The Power of Love to Ignite Souls
Teshuvah Through Ahavas Yisrael
The Yismach Moshe brings a mashal:
A boat was traversing the waters, and the people aboard couldn’t find the port. Suddenly, they saw a tiny boat heading toward them, and they were overjoyed, thinking that this person will now guide them to dry land. When they encountered the man in the little boat, he said, “I hate to disappoint you; I, too, am lost. But I have a solution for you. Since you’re many people, build a large, strong boat together, and this way you’ll eventually make it to land. I only ask that—in return for my advice—you will allow me to join you on your boat.”
Said the Yismach Moshe in his humility to his chassidim, “I, too, don’t know the way back.... But if a congregation of Yidden wants to return, to do teshuvah, this has tremendous power, and I only ask that you allow me to join you on your journey of teshuvah.
These holy words of the tzaddik can be understood in many ways, just like words of Torah in which we can continuously find new meaning for as long as we toil in them (Eruvin 54b). One of the ways we can understand the mashal and the nimshal is that doing teshuvah on one’s own is not a simple matter. However, ahavas Yisrael, love of fellow Yidden for one another, has tremendous power to bring people to teshuvah. And when Yidden gather as one, that has the power to take them out of the galus (as the Zohar HaKadosh teaches), for the love between Yidden has the power to bring them to teshuvah.
Piercing the Layers Through Love
Let us broaden this concept, for it is a tremendous yesod in Torah and in avodas Hashem.
Why is it that when we see a person doing something wrong, we want to awaken him and explain where he is going wrong? It is because we want to illuminate his life with the light of Torah. He is missing a crucial bit of knowledge or understanding in Torah, or he is without a critical tool to fight the yetzer hara. We want to enable the missing pasuk to penetrate to his neshamah. For example, we want to awaken him to the importance of kedushah by teaching him the pasuk of אחרי תתורו ולא עיניכם ואחרי לבבכם, etc.
But what happens when there are old aveiros or other problems that are preventing the person from hearing you? They create a blockage in his heart and don’t allow the Torah to penetrate to his mind!
To this end, the Ribbono shel Olam gave us another pathway. Sometimes, the situation calls for a different solution... not to overload the person with words of Torah, not to teach him Chumash and Mishnayos, and not even to tell him inspiring stories of tzaddikim—rather, give him your love, your dedication... your neshamah! Since the Torah is etched into your neshamah, when you give a person your neshamah, the Torah will automatically be transmitted to your fellow Yid without a single word being exchanged!
Neshamos Ignite Each Other
When Yidden come together for the purpose of serving Hashem, but they don’t know how... everyone must say, “I have a neshamah, and you have a neshamah, and this person has a neshamah...wonderful! The Torah is etched into the souls of each of us, but until now we have had difficulty feeling the light of Torah that is alive inside the other person’s soul because there’s a guf that blocks this light. But now that we come together in a desire to serve Hashem, one soul will illuminate the next one, and in this way the barriers fall away, and then everyone will understand what they need to do.” It’s as though they have listened to an hour of mussar.
The neshamah itself wants to do teshuvah... it simply needs to be ignited. And when another neshamah connects to it through love, it becomes ignited through this connection. And this is a tremendous eitzah on how to emerge from the bitter galus. While attaining great levels in Torah is more difficult than in past generations and we don’t have the vessels of yesteryear, a Yiddishe neshamah remains holy and powerful, and this is never changes. And this why tzaddikim spoke so much about ahavas Yisrael—especially during the era before Mashiach—and explained that this is the way out of the bitter galus.
The Most Important Thing Is That Everyone Should Love One Another
A story in this vein is told about the Belzer Rebbe, Rav Yisachar Dov Rokeach, when he escaped to Hungary in 1914 at the beginning of World War I. As he was one of the great sages of his time, a great gathering coalesced around the Rebbe in a town called Ratzfert, and a local rav got up to speak before the assembly. “Klal Yisrael is in a time of pain and suffering, and we must do teshuvah,” he said. “Belzer Rav!” he continued, “if you will awaken everyone to do teshuvah, surely we will merit a complete salvation.”
When he finished his words, Rav Yisachar Dov responded, “If Mashiach will come, everyone will automatically be brought to teshuvah. The most important thing is that everyone should love one another, even the weakest among us, and this is how the yeshuah will come. To the contrary, the love that Yidden will have for one another is the greatest catalyst for teshuvah, and in turn the coming of Mashiach!”
