Acharon Shel Pesach 5785 - the holy Baal Shem Tov and the Seudas Moshiach

00:00 At a farbrengen on Acharon Shel Pesach 5694, the Frierdiker Rebbe told a story. It happened in the Alter Rebbe’s early years, when he returned from Mezritch, while the Maggid of Mezritch was still alive. The Alter Rebbe passed through a town called Shklov. Shklov was full of Torah scholars from among the misnagdim, who sat and studied Torah. The Alter Rebbe arrived there on Shabbos. It was winter, the night was dark, and it was very cold. When he entered the beis midrash, he warmed himself by the stove. They were sitting around studying. The Alter Rebbe listened to the lesson they were studying at the time, joined the discussion, and offered his explanations. The whole room was amazed by his brilliance. Among the Torah scholars in that town was a Jew named Reb Yosef Kolboi. He was a genius, a great Torah scholar, well versed in the Talmud and the halachic authorities, and one of the town’s leading scholars. The Alter Rebbe discussed Torah with him, and they got to know each other. The Alter Rebbe then traveled on, and after some time returned to Shklov. There he met Reb Yosef again. They began discussing Torah, and in the course of their conversation they came to speak about the holy Baal Shem Tov.

01:38 They did not know who the Alter Rebbe was, or that he was a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov. Reb Yosef Kolboi made a sharp remark that was disrespectful to the Baal Shem Tov. The Alter Rebbe turned to him and said, “Do you know who the Baal Shem Tov is? You should know that the revelation of the Baal Shem Tov is even higher than the revelation of Eliyahu Hanavi.” That is what he said. Reb Yosef heard this and was utterly shaken: How could anyone say such a thing? When the Alter Rebbe saw how upset Reb Yosef was, he said to him, “Why are you so upset? It’s an explicit Gemara.” Now Reb Yosef, who was well versed in the Talmud, knew all the discussions and all the passages of Gemara. He said, “Where is there an explicit Gemara?” He thought and thought, but could not find it. The Alter Rebbe said to him, “There’s a Gemara in Tractate Kesubos.” The Gemara in Kesubos tells a rather long story about Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. When Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi ascended on high, he came to find his place in Gan Eden. And while he was up there, in the World of Truth, the Gemara says, “Eliyahu announced before him.” Eliyahu Hanavi announced, “Make way for bar Levai.” “Make way for bar Levai”—for Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi. In other words, Eliyahu Hanavi

03:19 attended to the baal levai. And the Alter Rebbe explained: “What does baal levai mean? Levai comes from the phrase ‘This time my husband will become attached to me.’ He accompanies, he connects; levai is an expression of connection, of companionship. He connects Jews with G-dliness.” And that is what the holy Baal Shem Tov is about. The Baal Shem Tov is the true baal levai: he connects Jews, and through Jewish souls he connects the world with G-dliness. Consequently, he said, Eliyahu Hanavi attends to him. In other words, the Baal Shem Tov is higher than Eliyahu Hanavi. It is Eliyahu Hanavi who attends to the baal levai. Reb Yosef then asked, “What is your connection to the Baal Shem Tov?” The Alter Rebbe explained that he was the disciple of a disciple of the holy Baal Shem Tov. In other words, he was third in the line from the Baal Shem Tov. Reb Yosef said, “Well, third in the line—that’s already far from the Baal Shem Tov.” But the Alter Rebbe said, “It’s an explicit halachah, an explicit Gemara.” And he explained the Gemara dealing with the laws of nitzok. There is a question discussed in the Gemara: when liquid is poured from one vessel into another, from a pure vessel into an impure one or vice versa, there is nitzok—the stream of liquid flowing between them. Hot water, a hot liquid.

