Parshas Terumah - Loving a Jew in Every Situation

00:00 There was a chossid of the Tzemach Tzedek named Reb Avraham Ber Yirmiyes. The Frierdiker Rebbe speaks about him at length in several sichos, relating things he heard from him. He knew him—Reb Avraham Ber was still alive in the Frierdiker Rebbe’s time—and he was one of the veteran chassidim who told him many stories. In Kovetz Hatamim, one of the publications the Frierdiker Rebbe printed after the war, an entire account appears in one of the issues, apparently written by the Frierdiker Rebbe himself, of what he heard from Reb Avraham Ber Yirmiyes about his first trip to the Tzemach Tzedek. He made that trip while still a child. His father was called Reb Yirmiyah; he was among the great chassidim, one of the Tzemach Tzedek’s earliest chassidim. He was a student of the well-known chossid Reb Aizik of Homil and lived in the city of Homil. The account paints the whole picture in rich detail, describing precisely how the trip unfolded: how they traveled to the Tzemach Tzedek for Shavuos. In that account, the Frierdiker Rebbe describes the entire journey in detail, beginning with the preparations on Lag BaOmer and the farbrengen Reb Aizik of Homil held that day, followed by the farbrengens throughout the week, their departure, and the pilgrimage along the way.

01:31 He describes how it all unfolded with tremendous joy and enthusiasm. It is an account rich in detail. He goes on to relate what happened during the trip, while they were in Lubavitch, and after Shavuos—the maamarim and everything else that took place then. It was the custom of chassidim to go in for yechidus after Yom Tov. Reb Avraham Ber, who was a child at the time, describes from a child’s perspective how he watched the preparations and the seriousness: how his father, Reb Yirmiyah, stood preparing himself, wanting to enter yechidus with the Rebbe in a state of trembling. He also tells of the time when his father went in for yechidus: how he stood beside him and cried, how his father poured out his heart in tears, and of the blessing the Tzemach Tzedek gave him. Afterward, when they emerged from yechidus and passed through the beis midrash, other chassidim were there dancing, singing, and saying “L’chaim”; there was tremendous joy. Reb Avraham Ber relates that when he saw this, he could not understand what was going on. Why, before going in to the Rebbe, had everyone been so tense, so serious, saying Tehillim and engaged in all that inner work, with such bitterness of heart? Going in to the Rebbe had been accompanied by tremendous tension. And then, as soon as they came out from the Rebbe, there was joy and dancing and...

02:59 the great celebration taking place there. So he, too, joined the dancing. He relates that in the middle of the dancing, one of his teachers from cheder in Homil called him over and explained what was happening. He said to him: Do you remember what we learned in cheder, the Mishnah in Tractate Yoma? It describes the order of the Kohen Gadol’s service on Yom Kippur. For seven days before Yom Kippur, they prepared and prepared for the holy day, when the Kohen Gadol had to enter the Holy of Holies, attending to every detail and preparation with great seriousness. And then, as the Mishnah concludes, after the entire Yom Kippur service was over—with the great awe surrounding his entry into the Holy of Holies once a year—“he would make a celebration when he emerged from the holy place.” When the Kohen Gadol emerged on Yom Kippur, he would hold a full celebration, with great joy, after Yom Kippur. That chossid explained to him—and all this is written in that account—that this was how things were when the Beis Hamikdash stood. After the Beis Hamikdash was destroyed and there was no physical Beis Hamikdash, for us chassidim, the Rebbe’s home is the Jerusalem of chassidim today; the Rebbe’s beis midrash...

04:26 is the Beis Hamikdash. And the Rebbe and the Rebbe’s room are the Holy of Holies. The Rebbe is the Aron Hakodesh. When a chossid enters yechidus, it is like the Kohen Gadol entering the Holy of Holies. That is why there is all that preparation, seriousness, and trembling. And when one leaves the Rebbe’s home, the Rebbe’s room, it is like “he would make a celebration,” with all the dancing and great joy. This is “he would make a celebration when he emerged safely from the holy place.” This story, told in the accounts, illustrates how chassidim experienced traveling to the Rebbe, staying with the Rebbe, entering yechidus with the Rebbe, and the joy afterward, when they emerged encouraged and strengthened by the encouragement, instructions, guidance, blessings, and advice they had received in yechidus. The weekly parsha, Parshas Terumah, is where we begin learning about the Beis Hamikdash, about the Mishkan. “They shall make Me a sanctuary, and I shall dwell among them”—the mitzvah to build the Mishkan. And as our Sages say, it does not say “within it,” but “among them”: within each and every Jew. Every Jew has a Beis Hamikdash. The spiritual Beis Hamikdash is within every Jew. And all the details we learn in Parshas Terumah and in the five parshiyos—Terumah, Tetzaveh, Ki Sisa, Vayakhel, Pekudei—five

