Hayom Yom: Tackling Life's Tasks - 27 Adar II

On the Shabbos preceding Rosh Chodesh Nissan, the last of the special readings known as the “Four Parshiyos” is read for maftir, instead of the closing verses of the weekly Torah Reading. This passage — Parshas HaChodesh (Shmos 20:1-20) — opens with the commandment to sanctify the New Moon, beginning with Rosh Chodesh Nissan.

Vayikra 16:1.

In the Kabbalah and in the teachings of Chassidus, the term ratzo signifies the soul’s rapturous desire and experience of running forward and cleaving to its Divine Source.

In the Kabbalah and in the teachings of Chassidus, the term shov signifies the soul’s sober determination to return and fulfill its mission in the body.

Both terms are borrowed from Yechezkel 1:14, where they describe the mode of service that characterizes the angels known as chayos.

I.e., one’s motivation for embarking on the journey of ratzo must be devoid of self-concern — free of a mere desire for spiritual bliss, and aimed only at attaining a deeper level of shov. (See the maamarim known as: Acharei 5649 [1889]; Hemshech Rosh HaShanah 5696 [1935].)

Thus, discussing the “four Sages who entered the orchard [of mystical revelation],” the Rebbe notes that the reason that R. Akiva, alone among his colleagues, “emerged in peace” was that initially “he entered in peace.” (See: Talmud Yerushalmi, Chagigah 2:1; Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 3, p. 990.)

The acid test as to whether the ratzo was “pure and clear” is one’s subsequent “actual practice,” because “the higher a level is, the lower it descends” — the higher one reaches, the more capable he becomes of bringing holiness into ever-lower and more physical levels of worldliness.

Vayikra 16:2-3.

Zohar III, 103a.

Igros Kodesh of the Rebbe Rayatz, loc. cit., citing the Rebbe Rashab, who shared the above teaching with two elder chassidim after delivering the renowned maamar entitled Acharei 5649 [1889]. That discourse, contrasting the respective gestalts of the realms of Tohu and Tikkun, states that the realm of Tohu was characterized by ratzo without the balance of shov.

Tohu (lit., “the realm of Chaos”) represents the primordial world-order in which the unique energy released by each Sefirah — Chessed, Gevurah, and so on — is uncompounded and unrestrained. By contrast, Tikkun (lit., “the realm of Order”)represents the modified world-order in which the unique energy of each Sefirah is moderated by inter-inclusion with its opposite Sefirah, and together they are harnessed and contained by the “vessels” of reason. (See: R. Jacob Immanuel Schochet, Mystical Concepts in Chassidism (Kehot, N.Y., 1979), ch. 9; also appended to the bilingual edition of Tanya (Kehot, London). See also the entry for 7 Tammuz.