Episode 284 - The Niggun of Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berditchev.

00:01 We are continuing the story of how the rabbi of Berditchev arrived at the estate of that Jew who had grown distant. They davened Minchah. During Minchah, the rabbi of Berditchev focused on intentions that stirred memories, and the estate manager, that distant Jew, slowly began to remember his Jewishness and other things connected with his family. Now it was time for Maariv. The rabbi of Berditchev began to sing a niggun. This was no ordinary niggun; it was a niggun that told a story—the story of the soul. In this story, the Frierdiker Rebbe describes how the niggun stirred the people, the chassidim and everyone else around them. And here is the story. When the rabbi of Berditchev began to sing, everyone was moved by the sweet, stirring sound, by its sorrow and its pathos, until no one noticed what anyone else was doing. Each person was absorbed in himself, as though at that moment he lived in a world of his own. A higher world. A world of solitude. A world of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, a world of thought. You hear no one and see no one. It is as though you are the only person alive, suspended in the air, worrying and weeping over the life you have lived. With every phrase of the niggun the rabbi of Berditchev sang as he stood before the prayer lectern, even before he began to say Vehu Rachum, they sank deeper into bitterness over the lives they had not lived well. Then came a phrase in the niggun, a still, small sound of broken sobs, groaning and wailing—a deep, quiet sigh from the heart, with profound inner weeping, like someone on the verge of his soul taking leave. That phrase of the niggun clearly expressed that their strength was ebbing away. The soul wept over the body; the body wailed over the soul. Together, both seemed to faint from the depth of their bitterness. Both the body and the soul wanted to remain together. Both wanted to live, but both felt that their moments were numbered. In another moment, and another, they would have to part. A punishment for their

03:02 poor conduct. At that point, the rabbi of Berditchev fell silent. Some of those present fainted; others were simply bewildered. The emotion that enveloped them all is impossible to describe. Suddenly, a mighty sound was heard. The rabbi of Berditchev had begun the second part of the niggun, which opened with the sound of a heralding voice—a high, powerful sound carrying a spark of hope, the enduring strength of the soul’s life, resolve and confidence. The niggun was joyful, sweet and openhearted. It enveloped everyone, refreshing and awakening them all. Each person felt a new vitality and an elevated, inward feeling he had never known. The impression the niggun made on the rabbi of Berditchev’s students cannot be put into words. Some heard and felt only the metaphor. The niggun penetrated to the innermost point of their hearts and lifted them into a world unfamiliar to them, but they had no understanding of the matter itself—much less of the meaning the rabbi of Berditchev was portraying: the soul’s descent into the body, which he depicted through the niggun. Those students who did know and feel that meaning in every phrase relived the entire story of the soul’s descent into the body. For them, the rabbi of Berditchev’s niggun was like a spoken account, as though he were speaking to them and telling them the story. In truth, for someone who understands what he hears, a niggun contains more than an ordinary spoken account. The students heard what the niggun told of the soul’s descent: how it dwells in the loftiest heavenly worlds and descends from world to world until it is clothed in a person’s body. The first part of the niggun expresses the soul’s inner feeling when it first learns that it must descend and be clothed in a body. The soul begins to part from its place in the treasury of souls, from the supernal lights and revelations, from its fellow souls and from the teacher who teaches it. As it parts from all of them and sets out to carry out the mission the Creator, blessed be He, has given it—to give life to a body, a Jewish body—the soul becomes filled

05:36 with bitter despair because it does not know where it is going. For souls in the treasury of souls have no knowledge of what this world is or what a physical body is. The soul has a general awareness that it must descend into this world, be clothed in a physical body and give it life. That knowledge fills it with despair and great dread. In general, before souls descend below to be clothed in bodies, they have no connection at all to matters of this world. Angels are different. Angels know that this world exists. They also know what this world is. The angels know that in this world there is good and evil, a good inclination and an evil inclination. They often receive reports of what happens in this world through the angels created by people’s deeds. But souls have no knowledge at all of what this world is or what a physical body is. There are, however, souls that do know what this world and a physical body are: souls that have already been in this world in a body and returned to the higher world. Those souls do know what this world is, and they know what a physical body is. But the souls in the treasury of souls do not know what this world is, nor do they know anything about the physical body. The Zohar often uses the Aramaic expression: “Woe to those people whose eyes are closed and whose ears are sealed. They see but do not know what they see; they hear but do not know what they hear.” In other words, woe to people whose eyes are closed and whose ears are stopped up. They look and do not know what they are seeing. They hear and do not know what they are hearing. The holy Zohar laments for those who have a mind with which to understand, a heart with which to feel, eyes with which to see and ears with which to hear. That is, they have the capacity for understanding, feeling, sight and hearing, and yet their minds are closed, their eyes are closed, their hearts are sealed, and their