05:53 parshiyos. We will learn how all the specific laws relate to the Mishkan. All these matters teach us about the spiritual Beis Hamikdash in our service of Hashem. We will discuss the first thing described in the parsha: the Aron Hakodesh, the kapores, and the keruvim. There is a beautiful sicha of the Rebbe about this that brings out a rich insight into the whole subject: What was the purpose of the Aron, the kapores, and the keruvim in the Beis Hamikdash? And, of course, how does this apply to serving Hashem within every Jew? We will begin with a disagreement between Rashi and Ramban concerning the vessels in the Holy of Holies. As our parsha relates, the Aron stood in the Holy of Holies. On the Aron was a lid, a covering called the kapores. And alongside it were the two keruvim. All of this is described in detail in our parsha. We find that Rashi and Ramban disagree on several points that, at first glance, seem unrelated to one another. But when we look more deeply, we can see that in this disagreement

07:20 between Rashi and Ramban, across their approaches and all the details on which they differ, there is something very interesting. First, they have an interesting disagreement about the order in which the Tablets were placed in the Aron. According to Rashi, they first took the Aron—which consisted of three nested chests, one of gold, one of wood, and another of gold—and while it was still an Aron on its own, before the kapores was placed on it and before the keruvim were set in place, while the Aron was still open, they put the Tablets inside it. Only afterward did they place the kapores, with the keruvim on it, over the Aron. That is what Rashi says. Ramban disagrees with Rashi and says: No. First, the Aron had to be completed. They took the Aron and placed the kapores with the keruvim on it, making it complete. Then they removed the kapores and put in the Tablets, and only then returned the kapores to its place. Of course, the disagreement is connected to how they explain and understand the verses in the parsha. But at first glance, what is the point of...

08:44 what practical difference does it make? What is the disagreement, and what is it rooted in? The Rebbe explains that Rashi and Ramban disagree not merely about the sequence—what is put in place first and what comes afterward—but about the nature of the Aron. According to Ramban, the Aron together with the kapores and the keruvim is a single vessel. It is all one thing. So first the vessel must be made complete, and once it is complete, the Tablets can be placed inside it. Ramban understands that the entire purpose of the Aron, with the kapores and the Tablets, was to be one vessel, the place where the Shechinah would rest through the Tablets given at Sinai. So first the vessel had to be completed; only then could the kapores be lifted and the Tablets placed inside. But Rashi holds otherwise. In his view, the Aron and the Tablets are one matter, while the kapores with the keruvim are another. They are two separate vessels. The Aron itself is the place where the Tablets are kept, and for that, the Aron alone is sufficient. Only afterward is there a separate vessel, a matter in its own right—the kapores

10:10 with the keruvim upon it. It is a separate vessel. So there is no need to wait until everything is ready. As soon as they made the Ark itself, they placed the Tablets inside it; only afterward came the cover and the keruvim. The disagreement is not only about the order of events; it is a disagreement about their meaning. That same disagreement comes up in a number of areas, to the point that it has a practical implication in halachah. There is a halachic difference between Rashi and the Ramban when building the Ark: what intention is required? After all, it is known that an intention for its sacred purpose was required for everything in the Holy of Holies, the Beis Hamikdash, and the Mishkan. It had to be “They shall take for Me”—for My sake. It had to be made for the sake of the sanctity of the Mishkan, and similarly, as the halachic authorities also state, each vessel had to be made for its own purpose. So when making the Ark, the cover, and the Tablets, what intention was required? According to Rashi, each vessel required a separate intention: the Ark was made for the sake of the Ark, the cover for the sake of the cover, and the keruvim for the sake of the keruvim. But according to the Ramban, all three parts form one single entity: the Holy Ark. There is also a practical difference if someone wants to build one—for the halachah is

