Parshas Behaaloscha - Avodas Hashem With One's Own Powers

00:00 One of the foundations of the Alter Rebbe’s guidance, one of the foundations of Chabad Chassidus, was the principle of working through one’s own efforts. There was an approach adopted by a number of the Baal Shem Tov’s disciples and the disciples of the Maggid of Mezritch regarding the service of Hashem. It was based on the verse, “The righteous person shall live by his faith”—do not read it as “shall live,” but as “shall give life.” In other words, those disciples understood the path of Chassidus revealed by the Baal Shem Tov this way: a Jew should devote himself to a tzaddik. By believing in him, trusting him, and devoting himself to him, the tzaddik “gives life.” The tzaddik instills faith, reverence, love of Hashem, and fear of Hashem. Our part is to have simple faith and a bond with the tzaddik, while the tzaddik, through his own service, raises his students, the chassidim, to higher levels. That was not the Alter Rebbe’s approach. His approach was the opposite: the service must be specifically through one’s own efforts. A Jew must toil himself, study Chassidus himself, contemplate Hashem’s greatness himself, and awaken love and fear of Hashem. As is well known, there are several accounts of the discussions and debates between the Alter Rebbe and his fellow disciples of the Maggid of Mezritch.

01:44 In particular, the great debate he had on this matter with Rabbi Shlomo of Karlin is well known. The Alter Rebbe’s position was very firm: the path of Chassidus must be one of working through one’s own efforts. We’ll speak a little about this and explain what was new about the path of service the Alter Rebbe revealed—working through one’s own efforts—especially in connection with the weekly parshas being read at this time. This year, in particular, Parshas Shelach is being read in Eretz Yisroel, while Parshas Behaaloscha is being read outside Eretz Yisroel. We’ll look at a point found in both parshas. Both Parshas Behaaloscha and Parshas Shelach contain important, central points that express the path the Alter Rebbe revealed, the path of Chabad Chassidus: working through one’s own efforts. As is my custom, I’ll begin with a story. It is told about one of the students of that generation, the generation of the Maggid of Mezritch’s disciples. As is well known, one of the great tzaddikim among the Alter Rebbe’s colleagues was Rabbi Chaim Chaikel of Amdur. He was a holy, righteous man, a Jew with tremendous fervor in serving Hashem. There was a Jew, a chossid, who wanted to learn and would receive

03:20 guidance from Rabbi Chaim Chaikel of Amdur. From him he learned the path of serving Hashem and how one should serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Some time passed, and that Jew began studying Chabad Chassidus. He studied maamarim and teachings of the Alter Rebbe and began to feel drawn to him. He continued studying, contemplating, and following the path of service taught by Chabad Chassidus. Once, this chossid came to the Alter Rebbe for yechidus. In yechidus, he complained to the Alter Rebbe that he felt he had undergone a change—not an ascent, but just the opposite: a decline. He said that when he had been with Rabbi Chaim Chaikel of Amdur and received his guidance in Chassidus, his service had burned with fire, vitality, strength, and fervor. He had felt tremendous intensity and vitality in prayer, Torah study, and everything else. But when he began studying Chabad Chassidus and engaging in the path of service the Alter Rebbe taught, what we call Chabad Chassidus, he became cold. He no longer felt the same strength or the same fervor he had felt when following the path of service he had received from his previous teacher,

04:54 Rabbi Chaim Chaikel of Amdur. The Alter Rebbe listened to all this and then said: “When you were with Rabbi Chaim Chaikel of Amdur and studied Torah, it wasn’t you who was studying. Rabbi Chaim Chaikel of Amdur was studying through you. When you engaged in prayer, it wasn’t you who was praying; Rabbi Chaim Chaikel of Amdur was praying through you. When you performed a mitzvah with fervor, that fervor wasn’t yours. It was Rabbi Chaim Chaikel of Amdur’s fervor, passing through you. But what I demand of you is that the vitality be yours, the fervor be yours, that the prayer and Torah study be yours—and that indeed requires great work and toil.” The Alter Rebbe devoted himself with self-sacrifice to this principle of working through one’s own efforts. As is well known, in a number of sichos the Frierdiker Rebbe discusses this principle and the Alter Rebbe’s self-sacrifice to bring about a way of serving Hashem and practicing Chassidus that would be specifically through one’s own efforts. We find this in Parshas Behaaloscha itself, and later we’ll discuss a point in Parshas Shelach. These two points are matters the Rebbe spoke about earlier, at a farbrengen on Parshas Behaaloscha on 19 Tishrei, when he discussed this at length. On the following Shabbos, Shabbos

