To a wanton sinner in his city, notorious for not leaving any sin uncommitted, he once said: “I harbor great jealousy toward you, for if you only so desired you could make yourself even more complete than I am. If you would only rue all your sins and return to G‑d out of love, your merits would be more numerous than can be calculated!”
— Toldot Kedushat Levi, 13.
Following Yom Kippur in the year 1809, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berdichev, famed then and now as the great advocate of the Jewish people, suddenly took ill. He had lived some seventy years, a long life by the standards of the time. Now he felt his soul ascending from earthly embodiment towards heaven. But not yet!
Each year, and all year long, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok awaited the festival of Sukkot, excitedly anticipating the joy and pleasure of fulfilling its unique mitzvot. He particularly loved the mitzvah of arba minim — the Four Kinds, initially fulfilled on the first day of Sukkot with a palm frond (lulav), willow branches (aravot), myrtle branches (hadassim), and a citron (etrog). All four are brought together and waved in all directions: right, left, forward, up, down, and backward.
Each year, his rapture at the thought of fulfilling this mitzvah prevented him from going to sleep on the first night of Sukkot: “Such was his longing and desire to see the dawn, for then he would be able to fulfill the mitzvah of arba minim!”
That last year, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s great anguish at the thought of dying just days before Sukkot caused him to call out to G‑d in prayer, pleading to be granted just a little more time upon this earth. For it is only here, as an embodied soul, that a Jew has the opportunity, privilege, and pleasure of fulfilling the mitzvot.
His prayers were answered. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak regained sufficient strength to celebrate the holiday of Sukkot and to dance on Simchat Torah. Following the conclusion of the festival, his strength left him, and just a few days later, on the 25th of Tishrei, he returned his soul to his Maker.1
***
The story of the holy Berditchever’s last Sukkot is a portal into deeper dimensions of his spiritual worldview. We often hear stories in which he defended the merits of the Jewish people, even when others might reasonably have found fault. Yet the above story more explicitly emphasizes his enthusiastic embrace of the ritual mitzvot prescribed by the Torah.
Strikingly, the cosmic significance of the mitzvot is highlighted on the very first page of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s famous book, Kedushas Levi Al Hatorah (Berditchev, 1811), which has recently been republished by Artscroll with a new English translation and elucidation.2 Encapsulated in just a few paragraphs, this opening teaching is also quite rich in its conceptual range and detail, and thus poses quite a challenge to the translator. At its heart is a distinction between thinking of Creation as a past event versus thinking of Creation as something continuously unfolding in the present.
To relegate Creation to the past is to separate the present from the active presence of G‑d, and thus to allow our present existence to gain the pretension of autonomy, asserting its detachment and independence from Divinity. Such an attitude aligns with what the Chassidic masters call yesh, meaning “self-assertion,” “egotism,” or, more literally, “somethingness.”
By contrast, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak explains, “When a person attains the state of nothingness (ayin), and recognizes that he doesn’t exist autonomously — rather the Creator, blessed be He, is vitalizing him — he will then refer to G‑d as ‘the One who forms,’ using the present tense, meaning that G‑d is actively forming him even now.”
Notably, the opening verse of the Torah is phrased in the past tense: “In the beginning, G‑d created heaven and earth.” Fundamentally, the holy Berditchever explains, the world is in a state of yesh, unconscious of the truth that G‑d’s “sustenance is unceasing — for at every moment, He bestows sustenance on His creatures.”
In truth, heaven and earth are always dependent on G‑d’s active gift of existence, and thus are always dependent on Divine nothingness, ayin. But in their self-perception, they have been created long ago, back “in the beginning,” and thus assert their current independence of G‑d, their own somethingness, yesh. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak adds that the existential state of ayin “transcends nature,” while the existential state of yesh “accords with nature.”
Can this fundamental existential gap be bridged? Can people within the natural bounds of heaven and earth ever achieve existential transcendence and be absorbed within the supernatural truth of G‑d’s constant embrace?
The answer given by the holy Berditchever is clear: “The way that we join the yesh to the ayin is through the mitzvah and through the Torah.” This is because Torah and mitzvot themselves combine the concealed and revealed dimensions of reality, the yesh and the ayin; they come from beyond the natural world and yet they can only be applied and realized within the natural world.
