Shabbos Parshas Eikev 5786 - "Ve'atah Yisrael Mah Hashem Elokecha Sho'el Mei'imach" - The Matter of Meah Berachos

00:00 The Rebbe related in one of his sichos a story about the chossid Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Chen, known as the Radatz. Rabbi Dovid Tzvi Chen was among the great chassidim in the times of the Tzemach Tzedek, the Rebbe Maharash, and the Rebbe Rashab. He was the son of the renowned chossid Reb Peretz Chen. Reb Peretz Chen was one of the early chassidim; as a child, he had still been with the Alter Rebbe. He was primarily a chossid of the Mitteler Rebbe and the Tzemach Tzedek. [unclear] He was also with the Rebbe Maharash afterward. And the Radatz, Rabbi Dovid Tzvi, was one of the great servants of Hashem and one of the great chassidim. They called him Reb Dovid of Chernigov; he was the rabbi in Chernigov. The Rebbe told many stories about him on numerous occasions. As it turns out, the Rebbe knew him in his later years, toward the end of his life, when [unclear] with the family of the Rebbe’s father, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, whose yahrzeit falls around this time. One story the Rebbe once told at a farbrengen was that whenever the Radatz was about to recite a blessing—any blessing, whether over something he was about to enjoy or over a mitzvah—he would place his hand on his forehead and reflect for a moment before saying it. And...

01:30 The Frierdiker Rebbe related that he had seen the Radatz do this when he was still a child. The Frierdiker Rebbe, then a child, asked him why. The Radatz told him that when he was a child, his father, Reb Peretz, had brought him to Lubavitch to see the Tzemach Tzedek. He was not yet bar mitzvah, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, and he went in to the Tzemach Tzedek, who showed him great warmth. During their yechidus, the Tzemach Tzedek told him: A child your age must stop being a little child. And he told him that to stop being a little child, every time before saying a blessing, “Blessed are You,” whether over food or drink, he should think about to Whom he is saying the blessing and what it means. From then on, he trained himself to place his hand on his forehead before saying a blessing, so that he could think about its meaning and to Whom he was saying it. And one of the chassidim I knew, Reb Shmuel Schneersohn, who lived in Jerusalem, once related [unclear] what he had heard from the Radatz’s son. Toward the end of his life, the Radatz also lived here in Jerusalem. And [unclear]

02:59 He told an interesting story: Once, in his later years, the Radatz was in Lubavitch with the Rebbe Maharash and was called up to the Torah. When he went up, before reciting the blessings over the Torah, he reflected, placed his hand on his forehead, and then snapped his fingers like this. Only then did he say the blessing. The Rebbe Maharash saw this and said, “Ah, he allows himself that much.” It was as though he were saying that perhaps in this way the Radatz allowed himself to devote himself to serving Hashem on a higher level, a higher level. In fact, in the parsha, Parshas Eikev, we find the subject of blessings over things we enjoy in two places. One is the verse: “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear Hashem your G-d?” Moshe Rabbeinu tells the Jewish people that Hakadosh Boruch Hu—“And now, Israel,” meaning now, as Moshe Rabbeinu speaks to them before they enter the Land of Israel—says to them: “What does Hashem your G-d ask of you?” What does Hakadosh Boruch Hu want from you? And he says: “But to fear Hashem your G-d”; Hakadosh Boruch Hu asks only for fear of Hashem. On this there is the well-known teaching of our Sages: “Do not read it as ‘mah,’ but as

04:39 ‘me’ah.’” This is the allusion to the hundred blessings. “What does Hashem your G-d ask of you?”—what does “mah” mean? It refers to a hundred blessings. The Alter Rebbe also brings this in Shulchan Aruch, in the laws of the morning blessings, when discussing the hundred blessings. He cites the Midrashim there, which say that King David, peace be upon him, instituted the hundred blessings: “The words of David son of Yishai, and the words of the man raised al.” “Al,” spelled ayin-lamed, has the numerical value of one hundred—these are the hundred blessings King David instituted. As the early authorities also bring from the Midrashim of our Sages, there was a plague in King David’s time, and a hundred people died each day. King David did not know the reason for it, and so he [unclear], until it occurred to him that a hundred blessings needed to be said. He based this on the verse in the weekly parsha, “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear Him?”—“mah,” do not read it as “mah” but as “me’ah.” From this he instituted the hundred blessings. That is one source for the hundred blessings. There is also an earlier verse in the parsha: “You shall eat and be satisfied, and bless Hashem your G-d for the good land that He has given you,” which, on the plain level, concerns Birchas Hamazon. The [unclear] says that the commandment of Birchas Hamazon is also stated here.

