Not Only Through Prayer - The Advice of Chassidus for Victory in War

00:00 In difficult hours like these, when the world is in the balance, all of us—the whole world—are living through uncertain, unclear moments. We are all hoping and waiting for the great salvation to come, and every single person asks himself: What is going to happen here? What are we going to do? What is the next step? What needs to be done? What should the government do? What should the army do? How can we bring all the hostages home to us safe and sound? How can we protect our land, so that Eretz Yisroel remains whole and united? What are we supposed to do? And we all know that we are not the ones making those decisions. Is there anything we can do? The question each of us needs to ask right now is not so much what the government should do, what the army should do, or what the world should say and decide, and so on—matters over which we have very little say. The question we need to put to ourselves is what we need to do and what we can do. And there is a great deal we can do. A Jew has tremendous power. Every single Jew, even the smallest and simplest Jew, has tremendous power at these moments, in these hours. He can change worlds. There is so much to do. We have it in our hands, through the power of a Jew, to bring about a revolution in the world. This is one of the foundations of our faith: through the power of his prayer, his Torah study, and his mitzvos, a Jew has the ability to change worlds. And then the yetzer comes along and, as usual, gives us that familiar feeling: What am I? Who am I? I’m just one small person. I’m just an ordinary person. How can one individual sitting in some corner of the world bring about a change, a revolution in the world? What can I do? What difference will it make? What can my small action do to change

02:20 the world? But the truth is, if we look in the Torah, we will see that, on the contrary, we have it in our hands to act—and to do a great deal. Our mitzvos, our Torah study, our prayers, our small actions have power. One single action can bring about a revolution throughout the world. We all know what the Rambam writes. In that well-known passage in Hilchos Teshuvah, chapter three, the Rambam writes that the entire world stands evenly balanced, like a scale. A scale has two sides, one on each side. Sometimes a single drop, the smallest thing, tips the balance one way or the other. The Rambam says that every Jew should see himself and the entire world as evenly balanced. With one deed, one word, one thought, we have the ability to tip the balance to the right, to tip the scales in favor of ourselves and the entire world. He brings salvation and deliverance. In other words, what we do has the extraordinary power to bring about a revolution throughout the entire world. The Rambam’s words are truly remarkable. I remember that as a young bochur, I had the privilege of being with the Rebbe in Lubavitch on Purim 5747. There was an extraordinary farbrengen that Purim, and the Rebbe delivered a wonderful, long, and profound sicha about our situation, about our times, about the special period in which we find ourselves. He spoke about this very point: What, exactly, has been placed in our hands to do? He spoke about how we, in our generation, are living in a generation unlike any other—the generation of ikvesa d’Meshicha, the footsteps of Moshiach, as our Sages told us. A generation at the end of galus, the generation preparing the world for the Geulah. A person might say to himself: Me? I’m going to bring the Geulah? Great tzaddikim, great rabbis, holy and pure people—their prayers, their learning, yes. And I remember how the Rebbe spoke from the heart. He cried out; he spoke with passion. He spoke with tremendous warmth during that sicha, at that farbrengen,

04:49 and he mentioned the Rambam. He repeated the Rambam’s words with great passion. Every one of us needs to remember and publicize the holy words of Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon in his book of halachos, in Hilchos Teshuvah, at the beginning of chapter three: A Jew must always see and remember that the entire world stands evenly balanced. I stand evenly balanced, and one deed, one word, and one thought have the ability to change the world. He brings salvation and deliverance to himself and to them. So it is in our hands. Today we will talk a little about one particular point among the many things we need to do. There is much to do, but today I want to focus especially on a wonderful, remarkable point that Chassidus reveals about the power of our Torah study—specifically Torah study. And I’ll explain why I’m focusing this time on Torah study. We need to understand what happens when we sit and learn Torah. A Jew sits in a shul, in a beis midrash, in a yeshiva, in a kollel, or at home. Sometimes, as now, we find ourselves in times when we cannot even leave the house. A Jew takes a sefer and sits down to learn Torah. There is tremendous power in our Torah study, which can bring about a complete and remarkable change in the entire situation. First, let’s begin with the words of the Gemara in Gittin. The Gemara, on page 7, tells of an Amora named Mar Ukva. He wrote to another Amora, Rabbi Elazar, one of the great Amoraim of Eretz Yisroel, and told him that he had many people who hated him, many opponents, many enemies. What should he do about them? Should he report them to the authorities? Should he take steps to get rid of them? Rabbi Elazar sent him a verse from chapter 37 of Tehillim: “Be silent before Hashem and wait patiently for Him.” And he explained: “Go early and stay late, on their account,

