Chapter 16

61. Shevi’i shel Pesach, the Seventh Day of the festival, was a time at which flashes of the inner life of our Rebbeim became visible1 to the chassidim of their respective generations.

The distinctive tone of the day began with the afternoon of the eve of the festival. The cleansing immersion2 [in the mikveh] on the eve of Shevi’i shel Pesach was different to that of the eve of Shabbos or the eve of other festivals; it was even different to the immersion on the eve of Rosh HaShanah or the eve of Yom Kippur.3

Tevilas taharah does not mean that one immerses only for the sake of the purification of the body (taharas haguf), nor even for the [further] refinement of the body (zikuch haguf).

There is a significant difference between these two concepts. Purification of the body signifies that one’s immersion removes his impurity. Refinement of the body applies to a person whose immersion makes him cleaner than he was; it applies to a person who was not impure before his immersion – but neither was he pure, and his immersion now cleanses him utterly.

The distinction may be understood by a simple material analogy. So long as a vessel is dirty it is not only useless, but it spoils any edible food that may be put in it. It therefore has to be washed. When it is no longer dirty, but not yet utterly clean, it will no longer spoil food, though it can displace its flavor by an aftertaste of its own. Only a thorough scalding will fully restore such a vessel’s usefulness.

On the spiritual plane, the distinction between the purification of the body and the refinement of the body applies at the level of intellect, at the level of middos, and at the level of the so-called garments of the soul,4 viz., thought, speech and action.

As is well known, everything that G‑d has created comprises a body and a soul; indeed, the body and the soul of man each comprise a body and a soul. Man is a symbiotic combination of body and soul: the soul animates the body, and the body obeys the soul’s directives. But beyond their symbiotic combination, the soul has its body and the body has its soul.

Since the Holy One, Blessed be He, Who “performs wonders” in linking a spiritual soul with a physical body,5 is omnipotent, He not only combines them6 in such a way that one cannot distinguish between the soul that animates the body and the body that is animated by the soul, but moreover, in each soul He has matched its body and in each body He has matched its soul.

The Creator has ordained that the soul is a spiritual essence and the body is a material essence. This principle obtains not only in relation to body and soul, but also to all created beings. Within the soul, for example, every faculty and sense7 comprises a soul and a body. The faculty of intellect has a soul and a body: Chochmah has its soul and body and Binah has its soul and body. These bodies are not identical with the [physical] brain of Chochmah which is cool and moist and the [physical] brain of Binah which is warm and dry; these bodies are spiritual entities, but they are the essential bodies of the faculties of Chochmah and Binah. The same is true of the other faculties of the soul.

Herein lies the distinction between the purification (taharah) of the body and the refinement (zikuch) of the body. The cleansing of the organs of the soul’s faculties (such as the coldness of the faculty of Chochmah or the warmth of the faculty of Binah) is called the refinement of the body; the cleansing of the organs of the vessels of the intellect (viz., the essence of the brain of Chochmah and the essence of the brain of Binah) is called the purification ofthe body. In general terms, this is the meaning of immersion – the purification and refinement of the bodies of the faculties of the soul.

Immersion may also be particularized. A particular faculty of the soul may be in need of purification and refinement, and this may take place at a variety of levels. Immersion for the sake of cleansing the intellect will be different from immersion for the sake of cleansing the heart, which will be different in turn from immersion for the sake of cleansing the garments of the soul, viz., thought, speech and action. And indeed, many particular levels are distinguishable within the levels of the intellect, the spiritual emotions, and the garments of the soul.

Immersion varies likewise in terms of time. An ordinary weekday immersion is different from immersion on Mondays and Thursdays (the days on which the Torah is publicly read), or on fast days, or on the eve of Shabbos and festivals and the eve of Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur, or on Shabbos and festivals.

62. Immersion in a mikveh on the eve of the Seventh Day of Pesach is closely bound up with the spiritual moves that are made in the Sefiros of the supernal worlds and in the various levels within the soul that is found in every Jew.

