Chapter 15

1. [In response to a question that Rashag asked – “Who is the source of the nussach, the melodies that traditionally accompany the davenen?”1 – the Rebbe said:]

The standard melodies that are widespread throughout the Jewish people began with Maharal of Prague.2 In that era of widespread suffering among our people, he asked that Heaven should reveal to him melodies by which they could arouse Divine mercy3 – and the standard liturgical melodies date from that time.4 The Tzemach Tzedek5 once said that those melodies are based on the songs that the Levi’im used to sing in the Beis HaMikdash. (That explains why chazzanim who made original additions used to be taken to task.6 )

2. In 5674 (1914), my father spent Pesach in Wiesbaden,7 where he was joined at all the festive meals by R. Shmuel Gourary,8 sometimes accompanied by his sons.

At one such visit, on Shvi’i shel Pesach, he found my father in high spirits, as he examined the differences between the various Midrashim that speak of the Splitting of the Sea.9

In the words of one source,10 “A [mere] maidservant witnessed at the Sea more than [even the Prophet] Yechezkel beheld.” Another source reads: “The least (הַפָּחוֹת) of the people in the days of Moshe witnessed even more than Yechezkel, the greatest of the prophets, beheld.”11

My father asked why Yechezkel is singled out there as “the greatest of the prophets,” and considered several possible explanations: “Perhaps because he was a kohen.12 Perhaps because his name, יְחֶזְקֵאל, comprises the words, יְחַזֵּק אֵ-ל (lit, ‘G‑d will fortify’). Perhaps because he revealed so fully the mysteries of the Celestial Chariot13 on his own initiative, even though this was the only one of his prophecies that he was not commanded to relay. Or perhaps because he described the [future] Third Beis HaMikdash in great detail.”14

My father then said that he would add “a chassidisher reason,”15 as follows: “Perhaps he was singled out as ‘the greatest of the prophets’ because he was ‘ben Buzi’ (lit., ‘the son of בּוּזִי’), that is, because he humbled himself,” [for the name בּוּזִי shares a root with that verb].16

3. When my father cited the above Midrashim, he commented: “Even the least of the least witnessed…, and surely we shouldn’t be less worthy than the least of the least!”17 While saying this, his tears flowed freely. This left R. Shmuel Gourary with a sorely broken spirit. Even though he was a strong-willed man whose heart was not easily ruffled, those tears crushed him like a mere splinter.

In fact some time later, while on a business trip, he met a fellow chassid called Yosske Kahanovitch. When the phrase “the least of the least” slipped into the course of their conversation, R. Shmuel recalled my father’s appearance and bearing on that Shvi’i shel Pesach, and said soberly, “The least of the least is something I know about…” With that sharp recollection, he forgot all about his current commissions and transactions and other concerns.

4. After the above-described moment, my father said: “Shvi’i shel Pesach is open for everyone. It is one of the times at which Atzmus is revealed, as in the verse, ‘G‑d has revealed His holy arm.’18 To express this more deeply, ‘Everyone can come and take.’ Every minute should be cherished!”19

On that Shvi’i shel Pesach,20 my father allowed me to spend the night in his room. This happened only on certain occasions, on Shvi’i shel Pesach, such as in 5667 (1907).

5. Once,21 while discussing difficulties in avodah, my father concluded: “But how can one say ‘difficult?’ That word would be relevant if one’s avodah depended on someone else, but since it depends on oneself, how is the word ‘difficult’ relevant?”

My father went on to tell the story of two brothers, chassidim of the Tzemach Tzedek, called R. DovBer and R. Tzadok Nichamkin.

Having been directed by the Tzemach Tzedek to do business in partnership, they gave generous and clandestine support to enable needy folk to cope with the expenses of a wedding, a bris, and the like. Their hearts were warm, and one of them22 had a richer grasp of nigleh and Chassidus than his brother. I saw them once only, before my bar-mitzvah.

Their uncle’s father, R. Shmuel Elye, had been a chassid of the Alter Rebbe when he first settled in Liozna, and he was a scholar of such stature that when he came to see the Tzemach Tzedek, the latter rose in his honor.

At his first yechidus with the Alter Rebbe he asked a number of questions, whose content is not relevant here. He was told in response about the statement in Tanya23 that the teaching of the Sages [to “be lowly of spirit before every man”]24 means that one should actually be lowly of spirit before every man, in all sincerity,25 even before the most worthless of worthless men.”

