In Aramaic, the language of the Talmud and the Zohar, the word histalkut means departure or withdrawal. In Kabbalistic texts it usually connotes upward ascent. This is the term most commonly used by chassidim to refer to the death of superlatively righteous individuals, tzaddikim, of whom the Talmud says, “Even in their death, they are called alive.”1 To use the term histalkut is to reconfigure this event as a transition, an ascent from one form of life to another: the soul of the tzaddik ascends from individuated embodiment and enters into an expansive state of encompassing presence.

This summer marks 30 years since the histalkut of the Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory, in 1994. Thirty years of ascent, and counting.

The Rebbe’s tenure as leader of Chabad-Lubavitch began after the histalkut of his father-in-law, the Sixth Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn (1880-1950), of righteous memory, in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust. Chabad Chassidim, who had survived the violence of Soviet repression and the cruelty of Nazi genocide, were rallied and buoyed by the stalwart leadership and bold vision of the Sixth Rebbe. He was the flaming brand rescued from catastrophic fire to illuminate a path into the future. Now, it seemed, they were left bereft.

I turn to this moment because I find the Rebbe’s response at that time superlatively instructive for our time. When I say response, I’m not referring to grand statements or strategies, but to a way of thinking and communicating whose subtlety and profundity is powerfully encapsulated in a humble footnote that might easily be overlooked.

So let me tell you about this footnote:

A few days prior to Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak’s histalkut, his son-in-law and successor-to-be published two of his discourses with the addition of a short preface. The preface stated that the first discourse—beginning with the words bati legani, “I came to my garden,” from Song of Songs 5:1—was to be studied on the upcoming anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak’s grandmother, Rebbetzin Rivkah Schneersohn (d. 1914).2 That anniversary turned out to be the very day of the Sixth Rebbe’s own passing.

A few weeks thereafter, the Rebbe published an additional discourse by his father-in-law.3 In a relatively lengthy preface, he wrote that his father-in-law’s leadership would be perpetuated through the continued study and application of his teachings. Quoting a canonical letter by Chabad’s founder, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, he wrote:

When we study his teachings and talks, and walk on the straight path in which he has instructed us, then, “Like water reflects the face, and as spirit rouses spirit and brings forth spirit, his spirit stands literally among us … Even in this world of action … [the tzaddik] is found more.”4

All of this is quite familiar to most Chabad Chassidim. A footnote appended to this preface, however, is less well-known. Here the Rebbe directly discusses the meaning of the word histalkut, albeit with a compacted complexity that will require some elaboration:

Regarding the term histalkut, we can take note from the discourse that was given for the day of the histalkut (Bati Legani, section 1), which explains the Zoharic formulation, “When the other side (sitra achara) is subdued, the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, ascends [istalek] in all the worlds,” to mean that the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, flows into all worlds (except that the revelation [of this glory] is in a transcendent manner).5

Footnote to the preface of the discourse published for Purim 5710.
Footnote to the preface of the discourse published for Purim 5710.

Let’s slow down and unpack what the Rebbe is saying here.

A conjugate of the term histalkut, he tells us, is used and interpreted in the very first section of the Sixth Rebbe’s final discourse. Although the context there is quite different, the Rebbe nevertheless suggests it can illuminate the meaning of this word in reference to the death of tzaddikim.

A careful reading of Bati Legani’s opening section reveals that conjugates of histalkut actually appear twice: Firstly, to mark G‑d’s “ascent” from the world as a result of human sin. Secondly, to mark the influx or “downflow” (hamshachah) of an “ascendant” manifestation of G‑d when “the other side”—referring to anything unholy or impure—is subdued.6

These two usages stand in direct contrast to one another. To sin is to be subdued by the sitra achara, and it results in the ascent of Divine revelation from the world. On this score, histalkut is understood in negative terms, as a withdrawal of Divine illumination, a concealment of Divine presence. But this negative ascent is reversed when the urge to sin is overcome, when the sitra achara is subdued. This results in a positive histalkut: “... the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, ascends in all the worlds.”

