Parshas Vayishlach 5785 - "Vaye'avek Ish Imo" - The Battle in the Service of Prayer

00:00 I heard this from the chossid Reb Mendel Futerfas. We are now in the days around 9 Kislev and 10 Kislev—the birthday, the day of passing, and the day of Geulah of the Mitteler Rebbe. As is well known, the Mitteler Rebbe made a great effort to have his students and chassidim talk Chassidus, whether they were walking or standing still. The various ways he expressed this are quoted in a number of sichos of the Frierdiker Rebbe. The Mitteler Rebbe’s whole desire and longing was that young men should talk Chassidus with one another wherever they went or stood, even in the marketplace and the street. In one place, the wording is that two young men should talk about yichuda ila’ah and yichuda tata’ah; elsewhere, it is that they should talk about Atik and Arich, about the kisei, and discuss the ten sefiros on their ten fingers. The sichos use various expressions. The general point is that the Mitteler Rebbe’s deepest desire was for his chassidim to talk Chassidus. All his efforts were directed toward that. Reb Mendel Futerfas related that the Mitteler Rebbe had great chassidim, great scholars of Chassidus. As is well known, some chassidim could talk Chassidus for hours on end, even about its deepest subjects. But there were also simple chassidim; not everyone was a great scholar.

01:33 There were those devoted to serving Hashem, people who davened and worked on themselves, and there were simpler people too. Yet every one of them was a great chossid. When asked, he said he wanted to hear from those fine chassidim who had known the Mitteler Rebbe: what did he relate? One person asked another: What did the chassidim who served Hashem talk about when they were out in the street? What was their way of speaking? He put it this way: When two people met in the street, one would ask the other, “Nu, Reb Yankel, how are you?” The other would answer, “I strike him, and he strikes me back, and I strike him again. And so it goes on. And I ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to let me deliver the last strike, the final blow—to let me be the one to do it.” As they explained, this is avodah: the struggle of the G-dly soul with the animal soul. Sometimes “I strike him,” and sometimes “he strikes me.” That is the struggle between the two souls, the G-dly soul and the animal soul. Sometimes a person gets up and sometimes he falls; sometimes he stumbles. He falls, gets up, and strikes back. And what I ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu is that the final strike of the day, at Krias Shema before bed, should be the right one—that the G-dly soul should prevail. For that is what a person’s whole life comes down to: that the last strike should be mine.

03:01 What is the Mitteler Rebbe’s approach? Today we will discuss a teaching of the Mitteler Rebbe. In these days of his yahrzeit and his day of Geulah, we will discuss a subject in our parsha based on his teachings. He addresses it in Shaarei Teshuvah, one of his books. As is well known, the Mitteler Rebbe wrote books for everyone, for every kind of chossid. It is related that he wrote books and printed them during his lifetime; he devoted himself to giving the chassidim Chassidus so they would have something with which to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In this way, he prepared books for every kind of chossid. One of his well-known books is Shaarei Teshuvah, in which he explains at length and with clarity matters concerning the avodah of teshuvah and the avodah of davening. It contains one of the major maamarim on “Padah Veshalom Nafshi,” one of the most central and foundational maamarim connected with the time of 10 Kislev and 19 Kislev. As is well known, our Rebbeim spoke extensively about the verse, “He redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me, for many were with me.” And concerning this verse, there is the well-known story of the Alter Rebbe: While he was imprisoned, he would say each day the portion of Tehillim for that day of the week, according to the division of Tehillim by weekdays, and 19...

04:33 19 Kislev fell on a Tuesday. He then said the verse “He redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me.” It is in the Tehillim portion said on Tuesdays, chapter 55. The Alter Rebbe wrote in a well-known letter to Reb Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev and also to Reb Boruch of Mezhibuzh, the grandson of the holy Baal Shem Tov: “When I reached the verse ‘He redeemed my soul in peace,’ I emerged in peace from Hashem, Who is peace.” This verse became a cornerstone of all the maamarim connected with 19 Kislev. As for the Mitteler Rebbe, whose day of Geulah is 19 Kislev, the daily Tehillim portion for the nineteenth of the month includes chapter 55 and the verse “He redeemed my soul in peace.” That is why we find that the maamarim of our Rebbeim are based on this verse, and almost every maamar begins with it; how could it not? The Mitteler Rebbe’s maamar is, one might say, the father of them all, the foundation of all the “Padah Veshalom” maamarim. It is not solely his own explanation; it is also based on a maamar of the Alter Rebbe, which he apparently delivered on 19 Kislev in the early years. In Maamarim Haketzerim there is a short maamar called “Padah Veshalom Nafshi,” where these ideas are stated briefly. Later, with the Mitteler Rebbe, they are presented at length and in breadth, as he—

