Moshe Rabbeinu, the Rambam, and the Alter Rebbe - The Surprising Connection and the Secret of Daas

00:00 This week, on 20 Teves, is the yahrzeit of the Rambam, Rabbeinu Moshe ben Maimon. A few days later, on 24 Teves, is the yahrzeit of the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, author of the Tanya and the Shulchan Aruch and founder of Chabad Chassidus. It’s interesting that we’re speaking about two great tzaddikim and Torah giants of worldwide stature, and that their yahrzeits fall so close together. Of course, there’s something deeper in that. If we look at certain points, we can learn some very interesting things about serving Hashem: the striking similarities between the Rambam and the Alter Rebbe, as well as their differences—the unique contribution and message each one brought. This also connects with the weekly parshas we’re beginning to study at this very time. We’ve begun the book of Shemos and are starting to learn about Moshe Rabbeinu. So we have three leaders of worldwide stature, from different generations. In the weekly parsha, we learn about Moshe Rabbeinu, the first leader, who took the Jewish people out of exile and brought them to the Geulah—the Exodus from Egypt—and to the Giving of the Torah. Then we have another Moshe: “From Moshe to Moshe, none arose like Moshe.” Moshe ben Maimon, the Rambam, whose yahrzeit is right now, on 20 Teves. And we have the Alter Rebbe, Rabbi Schneur Zalman, whose yahrzeit, as we said, is on 24 Teves. So today, let’s talk a little about these three leaders: the similarities we see between them, what we can learn from them for our own service of Hashem today, the strength they give us, their message and their teachings, and also the ways each one stands out in particular. If we start at the beginning, we see that Moshe Rabbeinu received the Torah at Sinai. Moshe Rabbeinu

02:35 was the first leader of the Jewish people, arriving at a time of exile and darkness. In this week’s parsha, Shemos, we learn about the Jewish people doing backbreaking labor in Egypt, in the depths of darkness. When things reached their hardest and darkest point—“the Children of Israel groaned because of the labor”—Moshe Rabbeinu appeared. Hakadosh Boruch Hu sent him with the message, “I have surely remembered you,” to lift their spirits and prepare the Jewish people for the wondrous moments of the Geulah. Moshe Rabbeinu told the Jewish people: The time is coming when you will not only believe in Hashem. When the Children of Israel first met Moshe, it says, “And the people believed.” The Jewish people had faith. Moshe Rabbeinu told them: Not just faith—“And you shall know that I am Hashem.” Through the miracles and wonders, we will not only believe; we will also know, understand, and absorb the reality of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, with a deep, conscious knowledge. That would prepare us for the Giving of the Torah, when we would receive the Torah for all generations. We find similar things with the Rambam. The Rambam was a leader of the Jewish people who was born and lived in a time of darkness, an extremely difficult period of exile. We’re looking at the Rambam’s time, about nine hundred years ago. We all know the story and the history; we won’t go into it now. It was a time when the Jewish people suffered on all sides. On one side were the Crusades, with Christians persecuting Jews and wiping out entire communities—one of the hardest and darkest periods in our people’s history. On the other side were the Muslims. As is known, the Rambam was born in Córdoba, Spain, and as a young child had to flee with his family because of the troubles they suffered at the hands of those who hated Jews. They, too, caused tremendous darkness and destruction. That was the period. Then the Rambam arose and became a guide for the perplexed. Through his leadership and the books he

05:00 wrote—and through the whole story we know about him—the Rambam managed to lead the Jewish people on a worldwide scale in that period. His influence reached not only the places where he lived, whether Morocco or later Egypt, but other lands as well, including Yemen and many others. We have the Rambam’s letters, where we see how, with his special strength, he guided, comforted, and strengthened the Jewish people in their faith in the Geulah and their confidence that it would come. Here, too, we see the parallels with Moshe Rabbeinu. He stood by the Jewish people in moments of darkness and gave them the strength to rise above exile. In his books, he taught the Jewish people how to strengthen their faith in the Geulah and the coming of Moshiach. At the same time, he wrote his extraordinary work, the Mishneh Torah. As he himself writes, the Mishneh Torah is the book that comes after Moshe Rabbeinu’s book. “From Moshe to Moshe, none arose like Moshe,” as the Torah sages said. In his introduction to the Mishneh Torah, his work of halachah known as the Yad Hachazakah, the Rambam himself writes that a person can study Moshe Rabbeinu’s Five Books of the Torah and then go directly to his work, where he gathered together everything a person needs to know from the Oral Torah. That is the significance of the Rambam’s Torah. When we come, several hundred years later, to the Alter Rebbe’s time, we again encounter a very difficult period in our people’s history. The Alter Rebbe lived about three hundred years ago. This was in Europe, after the terrible persecutions in Poland and the dreadful decrees of 5408–5409. There was also, as is well known, the story of Shabbetai Tzvi, the false messiah, who caused a great spiritual decline and deep despair among the Jewish people, and so on. We won’t retell those familiar stories now.

