Ears to Hear 34 | The Three Mochin in Essence - Practical Guidance

00:00 Speaker 1 And Hashem gave you a heart to know, eyes to see, and ears to hear.

00:08 Speaker 2 Ears to Hear. Audio programs for the Temimim from the World Atah organization.

00:14 Speaker 3 And look at this wonder: after the Rebbe delivered that sicha on the evening of 9 Cheshvan 5752, the Rebbe did some kind of heavenly wonder. I have no way to explain it, but I know that studying it became easy and accessible. I teach Imrei Binah to broad audiences. There are recordings; you can listen to them.

00:38 Speaker 2 Yes.

00:39 Speaker 3 And the people there haven’t studied in Lubavitch or at Tomchei Temimim. They’re fairly new to Chabad; some may not even be Chabadniks yet. The first time, they’re stunned. The second time, they begin to follow, little by little. And after three, four, five classes, you see them swimming in it. They sit in the class and debate, really debate: “What does this mean? What did we learn? What is this?” You see that the Rebbe removed the veil, and suddenly there’s a revelation of G-dliness there.

01:13 Speaker 2 Shalom aleichem to all the Temimim in the Tomchei Temimim Lubavitch yeshivos throughout the Holy Land and around the world. We’re now beginning a special program in the Ears to Hear audio series, a program steeped in a spirit of firm hiskashrus to the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach shlita, and to his central concern—the actual coming of Moshiach. In this program, we want to delve into the sicha delivered on 9 Cheshvan 5752, which every tamim studies and works hard to understand: the nature of the three intellectual faculties as they are in themselves. The Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach shlita, gave a clear instruction to study Torah that pertains to the three intellectual faculties as they are in themselves, as preparation for the true and complete Geulah and as a foretaste of it. To that end, we’re pleased to sit down, farbreng, and explore this with Rabbi Noam Harpaz, one of the mashpi’im of Anash in the Holy Land and the Rebbe’s shliach on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. We want to explore and discuss the nature of these three intellectual faculties, so that we can understand the subject and, of course, put it into practice: study this way, delve into it, and fulfill the clear instruction given in the sicha. So, shalom aleichem, Rabbi Harpaz.

02:27 Speaker 3 Shalom aleichem. Long live the King Moshiach.

02:30 Speaker 2 Well, baruch Hashem, we’re sitting in Jerusalem, so the atmosphere here already feels like Geulah. And when our guest is the shliach on the Mount of Olives—“His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives”—you really feel that it’s happening here and now.

02:42 Speaker 3 Especially since olives are connected with chochmah, and the Mount of Olives is east of Jerusalem, which relates to this whole subject of the three intellectual faculties. The Rebbe begins—and to my mind, this is very clearly one of the Rebbe’s wonders. Studying the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings used to be something obscure, something few people dared to touch. Even those who did approached them with a kind of awe and love and kabbolas ol, studying as much as they could. There were a few books people did study: Derech Chaim, [unclear], Shaarei Orah. But when they got to Ner Mitzvah VeTorah Or, Shaar HaEmunah, and Shaar HaYichud, people started to tire. Over my years in Chabad, I did see a few individuals studying them. I had a friend in yeshivah who studied Derech Chaim diligently, back then. So we saw things like that over the years, but they were really quite rare.

03:47 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

03:48 Speaker 3 In the sicha from the evening of 9 Cheshvan 5752, the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, suddenly begins speaking and mentions something that people took to mean a particular maamar in the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings on “Al Tatzar Es Moav.” In fact, the Mitteler Rebbe asks a very interesting question there. Hakadosh Boruch Hu promised Avraham Avinu the lands of ten nations. In practice, that promise was fulfilled only for—

04:22 Speaker 2 Seven nations.

04:22 Speaker 3 Two-thirds. We received the lands of seven nations, while the other three remain a sort of promise for—

04:28 Speaker 2 The future.

04:29 Speaker 3 And the Rebbe connects this with the days of Moshiach. In other words, in the days of Moshiach, as the Rambam rules, “The occupation of the entire world will be solely to know Hashem.” The avodah then will be an avodah of knowledge. “The earth will be filled with the knowledge of Hashem.” And the Jewish people will be great sages, knowing their Creator. All these statements reveal that the avodah in the days of Moshiach won’t be about refining the seven emotions, corresponding to the lands of the seven nations that we received to work with during exile. The avodah in the time of revelation will be an avodah of intellect—not intellect for the sake of the emotions. Because the whole approach of Chabad, the “longer, shorter way,” is about affecting the emotions through the intellect. You see this a great deal in the Rebbe Rashab’s most profound explanations. He reaches some pinnacle in explaining a subject, and then seems to take a step back and say, “All this is understood in terms of avodah within a person’s soul.”

05:28 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

05:29 Speaker 3 As if to say: if you don’t bring this into your avodah, if you don’t “take it to heart,” then something is wrong here. You’re out of line. Who are you? What suddenly gives you the right to walk into the supernal chambers with your muddy shoes and boots? These are holy, lofty matters, and so on and so forth. Where are you, and where is all this? So we see in the Rebbe Rashab’s maamarim that this is essentially what the verse says. Yes, “Know this day,” but there is a purpose: “and take it to heart.” King David had already said to Shlomo, as written in Divrei Hayamim, “And you, Shlomo my son, know the G-d of your father.” But that, too, has a purpose: “and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing soul.” In other words, our right and ability to engage in matters of intellect aren’t because we truly have the permission or the right to engage in them for their own sake, but only insofar as they serve to give rise to the emotions and refine them.

06:35 Speaker 2 So is that how it always was throughout Chabad history?

06:37 Speaker 3 That’s how it always was among the Jewish people, and in Chabad too. Even though Chabad is about intellect—it’s avodah, it’s understanding—that understanding has a purpose. We can’t miss the point that the intellect, in itself, isn’t our natural place.

06:55 Speaker 2 How can we explain that? When the Baal Shem Tov opens the path of Chassidus in general, it flows into many streams of Chagas—chesed, gevurah, and tiferes—pure Chagas, and so on. Then suddenly the Alter Rebbe comes with Chabad, chochmah, binah, and daas, as something new. And we’re still saying that all of this Chabad has a certain limit, that its entire purpose is the emotions?

07:14 Speaker 3 The Alter Rebbe writes on the title page of Tanya—the motto of the book. What’s the goal?

07:21 Speaker 2 “For it is close to you.”

07:22 Speaker 3 “For the matter is very close to you.” Where? “In your mouth”—well, that’s not so hard. Fine. But “in your heart, to do it”—that’s another matter. We’re not talking about wicked people or fools. People can observe mitzvos and speak words of Torah; that’s all well and good. But “in your heart”? And in the end, he even disappoints us a little, because he later says it doesn’t mean “in your heart” as you thought, with a burning enthusiasm for... No, it’s only “in your heart, to do it.” But when he goes on to speak about the “longer, shorter way,” what does that mean? Reaching the goal—the refinement of the emotions—by a long, indirect, winding route: influencing the emotions through the intellect.

08:03 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

08:04 Speaker 3 That’s the “longer, shorter way” of Tanya.

08:06 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

08:07 Speaker 3 Then comes the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach. And I’m not even sure I can tell you that this is what the Mitteler Rebbe himself intended when he delivered his extraordinary explanations. I’m just thinking aloud.

08:19 Speaker 2 What do you mean?

08:21 Speaker 3 I’ll tell you an interesting point. There’s a sicha in which the Rebbe tells us how we can explain undesirable things that happened. The Rebbe says we should thank those misnagdim who bought those pamphlets—the chapters of Tanya that had been released—and printed them in very large quantities and sold them cheaply, but introduced many errors into them.

