*Chanukah 5786 "A flask of oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol" *The service of the mind and the service of the heart

00:00 So 19 Kislev came a year after the Alter Rebbe’s liberation from imprisonment on 19 Kislev 5559. On 19 Kislev, many Jews came to celebrate the first Festival of Liberation with the Alter Rebbe. On that 19 Kislev, or during Chanukah, the Alter Rebbe delivered a maamar of Chassidus. The maamar began with the words: “Blessed is He Who performed miracles for our forefathers in those days, at this time.” As the Rebbe would often mention in his sichos, chassidim used to say: “Blessed is He Who performed miracles for our forefathers”—“in those days” refers to Chanukah and Purim, and “at this time” to 19 Kislev. That is how the maamar began. In other words, 19 Kislev has a connection to Chanukah and Purim. In that maamar, the Alter Rebbe spoke at length about the significance of Chanukah and its great distinction. He also placed great emphasis on the superiority of serving Hashem with the mind over serving Him with the heart. In serving Hashem, there are two levels, two approaches: what is called the service of the mind, and the service of the heart. The service of the heart is what a person does out of an awakening of the heart, out of a burning love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu, with energy, fervor, noise and excitement. That is what we call the service of the heart. And there is the service of the mind.

01:39 Serving Hakadosh Boruch Hu through contemplation, understanding and deep reflection on the greatness of Hashem. In that maamar, the Alter Rebbe greatly elevated the service of the mind over the service of the heart. Later we will discuss why the Alter Rebbe spoke about this. There is a note that the Rebbe Maharash added in his own handwriting to the maamar, based on what he heard from his father, the Tzemach Tzedek. The Tzemach Tzedek related that after the Alter Rebbe was released from imprisonment on 19 Kislev 5559, after his liberation and the victory of the teachings of Chassidus, the chassidim of that time were filled with tremendous excitement, warmth and joy. They davened, studied Chassidus and served Hakadosh Boruch Hu with tremendous fervor and excitement. Their service was accompanied by so much noise and excitement that when they davened, they shouted at the top of their voices. Eventually they could not even remain indoors; they had to go outside, to the woods and the fields, and daven there loudly and noisily. The Alter Rebbe saw this, and it did not meet with his approval. This is not the way of Chassidus in serving Hashem, according to the Alter Rebbe...

03:07 And so, when 19 Kislev arrived—the Festival of 19 Kislev and Chanukah—the Alter Rebbe delivered this maamar. It was clear from the maamar that he placed great emphasis on the superiority of serving Hashem with the mind over serving Him with the heart. This relates to one of the foundations the Alter Rebbe established in the path of service taught by Chabad Chassidus. At that moment, circumstances called for him to express the point more sharply. But more broadly, this is the well-known principle that the Alter Rebbe, who founded the path of service of Chabad Chassidus, insisted on and explained: the great advantage of serving Hashem specifically with the mind. This brought about a major change among chassidim, and it had a continuation later as well: the Mitteler Rebbe wrote Kuntres Hahispaalus. As is known, there he discusses at length and in detail the entire approach of Chabad, explaining that serving Hashem must be through the service of the mind, in this way. When it comes to Chanukah, we find that this is one of the main subjects discussed in Chassidus. As the Gemara says: What was Chanukah about? There was the miracle of the oil. The Greeks entered and defiled...

04:39 the oil. They searched for the oils and defiled them. In other words, they did it deliberately; they specifically wanted to defile the oils, as the Gemara says. So immediately after the Jews won the war, they entered the Sanctuary and searched, but found nothing until they discovered one flask of oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol. It contained enough to burn for only one day, but then the miracle occurred and they lit from it for eight days. The following year, they established those days as holidays of praise and thanksgiving. That is how Chanukah was established. Seemingly, Chanukah was established primarily for the miracle of the oil—for the menorah and the oil—and not for all the other events. This is one of the major questions everyone asks, early and later commentators alike: Chanukah also included the miracle of victory over the Greeks. In Ve’al Hanissim, we say that in the war, “You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, and the impure into the hands of the pure.” It was such a difficult war, and there were so many Greeks; that, too, was a miracle. Yet the miracle of the flask of oil is made the central theme of Chanukah. How does this fit with the halachic account, when the whole point is this? Praise and thanksgiving are connected to it—

