In the previous section we learned that every single mitzvah is, in essence, a return and a reconnection to G-dliness, to the source. Once a person grasps what his good deeds actually accomplish, a return to the source, the joy that accompanies him in doing a mitzvah knows no limit, for "אין לך שמחה גדולה כצאת מהגלות והשביה" ("there is no joy as great as being released from exile and captivity").
What is "avodah"?
Serving Hashem in general includes both Torah and avodah, and "avodah" means tefillah, prayer, exactly as the Alter Rebbe spells it out: the occupation with Torah and mitzvos, and in particular the mitzvah of prayer. And it is well known that prayer is called the service of Hashem, as it says "ולעבדו בכל לבבכם" ("and to serve Him with all your heart"), on which Chazal ask: "Which is the service of the heart? This is prayer."
The parable of the king's son:
The Alter Rebbe draws a comparison to "בן מלך שהיה בשביה וטוחן בבית האסורים ומנוול באשפה, ויצא לחפשי אל בית אביו המלך" ("a king's son who was held captive, grinding in the prison house and filthy in the refuse, and then went out free to the house of his father the king"). "Grinding in the prison house" is the lowest state captivity has to offer, as the verse says regarding the plague of the firstborn (which we read last week): "until the firstborn of the maidservant who is behind the millstones." That is rock bottom.
And that is precisely the state of any person who stumbles in something that goes against Hashem's will: at the moment of the act he is literally filthy in the refuse, grinding away in the prison house. (And there is no difference here between something large and something small, as we learned at length in Tanya: one to whom the king gives an order and who answers "I don't want to" is called a rebel against the kingdom, whether in a large matter or a small one.)
And when that person goes out of his situation, free, to the house of his father the king, how immense his joy is. Therefore, when a person reflects on what he is going through in each and every mitzvah he performs, he cannot help but be filled with joy.
Chapters 29 and 31 are a genuine cheshbon hanefesh, an honest accounting of the soul, and it is not merely that the joy comes along with it; the joy comes precisely because of it. Because he made a truthful accounting and faced up to how low his situation is, both in potential and in practice, and yet here he is, able right now to do a mitzvah. With every mitzvah he does he should reflect on the superiority of light that emerges specifically out of darkness, and his joy will be enormous.
"ואף שהגוף עומד בשיקוצו ותיעובו" ("and even though the body remains in its abominable state"):
Here a question arises. True, the soul is lifted up, but the body stays repulsive and detestable, and his thoughts are still full of nonsense. How can you ask a person to rejoice while he is still sitting in the garbage? How do these two things go together?
The Zohar calls the body "משכא דחויא", the skin of the snake. The snake itself is the symbol of evil, and its skin is its outer, marginal, lowest layer, which it even sheds from time to time. In other words, it is the waste of the waste. And if the body remains in its lowliness, and "מהותו ועצמותו של הנפש הבהמית לא נהפך לטוב להכלל בקדושה" ("the very essence and being of the nefesh habahamis has not been transformed into good so as to be absorbed in holiness"), how is joy possible?
Before we look at the answer, here is a story that brings the point to life:
A certain Jew suffered from a familiar problem: everything he did came with an angle, with self-interest. With every mitzvah he did, he immediately thought about what he would get out of it, how much publicity it would bring, what people would say and what they would see. He simply could not free himself from those foolish little profits of ulterior motives and be invested in the thing itself, in doing Hashem's will. He looked for advice and approaches, and at some point he went in to yechidus with the Rebbe, laid out his problem, and asked for a line of thinking that would help him get out of it.
The Rebbe said to him: "You are a businessman. Imagine someone comes to you with a deal, and shows you that the real profit is a million dollars. You can see it tangibly, you can already feel the money, and suddenly they tell you: wait, there is one more important detail in the deal, if you do such and such you will earn another five cents." Any normal person would answer: "You are talking to me about a million dollars, and you are bothering me with the nonsense of another five cents?"
And exactly so, the Rebbe continued, in a person's avodah. When you do a mitzvah you are connecting your soul to G-dliness at the very highest level. That is the million dollars in your hand. Meanwhile the body shouts at you: wait, there is a small profit here, a little honor, a little vanity. Tell yourself: is it worth thinking about a five cent profit when you are holding a million dollars?