11:37 that it is forbidden to build something in the form of a vessel of the Mishkan. So at what point is it considered a vessel? If someone built the Ark alone, without the keruvim and the cover, is that considered making a complete vessel or not? According to the Ramban, when has he made the complete vessel? When he has made every part: the Ark, the cover, and the keruvim. According to Rashi, by making the Ark alone he has already made the entire, complete vessel. That is a practical difference in halachah. What is the reasoning behind this, and where do their views differ? The disagreement concerns the definition and purpose of the keruvim and the cover. It touches on their entire meaning, and Rashi and the Ramban’s disagreement depends on it. The Ramban holds that the entire reality of the Ark with the Tablets, the Holy of Holies, the cover, and the keruvim was a continuation of the Giving of the Torah. The Ramban explains this at length and in a systematic way, in a wonderful commentary. He explains that the entire construction of the Mishkan is, in essence, a continuation of the Giving of the Torah. At the Giving of the Torah, the Jewish people saw the fulfillment of “Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu descended and gave the Torah. They saw that His Shechinah was present where the Torah was, which at that time was Mount Sinai. And when

13:09 Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to make this permanent, a resting place for the Shechinah, the main purpose of the Beis Hamikdash, as the Ramban says, was to be a resting place for the Shechinah as Mount Sinai had been. What had been there temporarily would be here permanently. For this purpose, the Tablets were placed in the Holy Ark, and there were the cover and the keruvim. The entire Mishkan was built to be a resting place for the Shechinah. That is why the Ramban holds that it is all one great continuation. On this basis, the Ramban also explains the keruvim. What are the keruvim, in his view? The keruvim are angels, made in the likeness of angels. That is the meaning of the name “keruvim,” as in the verses that speak of “the One who sits above the keruvim,” referring to angels. Similarly, Yechezkel’s vision of the chariot describes the faces of the keruvim, the face of an ox, and the face of an eagle—the supernal angels. The Ramban explains and holds that on the Temple Mount—on the mountain, on Mount Sinai, sorry—when Hakadosh Boruch Hu descended, “Hashem descended upon Mount Sinai,” the angels descended with Him. The angels were there, as the verses in chapter 68 of Tehillim state: the ministering angels descended together with the Shechinah. The Jewish people saw that the Torah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu came with the ministering angels. Therefore, in the Holy

14:37 of Holies, which was modeled on Mount Sinai and continued what had happened there, they placed the Ark and the Tablets, with the keruvim above them—the same keruvim as the angels who were present at the Giving of the Torah. All of this is according to the Ramban. But according to Rashi, these are two separate matters. The Holy Ark was for the Torah, as the verse says, “You shall place in the Ark the Testimony that I will give you”—that is, the Tablets of the Testimony. Yes, the Tablets of the Testimony were in the Holy Ark; that is where the Torah belonged. Then there was a separate matter: “I will meet with you there.” The keruvim mark the place where Hakadosh Boruch Hu meets with the Jewish people. When Hakadosh Boruch Hu wishes to come and meet with the Jewish people—“I will meet with you”—to meet with Moshe Rabbeinu, who represents the Jewish people, He wishes to meet with the Jewish people. Where does that meeting take place? Above the cover. The keruvim express the bond between the Jewish people and Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and in that respect they have a purpose of their own. So much so that this also explains why Rashi interprets “keruvim” differently from the Ramban. The Ramban says that the keruvim are angels; “the One who sits above the keruvim” refers to angels. Why? Because the keruvim resembled angels, with wings and so on. Rashi, however—this is how Rashi explains the keruvim. Rashi says

16:11 that the keruvim had the faces of infants, human faces. What is the meaning of the infants’ likeness? It represents the Jewish people. The Baal HaTurim notes on the verse that “keruvim” comes from “keravya”; “ravya” in Aramaic means an infant. And the Baal HaTurim cites the verse, “For Yisroel is a child, and I love him.” The Jewish people are like a small child—“For Yisroel is a child”—like an infant loved by a father who loves his little child, his baby. So too with the Jewish people: “For Yisroel is a child, and I love him”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu loves the Jewish people. This is the meaning of “I will meet with you”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to meet with the Jewish people, and the meeting between them takes place through the keruvim. On this basis, the entire disagreement between Rashi and the Ramban is understandable. Rashi follows his view: the keruvim had a separate purpose, the cover and the keruvim had a separate purpose, and the Ark is a separate matter. The Ark’s purpose is the Torah; the purpose of the keruvim and the cover is the bond between the Jewish people and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Therefore, they are two separate vessels. And therefore, too, as we said, [unclear] the Ark; for if the point were only to place the Tablets in the Ark, what need would there be for the cover and the keruvim? That is not so according to the Ramban, who holds that it is all one thing. The whole purpose of the

