Episode 275 - The "Soldier" of Beis Dovid.

00:01 We continue listening to the dramatic sicha in which the Rebbe Rashab speaks to the students of Tomchei Temimim and explains the spiritual battles taking place in the lead-up to the coming of Moshiach. The Rebbe Rashab tells them: “One who goes out to fight in the war of the House of David writes a bill of divorce for his wife. In the physical realm, a soldier must be healthy—not merely free of any defect, but healthy in all 248 limbs and 365 sinews. To be a good soldier, he must be healthy. That is how it works physically, and certainly the same is true spiritually. The soldier needed for the war of the House of David must be healthy. It is not enough that he have no defect in his 248 limbs, corresponding to the 248 positive mitzvos, or in his 365 sinews, corresponding to the 365 prohibitions. He must have strength and be steadfast in his service of Hashem and in his fear of Heaven. Chassidus calls such strength eisan. Eisan means strong and unyielding. Strength has degrees—strong and stronger—but being unyielding has no degrees. It means being so firm that nothing can be firmer. In other words, his fear of Heaven is so unyielding that all the winds in the world cannot move him from his place. He has true mesirus nefesh, and no obstacles, delays or trials will interfere with his service. This soldier is the one who can save—and indeed will save—the Jewish people from the enemies of Hashem and those who taunt the footsteps of Your Moshiach. He will do so by spreading Torah with fear of Heaven and inspiring people to do teshuvah. To be a soldier in the war of the House of David, one must first write a bill of divorce to all bodily concerns and all the habits of an ordinary householder, and devote oneself to the leadership of Tomchei Temimim, which educates and trains soldiers for the war of the House of David. Our Sages say that before the coming of Moshiach there will be the birth pangs of Moshiach. They will be felt both physically and spiritually, and according to our Sages’ reckoning, that time

03:12 will be very frightening.” The Rebbe Rashab continues: “Temimim”—meaning the yeshivah students—“worldly attitudes, even among those who observe Torah and mitzvos, are cold and smack of heresy, for only the thinnest partition separates coldness from heresy. And there are those who have not merited better: intoxicated with pride in their Torah insights, they find a few sayings of our Sages with which they cool themselves and others, reducing Torah to its plain meaning. They say that Torah should be studied through the plain reasoning of the human mind. But it is written, ‘Hashem your G-d is a consuming fire.’ G-dliness is fire. One must study and pray with heartfelt fervor, so that ‘all my bones shall declare’ the words of Hashem in Torah study and prayer. When a chossid studies Torah, it must be engraved in his innermost thoughts that Torah is the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Every day, its words must be as new in your eyes. Just as at the Giving of the Torah the Jews stood in awe and fear, trembling and quaking, so must he stand in awe and fear, trembling and quaking. A chossid has genuine reverence for the Giver of the Torah, blessed be He. When a chossid prays, the words ‘Know before Whom you stand’ are engraved in his innermost thoughts. In certain shuls, ‘Know before Whom you stand’ is written on the prayer lectern—as though the lectern needs to know before Whom it stands. But in Chassidic shuls those words are not written there. They are engraved in the chossid’s mind and heart. Answering amen, answering ‘Amen, yehei shmei rabba,’ saying ‘Boruch Hu uvaruch Shemo’—for a chossid, this is an entire world. A chossid must sense and feel, and indeed he does feel, ‘Kel Melech Ne’eman,’ the words whose initials spell amen. A chossid must sense and feel, and indeed he does feel, the meaning of ‘Boruch Hu uvaruch Shemo’: ‘You alone are Hashem,’ as He is before the tzimtzum. ‘Boruch Hu’ refers to ‘You alone’; ‘uvaruch Shemo’ refers to Hashem’s name before the tzimtzum. And when the chossid contemplates

06:07 this, he comes to the realization that ‘You alone are Hashem.’ All those who have studied and study Chassidus with deep concentration do not do so in the manner of lay chassidim, who drink coffee or chicory on Shabbos morning, glance through Torah Or or Likkutei Torah, and forget the teaching of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai: When a teaching is repeated in this world in the name of a Torah scholar, his lips move in the grave. They also forget the well-known teaching, ‘Whoever says something in the name of the one who said it should see it as though the person who taught it were standing before him.’ When one studies Torah Or or Likkutei Torah, the lips of the Alter Rebbe, the Mitteler Rebbe and our grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, move in the grave. As one studies Torah Or or Likkutei Torah, those who taught these teachings—the Alter Rebbe, the Mitteler Rebbe and our grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek—stand beside him. Would even the lowliest of chassidim be so coarse as to sit drinking coffee while the holy souls of the holy Rebbes stand beside him? Yet the lay chassidim are not to blame. The cold atmosphere around them, a world of mitzvos performed by rote, has a harmful effect on them. Everything grows cold for them. They study coldly, pray coldly, sing coldly, dance coldly. It is a sea of ice; everything is frozen. Even their Chassidic pulse beats feebly, as if half-fainting. Chassidus must be studied with vitality—not with outward commotion or loud voices, but with inner vitality. The essential point of studying Chassidus is that one’s own soul should understand it. He studies Chassidus for his own sake, not for the sake of Chassidus. There are fools who study Chassidus for the sake of Chassidus. They consider themselves knowledgeable. They have learned a few dozen maamarim and chatter about fields, forests and cities. With wild notions of their own, they explain Chassidic concepts. Their study of Chassidus remains something detached from themselves. They want Chassidus to remain Chassidus, not for themselves to become chassidim. But genuine study of Chassidus, in which learning leads the student to become