And this is also the Alter Rebbe's answer: "מכל מקום תיקר נפשו בעיניו לשמוח בשמחתה יותר מהגוף הנבזה" ("nevertheless, let his soul be precious in his eyes, to rejoice in its joy more than in the despicable body"). Let a person treasure his soul, which is so precious and so powerful, and rejoice in its joy. And so he concludes: "שלא לערבב ולבלבל שמחת הנפש בעצבון הגוף" ("so as not to mix up and confuse the joy of the soul with the sadness of the body"). The two matters must not be blended together.
When a person puts the proportions where they belong, there is simply no comparison between the state of his body and the joy contained in each and every mitzvah. So let him look at the mitzvah, at the connection itself, at those moments of prayer, even if they are few, and even if afterwards he will fall again, and let him rejoice in them. That way he will constantly chase after the points that bring joy, instead of being sunk in the sadness and foolish bitterness that come from the side of the body.
With this the Alter Rebbe completes his answer in this chapter to the question he raised about what was learned in chapters 29 and 31, and to round off the subject he brings a fascinating proof, which by hashgachah pratis happens to be the very theme of this week's parshah.
"והנה בחינה זו היא בחינת יציאת מצרים" ("and behold, this aspect is the aspect of the exodus from Egypt"):
What we are telling a Jew, that he should rejoice in the mitzvah he is doing even though his body remains in its lowliness, is exactly what happened at the exodus from Egypt. It is enough to consider the state the Jewish people were in while in Egypt and how they looked when they left, and to translate that onto the spiritual plane, to see that it is precisely the same idea.
To make this understood, the Alter Rebbe prefaces a question that is difficult even in the plain meaning of the verses. Moshe Rabbeinu comes to persuade Pharaoh to let the Jewish people leave Egypt, and what does he tell him? "Let us go, please, a three day journey into the wilderness, and we will sacrifice to Hashem" - a journey of only three days, not an escape and not a departure. Yet in parshas Beshalach it says: "And it was told to the king of Egypt that the people had fled." Why "had fled"?
Rashi explains that Pharaoh sent his officers along with the Jewish people. When the three agreed-upon days were up and they saw that the Jews were not turning back but pressing on and going further, the emissaries returned to Pharaoh, another three days' journey, and told him that they had fled. Once those six days had passed, on the seventh day Pharaoh chased after them, and then came the splitting of the sea with all its miracles.
And from here comes the Alter Rebbe's question: why was the pretext of the three days needed at all? Had Moshe Rabbeinu come to Pharaoh and told him outright that they were leaving forever and not returning, after the ten plagues Pharaoh would have had no choice but to send them. In his words: "ולכאורה הוא תמוה למה היתה כזאת, ואילו אמרו לפרעה לשלח העם לחפשי לעולם לא היה מוכרח לשלחם" ("and seemingly this is astonishing: why was it done this way? Had they told Pharaoh to send the people free forever, would he not have been compelled to send them?").
The direction of the answer: it is a rule that everything that happens to a Jew on the physical plane is a result of his spiritual state, which is why, when something happens to a person, he immediately checks his spiritual standing and his mezuzos. The fact that the Jewish people were physically in Egypt came from the fact that spiritually they were sunk in the forty nine gates of impurity: their souls were at the very peak of lowliness and evil.
And here the question arises: how is it even possible to climb out of a state that low?
It is known that every single day a heavenly voice goes forth from Mount Chorev and proclaims, as brought in Pirkei Avos. The Baal Shem Tov asks: who actually hears this proclamation? And he answers that from time to time you see a person who suddenly awakens to draw close to the Holy One, blessed be He, with no prior preparation at all. That is because at that moment the heavenly voice registered with him: he entered a "reception zone," and the proclamation did its work and aroused him.
In summary: in this section we learned that there is no joy as great as being released from exile and captivity, like the parable of the king's son grinding in the prison house, filthy in the refuse, who goes out free to the house of his father the king. Every mitzvah is such a release, and therefore it is specifically the soul accounting of chapters 29 and 31 that gives birth to great joy, like the superiority of light that comes out of darkness. We addressed the question of how one can rejoice while the body remains "in its abominable state," as the "משכא דחויא," and the answer: "let his soul be precious in his eyes, to rejoice in its joy more than in the despicable body," without mixing up and confusing the joy of the soul with the sadness of the body. We also began explaining this aspect as the aspect of the exodus from Egypt, with the question of why the Jewish people left specifically by way of flight, and the rule that the physical situation of the Jewish people flows from their spiritual situation.
In the next section we will continue with the explanation of the exodus from Egypt, and the connection between the spiritual state of the Jewish people in Egypt and a person's own avodah and his joy in fulfilling the mitzvos.