Explanations of the Prayer - Boruch Sheamar - Part 2

00:00 Speaker 1 All those years there was no distinction there between... “in the name of all Israel.” “In the name of all Israel.” Look at how this is addressed in the chapter above: the plain meaning of “in the name of all Israel” is that one must connect with all Israel so that there can be a union of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah. There will be a union because this is included in it. In other words, connecting is Malchus. And the connection is through the souls of Israel. Why? Because the souls of Israel come from the sefirah of Malchus, from the level of the Shechinah. And specifically, the union of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah comes about through the fulfillment of mitzvos, when a Jew performs a mitzvah. But the Jew is connected to the sefirah of Malchus; that is the root of a Jew. A Jew comes from the level of the Shechinah, while the mitzvah comes from the Holy One, blessed be He. For Torah and mitzvos come from the level of the Holy One, blessed be He, above the world. When a Jew performs a mitzvah, he brings about a union of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah. But when can that happen? Only when a Jew includes himself with all Israel. Because Malchus is the root of all the souls of Israel, Knesses Yisroel. In other words, Malchus is the root of all Israel, like... like a single point, a single body, a single whole. So a person must include himself with all Israel. If he feels that he is a separate entity and does not connect himself with all Israel, then he cannot bring about that connection. Then the Shechinah is not complete. The Shechinah is not complete. Nor can there be a union of the Holy One, blessed be He, and His Shechinah, because for that union to take place, the Shechinah must be complete. That happens when, in prayer, a person includes himself “in the name of all Israel.” That is why it says, and then adds, “and in the name of all Israel.” This is what we say before prayer: “I hereby...”

02:00 Speaker 1 Because that is the idea of a Jew connecting with all Israel. Through this, the prayer can ascend. And the same applies here. Specifically, we say “For the sake of the union” in the name of all Israel, because one can bring about the union only by connecting with all Israel. One of the commentators also writes that we mention “in the name of all Israel” so that our prayer will be accepted. So a person needs to connect with all Israel. Sometimes a person wants to pray at length, so he does not pray with the minyan; or he is somewhere without a minyan and prays alone. When, before Baruch She’amar, he connects himself with all Israel and includes himself with them, it is considered, in a sense, communal prayer. That is what he says: it is considered like communal prayer, because by including himself with all Israel in his prayer, he intends, in effect, to pray with all the Jewish people. Even though he himself is now without a congregation, because he is praying at a different time or in a different place, his prayer is still considered connected to the prayer of the congregation. After all of this about “For the sake of the union,” we begin the introduction to Pesukei Dezimra. As we explained last time, Pesukei Dezimra begins with Baruch She’amar. Pesukei Dezimra has a blessing at the beginning and a blessing at the end: Baruch She’amar and Yishtabach. So this is where Baruch She’amar begins. Baruch She’amar is known to be a very important prayer. Look, the Shulchan Aruch writes that Baruch She’amar is a very holy prayer. It is a prayer that was revealed to the Men of the Great Assembly, who composed the text of the prayers. It says that a note fell from Heaven. That is what it says in the Alter Rebbe’s Shulchan Aruch. He cites it in someone’s name; I do not know exactly where it comes from.

03:51 Speaker 1 When the Men of the Great Assembly composed Pesukei Dezimra, a note fell from Heaven. In other words, this prayer of Baruch She’amar came down from Heaven, and they placed it here in the prayers. This prayer has eighty-seven words. That is what the Shulchan Aruch says: eighty-seven words. I am not sure whether that refers to the whole of Baruch She’amar or only part of it. I have not counted, so I am not sure whether all of it is here. I... he writes that there are eighty-seven words. Anyone who has time afterward can count whether that refers to the whole of Baruch She’amar or just one part. In any case, he writes that it has eighty-seven words and thirteen instances of “baruch.” “Baruch” appears thirteen times. These are different allusions to great things connected with the spiritual influence drawn down through the prayer. Of course, he does not explain it there; he just cites the verse, “His head is like the finest gold.” There is such a verse, “His head is like the finest gold.” The word paz, “finest gold,” has the numerical value of eighty-seven, connecting it with the eighty-seven words of Baruch She’amar. Now, what is the idea of paz? Paz is a kind of gold: “His head is like the finest gold.” But what does “His head is like the finest gold” have to do with the eighty-seven words and the thirteen instances of “baruch”? According to Chassidus, the basic idea is this: the number thirteen—there are thirteen instances of “baruch,” yes?—is connected with a level above the order of hishtalshelus. Thirteen is the Thirteen Attributes of Mercy. Thirteen is also the thirteen tikkunei dikna, the thirteen attributes of mercy, and similarly, thirteen can refer to the ten sefiros and the three...