08:50 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

08:50 Speaker 3 Why thank them? Surely that caused tremendous distress at the time. But in hindsight—as the Alter Rebbe says to learn from Yosef—what does Yosef say? “And now, it was not you who sent me here, but G-d,” and “G-d intended it for good.” So what was the good that came of it? The good was that, thanks to this, we have Tanya printed as a book.

09:14 Speaker 2 Mm-hmm.

09:15 Speaker 3 We see the same thing with the Mitteler Rebbe himself. The beginning of his leadership was accompanied by great difficulties and disputes, by hearts being torn apart, by hatred between brothers, and by many very difficult and unpleasant things. It was hard for chassidim—whether in quotation marks or not, of one kind or another—to accept. It was hard for everyone. One of the great and well-known chassidim of that first generation, who heard the Alter Rebbe but never saw him, was Reb Hillel of Paritch. The Alter Rebbe did not want Reb Hillel to see him. He hid from him, avoided him—there are all sorts of interesting stories about that. In practice, Reb Hillel was deeply attached to the Mitteler Rebbe. And there is no need to praise him. He was Reb Hillel. Who brought this Reb Hillel to Chabad? One of the senior and important chassidim of the Alter Rebbe, Reb Zalman Zezmer—a towering genius, an extraordinary person from every angle. And he was among those who did not follow the Mitteler Rebbe. He did not follow the other group either. He was great enough to decide

10:29 Speaker 2 for himself.

10:30 Speaker 3 No, he did not establish a court, he did not set himself up as some sort of Rebbe [unclear], he did not become a Rebbe. But if he had no Rebbe, then he had no Rebbe. What could he do? He would make do with what he had. But when the Mitteler Rebbe’s leadership took hold, grew stronger and expanded, he decided that he ought to make a visit. He went in to hear the maamar. On Friday afternoon, the Mitteler Rebbe would deliver a maamar, and when Reb Zalman came out, he remarked under his breath, as they say, “You see how it pours out and spreads, at such length.” A maamar that takes four, five or six sections in Likkutei Torah or Torah Or becomes fifty, sixty, seventy or eighty sections in Toras Chaim. Fine. But Reb Zalman Zezmer had a discerning eye. He said, “There is nothing new here. These are the Alter Rebbe’s very words.” That is perhaps the strongest possible defense: nothing was lost here. These really are the Alter Rebbe’s words. He did not need such a lengthy explanation, but we certainly do. In other words, the Mitteler Rebbe’s Chassidus has

12:51 Speaker 4 the breadth of a river.

12:52 Speaker 3 The breadth of a river. It has this remarkable ability to take the deepest ideas, lay them out, explain them and elaborate on them, without taking for granted that we can understand hints.

13:15 Speaker 4 That really is interesting, because suddenly we are getting a little glimpse of this largely hidden body of the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings. But perhaps, before we get to the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings—and the question of what we should study in light of the Rebbe’s instruction in this sicha to study the three intellectual faculties as they are in themselves—let’s take one step back. In our personal service of Hashem, what is the difference between the three intellectual faculties as they are in themselves and the three intellectual faculties as they relate to the emotional attributes? What is the difference in how we approach learning? What is the difference in the material we study, and what difference does it make in practice?

13:55 Speaker 3 Look, if the Rebbe had not said that there is a point in studying the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings, with their breadth like a river, one could have said that there is really no difference in the material being studied—though it is not “material,” it is spiritual. There is no difference in the content. The question is how you approach the learning. Am I studying it in order to fulfill “and you shall take it to heart”? At every stage, do I stop and ask: Wait, where is “and you shall take it to heart” here? How do I bring this into the service of davening? How do I use it to awaken myself, to become moved and stirred? After all, there is such a concept: our learning has to lead somewhere. This stands out in Hayom Yom for 20 Tammuz, which describes three rungs on the ladder of davening. The first stage is called contemplation for the sake of learning. You have studied for however long you study. You have a schedule; you have set times for Torah study. It might be ten minutes for a working person, two hours for a young married man, or however long for a student. You finished studying. What does it mean that you finished? You read all the content? That is a good stage, but it certainly is not yet learning. Learning means really understanding: reading it again, thinking about it again, explaining it one way and another, to yourself and with your study partner. Finished? Not yet. Now you close the book, summarize and review, and contemplate the subject you studied until its central insight becomes clear to you. You are no longer at the stage of the back-and-forth, the proofs, the explanations, the questions from other sources and the answers drawn from elsewhere. Now the question is: What did the Rebbe want to tell me in this maamar? That is called its central point. Contemplation after learning is meant not merely to summarize in the technical sense of making an abridgment, but to truly come away

15:59 Speaker 3 with the point, so that you do not lose sight of the forest for the trees.

16:03 Speaker 4 Yes, to come away with a central point.

16:05 Speaker 3 To come away with—

16:07 Speaker 4 The point to which all the details relate, of course.

16:08 Speaker 3 Of course, because you have already studied those details, you know them, and you have them.

16:13 Speaker 4 And that connects to the three intellectual faculties.

16:15 Speaker 3 Wait. After that comes contemplation before davening. Its purpose is to feel the vitality in the subject one has studied. If the first stage was “and you shall know,” now it is “and you shall take it to heart.” How does this move me? How does it bring me to life?

16:35 Speaker 4 I enter the picture here.

16:37 Speaker 3 I do not know whether “I enter the picture” is quite the way to put it—

16:40 Speaker 4 I was not really in the picture before.

16:41 Speaker 3 What does it do to me? Yes. What does it do to me?

16:43 Speaker 4 Okay.

16:45 Speaker 3 Why is that? Why am I moved? There is such a concept of becoming moved, of having vitality—but what does that mean? How does it bring me to life? To be alive means to give birth to something. As is well known, among the Alter Rebbe’s chassidim there was an expression that “the Rebbe revives the dead.” The Frierdiker Rebbe writes in an essay later published as Kuntres Toras Hachassidus about one of the elder chassidim. He mentions him there by name. This was, I think—I am not sure the Rebbe mentions all these details—at a farbrengen for the bar mitzvah of [unclear]. And he asks: What do chassidim mean when they say the Rebbe revives the dead? After all, the Talmudic expression is “The least among you revives the dead” [?]. It would not be an honor to say that the Rebbe revives the dead. We must say that when they said the Rebbe revives the dead, they did not mean physically reviving the dead. That is old news: “The least among you revives the dead.” What “the Rebbe revives the dead” means is this: the Rebbe gives us intellectual understanding, which by nature is cold and moist, and together with that understanding the Rebbe gives us its remedy alongside it, so that we also come alive. What does it mean to be alive? It means to give birth, from the intellectual faculties, to—

18:04 Speaker 4 The feelings of the emotional attributes.

18:04 Speaker 3 To the emotional attributes. This is what Rachel says to Yaakov: “Give me children, or else I am dead.” And when a chossid of the Alter Rebbe had no children, the Alter Rebbe told him, “Am I not better to you than ten sons?” What does that mean? That is precisely the point: I gave you an understanding of “I,” and that gave you the ability to give birth to feelings, as though you had ten sons. So the Rebbe revives the dead.

18:36 Speaker 4 That is essentially the second stage described in Hayom Yom.

18:38 Speaker 3 Exactly.

18:39 Speaker 4 That is contemplation related mainly to the emotional attributes.

18:40 Speaker 3 Then the third stage is called contemplation during davening. Its purpose is to feel the G-dliness in the subject one has studied. After all, you have been dealing with G-dliness. Davening means that you encounter, that you stand before the Essence. What enables you to stand before Him? The Chassidus you studied, and the fact that you brought yourself to life through that contemplation. Now you can encounter the Essence.