At this point, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak provides us with an amazing rereading of the very word mitzvah (מצוה), using the ancient alphabetic cipher known as Atbash to disclose the cosmic and kabbalistic significance hidden within it. Atbash assigns each of the twenty-two letters of the Hebrew alphabet its reverse value. The first letter, aleph, is read as the last letter, tav; the second letter, bet, is read as the penultimate letter, shin, and so on. The first two letters of mitzvah, mem and tzadik, are accordingly read as yud and hei. Given that the last two letters are already vav and hei, this transforms the word mitzvah into the ineffable four-letter name of G‑d known as the Tetragrammaton. A mitzvah, in other words, communicates the ineffable transcendence of G‑d within the eloquent strictures of nature. A mitzvah closes the gap between ayin and yesh.3
***
In a footnote, the new Artscroll edition accurately notes that the key element of this teaching — that G‑d is constantly creating the whole cosmos anew — “is expounded upon at length in the second section of the Tanya (Shaar HaYichud VeHaEmunah),” by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi.4 The latter was not only the founder of Chabad Chassidism, but also a close colleague of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, and later his in-law. In their “Introduction,” the Artscroll editors opine that of all the Chassidic books of this formative era, “Kedushas Levi is most akin, both in its general ideas and in its modes of expression, to R’ Shneur Zalman’s Likutei Torah.”5
Of course, this is a generalization to which many caveats should be added. Yet, it is certainly notable that both of these masters set cognizance of the unceasing sustenance of creation as the basis of a vibrant relationship with G‑d. It does not seem incidental that this idea appears in the very first teaching in Kedushas Levi, and at the opening of Shaar HaYichud VeHaEmunah, which was written to provide “the beginning” and “the foundation” of “love and awe.”6
Artscroll’s edition is beautifully produced, and includes substantial introductory materials that provide an overview of the author’s life and a larger contextual framework that will be immensely helpful to any reader. One shortcoming of the translation, however, is that some passages are actually left untranslated. The above rereading of the word mitzvah is a case in point. “A Note to the Reader” at the beginning of Volume I provides an explanation of how Atbash works and even includes a handy chart.7 Yet the first opportunity where it could have been utilized is unapologetically waved away: “The above passage,” the English text reads, “contains kabbalistic concepts that are beyond the scope of this work.”8
Omissions like these, and some other quirks of this translation, stem from a fundamental confusion about the role of kabbalistic concepts in Chassidic teachings. According to the Note to the Reader, “The conceptual system and terminology of Kabbalah” is used by the Maggid of Mezritch and his disciples, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak among them, “to describe the inner working of the human soul, rather than to expound the hidden mysteries of Creation and the spiritual realm.”9
As should be obvious to anyone who has studied Kedushas Levi or other early Chassidic works, this is simply untrue. In fact, Kabbalah is consistently used by the Chassidic masters to explain how Torah and mitzvot facilitate a luminous reunion between G‑d and humanity, and, by extension, between G‑d and the world. Combining the mystical worldview of Kabbalah with the Baal Shem Tov’s inner-worldly ethos, the Berditchever and his colleagues empowered ordinary people to serve G‑d with awe, love, and joy.
In Chassidism, human psychology is never merely human. Instead, human psychology is the prism of the soul through which divinity can be understood and grasped. Likewise, the idea that mitzvot bridge the gap between the yesh and the ayin cannot be reduced to an explanation of “the inner working of the human soul.” Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s incisive treatment of interrelated questions about time, the nature of G‑d’s creative activity, and the cosmic significance of mitzvot, is indeed an exposition on the “mysteries of creation and the spiritual realm.”
Some neo-hasidic thinkers and writers have tended to downplay the powerful religious and mystical commitments at the beating heart of Chassidic fervor. Borrowing from Chassidism for an alternative ideology that is more “spiritual” than “religious,” they constrain soaring kabbalistic concepts to conform with a human rationalism that presumes itself to be more modern and more enlightened.10
Is this the interpretative precedent that Artscroll is following?
A footnote indicates that Artscroll’s editorial team was actually motivated by a completely different concern, namely that “liberal use of kabbalistic terminology” might breach “the strictures mentioned in halachic literature regarding the study of Kabbalah.” The source given for these “strictures” is “Shach on Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh Deah 246 §6.”11
Absurdly, having highlighted the strictures noted by Shach, Artscroll tries to wave them away with the excuse that Rabbi Levi Yitzchak doesn’t use kabbalistic terminology to “expound the hidden mysteries of creation and the spiritual realm,” but only to “describe the inner working of the human soul.” By their own logic, this should only make matters worse. After all, human psychology is certainly not Torah, but rather in the category of “other disciplines.” In the very passage that Shach was glossing, Rabbi Moshe Isserlis wrote: “a person should not study … other disciplines,” for through them “this world and the World to Come” will not be acquired.12 Surely the secularization of Kabbalah can’t render it kosher?!
