Veshavti Besholom, Two Types of Peace - Vayeitzei - Chag HaGeulah, Yud Kislev - Rabbi Asher Perkesh

00:02 Stories are told about the maamarim of the Mitteler Rebbe, who would deliver Chassidus at great length. Especially compared with the maamarim of his father, the Alter Rebbe, the Mitteler Rebbe’s maamarim were exceptionally expansive. A short teaching—one section or one page of a maamar by the Alter Rebbe, with all the ideas it contained—could, when the Mitteler Rebbe explained it, sometimes become tens or hundreds of pages of Chassidus, with explanations, questions, and further clarification. As chassidim would say, and as our Rebbeim also said, the difference between the Alter Rebbe’s maamarim and those of the Mitteler Rebbe is that the Alter Rebbe represents chochmah, while the Mitteler Rebbe represents binah. Chassidus explains the difference between chochmah and binah: chochmah is a point, a brief point containing abundant light but expressed in few words. Binah, by contrast, is the faculty through which a person can, as the Rebbe also explains in Tanya, develop and explain that point of chochmah in many ways, at length and in breadth, from every angle. This was the Mitteler Rebbe’s distinctive quality: “the broad expanse of the river,” as they would say. “The broad expanse of the river” is like what we see with a spring: deep within the spring, a small amount of water flows from a single point. Then, when the water emerges from the

01:47 spring, it becomes a river spreading far and wide, with abundant water—all flowing from that one point. This was the relationship between the way the Mitteler Rebbe delivered Chassidus and the way the Alter Rebbe did. Chassidim tell a story, which has also been repeated many times at farbrengens, about the Mitteler Rebbe’s travels after the Alter Rebbe’s passing. Early in that period, he began delivering Chassidus at great length and in abundance. He would deliver a great deal of Chassidus; each maamar lasted several hours, and sometimes he would deliver several maamarim on a single Shabbos or Yom Tov. So much Chassidus. Once, on a Yom Tov, many chassidim had gathered. I think it was Shavuos, if I’m not mistaken. The Mitteler Rebbe delivered a lengthy maamar of Chassidus, and as soon as he finished, the chassidim got up to go home and make Kiddush. Just as everyone began preparing to leave, a message came through the gabbai that there would be more Chassidus. The Mitteler Rebbe came out and delivered another maamar. After the second maamar, they got up again, and again word came that there would be a third maamar. So much Chassidus. One of the great chassidim was there at the time, Reb Aizik of Homil,

03:30 who had been among the great chassidim already in the Alter Rebbe’s time, one of the earliest chassidim. He was there with the Mitteler Rebbe and saw how much Chassidus was being delivered. He could not contain himself and went—ran—to the Tzemach Tzedek. The Tzemach Tzedek was the Mitteler Rebbe’s son-in-law and the Alter Rebbe’s grandson, but he had not gone in to hear the Chassidus. He was in his beis midrash. Reb Aizik ran to him and said—I don’t know the exact wording, but he said—“They’re delivering Chassidus! Why aren’t you coming to listen?”

04:15 [unclear]. But the Tzemach Tzedek said that he was concerned that, because of the great breadth and length with which the Mitteler Rebbe delivered Chassidus, a single word of his grandfather’s might be lost. The Tzemach Tzedek was the Alter Rebbe’s grandson and devoted disciple. He wanted to hear the Alter Rebbe’s Chassidus and was careful about every word of his teacher’s wording. He feared that amid the great length and breadth—the Mitteler Rebbe’s “broad expanse of the river”—a single word from his grandfather, from the Alter Rebbe’s teachings, might sometimes be lost. Word of this reached the Mitteler Rebbe. He heard what the Tzemach Tzedek had said and announced that he would not deliver Chassidus. For a time, the Mitteler Rebbe said he would not deliver Chassidus, because there was a possibility, a reason to wonder, that a word of his father’s, the Alter Rebbe’s, might indeed be lost. After some time he resumed delivering Chassidus. From what is known of the matter, he considered it and concluded that even if he delivered Chassidus in great abundance, not a single word of his father the Alter Rebbe’s teachings would be lost.

