Parshas Bo 5785 (Yiddish) - "Ki Vechipazon Yatzasa Mimitzrayim" - alacrity in the service of Hashem

00:01 There was a chossid, Reb Aizik of Homil, who was among the Alter Rebbe’s earliest chassidim. He related that he was with the Alter Rebbe on 19 Kislev 5562. That 19 Kislev was the first time the Alter Rebbe held a thanksgiving meal. But the Alter Rebbe had been released from prison the first time on 19 Kislev 5559. Afterward, however, the whole matter came up again, with various rulings and demands, and the Alter Rebbe was forced to return to prison in 5561. As is known, his second imprisonment took place during Chanukah. By the time the matter and all its details had been resolved, 19 Kislev had already passed. So it was only in 5562 that the Alter Rebbe celebrated the Geulah of 19 Kislev in its full scope and with full enthusiasm, but only with a select few. That year, for the first time, the Alter Rebbe held a special thanksgiving meal, though he allowed only a few of his students to attend. One can imagine that it was an extraordinary farbrengen, a historic farbrengen. Almost everything said there remained a secret; we do not know what took place. The chossid Reb Aizik of Homil related just one thing: among the profound matters the Alter Rebbe spoke about at that farbrengen,

01:42 he said that to be a chossid, every chossid must know that there are three positive commandments that apply to him, and three prohibitions. What were the three positive commandments? The first is that a chossid must be wise. He explained it simply: wise, not foolish. Be a wise person, be perceptive, and understand all the tricks of the animal soul and all its ways. The second positive commandment is that a chossid must be happy. And the third is that a chossid must act with measured alacrity. In other words, a chossid must be quick to act, but what kind of quickness? Specifically, measured alacrity. That is an interesting definition: measured alacrity. What does it mean? A person can be quick but frantic. Frantic means he rushes without order, acting in a panic. That is not measured alacrity. It may be quick, but his quickness needs to be orderly and measured. I once heard chassidim give an example of the difference between these two approaches, between measured alacrity and rushing in a panic: Suppose a person needs to arrive around seven o’clock. If he is frantic, he gets up five minutes before seven, runs up several flights of stairs, hurriedly thrusts his arms into his clothes, and races wildly so he can arrive at exactly seven. But someone who acts with measured alacrity

03:28 knows he must arrive at seven, so he gets up in good time, gets ready and arrives at seven—but arrives calmly. The same applies to every detail of serving Hashem: there is measured alacrity. The Alter Rebbe also said that there are three prohibitions. The first: a chossid must not be a fool, must not be foolish. There is a saying attributed to Reb Ephraim Tzvi about the Alter Rebbe’s statement that one must not be a fool. He remarked that not being a fool is a positive commandment from the Torah. They asked him why he specified that it was a Torah commandment, and he said: “Because when there is doubt about a Torah commandment, we rule stringently—if there’s doubt whether someone is a fool, rule stringently.” In any case, that is the first prohibition. The second is that a chossid must not be sad. And the third is that a chossid must not dwell too much on his own virtues. That is, he should not be too conscious of himself, even because of his genuine qualities, in a way that would lead to self-importance. This was a teaching the Alter Rebbe gave at that farbrengen, at length. And we find the idea of measured alacrity, one of the positive commandments we discussed, in the weekly parsha. In Parshas Bo, we find several instances

05:07 of acting quickly. The verse says concerning the Pesach offering: “You shall eat it in haste; it is Pesach for Hashem.” The Pesach offering had to be eaten in great haste. And the Torah says, “This is how you shall eat it.” How should the Pesach offering be eaten? “Your loins girded”—you had to be properly girded. “Your shoes on your feet”—with your shoes firmly on your feet. In those days, that was not the usual practice; people did not eat wearing shoes. They sat only with [unclear], as discussed in the Gemara and so on, with regard to the halachah. In any case, they did not eat wearing shoes. Yet here it says, “Your shoes on your feet,” and not only that, but “your staff in your hand”—they also held a staff, the staff used for walking in the desert, since they had to leave for the desert. They had to leave for the desert, so they were already prepared. When they ate the Pesach offering on Pesach night, they had to eat it this way: already dressed and ready to set out, with these three things. For “you shall eat it in haste”—as the Torah says, it must be eaten in haste. We find this idea of haste several times in the weekly parsha and throughout the account of the Exodus from Egypt. “For you left Egypt in haste” appears several times in the Torah. Likewise, the matzos had to be prepared quickly. Speed was a feature of Pesach, and to this day there are several aspects of Pesach for which halachah requires speed and strongly emphasizes it. And in general, when