08:04 ears are stopped up as well. King David, peace be upon him, describes idolatry, writing in Tehillim: “Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths but cannot speak; eyes but cannot see; ears but cannot hear; noses but cannot smell; hands, and feet that cannot walk.” Five of these are organs associated with the five senses. The five senses are sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, and their five organs are the eye for sight, the ear for hearing, the mouth for taste, the nose for smell and the hand for touch. King David also mentions the foot, because the foot has a special quality: it supports a person and can carry him where his mind understands and his heart feels he needs to go. But King David says that although an idol has all these organs and senses, nevertheless, “They have mouths but cannot speak; eyes but cannot see,” and so on. All this is to help us understand the rabbi of Berditchev’s niggun. To understand it further, we will tell a story within the story, a story about the Alter Rebbe’s son, the Mitteler Rebbe. From early childhood, the Mitteler Rebbe displayed extraordinary gifts. He was an exceptionally diligent student. When he studied with his first teacher, a melamed dardeki, the teacher would complain that the child did not let him teach the other children: he wanted the teacher to study only with him. That teacher had two classes. One class learned the alef-beis and how to combine letters into words. The second learned the meaning of the words of davening and began Chumash. While the teacher taught one class, the other would review its lessons. The Mitteler Rebbe, son of the Alter Rebbe, was then in the first class. When his class was supposed to review what it had learned, he would listen to what the second class was learning. The teacher was troubled by this, but after he tested the child and found that he knew very well what he had been taught, for his grasp was

10:32 And his memory was extraordinary. When the Mitteler Rebbe came home from cheder, he would repeat by heart what he had heard being taught to the other class. In this way, he became thoroughly familiar with many chapters of Tanach by heart. For one term he studied in cheder with children his own age. After that, he studied with boys much older than himself, because he had advanced so remarkably in his studies. Now, one evening, when the young Mitteler Rebbe returned from cheder, he found several chassidim sitting in the room outside his father’s room, known as Gan Eden Hatachton. This was in the town of Liozna. Among the chassidim he saw there were Reb Shmuel Munkes, Reb Issar Kises[unclear], and Reb Shlomo Rafael of Vilna. They were waiting to be received for yechidus by his father, the Alter Rebbe. Meanwhile, Reb Yosef of Shklov joined them. He had previously been one of the misnagdim but had become a chossid, and was one of Shklov’s wealthiest merchants and a generous donor. They all sat together and held a farbrengen. The Mitteler Rebbe wanted to go in to his father, the Alter Rebbe, but when he saw those chassidim—especially Reb Shmuel Munkes, who liked to joke around—he went over to them. The Mitteler Rebbe was a lively, cheerful child, and he was particularly drawn to Reb Shmuel Munkes. As he approached, he heard Reb Shmuel ask Reb Yosef of Shklov, “Why are you so sad?” Reb Yosef answered, “Things are difficult, and business is poor.” Reb Shlomo Rafael of Vilna, who was also a wealthy man, gave him the same answer. Hearing this, the child turned to Reb Shmuel Munkes in surprise and said, “Why do you ask them such a question? It says explicitly in Tehillim: ‘Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands.’ That is why they are sad: silver and gold, the work of human hands. They are blind and foolish, and they think a person acquires silver and gold

13:12 through his own actions and efforts. That foolishness blinds their minds. They think that the more a person works to expand his trade and runs to Leipzig”—Reb Yosef of Shklov traded with Leipzig and brought merchandise from there—“and to Königsberg”—Reb Shlomo Rafael bought his merchandise, fine beverages, in Königsberg—“the more they run there to bring back merchandise, the more their silver and gold will increase. They deceive themselves, and so they come to the state of ‘They have mouths, but do not speak.’ They have mouths; they speak and repeat teachings of Chassidus, but they ‘do not speak’: they do not bring what they say into control over their own faculties. ‘Speak’ here has the sense of ‘He subdues peoples under us.’ That is why their words have no effect. ‘They have eyes, but do not see.’ They do not see how Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself runs the world. They have ears, but they perceive only the external, and so ‘they do not smell’ either. They have no sense of smell.” Through all this, the young Mitteler Rebbe told Reb Shmuel Munkes, idolatry comes about. That is, they think they are the ones doing things, and not, so to speak, Hakadosh Boruch Hu.