The seventeenth "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Monday, 6 Tevet, 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Vayigash, sheni, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, 6th of the month, from chapter 35 through chapter 38 inclusive.
Tanya, we are in chapter 5, from the words "וכן בכל" until the word "שנבראת".
In the lesson we studied the previous day, on 5 Tevet, we learned that action is the main thing, and we said that when Mashiach comes he will enable us to grasp the great virtue of action, of temimus. Today's teaching adds to this within the same theme, and even advances further: not only that "all study brings one to action," but that even when one studies the deepest, most abstract and loftiest matters — the goal is that they can be brought down all the way to the feeling of the heart and to actual deed.
The source of this subject is a letter written by the Rebbe Rayatz on 4 Tevet of the year 5691. There was a chassid in Vilna named Reb Menachem Mendel Levin, who that year, 5691, heard a maamar of Chassidus from the Rebbe Rayatz. That year, on Shabbos Teshuvah, the Rebbe Rayatz delivered a maamar, the dibbur hamaschil "Dirshu Havayah min matzor," in which he spoke of very deep matters, and the chassid did not understand several points in it. He therefore sent a letter to the Rebbe Rayatz and wrote that he was having difficulty understanding the matters discussed in the maamar "Dirshu" of that year.
The Rebbe Rayatz elaborates at length in a letter and leads it to a central point: that everything we study must lead us to a "vechein" — that is, what emerges from it in actual practice, as when we say "uvechein," in the service of Hashem; that everything must find expression in the emotion of the heart and in deed. And then he opens by bringing the verse that King David spoke in his testament to his son Shlomo, in Divrei Hayamim: "And you, Shlomo my son, know the G-d of your father and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing soul, for Hashem searches all hearts," and there is a continuation to the verse. The Rebbe Rayatz brings the essence of the verse and explains it, as we shall now read within the saying itself.
The Rebbe takes a certain passage from the letter: "It is written, 'Know the G-d of your father and serve Him with a full heart'" — as mentioned, these are the words of King David to his son Solomon. The Rebbe Rayatz says in his letter: "For every matter of knowing and comprehending" — everything that a Jew knows and every subject he comprehends, even in the deepest matters, even if he studies very deep and abstract concepts — "must come into avodah," it must descend into the service of Hashem. And what is the meaning of "must descend into avodah"? "It must effect something in the refinement and purification of the middos" — it must have an actual effect in refining and purifying the middos.
That is to say, even the study and comprehension of something profound and abstract must express itself in the refinement and purification of the middos and in an inner bond; it must bring about an inner connection between the Jew and the Holy One, blessed be He — the movement referred to in the language of Chassidus as "avodah": that a Jew works on his middos, purifies them, and bonds himself to the Holy One, blessed be He.
Later in the letter, the Rebbe Rayatz adds another sentence, which is not quoted here by the Rebbe. He says: "Every single matter, even if it is wondrous and abstract, must necessarily shine its light within avodah," and he says a sentence in Yiddish whose translation is — that a particular matter should express itself and be felt in a particular aspect of avodas Hashem. That is, everything must descend below. And in the letter itself he speaks about the levels of "memale kol almin" and "sovev kol almin," explaining how they are in their source and how they are in the source of their source, before the tzimtzum — very lofty matters — and he clarifies what "yediyas hachiyuv" is and what "yediyas hashelilah" is, and how everything must ultimately descend and not remain as an abstract study of a lofty matter, but must descend into a matter of avodas Hashem.
In yesterday's lesson we spoke about how one can see, by way of allusion, that the Rebbe follows the order of the Rambam's halachos from their very beginning; we saw how yesterday's teaching relates to the heading that opens Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah in the Rambam's Sefer HaMada. Today's lesson too fits very well with the opening halachos of Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah. For what is the subject discussed at length in the opening halachos there? Details concerning the knowledge of G-dliness and its comprehension. The Rambam speaks there about all sorts of levels — what a Jew must contemplate and know, and how this knowledge draws him down to the love of G-d; this is the entire process that the Rambam sets forth at the beginning of his work. Thus this saying corresponds to the opening halachos at the start of the Rambam's Hilchos Yesodei HaTorah.