05:00 And the heat. Yes, that is nitzok, which forms a connection. Yes, nitzok is a connection, as discussed in the Gemara. And the conclusion is that nitzok forms a connection with regard to impurity and purity. So the Alter Rebbe said: This is the nature of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings. They are warm teachings; they have warmth, and therefore there is nitzok, a connection. That connection also binds me, third in the line, firmly to the Baal Shem Tov. And this was [unclear] of Reb Yosef Kolboi, who later became one of the Alter Rebbe’s greatest chassidim. In other words, the Baal Shem Tov’s purpose is to connect the world with G-dliness through Jewish souls. And as for Acharon Shel Pesach: the Baal Shem Tov revealed that it is a time when the light of Moshiach shines. This was one of the things the Baal Shem Tov revealed about the customs of Acharon Shel Pesach: he instituted a meal and said that Acharon Shel Pesach is a time when the light of Moshiach is revealed more strongly to Jews. And in Hayom Yom, the Rebbe cites the Frierdiker Rebbe’s explanation of why Acharon Shel Pesach is associated with the revelation of the light of Moshiach. He explained that, in general, the days of Pesach are a time of freedom, a time of

06:29 leaping beyond limitations. A Jew is in a state represented by matzah, above exile and above the world. And then he returns to this world, to the bitterness of exile. The revelation of the light of Moshiach comes to give him the strength to go out into the world. In other words, one of the main aspects of the revelation of Moshiach that the Baal Shem Tov disclosed is that it gives us the strength to transform the world, so that the world becomes a place for G-dliness. That is, to connect G-dliness with the world. Not to break the world, but on the contrary, to connect it with G-dliness. The maamarim for Acharon Shel Pesach explain that one of the main differences between the future Geulah and the Exodus from Egypt is that the Exodus took place in a manner of “for the people fled.” The Exodus was associated with matzah: the Jews had to flee Egypt. It happened through breaking, when the kelipos of Egypt had to be broken—the Ten Plagues and everything that happened in Egypt, [unclear] from Egypt through the splitting of the sea, when “Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.” All of this happened through breaking: the kelipah was broken and left separate, without engaging with it at all. That was the manner of it all. And the Jews had to flee Egypt. That was the first Geulah. But of the future Geulah it says that it will be

08:03 “You shall not go out in haste, nor shall you go in flight.” It will come, specifically, calmly and peacefully. The Geulah through Moshiach will not come through breaking. On the contrary, the future Geulah will take place specifically in this world. Then the world will be connected with G-dliness in complete perfection, to the point that the world and G-dliness will truly be one. This is what the holy Baal Shem Tov spoke about. It is well known that the Baal Shem Tov revealed that a person’s entire service must be a service of G-dliness together with the body: not to oppose the body, not to break the body, but to serve specifically together with the body. And the Baal Shem Tov’s teaching on the verse is well known: “When you see the donkey of your enemy lying under its burden and you would refrain from helping him, you must surely help him.” As is well known, the Baal Shem Tov explained that a person sees the donkey. The donkey alludes to the physical substance of the body and the animal soul, and it is “your enemy”—it is still hostile to the soul and to the service of Hashem. “Lying under its burden”: it lies there and does not do what it needs to do. “And you would refrain from helping him”: you then think that you do not want to serve Hashem together with the body, but instead want to break the body through fasting and self-mortification. And the holy Baal Shem Tov explained: No, that is not the way; it is not the way Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. The way Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants is “you must surely help him”—to serve Hashem together with the body, to make the body a vessel that serves the soul. And this was one of the principal qualities of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings: to serve Hashem specifically together with the body and make the body a vessel for G-dliness, not through fasting, self-mortification, and breaking, but specifically through refinement. Why? Because this is what is new about the revelation in the future, in the matter of

10:03 Moshiach. The revelation at the Exodus from Egypt was the opposite. Faced with the impurity of Egypt, the Exodus was the first stage, and so it took the opposite form. As the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya: at that early stage, the world had not yet been refined and rectified, and it did not yet have the capacity for the world itself to be transformed into G-dliness. So it was necessary to break away and flee; this was an avodah of fleeing. Part of this avodah is that when a person is at the beginning of his work of teshuvah and wants to separate himself from evil, from the yetzer hara and the animal soul, he must break away and flee from evil. Not engage with it, not remain caught up in it, but distance himself from it, break away from it, and nullify it. But that is not the whole avodah. As he progresses, a person finds himself engaged every day in the work of refinement, transforming and refining the material world. And when the holy Baal Shem Tov came and revealed the truth of Havayah Elokim, the truth of G-dliness, the true unity of Hashem—when the world becomes apparent, its sense of independent existence becomes apparent too. The Baal Shem Tov says, concerning the creation of the world, “Forever, Hashem, Your word stands in the heavens.” This is the Divine power that brings all physical things into being, gives them life, and sustains them. When a person looks at the physical world through the eyes of the holy Baal Shem Tov, who revealed that the world’s physicality is connected to G-dliness, there is no need to break the world or flee from it. Precisely here in this world, amid the world and its affairs, one finds the Divine power, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, within it. That is why the Baal Shem Tov instituted the custom of Moshiach’s Seudah, at which we eat matzah on Acharon Shel Pesach—specifically a physical act of eating, a physical taste. Later, the Rebbe Rashab added the practice

