Parshas Vayigash 5786 "And Yehuda approached him" - Yehuda and Yosef in the service of Hashem

00:00 It is well known that when the Alter Rebbe arrived in Mezritch, the Maggid of Mezritch recognized his greatness. He knew who he was, what his spiritual level was, and what his spiritual source was. This is recounted at length in the stories and sichos of the Rebbe Rashab and the Frierdiker Rebbe. At that time, the Alter Rebbe was an extraordinary scholar of the revealed parts of Torah. The Maggid of Mezritch asked the Alter Rebbe to study the revealed parts of Torah with his only son, Reb Avraham the Angel. They became study partners and agreed that the Alter Rebbe would study Gemara with his son, Reb Avraham the Angel, while Reb Avraham the Angel would teach the Alter Rebbe subjects from the secrets of the Torah—Kabbalah, Zohar, and so on. They continued studying together for several years. Chassidim tell a number of well-known stories about things that happened during their studies. For example, they say that they set aside a certain amount of time for the revealed parts of Torah and a certain amount for its hidden teachings. The Alter Rebbe had a clock, and he would turn it back, so the hours during which Reb Avraham the Angel taught him the secrets of the Torah and taught him

01:35 these subjects lasted much longer than they had agreed. The Alter Rebbe once applied the verse “Stolen waters are sweet” to this: those were the sweetest hours of his learning, the hours he managed to get out of Reb Avraham the Angel to study the secrets of the Torah. According to this version, the Alter Rebbe studied the revealed parts of Torah with Reb Avraham the Angel. One well-known story, which the Rebbe told several times, is that when they began studying Gemara, they went straight to the beginning, to the first Mishnah: “From when may one recite the Shema in the evening?” The Alter Rebbe explained the Gemara in its straightforward sense: When does one begin? From what time may one begin reciting the Shema at night? Reb Avraham the Angel immediately stopped him and said, “No, that is not how you study the Gemara; that is not how you study the Mishnah.” The Alter Rebbe asked, “Then how? What does it mean?” Reb Avraham the Angel explained: “Me’eimasai—‘from when’—also suggests eimah, awe and fear. ‘From when may one recite the Shema in the evening?’ The Shema must be recited with awe and fear. That is what the Mishnah wants to tell us: ‘From when may one recite the Shema in the evening?’ A Jew must stand in awe and fear to recite the evening Shema.” And that was a story about the way the Alter Rebbe and Reb Avraham the Angel studied

03:00 together. In fact, this story expresses one of the foundations of Chassidus. The Rebbe spoke about it at several farbrengens: it is not merely a nice saying with an appealing interpretation. This really is the deeper meaning of “From when may one recite the Shema in the evening?”—the Mishnah with which the Oral Torah begins. The Mishnah opens with the first mitzvah of accepting the yoke of Heaven, the recitation of Shema. And this teaches us something about the entire Oral Torah: “Me’eimasai”—together with the Shema, together with the mitzvah, there must be self-nullification, awe, and fear. This is the proper, orderly way for a Jew to serve Hashem. The Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya that “the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root,” is fear of Heaven. That is where a Jew begins all his divine service. We see this even with a bar mitzvah boy: when he becomes bar mitzvah, the first mitzvah he performs as soon as he reaches the age of mitzvos is reciting the evening Shema. And the me’eimasai—the awe and fear, the acceptance of the yoke of Heaven and fear of Heaven with which we take upon ourselves the recitation of Shema—is the foundation of life, the foundation of divine service, “the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root” for all of it. Our parsha opens with “And Yehudah approached him”—Yehudah approached Yosef. As the verse says, “And Yehudah approached him and said, ‘Please, my lord.’”