08:48 a chossid, is far from them. Those with this mistaken understanding study Chassidus only to grasp concepts of G-dliness intellectually, not in order to serve Hashem. They remain ignorant in their study and knowledge of Chassidus. They also descend to the depths of Gehinnom in this world and the next, and I hate them and pity them. I ask Hakadosh Boruch Hu to stir a spirit from Above so that they will do teshuvah, a teshuvah that rectifies what they have done. A person must study Chassidus for his own sake, so that Chassidus teaches him how to truly fear Heaven, how to serve Hashem with love and fear, and how to conduct himself in all matters with good middos, as the Torah requires. Those who study Chassidus in depth, with deep concentration, know the difference between the first tzimtzum, when the infinite light of Hashem, blessed be He, was, so to speak, withdrawn, and the tzimtzumim of the seder hishtalshelus. The tzimtzumim of the seder hishtalshelus involve a reduction: before the tzimtzum, a great deal of light shines, and through the tzimtzum the light is diminished. But the first tzimtzum is a withdrawal of the light, so that the light after it is an entirely different light. This is the difference between reduction and withdrawal. Reduction means that it is the same light, but less of it in quality and quantity. Withdrawal means that there is an essential difference between the light before the tzimtzum and the light after it. What is the intent of the Emanator, Hakadosh Boruch Hu, in the first tzimtzum? That through their service of Torah and mitzvos, the souls of the Jewish people should draw the infinite light of Hashem, blessed be He—the light that preceded the tzimtzum—into the realm after the tzimtzum. That is the main point of the Rebbe Rashab’s sicha to the students of Tomchei Temimim. Now we will continue describing Chassidic life. Sometimes the wealthy man of the town—the man people call Reb Yaakov the wealthy benefactor, though not to his face—walks into a Chassidic farbrengen. All sorts of chassidim are sitting there, including the chossid Mottel, a pauper who makes his living collecting money. He collects it to provide bread for the poor and clothing

11:44 Clothing the naked, visiting the sick. Mottel turns to the wealthy man and says, “Yankele, come here,” and sits down beside him. Or when the rabbi’s son-in-law—yes, an important person, the young prodigy Eliezer, who comes up with novel Torah insights—enters a chassidic beis midrash and encounters a group of chassidim. Their spokesman is Shloime, the chassidic teacher Shloime der Geler, meaning “the redhead.” He gets up on the platform, and they cheerfully say, “Make room for Leizer, the innovator!” Those words deal a broad blow to the wealthy man’s arrogance, or to the pride the rabbi’s son takes in his Torah knowledge. Okay, so that is where it begins: a blow to pride. But after that general humbling, there must be a more detailed examination, sorting out the good and the bad in wealth. After all, wealth is given to a person from Above so that he can do good things with it: support Torah scholars, help those in need, perform acts of kindness, and give tzedakah generously. He needs to understand the great privilege granted to him from Above: he can accomplish tremendous things in strengthening Torah and good deeds through tzedakah. That is the good side of wealth. At the same time, wealth also has a bad side. This is the idea of “You grew fat, thick, and coarse”—the brazenness of “the rich man answers brazenly.” Wealth blinds him. He does not see his own true nature. He does not see how low and arrogant he has become. On the contrary, in his own eyes, wealth makes him wise and learned. He looks for all sorts of pedigrees for himself and voices opinions about the rabbi, the shochet, and the teacher: How should children be taught in cheder? How should they be taught in yeshivah? That wealthy man forgets that he is, in fact, an ignoramus. His opinion on these matters has no substance. He himself would call a poor ignoramus who interfered in rabbinic affairs and Torah questions a madman. But he completely forgets his own ignorance. In fact, he is the same ignoramus

14:25 as that poor man. Yet he calls the poor man a madman and himself a wise man. Those wealthy people who use their wealth contrary to the true purpose for which Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave it to them need to understand the great responsibility they bear, and that they themselves are making their wealth harmful to them. Those wealthy people who use their wealth for its intended purposes—that is, spreading Torah learning, supporting Torah scholars, and performing acts of kindness—enjoy its fruits in this world, while the principal remains for the World to Come. But those wealthy people who do not use their wealth for its intended purposes, in keeping with the Divine purpose for which it was given to them, not only do they lack those fruits and that principal in the World to Come; they reap the fruits of ruin in the World to Come. The wealthy who use their wealth for Torah and tzedakah, in keeping with the Divine intention, merit reward and bring merit to many others. But the wealthy who do not use their wealth in keeping with the Divine intention sin and lead many others to sin. They give their money to those dangerous cheders where the sanctity of the Torah is desecrated, where the teachers are heretics. The teachers do not wear tzitzis, mock the teachings of our Sages, of blessed memory, turn the holy Chumash into bedtime stories, and turn the holy books of the Prophets into language textbooks. May Hashem protect us. The teachers in those dangerous cheders, the teachers of the Society for the Dissemination of Enlightenment, uproot faith from Jewish children and plant in them hatred for Torah and Judaism. Those pupils of the dangerous cheders in the schools of the Society for the Dissemination of Enlightenment, says the Rebbe Rashab, will become enemies of religion and persecutors of the Jewish people to an even greater extent than the most dangerous pogromists—the pogromists. That is why wealth is one of those things that can, on the one hand, bring prosperity and, on the other, disaster. Hakadosh Boruch Hu created wealth. Wealth presents a great test for a person. When one knows what to do with wealth and uses it to support Torah and for tzedakah in accordance with

17:05 the Torah, fortunate is that person, both in this world and in the World to Come. But when one does not know what to do with wealth and uses it for what the Torah forbids, woe to him. The same applies to the scholar and the genius who develops novel Torah insights. After they have been humbled in a general way, one must examine the good and the bad in scholarship and brilliance, and explain that the essence of knowing Torah is to know that the Torah is the wisdom and will of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and always to remember the Giver of the Torah within the Torah.