Parshas Re'eh, Shabbos Mevorchim Elul - "Vesamti Kadchod Shimshosayich" - Which Light Will Shine in the Future to Come?

00:00 Among chassidim generally, every word of Chassidus they heard from the Rebbe mattered. It is well known that chassidim would travel to the Rebbe, each one listening to every word, and afterward they would repeat it and study it with everyone. That is the familiar song chassidim used to sing: When a chossid returns from Lubavitch, they ask him, “What did you acquire? What did you bring back from there? What did you bring from Lubavitch?” And the chossid says, “I brought back a verse.” Some chassidim understood the entire maamar, repeated it, and studied it with everyone. Others repeated part of the maamar, or a word from it. Still others knew no more than a verse, and that stayed with them all their lives. The Frierdiker Rebbe relates in one of his sichos that a simple chossid once came to the Rebbe Maharash, and the Rebbe Maharash delivered a maamar of Chassidus. The chossid did not understand the whole maamar, because it was a difficult one, and it turned out that he had misunderstood something. In the maamar, the Rebbe Maharash spoke, among other things, about neshamos of Atzilus. The Rebbe spoke at length about souls, explaining that there are neshamos of Atzilus. But the chossid did not understand what Atzilus was, and thought it was a Yiddish word: neshamos in patchailes. What are patchailes? Apparently, it means a kerchief in Russian. He thought it meant souls in kerchiefs, because that was how he understood the Rebbe’s words: that there are souls that are

01:50 wrapped and covered in a patchaile, a kerchief. In other words, something was covering the souls. So he thought that his own soul was probably inside a patchaile. The reason he felt no emotion in davening, found no pleasure in serving Hashem, and felt no love of Hashem or sense of serving Him was that his soul was inside a patchaile, covered by a coarse covering. Afterward, the chossid went into yechidus, as was customary with the Rebbe. He entered yechidus and asked the Rebbe, “Rebbe, take my soul out of the patchaile.” The Rebbe immediately understood the chossid’s mistake and how he had interpreted the maamar. The Rebbe Maharash took it seriously and gave the chossid a path in serving Hashem. The chossid was a wagon driver, and the Rebbe Maharash told him what he could learn from his work and from handling the horse. The Rebbe Maharash spoke to him about his livelihood in terms he understood: the horse is the body, and the person driving the horse is the soul. One must free the horse from the harness—that is, remove the harness; the idea is to remove the body, and [unclear] the master over its conduct. Then one understands it quite differently. And he gave him a path in serving Hashem, showing him how

03:25 to harness the body to the service of Hashem. Afterward, the Rebbe Maharash said that this chossid had understood better than everyone else. In other words, although he had misinterpreted the words, he had truly grasped the essential point to remember, the stirring of teshuvah—exactly what Chassidus sought to bring about. More generally, chassidim know that when Shabbos Mevarchim Elul arrived, as the Frierdiker Rebbe relates in the well-known sicha from Pesach 5694, the atmosphere in Lubavitch changed. There was still daylight, by the way; the sun was still shining. But the spirit, the atmosphere, had already changed. You could already sense teshuvah in the air; the spirit of teshuvah, the spirit of Elul, was already blowing, and the atmosphere changed. That is how it was in Lubavitch, as the Frierdiker Rebbe says in that sicha. Over time, I see it in the details when we come to the maamarim of Chassidus. The Rebbeim said that the month’s avodah grows stronger and stronger, and already beforehand we begin entering the month of Elul, the month of Tishrei, and all this avodah. Generally, the Elul maamarim are “Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li” and “Hashem Elokecha Es Levavcha Ve’es Levav Zarecha.” And this maamar too, which discussed matters of teshuvah, matters of [unclear]. That was where they already began to feel the atmosphere of teshuvah. As I remember it with the Rebbe [unclear].

04:57 When Shabbos Mevarchim Elul arrives, you immediately feel the atmosphere in Lubavitch; the seriousness in the air changes. At the farbrengen the Rebbe held on Shabbos Mevarchim Elul—which I had the privilege of attending for several years—you heard a new note: We are entering it; it is coming, and we need to prepare for the new year. We need to take on a little more, boldly, and we need to [unclear], and shake ourselves up a little. Then comes the matter of [unclear], and we begin to enter the avodah of teshuvah: to refine ourselves, rise higher, and draw closer to G-dliness. In the avodah of teshuvah, we find two [unclear]. The maamarim discuss something interesting. In general, the point of the avodah of teshuvah is the soul’s return, an avodah in which a Jew must draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu from below upward. The maamarim of Chassidus explain the verse “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine”: there are two verses in Shir Hashirim. One says, “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine,” and another says, “My Beloved is mine and I am His.” These are two verses: one says, “My Beloved is mine and I am His, Who grazes among the lilies,” and the other says, “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine, Who grazes among the lilies.” Chassidus explains that one verse speaks about the month of Nissan, and the other about the month of Tishrei. Elul,