04:25 Yosef was viceroy. He sat on his throne, and Yehudah approached him. That is how the entire parsha begins: “And Yehudah approached him.” As the parsha relates, Yosef could no longer restrain himself, and he revealed himself, saying, “I am Yosef.” In the parsha, we find Yosef sitting on his throne as viceroy, while Yehudah comes to him and asks Yosef to provide for the others. Later, we encounter these two tribes again. As is well known, the haftorah reflects the parsha. In the haftorah, we find a discussion of the tribe of Yosef and the tribe of Yehudah. The haftorah tells of the prophet Yechezkel. He says that when Moshiach comes, there will no longer be two kingdoms. As we know, there were kings from the House of David and kings from the House of Yosef. When Yeravam ben Nevat split the kingdom in two, there were kings from the tribe of Yehudah, descended from David and Shlomo, and other kings—the kings of Israel—from the tribes of Ephraim and Yosef, beginning with Yeravam ben Nevat. We know there was a complete division between these two tribes. The haftorah says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu told the prophet Yechezkel to take two pieces of wood and join them: on one he was to write “Yehudah,” on the other “Yosef.” He was to join them together, and they would become one.

06:15 This is the prophecy that when Moshiach comes, there will not be two kingdoms. There will no longer be two kings; there will be one king: “My servant David shall be king over them,” and “one leader shall be over them all.” There will be one king, King David, from the tribe of Yehudah—the sole king—and everyone will bow before the tribe of Yehudah. So, on the one hand, the haftorah reflects the parsha: just as the parsha speaks of “And Yehudah approached him,” of the joining of Yehudah and Yosef, the haftorah also speaks of their joining. But the roles are exactly reversed. In the parsha, Yosef sits on the royal throne; he is viceroy, and Yehudah must approach him—“And Yehudah approached him”—turn to Yosef and make a request of him. Yosef is the one who gives, and Yehudah is the one who receives. In the haftorah, it is exactly the opposite: Yehudah will be their leader, and Yosef will bow before Yehudah. “My servant David,” from the tribe of Yehudah, will be their leader. How do we explain this? Chassidus explains that it has to do with divine service, with the difference between Yehudah’s way of serving Hashem and Yosef’s. Yehudah’s service is accepting the yoke of Heaven, and this is alluded to in his name. “Yehudah” is related to hoda’ah, acknowledgment: “Modeh ani,” “I will thank Hashem.” In Chassidus, hoda’ah is the concept of fear of Heaven and accepting the yoke of Heaven. This is the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root. Hoda’ah means self-nullification. He acknowledges. To be modeh means to concede that the other person is right. He acknowledges it.

08:04 As in the phrase “The Sages concede to Rabbi Meir”: he concedes that Rabbi Meir is right; he acknowledges it and agrees, even if he does not yet understand the whole matter. He agrees and concedes the point. He says that the other person is right. He acknowledges the truth. This is the service that comes from fear of Heaven, from accepting the yoke of Heaven, as “the beginning of divine service, and its essence and root.” We find this among Jews in Yehudah’s mode of service: “Modeh ani,” “I will thank Hashem.” He acknowledges the truth; he acknowledges that Hashem is right, that this is the truth. This is the acknowledgment and self-nullification of kabbolas ol, and it is the beginning of divine service. Yosef, however, is associated with growth. The name Yosef comes from a word meaning “to add.” Adding means that something grows. What is the difference between something inanimate and something that grows? Yehudah represents the inanimate. “I have composed and quieted my soul.” We find King David saying of himself in Tehillim, “Like a mute person who does not open his mouth.” That is the idea of kabbolas ol: I am like something inanimate. “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” A stone, something inanimate, is completely nullified; it has no opinion, no feeling, no sensation. It is entirely given over, devoted and surrendered; it is inanimate—“I have quieted my soul.” And this quieting is the foundation on which “the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone” stands. It is the foundation of divine service, on which the entire structure is built. But Yosef represents the opposite: growth. This is the service of contemplation, of love and fear, and of spiritual levels. A person grows, becomes stronger, and rises higher. Broadly speaking, these are two levels in serving Hashem. First comes the beginning of divine service, the matter of

