In the previous section we looked at the Alter Rebbe's words: a person is required to feel lowly in spirit even before the lightest of the light, the most unworthy Jew he can think of. On the face of it this sounds like a very high certificate being handed to that person, so the first thing we have to do is examine his situation: he is a sinner, true, but why does he sin? Because his place is what drives him to sin.
"Do not judge your fellow until you have reached his place":
This is the Alter Rebbe's explanation of the Mishnah in Pirkei Avos. As we mentioned, the word "his place" takes in two different places: a physical place and a spiritual place.
His physical place: "להיות פרנסתו לילך בשוק כל היום" ("his livelihood requires him to walk about in the marketplace all day") - the Holy One arranged his parnassah in such a way that he is out in the market the entire day. While he works, buying and selling, he is running around and seeing everything that goes on in the marketplace, and even in his free moments he is "מיושבי קרנות" ("one of those who sit at the street corners") - sitting on a corner waiting for the next customer, chatting with this one and that one about this and that. "ועיניו רואות כל התאוות" ("and his eyes see all the desires") - the marketplace is full of things to desire, and the eye sees and the heart covets, for the heart is drawn after what the eye takes in.
His spiritual place: "ויצרו בוער כתנור בוערה מאופה" ("and his yetzer burns like an oven heated by the baker") - beyond the outer environment, the very nature of his soul pulls him in this direction: his yetzer hara burns like a bakery oven.
A home oven is heated once a week, or once every few days, and most of the time it stands cold. A bakery oven is the opposite: it works constantly and is always hot, and only now and then does it get a break. This man's yetzer is not a home oven but "בוערה מאופה," an oven fired by the baker: its heat is continuous, and the temperature is high as well, as the verse in Hoshea says, "בוער כאש להבה," burning like a flaming fire. It is a bakery oven to begin with, and when it is lit it is a blazing flame.
So when we tell a Jew who sits and learns Torah, a talmid chochom who keeps the mitzvos, not to judge the lightest of the light, the reason is that he is not standing in that man's place. That man's physical place is what causes him to sin, and his yetzer is of the blazing-flame variety, so that the moment a desire is set before his eyes he has no power to hold himself back, and he is instantly consumed by it.
This is not the case with someone who barely goes out to the market at all: on Friday he goes shopping for Shabbos, and the rest of the week he sits at home and has no idea what is happening in the street. And even someone who is in the market all day may simply not be built that hot - his yetzer runs cool, and even when he sees all the desires in front of his eyes he does not catch fire over every piece of foolishness, "כי אין היצר שווה בכל נפש," because the yetzer is not the same in every soul.
This principle is spelled out in the Alter Rebbe's explanation in Likkutei Torah on the beginning of Sefer Vayikra: a person is asked to offer up his own "animal" to Hashem, and the wording of the verse is "מן הבהמה מן הבקר ומן הצאן," from the animals, from the cattle and from the flock, because there are different kinds of animals. There is a nefesh habahamis that is in the category of "cattle," a goring ox, and there is a nefesh habahamis in the category of "flock," calm, quiet and domestic. Every animal has its own way, and every person has his own definition, his own path and his own direction.
Let us sum up the line of thought so far. When the Mishnah comes to a person with the demand "והוי שפל רוח בפני כל האדם," "be lowly in spirit before every man," the Alter Rebbe sets up a first stage: before a person ever arrives at an actual feeling of lowliness, he first has to stop feeling that the other fellow is worth nothing, and he must not judge him, because that man's place is what drives him to sin. He has states of soul and states of environment that bring him down. In the stages that follow we will learn that this other Jew is exactly like him.
An entire Torah on a single letter: "בפני כל האדם":
We have noted many times that in Tanya every word is precise, and not only every word but every letter and every comma. The Alter Rebbe wrote this sefer, and we relate to it as the Written Torah of chassidus, in which every detail is exact. Here an entire Torah is built on one letter that the Alter Rebbe wrote, and that letter puts the whole subject in a different light.
The subject under discussion, the obligation to feel lowliness, comes from Pirkei Avos. As is well known, when the Alter Rebbe composed the nusach of the davening in his Siddur, he included all of Pirkei Avos in it. Why specifically this tractate, and not all six orders of Mishnah? Because there is a custom to say Pirkei Avos on the Shabbosos of the summer after Minchah. But why was it not enough for him to note that the custom is to say Pirkei Avos, and let each person learn the tractate from a Mishnayos?