07:18 The Alter Rebbe came to the Maggid of Mezritch, a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, and founded Chabad Chassidus through his distinctive approach. He wrote the Tanya and the Shulchan Aruch, in which he set out the halachos together with their reasons in an organized, accessible way that everyone could understand. So here, too, we find a similarity. On the one hand, he strengthened the Jewish people and illuminated them amid the great darkness of exile, giving Jews the strength to serve Hashem and strengthen their faith in the Geulah, as appears often in the Alter Rebbe’s works. At the same time, he taught the Jewish people both the revealed dimension of Torah and its inner dimension. Looking more closely, we find, in general, remarkable parallels across different periods of Jewish history. These three leaders of their generations—Moshe Rabbeinu, the Rambam, and the Alter Rebbe—each brought light in his own generation. Each brought light and strength to the Jewish people and taught us how to serve Hashem and rise above exile, even in the hardest moments. If we go into a little more detail now and look more deeply at the parallels between the Rambam and the Alter Rebbe, we’ll see some very interesting things. As we mentioned regarding their leadership, they were leaders on a worldwide scale, both materially and spiritually. From the accounts of the Rambam’s life, we know that he cared for the Jewish people’s material needs. As he himself writes in his letters, he worked to help Jews wherever he was, to support them through various difficult periods, to have decrees annulled, and to uphold the dignity of the Jewish people in the eyes of kingdoms and rulers—whether in Egypt, in Yemen, or in

09:30 In Spain or Morocco, he helped the Jewish people materially, seeing to their livelihood and so on, while also caring for them spiritually. As we see in his letters, he strengthened the Jewish people through the difficult times and harsh decrees they faced in that period. That is one aspect of his leadership. We see the same thing with the Alter Rebbe: both material and spiritual leadership. We know that one of the things the Alter Rebbe was involved in was helping Jews in Russia. He bought land to help them earn a living. At the time, the Russian government deprived Jews of some of their most important sources of livelihood. For example, many Jews made a living trading alcoholic drinks—beer, vodka, and so on. It was an extremely important source of income for a great many Jews. Drinks, as you know, taverns and other establishments—and then the government took control of all of that. The Jews lost their livelihoods. It was a time of terrible shortages and hunger. Many thousands of Jews also had to leave because of expulsions from villages and towns. And the Alter Rebbe, instead of crying, went and raised a great deal of money, bought whole tracts of land, and settled many Jewish families there so they could make a living by working the land. That was in Russia, and he did a great deal for Jews in Eretz Yisroel as well. As is known, the Alter Rebbe spent hours, weeks, and years upon years—his whole life, really—collecting money from Jews across Europe and sending it to the Jews living in Eretz Yisroel, so they would have something to live on and a way to live. That was on the material side. Spiritually, the Alter Rebbe, as a leader and rabbi who taught Chassidus, guided the chassidim in their service of Hashem through Chabad Chassidus. And if we look at their books, we also see something