06:08 And the Zohar holds that this is a Torah obligation. As is well known, the halachic ruling is that only Birchas Hamazon is a Torah obligation. All the other blessings are rabbinic enactments; the Sages instituted both the blessings and their wording, as is well known. But the Zohar, in the weekly parsha, discusses “And it shall be, because you listen,” and in that connection quotes the verse “You shall eat and be satisfied, and bless Hashem your G-d for the good land.” It says that this verse is the commandment to bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu for all the pleasures in the world, for everything a person enjoys on earth. That, says the Zohar, is the precise meaning of “for the good land”: the pleasures a person has on earth, through the four senses—from sight, from taste, and from the things a person enjoys—four categories corresponding to the four directions. For these, there must be a blessing: a person must bless Hakadosh Boruch Hu for all the pleasures in the world. Incidentally, some of the early authorities agree with Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai [?] that this is a Torah obligation, though the halachic ruling cited is that only Birchas Hamazon is a Torah obligation. So in the weekly parsha we find the subject of blessings: Birchas Hamazon, blessings over mitzvos, and the general subject of the hundred blessings. Where do we learn this from? He says: from the verse, from “Do not read it

07:33 as ‘mah,’ but as ‘me’ah.’” What is the meaning of “Do not read it as ‘mah,’ but as ‘me’ah’”? How do we derive the number of a hundred blessings from this? When we consider it, not only are “mah” and “me’ah” not the same; they are two completely different things. “Mah” suggests something small. “What does Hashem your G-d ask of you?”—nothing more than this; what does Hakadosh Boruch Hu ask of you? Something small. That is the wording, to the point that the Gemara asks, “Is fear of Heaven a small matter?” It is a great thing, but the word “mah” suggests something small. By contrast, “me’ah” is something complete. One hundred is a complete number, the ultimate in completeness. The difference between “mah” and “me’ah” is the letter alef: insert an alef into “mah,” and it becomes “me’ah.” What is this alef that is inserted into “mah” to make it “me’ah”? Chassidus explains that “mah,” something small, points to bittul, self-nullification. As is well known, Chassidus explains in many places that “mah” means bittul: “And what are we?” as Moshe Rabbeinu says; “And what is Aharon?” “Mah” is bittul. And that is what he says: [unclear]. “Mah” points to essential self-nullification. This bittul of the soul exists in every Jew. Even a Jew who is the simplest of the simple,

09:04 as the Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, every Jew—even one of the least observant, among the sinners of Israel—has the “mah” in his soul, the essential self-nullification because of which a Jew is ready to give his life to sanctify Hashem’s name. The capacity for contemplation, the capacity for bittul—“mah” is concealed within him. And according to the Torah’s perspective, this is a small thing [?]. As in the verse in the previous parsha: “You are the fewest of all the peoples.” “The fewest”—you make yourselves small: the capacity for bittul, the capacity for humility. And where does this come from? Bittul is drawn from the name Havayah, which contains “mah”: its numerical value is forty-five when spelled out with alefs—yud, hei, vav, hei. When the name Havayah is written out in full—with an alef in hei, an alef in vav, and an alef in the final hei—the result is “mah.” This is the bittul, the essential self-nullification, that every Jew has from the name Havayah. A Jew is “For His people are a portion of Havayah,” and therefore he has the soul’s bittul, and that is the “mah” within him. Of this we say that an alef must be inserted into that “mah.” What is the alef? It is explained that alef is, seemingly, the Master of the world. But the letters of “alef” also spell “pele,” wonder. We insert the alef, which points to “I will teach you wisdom”; and the letters of alef also spell “pele,” referring to the level above, the level of the throne, the level of sovev kol almin, the wonder above. We draw the alef, the wonder, into the “mah,” into

