Parshas Acharei-Kedoshim 5785 - connection (hiskashrus) to a Tzaddik

00:00 There was a chossid named Reb Yochanan Gordon. He was one of the chassidim who had studied at Tomchei Temimim in Lubavitch. Later he lived in America. He was the gabbai of the shul at 770, already in the days of the Frierdiker Rebbe, and afterward in the Rebbe’s time as well. He was a wonderful chassidishe Jew, a man of kindness and charity, and so on. He once related something he had heard from one of the chassidim, which is recorded in a letter to the Frierdiker Rebbe. Reb Yochanan Gordon had been in Russia, in Dokshitz. Dokshitz was a chassidishe town, and its rabbi and mashpia was Reb Leibele Sheinin, Reb Leibele of Dokshitz. He was among the earliest Temimim, a man deeply devoted to serving Hashem and a great Torah scholar. Reb Yochanan Gordon heard from Reb Leibele of Dokshitz a saying of the early chassidim in the name of the author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef, who was among the greatest disciples of the Baal Shem Tov. Once, people came to him with a question: Jewish Torah scholars came to the author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef, who was the rabbi of Polnoye, and expressed surprise that they saw him traveling to the Baal Shem Tov. He would go for several weeks, and the whole trip involved great effort: traveling there, staying there, and returning. Seemingly, that meant a great deal of time taken away from Torah study. How could it be

01:50 that a great rabbi, a Torah scholar and tzaddik like him, would take so much time away from Torah study to travel to his Rebbe? The author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef answered that this is an explicit Gemara. The Gemara says that we interrupt Torah study to escort the dead and to bring in a bride. In other words, when the mitzvah of escorting the dead must be performed—carrying and accompanying the deceased—or the mitzvah of bringing in a bride, we interrupt Torah study for such important mitzvos. He interpreted escorting the dead in a spiritual sense: removing the deadness from within oneself, the state of death. Sometimes a person is in a state of spiritual death: he has no vitality in holiness, no vitality in Torah, no vitality in serving Hashem. Escorting the dead means removing that state of death from oneself. Bringing in a bride—he interpreted “bride,” kallah, as in “my soul longs,” kalsah nafshi: yearning. It means awakening and bringing into oneself that yearning for G-dliness. For this, we interrupt Torah study. What does that mean? After all, traveling to his Rebbe meant time away from Torah study. The entire journey, in those days, by horse and wagon, involved being jostled about and traveling a long way. Nevertheless, we interrupt Torah study, as the Gemara says, to remove the state of death from ourselves and bring in the “my soul longs,” the

03:35 vitality and attachment to G-dliness. That is what the author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef said, and Reb Yochanan Gordon passed it on to the Frierdiker Rebbe. The Frierdiker Rebbe once wrote a letter in which he gave the wording as he had heard it from his father. He relates that in 5655, at a farbrengen before 15 Kislev, his father, the Rebbe Rashab, spoke about this subject: the whole matter of a chossid’s connection to a Rebbe, and what a Rebbe gives his students in serving Hashem, so that they will know the purpose for which their souls descended into this world. Among other things, he told the story of the author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef. He was asked: How can chassidim endure the upheaval of traveling to their Rebbe, a long journey there and back, when this clearly takes time away from Torah study? How could he do such a thing? The author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef replied that the Gemara says: “Sometimes, neglecting Torah is what upholds it.” Sometimes interrupting Torah study is precisely what sustains Torah study. That is the Gemara’s wording: sometimes one must interrupt Torah study, but the interruption itself upholds it, because through it one awakens and strengthens one’s Torah study. The author of Toldos Yaakov Yosef interpreted the word “sometimes,” lif’amim: when a chossid travels to his Rebbe, that is lif’amim, related to the word for footsteps, pe’amav, in “he set his footsteps upon the road.”

05:15 Yes, walking—the matter of footsteps. The steps one takes, traveling and enduring the journey to reach one’s Rebbe and return from him, are the “sometimes”: those steps and that journey are the “neglecting Torah.” The journey does take time away from Torah study, but “this is what upholds it,” because through it one receives vitality, a sense of meaning, and strength in serving Hashem. He concludes that this is the matter of [unclear], which he received inwardly through the way of the Baal Shem Tov, and he teaches his students that when a chossid travels to his Rebbe, he receives vitality in Torah and faith. In the weekly parsha, Parshas Acharei, it says: “Hashem spoke to Moshe after the death of Aharon’s two sons, when they drew near before Hashem and died.” The Torah says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu spoke to Moshe Rabbeinu after “the death of Aharon’s two sons, when they drew near before Hashem and died.” What was it about this event that led Hakadosh Boruch Hu to tell Aharon, “He shall not enter the holy place at any time”—that he must not enter it whenever he wishes, but rather “With this he shall enter,” following all the details of the Yom Kippur service set out in the parsha? The holy rabbi of Berditchev asks a simple question. In fact, the question already appears in earlier sources. The holy Ohr Hachayim also asks it in his commentary on the weekly parsha, in his well-known passage on this subject. And the question the holy rabbi of Berditchev asks is: Seemingly, we know...

