Dear Alumni Sheyichyu!
Sholom U’Brocho!
Mazel Tov to Rabbi and Mrs. Mordechai Tzvi Rapoport (and to grandparents Rabbi and Mrs. Yossi Rapoport and family) on the birth of their son. Mazel Tov to Rabbi and Mrs. Aryeh Leib Laufer on the birth of their daughter. May they bring them up lTOveCHuMAA”T mitoch harchovo, and to be true chayolim/os! (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.
There was a chosid of the Tzemach Tzedek who had a son who (lo aleinu velo aleicham) “slipped”, he befriended some unsavory characters, resulting in him deviating from the path of chassidishkeit and Yiddishkeit, causing much anguish to his father.
[Now, I know many of you are thinking, back then, with no internet, no smart phones, no game boys, in some muddy hamlet like Lubavitch, what opportunity was there already to sin? But that thinking is wrong. The yetzer horo merely changes his garments, his external appearance, but it is the identical yetzer hora that afflicts Yidden in every situation and every generation. There was ample opportunity for that bochur, back then to do what he shouldn’t even without all of the modern technology: He ate what he wasn’t permitted to eat. He looked where it was forbidden to look. He did what was forbidden to do. And he woke up late to chassidus].
The chosid tried to convince his son to accompany him to his Rebbe, to the Tzemach Tzedek, in the hope that the Rebbe would save him, but the son adamantly refused. In desperation, the father went on his own to the Rebbe and cried for help. “Take him to the heilige Ruzhine, R’ Yisroel of Ruzhin” was the advice of the Tzemach Tzedek.
The chosid knew that his son would be unwilling to go to the Ruzhiner either, being uninterested in any Rebbes, so he told him that they needed to travel to the city Ruzhin to inquire after a suggestion for a shidduch that came up (for the bochur) with someone living there.
When they arrived at the city Ruzhin, the father began taking him towards the house of the Ruzhiner. The son was unfamiliar with the area, and, assuming he was being taken to the house of the (would be) mechutan, went along. As soon as they entered the house, the heilige Ruzhiner came towards them, and took hold of the bochur, leading him into a room with a mirror.
As soon as the bochur glanced into the mirror, he fell down in a faint and could not be revived! “Take him home, to your host”, the Ruzhiner instructed, “when he awakens, bring him to me”. For 2 weeks the bochur lay ill in bed. At the end of the two weeks, he was brought to the Ruzhiner, who spent some time with him, and turned him into a complete baal teshuva.
(The elder chosid, R’ Berel Yafee a”h, recorded this story. He writes that the elder chosid who told him this story knew people who still remembered this bochur in his later years. Every day he would go into the woods, remove his clothes, and lay amongst ants for a while, allowing them to bite him).
Sometimes we can find ourselves following the path of the bochur in the story. We become too friendly with our surroundings, too chummy with the world that we inhabit. We forget about our roots, who we are and what we are here for. And - the worst of it is – we are comfortable with the way we are. We don’t have any interest to go to a Rebbe who will convince us to change and help us change, because we don’t see any need to change. Everything is just fine and dandy.
[Chassidus explains what we say in davening: אלוקי עולם ךימחבר הרבים רחם עלינו , - we say to Hashem: ‘We are not capable of feeling how great is the rachmonus on us. To us things seem fine just the way they are. But You Eibishter, You see how painful and pitiful our situation is, so You have mercy on us’].
It is crucial that we do teshuva, that we change our behaviour and improve. But we don’t sense any urgency, we are very cozy as we are. Something drastic needs to happen to draw us out of our complacency.
And that drastic measure, at times, is the mirror: In the mirror, when we glimpse into it, we suddenly see the way we look, where we’re holding and what we’re into (in the words of the famous maamar lefichach: “My whole preoccupation is with how to pursue additional worldly pleasures, and I am just like an animal, with the only difference being that the animal eats hay, and I eat sushi”). Then, through the image we glimpse in the mirror, we are shaken out of our apathy. Perhaps (as in the story with the Baal Shem Tov and his talmidim with the cow wearing a shtreimel) the bochur saw an image of a beast staring back at him from the mirror; - a beast wearing a shirt and pants and designer shoes!
There are times when we need to make a critical assessment of our own situation, one that will lead us to the inevitable conclusion that we can’t go on like this, we must take drastic steps to change. And this assessment, perhaps, is what is represented by the mirror of the Tzaddik of Ruzhin.
Because to get this image, at times, we need to get the mirror of other tzaddikim. Despite the fact that R’ Yisroel of Ruzhin, the heilige Ruzhiner, was a great tzaddik and colleague of the Tzemach Tzedek, still – he was not one of Raboseinu Nesieinu, not one of the Rebbeim of Chabad. And that is sometimes needed to see an image that will be effective.
