The Previous Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzhak Schneersohn, was miraculously given freedom by the Soviet authorities on 12 Tammuz 1927. Each year on that date (which was also his birthday) he would teach a Chassidic discourse. One such discourse begins with the verse from Psalms: ‘G-d has granted life to our souls, and has not let our feet slip’.
The Previous Rebbe asks in his discourse: what does this verse mean? Surely our soul, by definition, manifests eternal life. What is meant by saying that Hashem grants life to our souls? Also, what exactly is meant by the continuation of the verse ‘He has not let our feet slip’?
The Previous Rebbe continues his discourse by quoting the Italian Bible commentator Obadia Sforno (1475-1550) who states that ‘G-d grants life to our souls’ means that in a remarkable way, beyond Nature, G-d has preserved us among the nations of the world; further, ‘He has not let our feet slip’ means that the nations among whom we dwell have not been able to dislodge us from our dedication to G-d.
The Rebbe comments that there are different ways to understand these ideas. One can approach them as simply speaking about the physical situation in life.
For example, while he was in prison the Previous Rebbe wrote a discourse on the verse ‘From the narrow straits I called to G-d, He answered me from the divinely broad expanse’. This can be understood in terms of the fact that he was physically in captivity, threatened with the death penalty, when he wrote this, praying for freedom, ‘the broad expanse’.
But another way of understanding it is that the ‘narrow straits’ mean the entire realm of the downchaining of worlds, which manifest limitations and borders, and the goal is ‘the divinely broad expanse’, the boundless freedom of the Essence of the Divine. And so long that one has not reached the freedom of the Essence, one feels limited and constrained.
Since the closer one is to the Divine, the more one feels oneself to be infinitesimally small, like nothing, without any merit, and also so too the more one feels the yearning for the Divine Essence.
Applying this broader approach to the comment by Sforno, one can suggest another level of meaning. Sforno states, as we saw earlier, that ‘G-d grants life to our souls’ means that in a remarkable way, beyond Nature, G-d has preserved us among the hostile nations of the world. This can be understood to mean that on the one hand, there is Nature, including the highest manifestations of Nature; but on the other hand there is Beyond Nature, and the verse expresses the Divine promise to us that He will preserve us in a manner beyond Nature, even in its highest manifestation.
This relates to something the Fifth Rebbe, the RaShaB says in a discourse, quoting the Akedat Yitzchak that there are two ways the greatness of the Divine is revealed: through Nature, and through miracles above Nature. Regarding Nature, this is what the Rambam writes: ‘How can a person come to love and be in awe of the Divine? When one contemplates G-d’s wonderful creations..’
This is also expressed in the verses ‘how great are Your works, Hashem’, ‘how varied are Your works, Hashem’. The source of Nature is the immanent radiance which ‘fills the worlds’, which expresses the greatness of Hashem but at the same time is limited because it is enclothed in the finite universe.
But higher than this is the miraculous dimension, relating to the transcendent radiance which is beyond the worlds. And through this aspect one recognises the greatness of Hashem on a higher level. It can even be as in the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov that ‘it is a time of suffering for Jacob, and through that – meaning through the suffering itself – we will be saved’. This means changing the word צרה tzarah, suffering to צהר tzohar, radiance.
The mode of appreciation of the greatness of Hashem through Nature can be seen as the path of the Tzaddik, the righteous person. But the mode of appreciation through miracles is like the path of the Baal Teshuvah, the Repentant person, who can even achieve that his or her deliberate sins are transformed into merits. The Sages tell us that the level of the Repentant is higher than that of the person who has never sinned.
We can now understand the verse ‘G-d has granted life to our souls, and has not let our feet slip’. Although the soul in itself is alive, especially since we are speaking of the Divine Soul, nonetheless its life and its being come from the Nature of the soul, namely that ‘I was created only to serve my Creator’, which is the service of the Tzaddik.
But when Hashem grants life to the soul it means that Hashem helps the soul to go beyond its own nature, reaching the higher service of Repentance. As the Baal Shem Tov says, there is a heavenly voice which sounds every day calling the Jewish people to Teshuvah, which reaches the Essence of the Soul, [the ‘miraculous’ aspect] beyond the level of the soul which is within the body [the ‘natural’ aspect].
And because of this, even living for many centuries among the nations of the world, as Sforno put it, we are able to reach the service of Teshuvah, turning darkness to light, deliberate sins to merits, and our feet do not slip, as Sforno explains, we retain our dedication to the Essence of the Divine.
And this relates too to the arrest and liberation of the Previous Rebbe. He was in a situation of extreme danger, among the Gentiles, and nonetheless in a truly miraculous way, he was liberated on the 12th of Tammuz. And at the same time this did not lead to his foot slipping, [because his great dedication to Hashem led to the fact] that there was no decrease in the spreading of Torah and Mitzvot in the USSR, and in other countries.
When we come to this time of year, annually, these events are remembered and in a sense repeated, giving us the ability to miraculously transform the narrow straits into the Divine breadth, in all aspects of our lives, through Torah study, Mitzvot and giving Tzedaka.
Through this personal redemption, may we come soon to the General Redemption, with the coming of Moshiach, who will redeem us and bring us back to our Land.