06:59 what the Gemara says, and Rashi cites it earlier, that the sin of Aharon’s sons was that “they ruled on a matter of halachah in the presence of their teacher.” Yes, they stood before Moshe Rabbeinu and ruled on a matter of halachah in the presence of their teacher. We learned in Parshas Shemini, when the offerings and the eating of the offerings were discussed, that they ruled on a matter of halachah in the presence of their teacher. For that, they incurred the death penalty. There are other explanations too—that they had drunk wine, and so on. But none of these things are written here in the verse. Here the verse says something entirely different: “When they drew near before Hashem and died.” This question is also raised by the holy Ohr Hachayim. It is a well-known passage of the Ohr Hachayim, also cited in the teachings of Chassidus, including a maamar of the Alter Rebbe—the Alter Rebbe’s first maamar, which opens with the words, “It is written in the Ohr Hachayim on Parshas Acharei.” He cites the Ohr Hachayim, dwells on it, and explains it according to Chassidus. The holy Ohr Hachayim says that “when they drew near before Hashem” was actually the underlying cause of all the matters mentioned by our Sages. For what happened in the sin of Aharon’s sons? Aharon’s sons were great and holy tzaddikim, to the point that it says, “Through those close to Me I will be sanctified,” and all those things. There are Midrashim that say they were holy and close to Hashem, even more so than Moshe and Aharon. These were lofty souls, particularly...

08:33 according to the Zohar, according to Kabbalah, according to the inner dimension of these matters, Nadav and Avihu were very lofty souls. What happened? They experienced such attachment, as the Ohr Hachayim says: “attachment, delight, pleasantness, sweetness, kisses.” Their attachment was so great, and their delight in and thirst for G-dliness so intense, that the body could not contain that thirst. This is the meaning of “when they drew near before Hashem.” Along these lines, on the inner level, what happened here was that they attained such closeness, such a way of serving Hashem, that it could not be contained within the body, and this led them to [unclear]. They experienced a longing of the soul so intense that the soul separated from the body. Accordingly, the holy Ohr Hachayim explains that the reasons given by our Sages all stem from this. Yes, the matter of their having drunk wine is along these lines too, as are all the others. In essence, the inner meaning of all these things is one spiritual matter: they went beyond the bounds and limitations of the world. They wanted no hold on this world; they wanted to flee the world, to break free of it, until they reached the point where their souls departed. And so Hakadosh Boruch Hu told Aharon’s sons that this is not the proper order, not the intent. The thirst itself is indeed a good thing. There must indeed be a thirst for G-dliness, but nevertheless, the path of fleeing the world, of going beyond its limitations to the point where the soul departs, is contrary to the intent; it is not what Hashem wants. What Hashem wants is...

10:03 the holy Ohr Hachayim on the weekly parsha. Let us return to Kedushas Levi: the holy author of Kedushas Levi asks, what lies behind the reason of “ruling on a matter of halachah in the presence of one’s teacher”? What is the inner meaning here? He says that the matter is not at all understood: what is so grave about ruling on a matter of halachah in the presence of one’s teacher? So grave that the Gemara says one who does so incurs the death penalty. What happened here that makes it so serious? After all, he is stating a Torah law. Even if it is the student saying it, he is not saying anything contrary to the Torah. On the contrary, he is saying what is written in the Torah. So because he said it in his teacher’s presence, it becomes so grave that he incurs the death penalty? Kedushas Levi explains that Hakadosh Boruch Hu arranged the world with one boundary within another. We see this at the Giving of the Torah: Moshe had an area to himself, Aharon had an area to himself, the kohanim had an area to themselves, and then there was all of Israel—all the Jews were present at Mount Sinai. But there is an order of one boundary within another. That is, the order in which we receive, the way the influence from Hakadosh Boruch Hu, from G-dliness, flows into the world, follows a particular order: the Jews receive from the kohanim, the kohanim from Aharon, Aharon from Moshe, and Moshe from Hakadosh Boruch Hu. “Moshe received the Torah from Sinai and passed it on.” This is the order in which G-dliness, Torah and wisdom, secrets and Divine will, are passed on to the souls of Israel. When a person skips over a boundary—that is, he does not want to receive that influence through Moshe Rabbeinu, but wants to reach it directly