11:49 remarkable: the similarity between the Rambam and the Alter Rebbe in their books. When we look at the Rambam, we know of two especially important books. He wrote a number of books, but his two most important and best-known books are these. One is a work of halachah, Mishneh Torah, also known as the Yad Hachazakah, in which the Alter Rebbe—sorry, the Rambam—gathers all the laws a Jew needs to know: all 613 mitzvos, with all their details and branches, from the Written Torah and the Oral Torah. That is Mishneh Torah. The second book is Moreh Nevuchim, the Guide for the Perplexed. As its name suggests, in the Rambam’s time there were many, many perplexed Jews. They were confused because, in that period, many forms of non-Jewish wisdom and science were spreading. Many Jews began reading and studying non-Jewish works of science, and became confused in their faith in Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The Rambam wrote Moreh Nevuchim to answer all the difficulties, questions, doubts, and uncertainties. He establishes the foundations of a Jew’s faith, the foundations of Tanach, the foundations of belief. The Rambam is the one who formulated the Thirteen Principles of Faith, and he guides a Jew, in his own remarkable way, in how to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu and be a complete Jew in Torah and faith. The Alter Rebbe, too, became known throughout the world for his two principal books. The Alter Rebbe also has dozens of books, but there are two principal ones, likewise in two areas of Torah: halachah and Kabbalah. The Alter Rebbe’s work of halachah is Shulchan Aruch Harav, the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch, in which he also gathers everything a Jew needs to know for daily life. The Shulchan Aruch is based on the four sections of the Shulchan Aruch written by Maran Rabbi Yosef Karo, but the Alter Rebbe approached it by gathering material from all the books

14:06 written between Rabbi Yosef Karo’s time and his own—a span of about two hundred years. Besides gathering and writing down the laws, he also presented the differences of opinion between Sephardim and Ashkenazim. He gave the halachic rulings and also explained their reasons. One of the remarkable features of the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch in particular is that he wrote the reasons for every law and every custom—the thinking behind them. That gives a special depth to our understanding of why and how we fulfill the Divine will through halachah. The Alter Rebbe’s second famous book, in the inner dimension of Torah, is Tanya. In it, the Alter Rebbe put into words his approach to the Baal Shem Tov’s innovation. The Baal Shem Tov revealed the path of Chassidus to the world, but he did not write down his teachings, nor did he explain them to the extent that the Maggid, the Maggid of Mezritch, did. Then came the Alter Rebbe. He wrote Tanya, setting out in an orderly, precise, and explained way what the path of serving Hashem according to Chassidus actually is. It is the Moreh Nevuchim of Chassidus, you might say. As the Alter Rebbe himself writes in the introduction to Tanya about the book’s purpose, there are people who read all kinds of works of mussar, but “they walk in darkness,” as the Alter Rebbe writes. They are confused, things are unclear to them, and they do not know what to do. Even though they read these books, their thinking is off track; they cannot grasp the ideas. They are still in the dark and do not know exactly what applies to them and what does not. We see this firsthand: when you study works of mussar without proper preparation, you do not know exactly what applies to you and what does not, what you are meant to take from it, or how you are meant to

16:03 take it into your daily life. That is why the Alter Rebbe wrote Tanya. It is an extraordinary book. As he himself explains in the introduction to Tanya, “I am speaking to those whom I know and recognize.” I am hearing the problems of our generation—that is, of the period toward the end of the exile. The Alter Rebbe knows very well exactly what our weaknesses are, what struggles we face, and what our generation needs to know, understand, and hear. He gives us a clear, fundamental path to understanding the soul, how it works, its hidden depths, and the battles within us, and to knowing how to deal with them. So these are the striking similarities, the remarkable connection between the Alter Rebbe and Moshe Rabbeinu, between the Alter Rebbe and Moshe ben Maimon. And this comes out especially in connection with the time of the weekly parsha. There is something else interesting about their similarities: how it is all alluded to in their names as well. Of course, the Rambam’s name was Moshe, like Moshe Rabbeinu. But there is another point connected to what we said: that both the Rambam and the Alter Rebbe wrote books and showed the way in both parts of Torah, the revealed dimension and the hidden dimension. We can see this in their names too. The Rebbe once explained that the Rambam’s name was Moshe, but his full name was Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon—Rambam. The word “Rambam” contains two mems: Rambam, Moshe ben Maimon. There is the first mem and the last mem, an open mem and a closed mem. The Gemara in Tractate Shabbos says that the distinction between these two letters, the open mem and the closed mem, corresponds to the two parts of Torah: the revealed Torah and the concealed Torah—an open teaching and a closed teaching. In other words, the Torah contains revealed things, things