07:17 in the beis midrash, and they will perish of their own accord.” In other words, Rabbi Elazar answers Mar Ukva: Your job is not to deal with them. Don’t report them to the authorities. Even though Mar Ukva had written that they were causing him great harm and hardship and that he could not bear it any longer, Rabbi Elazar tells him: Your job is not to deal with them. Don’t report them to the authorities, don’t quarrel with them, and don’t fight them. Your job is to go early and stay late, on their account, in the beis midrash. As Tosafos explains, get up early in the morning and stay until late in the evening to learn Torah in the beis midrash, “and they will perish of their own accord.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu will take care of things. Those who need to—the people who hate us, our opponents and our enemies—will fall apart, be nullified, become nothing at all. “They will perish of their own accord.” You have nothing to worry about. Do your part: sit and learn Torah, going early and staying late on their account. That is a Gemara in Gittin. But there is something deeper here. This teaching of our Sages is one the Rebbe in Lubavitch repeated many times. During difficult periods, at times of war in Eretz Yisroel over the years, the Rebbe spoke about it with great force. He encouraged and strengthened people, returned to it again and again, and urged them to take this teaching of our Sages to heart: the power of our Torah study. A Jew sits and learns Torah. Of course, there are those who must stand guard: there are soldiers in the army, there is the government, and there are those who make decisions. Some people have to make various decisions and take the necessary steps through natural means. That is their job. But a Jew must know that when he sits and learns Torah—going early and staying late on their account—when he gets up a little earlier in the morning this time, when he sits and learns a little more in the evening

09:25 At night, the Torah we study has tremendous power to change the situation and turn it all around for the good. That is a teaching of our Sages in the Gemara. But I want to focus on a deeper point that the Rebbe spoke about at the time. I’ll return now to a point from a maamar of Chassidus that the Rebbe delivered during the Six-Day War. In 5727, during the Six-Day War, as is well known, even before the war, on Lag BaOmer 5727, there was a children’s parade in the United States. Thousands of Jewish children came to the Rebbe’s neighborhood in Brooklyn, Crown Heights. The Rebbe spoke to the children and addressed the situation in the Holy Land. This was still a week or ten days before the war began. There was tremendous fear around the world, and great panic in Israel. Everyone was speaking in fear: What is going to happen here? All our enemies had gathered around us, and the small country was surrounded on every side. Seventy wolves, all wanting to devour the land—according to the natural order, a small country. I’m speaking about more than fifty years ago. What would happen? People were filled with fear. What should we do? Flee the country? People wanted to take their children and grandchildren and get away. Everyone was asking, What do we do? The Rebbe spoke very powerful words then: Do not be afraid. He spoke about the words of that week’s parsha, Parshas Bechukosai, and quoted the verses: “I will grant peace in the land, and you will lie down with no one to frighten you.” There is nothing to fear. “Behold, the Guardian of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” Our Jewish brothers and sisters in Eretz Yisroel, be strong. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is going with us. “For Hashem your G-d walks in the midst of your camp, to save you and to deliver your enemies before you.” We will stand strong, with faith and trust in Hashem, and with Hashem’s help, things will be good. The Rebbe’s words were like life-giving dew in those days. They gave strength, fortitude and confidence to every Jew around the world. And indeed,

11:50 we saw what happened in the Six-Day War—the great miracles Hakadosh Boruch Hu performed for us—and so it will be now as well. In those days, once the war had begun, on Shabbos Parshas Bamidbar, the eve of Rosh Chodesh Sivan, in the midst of the Six-Day War, the Rebbe sat with the chassidim at a farbrengen in America. At that farbrengen the Rebbe delivered a maamar of Chassidus, and that is what I want to discuss now. Because it is not merely a maamar of Chassidus, a teaching delivered on that Shabbos; it is a perspective, an outlook on life, a way of seeing things that the Rebbe taught us for all kinds of circumstances and moments like the one we all find ourselves in now. The Rebbe opened with a passage from the Zohar on Parshas Emor. The Zohar relates: “Once, the world needed rain.” There was a period in the time of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, the author of the Zohar, when the world needed rain. In other words, there was a drought in Eretz Yisroel. No rain had fallen. Most of the winter had already passed without rain, and people were deeply worried. It was a severe year of drought in Eretz Yisroel. The Zohar tells us about the chavraya—that is what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s students were called. It is one of the wonderful things we know about Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s life: he called his students the chavraya, the companions of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai—friends. The chavraya, Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s group, went to his home, knocked on the door and said, “The world needs rain.” Rabbi Shimon invited them inside and said, “Come, let us speak words of Torah.” He did not address their question, pray, give a blessing or make a request. “Come, let us speak words of Torah.” Rabbi Shimon began speaking words of Torah—teachings from the inner dimension of Torah, its secrets, as was his way—on the verse, “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together.” A verse in Psalms, chapter