Unfortunately, these confusions cloud Artscroll’s laudable foray into the project of translating, elucidating, and publishing Chassidic teachings. The claim that Kabbalah is fundamentally irrelevant to Chassidic teachings leads to the corrosion of coherent explanation with vagaries and misrepresentations. In the future, translators would do better to take heed of the words of the Arizal, as paraphrased by Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi: “In these later generations, specifically, it is permitted and a mitzvah to reveal kabbalistic wisdom.”13 Dissemination of Torah’s inner dimension should no longer be subject to obfuscation.
***
In addition to being a great Chassidic master, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak was also a career rabbi, who held the official rabbinic seats in Ryczywół (early 1760s), Żelechów (later 1760s), Pinsk (1770s), and finally Berditchev (from the mid 1780s till his passing in 1809). In each of these towns he was the head of the rabbinical court, and in Żelechów and Berdychiv he also headed a yeshivah, a Talmudic academy where gifted students came to study under his tutelage. He was not only an inspiring spiritual leader, but also a scholar’s scholar and an authoritative adjudicator of thorny questions of Jewish law.14
Although Kedushas Levi is first and foremost a work of Chassidic inspiration, the author’s fluency in Talmudic and halachic literature is salient. The new Artscroll edition includes a helpful index, with specific sections devoted to works cited, including Talmud, Midrash, Zohar, Rashi, Rambam, Ramban, Tur, Shulchan Aruch, and more. Rabbi Levi Yitzchak seems to have been especially animated by questions raised by Tosafot, the medieval collection of glosses that grace the outer margin in most editions of the Talmud. These questions form the traditional foundation of all in-depth Talmudic study, analysis, and debate, and they are referenced tens of times throughout Kedushas Levi. (Artscroll’s index lists some examples, but not all of them.)
The first volume of Kedushas Levi was published in 1798 by Rabbi Levi Yitzchak himself. On the title page, the author expressed his intention “to publish more novella on Talmud with the commentaries of Rashi and Tosafot (gefes).”15 This volume (the contents of which were not included in Artscroll’s translation project) includes an essay analyzing Talmudic sources concerning the rabbinic court’s authority to determine when a new Jewish month should start. By extension, this also determines when the biblical festivals will be celebrated. The essay advances a bold and innovative interpretation, and concludes with a reiteration of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s wish that “G‑d shall help me to publish the treatise on gefes, for with sharp interpretation (chidud) of gefes we bring pleasure to our Creator.”16
Perhaps composed in manuscript, this anticipated treatise was never published, and its fate remains unknown.17 Nevertheless, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s holistic integration of mystical and halachic strands of Torah hermeneutics is represented in his published works. One example, which takes its cue from a Tosafot, appears in the section of Kedushas Levi devoted to Passover, found in volume three of the new Artscroll edition.18 It takes up a characteristic theme of Chassidic literature: the different forms of holiness that are respectively manifest on Shabbat and Yom Tov.
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak locates the intertwined mystical and halachic dimensions of the distinction between Shabbat and Yom Tov in a Talmudic discussion about Havdalah, the ceremonial blessing marking the conclusion of these holy days. The Talmud records two laws in quick succession: 1) “At the conclusion of Shabbat one makes the blessing on wine, on fire, and on spices, and then one recites Havdalah over the cup of wine.” 2) “When Yom Tov begins immediately following Shabbat … one makes the blessing on wine, recites Kiddush (marking the onset of Yom Tov), makes the blessing on fire, and then recites Havdalah (marking the conclusion of Shabbat).”19
A comparison of these two laws reveals that spices are omitted when Shabbat is immediately followed by Yom Tov. Why?
Tosafot first cites the answer given by Rashbam: On Shabbat we are gifted an additional soul, and when it departs at Shabbat’s conclusion we inhale the fragrance of spices to restore our spirits in the wake of this loss. On Yom Tov too, said Rashbam, we have an additional soul. Therefore, when Shabbat is immediately followed by Yom Tov there is no need to restore our spirits with fragrant spices.20
But Tosafot is not persuaded that Yom Tov indeed endows us with an additional soul in the same way that Shabbat does. If this were indeed the case, Tosafot argues, spices should be part of the Havdalah ceremony marking the conclusion of Yom Tov, just as they are part of Havdalah at the conclusion of Shabbat. The fact that spices are not part of the Havdalah ceremony at the conclusion of Yom Tov leads to the conclusion that Yom Tov does not endow us with an extra soul, and thus Rashbam’s answer must be rejected.
This brings Tosafot back to square one: Why aren’t spices part of the Havdalah ceremony when Shabbat is immediately followed by Yom Tov? Tosafot answers that even though we lose the additional soul, our spirits are revived by the joy of Yom Tov which is celebrated with special feasts, and that’s why spices aren’t included.
