Chassidus Belongs to Everyone - The Revolution of the Mitteler Rebbe

00:00 Who hasn’t heard of the Alter Rebbe, author of the Tanya and the Shulchan Aruch, Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi? His foundational works in both the revealed dimension of Torah—Shulchan Aruch Harav—and the inner dimension of Torah, Chassidus—the Tanya—are among the most famous books in the world. The Alter Rebbe founded the extraordinary approach of Chabad Chassidus. Through it, he brought the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov to a wider audience, explained and expanded on them, and brought them to the distinctive depth of Chabad thought. Perhaps fewer people know about his son, successor, and heir to his path, the Mitteler Rebbe, Rabbi Dov Ber. Today we’ll learn about him. In particular, we’ll focus on the unique way he explained, developed, and expanded his father’s teachings, and on his special role in the great revolution of spreading the wellsprings—the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings—in the deepest and broadest way. This brought them to the point we’ve reached today, where anyone can study them, delve into them, and broaden their knowledge of the inner dimension of Torah, what is called the Torah of Moshiach. As is well known, the whole purpose of the Baal Shem Tov and Chassidus coming into the world was to prepare the world for the Torah of Moshiach. When the Baal Shem Tov himself made an ascent of the soul, he was told: “When your wellsprings spread outward”—when the wellsprings of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings become known throughout the world and reach every place—that is what will bring the revelation of Moshiach and of the Torah of Moshiach. So today we’ll focus on the Mitteler Rebbe’s particular revolution: the unique way he taught Chassidus, the interesting difference between the way his father, the Alter Rebbe, revealed Chassidus and the way he explained, brought down, and expanded it, and also the distinctive way he devoted himself

02:25 to spreading Chassidus. There, too, he introduced something remarkable—and, more generally, he had strategies for bringing the light of Chassidus everywhere. The Mitteler Rebbe’s life was relatively short: he lived only fifty-four years. He was born on 9 Kislev 5534—we’re celebrating his birthday around this time—and passed away on that same date, 9 Kislev, his fifty-fourth birthday, in 5588. The Mitteler Rebbe was also imprisoned. We won’t go into all the details of that story now, but his release from imprisonment was on 10 Kislev. So the special events in the Mitteler Rebbe’s life fall right around these days, on 9 and 10 Kislev: his birthday, the anniversary of his passing, and the anniversary of his release from imprisonment. One of the most distinctive things about the Mitteler Rebbe—and I’m also sharing things I was privileged to hear on various occasions, at farbrengens for 9 and 10 Kislev and in the Rebbe’s sichos over the years, where the Rebbe explained what distinguished him—is this: one of the expressions the Rebbe most often used to define the Mitteler Rebbe’s essential contribution to Chassidus was “Rechovos Hanahar,” the broad expanses of the river. In other words, the Mitteler Rebbe was, in effect, the river flowing from the Alter Rebbe’s spring. We all know the difference between a spring and a river. The spring is the source, the root; it is where the living water first bubbles up. Usually a spring begins with drops of water—at least, there isn’t much water. Over time, the spring becomes a river. There it grows wider and wider, spreading until it overflows its banks. That is the difference between the spring and the river: the river takes the spring’s drops and turns them into a broad river,

04:52 what the verse calls “Rechovos Hanahar,” as we’ll see in next week’s weekly parsha. So that is the difference between the Alter Rebbe and the Mitteler Rebbe. The Alter Rebbe revealed a new approach, a new depth in Torah’s inner dimension. Anyone who studies the Alter Rebbe’s teachings, beginning with the Tanya and then going on to his maamarim, as we discussed in the previous class, discovers a new world: a world of values, concepts, and extraordinary depth in the inner dimension of Torah. The Alter Rebbe introduced, you could say, a way of looking at and understanding things. He paved a distinctive path for explaining the deepest subjects of the hidden dimension of Torah: the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch, based on the teachings of the Arizal and Kabbalah, as they appear in his books. But when we look at the Alter Rebbe’s maamarim, we see that, relatively speaking, they are quite short. That is, he did not explain things at great length—though compared with the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch, he certainly did. You can see the difference when you look at the books containing the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov and the Maggid of Mezritch: ideas are expressed concisely, in just a few lines. With the Alter Rebbe, by contrast, as we related—especially after his imprisonment and release on 19 Kislev, Rosh Hashanah of Chassidus—he began to expand more, and his maamarim became longer. Even so, compared with what was revealed afterward, they are quite short. The Mitteler Rebbe excelled at explaining things in an extraordinary way and at great length—to the point of “Rechovos Hanahar.” You can see that the Mitteler Rebbe’s maamarim are all built on his father’s maamarim. He doesn’t introduce something entirely new. He takes