06:28 Tishrei. These are not one period, but two. There is the time of “My Beloved is mine and I am His,” and the time of “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine.” The month of Nissan is a revelation from above: “The King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, revealed Himself to them in His glory and by Himself, and redeemed them.” The entire festival, the month of Nissan, was a revelation of G-dliness that came from above. This is the meaning of “My Beloved is mine”: Hakadosh Boruch Hu draws close to the Jews, and although they were at the very lowest level, in the forty-nine gates of impurity, Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes to them, embraces them, and takes them out of the kelipos and out of exile. That is “My Beloved is mine.” Afterward must come “and I am His”: the Jew must then draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That is Sefiras HaOmer, all the avodah that follows the revelation of the month of Nissan. When the month of Elul arrives, we say, “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine”: the Jew must draw close from below upward. A Jew must engage in teshuvah, take stock of himself, and correct the past and everything that happened throughout the year; he must bring himself, direct himself, toward serving Hashem, and through that draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu from below upward: “I am my Beloved’s,” and through this, “my Beloved is mine.” Yet at the same time, the words “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine” contain both aspects: the Jew’s avodah, through which he draws close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and the revelation from above, the “and my Beloved

08:00 is mine,” in which Hakadosh Boruch Hu receives him with love. “I am my Beloved’s”—he calls out to his Beloved with love; “and my Beloved is mine”—He calls to him with love, as the verses say. In other words, Elul includes both things: although the avodah is from below upward, [unclear], there is also a revelation from above downward, as Hakadosh Boruch Hu comes from above. In the well-known maamar “Ani Ledodi Vedodi Li,” in Likkutei Torah, page 32, the Alter Rebbe gives the famous parable of a king before he enters the city. The month of Elul is the time before the king enters the city, before the coronation; Rosh Hashanah is the king’s coronation. Before entering the city, the king is in the field. At that point, every person can go out to greet him; whoever wishes may do so, and the king receives everyone graciously and shows them a smiling face. In this parable we see two movements. On the one hand, everyone must go out to greet him, from below upward—to go to the king, seek him out, and draw close to him. On the other hand, it all began with the king coming to the field. So how can both things hold true—that the king comes to the field, meaning that there is a revelation from above? Chassidus explains that although the king is in the field, he is not there in all the splendor, with all the pomp and royal garments in which he appears for his coronation.

09:44 When the king stands in his banquet clothes, it awakens a desire to be at the banquet too. But a person has to seek out the banquet and draw close to the king, so this is considered work from below. When a Jew reflects on the fact that the supreme King, the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, sets aside all His affairs and comes to him in the field, it awakens in him the desire to seek out the King too, to reach Him and draw close to Him. This is the work of teshuvah, the work of “I am my Beloved’s, and my Beloved is mine.” And in this week’s parsha there is a wonderful maamar of the Alter Rebbe, “And I will make your windows of kadkod.” It discusses this week’s haftorah, where that verse appears. The haftorah is one of the seven haftorahs of consolation and speaks about the revelations of the future, when the exiles will end: What kind of light will there be when Moshiach comes? The haftorah says that when the future revelations come, “I will make your windows of kadkod.” And the Alter Rebbe asks: What is the light of kadkod, of precious stones and pearls? It also says, “And all your borders of precious stones”—the stones will illuminate all of Jerusalem and all of Eretz Yisroel. What is kadkod? On this the Gemara says in Bava Basra, in the chapter

11:23 “One Who Sells a Ship,” that kadkod is a matter of dispute. There is a dispute between two angels, the angel Gavriel and the angel Michoel. And the dispute between Michoel and Gavriel continues down here as well: Some say that Rabbi Yehudah and Chizkiyah, the sons of Rav Chiya, disagreed about what kadkod is. One said shoham; the other said yashfeh. One said it is the shoham stone, and the other said it is the yashfeh stone. Shoham and yashfeh were two of the stones of the breastplate. The stone belonging to Yosef was called shoham, and the stone belonging to Binyamin was called yashfeh. So what is the dispute—which stone is kadkod? The Gemara continues: Hakadosh Boruch Hu said to them, “Let it be like this and like that.” Kadkod—like this and like that. In other words, it will be made of both stones, shoham and yashfeh. These are the two stones that will illuminate Jerusalem at night when Moshiach Tzidkeinu comes. The Alter Rebbe asks: This Gemara is not understood at all, from beginning to end. What is the dispute? What are they arguing about? What is the significance of Yehudah and Chizkiyah? What is the significance of Michoel and Gavriel? Why does one say shoham and the other say yashfeh? And what does it mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu intervenes in the dispute and says, “Let it be like this and like that”? What is this whole story? How do we understand the Gemara? Here the Alter Rebbe gives a wonderful explanation. The main point is that we need to understand the spiritual meaning of there being no night: it is light. Light alludes to the revelation of G-dliness: “The glory of Hashem will be revealed, and all flesh together will see that the mouth of