06:32 Parshas Lech Lecha, he continued discussing it. Parshas Behaaloscha contains the passage, “When you raise the lamps.” What does “when you raise the lamps” mean? It refers to Aharon the Kohen lighting the menorah. Rashi pauses over the word “raise” and explains: What does it mean? If it meant only lighting the lamps, it should have said, “when you light them.” Why does it say “when you raise them”? Rashi offers two explanations. The first is that when Aharon the Kohen lights a lamp of the menorah, he must light it “until the flame rises on its own.” When he begins lighting the lamp, he must wait until the flame rises on its own. That is the meaning of “when you raise”: you light it until it rises on its own, until the fire burns by itself. Rashi then offers a second explanation: there were steps in front of the menorah that the Kohen climbed to light it. But we’ll focus on the first explanation. What does it mean? We need to understand it according to the teachings of Chassidus. Chassidus explains every matter. The Torah is eternal, its guidance is eternal, and everything in the Torah has an inner dimension. Indeed, the Alter Rebbe explains

08:03 at length in Likkutei Torah on this parsha that the lamps refer to every soul. “The soul of man is the lamp of Hashem.” A Jew’s soul is a lamp. “When you raise the lamps”—“The soul of man is the lamp of Hashem.” A Jew’s soul is “truly a part of G-d above,” and it is the lamp. That is the nature of a flame. As the Alter Rebbe explains in chapter 19 of Likkutei Amarim Tanya, a flame naturally wants to rise. It always seeks to leap upward, to cleave to and be absorbed in its source. [unclear] In the same way, the Jewish soul is always yearning and seeking to cleave to Hashem; it always wants to rise and cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This is [unclear] in the Alter Rebbe’s teaching. But because the soul has descended—from a lofty height into a deep pit—and must be clothed in a body and an animal soul, a major question arises: we don’t hear that yearning or see it in a person’s behavior. It isn’t burning or apparent in that way. And this is Aharon the Kohen’s task. Aharon the Kohen is one of the seven shepherds, the tzaddikim who nurture the Jewish people. More than that, Aharon the Kohen is called, as it says, “the attendant of the Queen.” There is the concept of “the attendant of the King” and “the attendant of the Queen”: when a couple goes to the chuppah, they have attendants. “The attendant of the King” is Moshe Rabbeinu, who comes from the groom’s side, the side of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He brings the Torah; “Moshe received the Torah at Sinai,” and he brings the Torah [unclear].

09:53 of the King. This is a drawing down from the King, from above to below, through the Torah. And then there is Aharon the Kohen, who is called “the attendant of the bride.” He stands on the bride’s side. The bride is Knesses Yisroel, the souls of the Jewish people, and he raises them from below to above. The word “bride” suggests a longing so intense that the soul is consumed with yearning to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. About this, the verse says, “When you raise up”: the purpose of Aharon the Kohen’s service is to kindle the soul, the spark, to ignite the flame within them. For when the soul descends and becomes clothed in a body and an animal soul, it becomes as though extinguished, as though dried out. Kindling the flame awakens that capacity. That is why Aharon the Kohen comes. Similarly, in every generation, the leaders of the Jewish people, the tzaddikim, make the flame shine and kindle the spark, the “candle of Hashem, the soul of man.” They give Jews the strength for the candle to burn. That is why Rashi says: the verse says “when you raise up,” not “when you kindle.” And another verse says, “The seven lamps shall shine.” The verses teach us how it must be. It is not enough to kindle the menorah; the flame must rise on its own. In other words, one must touch the innermost point within a person. The idea is not for the tzaddik to burn in his place, to stand beside him and give him strength. Rather, it must be “until the flame rises on its own”: the tzaddik must kindle the spark. And this kindling