19:09 Speaker 4 What, then, is the difference between this contemplation and the previous kind?

19:13 Speaker 3 Because here it is no longer about you being alive. It is about Whom you encounter. You have brought yourself to life; you do not bring a corpse into a holy place, so you need to be alive. You cannot be brought in while you are dead. When you are alive and have the right feeling, you can enter the inner chamber and stand before—what? That is why we say, “Come, let us bow down before…” [?]

19:38 Speaker 4 So this explains the three intellectual faculties.

19:40 Speaker 3 It explains the intellectual faculties as they serve the emotional attributes. You studied, you internalized it, you became awakened, and now you have it. Now you can daven.

19:51 Speaker 4 Is even that first stage in Hayom Yom—the contemplation for the sake of learning—part of the intellectual faculties serving the emotional attributes?

19:54 Speaker 3 Of course, because you are studying.

19:55 Speaker 4 Contemplation for the sake of learning.

19:56 Speaker 3 You are studying. But why are you studying? Why do you study before davening? As stated in chapter 12 of Tanya, you make use of the opportune time, when there is an expanded state of mind both Above and below. It is an opportune time. Absorb plenty of G-dliness, and then come to davening. Daven like a king.

20:13 Speaker 4 So the three intellectual faculties as they are in themselves are one level higher.

20:15 Speaker 3 That was exactly it. This is what we’re talking about now: the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, is opening a path for us toward the kind of avodah there will be in the days of Moshiach. We will no longer need to contemplate G-dliness to awaken our feelings, for the simple reason that we will see G-dliness tangibly. So our feelings toward Hakadosh Boruch Hu will come from what our physical eyes see.

20:40 Speaker 4 “I will give you a heart of flesh,” and—

20:41 Speaker 3 Then Hakadosh Boruch Hu will set everything right within us: “And I will cause you to walk in My statutes.” In other words, Hakadosh Boruch Hu will do away with our yetzer hara and with what covers the heart—“I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh”—all these things. That means we will no longer need to occupy ourselves

21:01 Speaker 4 with the soul.

21:02 Speaker 3 With all these matters connected to working on our character traits. Kabbolas ol in the straightforward sense certainly won’t be a problem, and our feelings will follow naturally too, because of the tremendous revelation of G-dliness in the future. So if that’s the case, what will the avodah be?

21:17 Speaker 4 What will be left?

21:18 Speaker 3 The avodah will be intellect for its own sake. That means knowing G-dliness for the sake of knowing G-dliness, not for the sake of something else.

21:30 Speaker 4 Again, I’m trying to add something.

21:32 Speaker 3 Do you remember the story of the Temimim who met the Rogatchover? “Where are you going?” “Oh, we’re going to Moscow, to the Rebbe—or to the Rebbe, in Moscow.” He drew a whole list of halachic issues out of that. What practical difference does it make?

21:46 Speaker 4 To Leningrad, or, if you’ve reached Leningrad, to the Rebbe.

21:48 Speaker 3 To Leningrad, to the Rebbe. Yes. Are you—are you going to the Rebbe? If so, you’re engaged in a mitzvah now, and you’re exempt from another mitzvah. You’re exempt from sukkah; you’re exempt from this and that. It makes a practical difference when you fly to the Rebbe on Chol Hamoed Sukkos. What brought me to this was the question: What is the purpose of it? What is the purpose of studying Chassidus in our generation? Not entirely, because we’re not completely there yet, but the Rebbe does want us—just as in material and economic matters, “it will not depend on man or wait for the sons of men,” and just as with the pride of Yaakov, where the Rebbe wants us to take our place in every sense—to do the same in our study of Chassidus. We need to set aside part of our Chassidus study for learning Chassidus as it will be learned in the true and complete Geulah: with the splitting of the river and the revelation and inheritance of those three lands, the Keini, Kenizi and Kadmoni, across the Jordan. They correspond to the three intellectual faculties. It’s a new order of avodah.

22:48 Speaker 4 It’s amazing to think about this new direction, but on the other hand, every Tomim’s heart asks such a simple, obvious question. If I really were already at the level, in the state of Geulah—if I’d crossed that river as far as my seven emotional faculties are concerned, and I were already in the three intellectual faculties—I’d understand the idea. I could study something for the sake of knowing G-dliness, for the sake of understanding G-dliness. But when every part of me is still in galus, and the yetzer hara is still playing on the field of my soul, how can I set aside study that isn’t aimed at influencing my character traits? In a sense, those traits are burning with the desire for the learning to affect me still more—to give me one more thing that will change us, one more thing that will connect me more deeply to the Rebbe, to G-dliness, to Moshiach. How? How do you make that separation?

23:35 Speaker 3 I don’t think it’s a separation. I think it’s a connection.

23:37 Speaker 4 How is it a connection?

23:38 Speaker 3 Because the whole revelation of the teachings of Chassidus in recent generations begins with the Zohar’s prophecy about “the six-hundredth year of Noach’s life,” but continues through the revelation of the holy Baal Shem Tov and all our Rebbeim who came after him, reaching its ultimate peak when the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, opens all these matters for us. They always explained it by comparing it to tasting the Shabbos food on Friday. And it isn’t just the food: we get a haircut, we immerse, we eat, and we get a little sleep and rest—or, in a family with many children, the order is different. And of course there’s studying the Chassidus on the parsha, and there’s reading the parsha twice in Hebrew and once in translation. There’s also coming prepared with a maamar and a few sichos to share with people you meet, gathering people together to learn, and all those things. Why prepare all that on Friday? First, so you enter Shabbos ready. Second, to bring something of Shabbos into the time before it begins—to start receiving Shabbos before it actually arrives, and to come into it better prepared yourself. Receiving the holiness of Shabbos after you’ve immersed in the mikveh isn’t the same as receiving it without doing so—

24:55 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

24:56 Speaker 3 Or, on a different level, after you’ve tasted the Shabbos food; or, on an entirely different level, after you’ve gone over the Chassidus on the parsha. Entering Shabbos that way is a whole different world. You’re already a Shabbos Jew before Shabbos has actually begun.

25:11 Speaker 5 That’s a very interesting way the Rebbe defines it. Before you continue, Rabbi, I recently saw in the Dvar Malchus [unclear] where the Rebbe instructs us to taste the Geulah. There the Rebbe cites what is brought in the Arizal—and notes that it also appears in the Magen Avraham—that it is good to taste every single dish. In an annotated proof that was published this past year, the Rebbe underlines “every.” In other words, it’s good to taste, and then the Rebbe connects that to the Geulah. So what should we taste of the Geulah? The Rebbe is taking everything that will be present in the Geulah and saying we need to taste each one.

25:43 Speaker 3 If we take the halachic aspect, since some ways of adjusting a dish are forbidden on Shabbos, tasting it might have been relevant only to the cook or to some review committee made up of the family: Did it turn out right? Is there enough salt, enough lemon, enough—whatever? But if we’re talking about introducing a kind of Shabbos Trojan horse into our weekday reality, it starts to win us over from within. Like they used to ask: Why do we taste food at a farbrengen? Why do we eat? Because the food is sitting on the table and hearing the words of Torah. It hears the niggunim; they’re absorbed into the food. Then you eat it, and it affects you whether you want it to or not. It doesn’t pass only through the filter of your mind and your ears, where you decide, “That teaching appeals to me; that one doesn’t.” The food absorbs everything, and you eat it, and it works on you from within. It changes you from within. That’s really the idea. The idea is that we need to change, and therefore—

26:48 Speaker 5 And that tasting finds expression today in the three intellectual faculties.

