Episode 281 - "The Uniqueness of the Sense of Drawing".

00:00 Today we’ll tell a story that highlights the value of visualization—whether it is a picture we can see or an image we form in our minds of a situation we or others experienced. We tell all this in the name of the Rebbe Rashab, who also explained the value of visualization. His son, the Frierdiker Rebbe, relates: When my father would deliver Chassidus and discuss the deepest concepts, such as abstraction—how an idea becomes abstract—he would explain what happens when a chossid understands a concept. After grasping it, he dwells on it and concentrates deeply. He looks at the intellectual idea as it takes shape in his mind, like someone looking at a beautiful picture. My father would often express it this way: When someone toils with body and soul over a passage of Torah or a concept in the inner dimension of Torah, the matter remains a subject of give-and-take until he understands it thoroughly. But once it has settled firmly in his mind, he looks at it as one looks at a picture. The intellectual concept takes shape in his mind like something visible to the eye. We have already spoken, the Frierdiker Rebbe relates, about the great value of visualization. Some people have a feel for it: they can picture something and bring it to life, which is of great benefit in avodah. The Tzemach Tzedek said that someone with a feel for visualization can more easily reach teshuvah, and can experience love and awe in the flesh of the physical heart, as tangibly as physical love and fear. Chassidus offers guidance on many matters: on thinking and feeling, on people’s natural traits, and on the habits a person develops. For all of these, there is guidance and a method for broadening the mind, refining one’s character traits, and changing one’s nature and habits. And one of the things that our fellow chassidim and the students of Tomchei Temimim, may they live, should accustom themselves to

03:02 is visualization. Everyone who studied at the Tomchei Temimim yeshivah in Lubavitch surely remembers a farbrengen on Simchas Torah or 19 Kislev. Everyone who was in Lubavitch, heard a maamar, had yechidus, and visited the holy resting places of our holy Rebbes should use his memory to picture in his mind the holy scenes he saw and experienced there. The power of thought has no barriers or limitations of place or time. The oldest events we witnessed in childhood, or in the carefree years of our lives, are stored in our memory just as they were. When we focus deeply, we relive their enchantment and the feelings we had then. The Frierdiker Rebbe continues: When I was five or six years old, in the winter of 5646, 1886, I was with my parents in Yalta, in Crimea. During our walks among the mountains, I would play near my father. He often asked what I remembered from my early childhood, and I told him about various things I recalled. My father would explain what I had seen at the time. In this way, things I had seen as a small child became engraved in my young mind, and this benefited me greatly later in life. Thanks to my father’s good practice of encouraging me to recall everything I had ever seen, the holy face of my grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, whom I had seen when I was two years and three months old, was clearly engraved in my memory. In 5640, the first year my father spent almost the entire year at home, he would often have me tell him what I remembered seeing in the first years of my life. This developed in me the ability to retain a deep impression of various events, especially chassidic farbrengens, and I came to love dwelling from time to time on memories of earlier days. Even now, after all that we have been through, thank Hashem, during twenty years of exile and wandering from place to place, the memories of farbrengens and holy sichos

05:39 at different times and in different places are like living, cool waters that refresh us. The good that visualization brings is tangible; everyone can know and feel it in actual life. When someone truly concentrates on the scene of a 19 Kislev or Simchas Torah farbrengen in Lubavitch in years gone by, and calls on his memory to recall every detail he saw—the holy face of the Rebbe, the devotion of the mashpi’im and supervisors, the self-effacement and uplifted spirits of those gathered, the heartfelt niggunim, the holy sichos, the faces of his friends—then, without a doubt, at that moment he is immersed in the true goodness of those days and filled with their light and goodness. How good it was within the walls of the Tomchei Temimim study hall! How pleasant it was to see the Rebbe’s holy face with a sweet smile on his lips—a sight that soothed every aching heart and softened every heart of stone. How delightful and sweet it was to listen to the holy sichos. Chassidim and students of Tomchei Temimim who were in Lubavitch for a farbrengen or yechidus carry boundless treasures within them. Every farbrengen, every yechidus, is a treasure of every kind of material and spiritual good. Anyone with feeling and sensitivity who pictures the scene of his yechidus, goes over in his mind exactly what he said and asked, and recalls the answer and the words of the blessing he received, is awakened by that scene from a slumber of foolishness and filled with renewed vitality. There are no words to express how much comfort and hope such a memory brings. It eases material life, brings light into ordinary days, and gives a person courage for the living avodah that lies ahead. At the Tomchei Temimim yeshivah in Lubavitch, one of the mashpi’im was the chossid Rabbi Michoel. The older students of Tomchei Temimim, may they live, remember who Rabbi Michoel was. When Rabbi Michoel was a young married man, one of his children became gravely ill, may we be spared. The doctors despaired of saving the child’s life and said there was nothing they could do.

08:10 Rabbi Michoel went to a group of chassidim and told them of his bitter situation. They encouraged him not to lose heart. Hashem would surely have mercy, but he must go to Lubavitch immediately, to the Rebbe. Rabbi Michoel burst into bitter tears. He very much wanted to go to the Rebbe, but the doctors said it was a matter of hours, may Hashem have mercy. What would be the point of going? One of the elder chassidim reproached him sharply and said, “The Gemara says, ‘A person should not withhold himself from seeking mercy.’ Surely the advocates on high will prevail upon Hashem to hold off the decision until you reach the Rebbe.” One of the younger chassidim, a craftsman and tailor who was Rabbi Michoel’s friend, joined him on his journey to Lubavitch. Along the way, they were offered inexpensive rides several times, so they did not have to walk the whole distance. When they arrived in Lubavitch, Rabbi Michoel was able to have yechidus immediately. “When I entered the Rebbe’s room,” Rabbi Michoel related, “and handed over the pidyon nefesh for the child, a thought passed through my mind: Who knows what has happened to the child? The doctors said it was a matter of hours.” He burst into bitter tears. “The Tzemach Tzedek read the note and said to me, ‘Don’t cry. Think good, and it will be good. Don’t cry out. You will yet attend your grandchildren’s bar mitzvahs.’” “Whenever times were hard,” said Rabbi Michoel—and the Frierdiker Rebbe adds in parentheses that his household suffered from the hardships of raising children—“whenever times were hard, I would picture the Rebbe’s holy face and the words of the yechidus, and my heart would feel better.” This is visualization, in material things and especially in spiritual things: all good memories become pillars... a pillar of light and a pillar of fire, illuminating the mind and warming the heart. In every generation, chassidic farbrengens were one of the pillars of chassidic education and guidance. The faculty of visualization is among the important faculties and sensitivities of the soul. It leads to great things, both in understanding and in avodah. And our Rebbes, our holy Rebbes,

10:25 greatly valued those who had a feel for visualization. The Tzemach Tzedek told a long story about the holy Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev, which shows how highly they regarded someone gifted with this faculty.