07:05 what he heard from his father and builds on it, developing and expanding it with extraordinarily deep explanations and analogies. A maamar that takes one or two pages in the Alter Rebbe’s teachings might take tens—even hundreds—of pages in the Mitteler Rebbe’s. To give just one example that touches on this, let’s take a maamar connected with these very days: “He redeemed my soul in peace from the battle against me, for many were with me.” We all know that the days of liberation—the Alter Rebbe’s release on 19 Kislev and the Mitteler Rebbe’s release on 10 Kislev—are closely connected with this verse in Tehillim. There is even the well-known niggun “Padah Veshalom Nafshi.” It is known that the Alter Rebbe was saying this verse when they came to tell him that he was free to leave prison. Similar things are told about the Mitteler Rebbe. So this verse became a foundational verse in Chabad teachings concerning 19 Kislev, the days of liberation, and the month of Kislev. Now, here is something interesting: the Alter Rebbe has a maamar of Chassidus on this verse, but it is perhaps one page long, no more. The Mitteler Rebbe also has a maamar built on the foundations laid by his father, the Alter Rebbe, and it too begins “Padah Veshalom Nafshi”—but it extends over twelve chapters. They are long, deep, remarkable chapters of explanation. The thorough way he explains these ideas is simply extraordinary. What is the deeper meaning of “He redeemed my soul in peace”? What does it mean in a person’s spiritual work? What does it mean for the liberation of the soul? What does it mean for the redemption of the Jewish people as a whole, and for the redemption of King David? He explains it all at length, with extraordinary depth. So here you see

09:13 A remarkable example of a spring becoming a river. We find this again and again. Almost every maamar of his father’s that was delivered briefly in connection with the weekly parsha or the festivals becomes, in the books of his son, the Mitteler Rebbe, a broad and magnificent river. That was the way he delivered Torah teachings. Chassidim tell wondrous stories about the extraordinary breadth of his Chassidus. They say he could speak for hours on end—so much so that people would say the Mitteler Rebbe’s chassidim were made of different stuff. They could simply sit for hours and hours and listen. One story relates that, because of his health—the Mitteler Rebbe suffered from various ailments and physical weakness throughout his life—he often had to sit outside, in the street or in a field, somewhere with fresh air, in order to speak about Chassidus. And he would deliver maamarim of Chassidus for hours on end. They say that once, a professor from the area passed by and saw the Mitteler Rebbe sitting and speaking about Chassidus, while dozens, hundreds of chassidim sat there, simply drinking in his words, in profound silence. He thought it would last half an hour. He stood there and waited, and then saw an hour pass, and another hour, as though time had stood still. The Rebbe spoke like an ever-flowing spring, and the chassidim sat in profound silence, drinking in every word of their Rebbe’s teachings. That was how he delivered his maamarim—for hours and hours. Sometimes he would finish one maamar and, a few minutes later, begin another. He simply had this unceasing river of Chassidus flowing from him in the most remarkable way. And what was true of his speaking was equally true of his writing. The Mitteler Rebbe spent every free moment sitting and writing. His manner of writing was remarkable too. Here as well, chassidim tell wondrous

11:27 stories. The Frierdiker Rebbe told many stories about the way he wrote. He wrote very quickly, in a small hand, so that he could sometimes fit sixty lines on a single page. You can see it to this day. There are photographs of the Mitteler Rebbe’s holy handwritten manuscripts: line after line after line. And as they tell it, sometimes he would finish a page while the ink at the top was still wet, such was the speed at which he wrote about the deepest subjects. In this way, hundreds and thousands of pages of Chassidus were written by the Mitteler Rebbe. In his short life of fifty-four years, of which he served as Rebbe for only about fifteen, he was throughout those years an inexhaustible spring, an unceasing river of Chassidus that he both delivered and wrote. It is almost impossible to grasp. Besides that, we know that a very, very large portion of his writings was, sadly, burned. So what we have today is only a drop in the ocean of his teachings that survived. The Mitteler Rebbe’s works occupy a very large place on the Chabad bookshelf. Today there are roughly—I haven’t counted—around thirty volumes, if not more, of his Chassidus. When we think about his short life, and especially his short years as Rebbe, that is an enormous number. Something else very interesting that distinguishes the Mitteler Rebbe is that he also began to involve himself in printing books of Chassidus. Besides delivering and writing teachings of Chassidus, as we said, he also worked to have books of Chassidus printed, which was not a common thing. If we look at the history of Chassidus, the whole matter of writing and printing took time to develop. We can see that the Baal Shem Tov did not write down

