Ushpizin #1 Avraham Avinu and the Baal Shem Tov: Trailblazers | Rabbi Chaim Zilber

00:00 Speaker 1 Gut Yom Tov, gut Yom Tov.

00:01 Speaker 2 Gut Yom Tov.

00:02 Speaker 1 We’re recording this in advance, but we have a new, short program. We’ll try to put out about five minutes each day with you about the ushpizin. We’ll explain a little about what ushpizin are, and then take it day by day. So today we’re starting with the first day.

00:20 Speaker 2 First of all, ushpizin is Aramaic for “guests.” That’s also where the Hebrew word for hospitalization comes from—but we won’t go into that.

00:30 Speaker 1 We won’t go into it. We’ll go into it there.

00:32 Speaker 2 Yes. The source for the ushpizin, of course, is the Zohar, which describes the exalted guests who come to visit us on Sukkos.

00:41 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

00:41 Speaker 2 And I believe we’ll also be talking about the Chassidic ushpizin.

00:47 Speaker 1 Yes.

00:48 Speaker 2 The Frierdiker Rebbe revealed those. He told us that just as there are the seven ushpizin of the Zohar who come to visit us—Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, Moshe, Aharon, Yosef, and Dovid—we also have the Chassidic ushpizin. The Frierdiker Rebbe pointed to them; the Rebbe describes how he actually pointed: “The Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid, the Alter Rebbe, the Mitteler Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe Maharash, and Father.” In other words, the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch, the founders of Chassidus, followed by the Chabad Rebbeim, of whom there were then five: the Alter Rebbe, the Mitteler Rebbe, the Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe Maharash, and his father, the Rebbe Rashab.

01:28 Speaker 1 So we’re speaking before Sukkos, and the first guest who’ll come to our sukkah is Avraham.

01:34 Speaker 2 The Baal Shem Tov—Avraham Avinu and the Baal Shem Tov.

01:37 Speaker 1 Okay, so let’s look a little at what the Rebbe tells us about them.

01:41 Speaker 2 Right.

01:41 Speaker 1 What are they about, and how are they connected?

01:43 Speaker 2 First of all, since they both come on the same day, there must be a connection, something in common between Avraham Avinu and the Baal Shem Tov.

01:56 Speaker 1 Mm-hmm.

01:56 Speaker 2 And what they have in common is very apparent. As the Rebbe would always say, some things take a bit of thought. Here, the first thing is that they were both firsts. Of Avraham Avinu it says, “Avraham was one.” He was the first Jew. He revealed something new. In the Prophets he’s called a righteous shoot, something that sprang up from nothing. Unlike the other ushpizin, who had righteous fathers and guides, they were already following on from something. Avraham was the first: his father, Terach, worshipped idols, and Avraham Avinu came to know his Creator and revealed something new in the world. Similarly, the Baal Shem Tov sprang up from nothing. He had no background, and we know nothing about his father. He truly developed a new approach, the teachings of Chassidus.

02:56 Speaker 1 Except that he was orphaned at a young age.

02:58 Speaker 2 Right. He didn’t even reach the age of five, the age for beginning Scripture, before his father passed away. His mother had already passed away too. He truly grew on his own and brought forth all of Chassidus and everything that has grown from it to this day. And that was something new. It’s...

03:19 Speaker 1 So both were firsts.

03:20 Speaker 2 Both were firsts.

03:20 Speaker 1 Both Avraham Avinu and the Baal Shem Tov.

03:22 Speaker 2 That’s the first point.

03:23 Speaker 1 They both brought something new into the world.

03:24 Speaker 2 Something new. More specifically, how did Avraham Avinu carry out his work? The Torah says, “There he called in the name of Hashem, G-d of the world.” Avraham went from place to place: “And Avraham journeyed.” He traveled throughout his life. With the Baal Shem Tov, it’s very clear that this was his work for most of his life: he wandered from place to place, even when he was a Rebbe. He came to Mezhibuzh only in his fairly late years, the last twelve years of his life, I think. He simply wandered from place to place. There’s a letter in the Kherson Genizah in which he writes to his wife that they need to pack up everything in the house: “This is the thirty-ninth of the forty-two journeys that I must rectify and elevate.” So it was good news and not-so-good news. The not-so-good news was that she had to pack up the house again. The good news was that they’d already reached journey number thirty-nine.

04:17 Speaker 1 Yes.

04:17 Speaker 2 Imagine that.

04:17 Speaker 1 Not many left.

04:18 Speaker 2 Imagine a couple living in forty-two different places. You can see it—every letter there is from somewhere else.

04:24 Speaker 1 The story always starts with them hitching up the wagon and—

04:27 Speaker 2 Yes.

04:28 Speaker 1 But the Baal Shem Tov travels as needed[?].

04:29 Speaker 2 On his journeys, the Baal Shem Tov revealed G-dliness everywhere he went. It fits exactly with Avraham Avinu’s way: “He went on, journeying,” and “he went on his journeys.” That was Avraham Avinu’s guiding principle, and so it was with the Baal Shem Tov.

04:45 Speaker 1 So our two guests have a very direct connection.

04:48 Speaker 2 Yes, and the Rebbe goes into more detail. As is known, the Baal Shem Tov would travel from place to place and ask people how they were, so that they would answer, “Boruch Hashem.” There’s the well-known story of how he once came to a certain recluse who didn’t answer him. The Baal Shem Tov asked him, “Why are you withholding Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s sustenance?” The man couldn’t take that and said, “What are you talking about?” So the Baal Shem Tov told him that it says, “And You are holy, enthroned upon the praises of Israel.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu, so to speak, is sustained by the praises of the Jewish people when they say, “Boruch Hashem.” Now, what does that have to do with Avraham Avinu? Avraham Avinu did the same thing. When guests came to him, he prompted them to say, “Bless the One whose food you have eaten.” Even those who refused, he, so to speak, compelled until they said, “Blessed is G-d of the world, from whose food we have eaten.” Here you can really see how closely Avraham Avinu and the Baal Shem Tov matched in the way they worked to reveal G-dliness in the world.

05:45 Speaker 1 What do we learn from this? If today, on the first Yom Tov of the festival, we can...

05:50 Speaker 2 That’s it. This year we have a Shabbos to rest. Yom Tov is beginning, and we can rest from all the work and effort before the festival. But we already need to plan for—ah, the Rebbe would always say that communal needs may be attended to on Shabbos. We need to plan the lulav campaign, to go out so that there won’t be a Jewish man or woman who hasn’t made a blessing over the lulav. Just go out there. That’s our work as chassidim. “The season of our rejoicing” isn’t a time to keep the joy and unity to ourselves, but to plan Simchas Beis Hashoeivah celebrations and the lulav campaign, as the Rebbe taught us: “Spread outward!”

06:33 Speaker 1 L’chaim, l’chaim.

06:34 Speaker 2 L’chaim, and may it bring blessing.

06:36 Speaker 1 Gut Yom Tov.

06:36 Speaker 2 Gut Yom Tov, and much success in the way of the Baal Shem Tov.

06:39 Speaker 1 L’chaim, l’chaim.