Chapter 17 - The Eve of the Last Day of Pesach

22. As is known, on the Last Day of Pesach1 there is a revelation of Mashiach,2 because it is on the Seventh Day of Pesach 3 that souls are born4 – and the Sages teach that “the scion of David [i.e., Mashiach] will not come until all the souls in the Guf [i.e., in the Heavenly treasury of souls] will have descended.”5 That is why the radiance of the light of Mashiach is revealed after the Seventh Day of Pesach – that is, on the Last Day of Pesach.

23. On the Last Day of Pesach in the year 5638 (1878), the Rebbe Maharash pointed out that on that very same date 101 years earlier, in 5537 (1777), the Alter Rebbe had delivered the following mystical interpretation of the phrase, מַה תִּצְעַק אֵלָי – “Why are you crying out to Me?”6

[After all, beyond the imminent practical crisis, the Alter Rebbe said, a cosmic need is crying out for attention!] The Divine Name מַ"ה is crying out, seeking to be refined by the Jewish people’s avodah of beirurim!7 So, [as the verse continues,] “Speak to the Children of Israel, and let them proceed straight ahead!” Tell them to forge ahead with actual self-sacrifice.

* * *

The Rebbe Maharash related that on the same occasion the Alter Rebbe also delivered a mystical interpretation of the next verse, “As for you, raise your staff aloft and stretch out your arm,”8 as follows:

The Midrash9 cites Moshe’s plaint to G‑d: “How can I split the Sea? It is stronger than me!” (This brings to mind the teaching in another Midrash,10 that the Sea had boasted to Moshe: “I am bigger than you!”) In response to Moshe, G‑d commands: “Raise your staff aloft!”

To restate this dialogue in Kabbalistic terms: Moshe, being the personification of the Sefirah of Chochmah in the World of Atzilus, argued that from his perspective, the perspective of Chochmah, the Sea was stronger than he was. In response to this argument, G‑d commands: “Raise your staff aloft!”11 This meant: Just as G‑d had commanded Avraham who had spoken of his childlessness, “Step out of your present sphere of astrological influence,”12 I am now commanding you to step out of the mindset of your Chochmah, and “stretch out your arm” – for the arms allude to middos.13 In other words, the present situation calls for avodah at the level of middos.

24. [When the Rebbe Rayatz then began to speak about R. Hillel of Paritch, one of the chassidim present commented that R. Hillel had been a chassid of the Mitteler Rebbe. To this the Rebbe Rayatz responded:]

He was mainly a chassid of the Mitteler Rebbe, but once, in the month of Av, 5572 (1812), he also heard the voice of the Alter Rebbe.14

R. Hillel had previously been a chassid of R. Mordechai of Chernobyl, but when he heard that the Alter Rebbe’s son, the Mitteler Rebbe, had undertaken the nesius of Chabad chassidim, he wanted to go and see him. He asked the opinion of R. Mordechai, who advised him not to travel, and when he saw that his chassid was nevertheless still eager to set out, he commented that he would do a somersault. And indeed, when the wagon tried to cope with a hill on the way, it overturned. As to R. Hillel, in order to shake off any possible effect of his former Rebbe’s ominous parting words, he grasped the opportunity and for good measure, made a point of doing a somersault.

It once happened that when the Tzemach Tzedek was about to deliver a maamar, he told his chassid to take a seat. R. Hillel didn’t want to sit in the presence of his Rebbe – but neither did he want to disobey him. So, painful as it was, he held himself poised over his chair. The Rebbe Maharash later commented that he was so disturbed by the sight of R. Hillel’s suffering that his attention was distracted from the maamar that was being delivered at that time.

25. When my father was a young man, in the time of his father, the Rebbe Maharash, and for some years later, too, his custom was to remain awake on the nights of both the Seventh and the Eighth Days of Pesach, and this he did comfortably. The tzaddik R. Hillel also remained awake on the night of the Last Day of Pesach. In fact, in every regard he was a master over his body: when he wanted to sleep he slept, and when he wanted to be awake, he was awake. And indeed, whenever the Rebbe Maharash spoke about mobilizing the body, he would cite R. Hillel as a classic instance of such mastery.

