Vo'eira, 24 Teves - Joy in the Service of Hashem - Rabbi Asher Perkesh

00:01 Here are a few stories chassidim tell in connection with 24 Teves, the yahrzeit of the Alter Rebbe. The story is that toward the end of his life, the Alter Rebbe’s health was very poor, and the doctors said his condition was serious. The Alter Rebbe was on the road, fleeing Napoleon. Again, this was in the middle of the war; the days in Russia were bitterly cold, the Alter Rebbe was suffering from a lung illness, and his condition was extremely grave. When Motzaei Shabbos of Parshas Shemos arrived, the beginning of 24 Teves, the doctors said that only a few hours remained and there was nothing more they could do. The Tzemach Tzedek was there. He was the Alter Rebbe’s grandson, his chossid, his student, and a member of his household. As is known, the Tzemach Tzedek was orphaned and grew up with the Alter Rebbe throughout his childhood. The Tzemach Tzedek was there when this happened, and of course he was deeply shaken and saddened to hear this news from the doctors, G-d forbid. The Tzemach Tzedek then stood up to daven Maariv, right after Shabbos, and davened with sorrowful melodies, in the mournful manner of

01:52 bitterness and anguish of soul, hoping, as it were, to arouse abundant mercy for his grandfather. When the Alter Rebbe heard him davening, he called him over and told him that when one is in distress and wants to arouse abundant mercy, one should not sing such melodies; that is not the way. The Alter Rebbe then repeated a teaching he had received from his teacher, the Maggid of Mezritch. The Maggid of Mezritch spoke about the verse, “And upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness like the appearance of a man, above it.” That is, “upon the likeness of the throne was a likeness like the appearance of a man” refers to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Who is called in this verse “like the appearance of a man.” The word for “appearance” can also mean a mirror. It is a mirror of the person below. The “man” above—the supernal man, as it were, the Shechinah—is a reflection, a mirror, of the person below. The conduct of the person below is reflected in the supernal man. When a person is sad, he arouses sadness above. The “appearance of a man” above is then also in a state of sadness, and sadness arouses stern judgments. When a person below is in a joyful frame of mind, that joy arouses joy above. And when there is joy above, there is kindness. Joy sweetens stern judgments; joy

03:32 removes everything undesirable. Then all blessings come in revealed and tangible goodness. So the Alter Rebbe said that when we want to eliminate undesirable circumstances and stern judgments, the way to do it is specifically through joyful melodies and serving Hashem with joy. It is precisely joy that brings about a joyful countenance from above, and in this way all stern judgments are sweetened. In fact, this is stated explicitly in the Zohar, in Parshas Tetzaveh. The Zohar says, “Come and see: the world above is like the world below.” The world above resembles the world below. And when a person below, says the Zohar, is joyful and has a radiant face—when he is in a joyful frame of mind, with a bright countenance—he arouses joy and a radiant countenance above as well. And G-d forbid, when he is in the opposite state, in anguish of soul, he arouses the same above. This is also the teaching we have from our grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, as is known. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev cites it several times in his book. For example, in Parshas Beshalach he writes that the Baal Shem Tov would always say—I think that is how he puts it—that the Baal Shem Tov would always say the following about the verse, “Hashem is your keeper; Hashem is your shadow at your right hand.” The Baal Shem Tov explained, “Hashem is your shadow”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu is like a shadow. A shadow moves exactly

05:28 as the hand moves; every movement one makes is reflected in the shadow. In the same way, as it were, Hakadosh Boruch Hu—“Hashem is your shadow”—is just like a shadow. A person’s conduct is reflected in the shadow above, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is what it means on the higher plane. The Tzemach Tzedek writes about what happened at the time of the Alter Rebbe’s passing on 24 Teves. This was the last teaching the Alter Rebbe gave, at the very time of his passing. The Tzemach Tzedek records the story in a letter, and what he writes there is the practical advice he gives us: when we want to change a situation, bring light into things, eliminate undesirable circumstances, and so on, the way is specifically through joy. Joy itself, says the Alter Rebbe, opens the channel above. Through joy below, stern judgments are nullified and joy is aroused above—and through this, blessings of goodness and kindness are drawn down: “Only goodness and kindness shall follow me.” This is the place of joy in serving Hashem, as it appears in the teachings of the one whose yahrzeit is 24 Teves. This is the teaching from the Alter Rebbe that the Rebbe repeats in connection with how we should conduct ourselves, and it concerns joy. It is a teaching of the Alter Rebbe on the weekly parsha, Parshas Vaeira: “Therefore say to the Children of Israel: I am Hashem, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of Egypt ... and I will bring you to this land concerning which I raised My hand ... a land flowing with milk