12:07 of drinking four cups of wine. All of these are physical things, meant to show us that the revelation of Moshiach is not something for which we must flee this world. Rather, its entire purpose is to change the world itself, so that the revelation of G-dliness, the Divine power, is felt within it. This is what the verse says: “The glory of Hashem will be revealed, and all flesh together will see that the mouth of Hashem has spoken.” This is one of the verses about the Geulah. What does it tell us? When Moshiach comes, what will be the greatest innovation of his revelation? “The glory of Hashem will be revealed, and all flesh together will see that the mouth of Hashem has spoken.” The revelation of G-dliness—“the glory of Hashem will be revealed”—will be such that “all flesh will see”: physical flesh will see G-dliness. At first glance, this seems repetitive. The verse already says that the glory of Hashem will be revealed, and surely, when it is revealed, it can be seen. “Revealed” means that it is visible, that it shines and can be seen. Yet the verse does not stop there. It adds, “The glory of Hashem will be revealed, and all flesh together will see that the mouth of Hashem has spoken.” What does that addition tell us? The Rebbe explains in the maamarim for Acharon Shel Pesach that the greatest innovation in the revelation of Moshiach is not simply that there will be a revelation from above. There was such a revelation at the Exodus from Egypt too: “The King of kings was revealed to them,” as we say in the Pesach Haggadah, “in His glory

13:39 and by Himself.” At the Exodus from Egypt, too, there was a revelation of Hashem’s very Essence. At the splitting of the sea they said, “This is my G-d, and I will glorify Him; the G-d of my father, and I will exalt Him.” Each person “pointed with a finger and said, ‘This.’” Jews stood at the splitting of the sea and saw a revelation of the Infinite One, blessed be He, down here in the world. But at the splitting of the sea and the Exodus from Egypt, this was primarily a revelation from above, like a gift from above. The Jews themselves were not yet worthy, not yet ready, not yet refined. The world was still physical and coarse; it was not a vessel for these things. That revelation came about through a breaking away. The greatest innovation, the greatest achievement of the time to come, will not be to break the world and nullify it. On the contrary: within the world, within this physical world, its inner dimension will be revealed. “All flesh will see”—physical flesh itself will be refined. The world itself, its physicality, will be refined until it becomes a physicality in which it is felt that its entire existence is Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. The true unity of Havayah will be seen within the world, within the world’s very existence. This is the greatest achievement of King Moshiach. This is the greatest achievement of the time to come. And this began with the Baal Shem Tov. And the description “son of Levi”—Levi, meaning one who joins together—speaks of connecting and joining the world with G-dliness. The Gemara says there that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, as well as Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, were

15:07 among the tzaddikim in whose days the rainbow was not seen. The fact that the rainbow was not seen in their days expresses the same idea: it indicates the refinement of the world. As is known, the whole point is that the world was refined, and the work of refinement continued after the Flood. Hakadosh Boruch Hu said He would never bring another flood. But when a rainbow appears, it shows that the world is not truly worthy yet. Through the work of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi, who drew G-dliness into the world through the inner dimension of Torah, they revealed the world’s inner dimension and showed how the world was refined and purified. There was therefore no need for a rainbow, because the world had become completely refined and purified, and so the rainbow was not seen in their days. This was the work of the Baal Shem Tov and the revelation of the teachings of Chassidus, through which it was revealed how the world becomes one with G-dliness. This is what the Rebbe wanted to emphasize to us, [unclear] of the Rebbe concerning Acharon Shel Pesach, Moshiach’s Seudah. Chassidim had a custom of eating gebrokts on Acharon Shel Pesach. In other words, on Acharon Shel Pesach they were not particular about avoiding soaked matzah.