11:41 to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, bypassing all the barriers, all the channels through which His influence flows. The tzaddik is the intermediary who connects, as it says of Moshe Rabbeinu: “I stood between Hashem and you at that time, to tell you the word of Hashem.” There is Moshe Rabbeinu, the connecting intermediary, the intermediary who draws down G-dliness and brings Hakadosh Boruch Hu to us, the Jewish people. But with Nadav and Avihu, it was “when they drew near before Hashem.” The verse is saying that they wanted to draw near to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but not through the connecting intermediary, Moshe Rabbeinu. They wanted to reach Hakadosh Boruch Hu immediately, bypassing all the barriers. And through this they fell—“and they died.” This, says the Kedushas Levi, is the meaning of “one who rules on a matter of halachah in the presence of his teacher.” It means that he wants to receive the flow of wisdom from Hakadosh Boruch Hu without going through his teacher, through his rav; to go directly, without the established order through which that wisdom flows. And through this they fell—“and they died.” A Jew must know that to receive the influence that will bring him to greatness, he must follow this order, this path: not skip over the barrier, but receive it from Moshe Rabbeinu. And Moshe Rabbeinu is the one who connects—“I stood between Hashem and you.” So the sin of ruling on a matter of halachah in the presence of one’s teacher is, in fact, the meaning of the words “when they drew near before Hashem”: they wanted to draw near to Hakadosh Boruch Hu not through Moshe Rabbeinu, but directly. And through this they fell—“and they died.” So he goes on to say: We need to understand what all this means. A Jew may not skip over the barriers. A Jew must know that he

13:23 must be connected to Moshe Rabbeinu and conduct himself according to Moshe Rabbeinu. Only then is it possible to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the right way: to know whom to ask, how to act, and in what order. We receive that order through Moshe Rabbeinu. And similarly, there is a Moshe in every generation; in every generation there is a Moshe Rabbeinu. For a Jew to know how to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu in the right way, he must be connected to Moshe Rabbeinu. This is the lesson from today’s parsha, Parshas Acharei, from its very first verse. The Torah tells us—seemingly, why is this whole introduction relevant? The Torah tells us that it was “after the death of Aaron’s two sons,” and only then comes Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s command. It could have given the command straightaway, without telling us about Nadav and Avihu and the tragedy that befell them. Why mention all these things? Rashi does ask this question. Rashi cites the words of Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah: Hakadosh Boruch Hu wanted to show us how a warning should be given. There is a parable about a sick person who is told not to eat something unhealthy for him and not to lie in a place that is unhealthy for him, a cold place. One doctor comes and says: Don’t eat that, and don’t lie there. A second doctor tells him: Don’t eat that, and don’t lie

14:58 there, and don’t sleep there, because if you do, what happened to so-and-so, who died, will happen to you. As we learn from Rashi’s explanation, giving him the warning this way spurs him on more. What do we see from this Rashi? We see something interesting: Aaron the Kohen, too, had the same yearning his sons had. Why were all these warnings necessary? Because this yearning arose in Aaron as well. Why was it necessary to give all the warnings and remind him what had happened to his sons, as in the whole account Rashi brings about the doctor? We understand from Rashi that the sick person himself has a yearning for it; he wants it. He wants to go to the damp place, he wants to eat the food. That is why he needs a special warning, so that what happened to Nadav and Avihu will not happen to him. In other words, Aaron the Kohen, too, had ratzo—the thirst, the cleaving to G-dliness, as it is called in Chassidus. That thirst and cleaving—he wants to be in a state of cleaving, of sweetness, [unclear], kisses, [unclear]. To rise higher, to become more and more refined, to rise above [unclear], to leave behind all the physical concerns of the material body. Jews need to have this thirst, and Aaron the Kohen had it. But the command to him addresses precisely this: Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants the thirst to be followed by what Chassidus calls “shov,” a return.