05:55 the miracle of the oil and the miracle of the war. As we understand from the Gemara, it does not say this merely to mention the oil as well. After all, the whole story is the victory. But what is the primary miracle? That they not only won, but also found the flask of oil. The question is: Why was that, specifically, made the centerpiece around which the entire festival revolves? It seems that this is reflected in a person’s inner service. To understand the significance of Chanukah in a person’s inner service, we need to understand the meaning of lighting the menorah. That was the central point here. We know that the menorah in the Beis Hamikdash is described with the words, “When you kindle the lamps.” As the verse says, the menorah had seven branches. On them were the cups into which they placed the oil and lit it. This was the service of Aharon the Kohen, who lit the menorah every day. Where was the oil poured? They poured it into the menorah’s lamps and lit them. This is “When you kindle the lamps”—the service of Aharon the Kohen. Now, the Alter Rebbe explains in his maamarim what the menorah’s lamps represent: in our service, its seven branches are the seven middos. The Jewish people,

07:16 Knesses Yisroel, are divided among the menorah’s seven branches, the seven middos. What are the seven middos? They are seven ways of serving Hashem. Serving Hashem is divided among the seven middos: service motivated by love, service motivated by awe, service motivated by compassion and beauty, the service of perseverance, the service of acknowledgment and thanksgiving, the service of connection, and the service of sovereignty. This last one is the quality of lowliness, as discussed in Chassidus. Every aspect is divided this way in a person’s inner service and in serving Hashem. These are the menorah’s seven branches, seven types. One person serves out of love, another out of awe, another out of compassion—each person serves Hakadosh Boruch Hu in his own way, with his own feelings. This is the service of the middos. But the middos alone cannot take a person forward. For the middos, the awakening of the heart, to be as they should, “the mind must rule over the heart.” As the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, a person is made up of intellect and middos, each distinct, and the mind must rule over the heart. This is so that a person’s love for Hakadosh Boruch Hu will be the right kind of love, his awe the right kind of awe, his compassion the right kind of compassion and his joy the right kind of joy—so that these feelings will be as the Creator wants them to be. You cannot let the middos go their own way. Even holy middos can veer off course right at the outset, because of this matter of…

08:46 mochin. A person can become stirred up, excited and enthusiastic, and remain there without anything coming of it in actual practice. As the Alter Rebbe explains in a maamar [unclear], with regard to mochin, sometimes a person is tremendously excited and stirred up. He sings and dances, rejoices and sways; he is entirely on fire. And he is satisfied with that itself. He is enthusiastic, burning, happy and content, wholly caught up in the warmth of love and awe of Hashem. And that is where it stays. Afterward, nothing remains of it, because the person is satisfied with the initial feeling: I’m here, I’m happy, I’m content, I feel alive. And there he stays. He wants more of the same. He can even bring that love into other things. The same warmth he felt during davening can accompany him afterward when he goes to eat. Does he no longer have anything to worry about? The same warmth of love for Hashem that he felt while saying, “Hear, O Israel, Hashem is our G-d, Hashem is One,” is still with him when he eats the [unclear], when he eats the kugel and cholent. In other words, he puts that same warmth into it. He carries that warmth with him and talks about things. And—

09:59 So he does it with the same warmth and the same enthusiasm. The enthusiasm remained with him, but the holiness was lost. Why is that? Because the middos, the emotions of the heart, are bound up with the self. You can hear the “I” in them: my pleasure, my warmth, my vitality. When they lack bittul, devotion, self-surrender, and [unclear] to G-dliness, those emotions can, G-d forbid, give rise to a sense of “mine,” to a foothold for the forces of impurity. Other things can then come from those same emotions. Fear can later give rise to anger, murder, bad character traits, jealousy, hatred, and rivalry. All of these stem from the line of fear, the line of restraint. That rigidity immediately emerges. From that fear and rigidity come jealousy, hatred, anger, and the like. This is the meaning of the verse, “A fool has no desire for understanding, only to reveal his heart.” A fool lacks mochin, intellect. He does not want it; he is not looking for the truth. He seeks to “reveal his heart.” He wants to feel warmth, to feel joy, to feel pleasure. When what he wants is to feel himself and his own pleasure, this can lead, G-d forbid, to something from the opposing side. That is the advantage of the service of mochin. The intellect, the mind, is the oil. This is the idea of the menorah—pouring the oil into its branches. As explained in Chassidus, oil represents