17:36 Tablets together with the Ark, the cover, and the keruvim is the Giving of the Torah. The resting place of the Shechinah that was on Mount Sinai was established permanently in a physical part of the Mishkan. Accordingly, all of this is one single thing: Torah. So the entire Ark must first be complete, and then the Tablets are placed inside the Holy Ark, together with the cover and the keruvim. What is the spiritual meaning here? In all of this, Rashi and the Ramban disagree. These are two ways of reading the verses: what comes first, and what is the purpose of the keruvim in relation to the Holy Ark? How do we explain its spiritual meaning in avodas Hashem? And what is the deeper point of the disagreement between Rashi and the Ramban? Here, the Rebbe says, we should bring in what is known in Chassidus about the bond between Jews and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Zohar says, “Three bonds are bound to one another.” These are three bonds linked together: Yisroel, the Torah, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What are the three? The Jewish people, the Torah, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. A maamar of Chassidus asks: if there are three things here, there are only two bonds. Jews are bound to the Torah, and the Torah is bound to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Those are two bonds. Where is the third? Chassidus explains that the third bond

19:14 is the direct bond between Jews and Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In other words, there are two ways in which Jews are connected to G-dliness. There is the bond in which Jews connect to the Torah and, through the Torah, connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. But there is a second bond, a direct bond between Jews and Hakadosh Boruch Hu that does not pass through the Torah. “Yisroel and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one.” This is the bond between the very essence of a Jew and the very essence of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And this is what underlies the views of the Ramban and Rashi. The Ramban speaks of the entire Mishkan as connected to the Torah—the bond between Jews and Hakadosh Boruch Hu as it passes through Torah and mitzvos. Therefore, the Ramban explains that everything we have discussed, both the Holy Ark with the Tablets and the cover and keruvim, is one matter connected to the Giving of the Torah. At the Giving of the Torah, it was revealed how a Jew connects to Hakadosh Boruch Hu through the Torah. Rashi comes and says: that is indeed the bond between Jews and Hakadosh Boruch Hu that passes through the Torah, but there is something deeper here. Rashi’s approach is the plain meaning of Scripture, and the plain meaning of Scripture comes to reveal simplicity. As the Baal Shem Tov said, within the simplicity of a simple Jew lies the true simplicity of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the simplicity of His very essence. And this is Rashi, who

20:44 teaches a young child, “Israel is a child.” In Rashi’s commentary, we find this idea of essential love—the essential love with which Hashem loves Jews, which is above the Torah. This is the essential love about which the Midrash says, “Israel preceded the Torah”: the level at which Jews are connected to Hashem beyond all matters of Torah. For it says in Tanna Devei Eliyahu: “Two things preceded the world, the Torah and Israel. I do not know which preceded which.” Which is higher, the Torah or the Jews? “When I see [unclear] ‘Speak to the Children of Israel,’ I say that Israel came first.” This reveals that Jews are higher than the Torah. It is the level of the Jews’ connection with Hashem that is higher than everything, even the Torah. And this is the essential love of [unclear]. From this essential love comes the power of teshuvah. After all, how can a Jew do teshuvah? Seemingly, the entire connection between Jews and Hashem is through Torah and mitzvos. When he has severed that connection—he has not observed Torah and mitzvos, and has even committed transgressions, cutting himself off from Torah and mitzvos and, consequently, from Hashem—how can he be reconnected? What is teshuvah? Someone who rebels against the king, as the Gemara says, is liable to death. How can he become connected again? What gives teshuvah its power? Chassidus explains that teshuvah reveals this connection.

22:19 Israel. When a Jew returns to Hashem, the essential love contained in “I have loved you, says Hashem” is revealed. Hashem loves a Jew for who he is, just as one loves a young child. As the Midrash says, even when a young child sins and does things he should not do, his parents “do not become distressed with him”—they do not get angry at him. Why? “Because he is an infant, because he is little.” There is a point of essential connection: Hashem loves a Jew simply because he is a Jew. And when a Jew does teshuvah, he awakens that connection. He stands before Hashem, returns to Him, and says: I am a Jew. And that essential connection brings atonement. This is the idea of atonement. Regarding the kappores—the Midrash says, and commentators cite it, and Rabbi Nasan cites it—that “kappores” comes from the word for atonement. That is its meaning. The kappores was the place where the Kohen Gadol performed the Yom Kippur service. That is why everything centered on the kappores: “kappores” means atonement. The atonement of Yom Kippur comes from Hashem’s essential love for Jews. And here Rashi tells us: These are two separate things. There are the Tablets, which are the Torah, and this is the connection of

