Dear Alumni Sheyichyu!
Sholom U’Brocho!
Heartfelt wishes to haTomim Sholom Dov Ber ben Miriam for a complete and immediate refuah shleima. May this time of Shabbos Slichos, when we reconnect to the Eibishter beyond any past difficulties, be the power and strength to remove all traces of any gashmyus’dige difficulties as well, and give every koach to dance joyously to selichos on 2 healthy feet!
Mazel tov to Rabbi and Mrs. Eliyahu Morrison on the birth of their son. May they bring him up lTOveCHuMAA”T mitoch harchovo, and to be a true chayol! (If anyone is aware of any mazeltov’s that I omitted please let me know).
Thank you as always for the feedback, it is much appreciated.
A Jew once came to the Tzaddik, R’ Yisroel of Ruzhin.
“What do you need?” the tzaddik asked him, “are you having difficulties with parnosoh, do you have health problems?” The Jew clarified: “Boruch Hashem, I have all that I need. My family is well, and I am very well to do”.
“Why, then, did you come to me?” asked the holy Ruzhyner.
“I came because I want to become a chosid!”, was the singular response. To the tzaddik’s request for clarification, the Jew shared his story:
“I am a businessman, I run a successful business and do very well. For some time, I needed to hire a helper, to ease the burden on me. I found a fellow, who seemed very honest and efficient, and made a very favorable impression on me (since we don’t know his name, we’ll call him Yankel).
“Yankel worked for me and was very successful, and I began trusting him with more and more aspects of the business. It came to the point that I was trusting him with every aspect of the running of the business, except the yearly buying trip to Leipzig, which entailed entrusting the buyer with a very large sum of money. Finally, I felt I was ready to trust him with that as well. Friends and acquaintances questioned the wisdom of this move, - did I really know him well enough for such a level of trust? But I felt confident.
“He went off on the trip, carrying a very large amount of funds that I had placed in his care...and he didn’t return! All my efforts to uncover his whereabouts revealed only the fact that he had mentioned an intent to visit some relatives nearby, but nothing further was heard. Of course, my friends saw this as confirmation of the foolishness of my decision, but I still had the feeling that my trust in him was not misplaced. But the mystery of his disappearance remained unsolved.
“It was some time later that Yankel himself appeared to me in a dream, and clarified everything: ‘I indeed went to visit some relatives nearby’, he told me, ‘when I suddenly became seriously ill. When I realized that my end was near, I immediately approached the local Rov, and handed him the money. I explained to him that I was holding the money in trust, and was very concerned not to arrive in the World To Come with this debt on my conscience. I begged to the Rov to locate you and return the money to you, so that I could have a clean slate’.
‘The Rov did make efforts to track you down but was unsuccessful, and the money stayed with him. As a result, unfortunately, I was sent to gehinom! One day there was a big commotion in gehinom, and many souls were removed, myself amongst them. I asked what was going on, and it was explained to me that that was the day of Yud Tes Kislev, and there was a great farbrengen taking place in Gan Eden, and the holy Magid was schlepping anyone who was connected to him out of gehinom, and bringing them to participate’.
‘I asked, what has this to do with me, since I never had any connection with the Magid in my lifetime? And it was explained to me that I was born as a result of a brocho that my mother had received from the Magid, and therefore I am connected with him, and was pulled out of gehinom along with the other neshomos’.
‘However, when I reached the gate to Gan Eden, I was denied entry, on account of my unpaid debt. I was given permission to approach you about this; - I am therefore begging you to settle the matter, so that I will no longer be in limbo’.
“I promised Yankel that I would attend to the matter. I was also extremely impressed by this tzaddik who was pulling all of his chassidim out of gehinom. I asked Yankel which tzaddik currently alive is similar to the Magid.
“He told me: ‘Here, in the “upper worlds”, they hold R’ Yisroel of Ruzhin in very high esteem’.
“I woke up in the morning, and immediately travelled to the Rov, who confirmed the story and gave me the money (so the debt should be taken care of), and from there I headed straight here to become your chosid!”
There are many of us who have an urgent need to be schlepped out of gehinom. And that applies in different ways to different people. Some people are, lo aleinu, enduring physical gehinom, in one of the areas of בני חיי ומזוני, - whether suffering health problems that fill their life with suffering or misery r”l, or parnosoh challenges etc. [and they should all be schlepped out of their respective gehinom’s teikef umiyad mamosh!].
[And some are enduring the gehinom of having the need to engage in fundraising in order to keep their lives or their mosdos afloat, which (for some) is a true gehinom, a real hell on earth].