06:47 we look at the parsha and at the teachings of our Sages on the weekly parsha, we find three kinds of haste. There was the haste of the Jewish people, as described in connection with eating the Pesach offering and all the other things done hurriedly. There was the haste of the Shechinah, about which it says: “The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, skipping over the mountains, leaping over the hills.” The Exodus from Egypt happened in haste: Hakadosh Boruch Hu hurried to take the Jews out of Egypt very quickly. They did not need to remain in Egypt even one more moment. And similarly, there was the haste of the Egyptians. As the Torah says, “Egypt pressed the people to hurry them out.” “Get up and leave,” as they shouted; they hurried to drive them away. They were in a rush to expel the Jews from Egypt. What is the meaning of all these different kinds of haste? As explained in Chassidus, a question arises here. When we encounter this, we need to understand what [unclear], and what haste is about in the first place. What is it meant to express? What is this idea of haste? Why make it a central theme, to the point that the whole observance of Pesach revolves around haste, around running? What is the meaning of this urgency? After all, especially in serving Hashem, one should act calmly and with a settled mind; such haste could, G-d forbid, cause confusion. Indeed, we say there should be measured alacrity. So why was the emphasis specifically on haste during the Exodus from Egypt? What is more, when we look at the future Geulah, as

08:31 the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya, chapter 31, he says that the Exodus from Egypt took place with haste, speed and urgency. But when the future Geulah comes—as the Alter Rebbe writes several times in Tanya—it will be precisely “For you will not go out in haste, nor will you depart in flight.” There will be no need to run or flee. It will be such a secure Geulah that there will no longer be anything to hurry away from. People will go calmly and with a settled mind: “You will not go out in haste.” And that is the whole point, the very contrast emphasized with the Exodus from Egypt: the Exodus specifically took place in haste, whereas in the future, in the days of Moshiach, things will happen calmly rather than in haste. So what is the emphasis on haste about? In general, the sefarim explain that the haste stemmed from the fact that leaving Egypt had to be like fleeing. It was not possible to enter Egypt and leave it naturally, in the ordinary way. It had to be done in a way that was [unclear]. The entire journey in Egypt, the haste, was such that they had to flee like fugitives. Leaving Egypt—excuse me—was like an escape, a flight. As the Alter Rebbe asks in Tanya: Why did it have to happen in a way

10:08 of escape, in haste, running away. Why all the emphasis on haste? The Alter Rebbe explains that this is the point, and this is the difference between the Geulah from Egypt and the future Geulah. At the time of the Exodus, the forces of kelipah still had a strong hold on them—they were sunk in the forty-nine gates of impurity. Their condition was not at all what it should have been [unclear]. They were sunk in impurity, in all the kelipos of Egypt. So if they had tried to leave in an orderly, gradual way, they would not have managed to get out; they might have remained stuck. The kelipah of Egypt was so strong, so deep, [unclear] and so coarse that they would not have escaped by proceeding gradually. Why the haste? Because they had to leave specifically by fleeing. And the Alter Rebbe says that the same is true in every Jew’s service of Hashem. When a person is at the beginning of his service of Hashem—each of us—when he puts himself in a frame of mind in which he begins [unclear] Hakadosh Boruch Hu; when he is doing teshuvah and wants to change, wants to be better, wants to flee his yetzer hara, to flee evil, kelipah and the sitra achra, and to distance himself from all these things—we must know that one of the counsels is that this must be done specifically