16:32 And not only were they not particular about avoiding it; quite the opposite: on Acharon Shel Pesach they made a point of eating soaked matzah. There is [unclear] permission for this, but it is not merely something permitted; it is something they made a point of doing. As the Rebbe recounts, our Rebbeim were seen to make a point of this on Acharon Shel Pesach. For an entire week, they observed the strictest precautions, stringencies, and standards to ensure that not even a drop of water touched the matzah. But when Acharon Shel Pesach arrived, not only did they stop taking that precaution; on the contrary, they made a point of making gebrokts with every food they ate—specifically soaked matzah. There are several explanations for this. One explanation the Rebbe gave is that it is connected with Acharon Shel Pesach being the end of the days of Pesach. Matzah represents faith. The point of matzah coming into contact with water is that there must be simple faith, without any [unclear]. Regarding water, halachah says that when a person eats but does not drink, his food does not become blood. In other words, when a person eats but has no water, no drink, the matzah—the food—remains separate from him. It does not become blood: the food does not enter into him and become flesh of his flesh, but remains something apart from him. Through the water

18:04 one drinks after eating, the food reaches every part of the body and gives it life, until it becomes blood and flesh of his flesh. The same applies to the days of Pesach in relation to Acharon Shel Pesach. During the days of Pesach, when we focus on the Exodus from Egypt, we need faith—simple faith, faith in its purest form. At this stage, a person is not yet a vessel for faith to permeate his entire being, so there is only simple faith, faith that remains separate from him. This was also the nature of the avodah during the first week: an entire week of eating pure faith, without a single drop of water. Faith, faith in its purest form. But when we reach Acharon Shel Pesach, the time the Baal Shem Tov wanted, [unclear] Moshiach, the avodah begins of having faith permeate your being. Faith in the Geulah, faith in Moshiach, faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and faith in the true unity of Havayah must not remain [unclear]. It must permeate all of existence. Through gebrokts, soaked matzah, we show that the matzah enters and permeates the entire person, until his whole being is permeated with faith. It permeates his [unclear]. In the same way, it permeates the existence of the world too, until the entire world [unclear] the Geulah. And this is what we learn from the haftarah, as we see.

19:28 In the haftarah of the last day of Pesach, we learn about the greatest revelations and the greatest miracles and wonders that will take place in the future Geulah. And we see that the haftarah places special emphasis on what Moshiach will accomplish in the world. When it speaks of Moshiach’s greatness, of the loftiest things—“The spirit of Hashem will rest upon him: a spirit of wisdom and understanding, a spirit of counsel and strength, a spirit of knowledge and fear of Hashem; and he will delight in the fear of Hashem”—all of these are exceedingly lofty qualities of Moshiach. And immediately the verse goes on to say that this will have an effect on the world: “The wolf will dwell with the lamb.” And [unclear] the enmity, so that there will be peace both among people and throughout the world. The verse continues to describe peace among them and peace among the animals, right here in this physical world. In other words, the revelation of Hashem’s oneness will bring about unity throughout all of existence—in the inanimate, the living, and the human—as it concludes: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.” And this is the [unclear] of Moshiach’s revelation, which we need to work toward. Since we are already in the time of the footsteps of Moshiach, we need to reveal the light of Moshiach in the world. Not to distance ourselves from the world, but the opposite: to see how everything in the world, how the whole of creation, cries out and reveals [unclear]. To reveal it in the world, in worldly matters, through the use of worldly things—permissible things; we use them for—

20:55 pleasure, so that through this it will be possible to [unclear] reveal G-dliness, reveal Hashem’s oneness in the world, and illuminate, reveal, and see how everything that happens in the world leads to the revelation of Moshiach. And this is the [unclear] of the last day of Pesach, from which we draw strength for the entire year. May we merit, immediately, the full revelation of [unclear] described in the haftarah, and may we see in this very world that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea,” immediately, amen, so may it be.