13:36 his teachings. Who wrote them down? His students. The same is true of the Maggid of Mezritch: he did not write down his teachings. They were passed on by word of mouth, and chassidim wrote down a little here and there. After their passing, sayings and Torah teachings were collected, and from those came the well-known books we have today: the books containing the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings, a book or two, and likewise those of the Mitteler Rebbe—sorry, of the Maggid of Mezritch. The Alter Rebbe, as we said, did speak a great deal, but he also did not publish his works. Apart from the Tanya, which is the only book he published, he did not publish his other works. Interesting. The one who began working to print teachings of Chassidus was, as we said, the Mitteler Rebbe. He invested a tremendous amount in it—money, effort, physical and emotional strength. We have to understand that in the Mitteler Rebbe’s time, conditions in Russia were very difficult in every respect. It was after Napoleon’s war in Russia, when dozens of cities had been destroyed. The Jewish people were living in abject poverty. It was a very difficult period, and nevertheless the Mitteler Rebbe invested in printing books of Chassidus. We can’t discuss all the earliest books of the Mitteler Rebbe that we have, but we can look at the main ones. For those who would like to enjoy and get a taste of his wonderful Torah teachings, I’ll point to just a few of the books that were printed in his lifetime. As we said, the Mitteler Rebbe began publishing books. He published several foundational works of Chassidus, but most of his books—in fact, dozens of volumes of maamarim on the weekly parsha and the festivals—were printed only in recent years. As we’ve mentioned before, it was only around the 1980s that the Rebbe began working to publish all the Mitteler Rebbe’s writings that had remained in manuscript until then. So

15:48 let’s return to some of those foundational books, particularly books that are relatively accessible to everyone and relevant to someone who wants to become a little familiar with, and get a taste of, the light of his wonderful Torah teachings. Take, for example, Shaarei Teshuvah and Derech Chaim. Among the books the Mitteler Rebbe wrote were works intended for particular, very specific purposes. One of them is Shaarei Teshuvah and Derech Chaim. These are essentially two volumes dealing with the work of teshuvah and the work of prayer. As we said, the Mitteler Rebbe took the foundations of his father the Alter Rebbe’s teachings and built from them an organized, broad and deep approach, giving chassidim the ability to understand in depth and breadth the teachings of his Rebbe—his father, who was also his Rebbe. Shaarei Teshuvah is therefore a book of maamarim in which he explains the work of teshuvah according to Chabad Chassidus with extraordinary breadth. We know that one of the things the Alter Rebbe explained—something founded, in fact, on the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings, but which the Alter Rebbe revealed and developed into an approach and a path in serving Hashem—is that the work of teshuvah is not only for people who have sinned. The work of teshuvah belongs to every single Jew. We all need to return. The path of teshuvah is the path of life; it is the path of serving Hashem. In fact, the Alter Rebbe says, the soul descends into this world in order to become a baal teshuvah. Above, the soul is in the category of a tzaddik. Below, it is in the category of a baal teshuvah. What is the soul’s teshuvah? What do we need to do? What does it mean? What is meant by the soul’s work of teshuvah? In Shaarei Teshuvah, the Mitteler Rebbe explains this in the most wonderful way. That book also contains the maamar beginning “Padah Veshalom Nafshi.” Someone who wants to study it during the days

17:53 These twelve chapters—if I’m not mistaken, twelve or thirteen chapters of the maamar—explain in a wonderful way the battle between the G-dly soul and the animal soul. It is based on the story in next week’s parsha, which we’ll study: the battle between Yaakov and Eisav’s angel. Building on that parsha, the Mitteler Rebbe explains the battle between the G-dly soul and the animal soul: the battle in the service of prayer, the very nature of the battle, and how to win it. He discusses different levels of the soul’s service—nefesh, ruach, and neshamah, followed by chayah and yechidah. These different levels of the soul give rise to different ways of waging the battle, all the way to “He redeemed my soul in peace”—complete peace between the two souls, which will be fully revealed with the coming of Moshiach. It is a truly wonderful maamar, printed in the book Shaarei Teshuvah alongside other maamarim on teshuvah. Another part of that book is called Derech Chaim. It is written in an exceptionally sharp style and touches on the most sensitive points of the soul. There the Mitteler Rebbe really delves in, analyzing the depths of the evil in the animal soul on the one hand, and the depths of the good in the G-dly soul on the other—and how, through the power of teshuvah, a Jew can return and reconnect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. It discusses truly wonderful foundations of the service of teshuvah. Another book we should mention, since it is somewhat connected to this time of year, is Shaarei Orah. In it, the Mitteler Rebbe writes maamarim of Chassidus on Chanukah and Purim. He called it Shaarei Orah, “Gates of Light,” in connection with those holidays. Chanukah, of course, is associated with light—it is the festival of oil, the festival of light—and on Purim, too, “the Jews had light.” So Shaarei Orah is a book of maamarim of Chassidus. Again, these maamarim are actually based on