10:34 The bittul, and from that comes “one hundred”—one hundred blessings. What does all this mean in serving Hashem? Because this is really what blessings are all about. What is so special about the hundred blessings that King David instituted? This is explained in the Zohar. It appears in the Zohar on the weekly parsha, and also in the Zohar on Parshas Chayei Sarah, on “And Sarah’s life was one hundred years,” where it discusses the idea of one hundred years and what is encompassed in one hundred. There it speaks about blessings—the blessings recited over food and drink, the blessing of... the hundred blessings. I’ll explain it in a way that clarifies all these points. Once we understand what a blessing is, we’ll understand the whole matter. What is a blessing, in general? Let me explain: the simple meaning of a blessing is to give someone a blessing. That is its plain meaning. But a blessing is not only the giving of a blessing. Giving a blessing means that, in time, something will be revealed; we want to draw down from above an influence of greatness into the world. But the word “blessing” also implies drawing down. Chassidus explains this based on the Mishnah’s phrase, “one who layers a vine”: you take a tree, take a branch from one tree and bring it down into the earth. You take a branch, a vine shoot, and layer it—you draw it down, bring it into the earth, and cause it to

11:56 He cuts it in the middle, between the two trees. Layering means drawing down: he transfers the branch from one tree to the other. So the word “blessing” implies drawing down, transferring. And what does that mean Above? A blessing, the whole idea of a blessing, is [unclear] to draw down, bring down, and bestow from the highest levels Above, bringing them here below. That is really the intention and content of every blessing. When we say, “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe,” what are we saying as we recite the blessing? “Blessed”—that we draw down, reveal, and bring down. What do we draw down and reveal? From “You,” truly [unclear], “You”—You, the Essence and Being of Hashem. What does that mean? “He” refers to the Essence that is hidden, since “He” speaks of someone concealed. “Hashem,” Yud-Kei-Vav-Kei—this passes through the four letters of Hashem’s Name. “Our G-d”—we bring this to be drawn down openly as our strength and our life, into the soul, into the person. And when G-dliness, the levels of “You, Hashem,” the very highest levels of G-dliness, are drawn down into “our G-d,” our strength and our life, into a Jew, G-dliness becomes the first thing in that Jew’s life. G-dliness should be openly present for him, not only as acknowledgment and bittul, as faith, but in a revealed way. And through this—“King of the universe”—Hakadosh Boruch Hu, G-dliness, shines throughout the entire world, over all

13:29 the world. That is what we say in the wording of the blessing. And we find that almost all blessings relate specifically to matters of this world, as mentioned; we say “for the land,” referring to earthly, material matters. Because that is the whole purpose of a blessing: “blessed” means drawing down—to reveal and draw down from the highest levels of G-dliness all the way here below, into physical things, so that G-dliness is revealed in the world, within the physical thing. That is the content of a blessing. We see this in the verse, “Blessed is Hashem, the G-d of Israel, from one world to the other,” as it says [unclear]. The meaning of “Blessed is Hashem, the G-d of Israel” is that when a Jew recites a blessing, he draws down from Hashem, the G-d of Israel, the source from which the powers of a Jew’s soul come in the first place. For the Jewish people are the purpose and innermost point of creation: “For the sake of the Torah, for the sake of Israel.” And from the Jew—“from one world to the other”: from the higher world, the concealed world, to the lower world, the revealed world. The blessing and the flow are drawn down here below, so that the highest levels of G-dliness reach here below. This is hinted at in the saying, “Do not read it as mah, but as me’ah.” From mah, simple bittul, from the lower level of awe, the simple awe with which a Jew sets himself aside, he draws into it me’ah, one hundred—the ultimate completeness, the ultimate greatness. [unclear] This is the “one hundred” Above; he draws that “one hundred” into mah, into the Jew’s kabbolas ol and awe of Heaven. And through this,