13:14 Hashem has spoken.” When Moshiach Tzidkeinu comes, there will be a revelation of G-dliness. The great light in the world, and all the greatness, all the revelation of the Shechinah and of G-dliness that will come when Moshiach Tzidkeinu arrives—all this depends on our deeds and our work during the time of exile. The Alter Rebbe writes in Tanya, chapter 37, that all the revelations of the days of Moshiach and the Resurrection of the Dead depend on our deeds and our work now, during the exile. When Jews serve Hashem during the exile, that is what gives rise to the light and the revelations of G-dliness that will come when Moshiach Tzidkeinu arrives. In serving Hashem there are two kinds of work: work like shoham and work like yashfeh; the work of Yosef and the work of Binyamin. The question is which is primary. Broadly speaking, these are two approaches we need to distinguish. There are two general approaches to serving Hashem. One proceeds from above downward, the way of the month of Nissan, a revelation from above: “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” It is more a revelation of light from above, which is then received below. And there is a second way of serving Hashem, which proceeds from below upward, rising from below. In general, we need to understand that this is the basic difference between a tzaddik and a baal teshuvah. The work of tzaddikim is from above downward. That is, a tzaddik is someone in whom the light of the soul shines. As it says of Moshe Rabbeinu, when he was born, “The entire house was filled with light.” The Alter Rebbe explains that the light of the soul shone from the very beginning. From the outset, the soul, love of Hashem, and [unclear] shone. The light of the soul shines, and so “the entire house was filled with light.” The body was entirely light; the body was illuminated by the light of the soul. That was how it was with Yosef, Yosef Hatzaddik. With Yosef, the soul prevailed from the outset. The Alter Rebbe says that this is [unclear]. Yosef received from Yaakov: “These are the generations of Yaakov: Yosef.” Yosef was the recipient of

15:39 the tribes, [unclear] of the generation of the tribes. And at the outset there were more of other matters. The stone associated with Yosef was called shoham. Shoham is a stone of light. It is a stone that has light of its own. In other words, it carries light, and that light shines wherever it is. This is Yosef’s level. [unclear] Shoham is [unclear], as it says in the sefarim. And Yosef Hatzaddik was [unclear], which is why his stone was shoham. Broadly speaking, this is the work of tzaddikim, in which the soul shines and the body is subordinate to the soul. This work is called light from above downward, direct light. But there is a second way of serving Hashem: work from below upward, reflected light, the work of teshuvah. When Yosef Hatzaddik was born, our mother Rachel said, “May Hashem add another son for me.” [unclear] that she wanted another son. It means turning an “other” into a “son.” There is a righteous son, born a tzaddik, but there is also another kind of son: turning the outsider into a son—that is the power of teshuvah. He was outside, he was on the outside, [unclear]; this outsider, the one who had been outside, was elevated and refined, and became a baal teshuvah. And a baal teshuvah is so great that, as the Gemara says, “In the place where baalei teshuvah stand, even completely righteous people cannot stand.” This was Binyamin’s role. [unclear] When Binyamin

17:21 was born, his mother called him Ben Oni, “son of my sorrow,” and his father—Rachel, after all, passed away immediately when Binyamin was born—as explained in Chassidus regarding spiritual work, Binyamin is the one called the lower tzaddik, working from below upward, working with the body. The body conceals the soul, and one must refine the body, purify and correct it, and make it a vessel for the soul. This is work from below upward: refining what is below, refining the body, purifying and elevating it until the body becomes a vessel for revelation. Among the stones, this was the character of yashfeh. What is yashfeh? Yashfeh is a stone without a natural shine. Shoham has a natural shine; it is light, it shines—Yosef, shoham. Yashfeh is a stone without a natural shine. It is a stone that has to be worked from the outside, and then it has very beautiful, appealing colors. The Alter Rebbe calls this reflected light. That is, it has no light or shine, no natural shine; it has something appealing about it. When you look at it, it draws you in. It arouses a particular attraction in a person, arising from the way the stone has been worked so that it gives a person pleasure and appeals to the eye. This work is reflected light, from below upward: when

