It’s the Shabbos before Yud Aleph Nissan, so let’s learn a sicha–or at least a nekuda of a sicha–together! It’s a sicha that is connected with parshas vayikra, and korbonos, with Pesach, with Yud Aleph Nissan, and, perhaps, with the above story.
One of the most important aspects of the mishkan and the beis hamikdash, and of our connection with the Eibishter, was the avoda of korbonos. These days, when we don’t have a beis hamikdosh, we don’t have the ability to bring korbonos in a physical sense. However, our Chazal teach us that there are things we can do that can be a substitute for korbonos. Specifically, learning Torah (כלה עוסק כאילו... בתורת הקריב), and davening (ונשלמה פרים שפתינו).
However, this can work in a few ways: 1) It can be that the learning Torah is similar only in the sense that it brings about the same result as the korbon. A korbon brings us forgiveness for our sins, and Torah study can bring us the same benefit. 2) A higher level is that the act of learning Torah is equated to the act of bringing a korbon. In this case, not only does the person get the benefit he would have had from bringing a korbon, but he also, the person learning, is likened to bringing the korbon. However, here, too, it is only regarding the person, there is no actual korbon. 3) With davening, the davening itself becomes like an actual korbon. For this reason, although with learning Torah there are no limitations about the time and manner in which it could be done (unlike the actual bringing of a korbon), with davening, the fact that תפלות כנגד קרבנות תיקנום is the reason for various halochos that govern the time and manner of davening, because it is considered an actual korbon.
But, even with davening, it is only that Torah considers it like a korbon; for the person davening, however, he has none of the experience of bringing a korbon in the beis hamikdash. That brings us to the 4th category,- saying the seder of korbon pesach on erev pesach. Then, we are not merely learning halochos in Torah (in Torah shebiksav or Torah shebaal peh), but we are reading and describing the actual sequence of events as they took place in the beis hamikdash.
In other words, with the korbon pesach not only do we have the results, or the status of the person bringing the korbon, and not only do our words have the status of the actual korbon (which is why the recital of the korbon pesach must be at the precise time when the korbon was brought), but–moreover–we are able to reenact and duplicate the actual experience in all its details, as if we ourselves are bringing the korbon pesach.
Lest one think that the ability to have such an experience will bring us to feel less the lack of the beis hamikdash, it is specifically with regards to korbon pesach (unlike any other עוסק בתורת קרבן or the like) that we say that וידאג על חורבן בית המקדשו ויתחנן לפני 'ה בורא עולם שיבנה אותו במהרה בימינו אמן.
The Rebbe explains the reason for this uniqueness with korbon pesach, that specifically with this korbon we have the ability to actually experience the entire event as it was, as if we are in the beis hamikdash while it’s taking place, regardless of which place or time in which we may find ourselves. Pesach is the idea of yetzias mitzrayim, of going free of golus. Therefore, the celebration of Pesach means rising above our golus, our limitations, which enables us to experience korbonos as they were actually experienced in the beis hamikdash wherever and whenever we may be.
Let’s try to apply this to ourselves: It’s after chof zayin adar, and it’s after gimel tamuz. It’s a time of tremendous helem vehester. But there are still ways and means with which a chosid can connect to the Rebbe even today. Amongst them, are writing to the Rebbe, and going to the ohel.
In this, too, there can be a number of ways, a number of categories: There can be some for whom going to the ohel is like going to the Rebbe with regards to the result. Before gimel tamuz we received brochos and hashpo’ois in every area, and so, too, today, people go to the ohel, and are helped in every possible way, often with miraculous yeshuos.
To be sure, there are result-oriented people, who go to the ohel only for the results. There are people who don’t consider themselves to be Lubavitcher chassidim in any way, in fact they may be the first to be critical of anything Lubavitch does. But they are practical and pragmatic, they know the address where to turn to in a time of need, so when they have any trouble, they’ll show up to the ohel in the middle of the night (hoping to avoid detection). They are not pretending to go there as chassidim, they are seeking only the result,-the benefit it can give them.