26:50 Speaker 3 It really does. And at the same time, the Rebbe doesn’t send us into battle without equipping us properly. I can tell you a personal story. As far back as I can remember—and this relates to some of what we discussed earlier—whenever I would come to my mashpia in Kfar Chabad—

27:12 Speaker 5 Rabbi—

27:13 Speaker 3 Rabbi Gofin, from whom I was privileged to receive so much, and who invested hundreds of hours in me.

27:17 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

27:20 Speaker 3 So—

27:20 Speaker 5 Are we talking about 5769?

27:22 Speaker 3 I came to Chabad—to Kfar Chabad, and to Chabad altogether—in 5767.

27:28 Speaker 5 Mm-hmm.

27:29 Speaker 3 I was a seventeen-year-old boy. I hadn’t grown up in a religious home. The siyata dishmaya was extraordinary [?]. I came to the Gofin home in Kfar Chabad for Shabbos Parshas Ki Savo.

27:39 Speaker 5 To hear the curses as they’re interpreted in Chabad.

27:43 Speaker 3 Exactly, exactly. When they’re read in Chabad, you don’t hear curses.

27:47 Speaker 5 Yes, yes.

27:48 Speaker 3 So that’s how I arrived in Kfar Chabad, and in a very short time—two and a half weeks—I was already wearing a suit and hat and wool tzitzis.

27:56 Speaker 5 Did you enter yeshivah right away?

27:57 Speaker 3 It was the end of Elul, so I didn’t exactly enter yeshivah. I lived at Zalman’s house. When I first came, I thought I’d spend a week or two learning how to be religious and then go home, but I’m still learning. It takes time. So I would go with him to yeshivah in the morning and come back with him at night. I spent the whole day in yeshivah. Then, for Rosh Hashanah, he traveled to the Rebbe. That was the hardest Tishrei.

28:24 Speaker 5 Oh.

28:25 Speaker 3 And I traveled with his wife and children to her parents in Jerusalem.

28:29 Speaker 5 They really took you on as, uh—

28:30 Speaker 3 They took me on as a project.

28:32 Speaker 5 Wow.

28:33 Speaker 3 And at the beginning of Cheshvan, I entered yeshivah as a regular student. I wasn’t someone who could keep to the yeshivah’s schedule, and they understood that it wasn’t for me at all. But they found me study partners, and little by little I began to fit in. I received guidance, though they still didn’t quite know what to make of me. There weren’t many baalei teshuvah then. May we merit to do teshuvah. Anyway, throughout the years I studied in yeshivah, and then during the three years I was a married student in the kollel in Kfar Chabad, every time I came to my rabbi and said, “I’ve finished this and that; test me, discuss it with me. What should we learn now?” he never agreed to tell me what to learn. “There’s no fixed order. Any sefer you learn is good. Whatever you’re drawn to—look how many sefarim there are here. Learn what you want, but learn.” He also had some very interesting guidance about learning. Maybe we’ll talk about that another time.

29:29 Speaker 5 So he took into account that you might happen upon Ayin Beis, or some other—

29:32 Speaker 3 No problem.

29:33 Speaker 5 What, what—

29:33 Speaker 3 No problem.

29:34 Speaker 5 Whatever comes your way.

29:35 Speaker 3 Yes. And actually, fairly quickly I started learning very, very deep things.

29:43 Speaker 5 Do you see that today as general guidance or as guidance for a particular person—

29:47 Speaker 3 I see it as guidance—

29:48 Speaker 5 For someone who can invest the effort in deep subjects that others can’t—

29:51 Speaker 3 We mentioned the Mitteler Rebbe, and we’re focusing on the Mitteler Rebbe today. His guidance was that when you begin learning Chassidus with someone, you should start with subjects concerning what preceded the tzimtzum. Why? Because the kelipos have no foothold there. It’s like someone training with a weapon in a sterile environment, not facing the enemy. Later, when he’s older, he’ll go and fight the enemy. The same applies to a chossid. At first he learns very, very lofty and sublime subjects, where the kelipos have no foothold at all, and only gradually, in the end, does he learn maamarim about avodah. It’s not what people think: “Learn maamarim about avodah because you don’t understand yet, and you’re not ready for that.” No.

30:28 Speaker 5 In Chabad, the practice is to start learning Dvar Malchus with newcomers.

30:31 Speaker 3 Dvar Malchus and Imrei Binah.

30:33 Speaker 5 Yes. Okay, let’s go back to the previous point.

30:37 Speaker 3 One time it happened—

30:38 Speaker 5 You walked into the great library, just like that.

30:41 Speaker 3 Yes.

30:41 Speaker 5 You entered the rivers. You started swimming in the rivers of [unclear].

30:45 Speaker 3 Not right away, but it was the third sefer I learned. I’ll tell you about it in a moment. By then I was already a young married man. We lived—we were neighbors with Rabbi Zalman Gopin in the same building in the housing development in Kfar Chabad. I met him and told him I’d finished a certain learning project I’d had, and asked him what to learn now. He never wanted to tell me what to learn next, but this time he said, “I think it’s time for you to learn Imrei Binah.” I was maybe in my second year of marriage. I started learning, and it wasn’t easy. It was very, very difficult. Two months later we happened to meet again, and he said, “So, Noam, how’s Imrei Binah going?” I told him, “Terribly.” He said, “What?” I said, “I’ve never encountered anything like this. Sometimes I have to sit for two weeks just to piece together one intelligible sentence.” He said, “Oh, that’s how you learn Imrei Binah. Excellent.” Later I discovered that there were mashpi’im in Lubavitch who instructed some of the older students to learn Imrei Binah, but on condition that they learn it for more than ten hours a day.

31:54 Speaker 5 Only if they learned ten hours a day.

31:56 Speaker 3 That was the commitment. That was the commitment. Otherwise there was nothing—nothing to discuss.

32:00 Speaker 5 Only then could you understand it.

32:01 Speaker 3 Otherwise there’s nothing to discuss. The Rebbe Rashab says of himself that he learned it at age forty, and he says the hair fell out of his head. There were three things that made the hair fall out of his head; one of them was learning Imrei Binah. And see what a wonder: after the Rebbe said that sicha on the evening of 9 Cheshvan 5752, the Rebbe did something—some kind of heavenly feat. I have no way to explain it. I’m not someone who deals with such things, but I know that learning it became easy and accessible. I teach Imrei Binah to large audiences. There are recordings; you can listen to them.

32:40 Speaker 6 Yes.

32:41 Speaker 3 And there are people there who didn’t study in Lubavitch, who weren’t educated as chassidim, who are still new to Chabad, maybe aren’t even Chabadniks yet. The first time they’re stunned; the second time, they slowly start to get it; and after three, four, five classes, you can see them swimming in the material. They sit in class and argue—argue about what it means, what we learned, what it is. You see that the Rebbe removed the veil, and suddenly there’s a revelation of G-dliness there, and it becomes—

33:07 Speaker 6 What you’re saying is tremendous. In other words, by instructing us to learn the teachings of the Mitteler Rebbe, the Rebbe removed the curtain, the dividing screen—

33:15 Speaker 3 I think, “The righteous resemble—”

33:17 Speaker 6 [unclear].

33:17 Speaker 3 “The righteous resemble their Creator.” Just as when Hakadosh Boruch Hu gives us a mitzvah, He gives us the strength to fulfill it, when the Rebbe gives us an instruction, he gives us the strength to carry it out.

33:28 Speaker 6 And until then?

33:30 Speaker 3 Until then, it was only for the most advanced, and was exceedingly rare.

33:34 Speaker 6 The Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings in general. Clearly, today they’re making them accessible.