Chabad Chassidus is pnimiyus. It gets to the core of everything, and reveals the inner essence of everything. Specifically, it is the inner portion of Torah, that reveal the inner G-dliness that is contained in the world and within every Jew. With the looking glass of chassidus Chabad, we see the essential good in every Jew (including ourselves), the chelek Eloka mimaal mamosh, the Jew about whom the Rambam rules that he inherently wants to do everything that Hashem commands, and any indications otherwise are merely superficial. We see a world that is not apart from Hashem because “Ein od milvado”.
That is all the undeniable facts. But sometimes it can be necessary for us to see the other aspect of our existence, to be horrified by what we see, horrified enough to spur us into decisive action. And for that end, perhaps, we need the mirror of the heilige Ruzhiner. To see that the image looking back at me from the mirror is not someone who I want to be, and that there is no choice but to get to work.
The Tzemach Tzedek sent the bochur to Ruzhin. He prescribed him seeing the way he looked in the mirror of the Ruzhiner in order to shake him out of his apathy.
And the first step of the bochur’s teshuva was that he fainted r”l: Fainting r”l occurs when the life of the neshomo departs from the body, leaving the body almost lifeless (this is the reason, chassidus explains, that the remedy for a fainting spell is to call out the name of the individual who fainted; - the name has the ability to draw the life-force of the neshomo back down into the body).
This is the necessary first step in change. Because, while the ultimate goal of teshuva is improving our learning and davening and overall avodas Hashem, we can’t begin with that. First we need to remove some of the excitement and liveliness that we have in our “body”, - in our pursuit of worldly pleasures (as the Alter Rebbe explains at length in the Likutei Torah of these weeks). Even the things we do because they are necessary for our existence, such as eating and sleeping and playing ball (and checking the messages on our smart phones), our bodily requirements, have to be carried out with less enthusiasm and fire. Even the body, while its’ existence is necessary, needs to become (temporarily) lifeless.
Then, after 2 weeks of lifelessness, enough time to work with each of the 7 midos individually that they should be devoid of feeling for matters of worldliness (and 2 weeks, because in avodas hateshuva everything is repeated, as the Rebbe explained regarding the nigun Atoh Bechartonu), then is the opportunity to complete the teshuva; - to focus on the positive feelings of enthusiasm and excitement about the Eibishter. To go back to living the way a chosid is meant to!
We are now in the period of bein hametzorim, a period when, increasingly, we focus on mourning the destruction of the Beis Hamikdash and our yearning for its’ rebuilding. We all know very well that in the mitzvah of building the beis hamikdash the Possuk says veshochanti besocham; - "בתוכו לא נאמר אלא ,בתוכם בתוך כל אחד ואחד מישראל".
Every single one of us is a microcosm of the beis hamikdash, and in our mourning the loss of the beis hamikdash, the lack of giluy Elokus in the world and the intense darkness of the current golus, we are simultaneously lamenting our own state of affairs; - the fact that in our own lives there is a notable absence of G-dliness, and we are disproportionately (or, in some cases, solely) preoccupied with satisfying the desires and whims of our body and animalistic soul.
As chassidim our primary focus is on simcha, always on the positive (and from the story in sefer haminhogim we know that it was the heilige Ruzhiner himself who, even on Tisha b’Av itself, negated excessive displays of moroseness). Yet, specifically as chassidim as well, our preoccupation with the revelation of G-dliness, with the beis hamikdash, is genuine and sincere. The more chassidus we learn, the more we can truly appreciate and identify with our yearning to experience a greater measure of giluy Elokus in our lives; - through more feeling in davening, a more intense yiras Shomayim (as manifested in greater adherence to fulfilling His Will properly through performing mitzvos b’hidur) and a pure ahavas Yisroel, - love for Hashem’s children.
Perhaps we are not ready to recite Tikun Chatzos every night. But we definitely all need to set aside time to hold a mirror to our own personal churban – and the way it reflects the collective one. We need to spend more time learning chassidus and davening, and focussing on how our personal relationship with the Eibishter is important and real to us and on what we can do to improve and increase it.
And we need to faint. Not literally ch”v r”l, but in the figurative sense; - to have a little less chayus and excitement in all of our worldly pursuits (even though it’s summer time, as bein hametzorim usually is), and replace that with more excitement and enthusiasm in doing what the Eibishter wants, including and especially rebuilding our personal and the collective beis hamikdash.
As chassidim who learn chassidus we are best equipped to appreciate the importance of the beis hamikdash, how dear it is to us and how unthinkable life devoid of giluy Elokus is. Let each of us use out these days to ensure that we are doing something about it, each in his or her way, and with simcha but with seriousness let’s speedily join into the binyan BHMK hashlishi NOW!
L’chaim! May we each do our part to correct the void of the beis hamikdash in the world, and may the Eibishter crown all of our collective efforts with great success by sending us down the rebuilt 3rd beis hamikdash and the immediate revelation of Moshiach Tzidkeinu TUMYM!!!
Rabbi Akiva Wagner