14:17 133. Rabbi Shimon opened with that verse and explained it according to Kabbalah, according to its hidden meaning, the inner dimension of Torah. “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is when brothers dwell together.” He explained the subject of unity. He explained that this refers not only to the unity of the Jewish people down here—brothers dwelling together, the community of Israel—but also to the holy Shechinah and the supernal sefiros. He explained how the verse alludes to the higher worlds and sefiros, and how they all unite. He spoke words of Torah about that verse. Suddenly, the Zohar says, the sky filled with clouds, and within seconds, good, strong rain began to fall. A downpour soaked the earth, and the earth began to grow things. The world received everything it needed. That is the account the Zohar tells us of what happened in the time of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. A wonderful, beautiful story about Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. But here the Rebbe gives a wonderful, profound explanation based on the teachings of Chassidus, on the maamarim of the Chabad Rebbeim, which explain this story to us. What is so special about this story of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai? We all know the famous story in the Gemara, in Tractate Taanis, about Choni Hame’agel. There too, the Gemara tells a wonderful story. There was a drought. The students came to Choni Hame’agel and told him, “The world needs rain.” What did Choni do? Everyone knows the story. He drew a circle in the ground, stood in the middle and began to pray. He said, “Your children need rain.” He began to pray for rain. The Gemara then tells us that at first, a light drizzle began to fall. Choni said, “That is not what we are asking for.” Then suddenly a downpour began, far too heavy. Again he said, “That is not what we want.” Until, gradually,

16:39 things settled down and a normal, good rain began to fall. That is the wonderful story of Choni Hame’agel, who brought rain through prayer. The Rebbe explained the difference between these two stories. There are two differences, and they depend on each other. First, Choni Hame’agel brought about the rainfall through his prayers. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai did not pray; he spoke words of Torah. And not just any Torah—he taught the inner dimension of Torah, revealing the hidden meaning of the Torah’s verses, without asking, without praying. The second difference is that Choni had to ask again and again and again, until at last the rain fell in the right, good, healthy way. With Rabbi Shimon, we do not find him asking repeatedly. He did not ask at all. He did not have to struggle at all. From the outset, good, normal, healthy rain fell, just as the world needed. These two differences, the Rebbe says, depend on each other. They represent two ways of serving Hashem, two approaches and two ways in which a Jew brings about the flow of rain. And rain does not mean only rain. It refers to all material things, as the Baal Shem Tov said about the words “I will give you your rains in their time”: “Your rains” also means your material needs. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us our material needs in the right way, at the right time, by the right means, when we have “If you walk in My statutes.” What is the difference between these two ways? There is the service of prayer, and there is Torah study. The difference between prayer and Torah study is that prayer goes from the person to the Creator. Prayer is from below upward. In prayer, a person is here below, in this world, and he asks. He asks, he pleads, he prays, he asks Hashem to give him what he needs. Then Hakadosh Boruch Hu answers him. But there is a certain kind of struggle here. A person must lift himself up; he must rise higher. And the more a person refines himself, the more focused he becomes, the more deeply he delves