33:37 Speaker 3 Even among the Rebbeim themselves. There’s a sicha I once saw from the Rebbe shlita in which the Rebbe says that they haven’t yet begun to touch the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings. In other words, the Rebbeim explain things generation after generation—each Rebbe explains what the Rebbeim before him said—but they haven’t yet begun to explain the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings. Although there are interesting passages here and there. There’s a very short passage in a maamar in the Mitteler Rebbe’s Imrei Binah. With the Rebbe Rashab, it became several maamarim—two or three in Ayin Beis, and there’s a little in Ayin Ches—and then the Rebbe packed it all into one short maamar, a very distinctive point. You can see a little of it there. Look, learn the maamar Bereishis 5609. It’s unedited. What does the Rebbe discuss? The Rebbe essentially addresses this point. The Mitteler Rebbe himself asks this in Imrei Binah. We’re always told that Kesser is the intermediary between the light of Ein Sof, the Emanator, and the emanated beings. But according to the rule that an intermediary must contain both things it mediates between, how can that be, given that Kesser is makif by its very nature? What aspect of the emanated beings does it have?

34:52 Speaker 6 It’s makif in—in—

34:52 Speaker 3 It’s makif.

34:53 Speaker 6 In its essence.

34:53 Speaker 3 Yes. And the Mitteler Rebbe says very briefly that this is not actually referring to Kesser itself, but to that level called Chochmah Stima’ah. That is the Chochmah of Arich Anpin, and it—it is the point that serves as the intermediary.

35:09 Speaker 6 So it’s called Kesser in a borrowed sense.

35:11 Speaker 3 Yes, yes. They say “Kesser” because that level is concealed there.

35:15 Speaker 6 It’s not the actual Kesser being discussed.

35:16 Speaker 3 The Rebbe Rashab discusses this at great length in several maamarim scattered across different sefarim. There are about ten sections in Ayin Beis, or a little less, and another two maamarim—one in Ayin Ches—and the Rebbe packages it all into a capsule, like a chart, and you understand the whole thing.

35:35 Speaker 6 Bereishis 101.

35:36 Speaker 3 Bereishis 101. Simply sweeter than honey.

35:39 Speaker 6 In other words, there were instances where they touched on it. We’ve just had an example of the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings being touched on, but it’s just one example, a drop in the ocean, something very specific.

35:48 Speaker 3 Absolutely. And now the Rebbe has come and given us a new task: to learn Torah as it will be learned—as people always said of Chassidus, that it’s a foretaste of Moshiach and a revelation of G-dliness, and so on. I don’t understand: are we learning it just so we can say “Ah!” when... But now the Rebbe has taken us to a new stage. The new stage is to start learning these subjects, and we can already see it in practice. What do we see in practice? When we learn—and again, I learn this with large groups of people who are becoming close to Chabad—they suddenly see it. They know that Chabad talks about Moshiach and so on, and they themselves often tell me, “Look, this is just like it will be in the days of Moshiach.” Suddenly there’s a passage in the introduction to Imrei Binah, chapter 11, if I’m not mistaken, where he discusses at length what will happen—how, in the future, the light of the moon will be like the light of the sun in the first stage, and afterward sevenfold, and then there will be no need for either sun or moon at all, because Hashem will be our light, and there will be light all the time. And he takes us through the whole process: what it was like before creation, when light and darkness were intermingled; what happened afterward at the beginning of creation; what this means for the future; what will happen at the beginning of the Geulah; and what will happen in the second stage. He takes us through every stage. It’s literally learning the Torah of Moshiach. So that’s a striking example, let’s call it, which the Rebbe really puts on the table: it discusses the processes and subjects of the days of Moshiach. But the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings themselves are literally the Torah of Moshiach.

37:29 Speaker 7 Now I’m going to stop you, Rabbi. So this is true both of the Rebbe’s teachings and of the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings. I believe we’re talking about—perhaps we can divide it into categories. Derech Chaim, for example, is a sefer that deals with avodah. Which sefarim are we talking about? We’re trying to map this out so that every Tomim can learn on his own. In a moment we’ll discuss how Temimim can learn it, but let’s spend a moment on the raw material, the Chassidus, if we can call it that. Within the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings, which are the main sefarim and maamarim that deal more with haskalah—the intellectual framework of these matters?

38:02 Speaker 3 The first maamar, and also the most accessible, is on [unclear]. It’s in Maamarei Admur HaEmtza’i, Devarim, volume one. The first maamar, the first hundred pages, on [unclear]—that’s the one. Not very long. Yes, about a hundred, a hundred pages. It’s a little difficult at the beginning, with a bit of Nigleh: several discussions concerning teshuvah and the conditions for Moshiach’s arrival.

38:35 Speaker 7 The response—his response to Rabbi Akiva Eiger—is that there?

38:38 Speaker 3 There’s a great deal of debate about whether it really was addressed to Rabbi Akiva Eiger or to someone else. Rabbi Akiva Eiger wasn’t particularly involved in matters of the inner dimension of Torah. He didn’t deal with these subjects.

38:50 Speaker 7 Rabbi Akiva Eiger’s question was against [unclear][?] regarding the seven lands, and against—

38:54 Speaker 3 So he certainly discusses that there too, and he also speaks a little about the nature of teshuvah, about how teshuvah is defined in the different circumstances. Whether it will happen one way or another, “in its time” or “I will hasten it,” whether it depends on teshuvah or doesn’t depend on teshuvah, and—

39:09 Speaker 7 But in general, there are maamarim here—

39:10 Speaker 3 But this is a maamar that, by its very nature—and that’s also how it seems from Dvar Malchus, I think the editors noted there that this is probably what’s meant. Because although the Rebbe says in the sicha, “maamarim that have recently appeared,” and in 5752 that needs looking into. I don’t remember which maamarim had recently appeared, because [unclear][?] had already been printed as a maamar in a separate booklet in 5737, I think, or perhaps even earlier, in 5736. But perhaps the book Maamarei Admur HaEmtza’i: Devarim came out then. I’m not sure about that. But you can see—again, let’s move on—

39:49 Speaker 7 We’ll talk about that maamar in a moment.

39:51 Speaker 3 Here it sounds like the Rebbe is referring to that maamar.

39:54 Speaker 7 The publishers also point to it there, but not in the directive—in the explanation.

39:59 Speaker 3 The point is that, clearly, once the Rebbe opened up this subject of the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings, they became accessible to the world. And in more and more places there are classes, with increasing vigor. We’ve been studying Ner Mitzvah VeTorah Or, Shaar Haemunah, for about three years now, and we’re nearing the end.

40:21 Speaker 7 Uh-huh.

40:22 Speaker 3 And recently I asked about one of the participants who had stopped coming. They told me, “Yes, they started a class in the same book near his home.” Someone is teaching it, boruch Hashem, and he has a group, and they’re learning. And I sit in Kollel Tzemach Tzedek, where Rabbi Chaim Shalom Deitsch teaches the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings. A little from Biurei HaZohar, a little from Derech Chaim, a little of this and a little of that—something different each time. All sorts of wonderful things. It keeps spreading. You can see that the world is beginning to receive and absorb it.

40:55 Speaker 7 It’s interesting: I once saw in a sicha for Yud Kislev that the Rebbe says how remarkable it is that the Mitteler Rebbe personally involved himself in printing his books and booklets. In other words, the Mitteler Rebbe himself tried, in a sense, to promote this learning. And it turns out that so many years later, the Rebbe Melech HaMoshiach came and, in effect, fulfilled the Mitteler Rebbe’s wish—and even made it a directive, because we are standing on the threshold of the Geulah.