11:34 with alacrity. If a person proceeds slowly, [unclear], step by step, [unclear], and reflects, delves into things and makes calculations—we see plainly that once people begin all these arguments and calculations, and all the [unclear] and such things, they remain stuck. [unclear]. There must be haste. Without haste, the yetzer hara can catch up with a person, and then more difficult things may begin. The yetzer hara does not rest; it constantly fires arrows and catapults, all kinds of [unclear]. It approaches a person with all kinds of distracting thoughts, improper thoughts, harmful desires and all these things. So the only counsel is firmness: to stand firm and not allow all the yetzer hara’s distractions to interfere. And this must be specifically by way of fleeing. This is a matter of a miracle, as [unclear], and this is what happened at the very outset of the Exodus from Egypt. In light of this, we can understand why it says [unclear] “in haste.” While they were still sunk in this world and in evil, had they gone in an orderly, gradual way—step by step, as people say—they would again have been trapped by the animal soul pulling them back, and would have sunk into all the affairs of this world of falsehood, its doubled and redoubled darkness, kelipos and sitra achra. At the time that

13:04 there was then a state of self-sacrifice on the part of [unclear], and this helped the Jews arrive at the right path in serving Hashem, at the right conclusion: there had to be haste. And that was the [unclear] of the Geulah. By contrast, at the true and complete Geulah, the Geulah of Moshiach, all the refining work and all these matters will already be behind us, and there will no longer be any external forces. At the Geulah from Egypt, there may still have been external forces. There will no longer be such things, things of this world. At the future Geulah, when “I will remove the spirit of impurity from the earth” is fulfilled, there will be no more impurity, no more sitra achra, no more yetzer hara, and no more of this world of falsehood. Accordingly, the service—the service must proceed in a manner of [unclear]. About this the Torah, the prophet, says: “For you shall not go out in haste, nor shall you go in flight.” Jews will not need to flee, but will go in tranquility: “Through returning and calm you shall be saved.” Jews will not need to be in a state of flight, fleeing evil, struggling to get free of it. On the contrary, the whole world will be in a state of [unclear]. Therefore, the service will be in a manner of [unclear]. And about this, the verse speaks of three things that are needed at the beginning of the service. As explained in the maamar [unclear] about the Exodus from Egypt, these refer to three stages in the service. “And this is how you shall eat it.” The Pesach offering represents self-sacrifice. The Jews took the object of Egyptian idol worship,

14:48 slaughtered it with self-sacrifice, and took it and burned [unclear]. They made it into an offering, and then there were all the other things done with the Pesach offering. In terms of our service, this means taking the idolatry of Egypt—each person has his own form of idolatry—and casting it into [unclear], getting rid of it completely. That was the point of the service of freeing oneself from the kelipos of Egypt. And this is what is being said here: to get rid of Egyptian idol worship—through the slaughtering and eating of the Pesach offering—all this means transforming the darkness of the kelipos of Egypt and their idol worship, which involved sheep. But even to get rid of it and transform it, they had to take that very thing, use it and make it into the Pesach offering. And about this the Torah says, regarding every Jew’s service—and this applies to every person at every time—“And this is how you shall eat it.” When a Jew is in exile and wants to be free of exile, wants to go out into Geulah, and looks around and sees all these things that still need to be corrected, then to leave his personal constraints and limitations he must have “your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand.” There is a maamar by

16:25 the Rebbe Maharash called the series “Vechachah.” It is one of the series of maamarim he delivered. Week after week, for a year and even longer, in 5637 and 5638, the Rebbe Maharash spoke at length, delivering many maamarim. All of them formed one continuous series, with each subject following from the preceding one. One of the Rebbe Maharash’s great, well-known series is “Vechachah,” on this verse and the whole subject. He explains what the matters mentioned in the verse mean, and what counsel they offer us in our service of Hashem today, in this exile. He says that the verse is telling us: “And this is how you shall eat it.” Instead of remaining sunk in bitterness and darkness and [unclear], the Rebbe says, one must draw strength and act, muster the strength to go out to battle and fight the yetzer hara. For now, a person still has a yetzer hara; his animal soul is still strong, and he has not yet transformed it. Nevertheless, he has the strength to bring about change, to gain control over his body and animal soul and change them. But in order to go out to battle and do the work a Jew must do, the verse first sets out these three things. What are the three things involved here? The Rebbe Maharash explains. There is a maamar by the Rebbe from 5737, when it was seventy-five years [unclear] since the Rebbe’s

