Explanations of the Prayer - Hashem Malach - Part 2

00:00 Speaker 1 This is not simply Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s kingship, but His kingship in its loftiest form: “Hashem will be King over the entire earth.” His kingship will be revealed to the world. “On that day,” when Moshiach comes, “Hashem will be one and His name one.” What does “Hashem will be one and His name one” mean? It means it will not be as it is now, when we say: “I am not pronounced as I am written.” The name Havayah is written one way but pronounced Adnus. Now we pronounce it Adnus, even though it is written Havayah. What is the difference between how it is pronounced and how it is written? How it is written refers to the thing as it is in itself; how it is pronounced is its revelation—how it appears in the world. So now, in the present time, it is written Havayah but pronounced Adnus. In other words, what is revealed in the world is Adnus, a name associated with nature and kingship. Havayah, which is above nature, remains concealed. But “on that day, Hashem will be one and His name one” throughout the world. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, this was only in the place of the Mikdash. In the Beis Hamikdash, they pronounced the name as it was written. They said the name Havayah as it is written, but only in the Beis Hamikdash; outside the Mikdash, it was forbidden to pronounce the name as written. What does that mean? That the name Havayah shone in the Beis Hamikdash. But even in the time of the Beis Hamikdash, the name Havayah was revealed only there, not throughout the world. That is the meaning of “Hashem will be King over the entire earth.” “On that day, Hashem will be one and His name one” means that in the future, when Moshiach comes, there will be “Hashem will be one and His name one”: His name, too, will be one. In other words, both the light and the revelation of the name Havayah will be one, on the same level, in the same

01:47 Speaker 1 way as Havayah itself. “As I am pronounced, so will I be written”: what is above nature will be revealed in the world, here below as well, and not only in the Beis Hamikdash but throughout the entire world. There will be a revelation of the name Havayah, which is above nature.

02:03 Speaker 2 But you made [unclear]. What you did for the Jewish people pertains to the whole world. That is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu did here.

02:10 Speaker 1 But that is what it says. That is what it says. I don’t know exactly how to reconcile all the Midrashim, but it says that the name Havayah will be revealed throughout the world, not only in the place of the Mikdash. That is the meaning of “The glory of Hashem will be revealed, and all flesh will see that the mouth of Hashem has spoken.” It will not be only in one special place, only in the Beis Hamikdash; it will spread throughout the world. What is above nature will be revealed. As for what the Rambam says—that the order of the world will not change—that applies only to the first period. Later on, even according to the Rambam, as he explains, the order of the world will change. All of this results from the revelation of Havayah in the world, when “Hashem will be one and His name one.” We explained that “Hashem will be one” means it will be like Yud-Hei, Yud-Hei. Even within Havayah itself there will be a revelation in the future. We speak of Yud-Hei and Vav-Hei. What are Yud-Hei and Vav-Hei? The vav signifies a drawing down. Yud-Hei is the hidden aspect, as the verse says, “The hidden things belong to Hashem our G-d, and the revealed things belong to us and our children.” Vav-Hei is revealed; Yud-Hei is hidden. Yud-Hei is supernal chochmah. It is above the world. Vav-Hei already descends and is drawn down; the vav shows that it is drawn down below. That is a different form: it is the revealed aspect, the aspect of malchus. We say that in the future it will be Yud-Hei, Yud-Hei: Vav-Hei, too, will be like Yud-Hei. In other words, below, in alma d’isgalya, there will be the same revelation as in alma d’iskasya. It, too, will be on the level of Yud-Hei; Vav-Hei will become Yud-Hei. We say this also in connection with the blowing of the shofar. In fact, blowing the shofar is meant to arouse the coming of Moshiach, as it says, “On that day, a great shofar will be blown,” at the Geulah with Moshiach. And so, with the shofar blowing, in the prayers of

03:52 Speaker 1 Rosh Hashanah, we constantly ask, “Reign over the entire world in Your glory”—that kingship should be drawn down as it will be in the future. There we also say, “From the narrow straits I called to Yud-Hei; Yud-Hei answered me with expansiveness.” Again, we say Yud-Hei twice. With the blowing of the shofar, we ask to bring about that same thing: that the revelation below should be like the revelation above, so that there will be Yud-Hei twice. And that is why he continues: since he is speaking here about the revelation of the future, when kingship will be revealed in the manner of “Hashem will be one and His name one,” he immediately offers a prayer and asks for the Geulah. So, following these verses, he comes to the verse “Save us, save us.” It is a request for the Geulah.

04:32 Speaker 3 The Throne of Glory.

04:33 Speaker 1 Huh?

04:34 Speaker 3 King David is telling you.

04:37 Speaker 1 Yes.

04:38 Speaker 3 In His own glory.