09:47 Yehudah, and afterward comes Yosef’s aspect: growth. That is the order of things. Even in the physical world, we find a difference between the inanimate and the growing: the inanimate is below—it is the ground—while what grows is higher. This means that Yosef’s avodah has an advantage over Yehudah’s. The point is easy to understand. Yiras Shamayim and accepting the yoke of Heaven are the foundation. They are not yet the building itself; they are its foundation, down below. The building itself is growth, from smallness to greatness: a person grows in understanding, in avodah, in feeling, and in love and fear of Hashem. That is the order of avodah—growth. And this is avodas Hashem, as explained in Chassidus: it is the avodah of davening. First, one indeed needs kabbolas ol, bittul, and Yiras Shamayim—Yehudah’s aspect. But afterward comes the entire order of davening, from Pesukei Dezimra through the blessings of Shema, Shema, and Shemoneh Esrei. One advances from level to level, growing. It is a building in which one rises ever higher, after davening, after Havdalah, until one reaches the greatest love of delight, the greatest delights, the deepest cleaving, and ascent. This is the aspect of growth—Yosef. So Yehudah comes first, and then Yosef. Yosef is higher than Yehudah; he stands above him. “And Yehudah approached him.” In avodah, Yehudah approaches Yosef: first comes kabbolas ol, and from kabbolas ol one moves to Yosef, to the avodah of growing from smallness to greatness in avodas Hashem. We find this in the Beis Hamikdash as well. As the Rebbe explains, these ideas stem from the Beis Hamikdash; in the Mishkan, this was indeed the order. In the

11:33 Mishkan, its structure was as follows: first there was “dust from the floor of the Mishkan”—the inanimate, the earth. The pillars stood on it; they represented what grows. The curtains hung on them; they represented the living. This is the order of creation from below upward, the sequence of levels: the inanimate, above it the growing, and above that the living. Broadly speaking, as we said, this is Yehudah and Yosef. Yehudah is the foundation, the floor of the Mishkan—the avodah of kabbolas ol and fear. Afterward comes growth, the aspects of the growing and the living. This is the avodah of Pesukei Dezimra, the blessings of Shema, and Shema: an inner avodah in which a person grows from smallness to greatness. But all this pertains to the Mishkan. The Beis Hamikdash, by contrast, is akin to the future era, in the days of Moshiach, when the inner dimension of the matter will be revealed: precisely the bittul of fear of Hashem. The greatest fear is spoken of with regard to the future, when there will be fear of Hashem. Melech HaMoshiach will reveal it; “And he shall sense through his sense of smell the fear of Hashem” is said of Melech HaMoshiach, who will have the highest level of fear. It will not be ordinary fear; it will be fear of Hashem, a lofty level revealed in all its greatness. It will be a different kind of fear—not the avodah of lower-level fear with which avodah begins, but the fear called awe of Hashem’s exaltedness, arising from the greatness and exaltedness of G-dliness that will be revealed in the future. The revelation of Hashem’s Essence will be revealed, as in the wording of the verses cited, [unclear].

13:15 [unclear] awe and fear of Hashem [unclear]. This is not a negative fear, G-d forbid. It results from the greatness, exaltedness, and wonders of the Infinite that will be revealed in the future; from these comes true awe. That is why Melech HaMoshiach is said to possess this awe—the true fear of Hashem—of which the verse says, as we can see, “And he shall sense through his sense of smell the fear of Hashem.” Of Melech HaMoshiach it says: “The spirit of Hashem shall 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 shall sense through his sense of smell the fear of Hashem.” Moshiach will have all these great revelations and wonders, and the greatest wonder is that he will have this faculty of scent for the fear of Hashem. As explained in Chassidus, sensing the fear of Hashem through scent means that he will perceive it by means of smell. Smell reaches the inner essence of the soul; a scent can rouse a person from a faint. It reaches the deepest root of the soul, and through it Moshiach will sense and recognize the fear of Hashem, recognizing how everything is connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This level of fear of Hashem—“and he shall sense”—is the greatest revelation of the future era. And the Beis Hamikdash was built entirely of stone: the ground, the walls, the roof, and the floor—everything was stone. Here the Rebbe explains that the future revelation, which the Beis Hamikdash