It was the custom of my revered father to spend a considerable time in solitude on the eve of every Shabbos and festival. Though his door was not closed, no man dared to enter his study at this time. I managed to devise a means of observing him as he sat alone, his eyes closed, his holy face aflame, from time to time softly singing to himself and marking the rhythm on the table with his middle finger. On the eve of the Seventh Day of Pesach he sat alone in this way longer than usual.

On the Seventh Day and on the last day of Pesach, chassidim caught more of a glimpse of the inner life of our Rebbeim than they did on Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur.

On Rosh HaShanah one could see and sense the way in which my father was a man apart. One could see it in the several whispered chapters of Tehillim that he would recite until it was time for Maariv; one could see it in the deep-seated brokenness of spirit that could be traced on his face, as tears springing from a blood-torn heart trickled down his holy features; one could see it in the awe and dread with which he embarked on the prayers of Maariv by sounding the well-known melody of the Alter Rebbe with its dual themes, one of them taking its leave of the year now drawing to a close, the other voicing a hope for the year now beginning.

At other times one could observe my father’s avodah in the course of the prayers that are recited before retiring at night, and one could observe whatever was revealed at each of the festivals. But what was revealed on the Seventh Day of Pesach was something quite distinctive.

As is known, the Alter Rebbe once told his children on the Seventh Day of Pesach: “Help yourselves to Chassidus, help yourselves to purity – for yourselves and for your children and for their children, for generation after generation.”

The spiritual revelations of the Seventh Day of Pesach are sensed in every Jew in the soul-level called neshamah. Accordingly, the goal of each individual’s spiritual labors is that these revelations be felt in the [lower] soul-level called nefesh that is close to the soul’s faculties – that they be felt within him at least to the extent that his nefesh manifests itself. This is a state in which the individual himself is not aware of what is the matter with him; he only senses that within him a transformation is taking place. It finds expression in a spirit of elation that enriches the faculties and senses of his soul, so that [G‑dly concepts] are better grasped and more solidly integrated.

63. Today marks a hundred years from the Seventh Day of Pesach in the year 5603 (1843), when my great-grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, was preparing himself for his journey to Petersburg.8

My grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, used to call that year “a Baal-Shem-like year.”9 It was an extraordinary period, during which my great-grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, conducted his life differently from his customary style.

Everything he ever did followed a clear order, and those who were near to him knew its stages; for example, what time he was accustomed to rise in the morning; when it was time for the fixed group of chassidim to begin the thrice-daily prayer services in the little minyan adjoining his study; and so too with the way he organized his day. Though his door was always open, no one ever walked into his study until he called for one of the gabbaim whosat in the waiting-room. The same applied to his children. If they wanted to enter his study they waited until he called for one of the gabbaim, and then through him they asked whether they should go inside.

From the very beginning of the year 5603 (1842-1843), however, it was apparent that the Tzemach Tzedek was ordering his life differently.

Everyone, chassidim included, knew that for the Rebbe10 the avodah of the new year began on Chai (the eighteenth of) Elul11 – the birthday of our mentor, the Baal Shem Tov, and of our first father, the [Alter] Rebbe.

This fact became known to chassidim through an incident involving my great-uncle, the Rabash (R. Baruch Shalom),12 on Monday, the sixteenth of Elul, 5589 (1829), in Lubavitch.

The Alter Rebbe dearly cherished my great-uncle, whose duty it was to visit his great-grandfather every day, from the time that he began to attend cheder. When he was six years old the Alter Rebbe taught him the grammar of the Holy Tongue. When he was seven he taught him the melodies with which the Tanach is cantillated, those used for the Writings being different to those used for the reading of the Torah or the Prophets.

Within the Torah itself the Alter Rebbe had received traditions as to the distinctive melodies according to which he would read the Songs, the Ten Commandments in Parshas Yisro and {differently] in Parshas Va’eschanan, and the two verses beginning Vayehi binso’a.13

From the day that the Alter Rebbe left Liadi14 (during the Napoleonic invasion) with his family and some of his chassidim, until the last day of his life in This World, my great-uncle was at his side. He sat next to him in his carriage and slept in his room.

