28 Tamuz - Igeret Hatshuva

The queen was taken captive. We are going to free her...








There is a basic Jewish concept that is brought many times in Chsidus: "Kemayim hapanim la'panim" (like water: that reflects the face to the face) this concept tells us that when you act to a person in a certain way that person will react the same to you, reflecting back what you have given him . This applies to the spiritual structure as well.

When a person works and does Hitbuneneut (observance) he understands how far away and dirties his Neshama is and has Rachmanus (Mercy?) on his Neshama.
When a person feels this than Hashem also has Rachmanus on his Neshama.
When a person does Khataim (sins), the person is creating a tunel of G-dly light to the Klipah.

Man is a dispatcher of Hashems light.
Man was given a true choice to choose between god and bad with this choise man has a spiritual impact on the world he can funnel the light to klipa or kedusha.
And that is what teshuva really is . Teshuva = coming back.
Who comes back - the Shekhina !
The Shekina that was forced to be in the Klippa world and give its liveliness comes back...
Man has come to this world and went far from his source.
How does one come back to Hashem totally? It is not enough to stop doing Aveirot. The next stage is to practice and learn torah with true Ahava and Yiraa to Hashem.
Tshuva Tataa (Lower Tshuva) is to get rid of the dirt .
Tshuva ila’a (higher Teshuva) is to become one with the king.




Reb Wolf of Zhitomir was a shochet and mohel and a student of the Magid of Mezritch. One day he was returning from a journey and saw a fine building in which pious looking men were celebrating and saying words of Torah. He entered and joined their celebration. When he arrived in Mezritch the Magid refused to talk to him, for he told Reb Wolf that the place he had just spent time belonged to the Sitra Achara. What was Reb Wolf to do, he asked his master. The Magid told him that the only way to repair what he had done was to return to the same place and tell the people there that they are nothing!
He returned and they welcomed him back but he started to tell them that they were all nothing. "Such Hutzpah!" they all cried. He continued to tell them that they were all nothing and that his Rebbe said that they were all nothing. They asked him who is Rebbe was and he replied that he was the Magid of Mezritch. Their leader then produced a little book and said: "If your Rebbe's name appears in my book then you'll never leave here." He searched but the Magid's name was not to be found. All the people and their fine building all faded away and Reb Wolf was able to return to Mezritch..

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A disturbing story no? If the great Reb Wolf was not able to discern between sitra achara folks and genuine hassidim then what hope to we have of knowing the difference?

Rav Daitch said that a similar question was asked of Reb Simcha Bunim of Peshischa. A Talmid once asked him how we know that all our service is real and not just fantasy and imagination. He answered that if you have a "hirhur teshuva"--a thought of returning home to Hashem--then it's no fantasy.

27 Tamuz - Igeret Hatshuva

The Rebbe said: Why does a person feel sad after committing a sin? Because the Yetzer Hara really wanted the person not to listen to him, and when the person listened the Yetzer Hara becomes sad and that's what makes the person sad.

So what's a person to do in such a situation?

Say to the Yetzer Hara: Don't worry. Next time I won't listen to you, and then you'll be happy!

26 Tamuz - Igeret Hatshuva

Talking about Faith;
Faith is a basic power that people are born with
The Rebbe said that you will not find a kid that doesn't have Emuna (Faith).
The Russian communist system had a clear agenda against having any kind of faith.
They worked hard using their educational system and tried to erase the religious faith. When a of Russian Jews came to learn Torah with a group of Chasidim there where many arguments and disputes. One of the Chasisdim told the Russians: “Look, I don’t understand why you are arguing with us so much. You believe that 13 is an unlucky number, if you see a black cat in a certain position you react in a certain way. If the cat is in a different position you do something else…”
The Chassid went on and pointed out a long list of common Russian believes.
“You guys are the omnes who have the faith.
Look at all these weird things you believe in that are far from being logic! – I would say you believe in many believes, we have only one!”

Rabbi Wolf Z”L from Benei Brak is one of those figures of a time that is gone.
I (Rav Dietch) had the honor of meeting him. He said that in our times the Kofrim became Maaminim and Maaminim have become Kofrim!
It doesn’t take much explanation for someone to see a building and come to a conclusion that it was designed by an architect.
On the other hand - in order to say that this building was created randomly - you need a strong Emuna!
The Nimshal is understandable.

25 Tamuz - Igeret Hatshuva

Beginning of Ch. 7 :

The Alter Rebbe (first Chabad Rebbi) begins the chapter with the words: "There is a "straight path" to teshuva"... Rav Deutch was by the Rebbe when the Rebbe was explaining Igeres Hateshuva. The Rebbe asked the question: 'Do you mean to tell me that all the teshuva spoken about til now in the book is not "straight?" Answer: People come to teshuva through different paths. Like the story in the Gemora of R. Elazar ben Durdaya who did all kinds of sins before coming to Teshuva. This is not a "straight" path to teshuva but a twisted one. The Alter Rebbe is telling us about a path to teshuva that we come to not through misdeeds...

