Episode 274 - Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim and the Wars of Beis Dovid.

00:01 I will now bring a sicha that the Rebbe Rashab delivered to the students of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim on the third anniversary of the yeshiva’s founding in Lubavitch by the Rebbe Rashab. “My father’s second sicha,” relates the Frierdiker Rebbe, “was addressed to the Temimim. Before my dear father, the Rebbe Rashab, began the sicha, he turned to me and said: ‘This Erev Rosh Hashanah marks three years since Erev Rosh Hashanah 5658, when I returned from the Ohel, entrusted you with the leadership of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim, and appointed you its acting director in all its spiritual and material affairs.’” My father continued: “The Jewish people are Hashem’s cherished land. In this cherished land, Hakadosh Boruch Hu implanted the power of growth in hidden treasures of the light of Torah, mitzvos, and the service of the heart. A yeshiva is called Hashem’s vineyard, and in a vineyard grow trees that bear fruit. One of the laws of a vineyard is that one may not benefit from fruit that grows during its first three years after planting. Regardless of its quality, fruit from those first three years is orlah and may not be used. But fruit of the fourth year is called revai. The fruit itself may be used, but it must first be redeemed.” My father continued: “Baruch Hashem, Hashem’s vineyard, Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim, is now three years old. During those three years, good fruit has grown in this vineyard, without the evil eye. But regardless of its quality, it is orlah fruit and may not be used. The fruit is indeed good. They have studied a great deal of Nigleh and studied it well; the Litvish yeshivos would heap astonishing praise on them, calling them prodigies, great Torah scholars, geniuses, and the like. They have studied much Chassidus and understand Chassidus. Some also engage in the service of the heart. The fruit is quite good, but it is orlah fruit. In one, you can smell pride or arrogance, and in all of them, you can smell self-satisfaction. Torah law is that orlah fruit remains forbidden forever. Even after three years have passed, it does not help to

02:59 redeem fruit that was orlah. Pride, arrogance, or self-satisfaction arising from Torah study and engagement in the service of the heart are orlah—the orlah of the heart. They cannot be redeemed. They cannot be made acceptable or purified for any reason whatsoever. Fruit containing orlah of the heart, regardless of its quality, remains forbidden forever. Orlah fruit has no remedy other than to be nullified and removed from the world. How do we nullify and remove arrogance and self-satisfaction from the world? Through Tikkun Chatzos. Our tears wash them away, as our grandfather, the Mitteler Rebbe, explains concerning ‘O wall of the daughter of Zion, let tears run down like a river’ and ‘My tears have been my bread day and night.’ Now,” my father, the Rebbe Rashab, said, “the fourth year has arrived for Hashem’s vineyard, Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim. In the time of the Beis Hamikdash, the fruit of the fourth year was brought up to Jerusalem. But during exile, it is redeemed, and the coin used to redeem the revai fruit must be thrown into the sea or ground up and scattered to the wind. Revai fruit—that is, fruit of the fourth year—may be used under one of two conditions: either bring it up to Jerusalem—Jerusalem signifies complete awe—or redeem the fruit and utterly nullify the coin used for its redemption.” When my father, the Rebbe Rashab, spoke about orlah fruit, several students burst into tears. Large tears of teshuvah streamed from their eyes, making a strong impression on everyone else present. But my father the Rebbe Rashab’s next holy words made a particularly powerful impression. He said: “I have been assured—and you know the difference between being confident and being assured—that the students of Tomchei Temimim, wherever they may be and wherever they spread to the four corners of the earth, will fulfill in practice, with mesirus nefesh, the supreme intent that Hakadosh Boruch Hu desired a dwelling place for Himself in the lower realms.” “Acting director,” my father said to me, “assemble

05:40 the army of Tomchei Temimim. I want to drink l’chaim with them to mark the making of our covenant of service.” When I had assembled the Temimim, with the mashpi’im and supervisors at their head, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, stood and said: “Students of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim studying today in all its divisions, and those who will study in it in the years to come—both those who are here and those who are not here—I make a covenant with you today to join together in service with mesirus nefesh, for Torah, fear of Heaven, and the service of the heart, without concessions and without compromises. Let the law cut through the mountain; let the law of the first tzimtzum cut through the mountain of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the remedy before the affliction. He preceded the blow dealt by the teachers of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment with the remedy: the founding of Yeshivas Tomchei Temimim. I have been assured,” my father the Rebbe said, “that Tomchei Temimim will grow stronger than the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment and the denial of Torah and mitzvos that they spread, and the Temimim will rectify this.” Afterward, my father instructed that everyone be told to prepare to sing—to sing the Alter Rebbe’s niggun of the Four Stanzas. This followed what had been said about a niggun elevating and connecting a person, especially a niggun corresponding to the four letters of Hashem’s Name and to the four individual worlds of Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah, as well as to the four worlds of Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah in general. “Our grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek,” my father, the Rebbe Rashab, said, “said of this niggun: ‘Whoever repeats a teaching in the name of the one who said it should see it as though its author were standing before him.’” My father continued: “My father, the Rebbe Maharash, said that when the Alter Rebbe’s niggun of the Four Stanzas is sung, it is an opportune time for teshuvah, for it is then an auspicious time Above, and chassidim know what an auspicious time means. The point common to both statements is that this is an auspicious time.” My father began to sing the Alter Rebbe’s niggun of the Four Stanzas, and everyone present joined him with fervor and spiritual arousal