17:51 birth on 11 Nissan. The Rebbe delivered a maamar then called “Vechachah.” It is based on an earlier maamar from 5637. The 5637 series “Vechachah” is one of the Rebbe Maharash’s greatest series: a long, deep and rich series grounded in all these delightful concepts of Chassidus. Yes, he explains the subjects of the festivals and so on. There the Rebbe Maharash writes that these are the three things stated here: “And this is how you shall eat it”—how a Jew receives the Pesach offering and the matters connected with matzah. A Jew needs to have all these things on Pesach. And this is accomplished through “your loins girded.” What does “your loins girded” mean? One must gird oneself. The Alter Rebbe says in Igeres Hakodesh, section 1, in the well-known letter he wrote to his early chassidim, that this refers to the laws of the Oral Torah. “Your loins” are faith. And faith needs to be strengthened so that one does not go into battle weak. How does one strengthen faith? Through “your loins girded”: he binds “your loins,” the faith that supports the body, and girds them with a belt, which is the Oral Torah. As the Rebbe Maharash says, the Oral Torah has the special power to strengthen faith. And there is also “your staff in your hand.” Ah—“your loins girded, your shoes on your feet.” So “your loins girded” means strengthening faith through studying the Oral Torah, studying subjects that strengthen in

19:31 Faith. “Your shoes on your feet”—that is for when a person walks through the world. His feet carry him and tread on the ground, and in avodah this means that he is still occupied with earthly matters, material matters, and [unclear] matters, things connected with a person. About this it says, “Your shoes on your feet”: when a person walks through the world and through the dirt, when he goes about [unclear] matters, he must always have “your shoes on your feet.” A shoe protects the foot from injury. When one needs to act in the world, one must be protected, so as not to fall into concealments, into material concealments, and not [unclear] within them. “And your staff in your hand”—about this there is [unclear]: sometimes [unclear], the animal soul does not understand that language. Sometimes you cannot argue with it, because it is so coarse and so far removed that this approach does not reach it at all. For that, one needs “your staff in your hand.” And the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, citing the Gemara in Berachos: “A person should always rouse his good inclination against his evil inclination.” The Alter Rebbe says in Tanya that sometimes, when a person reaches [unclear], he needs to cry out, “He should thunder against it with a voice of tumult and anger in his mind.” And the Alter Rebbe says: against it, but in thought, not in speech. And what should he say to the animal soul? He should say

21:05 to the animal soul that he has nothing to [unclear]. He should say to the animal soul, as it is written: “You are evil and wicked, abominable and loathsome and disgraceful, as all the names by which our Sages truly called you. How long will you conceal the light of the blessed Ein Sof from me?” That is what the Alter Rebbe comes to in this chapter of Tanya and says: when you see that the animal soul is so far removed, so coarse and so material, you should not get into arguments. And these are the things that must be done with alacrity, when we say that the avodah must be done with alacrity. It is brought in Chassidus [unclear] that alacrity is a movement of holiness. Laziness is a movement of kelipah. Kelipah is bound up with two negative traits: sadness and laziness. And therefore [unclear] spoke about the opposite: there should be alacrity, there should be joy—the opposite of laziness, the opposite of [unclear]—in all matters, in all the teachings. And through this, [unclear], “your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand,” [unclear] in the final matters before the coming of our righteous Moshiach. All three of these things are needed so that [unclear], very soon, [unclear] go through all these difficulties, but rather that we openly see the true and complete Geulah; that we openly see the observance of Yiddishkeit and all Jews blessed with success in material matters [unclear]; that we openly see [unclear], immediately, the true and complete Geulah, through

22:43 our righteous Moshiach.