In the previous section we learned how a person becomes a « מכון לשבתו יתברך », a dwelling place for Him, through learning one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening: like the Mishkan, and like the Avos who were a merkavah, a chariot, for the Shechinah. At this point one part of the chapter comes to a close, as it were, and the Alter Rebbe moves on to a further stage within the very same subject.
A question that asks itself:
How can one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening be compared to the sheer power of the Mishkan, of the Avos, of Moshe Rabbeinu? Chazal did say that « the Holy One has nothing in His world but the four cubits of halachah ». But when was the Mishkan a home for Hashem, only for one chapter morning and evening? It was a home always, and the Shechinah never departed from it, not to this very day. And when were the Avos a merkavah for the Shechinah? All the days of their lives. The same with Moshe Rabbeinu, constantly. Whereas a person, even granting that he cannot be occupied with this all day long, has only his one chapter morning and evening, and what becomes of the other twenty three and a half hours of the day? He ends up split in two: twenty three and a half hours for himself, and a mere half hour for the Holy One. Where, then, is the point of connection to that power of the Mishkan?
From these two points the Alter Rebbe moves on, and almost to the end of the chapter he explains: even if all you have are these two short stretches of time, you have the power to turn your entire day and your entire life into something connected to the Holy One. Not literally on the level of a merkavah, but the aim must be to leave no point vacant, so that the person is connected in his entirety. This is accomplished in two ways.
The first way, yearning: « ואם ירחיב ה' לו »
A man says: I found a quarter of an hour in my day, no more, and I split that quarter hour in two, half in the morning and half in the evening. The whole rest of the day I am pressed and busy, and let us assume he truly is. What, then, is the inner wish that ought to live in a Jew's heart? « ואם ירחיב ה' לו », and if Hashem will broaden things for him: if the Holy One grants him a wider livelihood, so that he has more time and more hours that he can free up from his work, then « טהור ידיים יוסיף אומץ, ומחשבה טובה כו' », he of clean hands will add strength, and a good thought (the Holy One joins to the deed).
If a person genuinely feels how precious learning is, how precious it is to be connected to the Creator, this is the wish that fills his heart: if only I had free time, I would learn more. And since the Holy One joins a good thought to the deed, it turns out that his entire day is connected: for a quarter of an hour he is connected in actual fact through his learning, and for twenty three hours and three quarters he is longing and yearning for it, so that in essence he is inside the matter the whole time.
This is the power of knowing something's worth: that even when a person is not engaged in it, he yearns for it. A person ought to know how important the learning is and how important the connection is, to look with longing envy at someone more capable than he is, and to wish for himself: if only I were more able. One who lives this way is considered connected all day long.
The second way, tzedakah: « וגם שאר היום כולו »
The first way is a connection in thought alone, and although the Holy One joins a good thought to the deed, a person might still say: I am not satisfied with a connection of thought, I want to be connected in deed. For this the Alter Rebbe offers a practical solution, one with the power to sweep in even those twenty three hours in which a man is not learning at all but working and earning: « וגם שאר היום כולו שעוסק במשא ומתן יהיה מכון לשבתו יתברך בנתינת הצדקה שיתן מיגיעו », and the whole rest of the day too, when he is occupied in business, will be a dwelling place for Him, through the tzedakah he gives from his labor.
That entire day in which a man works hard, deals in the marketplace, buys and sells, seemingly plain business with no bearing on the Holy One, becomes a dwelling place for Him through giving tzedakah from what he earned. He invested energy, thought and planning, he earned, and from the profit he gives. He is not asked to give everything, only to give what the Torah instructs: maaser, a tenth, and one who wishes to be more scrupulous gives a chomesh, a fifth, which is twenty percent, and beyond a fifth he is told not to give more. Eighty percent stays with him, and the twenty percent he gives because the Holy One told him to give.
And what is the greatness of tzedakah? That it is one of the Holy One's own middos, as Chazal said: « מה הוא רחום אף אתה רחום », as He is merciful, so you be merciful. So too in Tikkunei Zohar, where the supernal matters are pictured in the image of a body (though He has no body and no bodily form), it says « חסד דרועא ימינא », chesed is the right arm. The right arm, as it were, is the attribute of chesed, and the right hand draws close. It emerges that one who occupies himself with giving tzedakah and doing kindness becomes connected to the Holy One: when he learns he is connected through his learning, and when he works he works in order to have with what to give tzedakah, so that he never stops being connected.