41:18 Speaker 3 Yes. And as I said earlier, when the Rebbe lifted the veil from these teachings—in that passage from Cheshvan 5752—the Rebbe says that because these teachings are so very broad and deep, “the breadth of a river,” and require a certain effort from the learner, and because Hakadosh Boruch Hu acts measure for measure, Hakadosh Boruch Hu will also give the person who learns them expansiveness in the manner of “the breadth of a river.” It begins with expansiveness in one’s character traits and expansiveness in one’s intellect, and, as a matter of course, in one’s character traits too. That’s what we were discussing earlier.

41:58 Speaker 7 But not as a goal.

41:59 Speaker 3 No—that’s why I said “as a matter of course,” not as something you work on directly.

42:02 Speaker 7 That’s a very important distinction.

42:03 Speaker 3 That’s an important lesson.

42:04 Speaker 7 I got confused when I learned this. In other words, “as a matter of course” means it isn’t the goal; it’s—

42:08 Speaker 3 It happens as a matter of course.

42:09 Speaker 7 It happens.

42:10 Speaker 3 It happens as a matter of course, and there’s abundance in material matters too. The expression there is so vivid: “with the slight effort of one finger,” Hakadosh Boruch Hu provides everything the person needs in the greatest abundance. So make an effort for the learning itself to be expansive. If we’re talking about Temimim, then this isn’t a “chocolate milk session”; you really have to invest effort so that more fellows come and can focus. So yes, there should be refreshments on the table. Though for those of us who grew up on Kuntres Eitz HaChaim and on chassidim’s farbrengens, what does food have to do with a farbrengen—or with learning? With a farbrengen, we could barely understand why food had a place. That needed explaining, as we discussed earlier. But in the middle of learning? Heaven forbid! How can you say that? After all, whenever one—

42:58 Speaker 7 The author of the teaching.

42:59 Speaker 3 The author of the teaching is before your eyes, yes. You see him in front of you, and suddenly you take a sip of that drink.

43:06 Speaker 7 But it sounds as though the matter is still debated among the mashpi’im. What do you say? What do you say?

43:09 Speaker 3 Well, I can tell you what the Rebbe Maharash said. A mashpia in one of the towns came to the Rebbe Maharash. The Rebbe asked him, “How is the spreading of Chassidus going in your town?” He said, “Excellent. There’s a weekly class, and dozens of young married men come and sit for an hour or two.” I don’t remember the whole story, all the details, but they learned, and the Rebbe was very pleased. Now, among other things, this mashpia mentioned that they put out a large pot of punch. Punch is something people drink in cold countries: heated wine with various spices, sugar, and other things added. And because it’s kept simmering, they keep adding vodka so the alcohol doesn’t evaporate away. As it evaporates, they top it up, keep fortifying it. It’s very intoxicating, and people in cold countries really like it. It’s very sweet and very strong, and they drink punch while they learn—big cups of it. So the Rebbe said to him, “What does punch have to do with learning?” Well, the mashpia didn’t need to be hit with a stick. He understood quickly. When he got back, he did away with the punch. Some weeks or months later, when he was with the Rebbe again, the Rebbe asked how the learning was going. He said only a few people were still coming to learn. No punch—people don’t come.

44:40 Speaker 8 No punch.

44:41 Speaker 3 Exactly. So the Rebbe told him, “Well, if it’s needed so that there will be learning, you can bring back the punch.”

44:50 Speaker 8 These were chassidim?

44:51 Speaker 3 Certainly.

44:53 Speaker 8 Chassidim, not—

44:53 Speaker 3 Certainly. There wasn’t such a thing as people who were merely becoming involved back then.

44:57 Speaker 8 Yes.

44:57 Speaker 3 It was a community. It was a community—

45:00 Speaker 8 Chassidim.

45:01 Speaker 3 A chassidic community—chassidic householders and young married men sitting with the mashpia for hours and learning. And when there’s punch, they sit and learn. The Rebbe permitted it, perhaps as a concession, but he permitted it. And when the Rebbe speaks here about the material blessings promised to someone who studies these teachings of the Mitteler Rebbe, you see that the Rebbe himself brings this up. Yes, the learning should take place with expansiveness, and through that—not that you should learn expansively, but that the learning itself should take place in an expansive setting. What does that mean? There should be refreshments on the table; it should be done properly. And then it really will bring abundance. I can say personally that in all the places where I teach the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings, we occasionally discuss this and farbreng about it, because the Rebbe also says to hold chassidic farbrengens—

45:49 Speaker 8 About them.

45:50 Speaker 3 There too, there too, in [unclear].

45:51 Speaker 8 Yes, yes.

45:52 Speaker 3 So there the Rebbe also says to farbreng about this and strengthen it. And every so often, when we farbreng about it and reinforce it, people get up and say, “Since I started attending these classes, my cash flow has doubled or tripled.” I’ve heard that from quite a few people.

46:12 Speaker 8 Perhaps this helps explain what’s stated in the maamar [unclear][?], where the Rebbe talks about wealth—

46:17 Speaker 3 Literal gold.

46:18 Speaker 8 In the talk, the Rebbe discusses [unclear][?] and brings this up. So in light of this, it makes a lot of sense.

46:22 Speaker 3 For Jews, material things flow from spiritual things. Clearly.

46:25 Speaker 8 What you’re saying, Rabbi, about this expansiveness in material matters even while learning—it fits very well with the nature of the goal of the learning. If the goal of learning is only the reward, then its character is constriction. But if the goal is knowledge of G-dliness and already being present in the Geulah, then you’re in a different world.

46:44 Speaker 3 The material blessings of Moshiach are not why we await Moshiach, but they are certainly part of the package. They certainly are part of the package, because Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired to have a dwelling place for Himself in the lower realms.

47:05 Speaker 8 So if we now want to bring this whole podcast—this special program, in which we’ve discussed what the three mochin are and where they fit—into sharper focus, and bring it down from the world of mashpi’im and serious chassidim who really can delve deeply and sit for hours learning such maamarim: we’re talking about students, the Temimim. A student in yeshivah. How would you guide a yeshivah student in learning the three mochin within all the study sessions he already has?

47:34 Speaker 3 I want to tell a story. Earlier I told you how I came to Chabad. I was a very young kid. They set me up with study partners. Mendy Brod, may he be remembered for good, learned nigleh with me.

47:46 Speaker 8 No—

47:48 Speaker 3 Rabbi Moishe Weiner, may he be remembered for good, learned a Chassidus maamar with me. I no longer remember which one it was. He’ll forgive me, but he learned with me for only two weeks. Others learned with me for longer.

48:00 Speaker 8 I heard you also learned with Moishe Weber.

48:02 Speaker 3 Moishe Weber is another story.

48:03 Speaker 8 Ah, okay.

48:04 Speaker 3 That wasn’t in yeshiva. I used to travel to him. That’s a whole—

48:06 Speaker 8 That in itself—

48:06 Speaker 3 That will be a podcast of its own. I’m already inviting you—we’ll talk about him. There’s a lot to tell. Moishe Weiner learned with me, and I really enjoyed it. After two weeks he told me, “I’m very sorry. This is my last year here in yeshiva.” He was in shiur gimmel. “I’m learning for semichah now, and I have this and that and the other thing.” He had a whole schedule; besides the yeshiva’s regular study sessions, he had all kinds of other study sessions. “I don’t have time for you,” he told me. “What should I do?” I said, “Who will I learn with?” He said, “Learn on your own.” “How can I learn? Which sefer should I learn?” Like Rabbi Zalman Gopin, he said, “Whatever you want. Take any sefer you want.”

48:46 Speaker 8 Okay.

48:48 Speaker 3 But I said to him, “Fine, but what am I trying to achieve through learning? What should I be aiming for?” After two weeks, I already understood that this was the kind of question to ask. He said, “Oh, now you’re asking a good question. Go bring me volume one of Ayin Beis.” Now, understand: this was Tishrei 5738. Ayin Beis had come out just months earlier.