19:00 More, then prayer has the power to bring things about, and that is clear. Our prayers have a tremendous effect. Every Jew needs to know that his prayers have the power to accomplish great and wondrous things. Hakadosh Boruch Hu desires a Jew’s prayers. As is well known in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, a Jew must know that even from the simplest Jew, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, the holy Shechinah, waits and longs for words of prayer. That is one of the Baal Shem Tov’s well-known teachings. Prayer has tremendous power, but because prayer comes from below, from the person, the person has to direct his thoughts, has to rise higher, and so there is a process. He prays, and then he has to ask again for the prayer to have its effect. That is what we see with Choni. At first, drops of rain fell; afterward, it came down too heavily, until he brought about rain in the right way. Because it comes from the person, who refines himself and rises higher, and the more he prays, the more he accomplishes. Torah is entirely different. Torah works in a peaceful way. The Torah is called peace: “Its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace.” The Torah was given to bring peace into the world. Torah is the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. In essence, Torah is the wisdom of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. As the Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya, the Torah is not part of the world. The Torah is completely one with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The moment a Jew learns Torah, the Torah has a tremendous effect. When a Jew learns Torah, the Torah has power over reality. The Torah has power over the world. After all, Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the world for the sake of the Torah. The first Rashi in the book of Bereishis, Parshas Bereishis: “Bereishis” means two things called “reishis”—for the sake of the Torah and for the sake of the Jewish people. The world was created for the sake of the Torah and the Jewish people. So when a Jew learns Torah, the world works so that it will be

21:14 exactly what the Jew and the Torah need. The Torah—here, you don’t need to ask or plead or... You learn Torah, and then you have power over reality. The Torah has the power to change nature, to change reality in the world, and that is what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai did. When Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai learned Torah and spoke words of Torah, the world, after all, is brought into being through the Torah. The Zohar says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu looked into the Torah and, through the Torah, created the world. That is what the Zohar says: to create the world, Hakadosh Boruch Hu looked into the Torah, and through the Torah He created the world. “He looked into the Torah and created the world.” Hashem created the world through the Torah. The Zohar says that the same applies to a person, to a Jew. When a Jew learns Torah, he has the power to sustain the world. Since the entire reality of creation is, in essence, a result of the Torah—the Torah says, “In the beginning, Elokim created,” and that is what sustains the world. The Torah speaks of the Ten Utterances in the book of Bereishis, Parshas Bereishis, and those are what sustain creation. So creation exists by virtue of the Torah. When a Jew learns Torah, creation becomes what that Jew needs it to be. The moment a Jew sits down and learns Torah, everything in the world falls into place as it should. That is what Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai said. This itself applies to Torah in general. So that is one thing we need to know: the wonderful power of our Torah study. There is a way to bring things about through prayer, and there is a way to bring things about through Torah. Prayer certainly has an effect, but sometimes the approach must specifically be Torah. That is what the Rebbe spoke about during the Six-Day War. He said: We will follow Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s approach, not Choni Hama’agel’s.

23:27 Now we will take Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai’s path. He taught us a new path, one in which, through Torah, the world becomes a pure world, an orderly world, a wonderful world, a world that conducts itself as Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants. We turn to the Torah, and the Torah itself arranges creation to be exactly as Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants: for the world to be—a blessed world, a world that conducts itself according to the Divine will; for everything that needs to happen, all the problems and everything else, to work out exactly as it should. That is our power, the power of Torah. With Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, within Torah itself there are also two approaches. Torah study includes the revealed dimension of Torah and the inner dimension of Torah. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai did not study only the revealed dimension. As is well known, an unqualified “Rabbi Shimon” in the Mishnah refers to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. He was one of the great Tannaim, a student of Rabbi Akiva, and one of the pillars of the Oral Torah. But Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai is known primarily for the Zohar, the inner dimension of Torah. He revealed the Torah’s secrets, its inner dimension. Here, too, the Rebbe spoke about something very interesting. What is the difference between the effect a Jew has on the world by studying Torah, all parts of Torah, and the effect of studying the inner dimension of Torah? There is a story the Gemara tells. The Gemara tells a story about Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair, one of the Tannaim. Once, he was on his way to fulfill the mitzvah of redeeming captives. He had to hurry to a certain place, and there was a river in his way. He needed to cross it, but the river was rushing and it was impossible to cross. What do I do now? I need to get somewhere to help a Jew, to save him. So the Gemara says that Rabbi Pinchas stood up and said, “Ginai River, part your waters for me,”