05:54 In general, this showed the difference between the Alter Rebbe’s Chassidus and the Mitteler Rebbe’s: each had his own way of delivering it. This is reflected even in the names of their books. As is known, the Alter Rebbe’s book of Chassidus, the first collection of his maamarim to be printed—he did not print it himself; rather, the Tzemach Tzedek printed the maamarim of his grandfather, the Alter Rebbe—is Torah Or. In other words, the first collection of the Alter Rebbe’s maamarim is called Torah Or. The Mitteler Rebbe, meanwhile, has his book of Chassidus, Imrei Binah. The Rebbe’s father, Reb Levi, explained the difference between light and binah: chochmah is called light. As we said, chochmah is “a flash of insight.” It is a point of light that shines from above downward, but it appears as a flash, like lightning, as a single point. Thus it is said that the Alter Rebbe’s Torah is full of light. Why is it called Torah Or? Because it is associated with the sefirah of chochmah. The Mitteler Rebbe, by contrast, was associated with binah. He therefore called his book Imrei Binah, in which he explains the teachings of his father, the Alter Rebbe, through binah—through the understanding that comes from “the broad expanse of the river.” In the days we are in now, in

07:22 the time of Parshas Vayeitzei, we also have the days marking the Mitteler Rebbe’s liberation, followed by the Alter Rebbe’s liberation. The Mitteler Rebbe’s liberation is on 10 Kislev. The Alter Rebbe’s liberation is on the Festival of Liberation, 19 Kislev. These are the liberations of the two tzaddikim. As is known and explained, the liberation of our Rebbeim is connected with their imprisonment, with their having been in prison. Their subsequent release from prison is, as the Rebbe Rashab explained, like olives: when olives are crushed, oil comes out. In other words, the crushing of the olives—the accusations, the imprisonment, and the suffering of imprisonment—brought forth the oil, the inner dimension of Torah. This is the revelation of the inner dimension of Torah, the teachings of Chassidus, in each case according to its own nature. With the Alter Rebbe, on 19 Kislev, there was the revelation of the inner dimension of Torah, Chabad Chassidus, which was revealed through the Alter Rebbe on 19 Kislev. Later, with the Mitteler Rebbe’s liberation on 10 Kislev, there was the revelation associated with “the broad expanse of the river,” with his distinctive way of spreading Chassidus. This answers the question one might ask: There had been an accusation. As is known, and as explained in the stories of our Rebbeim, this was the only time

08:56 there was an accusation in Heaven concerning the revelation of Chassidus to the world—concerning whether the world was ready for the revelation of Chassidus. That was the accusation. When 19 Kislev came and the Alter Rebbe was freed, it was proof, evidence from Above—it was proof, evidence from Above; it was proof, evidence from Above—that the accusation had been nullified and permission had been granted to publicize Chassidus. As is known from the accounts of our Rebbeim and their miracles, the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch came to visit the Alter Rebbe during his imprisonment. He asked them, “What is the reason? Why am I in prison?” They told him it was because of an accusation in Heaven over the spread of Chassidus, because he had publicized Chassidus so abundantly up to that point. The Alter Rebbe asked, “Should I stop?” The Baal Shem Tov told him that not only should he not stop, but on the contrary, he should spread it even more, with greater vigor. So on 19 Kislev the accusation was lifted, and permission was granted to publicize Chassidus abundantly. Why, then, was another imprisonment and another accusation necessary for the Mitteler Rebbe? The answer is that this was a new way of revealing Chassidus. Yes, the question is

10:08 The accusation against the Alter Rebbe concerned the way he delivered Chassidus: relatively speaking—at least, to put it briefly—he presented points of ideas and wisdom. When the Mitteler Rebbe came along, and his teaching of Chassidus was in the manner of the broad expanses of a river, a new accusation arose. When that accusation was nullified through the Yom Tov of 10 Kislev, permission was thereby granted to spread Chassidus in that manner, plainly and expansively, without limit. These two ways of revealing Chassidus are also connected, by Divine Providence, to the weekly parsha. In Parshas Vayeitzei we learn the verse about Yaakov Avinu as he went down to Charan. There we find the verse, “And I will return in peace to my father’s house.” Yaakov Avinu asks that his redemption be in the manner of “And I will return in peace to my father’s house.” For Yaakov Avinu, the whole experience of exile and confinement was that he left Be’er Sheva, his father’s house, the home of Avraham—Be’er Sheva—the home of Yitzchak, the highest possible state, and went down to Charan, “the place of the world that arouses Hashem’s anger,” to stay with Lavan the Aramean, with everything the parsha tells us about how Lavan manipulated and deceived him. All these things happened in Lavan’s house. And that was the descent of