07:16 and honey.” And this teaching about the shadow applies throughout the parsha. Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells Moshe Rabbeinu, “Therefore say to the Children of Israel.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu says: Tell them, “I am Hashem, and I will bring you out”—that I will take them out of the exile of Egypt, out from under Egypt’s burdens, and bring them all the way to a land flowing with milk and honey. The Alter Rebbe explains: What does the Exodus from Egypt mean in a person’s inner service? This is one of the foundations of Chassidus: in every generation and every day, the Exodus from Egypt is not just a story from the past. We tell and retell the story of the Exodus, and doing so is a mitzvah—“so that you may remember the day you left the land of Egypt”—but it is not just a story about something that once happened. There is an Exodus from Egypt today, too; it is something happening in the present. In every generation and every day, every Jew must experience, as it were, an exodus from his own personal Egypt. And the words of our Sages are cited regarding the verse, “So that you may remember the day you left the land of Egypt all the days of your life”: “‘The days of your life’—the days; ‘all the days of your life’—to include the nights.” Both by day and by night, a person must engage in the Exodus from Egypt, in the inner work of leaving Egypt. This is what the inner work of the Exodus means each day, both by day and by night. Now the Alter Rebbe introduces the subject of joy in serving Hashem. As is known, when we approach serving Hashem, the service itself is not enough; it must specifically be done with joy. As the well-known verse says, “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart.” And the Rambam explains—yes, in Hilchos Lulav, at the end of Hilchos Lulav—and the Alter Rebbe cites this in Tanya in the name of

09:10 the Arizal: “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart.” Serving Hashem must be done with joy and gladness of heart. The service itself is not enough; it must specifically come with joy and gladness of heart. And serving Hashem with joy and gladness of heart is the inner meaning of the Exodus from Egypt: leaving one’s constraints and limitations. A person can indeed engage in Torah and mitzvos, study Torah, fulfill mitzvos, and be occupied with serving Hashem, yet still remain within constraints and limitations. His service of Hashem is restricted: he does it, but he does it in a constricted way. He does it because he has to, because he has no choice. What he lacks is expansiveness, pleasure, vitality, and joy in serving Hashem. That is why the verse says that serving Hashem must specifically be done with joy and gladness of heart. And service with joy and gladness of heart is, in the words of the verse, “You served Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart, from an abundance of everything.” The Alter Rebbe explains this on the basis of the Arizal’s interpretation of the verse: “everything” points to a spiritual level. We know what the Gemara in Bava Basra says about “with everything, of everything, everything”: “Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave three people a taste of the World to Come”—Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov. The verses say of Avraham, “Hashem blessed Avraham with everything”; of Yitzchak, “of everything”; and of Yaakov, “I have everything.” As is known, these three expressions point to the World to Come. The World to Come is the level of “everything.” It is the greatest pleasure. The pleasure of the World to Come is truly extraordinary. As the Gemara says...

11:02 As Rabbi Meir says about Acher: “Better that he be judged and come to the World to Come.” After all the suffering of Gehinnom, all the proceedings and all the judgments, to enter Gan Eden and receive the radiance of the Shechinah is a wondrous delight. Yet the verse says that, for all the wondrous delights a soul has in Gan Eden, the service of Torah and mitzvos here below, in this physical world, is “joy and gladness of heart beyond all.” The joy a Jew experiences is “beyond all”—utterly incomparable to all the joys and pleasures of this world and, on a different plane, to the pleasures of G-dliness. Even the greatest delight, the joy of Gan Eden, cannot compare to the delight and joy a Jew experiences when he fulfills Torah and mitzvos and studies the Torah of truth. As the Alter Rebbe explains at length, all those delights and spiritual levels are aspects of the radiance of the Shechinah—revelations, names, levels and contractions. But through Torah and mitzvos, a Jew connects and unites with the very Essence of Hashem, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. As we say every day: “For His name alone is exalted; His splendor is over earth and heaven; He raises the glory of His people.” There are matters of earth and heaven. Earth includes everything in this physical world, its physical pleasures. Heaven includes all spiritual delights, such as the delight of Gan Eden and the World to Come. But all this is only “His splendor over earth and heaven.” We have not yet reached the heart of the matter.

12:43 What, then, does “He raises the glory of His people” mean? Hakadosh Boruch Hu takes a Jew and raises him, “the glory of His people,” above everything. “Praise for all His chassidim, for the children of Israel, the people close to Him”—Jews are “the people close to Him,” one with the very Essence of Hashem, with Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. And this can be attained only through Torah and mitzvos. When a Jew contemplates this, a great and wondrous joy awakens within him, an immense and powerful joy. This is the joy of “joy and gladness of heart beyond all”—above every level of “all,” above every delight attainable at any level. When a Jew contemplates this, the Alter Rebbe says, it is what the verse means by “Therefore, say to the children of Israel.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu sends Moshe Rabbeinu, the faithful shepherd. He is the faithful shepherd because, as explained in Chassidus, he draws faith down, connects Jews to G-dliness and instills faith within them as a faithful shepherd. Faith should become a matter of “And you shall know that I am Hashem.” This is the point of the service: that a Jew actually sense and feel that Hakadosh Boruch Hu is taking him out “from under the burdens of Egypt.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu takes him out of all the constraints and limitations, and all the concealments of this physical world. And he places himself in a state of “joy and gladness of heart beyond all,” the greatest joy, through fulfilling Torah and mitzvos. “And I will bring you to a land”