18:11 Hidden teachings. There are really two parts, and so there are the two books we spoke about. In Mishneh Torah, the Rambam presents the revealed part of the Torah, while in Moreh Nevuchim he discusses its hidden part, the concealed teaching. This is alluded to by the open mem and the closed mem in the Rambam’s name. The Alter Rebbe’s name is Schneur. It is well known that the Baal Shem Tov said of the Alter Rebbe that a great soul, a new soul, had descended into the world, and that this soul would illuminate the world with both the light of the revealed Torah and the light of the hidden Torah. That is why he is called Schneur: he would bring both lights into the world. So these two parts of the Torah are found in his name, Schneur. But if we go deeper, what is the particular innovation in which we find a resemblance between the Alter Rebbe and the Rambam? And especially in connection with the weekly parsha, as we mentioned earlier, it is the subject of daas—knowledge. It is remarkable. As we mentioned, Moshe Rabbeinu tells the Jewish people in this week’s parsha, as they are about to leave Egypt, “And you shall know that I am Hashem.” In other words, he tells them: Until now, you had faith. Jews are believers, the children of believers. From the moment Moshe Rabbeinu came to speak to them, even though they were too short of breath from hard labor to listen to Moshe, and so on, still, “they believed.” The Jewish people believed. Moshe Rabbeinu tells them that faith is not enough. Faith can be something very distant. On the one hand, faith is a tremendous, powerful force. Being believers, the children of believers, is our strength as Jews. But what we see in life is that a Jew can believe, yet in daily life that belief means nothing to him. His faith is disconnected from his reality. He believes; he knows and believes that there is a G-d in the world,

20:22 but in practice, in his daily life, he does not live with that faith. It is not inside him; it does not penetrate him. He believes. He can say “Boruch Hashem” and then do the opposite. There is the well-known saying in the Gemara that before a Jewish thief steals, he prays to Hakadosh Boruch Hu to help him steal. In other words, he believes in Hashem and prays to Hashem, while at the same time doing something against Hashem’s will. He sees no contradiction: he believes, yet he acts against that belief. Why? Because faith is something abstract, something disconnected and separate. It is not me. Moshe Rabbeinu says, “And you shall know.” Now that we are going to leave Egypt and receive the Torah, the goal is daas. The Zohar discusses this at length. Moshe Rabbeinu tells the Jewish people that faith is not enough; we need daas. “Know this day”; “in order that you may know”—we need daas. We need inner recognition, using our mind and intellect too, so that this faith becomes part of me and I live it. When a person understands his faith, he lives it, and can then bring it into his emotions as well. We find this theme in the Rambam. Remarkably, in the Rambam’s book of halachah, the very first halachah appears at the beginning of Sefer Hamadda—“madda” from the word daas. He begins Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah. What does he write in the first halachah? “The foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdom is to know that there is a First Being, and He brings all beings into existence; and all beings in heaven and earth and between them came into existence only through the truth of His existence.” This is how the Rambam begins his book of halachos. What is the first halachah? That the foundation of foundations and the pillar of wisdom is that a Jew must know—not just believe. He must know of the First Being who brings all beings into existence, and that all created beings, everything above, below, and in between, come from the truth of Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s existence. And the Rambam goes on for several more halachos, several chapters,

22:28 explaining Hashem’s greatness, the creation of the worlds, the angels, the celestial spheres, the whole structure of creation—all so that we should know. “I am Hashem your G-d.” The first of the Ten Commandments, says the Rambam, the mitzvah of “I am Hashem your G-d,” is not only a mitzvah to believe; it is a mitzvah to know. The Rambam calls on us to know, understand, and internalize. Now look at how the Rambam ends his work. That was its beginning; at the end of the entire Mishneh Torah, all fourteen sections in which the Rambam sets out every halachah, all 613 mitzvos with all their details, the last two chapters discuss the mitzvah of believing in the coming of Moshiach. A Jew has an obligation to believe, to anticipate and to wait for the time of Moshiach’s coming, when the Beis Hamikdash will be rebuilt and we will be able to fulfill all the mitzvos, and so on. How does the Rambam end his entire work? Speaking of the days of Moshiach, he says, “The occupation of the whole world will be solely to know Hashem.” He opens with daas and ends with daas. What will happen in the days of Moshiach? The occupation of the whole world—not just the Jewish people, but the nations too—will be to know Hashem. Knowledge of Hashem. “The Jewish people will therefore be great sages and will know hidden things, and will attain knowledge of their Creator to the extent humanly possible, as it says, ‘For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.’” So the Rambam tells us where we are headed: toward daas. Moshiach will come, and the world will be filled with knowledge. A Jew must anticipate it, wait for it, and long for the time when daas will reach its fullest expression. The Rambam takes this theme of daas and opens with it. It is the beginning of a Jew’s life, the foundation of the entire Torah, and also its ultimate purpose. And then there is the Alter Rebbe. The approach the Alter Rebbe founded is called Chabad: chochmah, binah, daas. Chabad is an acronym for chochmah, binah,