The reason is that in Pirkei Avos there are different versions among the great ones of Israel. Not drastic differences, apparently: there are differences in how the mishnayos are divided (where one mishnah ends and the next begins), and sometimes slight differences in wording from one version to another. The Alter Rebbe wanted to establish in his Siddur the version that he had received and ruled upon, and therefore he put Pirkei Avos in exactly as he holds the text should read.
In our mishnah, chapter 4 mishnah 10, the Alter Rebbe writes in the Siddur: "רבי מאיר אומר הוי ממעט בעסק ועסוק בתורה, והוי שפל רוח בפני כל אדם" - "Rabbi Meir says: minimize your business dealings and occupy yourself with Torah, and be lowly in spirit before every man" - without the letter hei. But here in Tanya, in the quotation with which we opened the chapter, it reads: "והוי שפל רוח בפני כל האדם" - with the hei added, which implies a particular man.
In the United States there used to appear a periodical called "Kovetz Lubavitch," published some three or four times a year, in which the Rebbe had a column, already before the nesius, called "Teshuvos U'Biurim." Jews would write in to the editors with questions on all sorts of topics, the Rebbe would address them in this column, and the answers were published for everyone. In one of the issues a Jew asked why Tanya reads "בפני כל האדם," adding that perhaps this is a printer's error, since everywhere else the text reads "אדם."
The Rebbe first answers him that it is not a misprint: in every edition of Tanya he has seen, from the first to the last, it reads this way. He then goes on to explain the matter in a very interesting way, and we will review some of the points of that explanation.
First an introduction: the wording "האדם" does exist in the various versions. Rabbeinu Yonah, in his commentary on Pirkei Avos, quotes "האדם"; and in Maseches Derech Eretz, one of the minor tractates, the same expression appears as "שפל רוח בפני כל האדם." So such a version certainly exists. Yet in his Siddur the Alter Rebbe brings specifically the version "אדם." What is the difference, and what is the idea behind it?
One explanation: "one complete stature":
By way of introduction: chassidus offers various explanations that bring a person to a feeling of lowliness of spirit, among them one that differs from what is written here in Tanya. All of Israel are like one great body, "קומה אחת שלמה," one complete stature. In the limbs of a body there are elevated limbs, the head and the heart, and there are lower limbs, the feet and the like. It is known that every limb in the body has its function, and more than that: in the function that is uniquely its own, no other limb in the body can take its place. It turns out that every limb is a "head" in some particular matter. The foot, foot though it is, is something the head cannot manage without, and when it comes to walking, the foot is the head.
Since every person is part of one perfect harmony, one single stature, there is no room to feel big in relation to anyone else. There is a matter in which this person is unique, and a matter in which the other is unique; there is a matter in which this one is the head, and a matter in which that one is the head. It follows that no one may be belittled: "there is no man who does not have his hour," every single person has his own uniqueness, and out of this a person comes to feel lowly in spirit before every man. When the head wants to reach the bookcase, it bends down, with all due respect to itself, to the foot and asks: "Honored foot, please take me to the bookcase." The head feels lowly in relation to the foot at the moment that it needs it. That is one explanation.
In summary: in this section we learned that a person's "place" includes a physical place - a livelihood in the marketplace, sitting at street corners, eyes that see all the desires - and a spiritual place - a yetzer that burns "like an oven fired by the baker," constantly and at high heat, and therefore one must not judge the lightest of the light. On the other side, there is one who hardly goes to the market at all, and one whose yetzer is cool by nature, "because the yetzer is not the same in every soul," as explained in Likkutei Torah in the distinction between a nefesh habahamis in the category of "cattle" and one in the category of "flock." We also looked at the precision of a single letter: in the Siddur the Alter Rebbe's text reads "בפני כל אדם," while in Tanya it reads "בפני כל האדם," and at the Rebbe's answer that this is no misprint. Finally we learned one explanation of lowliness of spirit: all of Israel are "one complete stature," in which each limb is the head in its own matter, to the point that the head is lowly before the foot at the moment that it needs it.
In the next section we will take up further explanations of lowliness of spirit, and the Rebbe's explanation of the precise wording "בפני כל האדם" in Tanya.