Room 119 in the hall of Hayom Yom.
Friday, 19 Adar II 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Tzav, Shishi, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, 19th of the month, from chapter 90 to chapter 96 inclusive.
Tanya, still in chapter 37. The daily shiur begins with the words "bechol nitzotz", and ends on page 96 with the words "nitzotzin etc.".
The daily teaching is taken from a letter of the Rebbe Rayatz. We have already brought this letter a few days ago, on 16 Adar II, and even earlier on 24 Shevat. An interesting letter written by the Rebbe Rayatz on 25 Nissan 5695. We spoke about the general subject of the daily teaching on 16 Adar II as well, but today we will bring additional details.
Here the Rebbe Rayatz brings a teaching told by the renowned chossid "R' Moshe Meisels recounted" to the famous chossid R' Chaikel of Homel. What did he say to him? "Rabbeinu Hazaken taught us: The aleph of chassidus is - to utilize nature for avodah" - the first step in chassidus is to utilize and use the natural traits you have in the avodah of Hashem.
"And the beginning of avodah is the utilization of the nature of one's faculties". That is to say, there are natural matters in the soul in many areas; the first thing is to use the nature of the faculties you have, to actualize them and use them in an active way.
For example, "such as the nature of the mind ruling the heart". The Holy One, blessed be He, ingrained a nature in man - as Admor Hazaken brings in Tanya - that the mind is stronger than the heart and can rule over it; and one must use this trait of the mind ruling over the heart. In the letter, the Rebbe Rayatz directs this matter towards bitachon in Hashem: when a person is under a certain pressure, from parnasah or anything else, and is in a state of agitation and tension, and the heart leads him in all sorts of directions - there must be "mind ruling the heart" (moach shalit al halev), meaning that in his awareness the person knows that the Holy One, blessed be He, manages and leads everything, and therefore he should be confident and joyous. This is one of the expressions of "mind ruling the heart".
Later in the letter, R' Moshe Meisels says to R' Chaikel: Know that this aleph of chassidus literally saved me from death. And the Rebbe Rayatz recounts what R' Moshe Meisels meant: During the Napoleonic war, the chossid R' Moshe was situated in the French high command. How did he get there? Because he was educated and spoke many languages - German, Russian, Polish and French - and was very wise. Admor Hazaken chose him to associate with the French regime, and endeavor that they hire him for work, and any information he would hear there during the fighting between France and Russia, he would transmit in absolute secrecy to the Russian soldiers and commanders - that he be a spy, and thereby bring about, in the way of nature, the defeat of the French.
And indeed he endeavored and succeeded for a time, finding great favor in the eyes of the chief French officials, and he knew all the secrets. There is a description here that thanks to this information he saved the entire arsenal, the whole weapons cache that was in Vilna, so that they would not succeed in destroying it and they would succeed in capturing it - all because he revealed the plan in advance and then they were guarded. He saved many things.
And what happened? One time the officials in the French army sat and consulted and discussed exactly how to arrange the next battle and all the companies, with all the maps spread on the floor, and how to plan the fighting. All the chief officials sat, examined all the paths and decided. They had not yet reached a final decision, but discussed it, and decided that tomorrow, at the latest the day after tomorrow, a battle would take place around Vilna; this was the decision, but the exact directions had to be determined.
During the discussion, while R' Moshe is inside the command center seeing all the plans, the door was opened with great force, and even the guard at the door on the inside was so startled that he wanted to fire his weapon at the person entering - for everyone was certain that the Russians had entered to capture the entire high command as prisoners. Within a second they saw who entered the door - Napoleon. He entered running, with a loud noise and anger and shouting: What is happening? Have you decided yet? What are we doing? Why am I not hearing plans yet? He was already under pressure.
Meanwhile he noticed that a strange man was standing there, a chassidic Jew. Napoleon turned to R' Moshe Meisels and said: Who is this strange man? Who is standing here? And then he turned to him in French and said: You are a Russian spy - and he immediately placed his hand on the heart of R' Moshe Meisels to feel if the heart was beating rapidly, in which case he would understand that he caught him red-handed. And then, R' Moshe Meisels says, the aleph of chassidus saved me from death, because I knew how to control the heart, "moach shalit al halev" (mind ruling the heart), and I answered him coolly that the officials of the French emperor took me to help them, since I am fluent in all languages, and therefore I am here helping them. And of course he felt nothing upon him, and so he was saved from death and he did nothing to him. This is what R' Moshe Meisels says in the daily teaching: A person needs to use and utilize nature and the faculties in the avodah of Hashem, and in this matter it saved him from death.
We will conclude in connection to the shiurim of the Rambam's Yad Hachazakah, and this is interesting. We are in Sefer Zeraim; we have already spoken about the first halachos - Hilchos Kilayim and Hilchos Matnos Aniyim - on previous occasions. Today we begin corresponding to Hilchos Terumos. First, it is known that one of the terms for terumah is "reishis", and the Rambam himself writes at the beginning of chapter 2 in Hilchos Terumos: "It is a positive mitzvah to separate reishis for the kohen". And here in the daily teaching we have "the reishis of avodah" - what must the reishis of avodah be? To utilize and use the nature of one's faculties. "The reishis of avodah" is in the aspect of the terumah of the avodah, and this is the topic of the daily teaching, which corresponds to the topic of Hilchos Terumos.