed the world. Emunah could not last without it, even though, of course, we all believe — we're all called Yidden, we all come from Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov.

But that emunah we have because we have it from birth, and that is a superficial emunah. But a deeper emunah, to really know Hashem, you have to learn Chassidus. You must learn Chassidus. You have to learn — otherwise it's just emunah, and everybody believes, of course, but it's a superficial emunah.

Now, you have to learn — what does the Alter Rebbe write? How do we see that every Jew — so he explains that there are six mitzvos that every Jew must fulfill all the time, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Men, women, children, young, old — how do you do it? Only he explains this; you can't find it anywhere else, how to fulfill these six mitzvos. And you can only know this through learning.

What are the six mitzvos?

Number one, to believe in one G-d. It says "to know G-d." But how do you know Him? Through learning. To believe in G-d, it doesn't just say "believe" — it says "to know." That's number one. Number two, not to believe in any other power. To love Hashem. To fear Hashem. To confirm His unity. And the sixth is not to go astray after the temptation and vision of your heart and eyes. Every child knows that you're not allowed to look at things you're not allowed to look at — every person knows that.

But when you learn, you learn it deeper — it doesn't just mean you're not allowed to look. Yes, that's the simple meaning, the pshat. But learning explains to you how to look, explains the understanding of what it means to train yourself how to look at the world.

Every person looks. You put on blue glasses, the world looks blue. You put on green glasses, the world looks green. The world is not blue and the world is not green — the world is however you look at it. So by learning, you look at the world through completely different eyes. You look at things differently.

That reminds me of a story: once a Yid came from Russia. He never saw [unclear]. He learns and learns, and somebody wanted to take him to Manhattan to see the buildings, to see the beauty of the offices, the buildings, whatever — the Empire State Building, remember? So he took him and showed him, "Look, look at the building, look at this beautiful, beautiful..." He showed him a lot of things, and the man is looking and looking, and he doesn't really see. He's so excited, and yes, he sees a building, he sees an office — but he wasn't impressed. What did he see? He says, "Probably this is what the angels made." He didn't see it the way the other person expected, because it depends on how you look at the world — the whole world looks different depending on how you look.

So one of my talmidim in a Yeshiva in Brooklyn once asked me: what's wrong with mussar? Maybe by learning mussar you can know Hashem too?

So first of all I told him — because I saw a letter from the Rebbe — why do you have to learn Chassidus specially? Mussar is included in it also, so why learn it separately? And then he asked: just like the Alter Rebbe didn't make it up — it says he gathered sources, he looked at this, he looked at that, and he wrote Tanya — so maybe a person can say, I can do the same thing, I can look and find out for myself. And this is what the Rebbe answered one of the people who asked that question — why do I have to learn, I can do it myself also. So the Rebbe says two things. Number one: why do you have to spend the time? You could live 120 years and you might look and look and look and never find the answer.

It's already prepared for you. Here you already have the answer — he did the work for you. He wrote it, he did the work for you. So why do you have to go and look and look again, and maybe you might find it and maybe you might not, or maybe you'd be wrong? Here, he already did it for you, and the only way you can know it is by learning. And besides that — the goal is to go away from bad and do good, and by learning you will automatically be happy.

The Rebbe mentions in a letter that we see the people who came from Russia, what they went through, and who stayed strong among the people who stayed strong — that's why, especially now in the world, Chassidus is a limud that other things are not. There aren't many limudim like it — you can sit and learn, you can learn; that's why you learn three hours a day — there's so much to learn, there's nothing else as much as Chassidus. So through learning you change the world, you become better. Also, the Rebbe mentions that learning is like — it's like a king who gives a gift to somebody. When you're a worker in a business, you work and you get paid — you're an honest worker, and that's good. But if you become a partner in the business, then you're on a higher level, you see things differently, you're higher. The same thing with learning: besides everything else, you become like a partner with Hashem.

And as we know, Rabbi Dr. Nissan Mindel wrote — I think in "Philosophy of Chabad" — about the Rebbe [name unclear, heard as "Vamia"] [?], who wrote that when he learned in Vilna and he learned in Mezritch, his father-in-law — I'm not sure — asked him: what's the difference between Vilna and Mezritch? In both you're learning Gemara. So he answered: in Vilna I learned how to master the Gemara; in Mezritch, the Gemara taught me — the Gemara mastered me. That's the difference in learning. That's why, when they begin learning Chassidus, they say the learning of Chassidus is very different from regular learning — which is also learning, of course — but it's a different outlook.

That's why it was said that Yud Tes Kislev is not bigger than, is not higher than, Pesach or other festivals — but once you have accomplished that, you look at Pesach in a different way, you look at everything in a different way. The whole of Pesach is different, everything is different. This is what it means to have accomplished that — everything that you do, your Shabbos is different, your children are different, everything you do is different. Besides that, it says the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed because they followed the mitzvos — they did them, but they didn't accomplish the inner part. This is the theme of Yud Tes Kislev. So since it's right before — right before — and we know you have to put a candle, you have to light up, put a light into the outside world. Chof Kislev [?] comes right after and gives a person the strength to be able to put that light — the candle — into the outside world.

I just want to mention one more thing — I think I mentioned this once — I heard from my [teachers/chassidim] — you know, they wanted to kill our bodies, they wanted to kill our neshamos, and that's what Yud Tes Kislev is all about. There's one thing I want to mention: the end of Tanya. Tanya uses two Yiddish words [unclear] about speaking during davening, and this is the end, the summary, of Tanya — that people should be careful. The Rebbe writes in a letter — what I'm saying now to somebody in English — that at the end of Tanya, you have to know how to deal with people, and people are not careful about this. And when you see people speaking during davening, you have to know how to speak to them. You have to know how to influence somebody — you have to do it in a very gentle way. The Rebbe writes, in a very pleasant way, that they should not speak during davening. This is the end of the first part of Tanya.

So I want to wish — thank you.