Parshas Vayeitzei 5785 - "Ufaratzta" - The Avodah That Brings the Revelation of Moshiach

00:00 This was in Elul 5707, when the Rebbe sent a Rosh Hashanah letter to my great-grandfather, Reb Amram Blau a"h, who was one of the leaders of Neturei Karta in Jerusalem. In the letter, the Rebbe asked him to establish a Chassidus class in his community. The Rebbe writes that he has heard about his activities and his work, and so on. He also knows that he is descended from chassidim of the Tzemach Tzedek. My grandfather, Reb Amram, was a descendant of Reb Uri Aharon Stein. The Aharon Stein family was known as chassidim of the Tzemach Tzedek who came from Russia to Eretz Yisroel in those days, during the Tzemach Tzedek’s lifetime. And he was a descendant of that family. The Rebbe tells him: The Mishnah says, as is well known, that “a father confers upon his son beauty, strength, wealth, wisdom, and longevity.” There are various qualities, abilities, and material traits that parents pass on to their children. So he has a connection to Chassidus. And the Rebbe asks him to establish a Chassidus class in his community, where they would study the teachings of Chassidus, the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, particularly [unclear] in preparation for the Geulah. After all, the promise given to the Baal Shem Tov, “Your wellsprings will spread outward,” must be fulfilled here. And [unclear] then “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.” We need to work toward that. And

01:36 The Rebbe writes to him that he knows that, on a number of matters, the views of Neturei Karta are not the same as those of Chabad, but that has nothing to do with this. Studying the inner dimension of Torah, the teachings of Chassidus, particularly [unclear] the days of Moshiach, is something above those differences and issues. And he asks him to arrange it. That same day, the Rebbe also sent a letter to a chossid who lived very nearby, in Meah Shearim: a well-known Lubavitch chossid, Rabbi Avraham Hirsch Cohen a"h. He was a great Torah scholar and, in later years, headed a kollel in Kfar Chabad. Before that, he had been a student at Toras Emes, one of Reb Alter Simchovitch’s students. He was a great Torah scholar and also a great chossid. The Rebbe sent him a letter about this. The Rebbe asked him to arrange it even before Rosh Hashanah: to speak with [unclear] and hold a class with the members of Neturei Karta and their community. The Rebbe explains that [unclear] differences. It is an interesting letter, yes. And he makes it clear to him that our task is to illuminate and bring the inner dimension of Torah [unclear]. So he should speak with them and arrange for a class in their community.

03:11 The letter arrived that very day, Erev Rosh Hashanah. Yes, as I heard in the family, that is indeed what happened: On Erev Rosh Hashanah, Reb Avraham Hirsch Cohen came, knocked on the door, entered Reb Amram’s home, and spoke with him about it. And right away, during the Ten Days of Teshuvah, after Erev Rosh Hashanah, [unclear], they went to the shul there and immediately began a Tanya class, which continued for many years. So this matter of “Your wellsprings will spread outward,” [unclear] King Moshiach—this was the promise the Baal Shem Tov received from Moshiach on Rosh Hashanah 5507, during an ascent of his soul, as the Baal Shem Tov writes to his brother-in-law. It is a well-known letter in which he writes about this: that he experienced an ascent of the soul on Rosh Hashanah 5507, entered Moshiach’s presence, and asked, “When will the Master come?” He was told, “When your wellsprings spread outward”—that will bring the Geulah. And we saw this with the Rebbe in our generation: he invested tremendous energy and effort so that in every place there would be [unclear] the inner dimension of Torah, the study of Chassidus, in preparation for the revelation of [unclear] speedily, in our days, literally. As the Rebbe

04:49 spoke about it, it was all based on a verse in the weekly parsha. This is the verse in our parsha: When Yaakov Avinu went to Charan, he had a dream. And what did he see in the dream? He saw that “Hashem stood over him”; Hakadosh Boruch Hu stood above him, and Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him, “For I am with you, and I will guard you wherever you go, and I will bring you back”—all these blessings that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave him. And among those verses is the well-known verse. For the Rebbe, this verse was foundational to building and advancing “Your wellsprings will spread outward,” to bringing Yiddishkeit, the holiest things, and matters of Chassidus to the entire world. And this is the verse: “Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out westward and eastward, northward and southward; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.” Yes, everyone knows that “Ufaratzta”—“you will spread out”—is one of the foundations of Chabad Chassidus, particularly in our generation. The well-known niggun that we chassidim sing—it all began, its source was in 5708. Continuing the story we spoke about earlier, we will come a little later to 5710, when the Rebbe went out to the entire world with “Ufaratzta” in a great surge of activity. That was in 5710. In the summer of 5708, beginning on 12 Tammuz, at the 12 Tammuz farbrengen, the celebration of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s liberation—the Rebbe would always hold a large farbrengen, and