14:14 good and spacious. What is that “good and spacious land”? It refers to the study of Torah, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah, and to mitzvos. The Alter Rebbe explains at length in the maamar how, through them, a Jew has joy and gladness of heart. This is the general idea of the Exodus from Egypt, and in particular it has several levels. There is an Exodus from Egypt on the level of nights: nights indicate a lower level, a state of darkness and concealment. A person contemplates the concealment in the world and, through that, emerges from his constraints and limitations: he contemplates how G-dliness is present in the world and connects with Hakadosh Boruch Hu through his involvement in worldly matters. That is the level of nights. And what is a deeper contemplation? Contemplating the G-dliness that is above the world, the level of G-dliness above tzimtzum and above the world. That is the level of days. As is known, the Alter Rebbe said after three cups: “I do not want Your Gan Eden; I do not want Your World to Come. I want only You Yourself.” Jews contemplate the very Essence of Hashem, which is above all levels and the entire order of spiritual progression, and this gives them the strength to leave all constraints and limitations. And although this is a great and wondrous level, nevertheless, this is

15:33 Hakadosh Boruch Hu says in the weekly parsha: “I appeared to Avraham, to Yitzchak and to Yaakov as Keil Shakkai, but by My name Havayah I was not known to them.” But through Moshe Rabbeinu, the faithful shepherd, who received this new power, they rose after the Exodus from Egypt to the level of “And you shall know that I am Havayah”: Jews could connect to G-dliness by contemplating all these matters and by fulfilling Torah and mitzvos. And this service must be done with joy and gladness of heart, which take a person out of all constraints and limitations. On this, the Alter Rebbe explained the subject of joy in the second maamar. The Alter Rebbe interprets the verse, “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart beyond all”; the verse continues, “You shall serve your enemies.” Because service with joy was lacking, the result is “You shall serve your enemies.” The Alter Rebbe asks: This is difficult to understand. How can a lack of joy alone lead to what the verse says next? According to the explanations of the Rambam, the Alter Rebbe and the Arizal, the person does serve Hashem, and even observes everything in the Shulchan Aruch, the Torah and mitzvos; only joy is lacking. Is it only because he lacks joy that the punishment—

17:02 the punishment is so bitter: “You shall serve your enemies”? How can that be? The Alter Rebbe answers this question. The maamar is in Likkutei Torah, Parshas Tazria. The Alter Rebbe says there: In truth, the punishment of “You shall serve your enemies” does not come from a lack of joy alone. There are also undesirable matters, transgressions; each person knows in his own heart that from time to time he stumbles in undesirable matters. So we need mercy from Heaven for these matters to be mitigated and cleansed through punishments. But what happens? When a Jew is in a state of joy, as we said, joy below arouses joy above. And when there is joy above, the judgments are mitigated; when the judgments are mitigated, there are consequently no punishments for the undesirable matters. But when a person is in a state of “you did not serve Hashem with joy”—he serves Hashem, but joy is lacking—he is in a state of sadness and bitterness. This brings about a state of contraction above, and when there is contraction above, judgments are aroused. An accounting begins, and the undesirable matters become apparent.

18:36 Therefore, “You shall serve your enemies” comes because of the undesirable matters. For this reason, the Alter Rebbe’s advice is that a Jew should always be in a state of joy. Joy itself—the joy of a mitzvah and joy in serving Hashem—has an effect above and arouses joy above. Through that joy above, the judgments are nullified, and one is spared punishment for the undesirable matters. The Alter Rebbe also interprets “You shall serve your enemies” in terms of serving Hashem: when joy is lacking, a person may, G-d forbid, come to serve the enemy. That enemy is his own enemy, the yetzer hara, the animal soul. When a person is in a state of joy, it lifts him above all limitations, both from above and from below, and he can break free of the limitations of the yetzer hara and the animal soul. But when he is in a state of constriction, contraction, sadness and bitterness, then Hakadosh Boruch Hu [unclear], “you shall serve”—he serves his enemy, his animal soul. And the Alter Rebbe says there that this is why many people fall from their level in serving Hashem: they are in a state of sadness. They want to be on a higher level, and because they have not reached the level they aspire to, they lack joy and become sad. If only—

20:00 they knew that the opposite is true: the service must be to “serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart.” Through this itself, a person can overcome all undesirable matters; through this itself, he can emerge from all concealments. This is how we leave our personal Egypt. And by leaving our personal Egypt, the constraints and limitations of our inner exile, may we merit, speedily in our days, that Jews leave the physical exile and the general exile, and exile in every respect. May we soon merit the fulfillment of “As in the days of your exodus from the land of Egypt, I will show him wonders”; may we leave all constraints and limitations through joy. “For you shall go out with joy”—through joy we will leave all concealments, and may we very soon merit “gladness and joy,” and “everlasting joy upon their heads,” with the true and complete Geulah. Amen, may it be His will.