05:56 explained, presented, and expanded on his father’s teachings. In Shaarei Teshuvah, there are twelve chapters dealing precisely with the point connected to the weekly parsha: Yaakov’s struggle with Esav, about which our parsha, Parshas Vayishlach, says, “Yaakov was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until dawn.” This was Yaakov’s struggle with the angel of Esav. The matter of the struggle begins in our parsha: When the time came for Esav to approach him, Yaakov prepared for a gift, for war, and for prayer. Only afterward, later in the parsha, on the night when he was left behind, does it say, “Yaakov was left alone, and a man wrestled with him.” This is explained at length in [unclear] Torah on our parsha. And in this maamar, he explains that this is every Jew’s struggle, especially during davening: the struggle between the two souls. The Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya that every Jew has a G-dly soul and an animal soul, and between them an almost unceasing struggle takes place. But the primary time of the struggle is, as the Zohar says, “The time of prayer is a time of battle.” The time of davening is the time of the struggle between the two souls, the G-dly soul and the

07:33 animal soul. The Alter Rebbe speaks about this in Tanya, chapter 28, too: It is precisely when one needs to daven that one finds it is the main time for distracting thoughts. How is it that distracting thoughts come precisely during davening? The reason, as he explains at length there in the Mitteler Rebbe’s maamar “Padah Veshalom,” is that precisely when the G-dly soul awakens during davening, and I contemplate Hashem’s greatness to arouse love and awe of Hashem, the awakening of the G-dly soul for [unclear] davening also arouses the [unclear] animal soul. Then the battle of [unclear] breaks out, the battle between the two souls, and he hurls arrows and projectiles. This is “a man wrestled with him,” the struggle between the two souls: The G-dly soul does not want merely to feel love of Hashem itself; it wants to conquer the animal soul as well. After all, the primary purpose of the soul’s descent below is not for the G-dly soul’s own sake. The G-dly soul does not need rectification, as the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya; it is a part of G-d above. It knows that the ultimate purpose of its descent below and its being clothed in the animal soul is for the animal soul, too, to feel love of Hashem—to change the animal soul and affect it,

09:01 so that it has love of Hashem, to the point of “with all your heart”—with both your inclinations. This is the struggle of “a man wrestled with him.” As explained in the maamar, that is why the verse uses the word “wrestled.” Wrestling is not just a fight, but a fight in which the two grapple with each other. In the plain sense, wrestling means that the two people are completely entwined; they become entangled and grip one another, each locked together with the other. That is wrestling, related to the word for powder. Powder is fine dust [unclear], which is mixed together into a single powder. Likewise, when two people grapple, joining together and struggling with each other, the fight takes the form of wrestling. In other words, the G-dly soul does not stand to the side and attend to its own concerns, soar to the higher worlds, and leave the animal soul in its own world. The G-dly soul wants to conquer the animal soul. Therefore, as he discusses and as is explained regarding this, [unclear], it has to be done by entering into its world. What does that mean? One must approach the animal soul and explain matters of Hashem’s greatness to it in a way that the animal soul can connect with. Because explaining to ourselves

10:29 Wonderful, lofty matters—lofty ideas and higher worlds—are very good for the G-dly soul. The G-dly soul delights in lofty matters, and the loftier the subject, the more it appeals to it. But to conquer the animal soul, one must explain specifically the [unclear], explain “for He is your life,” explain “See, I have set before you life and good, death and evil... and you shall choose life.” One must explain that G-dliness is life, and that true life, even in the physical sense, comes specifically through a connection to lofty and spiritual matters. These must be ideas the animal soul can understand, through analogies, examples, and explanations it can relate to. Then, in the course of the struggle, one brings about a change in it. That is the true purpose of wrestling. The aim of a struggle between two people is not merely to break the other person or to hold your own. The true aim of a real struggle is that the “enemy”—oyev, with a yud—should become a “friend”—ohev, with alef-hei-beis. “Even his enemies will be at peace with him.” He wants the enemy, the opponent, to be utterly transformed—not just outwardly but inwardly: to change his will, his desires, his intellect, and his emotions, until the other person becomes one of my own, my friend, part of... He becomes a part, and not only an entity unto himself. This is the work of prayer each and every day, in the struggle