06:27 at that farbrengen, the Rebbe spoke about the verse. It was a maamar of Chassidus. In the maamar, the Rebbe explained the verse at great length according to Chassidus, Kabbalah, the inner meaning of the concepts, and Midrash. The verse says “you will spread out” specifically about Yaakov Avinu. It is to him that it says, “You will spread out westward and eastward, northward and southward,” unlike Avraham, with whom it says “mountain”—“On Hashem’s mountain He will be seen”—and unlike Yitzchak, with whom it speaks of a field: “Yitzchak went out to meditate in the field.” It is specifically Yaakov who has the quality of an inheritance without bounds. “Yaakov called it a house”: “This is none other than the house of G-d.” And as the Gemara in tractate Shabbos says about Yaakov Avinu—the inheritance of Yaakov. What is Yaakov’s inheritance? An inheritance without bounds: “You will spread out westward and eastward, northward and southward; and all the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your descendants.” And we need to understand: What is special about this blessing? What does it mean? What does “you will spread out” mean? What is the connection between “Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth” and “you will spread out westward and eastward, northward and southward”? How does the verse continue? What was the special blessing [?] that Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave Yaakov Avinu here? And why was it specifically Yaakov Avinu who had to receive this blessing? What lies within this idea? After the Rebbe [?], he spoke about it in a fascinating way. First,

08:08 about what appears in the Midrash. The Midrash on the verse in our weekly parsha asks: Why was it specifically Yaakov who saw this prophecy, this vision? The answer is hinted at in his name, Yaakov. He was called Yaakov, as it says in the previous parsha, “His hand was grasping Esav’s heel.” Yaakov is connected to the heels. The heels are the lowest part of the body, where there is the least vitality. As is well known, the Midrash calls the heels “the angel of death within a person,” because they do not have the same sensitivity, the same feeling, as the rest of the body. The sense of vitality in the heels is the weakest. And the heels allude to our time, specifically the ikvesa deMeshicha, the “heels of Moshiach.” This is Yaakov Avinu’s distinction: His name, Yaakov, alludes to the fact that even when one is at the level of the heel, there is a yud within the eikev, the heel—Yaakov. The Alter Rebbe explains in Torah teachings that Yaakov is yud-eikev. The yud is the yud of Hashem’s name. It is the yud of the soul, the yud of a Yid. A Yid is literally a part of G-d above, and his source is at the highest level, in the yud of Hashem’s name. From there he descends all the way to the heel. In other words, the soul descends from the highest level and comes down into the body. “Yaakov left Be’er Sheva and went to Charan”—the discourses of Chassidus explain that this is from Be’er [?], that these words speak about the descent of the soul,

12:40 From the highest heights, from the loftiest level. The soul leaves Be’er Sheva and descends to Charan. And the holy Divrei Chaim explains: Be’er Sheva refers to the oath. The soul is placed under oath when it descends below. And the Rebbe explains in Tanya: What oath is it given? “Be righteous and do not be wicked.” The soul is placed under oath, and then it is led to Charan. Charan is the soul in a body, in the physical world. More than that, Charan is the time of exile, “the place of Hashem’s wrath.” We stand in the darkness of exile, in the footsteps of Moshiach. This is the story of Yaakov’s dream. The Rebbe says: When Yaakov Avinu went to Charan, “he placed them at his head.” A time comes when the Jew will be “like the dust of the earth,” at the very lowest level, like the dust of the earth. This is the very end of the footsteps of Moshiach. But we must know: “And you, do not fear, My servant Yaakov.” Precisely then, the promise “You shall spread forth” will be fulfilled—the Jewish people and Jewish life will grow, spread, and gain strength. “You shall spread forth” speaks, first of all, of power and strength. It also conveys the idea of breaking through: “A breach is broken open for you.” This is the role of King Moshiach, who descends from Peretz. He breaks through the boundaries, barriers, and walls of the darkness of exile and brings the Geulah. On this, the Rebbe says something interesting: If we look at the verse, “You shall spread forth westward and eastward, northward and southward,” we see that the four directions do not appear in order. It begins with “westward.” The west, after all, is the last direction, the aspect of the back; and the east, “eastward,” is the front. Here we begin in the west, on the western side, and from the west we jump straight to the east. That is not the usual order in which a person goes from one side to the other. Here we jump from the west