15:02 when he draws G-dliness into himself, he can bring this about in the world through blessings, in every aspect of the world. And as it is written also in the Pri, the morning blessings, and likewise the blessings over food and drink, the blessings over mitzvos, and the blessings in prayer. With every blessing, he draws down an essential flow of G-dliness into each and every aspect of the world. This also helps us understand what our Sages say: when a person eats food without a blessing, it is as though he has benefited from what is consecrated to Heaven; he is taking what is consecrated to Heaven. In other words, before a person recites a blessing, everything in the world is consecrated to Heaven. It isn’t yours; you cannot touch it. Once he recites a blessing, you may benefit from it. According to the plain meaning of the Gemara, before eating it is consecrated to Heaven; it belongs to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—“The earth and all it contains belong to Hashem.” After he recites the blessing, it would seem that it is no longer consecrated to Heaven. Does that mean something has been diminished? That it no longer belongs to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but has become the person’s? Chassidus says: no. It means that the person becomes a vessel for what is consecrated to Heaven. By reciting the blessing—drawing down and revealing, “Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe”—he makes himself and the world into a vessel, so that what is consecrated to Heaven becomes his. It is consecrated to Heaven and remains consecrated to Heaven, and in that way it becomes his, so that he can

16:28 absorb it, receive it, and become a vessel for G-dliness. That is the great significance of blessings, of the whole matter of blessings: through a blessing, we become a vessel for G-dliness; we draw it down and reveal it. And that is why this is the power of the Sages. A sage—he knows through Yud-Hei. What he accomplished, revealed, and drew down was the institution of the hundred blessings. For the Sages’ whole concern is with Yud-Hei, with chochmah: drawing these things down so that they reach here below in a revealed way. Therefore King David, David the king of Israel, who represented the sefirah of malchus, drew down, brought about, and revealed the source of blessings here below, and he was the one who instituted them. And when did he institute them? Precisely when there was a decree, a time of concealment, a plague. This aroused the power of giving over one’s soul, of mesirus nefesh—precisely that response. As is known, Chassidus says that precisely when there are times of concealment, decrees, and exile, they arouse a deeper radiance, a deeper flow, a deeper revelation. So it was precisely at that time that King David was moved to reveal this power: that through a blessing, a Jew can bring blessing into the darkness, into the world’s concealment, make the world a vessel for G-dliness, and draw down from the higher world all the way

17:51 below—and this is the power of a blessing: to draw down “from one world to the other,” to reveal G-dliness here below. But what is the vessel for all this? On that he says, “And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you?”—bittul. For a Jew to accomplish this by reciting a blessing, to make the world a vessel for G-dliness, he needs mah: to awaken within himself simple bittul and kabbolas ol. The Alter Rebbe says in Tanya, “The beginning of service, and its essence and root”—this is bittul and kabbolas ol. And by awakening within ourselves the [unclear] of the soul, this mah, we become vessels for drawing down the hundred blessings, all the flows of holiness, of the Infinite, of [unclear] malchus, “from one world to the other.” This is what he means when he says, “And you shall eat and be satisfied and bless for the good land.” The Baal Shem Tov interprets the word “land” as referring to every Jew: every Jew is a “desirable land,” a “desirable land” of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, containing the most precious treasures. So when a Jew recites a blessing—a simple Jew blesses food, a drink, anything at all—he thereby draws down from [unclear] to here below, into the world, reveals G-dliness in the world, and makes the world a vessel for G-dliness. To the point that we prepare the world to be a vessel for the Geulah, as he says later

19:14 in our parsha today, that through the blessing we draw down [unclear]. Three expressions, as the Rebbe explains in his explanations of Kabbalah. These are the three aspects connected with the three letters that spell “Yud”: Yud, Vav, and Daled, to [unclear], to every level, in every vessel and every place, all the way down here in the world, so that there will be “a dwelling for Him in the lower realms,” an illuminated world, a world of Geulah already. And may “And it shall be, because you will listen” indeed be fulfilled—that in the footsteps of Moshiach, we merit to reach the true and complete Geulah through Moshiach Tzidkeinu.