16:33 “If your heart races, return to the One,” as it says in Sefer Yetzirah and is quoted in Chassidus. When there is “your heart races”—ratzo, thirst, cleaving—he wants to flee and unite with G-dliness. To this comes “return to the One”: one must come down here, into the world, make the world a dwelling place for Him, and fulfill the purpose of descending into this physical world. This is the whole continuation of the parsha, Parshas Acharei Mos: after the subject of Yom Kippur come the laws concerning forbidden relationships—“Do not do as they do in the land of Egypt, and do not do as they do in the land of Canaan, and do not follow their statutes.” Seemingly, these are opposite extremes: we begin with Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, and suddenly enter the laws concerning forbidden relationships. And beyond that, there is the well-known question: On Yom Kippur, we read the passage about Yom Kippur in the morning, and at Minchah we read the laws concerning forbidden relationships. How do we jump from one extreme to the other? But this itself is what the Torah wants to tell us, and this is the ratzo of every Jew. On the one hand, a Jew must have a thirst for G-dliness. He must want not only [unclear]; he must want to be in a state of “against your will you live,” as it says in Pirkei Avos. He does not want to be in a material, physical, dirty world. He wants to be connected to G-dliness all day. Yet “against your will you live.” For the ultimate intention is that Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling place for Himself in the lower realms. That is why the Jew is in the world,

18:01 acts in the world, and engages with worldly matters: to make the world a dwelling place for Him. This is what the parsha says: “Hashem spoke to Moshe: Speak to Aaron.” A Jew asks: How can I live with both of these movements? They are opposites. What do you want from me? If you don’t want me to feel thirst, tell me not to feel thirst. Tell me that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants me here, in the world. And if you do want me to feel thirst, what exactly do you want from me? How can I live with both at once? I need to want to be in the most spiritual of spiritual states, and yet I need to want to be in the most physical of physical states. These are two opposite movements of the soul, and it is difficult to live with them together. To this the parsha says: “Hashem spoke to Moshe.” It comes through Moshe Rabbeinu. From him we receive the strength for this. Moshe Rabbeinu had the ability, together with his cleaving to G-dliness, to convey to Jews the true path in serving Hashem: how a Jew can, on the one hand, have the thirst—truly wanting to unite with G-dliness—and at the same time grasp the ultimate intention, that “Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling place for Himself in the lower realms,” and “upon him and all his holy people,” to carry out his service as Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants: to bring G-dliness specifically down here, not flee the world, and to combine the two movements in the right way. [unclear].

19:32 In serving Hashem, between ratzo and shov. And by Divine Providence, we always study this parsha during the period of Sefiras HaOmer. Indeed, we see that this whole story took place during Sefiras HaOmer; it revolves around the entire theme of Sefiras HaOmer and relates to Rabbi Akiva’s students. Rabbi Akiva had 24,000 students, all of whom died between Pesach and Shavuos. That is what the Gemara relates, and there are the details brought in the Midrashim and the seforim, and all these matters. Afterward, Rabbi Akiva went to our rabbis in the south and found the five students—Rabbi Meir, Rabbi Shimon, Rabbi Elazar, and so on, all five students. With them, the Oral Torah was established, the foundation of the Oral Torah. Chassidus explains the difference between Rabbi Akiva’s first students, who died and who experienced the soul’s yearning to leave the body, and Rabbi Akiva’s later students: it is the difference between the two things we have been discussing. It is similar to Aaron’s two sons, who experienced that same yearning of the soul. Rabbi Akiva’s students were great tzaddikim, Tannaim, supremely holy people; they were not ordinary people. “They did not treat one another with respect”—this cannot be understood literally, G-d forbid. What was the disagreement? How could Rabbi Akiva’s students, who received from their teacher the verse

21:08 “Love your fellow as yourself”—“this is a great principle of the Torah,” as it appears in our parsha, Kedoshim. Would they act that way? [unclear] Literally. Precisely because of their profound Ahavas Yisroel, and their thirst for and attachment to G-dliness, they could not bear the fact that someone else’s service of Hashem was different from theirs. For them, this was [unclear], as explained at length elsewhere. So what was their way of serving Hashem? It was one of ratzo, of thirst. In the state they were in, they experienced something like the soul’s yearning to expire, similar to the sons of Aharon, and the world could not contain it. This is how we understand the Gemara’s wording there: “And the world was desolate.” They were holy Jews, lofty souls. But the world was desolate; the world could not benefit from it or be warmed by it. Afterward, Rabbi Akiva went to our Sages in the south, and there he brought the shov: bringing the revelation of G-dliness down here below, through the Oral Torah, laws and halachos. What does that mean? It means the opposite: to be in the world and make the world a dwelling place for Him. And that is the correction, similar to the correction of Nadav and Avihu. So the whole story of Sefiras HaOmer illustrates the two things the parsha teaches us: there has to be the right balance, there has to be the thirst, [unclear], and—

22:33 At the same time, there has to be shov: “Against your will, you live.” We must know that the purpose is to bring all that thirst for the revelation of G-dliness into the world—to make the world bright, to illuminate it with Torah, with serving Hashem and with observing mitzvos; so that more Jews learn Torah and more Jews know about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Through this, we fulfill the purpose of “Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired to have a dwelling place in the lower realms,” and prepare the world for the revelation of Moshiach.