14:56 straight to the east. And likewise, “northward and southward” are two extremes, one end to the other. This is another explanation, and it is precisely the idea of “You shall spread forth.” “You shall spread forth” also applies to our inner service. A Jew must know: Even when he finds himself in a time of doubled and redoubled darkness, in exile, that is the aspect of the back. When he takes stock of himself and sees the bitterness of his situation, he stands in the aspect of the west, the aspect of evening and darkness, at the lowest level in his service of Hashem. But he must not give up, G-d forbid. On the contrary, he must know that in a single movement, a single leap, he can jump from the lowest depths to the highest heights, straight from west to east. This is the power of teshuvah, as explained in Chassidus. Teshuvah does not proceed in an orderly, gradual fashion, according to a fixed sequence. The whole point of teshuvah is that a person leaps. Drawing on the power of the soul hidden within him, a Jew who decides that he wants to do teshuvah can use the strength he has to leap eastward, from the lowest depths to the highest heights, even when he is at the very end of the footsteps of Moshiach, at the lowest of the low. This is the leap in serving Hashem. Then there is “northward and southward”: from the left side—the north is the left side—to the south, the right side. This too is a leap from severity and restraint, from the left side, to the great expansiveness of the right side. For in serving Hashem, there must be

16:58 both elements. There is the service required on the left side: A person needs an aspect of “the left hand pushes away,” to be firm and stringent, and to consult the Shulchan Aruch to make sure that what he is doing is the right path according to halachah. That is the left. At the same time, the right side, “southward,” is also required: serving out of love, with expansiveness and openness, and giving to others both spiritually and materially. These are the two extremes, from north to south. And of this it says here, “You shall spread forth.” The Rebbe spoke extensively about this. In practical terms, it means that because we are in a time of being “like the dust of the earth,” and precisely at this time “You shall spread forth westward and eastward, northward and southward” is required, it must find expression in our service, first of all within ourselves. “You shall spread forth” in one’s own service means breaking through the measures, boundaries, and restraints that exist in every area of the soul. In practical terms, this applies to Torah study, to avodah—the service of prayer—and to acts of kindness: the three pillars on which the world stands. In each of these areas there are measures and limits, even within holiness and according to halachah. In Torah study, each person has his allotted time; the Shulchan Aruch says, “One chapter in the morning, one chapter in the evening.” One can fulfill the obligation of

18:26 the required time for the mitzvah, studying Torah as one is required to, and thereby fulfill the mitzvah of Torah study according to Torah. But then “You shall spread forth” comes and says: Here we must break through the limits, go beyond the measures and limits set by halachah. Even though according to the letter of the law one can fulfill the obligation with one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening, then go to work, arrive on time, and do one’s job faithfully. Here comes “You shall spread forth,” for which the Rebbe used the term “robber”: taking time needed for other things and devoting it to Torah study. What was meant by this? That one should not even look at the clock. Every Jew is called upon, deep within, to serve in the spirit of “You shall spread forth,” to go beyond measures and limits. This applies especially to study—not only the revealed dimension of Torah, but its inner dimension as well. Even someone who studies the inner dimension of Torah knows that there are measures and limits. He brings along the Gemara he was studying earlier, but he has to finish it, and he has all sorts of conditions and other things that must be in place before he can study the inner dimension of Torah. Nevertheless, as the Baal Shem Tov showed us, we must cross all boundaries. And the Alter Rebbe writes in Tanya, citing Reb Chaim Vital, that in these times, when we are in the footsteps of Moshiach, it is not only permitted but a mitzvah to reveal as much wisdom as possible, and to study and explain the wisdom of the inner dimension of Torah, of Toras

20:59 Chaim. This is how the movement of “You shall spread forth” finds expression. And all this is work on oneself. From there, one must move on to working with others. “You shall spread forth” means action in the most practical sense, particularly “Your wellsprings shall spread outward,” as we see in the weekly parsha: to go to Charan, the place of Hashem’s wrath in the world, when that wrath has gripped the world, and to seek out a Jew who may currently know nothing about Judaism and be entirely unfamiliar with its ways. And there, as part of “You shall spread forth,” to reveal his wellsprings within him, the wellsprings of his soul; to reveal the G-dliness within him, illuminate him, and bring him beyond his measures and limits in all matters of Torah and mitzvos and the inner dimension of Torah. So that he becomes a vessel for the inner dimension of Torah, for the message of Moshiach. In this way we prepare the entire world for the revelation: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.” This is the lesson we learn from the weekly parsha, from what Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised Avraham and Yaakov Avinu. And so, through the inner work of “You shall spread forth,” we will merit the great breakthrough of “the one who breaks through,” which is the role of King Moshiach: “The one who breaks through has gone up before them.” This refers to King Moshiach, who will break through all the barriers and boundaries of exile and bring us into the complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu, speedily in our days, with the building of the Beis Hamikdash. Amen.

22:25 May it be His will.