24:42 daas. The entire essence of the Alter Rebbe’s approach to Chassidus is that there must be daas. The Baal Shem Tov did not emphasize this point quite as much. The Alter Rebbe made it the essence, the center. If you truly want to draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, as the Baal Shem Tov taught you, if you want to serve Hashem with love, joy, and vitality; to love another Jew warmly and wholeheartedly; to love the Torah; to be a person who is alive, full of love and joy in serving Hashem—you need this daas. The Alter Rebbe writes about it in the opening chapters of his book, Tanya. After introducing the two souls, the animal soul and the G-dly soul, he writes in chapter 3 about the faculties of chochmah, binah, and daas, from which all the feelings of love and awe of Hashem arise. And the main thing is daas. The Alter Rebbe explains beautifully what the faculty of daas means. Daas implies attachment: “And Adam knew Chavah”—he connected with her. Daas is not just external knowledge; it is inner knowledge, warmth, a bond, a connection. It means becoming attached and connected through deep comprehension and understanding, until it becomes part of you. The Alter Rebbe also devoted an entire section of Tanya to this, Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah, which begins with the words “Know this day and take it to heart,” to explain exactly what the mitzvah of knowing Hashem is. So it is remarkable how both the Rambam and the Alter Rebbe, building on Moshe Rabbeinu’s words in Parshas Shemos and Parshas Vaeira, took this point of daas and made it central to a Jew’s life in serving Hashem. And here we come to the remarkable contribution the Alter Rebbe made beyond the Rambam, as we mentioned earlier: the Rambam did not write about the reasons for the mitzvos.

26:50 He wrote his book of halachah, but gave the halachos without their reasons. The Alter Rebbe added the reasons, and also addressed the hidden dimension of Torah. The Rambam did not reveal the secrets of Kabbalah. He wrote Moreh Nevuchim based on works of philosophy, but not Kabbalah. For the Rambam, Kabbalah was still a secret. The Alter Rebbe also revealed the teachings of Kabbalah. And he did more than reveal them: he explained them and brought them into the realm of understanding, so that anyone can study the hidden dimension of Torah, understand it, and connect with it. This came about because we are now in these generations, in our time, at the end of the exile, preparing for the Geulah—for the time when “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.” That is why the Alter Rebbe and the Rebbeim after him came and revealed this depth of Torah to us: its knowledge, its inner dimension, and the ability to grasp it. And so, as we find ourselves in such momentous days—when the weekly parsha tells of the exile in Egypt and Moshe Rabbeinu, the first redeemer, and we are near the yahrtzeits of the Rambam and the Alter Rebbe—this is a time for each of us to strengthen ourselves. It is a time to call on everyone to grow stronger. First, in studying the Written Torah, the Torah of Moshe Rabbeinu, and in studying halachos. As we know, the Rebbe spoke to us about this, taught us, and instituted daily study of Rambam, so that we study the works of halachah. In the coming days, on 14 Shvat, we will complete all fourteen sections of the Rambam’s Mishneh Torah. Yes, in less than a month. Then we will begin again in all the study tracks. So this is the best time to strengthen our study of Rambam, at least by studying the Rambam’s Sefer Hamitzvos, as the Rebbe spoke about many times, and to strengthen our study of Chassidus. We are approaching the yahrtzeit of the Alter Rebbe.

28:52 This is also the time to call on everyone to strengthen their study of the Alter Rebbe’s works: his Shulchan Aruch, to know the halachos thoroughly, and Tanya and all the other Chabad works. Let us prepare ourselves and make use of the wonderful power Hashem gave each of us—the powers of chochmah, binah, and daas—to know Hashem and prepare ourselves for the complete Geulah, when we will merit to see “the earth filled with the knowledge of Hashem as the waters cover the sea.” Amen.