11:52 of the G-dly soul with the animal soul. Here there is another interpretation of the word “vayei’avek,” “and he wrestled.” The Midrash Rabbah says that “vayei’avek” is also related to avak, “dust,” as the Midrash says: “The dust rose as far as the Throne of Glory.” What does it mean that “the dust rose as far as the Throne of Glory”? The Rebbe explains that, quite simply, when people struggle and wrestle, actual dust rises. It gets dirty. They fight, grapple, and wrestle with each other, and dirt rises. The dirt soils them, and they both get dirty. He says there in the maamar that the same is true spiritually: “Whoever wrestles with a scoundrel becomes soiled himself.” The precise wording is “wrestles with a scoundrel.” When one engages with the scoundrel—the yetzer hara, as the Gemara says in Kiddushin—then “whoever wrestles with a scoundrel becomes soiled himself.” When one engages with the yetzer hara and wrestles with it, he “becomes soiled himself.” The yetzer hara sends its arrows and introduces its distracting thoughts. Ultimately, the G-dly soul too becomes caught up in this, and it has a clouding effect on it. For that is the nature of a struggle, even though the ultimate goal is [unclear]. Nevertheless, in the course of the struggle [unclear]: on the one hand, it sends its distracting thoughts, which bring cloudiness and dirt, until dust rises as far as the Throne of Glory; dust rises from it. The Rebbe once spoke at a farbrengen about dust. Here the maamar says [unclear].

13:30 Yes, what did the Rebbe say? The Rebbe would often repeat the Frierdiker Rebbe’s words that we need to button the buttons. We are already standing on the very threshold of the days of Moshiach; Moshiach is already coming, and we need to button the buttons. The Rebbe explained that buttoning the buttons means removing the dust. That is, when buttoning up, one must remove the dust, the layer of dust that has accumulated. It is an analogy for the fact that we are standing just before the Geulah, and all that remains is a little of the last dirt that still needs to be wiped away. And he said that avak is what is called “dust” in English. Dust is [unclear] sitra achra. He said that this is what dust represents, the sitra achra: the sitra achra accumulates on a person, and one must work to ensure that no dust remains. And he explains that this is the work of prayer: this whole phenomenon of dust and accumulating dirt exists as long as the work comes only from the intellect and emotions of the G-dly soul, which enter the intellect and emotions of the animal soul—what Chassidus calls “service based on reason and understanding.” For then the G-dly soul has its own reasoning and understanding, and the animal soul has its own reasoning and understanding, and this creates dirt. But when one draws into this

14:59 the levels of chayah and yechidah, the transcendent levels of the soul—and this is the main purpose of the work of prayer: that through his efforts, a Jew should awaken not only the external faculties, the intellect and emotions, love and fear of Hashem, but should reveal within himself the yechidah of his soul. As a Jew who possesses the essence of the soul, he has an essential bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He awakens within himself a readiness for mesirus nefesh, for every Jew has the power of mesirus nefesh [unclear]. Only by awakening within himself that readiness for mesirus nefesh, remembering that he is a Jew and that he possesses the level of yechidah, and feeling that he is awakening the yechidah of his soul, does he gain the strength to defeat the yetzer in the struggle in a way that utterly transforms the animal soul. In this way, all the dust is completely eliminated, without a trace remaining. At the beginning of the work there is dust, but by the end it is completely eliminated, until its very existence disappears, and “Even his enemies will be at peace with him” is fulfilled, as written here [unclear]. Then the ultimate refinement will take place: “I will remove the spirit of impurity from the earth,” and no trace of Esav will remain. “There shall be no survivor of the house of Esav”—the whole present state of this world will be completely nullified, for