49:11 Speaker 8 A year earlier.

49:12 Speaker 3 Yes, in the middle of 5737. “Bring me volume one of Ayin Beis.” I brought it to him. It was still the old edition; the revised, expanded edition hadn’t come out yet. He said, “Open it wherever you want and read me two lines. I have to tell you which maamar it’s from, on which Shabbos it was said, which chapter of the maamar it’s in, the chapter’s summary, and its subject.” And that’s how I tested him on the entire sefer, from beginning to end.

49:36 Speaker 8 Wow.

49:37 Speaker 3 He told me, “That’s how you need to learn.”

49:38 Speaker 8 Wow.

49:39 Speaker 3 Now, when had he learned it? Between the scheduled study sessions. He learned semichah during the shiur, he learned nigleh during the shiur, and he learned semichah between the scheduled sessions. Rabbi Assouline from Hadera was his study partner. But when you want to, there’s time.

50:00 Speaker 8 In other words, that’s the secret. The secret is to build a personal learning schedule for yourself.

50:05 Speaker 3 Right. Whenever it isn’t part of the scheduled learning—some yeshivas have—

50:09 Speaker 8 Because if there aren’t scheduled sessions, you make them.

50:10 Speaker 3 In some yeshivas there’s a session for covering Chassidus more broadly, and in the younger yeshivas they tell you what to learn. In the older yeshivas, sometimes you can learn whatever you want.

50:20 Speaker 8 To finish the material.

50:21 Speaker 3 Maybe you need approval from the rosh yeshiva and the mashpia, but yes. So if there’s an opportunity and there are free study sessions you can use, wonderful. And if there are no free sessions, you make time for them.

50:34 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

50:35 Speaker 3 You come a few minutes early, leave a few minutes later, sleep a little less. You find the time to do it. And “the Torah I learned through hardship is what has stayed with me.” That’s what gets engraved in you, and what you remember best afterward—even better than what you learn in a shiur or for a test. Now, what should you learn? That varies a great deal. I’m of the opinion that there’s no such thing as difficult maamarim. There are maamarim that require more thought.

51:07 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

51:09 Speaker 3 And as they say in business today, if the product doesn’t cost money, then you’re the product.

51:16 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

51:17 Speaker 3 It’s the same with learning Chassidus. If it doesn’t demand intellectual effort from you, that means it’s coming to capture your heart.

51:27 Speaker 8 That certainly doesn’t mean it comes from mochin.

51:28 Speaker 3 It’s not mochin. So we need to aim higher, to aim for the deep, intellectual maamarim. They don’t have to be in the teachings of the Mitteler Rebbe. They could be in Derech Mitzvosecha, in Ayin Beis, in the Frierdiker Rebbe’s maamarim of 5703, or in many other maamarim. The Rebbe opened up this subject for us and illuminated it for us: the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings are called Rechovos Hanahar, “the expanses of the river,” and there is special help from Above in them. That applies not only to Rechovos Hanahar in the sense of the river’s breadth as compared with the Alter Rebbe’s spring, but also to the splitting of the river and the passage to the three lands across the Jordan.

52:07 Speaker 8 But within that, Rabbi, you’ve explained to me that as a Tomim I need to find my own time to learn, and I do. The maamarim—primarily the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings, and other places where these ideas are explained—but what about the nature of the learning? Am I looking for broader coverage, or for in-depth study? Say I sit down now to learn “Al Tzar,” or some other maamar I’ve come across. Is the goal to sit, summarize it, understand its progression, and see how one thread runs through all fifty pages of the maamar—how the first ten sections discuss one thing and the next twenty discuss another? Or is it more about absorbing the material? Because either way, the main point here is something more G-dly, and less about how it will ultimately be explained to me and speak to me. That’s my question about the nature of the learning.

52:58 Speaker 3 The answer to the question of how to learn depends very much on the person learning.

53:02 Speaker 8 But isn’t there a person—the Gemara says that—

53:03 Speaker 3 No, no. A person has mochin, and he uses them.

53:06 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

53:07 Speaker 3 So each person needs to see which way of learning gives him the most life, which way lets him connect with it best. One person feels he’s missing out if he can’t summarize, write outlines, work out the progression for himself, and learn with a notebook. For someone else, dealing with the details only distracts him, and he needs to focus on the line he’s learning right now.

53:34 Speaker 8 Mm-hmm.

53:35 Speaker 3 On the paragraph he’s learning right now, the section he’s learning right now. And since the Mitteler Rebbe’s maamarim are very, very, very long, the world won’t come to an end if someone learns them that way. But he does need to learn them properly: it isn’t Tehillim. Don’t gloss over the learning. Try to understand, try to ask questions, consult with friends. If there are unusual abbreviations—and there are many unique abbreviations there that—

54:04 Speaker 8 That don’t appear very much in Chassidus.

54:05 Speaker 3 That don’t appear often in Chassidus, or perhaps don’t appear at all. Then you need to try to understand them from the context, consult with friends, and learn to get other friends involved too. I think that’s very, very important.

54:19 Speaker 8 So each person—and still, whether he connects with one way of learning or another has nothing to do with middos. It’s simply the way his mochin work.

54:25 Speaker 3 It’s his nature, exactly.

54:27 Speaker 8 Each person...

54:27 Speaker 3 Yes, I think that’s the point. Each person needs to see where his own abilities lie and learn accordingly, each according to his abilities. This isn’t about breaking yourself or forcing yourself. You need to learn with help from Above and with joy. It’s the Torah of the days of Moshiach.

54:45 Speaker 8 And what really—this is a question everyone asks: How can I actually develop pleasure in learning? Pleasure. I mean, to learn these three levels of mochin not because it’s an instruction and a directive from the Rebbe, but to feel pleasure in it. Why am I asking? Because most things a person takes pleasure in have to do with middos. Middos are about feeling, and feeling comes from mochin that relate to middos. How can I take mochin themselves and derive pleasure from them when my feelings aren’t involved?

55:18 Speaker 3 Chassidus explains that there are middos within mochin, as in the saying that Rabbi Abbahu’s face lit up when he discovered a new insight. Those are middos within mochin, not middos in themselves. Mochin are so rich, so full, so alive. And that’s what we were talking about earlier when we said the Rebbe brings the dead to life: it means not just that he gives us ideas that are easy to grasp, but that those ideas warm us and fire us up. So when you learn properly, whether faster or slower—again, each person according to his own nature—you can feel that. Now, since we’re talking about what to learn, I think bochurim who haven’t yet learned much Chassidus can begin—and it’s perfectly fine to begin—with the Mitteler Rebbe’s seemingly easier maamarim. There’s a wonderful sefer containing maamarim for Chanukah and Purim, Shaarei Orah. You also gain wonderful explanations there. It’s called the ABCs of Chassidus. So it’s tremendously beneficial for the learner: it enriches him and broadens his horizons, and it will help him everywhere else he learns Chassidus.

56:25 Speaker 8 That’s also three levels of mochin.

56:26 Speaker 3 And that’s already when he’s dealing with matters of mochin. For boys who are a little more advanced, who have learned more and have been attending classes and studying for a few years, I really would suggest starting with “Al Tatzar Es Moav.” After that, there are no limits. One will go and study Shaar Hayichud, another will study Shaarei Orah, another will study Toras Chaim—each according to what suits him.