A higher level, is when davening there is not only about the result, but about what it means for the person going there. The chosid wants to be, in his avodas Hashem, like someone going into yechidus. He wants to have that spiritual uplifting.
A higher level is the chosid for whom this is actual yechidus, not merely with regard to the person, but the occurrence itself is like yechidus, to the point of him treating it with many of the same rules with which he treats a yechidus.
But even for him, it is merely that he knows and believes that going to the ohel is like going into yechidus, or that going to 770, where the walls are so soaked with Rebbe, is like spending time with the Rebbe. However, the person’s experience is nothing like what the experience was when we saw and heard the Rebbe with our own eyes.
[The first time that I was in Crown Heights with my family (when we travelled there for a simcha), I was a young bochur in my early teens, starting to become connected with Lubavitch. I had learned that my great uncle, Rabbi Chodakov, was the Rebbe’s personal secretary, and I wanted to take advantage of that. I asked my mother to ask him if I could have yechidus (which I desperately wanted, but this was in the early mem’s, when there was no longer yechidus).
When we were in 770, my entire family went in to visit Rabbi Chodakov (in his small office, at the end of the hall), and, during the meeting, my mother asked him if he could arrange for me a yechidus. Rabbi Chodakov answered that the Rebbe said that the farbrengens were the same as a yechidus, and even greater, because they contained the power of a “rabim”, so I could have my yechidus that way.
Needless to say, I was not placated, I was in fact very let down. While it may be that I would have to accept that what the Rebbe said was unquestionably true, and that the public farbrengens were exactly the same as yechidus in some spiritual way. That, however, for me wouldn’t be the same experience as a personal yechidus (in my eyes), and for the young bochur who thought (and probably still thinks...) that if only I could have a personal yechidus, the Rebbe would surely solve all of my problems and make me into a mentch and a chassidisher bochur and my whole life would be different,-well, you can understand that it may have been difficult to be satisfied with believing in the greatness of the farbrengens].
But there is a higher level. It is possible for the chosid to actually experience the connection with the Rebbe (whether with going to the ohel or to 770 or writing a pan etc.) just the same as before. Not only the same results, not only the same status etc., but the same exact experience.
The Rebbe related how the Frierdige witnessed the Rebbe Rashab go into yechidus and experience yechidus with his father, the Rebbe Maharash, after the histalkus of the Rebbe Maharash. And, although that is a story of a Rebbe, it is a story that was told to us, and that must serve as a lesson for each of us in our own lives and according to our level.
Lest one think that if someone experiences a connection with the Rebbe just as before, if he feels that the Rebbe is alive, then he will not be lacking anything, and will have no need to yearn for geulah,-the opposite is true. It is specifically the experience of korbon Pesach that brings us to וידאג על חורבן בית המקדשו ויתחנן לפני 'ה בורא עולם שיבנה אותו במהרה בימינו אמן.
But to achieve this we need to have yetzias mitzrayim, we need to go out of our golus, and start living a little more geulah. If we rise above the golus, then we can transcend the darkness and connect with the infinite light of Hashem.
It is now Nissan, the chodesh hageulah, a month that is completely connected to geulah. It is a time, surely, when we are each enabled to rise above our own personal golus, and live our lives in a geulah way. And as we prepare for Yud Aleph Nissan, to strengthen our connection with our Rebbe, let us experience it in a geulah’dige manner, unhindered by any helem vehester that occurred. And this experience should push us to feel even stronger our yearning for the complete and ultimate geulah in the most literal sense, למטה מעשרה, טפחים בפשטות, when the Rebbe will farbreng with all of us in the greatest Yud Aleph Nissan farbrengen ever, in the beis hamikdash hashlishi NOW!
L’chaim! Let us all take advantage of the auspicious month of Nissan, chodesh hageulah, to experience geulah in our personal lives, and may the Eibishter take advantage of the auspicious month of Nissan, chodesh hageulah, to bring about the בניסן עתידין להיגאל with the immediate hisgalus of Moshiach Tzidkeinu NOW!!!
Rabbi Akiva Wagner