14:45 contained as a foretaste of the future, is that bittul b’metzius will be revealed. The greatest bittul, the greatest devotion, will come when higher awe is present everywhere and permeates every level—the roof, the floor; everything will be permeated with awe and bittul. This is what existed with the Baal Shem Tov. He began to reveal the light of Moshiach, and as written in the Baal Shem Tov’s writings, he already possessed higher awe, an aspect of the future era, and he was able to instill awe even [unclear]. The Rebbe also said this about the Baal Shem Tov. We see it, too, in the teachings of Chassidus, the inner dimension of Torah. Through contemplation and study, Chassidus reveals these matters: we learn about Hashem’s greatness so that, as an introduction and preparation for the future revelation, we can already engage now in this avodah of bittul, devotion, and bittul b’metzius, until a person’s entire being is permeated with bittul. In a maamar from forty years ago, on Parshas Vayigash 5746, the Rebbe explained that when we say “bittul b’metzius,” we do not mean that the person ceases to be a person. It does not mean he has no intellect, no emotions, or no feelings. On the contrary, the Beis Hamikdash, too, had a roof, walls, and a floor; it had all its individual parts—but everything was permeated with this.

16:02 With stone. So too in avodah: a person’s true avodah, true bittul, does not mean that he has no existence at all. He has intellect, emotions, thought, speech, and action; he is a person. Yet his entire being is defined by this: he is the King’s servant. In other words, higher awe permeates every detail of his being, until his entire being is suffused with it. His joy, delight, desire, and emotions all become one with the King’s will. This is the revelation of the future era, of which it says, “And My servant David shall be their leader forever.” Since we are close to the coming of Moshiach, Jews are already called upon to maintain, to the extent possible in our times, a constant sense of “And My servant David shall be their leader forever”: the bittul of a servant, of giving oneself over, of complete devotion. This is the avodah of awe that permeates every detail of one’s avodah: to be a simple servant and a faithful servant, a servant of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This servitude does not [unclear] crush his being. On the contrary, as we said, it permeates his entire being, so that his intellect, emotions, thought, speech, and action are filled with bittul. This is what the Rebbe spoke about in that maamar, on Shabbos Parshas Vayigash 5746, as mentioned above. The Rebbe spoke there at great depth: we see that this aspect,

17:22 Yehudah’s advantage, was revealed there in the haftarah. The haftarah is something that was, so to speak, connected with exile. As is known, the practice of reading the haftarah was instituted during a decree by the ruling power. People could not study because the authorities [unclear]; they could not read, and until then they had had to [unclear]. So they studied passages from Tanach connected with the parsha, and that is how the custom of the haftarah arose and continues to this day. The haftarah is thus associated with exile. Nevertheless, precisely there the future revelation appears: the great elevation of the era of Moshiach, when “My servant David shall be their leader forever”—the new union of bittul and a person’s own existence that will be revealed with Moshiach’s coming. And this gives new strength. The Rebbe spoke then in very rich terms about how this gives new strength to a Jew living now in exile, who sees exile all around him, with the nations of the world there—billions of non-Jews surrounding him. He asks: What is the purpose of all this? Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu make it this way? He might become afraid of a non-Jew here or a non-Jew in Australia. The Rebbe says—and it is worth seeing the words inside, in the maamar of Vayigash 5746—that a Jew must know that the entire world was created [unclear].

18:43 It’s somewhat like this: the entire existence of the hundreds of millions and billions of people among the nations of the world, going to and fro, is only so that a Jew, a batlan, can sit in his room and study Torah without any [unclear] while doing so, and without gloom. That in itself is a great thing. When he knows that many people are moving about in the world around him, that knowledge itself gives him vitality and joy, and gives him the strength to act and serve Hashem with peace of mind. The Rebbe says that because a person is a social being, knowing that there are people around him puts him at ease. Even though he has no connection to them and they have no bearing on him at all, their very existence affects him, like having many attendants. When a Jew knows this, he knows that he need not be intimidated by the nations of the world, by non-Jewish women and men, or by exile. He knows that through his Torah study and his service of Hashem, he can illuminate the world, and that is the [unclear]. And when [unclear], we leave exile and reveal the Geulah. And as the Rebbe [unclear] says, the Rebbe Maharash says that everything is already prepared, and everything is in our hands, even the key. We need only open the door, so that the Geulah will indeed come, and so that we merit, in these very days,

19:55 the complete victory, and merit the fulfillment of “And My servant David shall be their prince forever,” and the building of the third Beis Hamikdash. The third Beis Hamikdash will be “entirely of stones,” a revelation of Divine light, the revelation of Moshiach. Amen, may it be His will.