“For a hundred and forty-two days,” he later related to my father, “I was privileged to be within the holy precincts of my great-grandfather, the Alter Rebbe. From that grim Thursday evening, the twenty-fifth of Menachem Av, when the evil tidings reached us that Napoleon (May his name be blotted out!) had already arrived in Orsha and was marching towards Liadi, until that melancholy Motzaei Shabbos on the eve of the twenty-fourth of Teves,15 5573 (1812), I was privileged to be in his immediate company.”

The intense inner bond of love that the Alter Rebbe showed my great-uncle left its impact on him, and when he passed away the child16 was brokenhearted. For the next twelve years he fasted on Chai Elul, his great-grandfather’s birthday, except when it fell on a Shabbos, in which case he would fast on the preceding Thursday.

On Shabbos Parshas Seitzei, the thirteenth of Elul, 5585 (1825), the Mitteler Rebbe spoke about birthdays of tzaddikim in general, and in particular about the birthdays of individuals whose souls are bound up with those of their contemporaries. He spoke of the great festive meal that was held on such days in the Lower Garden of Eden and in the Higher Garden of Eden. (In this context, “meal” signifies that the souls present basked in the radiance of the Divine Presence, perceiving and comprehending the very essence of Divinity.) All those souls, he explained, take their leave of the soul of the particular tzaddik that is about to descend to This World, and wish it success in fulfilling the purpose of its descent into a body.

The Mitteler Rebbe went on to explain that the festive meal celebrated in the Lower and Higher Garden of Eden in honor of a soul of comprehensive scope17 is quite different from the festive meal that is celebrated in honor of any other tzaddik. When the great Heavenly Court has decreed that a particular comprehensive soul is to descend to This World and to be born at a certain time to particular parents, then at some time before the formation of the infant body in which it is to be enclothed, the Court sets aside a heavenly shrine especially for that soul. In this shrine an academy of learning is established, presided over by that soul, which expounds the Torah to the listening souls of the righteous. And when the appointed time comes for that soul to make its descent, this festive meal is graced by the presence of all the comprehensive souls, with Moshe Rabbeinu at their head. They bless this soul with success in its public mission, and promise their help and support in its fulfillment.

This is why the birthday of a tzaddik – especially of a tzaddik whose soul is interlocked with the souls of his contemporaries – is a veritable festival in all the higher worlds; it is a propitious moment, a time at which the Almighty, so to speak, rejoices. And all those [in This World] who participate in this great celebration derive sustenance from the Supernal table, from the festive meal that is held Above, in the Lower Garden of Eden and in the Higher Garden of Eden.

My great-uncle, R. Baruch Shalom, listened to these words from the mouth of his grandfather, the Mitteler Rebbe. His father, the Tzemach Tzedek, then drew on the basic principles of the Kabbalah to explain the meaning of the assemblage of souls in the Lower and Upper Garden of Eden, and proceeded to expound a number of teachings of the Sages as found in the Talmud, Zohar and Midrash. Hearing all of this, R. Baruch Shalom earnestly regretted having set aside the holy day of Chai Elul as an annual fast. Accordingly, on Sunday, the fourteenth of Elul, he had his [implicit] vow annulled, and moved his fast ahead to the Monday or Thursday preceding Chai Elul.

Now my great-uncle was a very private person, and all aspects of his avodah were utterly inconspicuous. That year, 5585 (1825), he observed his voluntary fast on the Monday, and set aside the following Thursday, Chai Elul, as a day of rejoicing.

In the summer of 5589 (1829) he was unwell, and was under doctor’s orders never to miss breakfast. Since Chai Elul was to fall on the Wednesday of the week of Parshas Savo, he fasted on the preceding Monday, the sixteenth of Elul. He was so weak that he fainted several times and had to spend the day in bed, but even then no one knew why.