25:39 as though decreeing that the river should open. Like the splitting of the sea, the splitting of the river—he wanted to cross. The Gemara relates that the river did not want to. It said: You do have a mission, a task, but I also have a mission, a task. Hashem created me this way; I am supposed to be a river. So Rabbi Pinchas told it: I decree that if you do not part your waters, I am going to—if you do not open, I am going to decree that the water—that the river will dry up and there will never be water here again. Then the waters parted, and he was able to cross. We need to understand this story; we will not go into the details now. But what we see in this story, the Alter Rebbe says, is the power of the Tannaim. The Tannaim had tremendous power: through their Torah, they could turn worlds upside down. Through their Torah, they could issue a decree and change nature. But here, too, there is a very interesting distinction. Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair had to issue a decree. In other words, he had to give a command. The river did not want to. The river said, No, I have a mission. He decreed upon it through the power of Torah. That is the wonderful power the sages have. Through the power of Torah, he decreed upon the river and succeeded in making it do what the Torah’s power dictated, against the river’s nature. But there was still a kind of struggle, an argument. He had to decree that the river act against its nature. With Rabbi Shimon, there was no argument, no decree, no shouting, no command, no order. He did not address it directly in the first place. He spoke about the inner dimension of Torah, and things changed on their own. How do we explain this? The Rebbe explains that this is the difference between the revealed part of the Torah and its secret dimension. The Torah has power over the world, but there is a difference. You can look at

27:45 There is the world, and there is the Torah, and the Torah governs the world like one thing governing another. The world, on its own, has its nature. The Torah is stronger than the world, so the Torah determines what should happen in the world. But there is something deeper: the inner dimension of the Torah. From the outset, these are not two separate things. In the inner dimension of the Torah, in the Torah’s mystical teachings, the inner reality of everything is revealed. Then it becomes clear that, from the outset, these were never two separate things. The inner dimension of the Torah reveals that all of creation is, in truth, Divine power. There is nothing besides Him. All of creation is, in truth, Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The inner dimension of the Torah—the mystical teachings, the teachings of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai—reveals the inner dimension of the Jew, of the soul, of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, of the Torah, and of creation as well. It reveals that these are not distinct and separate things. In truth, everything is one single reality. The true reality of creation itself is Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There is nothing apart from Him. There is nothing besides Him. And when a Jew studies the inner dimension of the Torah, which is discussed and explained in Chassidus—the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, which are, in essence, the teachings of the Arizal, which are, in essence, the teachings of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai—all of this is the inner dimension of the Torah that Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai began to reveal. It is this Torah, the Torah’s inner dimension, that was revealed in our generations by the Baal Shem Tov and his students. The inner dimension of the Torah speaks about this entire subject of there being nothing besides Him: the true unity of Hashem, that the entire reality of creation is Hakadosh Boruch Hu and there is nothing apart from Him. When this illuminates our lives, when it is alive for us, then, in essence, nothing more is needed than to study the inner dimension of the Torah. That is what the Rebbe asked for. He spoke in those days, during the Six-Day

29:44 War. Jews need to strengthen themselves and increase their Torah study—and not only Torah study in general, but especially the study of the inner dimension of the Torah. To study the subjects of Hashem’s true unity, to uncover the true meaning of “there is nothing besides Him.” To study this in the Torah. And when we study unity—look at this: What was Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai speaking about when he asked for rain, when he brought down rain? Unity. “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.” There, the Zohar speaks about unity: as we discussed, the unity of the Jewish people, the unity of the Shechinah, the unity of the sefiros. When we study unity, it becomes clear that everything is, in truth, one. The world, too, is part of that oneness. Then there is no evil, no darkness, no opposing force, no kelipah, no sitra achra, nothing standing against it. There is only Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and there is nothing besides Him. And this is revealed within the reality of creation. So what do we take from this in actual practice? What do I need to do? A Jew needs to watch less news. A Jew needs to be less preoccupied with what people will or won’t do, because you have no influence over that, and there is no need for you to occupy yourself with it. It will only confuse you. It will only bring you more needless worry, pressure, and stress over things you have no control over. You want to change the situation? You want the world to be better? You want evil to be nullified, to vanish like smoke? You have the ability. I have the ability. Let’s strengthen our Torah study. Let’s strengthen our study of the inner dimension of the Torah. Let’s adopt the path of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The Rebbe spoke about this in that maamar of Chassidus and said that in our generation, each and every person can follow the path of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. And that is our path. Strengthen your Torah study; let’s strengthen our study of the inner dimension of the Torah. That, in essence, will bring about

31:47 blessing in the world, bring deliverance to the world, and “all wickedness will vanish like smoke.” And that… and that the situation in Eretz Yisroel will change completely. May there be peace in the land, and may “you lie down with none to frighten you.” And with Hashem’s help, may we merit that everyone returns safe and healthy, and that we merit the complete and true Geulah, when the entire world will see the true truth that there is nothing besides Him. “And the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.”