26. [After one of the chassidim present recounted something to the Rebbe, he added that he had not intended simply to recount, but rather to hear whether or not the Rebbe approved of what he had said. In his words, he had come not to speak but to hear. The Rebbe responded by saying:]

At farbrengens in days gone by, words were spoken and things were narrated [by a Rebbe], and when chassidim heard those words, they would not merely hear them but would also absorb them as sensitized receptors.15

In that spirit, my father was not fond of those chassidim who were so impatient to hear what was about to be said that they were in a hurry to finish off niggunim [which were sung in the interval between one sichah and the next]. He would say that an oved is never in a hurry: he is at ease in his present situation.

In the material world, it makes sense for a person who has a lottery ticket to prepare money bags, because he may in fact win. If he hasn’t got a lottery ticket, what’s the use of preparing money bags? So, too, in our case. If a person has cultivated a spiritually sensitive ear, it makes sense for him to strain to hear [chassidic teachings], whereas if he hasn’t got a lottery ticket…

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Chapter 16

Chapter 18

Footnotes

In the original, Acharon shel Pesach, which in the Diaspora is the eighth day of the festival.

See: sec. 27 on p. 95 below; Sefer HaSichos 5705 in the present series, p. 198.

In the original, Shvi’i shel Pesach.

Cf. sec. 17, on p. 85 above. See: Pri Etz Chaim, Shaar HaLulav, end of c. 8; Tanya – Iggeres HaKodesh, Epistle 20; Likkutei Torah, Parshas Tzav, p. 16b; et. al.

Yevamos 62a; Avodah Zarah 5a.

With the Egyptian chariots hurtling towards them from behind and the Red Sea before them, the Children of Israel complain bitterly to Moshe, who responds by praying for salvation. On the straightforward level of pshat, the above-quoted words (see Rashi onShmos 14:15) mean that G‑d then rebukes Moshe: “Is now a time to pray?!” Instead, G‑d continues, “Speak to the Children of Israel, and let them proceed straight ahead!”

The names of the letters that constitute the Hebrew Name Havayah have four possible spellings. When they are spelled with the letter alef, their numerical value totals 45. In other words, together they result in the Name מַ"ה, whose numerical value is likewise 45.

Now, in the Kabbalah, the Name מַ"ה represents the World of Tikkun, the state of Order – in contrast to the World of Tohu, the state of Chaos that has not yet undergone the refining process of beirurim. This is the avodah whereby the materiality of This World is sifted and rectified by proper usage, and the “sparks” of its Divine potential are reconnected to their pristine Source.

Shmos 14:16.

Midrash VaYosha, cited in Toras Shlomo, sec. 102, on the above verse.

10.

Shmos Rabbah 21:6.

11.

“Staff” is a metaphor for Chochmah, and specifically, for the drawing down of Chochmah in order to monitor the middos. (See Likkutei Torah on Bamidbar, p. 82a.)

12.

Shabbos 156a; Nedarim 32a.

13.

“Chessed is the right arm, Gevurah is the left arm…” – from the Introduction to Tikkunei Zohar entitled Pasach Eliyahu.

14.

The following account includes details from other sources in which the Rebbe Rayatz provided additional background to the incident referred to in the text above.

R. Hillel, intensely eager to see the Alter Rebbe with his own eyes, followed him around from town to town, but wherever he arrived, he discovered time after time that the Alter Rebbe had just left for the next leg of his itinerary. He therefore thought up a plan. Having ascertained that the Alter Rebbe would soon arrive at a certain town and would occupy a certain room, R. Hillel arrived in advance and hid there under a sofa. Then, when the Alter Rebbe entered the room, he would emerge, and would ask him to solve a thorny Talmudic problem that had been troubling him. It was in Tractate Arachin, which deals with the evaluation of consecrated property.

As soon as the Alter Rebbe entered, R. Hillel heard his words, which were voiced in his accustomed singsong: “A young chassid who has a problem in the Tractate of Evaluation ought to evaluate himself…”

R. Hillel fainted on the spot. By the time he came to, the Alter Rebbe had left town.

15.

The Yid. original concludes with an untranslatable play on words, which highlights the significant distinction between her’n (“merely hearing”) and derher’n (“absorbing as sensitized receptors”).