Once at a Succos meal, the Alter Rebbe asked his son the future Mittler Rebbe, “What topic were you contemplating when you davened on Rosh Hashanah this year?”
The Mittler Rebbe answered, “I had in mind, ‘Everything that stands before You bows to You;’ [how Adam Kadmon –the archetype, general inclusive G-dly ‘man’ that includes all spiritual levels of all four worlds bows, indicating it is nullified before Hashem.]
Afterwards, the Mittler Rebbe asked his father, “What did you concentrate on during davening this Rosh Hashanah?”
The Alter Rebbe answered, “I had in mind the shtender”, [the wooden stand that holds the prayer book]. He meant that the existence of physical objects comes directly from Hashem’s Essence [which is beyond even the highest and most rarified spiritual level].
Adam Kadmon [the object of the Mittler Rebbe’s contemplation] includes all 50 thousand 50-year cycles manifest in the chain-like descent of the worlds. Adam Kadmon’s “bowing” to Hashem symbolizes the nullification of all creation, from the highest to the lowest spiritual level.
On that Rosh Hashanah, the Mittler Rebbe had contemplated how the “Supernal Man’s” existence (how all creation, from our physical world up to the highest spiritual levels) is renewed by Hashem. [“Everything that stands before You bows to You.”]
On Rosh Hashanah, we too ask that Hashem accept our nullification before Him, and once more renew creation as its King. But what, our Rebbe asks, does davening with a shtender have to do with Rosh Hashanah?
The Rebbe responds, “One who ‘stands’ means one who has a brain—sechel—and that sechel accepts that it is nullified to a king—a level higher than intellect. Nevertheless, the nullification is in comparison to sechel.
The one who stands is likened to the heel
On this level, the person realizes his insignificance in the presence of the great and glorious, awesome King.
There is yet another, more complete level of nullification, the level even lower than the heel. It is the level of inorganic matter like the shtender which is outside and not incorporated in the one who stands.
This level reflects the essential acceptance of the yoke of Hashem’s Kingship. It cannot be compared to any intellectual realization. This level reflects one’s complete abandonment of self and self-interest. There is no understanding, no emotions, no feeling of self at all, like the dead wood of a shtender.
The shtender is made from organic material which has fallen to a lower inorganic state, the lowest level of creation. Nevertheless, it has a superiority; after all, it helps one learn Torah and daven.
From this, we can realize the level of our generation—the heels of Moshiach. On one hand, it represents the very lowest part of the body. But it has a superiority as seen from the fact that Moshe Rebbenu felt humbled in the face of our generation. The mesiras nefesh that Moshe embodied was (for him) the obvious way to conduct himself. According to his great soul powers, mesiras nefesh was not difficult for him to attain.
Our level, on the other hand, the heels of Moshiach has no innate intellect, -no ability to contemplate. Compared to the great level of Moshe Rebbenu, we are like an inorganic stone. Nevertheless, we serve Hashem with pure faith and actual mesiras nefesh to the point of remaining Jewish even in the face of death and torture [like in Stalinist Russia]. Seeing the unique strength of our generation—the heels of Moshiach—helped make Moshe into the humblest person who ever lived.
[erev rosh hashana 5722]