11:21 the intellect, the mind. Just as oil is a liquid distinct from all other liquids and remains above them, so too the intellect stands above. That is its nature: it rises above things and seeks the truth. This is one of the main differences between the power of intellect and the power of emotion. With emotions, what matters most is what I feel, my personal feelings. With mochin, by contrast, a person seeks the truth. He wants to understand, to grasp the truth. He places himself above his own personal traits and seeks to grasp what the truth is. That is why the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya: Where is the primary dwelling place of the G-dly soul? In the mind, in the brain in the head. For the brain seeks the truth; it wants to understand G-dliness. That is the nature of oil, which is distinct from all other liquids. It stands above: holy anointing oil, pure olive oil. It is pure, holy, and elevated. And when it [unclear] in G-dliness, the emotions of the heart are aroused: one takes the oil and puts it into the menorah. For the power of the mind and intellect alone is not the goal either. Remaining in intellectual understanding alone, disconnected from avodah, is certainly not the purpose. As the Tzemach Tzedek said, “A maskil must be an oved”—a person devoted to intellectual understanding must also serve Hashem. One can remain disconnected even with intellect alone. The intellect must have an effect: one must take the

12:38 oil and put it into the menorah. Then, when the oil is put into the menorah, “When you kindle the lamps,” there is light. When that light shines, a person becomes more refined and purified. He can refine his sense of self, his physicality, and his self-love, so that his service of Hashem will be as it should be—with true love of Hashem, bittul, true fear of Hashem, true joy, and all the other aspects of serving Hashem. That is the advantage the intellect brings to the emotions, to the feelings of the heart. From there, the light then spreads throughout the world. After all, it is said of the menorah: “It is testimony to all who enter the world that the Shechinah rests among Israel.” “From there, light goes out to the entire world.” As is known, the windows of the Beis Hamikdash were made narrow on the inside and wide on the outside, because the light of the menorah spread throughout the world. In other words, after the illumination lights up the middos of a person’s body and animal soul, through the service of the heart and the person’s own avodah, that person goes out and illuminates the entire world. He makes the world more refined, more illuminated—a world in which the mind rules the heart, both in the world around him and even within the Jewish people. All of this is the service of Hashem in ordinary times, following the order of service that existed in the Beis Hamikdash.

14:06 But then came the story of the Greeks, the exile of Greece, which was exactly the opposite. Its whole character was the complete opposite of the mind ruling the heart. They wanted Greek wisdom: to introduce impurity into the intellect itself, to make the intellect coarse. Intellect—but what kind of intellect? “Have you seen a man wise in his own eyes?” The intellect of kelipah, an intellect full of self-importance. That is why they are called Yavan, as explained in Chassidus, from the expression “miry clay”—mud and filthy water. A person is already in the mud; he steps in and sinks, and then sinks deeper and deeper. Once he puts in one foot and then the other, he can no longer get out. This is the impurity of secular wisdom, which makes a person coarse. It does exactly the opposite: instead of becoming more refined, the person becomes even coarser. As is known, and as explained in Chassidus, through secular wisdom, the wisdom of the nations, a person can fall into desires to the point of [unclear]. As discussed in Chassidus regarding Aristotle: he was a great scholar, but [unclear], because he was a man of great appetites, as the stories about him are well known. This was the kelipah of Greece: “to make them forget Your Torah and turn them away from the statutes of Your will.” They wanted, G-d forbid, [unclear]. This is what we mean when we say that their main act was that “they entered the Sanctuary and defiled all the oils.” They sought out the oil in order to