05:51 Speaker 1 The first three as well. The Rebbe also discusses the significance of thirteen in Chassidus. It alludes to a level above the order of hishtalshelus. Then there is twelve: in Chassidus, the number of the twelve tribes is associated with the order of hishtalshelus, while thirteen is the one that is above the twelve. In other words, that too is above hishtalshelus. Twelve is the twelve diagonal boundaries, corresponding to the twelve oxen associated with Beriah, Yetzirah and Asiyah. The number twelve—similarly, there are twelve camps of angels—is a number associated with hishtalshelus. Thirteen is the level above it, a level above the order of hishtalshelus. That is why it says that in the future, the Land of Israel will be divided into thirteen portions. At present there are twelve portions. It says that when Moshiach comes, the Land of Israel will be divided with a thirteenth share, the share of Levi; the Levites too will receive a portion in the Land of Israel. So he explains in Likkutei Sichos that thirteen indicates the level above the order of hishtalshelus. But that is also the idea of eighty-seven, or the initials that spell paz. Here, too, the intention is a level above the order of hishtalshelus, referring to the throne. Yes, they speak of the initials paz. It also speaks about a level of hishtalshelus in connection with eighty-seven. It is the numerical value of Elokim plus one, right? Elokim is eighty-six, the numerical value of hateva, “nature.” There is one more, which is above, above the order of hishtalshelus. In other words, that is its significance. According to this explanation, that is the importance of the prayer of Baruch She’amar: it draws down levels above the order of hishtalshelus. There are also maamarim of Chassidus that explain why it was placed specifically before Pesukei Dezimra. What is the connection between this idea and Pesukei Dezimra in particular? It is explained that the thirteen instances of “baruch,” the number thirteen, are connected with something else. The order of prayer has four stages, right? Havayah...

07:43 Speaker 1 Hodu, Pesukei Dezimra, Shema and Shemoneh Esrei. These four levels correspond to the four worlds—Asiyah, Yetzirah, Beriah and Atzilus—and to the four letters of the name Havayah, as it says here. So Hodu corresponds to the final hei, and Pesukei Dezimra corresponds to the vav. That is, the emotional attributes, Yetzirah, the vav of the name Havayah. That is why Pesukei Dezimra, as we explained last week, concerns the ordering of the emotional attributes. Now, what is the numerical value of vav? What is the numerical value of vav? Not the letter vav—the word vav. Vav is spelled vav, alef, vav, which totals thirteen. So it is also connected with the letter vav: vav conveys the idea of drawing down. “Baruch” also conveys that idea; it is an idea of drawing down, blessing and drawing down. So here there are thirteen instances of “baruch,” corresponding to the word vav—the vav of the name Havayah—which has the numerical value of thirteen.

08:48 Speaker 2 Exactly, this [unclear]. This aspect of the name Havayah.

08:52 Speaker 1 You understood why it was Torah, Malchus, and [unclear]. After that comes the matter of Pesukei Dezimra. All right, those are just some points connected with Baruch She’amar. The text says, “Blessed is He Who spoke, and the world came into being.” There are lengthy maamarim of Chassidus explaining Baruch She’amar. In the Siddur im Dach, there is an explanation of Baruch She’amar. There is also a book by the Mitteler Rebbe called Pirush Hamilos, where he explains the whole of Baruch She’amar at great length, in the Mitteler Rebbe’s style—he goes on for quite a few kilometers explaining it. And the Tzemach Tzedek’s notes on the siddur also contain an explanation of Baruch She’amar. That’s it. There are various explanations in Chassidus; in those works, there are explanations of the whole of Baruch She’amar. Baruch She’amar is one of the prayers mentioned many times in Chassidus, particularly in maamarim about serving Hashem through prayer. They mention “Blessed is He Who spoke, and the world came into being” when discussing the meaning of the words of the prayers. In any case, we won’t be able to cover all the explanations, but we can take a few brief points from the explanations in Chassidus. So first it says, “Blessed is He Who spoke, and the world came into being.” That is the first thing. What are we saying? “Blessed”—we’ve already spoken about that word. It has two meanings: blessed as an expression of praise, and blessed as an expression of drawing down. The central insight Chassidus adds about “blessed” is that a blessing always involves drawing something down. In other words, through our prayer, by speaking this praise, we reveal it and draw it down into the world. So what does “blessed” mean here? The first thing is “Who spoke, and the world came into being”—that He

10:41 Speaker 1 spoke, and the world came into being. Chassidus points out that in this prayer, the wording describes something happening of itself. We spoke at the very end of the lesson about two ways in which the world is created. There is creation through investment within the created thing, and there is creation in a way that seems to happen of itself. The distinction is whether creation takes place in a way that the created beings are utterly nullified—the creation associated with memalei kol almin—or through sovev kol almin, in which case they have a sense of their own existence. So here it does not say, “Blessed is He Who speaks and makes a world.” It says, “Blessed is He Who spoke, and the world came into being.” “Came into being” sounds as though, so to speak, it happened of itself. Here, then, it is speaking about the highest level of the world’s creation: how the world comes into being as though of itself, and from that perspective the world is utterly nullified. That is why Chassidus says that the initial letters of Baruch She’amar Vehayah Ha’olam spell beshaveh, “equally,” because from the perspective of this level of creation, the whole world is equal. In other words, everything is utterly nullified. From the perspective of “Who speaks and makes,” which comes later—a lower level that invests itself within creation—there are distinctions and different levels. But from the perspective of “and the world came into being,” where the world came about as though of itself, everything is equal. It is all the same in that respect. And, incidentally, a person should also be this way in serving Hashem: all matters should be equal to him, and whatever Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants should be met with the same resolve, the same vitality, the same commitment. He should not distinguish between higher and lower matters; he should have this equanimity, treating every matter with the same balance.