The seventy-fifth "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Wednesday, 5 Adar I, 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Terumah, revi'i, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, the 5th of the month: chapters 29 through 34 inclusive.
Tanya, in the middle of chapter 27, from the words "u'shnei" until page 68, at the words "d'Kudsha Brich Hu l'eila".
Today's teaching is short, and its source is a letter that the Rebbe Rayatz wrote on 6 Elul 5702 - a letter written in the very midst of the World War, relating to the war refugees who had been scattered to all sorts of places. The Rebbe Rayatz writes in a letter to a certain Jew who had described and told about himself and about the people he was with.
The Rebbe Rayatz speaks and explains to him at length that every Jew who believes in the Holy One, blessed be He, knows that "a man's steps are established by Hashem". That is, when a person arrives at a certain place, he must know that there is a spiritual purpose to his having come there. He explains at length that a person should contemplate his soul - a very lofty soul, which the Holy One, blessed be He, took and brought down into a physical body - clearly there is an intention and a purpose in this. And the Holy One, blessed be He, leads every person to the particular place he arrives at, and there is a purpose to it.
And what is the purpose? Let us look at the wording of the daily teaching: "Without a shadow of a doubt, and without any doubt of a doubt, in every place where the sole of our foot treads" - the matter is clear and certain, and there is no doubt about it at all - in every place a Jew treads and arrives at, even though he does not understand the reason for it. [There is an interesting expression in the name of the Alter Rebbe in one of the maamarim, that sometimes a person loses his way and arrives at all sorts of places, and his entire coming there was because he lost his way.]
So then, in every place a person finds himself, in every place the sole of his foot treads, there is one purpose: "everything is in order to refine and purify the land". He arrives at a certain place in order to fulfill a mission to sanctify and purify that place. And how does he purify it? "Through the letters of Torah and tefillah" - the moment a person is in a place and says words of Torah there or prays, he purifies the place.
[This already appears in other teachings in Hayom Yom, about purifying the air by reciting Mishnayos by heart wherever one may be - as we mentioned, whether he is traveling by train or in the marketplace; the very fact that a Jew walks along saying words of Torah purifies the place.] "And we, all of Israel, are emissaries of the Merciful One, each and every one as Divine Providence has decreed upon him" - every Jew has this task, we are all emissaries of the Holy One, blessed be He, and each one is precisely in the place to which Divine Providence sent him; meaning, no one else can do this work, only you.
This is why it is said that there is a difference between tzaddikim and simple people: the tzaddikim know where the points are that they must purify and sanctify, and they go there with deliberate intent; whereas the simple person does not know, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, leads him - "a man's steps are established by Hashem".
In that same letter the Rebbe Rayatz notes in two words and refers to a "holy story" (in his words), in which one sees this point - that the tzaddik knows. There is a very long story there from the Baal Shem Tov, who sent one of his young students, named Reb Moshe, on a mission to one of his great students, the gaon Reb Chaim Rappaport, and gave him instructions that on a certain day he should go to a certain place in the field, and there, alone, recite four chapters of Rambam from Hilchos Berachos, and pray there.
Some time later the Baal Shem Tov revealed to his students that the whole reason he sent Reb Chaim Rappaport to that place was because there was a soul there that already one hundred and seventeen years earlier had been reincarnated in such a way that it was waiting for Reb Chaim Rappaport to arrive, and that through his learning he would rectify the place. And moreover, he adds, that he drank water there and made a berachah, and washed his hands from the waters of the spring - and this spring too had been waiting since the creation of the world for someone to come and perform this act.
That is, the tzaddik - the Baal Shem Tov - sent the person to a particular place that he knew needed to be rectified; but in practice every single person, even if he has no idea why he is arriving at a certain place, must know that he is there on a particular mission.
And the Rebbe Rayatz concludes the teaching by saying: "No one is exempt from the holy avodah that has been placed upon our shoulders" - there is no person who can be released from the holy avodah incumbent upon each one to fulfill the mission; the Holy One, blessed be He, has placed this load upon our shoulders, and this task, and each one must fulfill it.
In one of his letters the Rebbe Rayatz speaks about the verse "a man's steps are established by Hashem". The Alter Rebbe says that this verse was said both by David HaMelech (in Tehillim chapter 37) and by Shlomo HaMelech (in Mishlei chapter 20) - both used the same wording "a man's (gever's) steps are from Hashem", except that in the continuation of the verse there is a difference between them.
And the Rebbe Rayatz asks precisely: why does it say "the steps of a gever are from Hashem" and not "the steps of an adam are from Hashem", why specifically "gever"? And he explains that it is known that "adam" is a title indicating the loftiness of the intellect, whereas "gever" indicates something that must be done with gevurah, with strength. When we say "a man's steps are established by Hashem", the meaning is that a person tossed about on the roads and to all sorts of places cannot understand why he is there, since it is not within his ability to grasp the Divine calculation; so what then? A person must overcome himself, arouse his inner kabbalas ol and do what is incumbent upon him. The Holy One, blessed be He, commanded what to do - to spread Elokus everywhere - and a person must overcome himself and bring the matter to its purpose and its goal. This is the point written here in the teaching.
Let us conclude in continuation of what we have seen, that the teachings correspond to the structure of the Rambam's Yad HaChazakah. In these days we are in the teachings that correspond to Sefer Kedushah, which - as we have already mentioned - contains Hilchos Issurei Biah, Hilchos Maachalos Assuros and Hilchos Shechitah. In the previous teachings we saw the connection to Hilchos Issurei Biah, and the present teaching corresponds to Hilchos Maachalos Assuros.
What is the connection? At the conclusion of Hilchos Maachalos Assuros the Rambam summarizes the entire subject and says that whoever is careful in these matters - anyone who is careful and does not eat forbidden things - brings extra holiness and purity to his soul. And why does this bring holiness to his soul? "And he refines his soul for the sake of the Holy One, blessed be He." This is the idea of how a person can purify himself and his soul; and in the teaching it speaks of even more than that - to purify the world as well, which is the content of what the Holy One, blessed be He, is directing us toward: what shall we do to preserve the true purity of our soul, and consequently of our surroundings as well, and ultimately of the entire world.