Came Wednesday, Chai Elul, and he was still confined to his bed with high fever. When his father, the Tzemach Tzedek, came to visit him, he said: “Gut Yom-Tov! Today, Chai Elul, is a threefold festival. It is the birthday of our master, the Baal Shem Tov; it is the birthday of my grandfather, the Alter Rebbe; and it marks the beginning of one’s avodah for the new year. For the last thirty-two years,18 since 5557 (1797), my grandfather has been delivering a chassidic discourse for me. The subject of each year’s maamar almost exclusively concerns the avodah of the forthcoming year, for as is well known, each year of a man’s life has its own distinctive avodah.”

64. In the year 5602 (1842), Chai Elul fell on a Wednesday, and on that very day a change19 could be discerned in the Rebbe’s conduct. It was the first time on Chai Elul that the Rebbe had called Minchah for an hour-and-a-half after midday. He had asked that Maariv should not begin until he gave the word, and then spent the entire day in seclusion. Not until eleven at night did he open his door and give the word for Maariv to begin.

There was a tradition among the chassidim of earlier generations that the avodah of the Rebbeim was different in a leap year from that of an ordinary year.20 Some chassidim now thought, therefore, that the Rebbe’s novel schedule could be explained by the fact that the forthcoming year was a leap year, and for tzaddikim this meant that its avodah began on the preceding Chai Elul. They soon realized, however, that this explanation would not suffice, because previous leap years had not been foreshadowed by this kind of separateness and seclusion.

The real reason for the change was that the Alter Rebbe had informed the Tzemach Tzedek that a difficult year lay ahead – and difficult it certainly was. For it was in that year (1843) that the Tzemach Tzedek traveled to Petersburg to participate in the Rabbinical Conference,21 where he underwent considerable suffering at the hands of the freethinking maskil, Menachem Lilienthal, grandson of the freethinking maskil, Shimon Zamuter. (In Vilna, at any rate, this was the name – a product of his own invention – by which the grandfather was known. His story is told in full in Shalsheles HaOr, Heichal Shlishi.)21

On the eve of Rosh HaShanah of the same year there was another departure from custom. Every year, after Hataras Nedarim22on that morning, when the ad hoc court of ten had blessed the Tzemach Tzedek with long life (for this was his birthday), he used to respond, “Amen, may G‑d speak likewise!” Sometimes he would respond, “Amen, may this be His Will!” On this occasion he gave the latter response, but then he added, “The fifty-fourth year of a man’s life is a difficult year: one needs a doubled and trebled blessing.”

On the same day, and again on the Fast of Gedaliah23 (the anniversary of the passing of his mother,24 the Rebbitzin Devorah Leah), the Rebbe sent his gabbai, R. Chaim Dov Ber, with a pidyon to his mother’s resting place in Liozna.

The text of both petitions was identical: “The Berlinists25 are waxing strong; the decree is ready for publication. Their plan is to summon rabbis who will agree to their proposals. One way or the other, whether I live or..., please go to your father’s heavenly chamber and pass on my request that he should arouse Divine mercy so that the decrees should be annulled. And if I am found worthy, may it be G‑d’s Will that they be annulled through me.”

65. My grandfather, the Rebbe Maharash, used to say that R. Chaim Dov Ber, the gabbai of the Tzemach Tzedek, was someone who really knew how to keep a secret. For there are three levels in this art. Sometimes one can tell that a man has a secret, but he does not reveal it; sometimes one cannot even tell that he has a secret; sometimes when another person who already knows the secret tells it to him, he pretends to be listening to real news. The last is the man who really knows how to keep a secret – and such a man was R. Chaim Dov Ber.

R. Chaim Dov Ber was born in Rudnia, in the province of Mohilev; his father was R. Aharon Beinush. He was a man of quite ordinary gifts, but was born truthful and artless. During the lifetime of the Mitteler Rebbe he had married the daughter of a storekeeper in Lubavitch, R. Moshe Shmuel, who supported him according to custom for the first few years after his marriage while he engaged in Torah and Chassidus.