23:41 Jews through studying Torah and observing mitzvos. And there is something higher: above the Tablets, above the Torah, is the kappores, whose name means atonement. And there are the keruvim, which are “like children,” as in “For Israel is a child,” like an infant who is loved with essential love. That is the meaning of the keruvim above the kappores, about which it says, “I will meet with you there.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to meet with Jews, and Jews want to meet with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is the meaning of the keruvim that stood above the Aron Kodesh. This is what the parsha tells us. When we study the weekly parsha—and the Rebbe spoke about this many times—we need to bring what we learn into our lives. The Alter Rebbe said, “Live with the parsha.” Especially when we study the parshiyos about the Beis Hamikdash and the Mishkan: “They shall make Me a sanctuary.” After all, we are all waiting for “May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy.” Every moment, every minute, we await the building of the Beis Hamikdash. So we must study the parsha and know how things were in their plain sense, while also remembering “They shall make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell within them.” As our Sages say, “It does not say ‘within it,’ but ‘within them’”—within each and every Jew. Every Jew has a personal Beis Hamikdash of his own in his service of Hashem. So what is the meaning of the Aron Kodesh, the kappores, and the Tablets? This is

25:05 the highest, deepest, and holiest part of the Beis Hamikdash. And this is what we said earlier in the story: In our time of exile, the Aron Kodesh represents a Rebbe, a nasi, a tzaddik, who reveals to Jews their connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And this has two aspects. There is the Jew’s connection through the Torah; that is what the Aron represents. And there is an even deeper connection, arising from the very essence of a Jew. From it comes the Ahavas Yisroel revealed by the Baal Shem Tov: one must love a Jew simply because he is a Jew. Just as Hakadosh Boruch Hu says, “For Israel is a child, and I love him,” and therefore the keruvim were “like children,” in the form of infants, expressing essential love. Every Jew is called upon to have this kind of Ahavas Yisroel—to love a Jew simply because he is a Jew. Especially now, as we stand in the darkness of exile, in its most difficult days, this matters all the more. This is what the Gemara relates in tractate Yoma, and it also has a particular connection to Rosh Hashanah: When the Jews went into exile, they saw how the Tablets [unclear]. Precisely then—as it says there—the keruvim,

26:31 when Israel did the will of Hashem, had “their faces turned toward one another.” When they did not do His will, they faced away from each other, rather than “toward one another.” When did their faces turn toward one another, with the keruvim standing face to face? When Israel did His will. The Midrash says that when we went into exile and the non-Jews entered the Sanctuary, they saw the keruvim embracing each other. They saw the keruvim standing specifically with “their faces turned toward one another,” face to face. And this raises a question: How could that be? When Jews go into exile “because of our sins,” they are not doing Hashem’s will. So it should have been the opposite. Yet “their faces were turned toward one another.” What does this mean? On the contrary, this is essential love. There are [unclear] times when the Jews’ connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu depends on their doing His will. It is precisely in the darkness of exile, precisely in the hardest times, when Jews stand and suffer in the darkness of exile, that the words of our Sages, this Midrash, reveal that “their faces were turned toward one another.” The essential love of [unclear] is revealed and awakened. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is in a state of “In all their distress, He is distressed.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu sees Jews in exile, is with them, and suffers in their suffering. And a Jew’s task in these

27:55 days is to awaken that essential love by having that same essential love ourselves—to love a Jew simply because he is a Jew. To awaken the meaning of the keruvim, of “For Israel is a child, and I love him.” This is the work of Ahavas Yisroel. And this, “as water reflects a face back to a face,” also awakens the Jews’ essential love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. May we indeed merit, speedily in our days, the fulfillment of “They shall make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell within them.” May we merit to see the [unclear] of the parsha, the matters of the Beis Hamikdash; may we merit to see the Beis Hamikdash and the [unclear] building of the third Beis Hamikdash, and to see every detail of the Beis Hamikdash: the Holy of Holies, the Aron Kodesh, the Tablets, the keruvim, the kappores, and everything else, in its fullest perfection. “May our eyes behold Your return to Zion in mercy.” Amen, may it be His will.