Here, the Rebbe further notes, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak added a twist that has deep roots in Chabad literature: This usage of the term actually inverts the very meaning of histalkut so that it now indicates a heightened form of Divine presence, rather than Divine withdrawal and concealment. The revelation or “downflow” of G‑d within the confines of worldly existence, and within the confines of human experience, usually depends on Divine diminution, which the kabbalists refer to as tzimtzum. But to subdue the sitra achara is to elicit an expansive and ascendent manifestation of G‑d, which remains undiminished and transcendent even as it “flows into all the worlds.”7

In fact, this inversion of the meaning of histalkut is deeply bound up with Chabad’s inverted interpretation of tzimtzum, which is sometimes described as “non-literal” or “metaphorical.” In the authoritative account of tzimtzum found in Rabbi Chayim Vital’s Etz Chayim, we read that “The Infinite contracted Himself and withdrew … because the receptacles could not be created until the light would withdraw completely.”8 The words translated here as “withdrew” or “withdraw” are conjugates of the same root word as histalkut. Accordingly, a word whose prima-facie connotation indicates the ascent and withdrawal of Divine revelation from the cosmos is reconstrued by the Sixth Rebbe as marking the revelation of Divine transcendence within the cosmos. Instead of signifying Divine rupture and departure from the world, tzimtzum and histalkut signify Divine union and ascendence within the world.

***

What I have tried to explain over the course of the foregoing paragraphs is encapsulated by the Rebbe in the sparse clauses of a single sentence. Couched with the circumscription of a scholarly footnote, as if dryly clarifying a philological point, the Rebbe is actually making a bold conceptual transferal from the realm of theology and cosmology to the social realm of communal life, leadership, and continuity. On this reading, the traditional euphemism for a tzaddik’s death, histalkut, does not refer to the tzaddik’s ascent and withdrawal from the world. Instead, it signifies the heightened presence of the tzaddik within the world. No longer mediated by the limitations of the body, the tzaddik’s soul is now accessible to all his disciples, wherever they may be, in a manner that ascends beyond its previous circumscriptions.

The underlying idea here is not new. In the aforementioned letter by Rabbi Shneur Zalman, which is explicitly cited and excerpted in the main body of the Rebbe’s preface, it is explained that “While the tzaddik lives upon this earth” his “spiritual life, composed of faith, awe, and love” remains constrained by “his body” and its “physical locality.” By contrast, “After his departure” it is “very easy for his students to receive … from the essential spirit of their master” because “it is not within a container, nor constrained by physical place.”9

In the footnote unpacked above, the Rebbe is innovatively rearticulating this earlier idea in a way that significantly expands its conceptual breadth and depth, anchoring it in some of Chabad’s most fundamental teachings about the relationship between G‑d and the world: The non-literal ascent of the tzaddik parallels the non-literal ascent of G‑d from the world. Just as tzimtzum creates the opportunity for a more profound and ascendent union with G‑d, histalkut creates the opportunity for a more profound and ascendent relationship with the tzaddik.

A characteristic feature of the Rebbe’s interpretive interventions is the demonstration of a harmony between innovative theoretical explanations and the literal meaning of the original text, or linguistic formulation, that is being interpreted. Famously, his studies of Rashi are attentive to even the most minuscule philological details, all of which are ultimately illuminated when the Rebbe provides an astonishingly fresh interpretation of Rashi’s question and answer.10 In this case, too, the Rebbe’s articulation of the positive significance of a tzaddik’s departure from embodied life is fundamentally tied to the very word histalkut and the particular meaning that it is given by the Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak in Bati Legani. To reiterate the point already made: Histalkut doesn’t mean ascent from the world, but a greater revelation of ascendence and transcendence within the world. This is what we mean when we say that a tzaddik has ascended.