16:20 “I will remove the spirit of impurity from the earth,” and “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,” and “The lion shall eat straw like the ox,” and “Even his enemies will be at peace with him,” until the serpent itself is nullified. That is the wording here. And this is the ultimate purpose of the work: refining the animal soul through the work of prayer. How does one reach this? By awakening within oneself the level of yechidah, the capacity for mesirus nefesh. Although, as we said, these are lofty levels—the revelation of the transcendent faculties, chayah and yechidah, is indeed a lofty level, at which love of Hashem “with all your might” shines in the soul. “Your might” means beyond all measure, an abundant love that transcends reason and understanding. As the Rebbe discusses in the maamarim he delivered on 10 Kislev, in which he draws on “Padah Veshalom”—“Padah Veshalom” 5639, 5741, and the like. The Rebbe explains, based on a maamar of the Mitteler Rebbe, that since every Jew has the yechidah of the soul—and especially in the time of the Geulah, and especially at the end of the exile, in the time of ikvesa deMeshicha—as is known from the teaching of [unclear] our Rebbeim, it is precisely in the time of ikvesa deMeshicha, the time of the “heels,” that the power of mesirus nefesh is revealed in every Jew more than in earlier generations. Just as, physically, one can put the heels, the feet, into hotter water

17:48 than one can put the head into. Similarly, it is precisely in the generation of ikvesa deMeshicha that the power of mesirus nefesh can be revealed; it is awakened in every Jew more than at any other time, precisely because of the concealment. And we see plainly that a Jew’s very awareness that he has the capacity for mesirus nefesh—that he knows he has this strength and commits himself to being a soldier—gives him the strength to refine and correct the Esav within him so thoroughly that no dust remains. Not only will no dust remain, but the dust, avak, will become an avukah, a blazing torch. As mentioned earlier, avak has the same letters as avukah. And that torch is a torch of fire; as is said of the true refinement achieved by King Shlomo, it is like a torch rising upward and shining in a place of wind and storm. The dust will become a great torch of heavenly fire, shining in a place of wind and storm, transforming, burning, and consuming all the dust. This world will become a torch of holiness, and from this will come the true refinement of the animal soul in its fullest perfection. And this is what the parsha tells us: “Yaakov was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until dawn.” As the Midrashim explain the verse “Yaakov was left alone... until dawn,” it refers to the darkness of exile. How do they interpret it? It refers to the darkness of exile, until dawn

19:12 Dawn—that is the Geulah, when dawn will break, Ayelet Hashachar, and the light of the Geulah will shine. Until dawn breaks is the time of the struggle of “a man wrestled with him” and “Yaakov was left alone.” Yaakov Avinu stands firm and reveals—as Chassidus quotes from the Midrash, that “alone” alludes to “Hashem alone shall be exalted”—the very essence of the yechidah of the soul. And through the connection to the Yaakov Avinu of each generation, he illuminates in every Jew the spark of Yaakov Avinu, the yechidah of the soul. As the holy books explain, “Nasi” is an acronym for “Nitzotzo Shel Yaakov Avinu,” “a spark of Yaakov Avinu”: in every generation there is a Nasi of the generation, who illuminates in Jews the spark of Yaakov Avinu, the yechidah of the soul. This brings about the true meaning of “He redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me, for the many were with me,” as he explains here in the maamar. On the one hand, “the battle against me”—a war, a terrible war, an extremely difficult war; and at the same time we say, “He redeemed my soul in peace”—[unclear] in a way of peace. Peace and rest must [unclear] in war; rather, on the contrary, this is avodah in a way of peace and rest, as it was in the days of King Shlomo: “a man of rest,” “I will grant Israel peace and quiet in his days,” [unclear], “even his enemies will make peace with him.” This is how [unclear] the service of Hashem, and the true meaning of “He redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me, for the many were with me” comes through the Rebbe’s revelation.

20:44 The revelation of the yechidah of the soul is then [unclear] the true meaning of peace. And this is our avodah at the time we find ourselves in now, at the time of the Geulah of 19 Kislev, as we prepare for 19 Kislev, the Rosh Hashanah of Chassidus: that we should know [unclear] Chassidus, and how the struggle in the avodah of davening must be carried out, in a genuine way. And this [unclear] the animal soul [unclear] love of Hashem [unclear]. This is kabbolas ol, this is mesirus nefesh, and [unclear] the spirit of mesirus nefesh. As a result, “He redeemed my soul in peace” is realized in its fullest sense while we are still in galus, and we prepare for the true victory in the war very soon. Yes, that [unclear] the true and complete Geulah, and immediately there will be “He redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me, for the many were with me.” And as it says in [unclear], “Until I come to my master in Seir”; Rashi says these words refer to the complete Geulah. Then “saviors will ascend Mount Zion to judge the mountain of Eisav, and the kingdom will be Hashem’s”—the complete Geulah with Moshiach Tzidkeinu.