In the year 5578 (1818) the Tzemach Tzedek took him into his house as a scribe, his task being to copy various learned works that were still in manuscript. Lubavitch at that time boasted quite a number of such scribes with beautiful handwriting, but my great-grandfather chose R. Chaim Dov Ber for his simple sincerity. With him he could be certain that no one would know what he was copying.

For twelve years he copied my great-grandfather’s manuscripts in both the revealed plane of the Torah and in Chassidus, and in 5590 (1830) he appointed him his gabbai.

So expert was R. Chaim Dov Ber at keeping a secret, that not only did no one know that the Rebbe was sending him on a mission to his mother’s resting place, but no one even noticed that he had left town. On both occasions, erev Rosh HaShanah and the Fast of Gedaliah, he set out at night, fulfilled his mission in Liozna at daybreak, and traveled back in time to arrive at the expected hour, without anyone having known a thing.

66. At the evening meal of the Seventh Day of Pesach in the year 5603 (1843), my great-grandfather, the Tzemach Tzedek, spoke as follows.

“Shevi’i shel Pesach, the Seventh Day of Pesach, is the New Year for self-sacrifice. When Moshe Rabbeinu26 passed on the Divine directive, דַּבֵּר אֶל בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וְיִסָּעוּ – ‘Speak to the Children of Israel, and let them journey ahead,’27 Nachshon ben Aminadav28 immediately leaped into the sea, impelled by the power of self-sacrifice. Now the Divine revelations of the Seventh Day of Pesach are essential revelations29 and are initiated from Above.30 It is true, [moreover,] that there is a principle that כָּל הַשְׁבִיעִין חֲבִיבִין – ‘All sevenths are cherished’;31 this must be especially true of the seventh [day] from the time at which ‘the King of kings, the Holy One, Blessed be He, revealed Himself to [the Children of Israel] and redeemed them,’32 this being an essential revelation that takes place on the first night of Pesach. Nevertheless, the essential revelations of the Seventh Day of Pesach and the Splitting of the Red Sea – in which the sea (‘the hidden world’33) was transformed into dry land (‘the revealed world’34) – had to be preceded by self-sacrifice. And so it was that Nachshon ben Aminadav performed an act of actual self-sacrifice for the sake of G‑d’s command, ‘Let them journey ahead.’ This was an act of self-sacrifice for הָלוֹךְ וְנָסוֹעַ, the ‘onward journeying’35 of which Avraham Avinu was the trailblazer.

“The Seventh Day of Pesach, then, is the Rosh HaShanah of self-sacrifice. Today a Jew should and can arm himself with the might of self-sacrifice for the Torah and its commandments, and with self-sacrifice in his service of the Creator, throughout the entire year.”

Then, at the midday meal on the Seventh Day of Pesach, my great-grandfather said the following:

“There is an explicit legal principle that ‘when something which is regular (or frequent) coincides with something which is irregular (or infrequent), the former takes precedence.’36 This principle finds application in the following discussions in the Talmud: (a) in the debate as to whether or not the blessing recited over the wine37 [of Kiddush]should precede the blessing pronounced over the sanctity of the day; (b) in the debate as to whether or not the Psalm sung in honor of Shabbos38should precede the one sung in honor of Rosh Chodesh, the New Moon; and (c) in the debate as to the order of the respective Torah readings for Rosh Chodesh and Chanukah.39

“From all these three legal discussions, the following becomes clear as to the meaning of תָּדִיר [translated above as ‘regular (or frequent)’]: (i) it refers to the day of the week;40 this we learn from the discussion on the Daily Psalm, where we see that its opposite term (‘not tadir’) is used to describe the monthly Psalm newly-arrived on the scene; (ii) it is also a quantitative term; this we see from the discussion over the blessings to be recited over the wine [which appears frequently] or over the day. The meaning of day we learn from the discussion on the Daily Psalm – we learn that the essential nature of each particular day is expressed in its Daily Psalm. We learn too that days in general receive their energy through the Torah Reading of those passages that are relevant to them. From this one can conclude that the element of tadir in each day of the week is its particular passage in the Torah’s account of the Six Days of Creation, and that this passage gives strength to [the distinctive nature of] each day.

