You're Not Falling — You're Rising | The Secret of Trials in Light of Chassidus

00:00 Today we’re going to talk about trials. We know that the Torah says, “For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know whether you love Hashem.” In other words, the Torah tells us that from time to time, Hakadosh Boruch Hu tests a person. “To know whether you love Hashem”—what does it mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu tests a person “to know”? What exactly does He want to know? Who is meant to find out here? Does it mean that Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants to know? That the person himself should know? That the world should know? The truth is that all these answers are correct. Today we’ll try to explore the subject of trials, something every one of us knows firsthand. Every morning, we get up and say, “Do not bring us to a test.” We ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu not to bring us trials. Nobody wants trials; we don’t ask for them. We ask not to have them. The Midrash even tells us that King David thought he had reached such a high level in his service of Hashem that he asked, “Examine me, Hashem, and test me.” In Tehillim, he asks Hakadosh Boruch Hu to test him. The Midrash says that Hakadosh Boruch Hu told him, “David, you’re going to regret this. Don’t ask for it.” So even King David, despite his lofty level of holiness and righteousness, was told by Hakadosh Boruch Hu that it was better not to enter into a test. But in practice, we know that a person’s life in this world is full of trials of all kinds. Why? What is their purpose? Why does Hakadosh Boruch Hu bring a person to a test? What is the Divine purpose in it? And what does the Torah mean when it says, “For Hashem your G-d is testing you, to know”? As we asked, what does that mean? Today we’ll discuss trials in the light of Chassidus, at least touching on the heart of the subject, even though the subject

02:11 is broad and deep. We’ll touch on the most fundamental points discussed in Chassidus. The soul descended into this world. “I was created to serve my Creator.” A Jew’s soul descended into this world to serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu and to make this world a dwelling place for Him. The Alter Rebbe explains in Tanya that the soul descends below in order to refine the world and make it a dwelling place for Hashem. The soul did not descend for its own sake. It descended into the world to perfect the world, to refine physical things and elevate them—or, in the language of Chassidus, to refine the sparks. To take things from the world and make them into vessels for Hakadosh Boruch Hu. To take something in the world and reveal the Divine spark, the Divine purpose, the Divine power within it. That is the purpose of the soul’s descent into this world. Usually, a person’s task is to take something from the world—something ordinary, something kosher, but something that seemingly has no Divine significance—and give it that significance. He uses food to eat for the sake of Heaven, for the sake of a mitzvah. He uses physical things in the world to make tzitzis, tefillin, or a Sefer Torah; he uses them for holy purposes. He uses money to give tzedakah, and so on. He takes something from the world and raises it up, elevating it and making it more refined, even holy. But then there is the matter of trials. Sometimes things happen in a person’s life that seem to offer nothing of the sort. He sees nothing in them that he can turn into something G-dly. Quite the opposite: something that seems to come solely to interfere, to confuse, to oppose him—something placed in his way specifically to make him fall. This is where the work of facing trials begins: “For Hashem your G-d is testing you.” And the Frierdiker

04:22 Rebbe explains—and this week we’ll celebrate the Frierdiker Rebbe’s birthday and the day of his liberation. In his maamarim marking the liberation, the Frierdiker Rebbe explains the subject of trials at length. The celebration of 12 Tammuz that we mark this week, the day of the Frierdiker Rebbe’s liberation, is deeply connected to trials. The period when the Frierdiker Rebbe lived in Russia, in 5687—the year whose hundredth anniversary we are now approaching—was the height of the Communists’ war against Judaism. Their whole aim was to destroy, demolish, and wipe Judaism off the face of the earth: an all-out war against Jewish values. As is well known, the Frierdiker Rebbe fought back. He stood firm and proud, one man facing a vast regime and superpower, and he was undaunted. He was not frightened; he did not weaken. On the contrary, with tremendous resolve, strength, and courage, he opened shuls and study halls and mikvaos. He sent his chassidim, with extraordinary self-sacrifice, to open chadarim and places of Torah study. For every cheder they shut down, he opened two. He carried out holy work with almost unimaginable self-sacrifice, until he himself was arrested. They arrested him with a very clear intention: that very day they were supposed to take him to—to—to... The intention was to put him to death. The great miracle was that everything turned around completely, and the Frierdiker Rebbe came out of prison alive. Not just alive, but victorious. The whole world then saw Judaism’s triumph and its endurance: no regime can stand against it. The Frierdiker Rebbe explained in those days, and repeated in farbrengens on 12 Tammuz in the years that followed, that our generation, the last generation of exile, the time in which we find ourselves, is a time of