But there is, I think, a more general gehinom, out of which we all need to be extricated. Let us try to analyze this a little better:
What is gehinom?
I think we can clarify that definition by knowing what Gan Eden is. And, I think we know very well what Gan Eden is, we learn about it frequently. Gan Eden is a place where there is giluy Elokus, where neshomos are נהנין מזיו השכינה, - where the pleasure of the souls there results from their experiencing G-dliness.
What, then, is gehinom? It would follow that gehinom is the lack of the above; - either a deficiency of (giluy) Elokus, or (and) the fact that even whatever G-dly experience is available isn’t enjoyed, there isn’t any נהנין מזיו השכינה.
Let’s try to picture, for example, a shul in gehinom (no doubt gehinom has its’ share of shuls and shtiblach of all sizes and styles (one may be called “Beis Knesses Anshei Gehinom, while another may be known as the Chevreh Leitzim, and so on): Probably, during davening, one person is complaining that the chazzan is going too slow and the davening is taking too long. Someone else doesn’t even know how long davening is taking because he is deeply engrossed in his messages on his phone. By one table they are deciding the best course to take for the governments of the world, and another table is suddenly deserted before the chazzan completed shmoneh esreh (because they’re in a big rush, but, somehow, on the way out, they get caught up in a conversation or an argument and they completely forget about the time).
In short, although davening is their interaction with the Eibishter, with the schechina, they see no joy in that. There is no נהנין מזיו השכונה. Rather, the davening is viewed by them as a bore and a burden, a strain and a pain.
And there’s similar phenomenon taking place in the schools of gehinom. Of course there are Yeshivas there as well (one of them is, undoubtedly, the famous Yeshiva that’s mentioned in Pirkei Avos, - ישיבת בתי כנסיות של עמי הארץ), - we all know the interpretation in Hayom Yom on בשכבך ובקומיך. But the students there are counting the hours until their next meal, or until they can play basketball. There is no enjoyment in the learning, - no nehenin miziv hashechina.
Gehinom is the state in which one’s pleasures and disappointments are determined – not by how connected he is or isn’t with the Eibishter, but – by the material aspects of his life. In fact, I think, it could be a bit more or it could be a bit less but, we all experience some gehinom in our lives.
And we all want – need – to be pulled out of gehinom. To be pulled out of our own gehinom.
This is very much the idea of Shabbos slichos: We all know the story, of the way R’ Shmuel Munkes ridiculed the notion of waking up at midnight to daven for material needs. But, what then are we davening for, what is our ultimate objective?
Our objective is to appreciate Elokus, to be excited about the mah tov chelkeinu uma no’im goiroleinu umah yofeh yerushoseinu. Our goal to have a geshmack in learning Torah, a geshmack in a vort chassidus, a geshmack in davening, - and in anything and everything that connects us with G-dliness.
We are able to feel that, it is natural for our neshomo. It is absent only because of עוונותיכם מבדילים ביניכם לבין אלקיכם, - our not-good conduct sullied our souls and clouded our vision and hindered our ability to appreciate what is truly meaningful to us, it ruined our sensitivity to ruchnyus and eidelkeit (like when you crack your screen on your phone and you no longer see things on it the way they are meant to be seen...).
This is what really concerns us, and this is what we want to take advantage of this tremendous opportunity of Shabbos slichos for; - that the Eibishter should restore our system, remove the blemishes that are distorting our view and our vision, and bring back to us the appreciation of what’s good and holy. We should no longer be pulled down by our negative behavior, but, instead, we should be able to use Torah and mitzvos to soar to the greatest heights, to feel in them such joy and satisfaction that nothing else can be important anymore.
This is what we are crying out to Hashem about by slichos. This is why we cry out: טינופם מחה, נא ויודו פלאך! What we want is to be יודו פלאך, to praise and acknowledge and recognize the wondrous greatness of Hashem, the way He is incomparably higher than all existence (as Chassidus explains the phrase in davening נורא תהילות עושה פלא, that the level of עושה פלא, of מפליא לעשות, is so completely beyond our understanding to the point of it causing us to be afraid to say praises to Him, - there, there can only be הודאה). But because of us having dirtied ourselves, we are desensitized to spirituality, - all that we recognize and appreciate are worldly matters.
But this is the opportunity to reverse this effect, it is when the Eibishter, in His Kindness and Goodness, cleanses the dirtying of our souls, טינופם מחה נא, so that we can appreciate His glory fully, ויודו פלאך.
