The two-hundred-and-eightieth "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Friday, 3 Elul 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Shoftim, Sixth Aliyah, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, 3rd of the month: the daily Tehillim, from chapter 18 through chapter 22 inclusive; and the three chapters for the month of Elul — chapters 7, 8, and 9.
Tanya: On this day we conclude the tenth letter in Iggeret HaKodesh. The lesson begins on page 116 with the words "vehineh midat" and continues until the end of the letter at "chas veshalom."
The daily teaching is from a letter before us, dated 6 Elul — and there is a place where the Rebbe notes on it that it is 3 Elul — from the year 5702. In the letter, the Rebbe Rayatz explains at great length the superiority of the souls over the angels: even the very highest angels — the level of the souls is higher still. And although the souls are so lofty, he brings there the well-known expression, that the Holy One, blessed be He, brings the soul down from such a lofty place and binds it to a physical body here below. Why? So that through the Torah and mitzvos that the soul will fulfill here below, they refine and purify the materiality of the world and its physicality.
What follows is the teaching found in the daily saying. It states: "One who believes in Divine Providence" — hashgachah pratis is one of the foundations emphasized by the Baal Shem Tov in the teachings of Chassidus — a Jew who believes in Divine Providence "knows that a man's steps are established by Hashem," that the Holy One, blessed be He, personally and deliberately directs the steps of each and every individual, exactly where he will be.
And what does Divine Providence determine? "That this soul" — referring to each one of us, every single soul — "must refine and rectify some particular refinement and rectification in a certain place". Every person has a personal mission to rectify his own specific place, which only he can rectify. Just as it is said regarding physical sustenance, "no person touches what is prepared for his fellow" — so too regarding the refinement, which is spiritual sustenance: no person touches what is prepared for his fellow, and each one has the place that only he needs to and can refine.
"And for hundreds of years, or even from the time of the creation of the world, the matter that needs to be clarified or rectified awaits that particular soul." Every part of the world waits, sometimes since the creation of the world, for that very specific soul to come "to clarify it and rectify it"; only it can rectify it, and that part of the world yearns for the time when it will come. And not only that, but "this soul too" — the soul also waits: "from the moment it was emanated and created," from when it is in the upper worlds, "it awaits the time of its descent to clarify and rectify that which was placed upon it"; for on high its mission and the point awaiting it are seen, and it waits for when it will descend. Thus, both the place waits and the soul waits for this union.
The continuation of the letter is very interesting, in which the Rebbe Rayatz develops and continues this same idea. And from that very same letter we have another teaching in "Hayom Yom" that completes this point, on 5 Adar I. It is interesting that the completion of the idea is written in a very sharp manner. There is a very interesting record, containing a long and very secret story that the Rebbe Rayatz recorded from the stories of the Alter Rebbe, which he told to the Tzemach Tzedek. This story the Alter Rebbe heard, part of it from the Maggid and part of it from one of the other disciples of the Baal Shem Tov.
The story is printed at great length in "Likkutei Dibburim," volume four, and it is very much worthwhile to read it in its full detail — about a certain mission that the Baal Shem Tov assigned to one of his disciples, to travel to a particular place; and along the way he gave him instructions as to where to stop, where to drink a cup of water, to pray Minchah, and then to arrive at the destination. There are a great many details there. This is not the place to elaborate on all of it, but I will bring only a quotation from what appears at the conclusion of the story, in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, which he said to his disciples at the completion of the mission.
He told them that there is an expression in the Zohar about the water that the Holy One, blessed be He, created on the second day of the world's creation, when He made the firmament that separates between the upper waters and the lower waters; and it is said that the lower waters weep — "We too wish to be before the Holy One, blessed be He." The lower waters — the springs, the seas, and all the waters here below — their weeping can last hundreds or thousands of years, until a Jew comes and washes his hands and recites the blessing "al netilat yadayim," or drinks a little water in his thirst and recites "shehakol nihyeh bidvaro" or "borei nefashot," and then those waters reach their purpose. This the Baal Shem Tov said in a general way.
Afterward he addressed specifically that story in which he had sent the mission, saying that on the estate of Moshe ben Shmuel Tzadok — the subject of the story — there was a spring which for five thousand five hundred and nineteen years had been weeping over why its portion had been diminished from all the springs in the world. And when the Gaon Rabbi Chaim arrived at that estate, he rectified the weeping of the spring — for he drank of its waters and washed his hands for the Minchah prayer, thereby rectifying the matter.
This is hashgachah pratis, says the Baal Shem Tov: every created being has its designated time when it will be refined and who will refine it; everything is precise. And this is the essence of the daily teaching here in "Hayom Yom," on 3 Elul.