18:57 one breaks through the darkness, breaks through the concealment and works on it, one reaches ever deeper light. “The advantage of light that comes from darkness.” These are the two general approaches in a person’s service throughout the generations. In every generation there have been two kinds of souls: the souls of tzaddikim and the souls of baalei teshuvah. These are the two sides of a person’s service. Broadly speaking, this is the distinction between Torah study and the work of prayer. In Torah study there is a revelation of light from above downward. The Torah is the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and it shines down here. When a person studies Torah, he becomes a vessel in which the light of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s wisdom can shine. In the work of prayer, it is the other way around. A person has to work, lift himself up, refine himself and be drawn toward greatness, so that he becomes [unclear] a drawing down of G-dliness. This, broadly speaking, is shoham and yashfeh, Yosef and Binyamin. And in the future, everything will then be [unclear], and what they sensed [unclear]. Throughout the exile they sensed that all these things existed, but they were not revealed. And here the question arises: Which is primary? In the future, which of these revelations will there be? Will it be the [unclear] from above downward, which is [unclear], which comes from above, or is the main thing the refinement of what is below, what a person has worked on in himself? On this matter there was

20:25 A dispute between Michael and Gabriel, the angels. As is known, Michael is the angel of water, and water descends from above to below. This is Torah, which descends from above to below. Michael says shoham: he sees the advantage of the revelation that comes from above. So he says that this is what shoham represents—the greatest light, a loftier light. Gabriel, by contrast, whose name is associated with gevurah, is fire, which rises from below to above. He sees the advantage of yashfeh, the advantage of what is below becoming refined. So he argues that the stone of the future revelation must be specifically yashfeh. It may not have as lofty a light as shoham, but it has greater depth: people worked with what is below, refining it until it became a vessel for G-dliness. The same applies to Yehudah and Chizkiyah. What do Yehudah and Chizkiyah represent? Chassidus explains the Gemara’s statement that Yehudah and Chizkiyah, together with Rabbi Chiya, are like Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov. Rabbi Chiya is like Yaakov Avinu. Chiya is related to the word chayim, life, just as “Yaakov Avinu did not die”—he is alive. The two sons are Yehudah and Chizkiyah, and the Gemara says: one on the right and one on the left. In the incident that took place at a time of distress, they stood on the right and the left—Yehudah on the right and Chizkiyah on the left—corresponding to Avraham and Yitzchak. This parallels chesed and gevurah, water and fire, Avraham and Yitzchak.

22:10 Just as Michael and Gabriel represent chesed and gevurah in the world of angels, the same dispute exists here below: Yehudah and Chizkiyah, who correspond to Avraham and Yitzchak, chesed and gevurah, water and fire, among the Tannaim and Amoraim. So Yehudah says shoham, and Chizkiyah says yashfeh. But then comes Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s decision: “Let it be like this and like that.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is the middle line, says “like this and like that”—both advantages are needed. The revelation of Moshiach must include both: a lofty, wondrous revelation from above, brought about through the service of the tzaddikim, first and foremost through Torah study; and, at the same time, the advantage of the inner work that rises from below to above, the advantage of baalei teshuvah and of the service of prayer. “Hakadosh Boruch Hu said: Let it be like this and like that”—and that is kadkod, the two advantages. Both shoham and yashfeh; both Torah and prayer, together. As the Alter Rebbe explains in the maamarim, kadkod has the same numerical value as chayil. This is the meaning of the verse, “A woman of valor is her husband’s crown.” It refers to the future, when “a woman of valor” will be “her husband’s crown”: malchus, represented by the “woman of valor,” will be “her husband’s crown.” This is the service of “like this and like that”: through a person’s work, the future revelation is brought about with both advantages. And this is the theme

23:46 of the month of Elul. As we read in the haftorah, we read of both aspects. This is the haftorah of Parshas Re’eh. Both aspects are also found in the first verse of Parshas Re’eh. On the one hand, it says, “See, I am giving you today”—and “giving” is one of the indications that something comes from above to below. On the other hand, “I am giving it lifneichem”—to your innermost selves, so that a Jew absorbs it with his entire inner being. “See” means to contemplate, and this is a person’s work: he contemplates in order to see these things. [unclear] that comes from above, “I am giving it lifneichem.” So on Shabbos Mevarchim Elul, when we read this haftorah and this parsha, the wondrous connection that must exist between the two aspects is expressed. This is the great innovation of the month of Elul: one of its main acronyms is “Ani ledodi,” on the one hand, and “vedodi li,” on the other. It is both from below to above—“Ani ledodi,” a Jew drawing close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu on his own, with love, through his service of Hashem—and from above, “vedodi li,” Hakadosh Boruch Hu drawing close to the Jew with love. Our service of Hashem at this time must include [unclear], both the service of prayer and Torah study, and the [unclear] of the laws of the day, and the joy and gladness of

25:11 heart that will be here, as written, on Simchas Torah, Hoshana Rabbah and Sukkos, for every single Jew, with the complete Geulah, materially and spiritually.