In short, it is our chance to be schlepped out of our gehinom.
The first point is that we should know what this motzoei Shabbos – this coming week – is all about, know what we are seeking to achieve, and take proper advantage of the opportunity that we are given. But the further good news is that we have, Boruch Hashem, a Rebbe, and – to help out the process further, the Rebbe, too, schleps us out of gehinom (as we saw in the story). In fact, this is the main thing that a Rebbe is all about, and is what everything about the Rebbe really is.
Rabbi (Dr.) Yitzchok Bloch, from London, Ontario, a”h, would occasionally bring groups of students to the Rebbe. The Rebbe would speak to them, and, afterwards, they would have the opportunity to ask the Rebbe questions on anything that interested them. On one of these occasions, one of them asked the Rebbe “Rabbi, what do you do for a living?”
The Rebbe replied: “Where does electricity come from? In the Niagara River, near Niagara Falls, there are very powerful currents. Nearby there are plants that take these forces and energy and transform them into electricity. This is then brought by wires to every city. Then, there are smaller networks of electric cables that bring the electricity to each individual neighborhood, and, finally, to each individual home. This energy is able to provide each home with light and warmth. But even after the electricity is transported into the home, it will not have any effect until someone in the house turns on a switch.
“All this is true in a spiritual sense as well: In heaven there are “plants” that contain huge measures of spiritual energy. This energy is then transported, until, ultimately, it reaches every single Jewish neshomo. It has the power to provide every person with warmth and illumination. However, in order to take advantage of this energy, the person must turn on a switch. I help people turn on their switches, and tap into the energy of their neshomo.
The inyan of the Rebbe is to raise us above our pettiness and materialism. He helps us access the warmth and light that are available to us. He schleps us out of our gehinom.
We may say: ‘What connection do I have with the Rebbe, that I should be able to depend on his extricating me? Am I really a proper chosid of the Rebbe, can I see that I’m really living my life the way he teaches me to? Isn’t it presumptuous to expect that he will pull me out [as the Alter Rebbe once remarked to Chassidim: “You are depending on me (to extricate you from your difficulties in the world to come)? You won’t even know the path to my Gan eden!”].
But, if we are to use the definition of being connected of the above story, then we can be much reassured. In the most literal sense: who, today, cannot claim that connection with the Rebbe? We are all here, in one way or another, as a result of the brochos of the Rebbe, and, in this sense, we are all connected (and are thus on his schlepping list). Whether ourselves, our parents etc. we can all find our very being to be traced – at one time or another to a brocho of the Rebbe.
And, how much more so is this true, if we interpret the idea on a bit of a deeper level: If we truly learn and take proper advantage of the Rebbe’s teachings – the sichos and maamorim and farbrengens etc. – in a way that they change us as they are meant to, - that we actually “join the revolution”, and ensure that our personal avodas Hashem is influenced by what we learn from the Rebbe, then, in a spiritual sense as well we can truly say we are only here as a result of the Rebbe.
However, there is – as the story teaches us – one condition; - you can’t have any existing debt. If we didn’t take care of all past debts, then we may be denied entry to the great farbrengen, where Elokus is bepshitus and olamos are behischadshus.
What is our debt? The Possuk says ימים יוצרו ולו אחד בהם. We were each given tremendous kochos, we were endowed with unimaginable abilities. We all see very clearly that those of us who apply themselves to use out these kochos as they were intended, can boast accomplishments way beyond anyone’s imagination.
But if ch”v, we aren’t utilizing these abilities, then the debt remains unresolved. The kochos were given to us, and they weren’t returned, in the form of an enhanced and improved dira lo yisborach. In that case, our entry to Gan Eden, where all are נהנין מזיו השכינה, may be barred.
The good news is, as the Rebbe said many times, אין ה"הקב בא בטרוניא,'כו ואינו מבקש אלא לפי כוחן. We have the ability, and we have the potential, it is רשאין ויכולין, as Chazal said מכם ובכם הדבר תלוי. We need only to apply ourselves, to take advantage of these special times and tap in to our unique abilities, and the Rebbe will help us be liberated – both individually and collectively – from all of our gehinom’s and replace them with the light and warmth of the geulah ho’amitis vehashleima now!!
L’chaim! May we all do our part to want to get out of gehinom, to appreciate the opportunity of this Shabbos and the coming days and weeks, and may the Eibishter remove all traces of gehinom, of helem vehester, from the entire world, with the immediate revelation of Moshiach Tzidkeinu TUMYM!!!
Rabbi Akiva Wagner
