The thirty-eighth "room" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Monday, 27 Teves 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Vaera, sheni, with the commentary of Rashi.
Tehillim, the 27th of the month, we say from chapter 108 through and including chapter 134.
Tanya, we are in the middle of chapter 14, before the words "mah she'ein kein", and it concludes with the word "tzaddikim etc."
Today's saying is short, and its source is a letter written by the Rebbe Rayatz on 7 Marcheshvan 5691. The letter was written to a chassid named Besprov, whom the Rebbe Rayatz addresses with special titles - "gever tarshishim" - a chassid of a certain distinguished lineage. That chassid had written to the Rebbe Rayatz about a medical problem his son had; apparently the son was not in good health, and this troubled him greatly.
The Rebbe Rayatz opens the letter and blesses him for his son's health. He then asks him for further details about the situation - even though in two or three lines he had written to him that he understood what it was about, he would prefer that he elaborate more. Afterwards the Rebbe Rayatz encourages him not to suffice with sighing over the situation, but rather to set a fixed time for Torah study, to strengthen his soul through it and to give nourishment to the soul.
And then he concludes with a saying - which is today's saying - that the Rebbe took from that letter. There the saying is brought in the name of "Rabbeinu HaGadol", and here the Rebbe writes it in the name of the Alter Rebbe, to whom it refers: "The Alter Rebbe said".
The saying is originally in Yiddish, and in translation: "A Jew's gashmiyus is ruchniyus". And what is the explanation of the idea that a Jew's gashmiyus is ruchniyus? "The Holy One, blessed be He, gives us gashmiyus, and it is up to us to make ruchniyus out of it". The Holy One, blessed be He, gives us gashmiyus, and our task is to take the gashmiyus and turn it into ruchniyus - to use it in accordance with Hashem's will, and through it to strengthen the spiritual life, and so on.
It is interesting that in this saying the Alter Rebbe relates to the gashmiyus that every single person has. Each person looks at his own gashmiyus and says: "I have gashmiyus; I am a Jew, and my gashmiyus is really ruchniyus. And how will it become ruchniyus? By my turning it into ruchniyus" - meaning, I have to do something for that.
There is a parallel saying, which appears in many places and in well known chassidic letters, similar to this saying, but in which one can see an additional interesting emphasis - for it speaks about someone else's gashmiyus. That saying states that another person's gashmiyus is your ruchniyus: the other person should have gashmiyus, or does have gashmiyus, while for you, the other person's gashmiyus is your ruchniyus - you need not wait until he turns it into ruchniyus; rather, a Jew's gashmiyus is, for you, ruchniyus.
So the Rebbe writes in one of his letters to a Jew who wrote to him about his material situation: the Rebbe tells him "continue to detail your material situations for me; it is very important that you detail them" - why? Because another's gashmiyus is ruchniyus. And the Rebbe adds: "and especially the gashmiyus of a Jew, which is holy". This connects to the saying, and constitutes another aspect of how to view the matter.
And the saying continues: "Sometimes it is not so" - as the Rebbe Rayatz relates to that Jew whose situation was not good. The meaning is that sometimes a person's situation is not good, and what is then required of him? How will he draw ruchniyus out of the gashmiyus? After all, he has problems, he has no gashmiyus and he has a lack; he has no vessels and nothing with which to act.
To this the saying says: "One must give the Holy One, blessed be He, even a minchas ani". A Jew must give the Holy One, blessed be He, even a minchas ani - an offering small in quantity, a little flour, a handful and the like. But the well known expression of Chazal about the minchas ani is: "whether one brings much or one brings little, as long as he directs his heart to Heaven". If the Holy One, blessed be He, sees that you are giving - even though it is little, it is a minchah, and it accomplishes.
And the conclusion: "then He gives in full" - the Holy One, blessed be He, gives in return abundantly and fills the vessels. That is, you must give; and when you give - even if it seems to you that you do not have much and that you lack the strength - the little that you can, the "minchas ani" that you are able to give, that is the vessel that will bring about that you will have "full", an immense abundance. And this itself is the encouragement the Rebbe gives that Jew: do and act, and you will see that this very thing will draw down for you great abundance.
This idea is already written in the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos in the words: "Everything that the Holy One, blessed be He, created in His world, He created only for His honor" - that everything in the world must express Hashem's honor. And there is a famous expression of Chazal that the Rebbe repeated many times, that gold was not created in the world and the world was not worthy of gold - and why was it created? Only for the Beis HaMikdash. The idea that all of gashmiyus is meant to be made into ruchniyus is a great foundation in a Jew's outlook and worldview in every matter, and it is expressed in this saying.
We will yet encounter in "Hayom Yom" several sayings that express precisely this idea in a slightly different style, but in any case this is the content of this saying.
We will conclude with a connection and a hint to the books of the Rambam, as we have seen on the previous days. Two days ago we began Sefer Zemanim with the hint about Hilchos Milah, and yesterday, in the previous lesson, about Hilchos Tefillah. What remains is all the intermediate halachos in Sefer Zemanim - Hilchos Tefillin, Sefer Torah, Tzitzis and Berachos - and all these halachos in sequence express the idea of the saying. For these halachos speak precisely about the point that when you take a physical thing, whether it is a Sefer Torah, tzitzis, tefillin, or a berachah that you make on a physical food - you take a physical thing and make of it a spiritual thing, a mitzvah, a G-dly thing. This is a saying that contains within it an idea summarizing the entire sequence of halachos of Sefer Zemanim in the Rambam, in the portion that expresses this sequence.