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, however, seeks to uphold Rashbam’s original answer while also neutralizing the argument made by Tosafot against it. He accepts that both Shabbat and Yom Tov endow us with an additional soul. So there is no need for spices when Shabbat is immediately followed by Yom Tov. But, if that’s the case, why aren’t spices required at the conclusion of Yom Tov? The reason, the Berditchever proposes, is bound up with a fundamental difference between how Shabbat and Yom Tov themselves come to be endowed with sanctity.
The Talmud states that the sanctity of Shabbat is “fixed and established,” while Rosh Chodesh and the festivals “are sanctified by the Jewish people.”21 As the new Artscroll edition helpfully explains, the start of each month (Rosh Chodesh) is determined by authority of the rabbinic court. Each month can either be twenty-nine or thirty days, and the court can also add a month to create a leap year. The festivals, which are set by the monthly calendar, therefore depend on the court’s decisions. This stands in contrast to Shabbat, which G‑d has eternally consecrated as the seventh day of each week.
According to Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, this reflects a deep spiritual distinction: “On Shabbat there is an awakening issued from on High, but Yom Tov and Rosh Chodesh result from an awakening initiated from below … in accordance with the decision of the Sages of the generation.”
An awakening initiated from above, he further explains, both begins and ends when G‑d so determines. But an awakening initiated below depends to a much greater extent on the individual. “Indeed,” the Berditchever writes, “a person is always able to attach themselves to an awakening initiated below.” Each festival is defined primarily by the mystical-emotional state that it most centrally highlights. Thus, “Passover is the state of love of the Creator …, Rosh Hashanah is the state of … fear and awe of the Creator,” while other festivals are animated by the desire to act in ways that will bring G‑d pleasure.
Attainment of such mystical-emotional states, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak explains, depends primarily on an individual’s own initiative. Accordingly, the aura of the festival and the additional soul that comes along with it do not depart as soon as the day is over. Indeed, he adds, the Talmudic sages designated the day following Yom Tov as the quasi-festival isru chag because we remain somewhat illuminated and awakened. By the same token, when we recite Havdalah at the conclusion of Yom Tov there is no sudden loss and no need to revive our spirits with fragrant spices.
Through a distinctly Chassidic conception of the dynamic relationship between the Jewish people and G‑d, the holy Berditchever elegantly resolves a classical point of halachic perplexity.
***
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s reputation as a defender of the Jewish people isn’t only based on the many popular stories that continue to be told about him. Even before he published the first volume of Kedushas Levi, he allowed some of his writings to be published in a volume titled Sefer Hazichirot (Mezirov, 1794). The publisher’s introduction extols the Berditchever as “one who carries upon his shoulder the burden of the entire people, G‑d’s nation, acting as their shield and protector, teaching the people wisdom and understanding … he is the trustworthy shepherd who guides his holy flock … in affairs of heaven and affairs of earth, that they shall not fall into deep abysses, heaven forfend, and who draws down for them abundant good and blessing from G‑d in heaven, as we have heard with our own ears that all his words … are always to solicit good for his people, the House of Israel.”22
This is immediately followed by a teaching “that I heard from the holy mouth of our honored master and teacher” concerning the festival of Sukkot. The same teaching appears, almost verbatim, close to the end of Kedushas Levi Al Hatorah, and is thus included in the new Artscroll edition.23 Let’s take a closer look:
The Torah introduces the mitzvah of arba minim with the instruction, “On the first day you shall take for yourselves a beautiful fruit (i.e. an etrog), a palm branch, etc.”24 Generally, when the Torah assigns a number to a particular day, it refers to the day of the month. Given that Sukkot begins on the fifteenth of the month, the Midrash asks, why is the festival of Sukkot referred to as “the first day”?
As is often the way of Midrash, the answer comes by way of a long parable about a king who comes to claim a debt owed to him by the citizens of one of his cities. After many entreaties, the king forgives the debt. Similarly, in response to all our entreaties, climaxing with Yom Kippur, G‑d forgives the sins of the Jewish people. Then, once Sukkot begins, He declares, “I have pardoned you for the sins you have committed previously, but today is the first day of the new account.” From this day onward, sins are once again enumerated and held against us, therefore the Torah refers to this as “the first day.”
This Midrash is quoted in the canonical halachic code known as the Tur, and is thus subject to rigorous analysis by Beit Yosef, Taz, and other classical commentators. But none of them succeed in removing the elephant of disconcertion from the room: Does the Midrash really intend to recast Sukkot, often referred to as “the season of our joy,” as the time when we first stumble back into sin?