Another characteristic feature of the Rebbe’s teachings is his attentiveness to time. The Torah begins by enumerating the six days of Creation, associating different elements of existence with different days of the week, culminating in Shabbat on the seventh day. Likewise, each month and season is given its special hue by the various occasions of commemoration, mourning, awe, and celebration that punctuate the cycle of the Jewish year. Chassidism has added its own special days of remembrance and joy, so that time itself becomes a progression of textured meanings. The Rebbe was especially attentive to these meanings and their intersections, often emphasizing and explaining how they open specific ideas and moments to new portals of significance.11

Here too, the Rebbe points out that the above inversion of the meaning of histalkut was actually explicated in “the discourse that was given for the day of the histalkut.” As noted, the original publication of Bati Legani included a preface stating that it should be studied on Rebbetzin Rivkah’s yahrtzeit, which turned out to be the very day of the Sixth Rebbe’s passing. For the Rebbe, this is a temporal signification that Bati Legani’s reinterpretation of the theological and cosmological meaning of ascent also illuminates the meaning of his father-in-law’s ascent from embodied life.

But there is an even more important element at play here. Ultimately, the central point expounded by the Rebbe—not only in this context but on many other occasions—is that the leadership of a tzaddik is perpetuated when his teachings are studied and applied by others. In this footnote, the Rebbe is practicing what he preached: he is continuing his father-in-law’s leadership by studying, interpreting, and applying his teachings. In order to chart the way forward, in order to ensure the tzaddik’s ascent, the Rebbe profoundly engages the tzaddik’s own teachings about the meaning of ascent.

**

But what of us? What of now?

In the last 30 years, the Rebbe’s teachings have undergone several discernable stages of development and ascent.

During his lifetime, the Rebbe’s teachings were received and recorded for posterity, creating a vast library not only of transcribed talks, but also of audio and video recordings. But much of that material was only accessible to a very limited degree. Since his histalkut, ambitious projects of publication and translation have greatly expanded. People around the world can—and do!—fill bookshelf after bookshelf with hundreds of individual volumes of the Rebbe’s teachings in Yiddish, Hebrew, English, Spanish, French, Russian, and other languages too. Likewise, at the click of a mouse, people anywhere can listen and even watch the Rebbe speaking (often aided by subtitles in several languages) for hundreds of hours, without ever having to listen to the same thing twice.

Approximately 15 years ago, a new stage of development began to crystallize. With such prolific published output, the difficulty of gaining a systematic overview of the Rebbe’s intellectual, interpretive, and instructive contributions—or even a comprehensive account of his approach to any given topic—became increasingly obvious. And so, new projects were launched to catalog and collate his corpus by topic or theme. These projects took the form of topical indexes, thematic anthologies, and book-length studies that focused on specific aspects of the Rebbe’s thought, or attempted to provide a broader overview of his life and teachings.12

As we approach the Rebbe’s 30th yahrtzeit, several new books have appeared from authors of varying persuasions and interests, who are nevertheless united by the desire to learn from the Rebbe, grapple with the meaning of his words, interpret them, apply them, and understand how they continue to exponentially reshape the landscapes of Jewish learning and life. Examples that come to mind are Reuven ha-Kohen Uriah, It Is All One: The Mystical Messianic Secret of the Rabbi of Lubavitch (Idra, 2022, only available in Hebrew); Yosef Bronstein, Engaging the Essence: The Torah Philosophy of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Koren, 2024); Levi Y. Shmotkin, Letters for Life: Guidance for Emotional Wellness from the Lubavitcher Rebbe (Ezra, 2024).

My purpose here is not to review or endorse these books. Apart from anything else, I haven’t yet had time to read them all. But listing these titles is both illustrative and instructive. What we are seeing, what we are part of, is an ascendent deepening of our ability to understand the Rebbe, to absorb his “spiritual life” of “faith, awe, and love” into our own embodied lives, thereby carrying his life onward and upward.

About three weeks after writing the footnote examined above, the Rebbe published another of his father-in-law’s discourses, again with a preface of his own. The appearance of this discourse, he noted, was intended to coincide with the date upon which the Sixth Rebbe’s father—Rabbi Shalom DovBer Schneersohn, the Fifth Rebbe, known as the Rebbe Rashab (1860-1920)—had passed away, 30 years earlier. “Each and every year,” he wrote, “all phenomena are reawakened in their particular times. It is self-understood that in the 30 years that have passed up till now … he has ascended and ascended, one station after another, 30 rungs upward … Accordingly, what he bestows on those who are connected to him also ascends higher and higher. In order to internalize these ascents, we recipients must refine ourselves all the more.”13