11:38 Yaakov Avinu in Lavan’s house. And during this descent into Lavan’s house, Yaakov Avinu makes a request. What does he ask? “And I will return in peace to my father’s house”—that he be able to return in peace to his father’s house. This request to “return in peace” is, by way of analogy, like what we find with both the Alter Rebbe and the Mitteler Rebbe in connection with “He redeemed my soul in peace.” It was the same request, and the request was fulfilled. As we know from the stories chassidim tell and our Rebbeim relate, the Alter Rebbe himself writes in a letter that when he was saying Tehillim and reached the verse “He redeemed my soul in peace”—he was saying Tehillim, and it was a Tuesday. 19 Kislev was, after all, a Tuesday. The book of Tehillim is divided by days, and in times of decrees and hardship, the custom was to say the portions of Tehillim according to the days of the week, not only according to the days of the month. The Alter Rebbe was saying the chapters of Tehillim for Tuesday. Among them is chapter 55, with the verse, “He redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me, for many were with me.” The Alter Rebbe writes in a letter to Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and Reb Avraham of Kalisk that while “I was reading in the book of Tehillim,” and when he reached the verse “He redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me, for many were with me,” [unclear] “I emerged in peace from Hashem, peace.” That was the Alter Rebbe’s redemption as he recited the verse, similar to Yaakov Avinu, who

13:05 asked to “return in peace.” Similarly, with the Mitteler Rebbe: his redemption was on 10 Kislev. And on 10 Kislev, according to the days of the month, the daily portion of Tehillim—when Tehillim is said according to the days of the month—also includes chapter 55, “He redeemed my soul in peace.” A story about this is brought in Beis Rebbe: this is what happened with the Mitteler Rebbe. He recited the chapter, including “He redeemed my soul in peace,” and then the redemption came. So we see that, for both the Alter Rebbe and the Mitteler Rebbe, the redemption is connected with “He redeemed my soul in peace.” Similarly, Yaakov Avinu asks, “And I will return in peace to my father’s house.” Interestingly, among the Alter Rebbe’s explanations of this verse in Torah Or, Parshas Vayeitzei, there is a maamar entitled “And I Will Return in Peace.” Similarly, in the Mitteler Rebbe’s book Toras Chaim, there is a long and expansive explanation of that same maamar. There they explain that Yaakov Avinu’s wording, “I will return in peace”—b’shalom—can be read as “with two kinds of peace.” The peace Yaakov Avinu requested comprises two kinds: peace that comes from above to below, and peace that comes from below to above. He asked for both—peace from above to below and peace from below to above. Similarly, they say that when

14:30 it says “He redeemed my soul in peace,” the wording is precise: “redeemed in peace”—with two kinds of peace, two ways of bringing peace: peace from above to below and peace from below to above. What are these two kinds of peace? And how do they relate to the two approaches—the way the Alter Rebbe revealed Chassidus and the way the Mitteler Rebbe revealed Chassidus? There is a wonderful explanation of this from the Rebbe, given at a Yud Kislev farbrengen, that helps us understand it. Yud Kislev was in 5645, 5646; there are lengthy explanations of this matter, of the difference between “He redeemed my soul in peace” as it was with the Alter Rebbe and “He redeemed my soul in peace” as it was with the Mitteler Rebbe. Peace from above to below and peace from below to above are connected with the way the Alter Rebbe delivered Chassidus, as opposed to the way the Mitteler Rebbe delivered it. By way of introduction: it is customary that when two Jews meet, one says to the other, “Shalom aleichem,” and the other answers, “Aleichem shalom.” Similarly, this is the wording used at Kiddush Levanah. There is a custom, brought in siddurim, to say “Shalom aleichem” and respond “Aleichem shalom,” “Aleichem hashalom.” There are several explanations for the origin of this custom. As people say, it is a case of turning things around, because

16:05 a Jew, a Jewish mind—when someone says something to a Jew, his nature is to say it the other way around: you say “Shalom aleichem” to him, and he answers “Aleichem shalom.” But of course, there are deeper things here, and several explanations for this wording, for why we say “Shalom aleichem,” “Aleichem shalom.” Here, though, we will give only the explanation based on what Chassidus says about the subject we are discussing, in the explanations of “And I will return in peace” and the maamarim on “He redeemed my soul in peace”: why one says “Shalom aleichem” and the other “Aleichem shalom.” The point of “Shalom aleichem” and “Aleichem shalom” is that Shalom, peace, is one of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s names. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is called Shalom. When one Jew meets another, a Jew’s purpose in this world is to make the world a dwelling place for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The world is a public domain. The very nature of the world is a public domain, a world full of many different things—a public domain, a mountain of separation, a multiplicity of domains. The very fact that there are two people already introduces multiplicity. We see that the entire world is divided into many things and many created beings, the domains of the world. But Hakadosh Boruch Hu is “Hashem is One and His name is One,” singular and unique. So when one Jew meets another, he says, “Shalom aleichem.” Shalom—unity—“aleichem,” upon you: he draws peace into the midst of multiplicity. A Jew has faith,