He returned to his home in Kalisk, and although that was not far from Liozna,26 he did not visit the Alter Rebbe for twenty years – until he had implanted the requirement to be humble in all sincerity in all of his soul’s faculties,27 and in all of its means of expression,28 and in every detail of his daily life. In his own words: “When the Rebbe says that one should actually be lowly of spirit in all sincerity, this has to be implemented in all the faculties of one’s soul, and in one’s thought, speech and action.”

Since of course throughout those years he yearned to visit the Alter Rebbe, he would occasionally go to Liozna to hear a Torah teaching, or a maamar,29 or the repetition of a maamar by a chassid, but did not present himself before the Alter Rebbe. His reasoning was simple: “How can a man present himself before the Rebbe’s eyes? After all, the Rebbe said ‘in all sincerity,’ and we’re not there yet.”

This is a classic instance of the familiar requirement that whatever one learns should be internalized adaatei denafshei – to correct one’s soul.

The uncle of these brothers, R. Shmuel Elye, who had been educated by his father, used to say, “I want to lie down to sleep, but I can’t.”

On this my father commented: “Such were the disciples of the [Alter] Rebbe. So fully were they ‘moist enough to moisten,’30 that someone brought up by them couldn’t bring himself to lie down to sleep!”

6. At my father’s table, there was once a discussion as to which was superior – the revelation that was witnessed at the Splitting of the Sea,31 or the revelation that was witnessed in the Beis HaMikdash? For, as the Sages teach, “Just as one came there in order to be seen [by G‑d], so too did he come there in order to see [Elokus].”32

[The conclusion – that the revelation at the Splitting of the Sea was superior – was arrived at after a complex discussion in mystical terms.]

7. To the chassidim of earlier times, it went without saying that what matters is avodah and Torah and mitzvos. They also did other things that had to be done, but without investing their heart and soul in them, because their minds and hearts were committed to what they were intended to be committed. All of that is relevant only to someone who actually invests effort in his avodah.33

R. Hendel once spoke about a young man who had told him, “I have to eat.” R. Hendel’s response: “A person has to eat?! A person has to learn, a person has to daven! In the good old days, chassidim looked down on the very notion of asking [for a berachah] for gashmiyus! Whatever they found on the table, that was what they ate – bread, salt, and the like. But nowadays, everything’s upside down!”

8. Schedules used to be different. People used to daven at length. They used to get up at 3:00 or 4:00 and do whatever had to be done before davenen, then they davened, and by 10:00 they were ready to go and work.

When my father and his brother, Raza, were young pupils of R. Shalom Kadaner the melamed, they had to be ready by ten to settle down to their study of nigleh. Arriving late was out of the question. In fact, by 10:15 my grandfather already used to ask whether they had appeared there. And that was at a time when my father often used to go into my grandfather’s room very early in the morning, either for yechidus, or for a clarification and review of a maamar that had recently been delivered. (This was done very early in the morning, because only he used to enter, and not Raza or Ramal.34 ) “Very early in the morning,”35 as my father once noted, meant before 4:00, and “in the morning” meant before 6:00.

In recent years, however, people have started pampering themselves. (“In recent years” doesn’t include these last twenty years of destruction. Those years are not taken into account, even according to the accounting of Yitzchak Avinu.36 ) Getting ready “to daven at length,” so to speak, takes such folk a couple of hours. Then, by 12:00, it’s about time to daven. That’s when the actual preparations for davenen begin. The davenen itself finally gets underway by 1:30 – and by 2:30 it’s already behind them…

In days gone by, as we have said, schedules used to be different – so people lived a different kind of life, with a different kind of purpose, and with a different kind of vitality.

For the chassidim of those days, the self-evident and fundamental priorities were Torah and avodah. They didn’t request blessings for material things. They came home, had some bread and salt, and that was enough. In their eyes, only a coarsened individual could ask to be blessed with… gashmiyus!

The Sages teach: “Mortals have six characteristics. In three of them they resemble ministering angels, and in three of them they resemble animals.”37 If a person refines his body, he has these three, and if he coarsens it, he has those three…

9. Once, during a visit to an art gallery, my father looked at a painting of the Splitting of the Sea for an hour or two, while tears streamed from his eyes. Mr. Bernstein and I were also there, and we wanted to know what lay behind this. My father explained: When the soul is still above, it sees Elokus palpably. Nevertheless, when it comes down here it sees far more, because it now sees Elokus embodied palpably in This World. The picture had affected him in the same way, because he now saw the Splitting of the Sea visually – and he shed tears of yearning [for that revelation].

My father added: “Just imagine! If we had been standing a mere five viorsts from the Splitting of the Sea, how we would have run to witness it! In fact, it happened only a few inches38 higher than us, so if we elevated ourselves by a few inches, we would see it. In the same way, everything is present, but people are somewhat deaf, so that they don’t hear things, or they are somewhat blind, so that they don’t see things. So if someone is deaf and blind, does that thing therefore not exist?!”