“This explains the daily custom of certain individuals, whose divine service is systematically gradated, to read each day’s particular passage. Just as on Shabbos one reads the passage that begins וַיְכֻלּוּ הַשָּׁמַיִם – “The heavens... were completed,”41 so on Sunday do these people read from “In the beginning” until “And it was evening and it was morning – one day,”42 and similarly on the other days of the week. There is, however, a difference: the passage relating to Shabbos is read Friday evening, and it is read three times, whereas the other daily passages are read once, either before or after the morning prayers.

“As far as today is concerned, its tadir aspect is the fact that it is Wednesday, and its ‘not tadir’ aspect is the fact that it is the Seventh Day of Pesach. In the Torah passage connected with this day of the week we read, יְהִי מְאֹרֹת – ‘Let there be luminaries.’43 In this verse, the noun is not spelled in full (מְאוֹרוֹת), which would make it derive unequivocally from מָאוֹר (‘a luminary’), signifying a source of beneficence and blessing. Instead, ‘it is spelled defectively – מְאֹרֹת,’44 which [also] relates it to מְאֵרָה (‘a curse’). On Wednesday the luminaries were suspended [in the heavens] to illuminate the earth.45 On the spiritual plane, ‘luminaries’ signify the little children who study in Torah schools, those whose ‘sinless breath... sustains the world.’46 In our verse, however, the word for ‘luminaries’ is spelled מְאֹרֹת and Rashi comments47 that it is spelled without a vav since [Wednesday] is a day when young children are threatened by the curse (מְאֵרָה) of choking. Croup, the Gemara teaches, is a punishment for the sin of evil speech;48 it threatens on Wednesdays, for this was the day on which the moon sinned by speaking evilly against the sun.49

“As far as today’s ‘not tadir’ aspect is concerned, the reading [for the Seventh Day of Pesach] is the passage beginning Az yashir,50the song of exultation over the revelation of G‑d’s very Being at the Splitting of the Red Sea.”

The Tzemach Tzedek concluded with a blessing: “May the Almighty be compassionate, so that this song of exultation will annul the decree of spiritual choking that the Berlinists seek to issue, with the government’s backing, against Jewish children.”51

* * *

Further details about this year (1843) in which the first Rabbinical Conference was convened, during the reign of the tyrant Nicholas, are to be found in Kovetz Shalsheles HaOr, Heichal Chamishi.8

67. Avraham Avinu was the first to open the way for self-sacrifice52 for the sake of disseminating a knowledge of Divinity in the world.

R. Akiva sought self-sacrifice. Indeed he said, “All my days I was distressed by the verse [that commands one to love G‑d] בְּכָל נַפְשְׁךָ – ‘with all your soul,’53 [which the Mishnah explains to mean that one should love Him] ‘even if He takes your soul.’54 I used to say, ‘When will [this verse] present itself to me, so that I shall be able to fulfill it?’”

Avraham Avinu, by contrast, did not seek self-sacrifice: he did not even think about it. His only thought was how to make a knowledge of G‑d widespread in the world. When self-sacrifice was called for it did not hinder him in the slightest; he did not even know that it was self-sacrifice, and when he was in prison he continued with his task of disseminating the knowledge of G‑d.

At the time of the Splitting of the Red Sea there was a different kind of self-sacrifice: Nachshon ben Aminadav leaped into the sea.