11:41 means that the flame becomes his own flame. It may come from a Rebbe, from a tzaddik, but afterward it must be a “flame that rises on its own.” He must train himself to serve Hashem in this way. For a tzaddik influences his students so that, over time, it becomes part of who they are. This was the language the Rebbe used: the purpose of a true mashpia, of a true Rebbe, is to influence his students in such a way that, through their own effort and service, they become people who can stand on their own. They stand on their own feet, so that later, wherever they go and wherever they find themselves, and so on, even if they are far from their teacher, they should always remain within their teacher’s four cubits, and they can receive the flame. But once their teacher has kindled the candle within them, it “rises on its own”: they stand on their own feet and do the work through their own efforts. And we must pay attention to the word “rises,” as the Rebbe says: he does not remain at the point his teacher brought him to through his teaching, carrying that with him wherever he goes. Rather, he “rises”—he continues to ascend. On the foundation of the order he received from his teacher, the time then comes when he becomes a person who stands on his own feet, stands

13:10 and moves forward. Throughout all this, his service must become his nature, something of his own—his own service, carried out through his own efforts. And as he does so, he must constantly continue to ascend. Everything, of course, is founded on what he received from his teacher, and everything must be founded on the one who directs the work. But on that foundation he rises, continuing to go higher and higher, deeper and deeper, growing and [unclear], becoming stronger and stronger, rising higher and higher. This is the point: the service must become his own. And the matter, as the Rebbe [unclear], is “[unclear],” etc. This is also true of one’s work with oneself: training oneself in the work each person must do, kindling his own “candle of Hashem, the soul of man.” The parsha, and the sequence within it, teach us that a Jew must kindle his own “candle of Hashem, the soul of man” in a way that the “flame rises on its own.” The practices he cultivates in his service of Hashem should not be such that every day he needs a new awakening, and every day he needs to receive [unclear] an awakening from above. That is not the way to serve Hashem. On the contrary, the service must “rise on its own,” become his own, and in the process constantly ascend from one level to the next. We see the same thing in influencing others: every Jew must be a mashpia, and every Jew has the task of

14:31 kindling another Jew’s candle. As the Rebbe would say, a chossid is a lamplighter. This means that a chossid must know that his purpose in the world is to kindle the candle in another Jew, to reveal that Jew’s “candle of Hashem, the soul of man.” But when you go with the strength of Aharon, with the strength of Moshe, with the strength of the tzaddikim and leaders, and approach another Jew to kindle his “candle of Hashem, the soul of man,” that influence, too, must take this form: when bringing Jews closer to Judaism, learning Torah with them and revealing the inner dimension of Torah to them, it is not enough to give them something once, to plant something in them and leave it at that. Rather, it must be a “flame that rises on its own”: we must help each recipient become someone who stands on his own feet, through his own efforts, until it becomes his nature, and as he does so, he ascends from strength to strength. That is true influence. On the following Shabbos, Parshas Shelach, the Rebbe dwelt on the opening verse and on Rashi’s explanation of “Send for yourself.” There we see the same point, even more powerfully and at greater length [unclear]. Rashi focuses on “Send for yourself”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu says to Moshe Rabbeinu, “Send for yourself.” What does “for yourself” mean? Rashi says:

15:58 “According to your judgment.” In other words, the entire mission of the spies is left to Moshe’s judgment. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives Moshe Rabbeinu the option to decide for himself whether to do it: “I am not commanding you”—I am not instructing you to do this—“if you wish, send them.” Then comes the whole story of the spies: what else happened here and where it all led, beginning with Moshe’s choice of worthy men, the finest and most distinguished Jews. Afterward came, may Heaven protect us, their fall and descent, when they failed and sank to the lowest depths. That is the story of the spies, who did not heed Hashem, apart from Yehoshua and Kalev, as the entire parsha tells us. The Rebbe raises a simple question here that will help us understand the verses and Rashi: until this point, all the way up to Parshas Shelach, Moshe Rabbeinu received instructions from Hakadosh Boruch Hu about everything he wanted to know and do. We do not find Hakadosh Boruch Hu telling Moshe Rabbeinu, “Do as you wish.” On the contrary, at every step, in every matter, there were instructions from Heaven. Already in Egypt, with the Pesach offering, and then in the wilderness before the Giving of the Torah, and later at the Giving of the Torah, and afterward with the Mishkan and the offerings—in every parsha up to Parshas Shelach, clear instructions came from above about how to do everything. And suddenly Moshe Rabbeinu hears something new.