15:34 take it and make it do exactly the opposite of what it should: instead of the oil bringing about an intellect in which the mind rules the heart, and bringing bittul into everything, “they defiled all the oils”—introducing self-importance, coarseness, and materialism, and severing the connection to G-dliness. “To make them forget Your Torah and turn them away from the statutes of Your will”: [unclear] Torah and mitzvos through human intellect, interpretations and novel insights, but without G-dliness. And likewise with “the statutes of Your will”: the laws one can understand—yes, but the statutes, kabbolas ol, they wanted to cast aside. That was the Greeks’ defilement of the oils. What was the remedy? They found “one flask of oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol.” Here too there is oil, wisdom—but what kind of wisdom? Chochmah as koach mah, the inner dimension of chochmah, wisdom connected to “the seal of the Kohen Gadol.” [Unclear], that the seal of the Kohen Gadol is the level of chochmah within binah, chochmah within keser, chochmah within atik, chochmah within the inner dimension of keser. This is chochmah, koach mah, wisdom with bittul, which is part of the work of a person’s soul; it is wisdom [unclear] the yechidah of the soul. The yechidah of the world, “the yechidah to unite with You.” This is the power of faith and the power of mesirus nefesh. Here the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya that this is the true inner dimension of chochmah, present deep in the soul of every Jew. Ordinarily it is not revealed; it lies hidden. But here, through the trials the Jews endured, the power of mesirus nefesh was revealed—the power of “one flask of oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol”—and there the greater [unclear] takes place.

17:11 The miracle was that they lit from it for eight days—and the number eight is above the order of hishtalshelus, above nature. This broke through every measure of darkness and brought still more light. It was the opposite of what the Greeks wanted when they sought “to make them forget Your Torah,” when they wanted the decree, “Write on the horn of an ox that you have no share in the G-d of Israel.” They wanted to drag the Jews down to the lowest levels of darkness, kelipos, and the sitra achra, the furthest possible from G-dliness. Through mesirus nefesh [unclear], this point of Jewishness was awakened—the one flask sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol. It awakened in the Jews true chochmah, the wisdom of the inner dimension of Torah, which nothing can ever defile. For the yechidah of the soul is [unclear], and the kelipos and the sitra achra cannot hold sway there. When it is awakened, all the kelipos are as nothing before it, all the nations are as nothing before it, and they are all utterly nullified, as the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, chapter 19 [unclear]. When the point of Jewishness is awakened in the Jews, the flask of oil sealed with the seal of the Kohen Gadol, all of this is as nothing before it, and all the nations, their ways, and their coarseness are truly of no account and are utterly nullified. Then true mochin, the true oil, is awakened in the Jews,

18:33 And it acts on our middos, making them holy middos, and that is how we win the battle against Greece. This also answers the question: Why was Chanukah, this Yom Tov, established around this particular matter? Because the great miracle of Chanukah was that we took the holy oil, the oil of the menorah, and through it changed the situation and defeated the kelipah of Greece: the many in the hands of the few, the impure in the hands of the pure, and the wicked in the hands of the righteous. We revealed the light of holiness. That light, that oil, prevails and transforms all aspects of darkness into light, as the verse says: “For You light my lamp; Hashem, my G-d, illuminates my darkness.” To illuminate and transform the darkness, so that there will be light in the world and we can overcome all aspects of impurity, kelipah, and the sitra achra—and may we merit this. So too on Chanukah, we merit this through the revelation of the inner dimension of Torah, which is the oil of Torah. On the one hand, oil is distinct from all other liquids; on the other hand, they say, “Oil permeates everything”—it penetrates everything. The oil of the inner dimension of Torah. And we are now close to 19 Kislev; as is well known, there is a connection between 19 Kislev and Chanukah. The Alter Rebbe was released from prison on 19 Kislev, but by the time he finally arrived, it was already Chanukah. There was also the Alter Rebbe’s second imprisonment, from which he was released on Chanukah. So it follows

19:56 that the oil of Chanukah is connected to the oil of the inner dimension of Torah, [unclear], the oil of the inner dimension of Torah, through which we illuminate the world, reveal and refine our middos, and refine the darkness in the world. And may it be soon in our days, amen, [unclear], the true and complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach, [unclear], immediately, amen, may it be His will.