17:41 a Jew has a soul, and a Jew carries Hakadosh Boruch Hu with him—“an actual part of G-d above”—the singular One, the One and Only, Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. So when a Jew meets another Jew, he says, “Shalom aleichem”: peace, faith, Hakadosh Boruch Hu—“aleichem,” into the midst of multiplicity. Why do we say “aleichem” in the plural? There are several explanations, but the point we are discussing now is that he draws the singular One into the many; he draws Hakadosh Boruch Hu into the many. And what does the second Jew answer? The second Jew approaches it from below to above, starting from multiplicity, and he adds to what the first one said: “Aleichem shalom.” That is, from “aleichem,” from multiplicity, one must make oneness. In other words, there are two approaches. In one, you begin with faith; you begin immediately with Hakadosh Boruch Hu, with the singular and unique One, with peace, and draw that oneness down here, into the place of the many, the public domain. By contrast, in the second approach, you begin with the world, with the many, and from the many, from the world, you unite it and elevate it, making it one, making unity out of it. This is the distinction between “Shalom aleichem” and “Aleichem shalom”: when one person comes to another, he immediately brings him faith, peace.

19:02 Into the “aleichem.” He brings Hakadosh Boruch Hu into the many. And the second Jew answers that one must elevate the many and make the many into one. As the Frierdiker Rebbe once said in a sicha, the meaning of “Shalom aleichem, aleichem shalom” is the holy work of the Baal Shem Tov, who revealed the oneness of Hashem: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is everything, and everything is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In other words, “aleichem,” the multiplicity, is everything. This is “Shalom aleichem”: “Shalom,” a name of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, enters “aleichem”—bringing Hakadosh Boruch Hu into everything. And afterward, from everything, from the world, from the many, one makes a single unity, so that “everything is Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” These are two ways of bringing about unity. And these two ways of bringing about unity are the difference between how the Alter Rebbe taught Chassidus and revealed it, and how the Mitteler Rebbe taught Chassidus. For, as we said earlier, the Alter Rebbe revealed chochmah. Chochmah is a revelation that comes from above to below. Chochmah is simple faith, clear faith, that shines down here below. It comes like a flash of lightning. This is “Shalom aleichem.” This is how G-dliness, simple faith, shines into a person from heaven. And so there is no need for lengthy explanations and elaborations. This is the direction of

20:26 chochmah, a revelation that comes from above to below. Binah, by contrast, is exactly the opposite of chochmah. With binah, a person takes the point he has received, develops it, and builds it out in many details. And through all those details, he returns to the point of faith. He takes the lengthy elaboration and all its details, and holds their depth within them. Then, as he continues, the point is present throughout all the detailed elaboration, and faith shines within the details. This is from below to above. This is the power of binah: taking what is below, elevating it, and uniting it. And this is what Yaakov Avinu asked for when he said, “And I will return in peace to my father’s house.” He asked that the peace not be only a peace from above to below. When peace comes from above to below, faith shines; that is indeed something lofty, even very lofty, but it still comes from above to below. There is a distinct power, a deeper dimension, that comes specifically from below to above. What is it? The light that entered the “aleichem,” the many, through the power of “shalom,” is raised from below to above. And this is a far deeper dimension of peace. This is the work of the Mitteler Rebbe, who brought it about through “And I will return in peace,” through the power of binah, from below to above.

21:45 And this is what we ask for. This is what we say: “He redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me, for the many were with me”—that on the day of the Mitteler Rebbe, on the day of the Alter Rebbe, in the days of Geulah, we should merit this soon, in our days, amen. May it be “And I will return in peace to my father’s house,” through the study of the inner dimension of Torah, for the inner dimension of Torah is the true essence of peace. Torah in general will bring peace to the world in the future, and especially the inner dimension of Torah, which will shine openly in the time to come, in the days of Moshiach. The oneness of Hashem will shine openly, the peace from above; Hakadosh Boruch Hu shines in Torah through engaging with its inner dimension. This is both in the manner of the Alter Rebbe’s teachings, from above to below, and in the manner of the Mitteler Rebbe, from below to above, through the power of binah. May we actually see G-dliness here below, and may we merit, soon in our days, amen, the true and complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu. Then we will merit to hear “For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea”—the Torah of Moshiach from Moshiach himself. Amen, may it be His will.