17:26 Hakadosh Boruch Hu tells him: I am not commanding you. “Send for yourself”—according to your judgment, if you want to. Where did this new approach come from? Moshe Rabbeinu should have understood from that alone that something was wrong: he had received instructions from above about everything, and suddenly Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, “According to your judgment”? That implies there is something wrong here. He should have understood from this alone not to do it. Yet the answer is: no. Moshe Rabbeinu is not deterred. He goes and chooses men, and carries out the mission. Indeed, we see that Moshe Rabbeinu sensed that something was wrong, for he prayed for Yehoshua bin Nun: “May Hashem save you from the counsel of the spies.” So he did sense that something was amiss. But even before that, the very words “according to your judgment” should have told him that something was wrong, that Hakadosh Boruch Hu did not want it. How, then, could he send spies? Moreover, later in the Torah, forty years afterward, Yehoshua bin Nun—who had been one of the spies and had seen everything that came of that episode—not only was he not deterred, but he went and sent spies again: “And Yehoshua sent ... spies in secret.” What happened here? The explanation, continuing what was discussed earlier, is that Moshe Rabbeinu received a clear instruction: a new path in the service of Hashem was beginning. One of its features was—until now—

18:53 Until now, everything had come to him ready-made: it was put in his mouth; he was given food to eat. Like a small child who is given everything: his parents give him food and drink, give him clothes, give him everything, and tell him what to do, how to do it, and how to behave. But a time comes when Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to raise him to a higher level in serving Hashem. And Hakadosh Boruch Hu says: The time has come for “according to your own understanding”—for a Jew to choose a path in serving Hashem through his own efforts. Everything he has received from Above until now, and all the things Hakadosh Boruch Hu has taught him, educated him in, and guided him through—but the ultimate purpose of the service is that he should not remain in a state where he always needs to be shown and told what to do. On the contrary, its purpose is for a Jew to have a choice of his own, and for his service to come through his own efforts, through effort from below, without being led by the hand from Above and told, “Do this, do this, do this.” Rather, he should be able to choose and carry out the service through his own efforts. So when Hakadosh Boruch Hu came and said to Moshe Rabbeinu, “Send for yourself, according to your own understanding,” Moshe Rabbeinu heard that a new path in serving Hashem was beginning here, and that this, specifically, was the ultimate purpose of the service: Hakadosh Boruch Hu believes in a Jew and says to him, “According to your own understanding”—a Jew can choose for himself, and he

20:12 [unclear] and choose good on his own. So not only was Moshe Rabbeinu not alarmed by this; on the contrary, he went joyfully and wholeheartedly to the Jews and told them: “Listen, fellow Jews, a new path has arrived. This is not the start of a new [unclear]. Rather, the service must be to use your own minds, use your own emotional faculties, use your own [unclear] in action, to understand for yourselves, and to search and think about how Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants you to act, what Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants you to do, and in what way. Of course, all of this is founded on everything—the instructions and guidance—we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu. But the service must come through your own efforts.” What, then, happened? This was the spies’ mistake: they took it too far. They embraced this approach, but they lacked devotion to Moshe Rabbeinu. In other words, although the service must indeed come through our own efforts, and we must indeed use our own minds and understanding, this must be done without introducing ideas or approaches of our own that are not what Moshe Rabbeinu wanted. All the service we do through our own efforts must itself come from bittul and devotion, founded on what we receive from Moshe Rabbeinu and on his guidance. The spies, by contrast, wanted to mix in decisions of their own. Moshe Rabbeinu had not instructed them to offer decisions. Moshe Rabbeinu told them to see the land, examine its details, and see how

21:43 to conquer the land by natural means. But there is [unclear] here, and this is certainly the right approach: the service must come through one’s own efforts. Therefore, the conquest of Eretz Yisroel had to be carried out through natural means—to assess the situation and the conditions as they appeared naturally, and to consider every detail. All this is an essential part of serving through one’s own efforts. But it must be done with the clear understanding that they were going with the strength of Moshe and the strength of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that He [unclear]. By contrast, when they went and mixed in decisions and considerations of their own that Moshe Rabbeinu had not instructed them to bring back, they separated themselves from Moshe, and that was indeed their mistake. All this is also hinted at in the name of the parsha. The parsha is called “Shelach”—“Send.” Shelach is about shlichus. Shlichus means that, on the one hand, “a person’s shliach is like the person himself.” A shliach must know that he is not going on his own. He goes on the mission of the one who sent him. And the sender dispatches the shliach to “improve things, not to distort them,” as the Gemara says: to do the things, to perform the actions, as the sender requested, and not to spoil the mission, G-d forbid. That is one side. On the other hand, a shliach must be capable of independent judgment. This is discussed at length in halachah and in the relevant Talmudic discussion, concerning [unclear] in shlichus: only someone capable of independent judgment can be a shliach. There is a servant; a servant is indeed devoted