10. The following incident dates fromthe year 5625 (1865) or even from a year earlier, when my father and his brother, Raza, were still only around three years old. As a matter of fact, I’m not certain as to the earliest date of the events that my father recalled from that period, because I heard from his conversations with my grandmother, Rebbitzin Rivkah,39 that he was familiar with things that had happened when he was two years old.

At any rate, my father recounted the following incident, which took place at an age at which he and Raza were not yet able to grasp the true stature of my great-grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek. I’m now repeating it exactly as I heard it, in my father’s words:

“Once, when we very little children, my father (the Rebbe Maharash) took us into the room of my great-grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, who was sitting on a sofa, so weak that his head was inclined forward. As soon as we entered he asked us to come closer, and said: ‘My dear little ones!40 Today all the heavens are split open wide, and G‑d Himself appears.’ At that very moment there was such a thunder and lightning that we thought we were hearing the heavens splitting wide open and that G‑d Himself was appearing!”

[Having recounted his father’s account of that moment, the Rebbe Rayatz commented that “thunder and lightning in Lubavitch at Pesach time were most unusual,” and then added:] My father told me that the impact of that experience would never be forgotten. It was engraved within my innermost being – that if a person really wants to see, then he can see. One only has to want to see.

11. In the winter of 5647 (1886-1887), when we were in Yalta,41 the books we had with us included a Siddur with Tze’enah U’Re’enah,42 and an illustrated Chumash with Yiddish translation. Its picture of the Splitting of the Sea showed little children holding on tight to the clothes of the adults.

So I asked my father: “After they had seen such a miracle, why were those children afraid?”

He answered: “That’s how it should be. A younger person ought to hold on tight to an older person’s hem and should want to grow older. A little fellow should want to grow bigger. It’s no good to remain little!”

All of that happens only if one devotes himself actively to avodah; only then does a little fellow grow big. He grows only if he works.

12. My grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, once passed on something that he had heard from his father, the Tzemach Tzedek – that all the parables cited bythe venerated R. Aizik of Homil in his explanations of Chassidus43 are based on the writings of the AriZal and the Zohar. He added that that statement includes his parable about tiny men, which has a source in Etz Chaim.

R. Aizik used to farbreng two or three times a week, without waiting for a festive date. On one such occasion he said: “When Mashiach comes, they’ll pick up little Aizl44 and stand him up on someone’s hand and say, “Just look! This tiny fellow lived in the era that could hear the approaching footsteps of Mashiach, and this tiny fellow used to talk about Yichuda Ila’ah!” – And it appears that this was to be regarded in a positive light.

13. It would be a pity to waste even a moment of Shvi’i shel Pesach. Every single moment should be monitored, because on this day one can buy up [spiritual] merchandise in quantity. Now is no time to sleep. It’s always a pity to waste time. People need to realize that if one hour is missing, the soul will be lacking one “garment.”45 And that one hour is specifically today. Things shouldn’t be deferred till tomorrow, at any time – how much more so on Shvi’i shel Pesach!

14. My grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, once told the yoshvim on Shvi’i shel Pesachthat until they had been to the mikveh [early in the morning, after the night-long vigil], they should not even snooze momentarily.

My grandfather’s style was to speak briefly, and not to wait until he was asked.

15. A popular saying has been handed downover the generations: “Good things are indeed given from Heaven46 – but one has to have the sense to take them!”

16. The melody that was sung at the Sea is not known – but for sure it was a happy melody, straight from the heart.

17. [After the Grace after Meals, the Rebbe Rayatz employed Kabbalistic terms in his brief discussion of how Shvi’i shel Pesach and Shemini Atzeres constitute stages in the conception and birth of souls.47 In conclusion, he addressed his chassidim as follows:] May G‑d grant that this “birth” should yield viable offspring. In the course of the first half of the year you no doubt fulfilled the positive resolutions that were made, according to universal custom, in the seventh month,48 in keeping with the concept that “Yaakov took to the road.”49 And now, with the approach of the summer months, when the level of avodah is higher,50 increased energy is called for, until the next seventh month.

18. One should not regard oneself as too lowly – not higher than one is, but also not lower than one is. To do that would be inappropriate. With regard to material things, it is acceptable to say, “Do I really deserve this?” – and even that should not be overdone. In spiritual matters, by contrast, a person needs to know what he wants, and what he has, and is needed to enable to arrive at his goal.