24 Tamuz - Igeret Hatshuva

The Chidushei HaRim (the first rebbe of Gur) needed to make an urgent journey to Kotsk. he hired a wagon driver who drove the horses incessantly and one horse died. He continued to drive the remaining horse incessantly and upon arriving at their destination it too died. The wagon driver was upset at losing both his horses--his livelihood, and despite assurances from the Hasidim that they would provide him with new horses he became despondent and died that very day.
When the wagon driver arrived on High they did not know where to place him. They could not send him to Gan Eden as he had not shown any particular devotion in Torah and Mitzvot. They could not send him to Gehinom as he had done this one remarkable act of bringing the Rebbe to Kotsk at the expense of his horses. It was decided that he was to be given a special smooth road, a wagon and superb horses with which he could spend eternity riding up and down at great speed...

To which the Chidushei HaRim commented: "They did him the favor of showing him that it is all his imagination."
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A fly delights in excrement. If we would have the responsibility we would tell it that there are much higher delights in life.
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21 Tamuz - Igeret Hatshuva

Questions: What is better -- someone who learns hours of Hassidus every day and has wide knowledge of all the Sefiros, concepts in Hassidus etc... or someone who takes small doses of it but spends a lot of time thinking about it and trying to live it?

Is the "Chabad" (Chochmah-Binah-Daas = Wisdom*- Understanding - Knowledge) process the process of intellect - information processing/clarification/analysis, or is it the process of integration into one's life?
[*see also http://tinyurl.com/chochma]

Is Chochmah - Binah the intellectual process and Daas the process of making it real?
or the Binah is in actual action until the Daas "catches up"?

Pirkei Avos chapter 3 towards the end:
אם אין דעת אין בינה , ואם אין בינה אין דעת
"Im ain daas ain binah, v'im ain binah ain daas"
--Without Daas (Knowledge) there is no Binah (Understanding), and without Binah there is no Daas.

If so, then the question becomes: Is it better to have more Daas than Binah or more Binah than Daas?

I asked the Rav about this. He said that in Chabad the emphasis was always on daas and integrated knowledge rather than intellectual knowledge, that his mashpia said that the yetzer hara lets a person learn for four hours but won't let him contemplate even for a moment, that taking one idea and driving it home into your very being is more important than all the intellectual knowledge.

So why is the learning of hassidus emphasized so much?

Because, he answered, it's through learning Hassidus that you get the tools to drive the knowledge in to yourself.

Nowadays, he added, due to yeridas hadoros, people mainly talk about the learning of Hassidus rather than contemplation, since that's what we have...

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R. Avraham of Kalisk takes issue with the Alter Rebbe in a famous letter that the approach of presenting the masses with such a breadth and depth of spiritual concepts and learning is dangerous, that when he learned by the Maggid the talmiddim would take one little idea and work with it for months and years before moving on to another one.

The Rav said that the talmidim of the Maggid were all Rebbes in the making, all great people, but that the Alter Rebbe wanted to bring the message to regular people. There has to be depth and breadth--an ocean of hassidus--in order for us regular people to feel a drop.

19 Tamuz - Maymer Shabat Matot 1954

* This Shiur was given by Rabbi Segal
The Rebbe talks in this Maymer about Nedarim .
In our Parasha we learn that a person could make a Neder (Vow) to forbid something on him.
For example. A person can decide that a certain food will be forbidden for him for an X amount of time.
A basic question is asked: how can someone have the right to disable the ability of Berurim (sorting/ departing the good from the bad) for a substance in this world?
A large number of the substances (food materials etc.) in the world have the potential to get elevated to Kedusha, how can a person deprive that from them!?

Well, this Maymer is along one and we will probably answer this question (and others) in the Posts to come. Today we will explain a basic concept in Klipa and Kedusha.

As many may know, the holy spiritual light, energy to this world is funneled through 4 main worlds: Atzilut, Bria, Yetszira, Assi’a
Atzilut is the closest world to “Endless light”. In the next world the light is less apparent and so on. The bottom world - the Assi’a world comes so low that physicality appears.

Well, we learn in this Maymer that the Klipa (Shell, external world that includes the “bad”) world has a similar division.
The 3 unholy Klipot and the 4th klipa – Noga also have 4 worlds.
The difference is that when you talk about Klipa the highest world Atsilut is the world that is the most far away from Endless light (G-d) !
Where do these worlds get their light energy from?
The (physical aspect of the) Assia world of Klippa and Kedusha are the same world – the world we live in!
The middle “Tier”, Klipat Nogga can go either way passing energy to the Klipot worlds from the Kedushha world…
Who is passing this energy? Us!


I’ll try to explain and elaborate more on this topic in future posts