The first act of self-sacrifice was in the fire of the furnace of Ur Casdim;55 the second took place in water. This is what is alluded to in the phrase, “We have gone through fire and water”56 – a reference to these two kinds of self-sacrifice for the Sanctification of the Divine Name.57

68. The Splitting of the Red Sea was preceded by the Exodus from Egypt, which signifies getting out of one’s straits58 and boundaries. In terms of avodah, this means freeing oneself of one’s habits. The next step is the Splitting of the Red Sea, which means developing a sensitivity to Atzmus, to G‑d’s own Being. This means walking down the street and observing heaven and earth, and sensing that such a creation could only be the work of the very Being of the Infinite One. This kind of perception can be had by a person who cultivates himself in the direction of forsaking habitude.

Freeing oneself of one’s habits is a labor of self-sacrifice. Every Jew has the strength to accomplish it – except that one has to want to actually do it, instead of satisfying oneself with the knowledge that one has the potential.

69. It is time that everyone knew that the desecrators of the Shabbos are not our leaders: not through them will the Redemption come. In Eretz Yisrael children have been brought from Poland, from families killed in Sanctification of the Divine Name, and have been enrolled in unJewish schools. This is shameless effrontery. If it is firmly opposed, it will be overcome. Opposition likewise needs to be raised against the local nonkosher Talmud Torah schools and yeshivos that are harming the Jews of this country spiritually and materially.

Like all countries that are living in dread of the tyrant,59 this country is in sore need of Divine mercy. The Jewish people are in even more desperate need of mercy. Protection comes about through the observance of practical commandments and the study of the Torah; in the words of the Sages, “[The mitzvos and the Torah] protect and save.”60

As recorded in my notes at the time, my father and I spent five weeks in Petersburg on public business during the Russian Revolution of 1917. On our return, the learned R. Yitzchak Yoel Raphaelovitch accompanied us as far as Kharkov, and R. Elye Chaim Althaus all the way home to Rostov.

At one of the railway stations R. Elye Chaim got hold of a newspaper with the latest news. When my father read that the Czar had been overthrown and that this was now to be a free country, he said: “Now we have to establish Tomchei Temimim Yeshivos in every city and township. Now that the Haskalah is spreading we have to set up a great number of chadarim and yeshivos. At all times, and in all matters, it is the power of self-sacrifice that comes out victorious.”

70. Those who want to be connected with the [Alter] Rebbe – and such a bond brings real benefits, both material and spiritual – and who [accordingly] study the daily reading of Tanya as indicated in HaYom Yom, have read today61 a certain passage from Chapter 42.

There the [Alter] Rebbe says: “This capacity and this quality62 of attaching one’s daas to G‑d is present in every soul of the House of Israel.” What does the Alter Rebbe seek to convey with specifically these words, ‘this capacity and this quality’?

Just before this the Alter Rebbe says: “However, the essence of knowledge is not merely knowing, that people should know the greatness of G‑d from authors and books. Rather, the essential thing is to immerse one’s own mind deeply into the greatness of G‑d, and fix one’s thought on G‑d with strength and vigor of the heart and mind, until his thought shall be bound to G‑d with a strong and mighty bond, as it is bound to a material thing which he sees with his physical eyes and upon which he concentrates his thought...”

This means that just as it is common experience to become attached to a physical thing by seeing it, because it is relevant to him, so ought one to feel attached to Divinity. What is intended here is not study alone, but mainly active avodah. This is achieved through daas, by immersing one’s mind deeply, “with strength and vigor of the heart.” We Jews all possess this capacity by virtue of our nurture from the soul of Moshe Rabbeinu.

It is this connection that the Alter Rebbe speaks of – “this capacity and this quality.” Everyone has the capacity and ability [to apply his mind in the way described above], except that one has to want to do so.

The fact is, however, that because the soul is enclothed in a body it is very difficult to attach oneself [to G‑d] “with strength and vigor of the heart” as one ought to. But since the Alter Rebbe is kindhearted, he offers two pieces of advice. One of these is the exertion of the flesh – crushing oneself; as the Zohar says, “A body into which the light of the soul does not penetrate should be crushed.”63 This signifies repentance from the depths of one’s heart. The second piece of advice will be explained in due course.