07:00 trials. A Jew’s main work in those days, the Frierdiker Rebbe said, is not so much the work of refining the world, but the work of facing trials. In other words, our task today is primarily to confront those difficulties and trials that arise in our lives and try to confuse us and get in our way. The way to withstand a trial, the Rebbe says, is not to fight it or engage with whatever is bothering you. Don’t get into arguments or explanations, and don’t try to find something positive in it. On the contrary, when a person faces a trial, the one and only way is to stand firm and awaken the deep Jewish point within himself—what Chassidus calls the yechidah of the soul. This is the part of the soul connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu by a bond beyond all explanations and reasons. It is a Jew’s deep connection with Hakadosh Boruch Hu: a Jew does not want to be, and cannot be, disconnected or separated from Him. This connection lies at the very core, in the deepest depths of every person’s soul. It comes to light in moments of trial and difficulty, when a person faces a real challenge that threatens to break his faith, his Jewish identity, his connection. Throughout our people’s history, we see that precisely in the hardest moments, this Jewish point emerges, reveals itself, and shines in the most remarkable way. We’ve seen it in our own generation, in our own time, in recent years. Jews who were completely distant from Torah and mitzvos, from a life of faith and Jewish practice—when life placed them in a situation that tested them. We saw it in the Holocaust. We saw it in the difficult period each of us has gone through in recent years. And we saw Jews who, although in their personal lives they were not Torah scholars and did not observe mitzvos, the moment they

09:20 They found themselves face to face with this test: “I am a Jew.” They had no doubt whatsoever. Nothing in the world could move them from their essence, from their truth, from who they really were. “I am a Jew, and nothing will move me from that.” This strength is the strength to withstand a test. It is something Jewish, something each of us has. We need to stand firm with it and awaken our Jewish core. When a Jew awakens that Jewish strength within himself—“I am a Jew, and nothing will move me from that”—then we see how, suddenly, the test, the challenge, the difficulty dissolves and disappears, as though it had never been there. We can see this in small things and in big things. Sometimes we think there is a problem, something we are facing, a challenge: “This will be impossible.” But I know there is a Shulchan Aruch here, there is a halachah, there is a mitzvah, there is the Divine will. So when a Jew feels the truth of his soul, when he feels that singular point in his soul—“I am a Jew, and nothing will move me from this place”—no difficulty in the world can stop him. On the contrary, the challenges themselves awaken in a Jew a much deeper, much stronger power. Every single Jew has this power. Sometimes it is hidden, concealed, covered by layers of mud, heaps of darkness from life. But inside, in the depths of the soul, we have it. Every one of us has the Divine spark. And that, in fact, is the purpose of tests. Of tests, it says, “For He is testing.” Chassidus explains that nisayon, “test,” is related to the expression “raise a banner upon the mountains.” When a person plants a flag on the mountaintop to proclaim, “We won,” in the language of Tanach that is called raising a banner upon the mountains. The idea of a banner expresses

11:36 elevation: rising up, lifting up nature, lifting up reality, rising above nature and above reality. That is what a test is about. Its true purpose is not to break us or to put us on trial. On the contrary, it is to lift us up. Nisayon is related to raising a banner upon the mountains, says the Frierdiker Rebbe. The role of a test is to elevate a person, reveal his depths, and bring him to a level incomparably higher than the world, higher than anything the world can perceive. Withstanding a test gives a person unimaginable strength, deep strength, extraordinary strength. And then the test becomes a miracle. A person rises to such a high level, and it is precisely the test that brings out the immense power revealed within him through withstanding it. Even the very thing that gave rise to the test becomes a means of growth—the opposite of what initially seemed to be its purpose. And that is also what happened in the story of the Frierdiker Rebbe. Not only was the Russian regime of those days thwarted, broken, and forced to release the Rebbe; they actually did it willingly. That is a wonder upon a wonder. In other words, this was not a matter of going against their reality. They themselves—in the words of our Sages, “the mouth that forbade is the mouth that permitted”—those same wicked people who sentenced the Rebbe and imprisoned him were the ones who set him free and told him he could go home. This is the extraordinary power of tests: when a person stands firm, he is not shaken. He does not give the test any standing; he does not allow it to become a possibility. He does not... For him, it does not exist. He keeps going with full strength, as though nothing had happened, as though nothing were in his way. In the end, it turns out that precisely what was most hidden

13:51 and concealed suddenly comes to light. Darkness turns into light. We reach the deepest purpose of all tests: “so that you may know.” To know means to connect, to become bound to something. “And Adam knew Eve”—an inner knowledge. To know is to reach an inner recognition, not merely an outward awareness. “I know.” When I say “I know,” it does not mean I once heard about it. “I know” means I feel it. I know it firsthand. I feel it. It is alive within me; it burns within me. And this is what we must learn from these great days we are in now, as we enter 12 and 13 Tammuz this Shabbos, when we will all celebrate the Geulah of the Frierdiker Rebbe and the deliverance of Jewish life in one of its most difficult periods. When a Jew stands firm, he knows exactly which way he is going. That is how you rise to the highest level. We are Jews, we are strong, we stand firm, as it says in the weekly parsha: “Behold, a people rises like a lion cub and lifts itself up like a lion.” Even during exile, the Jewish people are like a lion and a lion cub. They are not shaken; they do not fall; they do not falter. They stand firm. And then we can truly reach the great news we are all waiting for: the true and complete Geulah, when Moshiach Tzidkeinu will come and redeem us. May the Geulah of 12 Tammuz be joined by the complete Geulah, with Moshiach Tzidkeinu coming to redeem us speedily in our days, amen.