20:02 his father’s maamarim in Torah Or, which contains the Alter Rebbe’s maamarim. There, the maamarim are shorter—each one perhaps two or three pages. But in the Mitteler Rebbe’s Shaarei Orah, each of these maamarim runs to dozens of chapters, explaining in wonderful breadth the deep foundations needed to understand what Chanukah really means in a Jew’s soul, and what Purim and Megillas Esther really mean in a Jew’s life. So that is another example of a wonderful book by the Mitteler Rebbe that we can also—there is just one point I want to make that we need to know: it has its own distinctive style. Sometimes a person starts learning it and says, “Oh, I don’t understand this,” closes the book, and stops learning. But as with every Torah book, every book by one of the great Torah sages, each had a distinctive style. Someone accustomed to one style may initially find it hard to get used to a new one. The same is true of Chabad books. Every Rebbe had his own style of writing, his own way of expression. As we said, with the Alter Rebbe it is a spring; with the Mitteler Rebbe it is a river. So sometimes it is hard for us to understand it and connect with it. How do I learn this? It is a new style I’m not familiar with, and sometimes you get lost because it is so long. But once you get used to it—and this is simply a practical suggestion: keep going, keep learning, get used to the style and its distinctive language—after a little while, it becomes a special pleasure. You can simply sit for hours on end and wander through the orchard, so to speak, exploring the explanations of the Mitteler Rebbe’s Chassidus in all their length and breadth. One more book I’ll mention, another foundational and truly wonderful book by the Mitteler

21:55 Rebbe, is called Shaar Haemunah and Shaar Hayichud. The Mitteler Rebbe wrote this book especially in connection with Pesach. It explains the foundations of the Exodus from Egypt, Sefiras HaOmer, the Splitting of the Sea, and the Giving of the Torah—all according to Chassidus and the inner dimension of Torah, in a wonderfully expansive way. What does the Exodus from Egypt mean in a person’s soul today? What is the Splitting of the Sea? What is the significance of Sefiras HaOmer and the Giving of the Torah? The book is divided into two parts. The first is Shaar Haemunah, with dozens of chapters in which he explains the foundations of the Exodus from Egypt, the Splitting of the Sea, and the Giving of the Torah as they relate to the soul’s service and to a Jew’s service even in our own time. Following it is Shaar Hayichud, in which the Mitteler Rebbe lays out the foundations of Hashem’s oneness. This is, in fact, a profound book; you need to know some of the basics already. There he builds the foundations for understanding the framework of Kabbalah’s fundamental concepts according to Chassidus. He explains the order of the worlds’ unfolding, Hashem’s oneness, tzimtzum and its mysteries, and what is before and after the tzimtzum. In other words, these are the foundations of Kabbalah in the Mitteler Rebbe’s distinctive style, explained in a wonderfully expansive way. So we have mentioned several of his books. Ah, I also want to point to a special book published a few years ago by Maayanotecha, which publishes books of Chassidus in a format that is easier to connect with today. They expanded the abbreviations and laid it out in a clear, inviting way. They also gathered some of the Mitteler Rebbe’s foundational maamarim that are more accessible to everyone and made them into a whole book, including some of the maamarim we mentioned and other very special ones. And to conclude, I want to mention something about the Mitteler Rebbe that the Rebbe would often repeat.

24:08 I had the privilege of hearing it from the Rebbe himself several times. It is known that the Mitteler Rebbe had a goal, something he cared about deeply: he wanted chassidim to discuss Chassidus with one another wherever they stood and wherever they went. So much so that there is a well-known saying of the Mitteler Rebbe about his dream, his goal in life: that chassidim walking through the marketplace should talk with one another about yichuda ila’ah and yichuda tata’ah—the higher and lower levels of Divine unity. In other words, they should discuss profound ideas in Chassidus even out on the street. And that, as is well known, is how the Mitteler Rebbe’s chassidim conducted themselves. The Rebbe would often repeat this and say that we, too, need to learn from it in our generation. Especially since we are close to the coming of Moshiach—we are close today to the time when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.” So the time has come. Particularly in recent years, so many books of Chassidus have been printed, giving us easy access to learn, connect, and understand. Today, too, the goal is to prepare ourselves and the world for the Geulah: wherever we stand and wherever we go, to discuss Chassidus, explain Chassidus, and spread Chassidus without making calculations about whether I am really on that level, whether I am worthy or not. That is simply the goal. Today it is “your wellsprings shall spread outward.” And in this way, may we soon see the complete Geulah and merit to hear Torah from the mouth of Moshiach the King. “A new Torah will come forth from his mouth,” as the Midrash tells us. May we merit the light of Moshiach and the Torah of Moshiach, when the light of the inner dimension of Torah will become known throughout the world: “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.”