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak resolves this question via the distinction made by the Talmudic sages between return to G‑d out of fear (teshuvah me’yirah) and return to G‑d out of love (teshuvah me’ahavah): When teshuvah is motivated by fear, one’s intentional sins are treated as unwitting transgressions. But when teshuvah is motivated by love, one’s intentional sins are treated as merits.25
This, explained Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, is the distinction between the first half of the month of Tishrei, when we celebrate Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, and the second half of Tishrei, beginning with Sukkot:
From Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, each person certainly examines his ways in order to return to G‑d … out of fear of G‑d and recognition of his splendorous majesty when he comes to judge the earth … Which person shall not be fearful, and which soul shall not be anguished, when coming to be judged by the Judge of all the earth? … Such a return is called teshuvah me’yirah.
And after Yom Kippur, when each is busy with the mitzvah of sukkah, of lulav and arba minim, and distributing charity commensurate to G‑d’s unstinting hand, all with generosity and love, serving G‑d out of joy and gladness of heart, then this return is called teshuvah me’ahavah …
Prior to Sukkot, when teshuvah is motivated by fear, the sins are not counted at all, because they are still considered unwitting transgressions. However, on Sukkot, when teshuvah is motivated by love of G‑d, then G‑d indeed counts and enumerates our sins which are transformed into merits, and serve as good advocates for the worthiness of the Jewish people …
Sukkot — precisely because it is a time of joy and love, rather than fear and awe — is the day when we “first’ attain “the advantage” of our sins being counted as merits, and that’s why the mitzvah of arba minim is introduced with the instruction, “On the first day you shall take for yourselves etc.” Perhaps this also gives us a clue as to why Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, the great advocate for the merit of the Jewish people, particularly treasured this mitzvah, waiting up all night and performing it as soon as this “first day” dawned.
This teaching is certainly a form of advocacy on behalf of the Jewish people. But this advocacy isn’t a straightforward defense, nor even a claim that the Jewish people are innocent of wrongdoing. On the contrary, Rabbi Levi Yitzchak’s advocacy is directed in part toward the Jewish people themselves. If they are to be found meritorious, it will be by dint of their own efforts to repair and recreate their relationship with G‑d, examining their ways, and acknowledging their failings.
Sin’s transformation into merit depends on returning to the path of holiness, first under the thrall of G‑d’s awe-inspiring majesty, and then propelled by a loving rush into G‑d’s embrace. To experience teshuvah me’ahavah is not merely to begin again with a clean slate. It is, rather, to revise and transform your past, to learn from your failings rather than simply abandoning them. Unlike fear, love doesn’t require you to discount or repress any part of who you are or have been. Love enables you to repair your past self and integrate the totality of who you are into an even stronger relationship with G‑d.
***
As I sampled the Artscroll edition of Kedushas Levi, I often found myself quibbling with the minutiae of translation and elucidation. While some of this has to do with conceptual questions, editorial quirks of style and format are also at play. The phrase-by-phrase translation championed by Artscroll sometimes breaks the flow, losing some of the elegance that could have been retained with a more free structure. But this also has the advantage of allowing readers to stick close to the original Hebrew text, which is included in full, and easily turn to the corresponding English as necessary.
Ultimately, these quibbles forced me to think more deeply about what I was reading. Soon I found myself leafing through various other books, old and new, popular and scholarly, devoted to the life and teachings of this legendary personality.26 As I studied, thought, and wrote, something began to crystalize: Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berditchev possessed the mind of a Talmudic analyst and the heart of a Chassidic mystic. His teachings are deeply anchored in the classical literary traditions of both Halachah and Kabbalah. Their combination of intellectual brilliance and emotional exuberance endows them with unique radiance and vitality.27
Moyshe Silk, the general editor of this new edition, shares a personal anecdote in his preface to Volume 1. Back in 1995, when this momentous project was still a vague dream, he undertook a trip to Ukraine, where his own Chassidic ancestors once lived, and where many early Chassidic masters are buried. In Berditchev, at the grave of Rabbi Levi Yitzchak, he found a large glass lamp filled with olive oil, but the large wick was unlit. He tried to light it, but somehow he was unable to. He tried again and again, but was rewarded only with frustration. This experience, Silk writes, “cast a lasting impression on me.”28
I can’t help but see this as an example of a failure that has turned into a merit of exponentially increasing magnitude. Having failed to light that single physical flame, Moyshe Silk spent nearly thirty years laboring to render in readable English the luminous teachings of this great master of learning, advocacy, and exuberance. Now, finally, this new edition of Kedushas Levi will light spiritual flames in many thousands of minds and hearts all across the world.
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