The eighty-sixth "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Sunday, 16 Adar I, 5703.
Shiurim: here we begin a new parshah, Parshas Ki Sisa. Chumash, Ki Sisa, first parshah with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, the 16th of the month, from chapter 79 through chapter 82 inclusive.
Tanya, on this day we begin a new chapter, chapter 30, from the beginning of the chapter, from the word "od". The daily shiur concludes on page 76, with the words "as is explained elsewhere".
Today's teaching is a short saying whose source is in a yechidus of one of the chassidim of the Alter Rebbe, who was called Reb Gavriel. Let us give the background to the matter - how he came to that yechidus with the Alter Rebbe. The account is told at relative length, with many details, and is printed in the journal "HaTamim"; here we will say the essential point.
The account is from the time when the Alter Rebbe was not yet famous as a Rebbe, but many young men had already attached themselves to him, men who understood and saw his greatness and what they could receive from him. One of those young men who attached themselves to him was Reb Gavriel. Over time the opposition to the Alter Rebbe grew stronger there, and even Reb Gavriel's own close family - his father - harassed him greatly for having attached himself to the Alter Rebbe; but nothing helped, and the more they harassed him, the closer he drew to the Alter Rebbe.
Let us shorten the course of the story. He knew and understood that the bond to the Rebbe, to chassidus and to the Alter Rebbe, is an inner bond, not for the sake of receiving some advantage or a blessing in a material matter, but rather a path in avodas Hashem. To such an extent, that he was - may it not befall us - childless, and for twenty five years after his wedding he had no children, and nevertheless he never once came to ask the Rebbe for a blessing for children; for the bond to the Rebbe is not connected to such matters, and he sought only the G-dly matters.
Let us skip several years. There came the stage when the Alter Rebbe, as is known, was raising large sums for the poor of Eretz HaKodesh, and the arrangement was that the Alter Rebbe would inform each chassid in advance and set for him how much he was obligated to bring. Reb Gavriel was in principle a well established Jew of means, but a stage came when everything contracted for him and his livelihood dwindled greatly. Even so, he received notification from the Rebbe that he must give such and such a sum. Now he had nothing from which to give, and he was very broken over having nothing to give.
His wife saw him so broken, and asked him what had happened. He told her that the Alter Rebbe had set a certain sum for him - apparently because of his past as a man of means - but now he had no ability and did not know what to do. She said to him: what are you worried about? You are always teaching me that one must have bitachon and joy. Do not worry, it will be fine. And she went and acted - she sold all her jewelry and all her belongings, and obtained money. After some time she came to him with a closed pouch and said to him: "This is the money for the Rebbe, the Alter Rebbe".
He said to himself: the order is generally that the Rebbe sets a sum for a chassid, and afterwards the Rebbe's emissary comes to collect it; so I will wait until he comes and takes it. Time passed, and the emissary had not yet arrived, and meanwhile the family pressure grew so strong that he feared he might not withstand the temptation and would use the money for other matters. He said to his wife: I will travel myself to the Rebbe to give it to him, and I will not wait until the emissary comes. So he came to the Alter Rebbe, to that yechidus which is recounted, and placed the pouch on the table.
The Alter Rebbe opened the pouch, and coins came out of it - gold coins gleaming as though they had just come out of the mint, entirely clean and polished. The Alter Rebbe asked him where these coins had come from, and he answered that he did not know - his wife had brought them to him. And what had actually happened? His wife, after obtaining the money and saying that it was for the Rebbe, labored over each and every coin, polished and cleaned it and turned it into a shining coin, and gave him the pouch - and he too did not know what she had done, and therefore he said that it was from his wife.
And then the Alter Rebbe responded, and this response is today's teaching, which comes after all this background. And so the Alter Rebbe said to Reb Gavriel: "The Alter Rebbe said: in the contributions for the Mishkan there was gold and silver and copper". For from Parshas Terumah - two parshiyos earlier - the Torah relates that the Jewish people brought all the donations for the Mishkan: gold, silver and copper, and from them they made all the vessels of the Mishkan.
And in Parshas Ki Sisa, in the reading of the first day, the Torah relates the command to bring the kiyor - "and you shall make a kiyor". "And there was nothing gleaming among all the vessels of the Mishkan except the mirrors of the tzovos" - the copper mirrors that the Jewish women brought, "from which were made 'the kiyor and its base'" of copper, and it was the most gleaming of them all.
And here there is an interesting point: the Rebbe - the Alter Rebbe - is also hinting that just as the kiyor came from the mirrors of the tzovos that the Jewish women brought, so too the money that Reb Gavriel placed on the table came about because his wife was the one who saw to it for him. And so he said: "The kiyor and its base are the last to come among all the vessels of the Mishkan". For in the Torah's listing the kiyor is not recounted together with the vessels in Parshas Terumah, nor in the parshah where He commanded; the kiyor is recounted in the Torah after everything, in Parshas Ki Sisa, this week's parshah, and only there is the command regarding the kiyor first recounted - that is, in the list of vessels it is at the end of the list.
"And its use" - when is the kiyor used? When the kohen enters the service of the Mishkan. The use of the kiyor is "at the head of all the service of the Mishkan" - at the beginning, for nothing is done before washing the hands and feet from the kiyor. So it is written in the Torah at the end, and its use is at the head. And why? "For their beginning is embedded in their end" - the great loftiness of the beginning finds expression in the end.
So too with the lowest thing, the kiyor - and as is recounted in Rashi and in the Midrash, that at first Moshe Rabbeinu related to the kiyor as the lowest of things, and did not even want it, saying "what shall I do with these mirrors which were made for the yetzer hara?" - and in the end it turned out that the Holy One, blessed be He, said: "they are more precious to Me than everything, more than all things".
With this the Rebbe - the Alter Rebbe - blessed Reb Gavriel, that in the merit of the power of the effort he exerted and brought, he would have immense blessings. And indeed, after twenty five years children were born to him, sons and daughters. The Alter Rebbe told him to begin dealing in diamonds, and he became exceedingly wealthy, and received the well known title "Reb Gavriel Nosei Chein". This is the background of the teaching.
In conclusion, for several days we have not spoken about the connection of the teaching to the Rambam cycle, since we said that between one sefer and another there is a break of a few days. Now, with this teaching, we begin Sefer "Hafla'ah" in Rambam. After Sefer "Mada", "Ahavah", "Zemanim" and "Nashim", we now have Sefer "Hafla'ah", which deals with all sorts of vows that a person vows to donate and to bring. Sefer Hafla'ah includes Hilchos Shevuos, Hilchos Nedarim, Hilchos Nezirus, and Hilchos Arachin VaCharamin - laws whose heading is matters connected to vows.
Every sefer in Rambam opens, as is known, with a verse from the Torah. And what is the verse at the opening of Sefer Hafla'ah? "The freewill offerings of my mouth, accept them please, Hashem". And this is essentially the content of today's teaching - for we knew the background, and the Alter Rebbe opens with the contributions that were made for the Mishkan, which are the freewill offerings that were donated for the Mishkan, and the finest of the freewill offerings that we told about are the offerings connected to the kiyor and the like.