04:39 Speaker 1 We said there are three—seven mentions of kingship here. We didn’t discuss it. The idea is to draw kingship down into the seven: seven [unclear], seven days, seven [unclear], and all of creation. So he says, “Save us, Hashem our G-d, and gather us.”

04:58 Speaker 3 From the plain meaning of the words.

05:01 Speaker 1 Yes, the whole point is that it should be revealed here in the world. “Save us, Hashem our G-d, and gather us from among the nations, to give thanks to Your holy name and glory in Your praise.” This continues the requests. After the message about Moshiach—where he speaks of the revelation of G-dliness that will take place in the future—he immediately asks and prays, saying, “Save us, Hashem our G-d.” May Hakadosh Boruch Hu save us, “and gather us from among the nations, to give thanks to Your holy name and glory in Your praise.” We have already explained this verse as a whole. Although there are small differences, it is essentially the same verse that he cited earlier. Earlier it was from Divrei Hayamim: “And say: Save us.” Here it is a verse from Tehillim 106, the chapter for this year’s fourth year. So, yes, the content is the same: we ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to save us, take us out of exile, and gather the exiles, so that we can give thanks and submit ourselves to the revelation of G-dliness—the revelation of the name Havayah that will take place in the future. As for his words “gather us from among the nations,” according to Chassidus, as we have discussed several times, “the nations” in prayer also refers to distracting thoughts, the animal soul, and the things that pull us away and disturb us during prayer. This is explained in Likkutei Torah on last week’s parsha. Those who learned the... the maamar there that begins “Because you did not serve Hashem your G-d with joy and gladness of heart.” The Rebbe explains that “gather us from among the nations” is a request concerning the animal soul and the accusations that come to disturb us during prayer: we ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to gather us away from all those things, so that we can concentrate on our prayers and have the proper intent. Then he says, “Blessed is Hashem, the G-d of Israel, from one world to the next; and let all the people say, Amen, Hallelujah.”

06:50 Speaker 1 “Blessed is Hashem, the G-d of Israel” refers to Hakadosh Boruch Hu—that Hashem, the G-d of Israel, should be blessed. On the simple level, “blessed” means a blessing, yes. But according to Chassidus, it also means drawing down: we ask that all these things be drawn down openly “from one world to the next.” What does “from one world to the next” mean? As explained in Chassidus, the first “world” is alma d’iskasya, the hidden world, and the next “world” is alma d’isgalya, the revealed world. “From one world to the next” means that, as we said earlier about “Hashem will be one and His name one,” what exists in alma d’iskasya will also exist in alma d’isgalya. That is the meaning of drawing down the G-dliness of “Hashem, the G-d of Israel,” from one world to the next. As it is in the higher worlds, in alma d’iskasya, where G-dliness is revealed and everything is utterly nullified, so it will be drawn down from that world to this world below, to alma d’isgalya. Here in the physical world, too, G-dliness will be revealed as it is above. In other words, that is the request in “from one world to the next.” The Gemara says that when they would pray—in the Gemara in Berachos, yes, they say “Blessed is Hashem,” and at the end of each blessing they would say “Blessed is Hashem” for that. No, that isn’t right. How does the Gemara put it? At first they would say... the heretics said there is only one world. Who knows that Mishnah? The last Mishnah in tractate Berachos: “When the heretics became corrupt and said there is only one world, they instituted that blessings should conclude ‘from one world to the next.’” There was a time when heretics said there was only one world. So they began emphasizing this, saying “from one world to the next” in every blessing. That is its plain meaning.

08:40 Speaker 1 “The heretics corrupted matters and said, ‘There is only one world.’” The plain meaning is that they did not believe in the World to Come; they believed only in this world. They were heretics who claimed that the World to Come did not exist at all. So when the heretical Sadducees and Boethusians appeared, the phrase “from world to world” was added to the prayers to emphasize that we believe in the World to Come as well. But Chassidus offers a very interesting interpretation. What does it mean that “the heretics corrupted matters and said, ‘There is no world, only One’”? There are also more subtle forms of heresy. Some say there is no world—there is only the One. That, too, is heresy. A person thinks there is only the One and no world. In other words, people cut themselves off from the world and say, “Only the One, only Hakadosh Boruch Hu,” and that there is no need to accomplish anything in the world. They should sit in the beis midrash all day and learn, be a kollel student, sit and learn, and forget about the world. That is the meaning of “There is no world, only One”: they forget the world and want only the One. That, too, is a kind of heresy. “From world to world” means that we need to draw G-dliness into the world. That is the purpose. You can put it this way or that way. By the way, this concludes with “Let every soul praise G-d, Hallelujah.” He says that every soul will praise G-d when Moshiach comes. Then we, too, will be able to thank and praise Hakadosh Boruch Hu for the soul. As the Midrash says, “every soul” means every single breath. Now, in every detail and from every angle, a Jew needs to praise Hashem. We will also return to this verse later. We’ll talk about it on other occasions. That’s enough for today.