23:07 to his master and submits to him, but the distinctive point of a shliach is that he must be capable of independent judgment, and not [unclear] a shliach. That means he must use his mind and understanding—but use them to work out how to carry out the will of Moshe Rabbeinu, which is the will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He must not make decisions on his own; that is not what he was sent to do. When one does that, the shlichus is lost. So what lesson do we take from Parshas Shelach? It is a positive lesson: there must indeed be an “according to your own understanding.” As Chassidus teaches, the path of serving Hashem, as the Alter Rebbe guided Chabad chassidim, involves “according to your own understanding.” A Jew must know that there is indeed “we will do.” “We will do” comes before “we will hear”—before the Giving of the Torah, “we will do” was placed before “we will hear”: devotion and kabbolas ol. The Jews were servants of Hashem. But in Parshas Shelach, a new path of service appears: “we will do” must also be brought into “we will hear.” There must be “according to your own understanding,” and there must be service in which we use our own minds and see how our understanding tells us to carry out the shlichus. This means using our own heads and not always waiting for explicit instructions from Above at every step and stage. But alongside this, there must be “Shelach”—shlichus, devotion to Moshe Rabbeinu. And here we find, in summary,

24:32 in both Parshas Behaalosecha and Parshas Shelach, these two points, which are fundamental to the teachings of Chassidus. On the one hand, in Parshas Behaalosecha there is the tzaddik, the Rebbe, who kindles the souls. Similarly, in Parshas Shelach there is the sender who sends you, gives you the shlichus, guides us, and shows us what we must do in the world. But at the same time, in Behaalosecha it is done in a way that “the flame rises on its own”—a person must have a fire of his own. And in Shelach, the shlichus must be “according to your own understanding”: a person must use his own mind and know how to make the right decisions. In the early years of the Rebbe’s leadership—we are speaking of 5711, and later 5719—chassidim from Eretz Yisroel wrote a letter to the Rebbe. Already in the early years of his leadership, the Rebbe demanded that the chassidim act: transform the world into a great world of Moshiach, spread Judaism and the wellsprings of Chassidus outward, and bring Jews closer. He demanded a great deal of activity. There was a letter from chassidim who wrote that they were prepared to do, with self-sacrifice, anything the Rebbe instructed them to do, but they wanted the Rebbe to tell each one exactly where to go and what to do, and they were ready to do whatever he commanded. Which city to go to, which shlichus to undertake, where to go—he should tell each person individually and spell out “Rachel,

26:03 your younger daughter”-style, every detail of the shlichus. The Rebbe once wrote a letter in which he said the following: You know what the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, that “the beginning, essence, and root of the service” is accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven. But the Alter Rebbe says this is “the beginning of the service.” It is not the whole service, only the starting point, the foundation. The service itself must be done with vitality and delight, using one’s own mind. The same is true of shlichus: there must be kabbolas ol, bittul to Moshe Rabbeinu. But that is only the beginning of the service. After that, each person must find the area in which he has strength and vitality, and use his own understanding, his own mind, to carry out the shlichus with joy and delight, in a way that involves his entire being. He must find the means and the ways to succeed as fully as possible in carrying out what he has taken upon himself. And this is the lesson we learn from today’s parsha, both from Behaalosecha and from Shelach: this is how the service must be done. It must be done in a way that “rises on its own,” and as service “according to your own understanding.” We must use our own abilities, and then we truly carry out the shlichus to the fullest, fulfilling what we have taken upon ourselves to the fullest, in order to make for Him, blessed be He, a dwelling

27:23 in the lower realms. And just as it was then, the first time, and later through Yehoshua bin Nun, who did indeed carry out the shlichus: he sent spies. He knew that this was indeed what he had taken upon himself, but the service had to be done “according to your own understanding.” So Yehoshua did send spies, and through that they conquered Yericho, and through that they conquered all of Eretz Yisroel. The same is true in our day: may each person devote himself to the shlichus we have received from the Moshe Rabbeinu of our generation, from the leader of our generation, from our tzaddik, who gave us the shlichus to work toward “the spreading of your wellsprings outward” and to prepare the world to welcome Moshiach Tzidkeinu. And in this way, may we indeed merit, speedily in our days, amen, the true and complete Geulah. May it come immediately, right now.