56:54 Speaker 8 And that itself raises a question. If a boy hears this program and the first thing he does is go to the yeshiva library, look for the highest shelf of the Mitteler Rebbe’s maamarim—the ones nobody has touched—grab a book, and decide that from now on he wants to spend all day and all night on it, I want to pause and put things in order, also in light of the Rebbe’s explanation in the sicha from [unclear] Cheshvan 5752. The intention isn’t to study only the three mochin, since we’re still in a state of galus. So how do we fit the study of Chassidus into our daily lives? What proportion should be devoted to the three mochin, and what proportion to the middos? Are there set proportions, or does it depend on each person?

57:32 Speaker 3 I’ll tell you the truth: that question really points us in the right direction. Imagine a podcast about medicine where someone starts giving advice on how to take medications. You need to go to a doctor. So each person would do well to follow the rule the Rebbe established for us: “Make for yourself a rav.” Consult your mashpia and say, “This has awakened something in me, and the Rebbe says such and such. What does the rav tell me to study? When should I study it? How many hours should I study it?” And come back to be tested on it. Back then, when I “tested” Moshe Weiner, so to speak, I took a relatively easy book. It was the first book I studied in Chassidus, in the winter of 5750, and I spent a period of time on it that wasn’t very long.

58:30 Speaker 8 What does “not very long” mean?

58:31 Speaker 3 Three months.

58:34 Speaker 8 Okay, I’m asking because “a long time” there doesn’t mean two days.

58:37 Speaker 3 No.

58:37 Speaker 8 Three months?

58:38 Speaker 3 Three months.

58:39 Speaker 8 Okay.

58:40 Speaker 3 I sat over it day and night; I really worked at it. I attended classes in Chassidus, though not on that maamar, but this was what I studied.

58:48 Speaker 8 So that’s recommended.

58:49 Speaker 3 And after three months I came to Rabbi Zalman Gopin and said, “Here’s the book. Test me on it.” After that I studied 5703, which was a wild leap upward, because 5703 is a distillation of Ayin Beis.

59:04 Speaker 8 Yes.

59:05 Speaker 3 5703 and 5704 are a distillation of Ayin Beis. After that I really began studying Ayin Beis. All this was while I had already begun studying the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings, but that’s a long story. Yes, I think it’s very, very important to do this, and it really brings us into the approach of Geulah.

59:22 Speaker 8 That was also a very important point: each person should turn to his own mashpia to receive more individual guidance. But, thank G-d, the general points have been made here, and ultimately I think this is the first time they’ve been explained well for the Temimim. Just to finish, Rabbi Harpaz, I can’t let you go without one last question. We see that this change—the instruction to study matters of the three mochin—comes specifically in 5752. In other words, something is happening in the world. The world is ready for Geulah; Melech HaMoshiach is being revealed. Could you say a few words about that point, which prompted the instruction? I mean, if we were so—

1:00:04 Speaker 3 I don’t know whether it prompted the instruction, or whether the instruction was preparation for it.

1:00:07 Speaker 8 Or what, what exactly is the difference between—

1:00:09 Speaker 3 You know, [unclear] chassidim used to farbreng about the fact that after the Rebbe published Ayin Beis, the event of Simchas Torah 5738 took place. I don’t know whether anyone connects what the Rebbe said in Cheshvan 5752 with what happened on Purim, 22 Adar.

1:00:34 Speaker 8 27 Adar.

1:00:35 Speaker 3 27 Adar, sorry. I don’t know whether anyone has made that connection, but clearly, with every ascent there is—I don’t know whether to call it a price that has to be paid—but there is a whole array of things happening here. And there is this concept that Melech HaMoshiach gives of himself for this, to open up things for us that we couldn’t have done before. It’s like all those stories of shluchim who came to the Rebbe in tears, saying they couldn’t manage, and the Rebbe told them, “Ich gei doch mit aich—I’m going with you, after all.” And we have to understand: the Mitteler Rebbe, by the way, for anyone who is frightened and thinks, “If I study this, who will answer my questions? Who knows what will happen?”—because he demanded that the young men engage with these deep matters, he sensed, or perhaps they even came to him and asked, “How are we going to manage this?” So he said, “Wherever I may be, I will come and resolve all your doubts.” That’s recorded in Sefer Hatoldos. In other words, they went from strength to strength; the tzaddikim ascend on high, and the Rebbe is with us. You study the deepest things, and something is difficult for you: the Rebbe takes it upon himself and says, “I will come and resolve all your doubts.” So there is something to this. You know the story of when the Baal Shem Tov once had to come to one of his descendants who was drowning in a river? The Baal Shem Tov had decreed that this river should dry up, and it did. But there was a heavenly judgment, and it was decreed that one day a descendant of the Baal Shem Tov would pass by there and drown. The Baal Shem Tov warned about it in his will. No, he didn’t give an instruction—the Alter Rebbe says he didn’t give an instruction—and his son did pass by there. It was winter; everything was

1:02:31 Speaker 3 covered in snow. He couldn’t see anything, and the moment he passed through, it suddenly became a river, and he began to drown. He prayed and asked Hakadosh Boruch Hu to save him in the merit of the Baal Shem Tov. Then he saw something like the flame of a candle floating on the water. He swam after it and was saved. Afterward, the Baal Shem Tov came to him in a dream and said, “If I had known how difficult it was to descend, I’m not sure I would have come down.” That story had already happened, and yet the Mitteler Rebbe tells us, “Wherever I may be, I will come and resolve your doubts.” In other words, from the outset this was given to us together with, as the expression goes, the document and its remedy side by side.

1:03:10 Speaker 8 We simply need to—

1:03:11 Speaker 3 Not be afraid. Have faith.

1:03:12 Speaker 8 Engage with it. And to finish, another question: Suppose a boy comes and says, “I’m ready to engage with this. I’m now getting into the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings.” But he remembers, and he reads all the Rebbe’s letters to Rabbi Shalom Achi about studying the teachings of the Nasi of the generation. He asks himself: “Can I find the three mochin in the teachings of the Nasi of the generation?”

1:03:30 Speaker 3 First of all, yes. And second, I think that today, since the Rebbe is the one who removed the coverings that had been over the Mitteler Rebbe’s teachings, this is a case of “A task is credited only to the one who completes it.” I’m doing it because the Rebbe instructed us to, and it’s thanks to the Rebbe that I can study these things at all. In previous generations they were truly closed off, and only a select few studied them. So when I study them now through the Rebbe’s strength and at the Rebbe’s instruction, that is called engaging in the Rebbe’s teachings.

1:04:03 Speaker 8 And as a second part of the answer, perhaps in the Rebbe’s own teachings there are indeed maamarim and sichos in which—

1:04:11 Speaker 3 Of course, plainly and simply. Especially since we know that if even the greatest chossid from what’s called the fifth generation were to stand up—I remember that when we were boys in yeshiva, they spoke to us about the concept called atzmus: “Essence is not revealed, essence does not change, essence cannot be divided, and the revelation of essence is possible only through [unclear].” Now let a chossid who memorized those teachings see in Dvar Malchus that the Rebbe says: “Who can tell essence what to do? It is essence; it does what it wants, and everyone can have a connection to the revelation of essence.” So we understand that this is a new generation.

1:04:47 Speaker 8 So when studying the sichos of Dvar Malchus too, one can find in them—

1:04:51 Speaker 3 In the deep matters—

1:04:52 Speaker 8 Those points—

1:04:53 Speaker 3 Sichos, maamarim. Certainly, certainly.

1:04:56 Speaker 8 Well, thank you very much, Rabbi Harpaz. To finish—

1:05:00 Speaker 3 Simply: Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu V’Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach L’olam Va’ed.

1:05:06 Speaker 8 Yechi Melech HaMoshiach. Thank you very much, Rabbi Harpaz.

1:05:10 Speaker 9 Ears to Hear. Audio programs for the Temimim from Ata Haolami. For more programs, dial star six three five eight. Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu V’Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach L’olam Va’ed.