08:37 that was free of outward display. Each person was inwardly focused, occupied with his own past, present, and future. The great hall took on the atmosphere of the “Unesaneh Tokef” prayer of Yom Kippur. When they finished singing, my father, the Rebbe Rashab, turned to his students, the Temimim, and said: “Temimim, know this: ‘Anyone who goes out to fight in the wars of the House of David writes a bill of divorce for his wife.’ The House of David refers to the revelation of Moshiach, son of David. As is known from the Baal Shem Tov’s ascent of the soul, he was in Moshiach’s chamber and asked him, ‘When will the Master come?’ Moshiach answered him, ‘When your wellsprings spread outward.’ When the wellsprings of the Baal Shem Tov’s teachings and paths of service spread throughout the world, then I will come. Moshiach’s coming depends to a great extent on ‘your wellsprings spreading outward,’ for spreading the wellsprings will bring Moshiach’s coming. That is the House of David: the revelation of the light of Moshiach, son of David. But the House of David has wars. Although ‘the spirit of G-d hovered over the waters’—this is the spirit of Moshiach, and the intent of creation was that worldly affairs be conducted in the spirit of Moshiach—because of the sin of the Tree of Knowledge and the sins of generations that provoked Hashem, the world needs rectification through our service. Once the work of refinement is complete, ‘your wellsprings will spread outward’ as a preparation for Moshiach’s coming. ‘The world will exist for six thousand years’: two thousand years of chaos, two thousand years of Torah, and two thousand years of the era of Moshiach. The two thousand years of Torah were meant to rectify the two thousand years of chaos—that is, to refine the sparks from the shattering of the vessels of the World of Tohu. After that come the two thousand years of the era of Moshiach, the revelation of Moshiach, and the sixth millennium as a whole is the period of Moshiach’s footsteps. And the jubilee in which Moshiach comes is the time of ‘Your enemies have taunted,’ when ‘they have taunted the footsteps of Your anointed one.’” My father the Rebbe continued: “My heart is heavy because of the Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment, which for many years has been making false accusations

11:26 in the government’s control over the cheders of Israel and their teachers. They want, G-d forbid, to uproot the cheder and the Jewish teacher entirely. They want to defile, rachmana litzlan, the minds of Jewish children with denial of Hashem and His Torah, through their heretical teachers and their band of evil messengers—the teachers of the dangerous cheders. I utterly hate them all, and my heart aches over them. Yet as I see the bitter change for the worse and the troubles they will bring upon the entire Jewish people, I also see what will follow: the sweet end of the fifty-year period of the footsteps of Moshiach, which will bring Moshiach’s arrival. But during that period, we must pass through the war of the House of David. I study the teaching: “If you see generation after generation reviling, anticipate the footsteps of Moshiach.” And why? Because of the verse, “Your enemies have reviled, Hashem; they have reviled the footsteps of Your Moshiach.” What comes next? “Blessed be Hashem forever, amen and amen.” “If you see generation after generation reviling”—the first generation of revilers are the teachers in the schools and dangerous cheders of the Society for the Dissemination of Enlightenment. They will educate the second generation of revilers and blasphemers, the generation that will bring the birth pangs of Moshiach upon the world and upon the Jewish people. This is why we need the war of the House of David, the House of David: to strengthen faith in the complete Geulah through our righteous Moshiach and to ease the birth pangs of Moshiach. There are two levels of evil in the footsteps of Moshiach. The first is “Your enemies, Hashem”—people who are enemies of Hashem. These are the heretics, the radical maskilim, the Society for the Dissemination of Enlightenment, the heretical teachers of the dangerous cheders, and their students. These are the leaders of the second generation of revilers, all of whom are enemies of Hashem, whose entire purpose is to revile Hashem and His Torah. The second level consists of people who have some conception of “the footsteps of Your Moshiach.” Hashem’s enemies believe in nothing. They do not believe in Hashem. They do not believe in Hashem’s Torah. They mock Hashem’s mitzvos

14:03 in general. They mock belief in the coming of Moshiach in particular. At the second level are people who generally do believe in Hashem and His Torah, but their faith lacks the holiness of Torah. Some even believe in bringing about the Geulah through their own power, like the new society that reverses the verse, “Hashem builds Jerusalem; He gathers in the dispersed of Israel,” and says that they will gather in the dispersed of Israel and they will build Jerusalem. If only they do not, G-d forbid, cause a new spiritual and physical destruction, and may Hashem protect us from them and their followers. Within the second level, those who “revile the footsteps of Your Moshiach,” there are many different kinds of people, even Torah scholars. Their faith in the Geulah is simply weak. They also explain it with arguments based on fear of Heaven. But in truth, it is a weakness of faith in the coming of Moshiach. The war of the House of David has a distinctive strategy of its own: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit.” Might and power mean moral instruction and rebuke, but “My spirit” means the secrets and inner dimension of Torah—Chassidus, understanding of G-dliness, and the inner work of the heart. One must study the revealed dimension of Torah in great depth, knowing each sugya in every detail of its reasoning, each point properly understood. Start with the allusion to the halachah in the Written Torah, then see how the halachah appears in the Mishnah in very concise form, and afterward how the matter is explained through the Gemara’s extensive discussion and elucidated in Rashi’s commentary and the approaches of Tosafos. One must examine the precise wording of the Rambam, the Chiddushei HaRashba, and know how the halachah appears in the Tur and the Beis Yosef, and study the precise wording of the Alter Rebbe in the Shulchan Aruch. After all this, one must know that this is only the revealed dimension of Torah. And that revealed dimension has an inner dimension, just as a body has a soul. The inner dimension is what gives life to the revealed dimension. And true understanding of G-dliness comes only through the inner work of the heart. The Temimim, the students of the yeshivah, are the ones who must serve in the war of the House of David. They are the ones who must save the entire Jewish people, during the fifty-year period of the footsteps of Moshiach, from the enemies of Hashem: the Society

16:48 for the Dissemination of Enlightenment, the students of the dangerous cheders, and their students’ students. The Temimim will save them from those who revile Hashem and those who revile the footsteps of Your Moshiach.