« הרי החומש מעלה עמו כל הארבע ידות »
Here a person might ask: if I worked and gave all one hundred percent to the Holy One, it is understandable that all my labor is in the Creator's service. But I have been told not to give everything, only a fifth, eighty percent for myself and twenty percent for the Creator. How do all those eighty percent become Hashem's? To this the Alter Rebbe says: « ואף שאינו נותן אלא חומש, הרי החומש מעלה עמו כל הארבע ידות לה' להיות מכון לשבתו יתברך », and though he gives only a fifth, that fifth raises with it all four remaining parts to Hashem, to be a dwelling place for Him. In giving tzedakah a person gives a representative portion of his money, and when that representative portion rises and is sanctified in a mitzvah, it lifts everything along with it, and the whole is sanctified.
« כנודע מאמר רבותינו ז"ל שמצות הצדקה שקולה כנגד כל הקרבנות », as is known from our Sages' teaching that the mitzvah of tzedakah is equal to all the korbanos. This principle is derived from the fact that in the Torah's verses dealing with the order of the korbanos, verses about the gifts to the poor, leket, shichechah and peah, appear in the middle. And the question is asked: what is tzedakah doing here, in the midst of the korbanos? The Sages explain that the Torah comes to teach us that one who gives tzedakah to a poor man is as though he offered up all the korbanos.
The analogy of the korbanos:
Let us take an example from the parshiyos we are learning in these weeks, in which we began Sefer Vayikra, the book of the korbanos. « Korban » comes from the word karov, to draw near: a Jew draws close to the Holy One. But seemingly, what actually drew close? Only that one particular animal that was designated as a korban and offered on the mizbeach. And how many animals were offered? Even if they offered in the Beis Hamikdash from morning until twilight, there remained in the world thousands and hundreds of thousands of animals that were not offered. The same with the salt placed on every korban (as we read in last week's parshah): how much salt was given, while a great deal of salt remained in the world ungiven? And the same with the fine flour that comes from the wheat.
The answer is that the world is built of four levels, domem, tzomeach, chai and medaber (inanimate, plant, animal and speaker), and when a person brings a korban, the entire world draws close:
Domem, the salt placed on every korban.
Tzomeach, the fine flour that comes from the wheat.
Chai, the animal that is offered.
Medaber, the Jew himself, who in bringing his korban confessed and thereby offered up his own self as well.
And although in practice there is only a small portion here, a bit of flour, a bit of salt, one animal and one Jew, that portion is a representative that connects everything: the little salt that was given raised up all the salt in the world to the Holy One.
We find this principle in the Midrash. On the second day of creation the Holy One created the firmament, to divide between the upper waters and the lower waters. The Midrash says that the lower waters wept: why did we lose out and end up below, while others remained above? And the solution the Holy One gave them was that a representative portion of the water would rise upon the mizbeach: salt comes from water and is related to it, and in placing the salt on the mizbeach all the waters are elevated. Here too one can ask: how much salt is placed, when all the water remains below? Can a little salt elevate all the waters? And the answer is, yes it can, for that little bit is like a shaliach, an emissary.
Just as one man goes up to the amud and becomes the shliach tzibbur for the entire congregation, so too there is an emissary for all of domem, an emissary for all of tzomeach, and so on. The same holds in a person's work: he labored and earned, and gave maaser or a chomesh to tzedakah. That little bit is the emissary of all his money, and in giving what he is obligated to give, everything rises to Hashem.
To sum up: a person must turn his whole day into a home for Hashem. The foundation of this is learning at least one chapter in the morning and one chapter in the evening. And although that is only one chapter and one chapter, the Alter Rebbe teaches that he has a solution by which the entire day becomes a dwelling place for Him:
Yearning, that all day long he longs and waits for when he will be able to add another minute of learning. That yearning is enough, for the Holy One joins a good thought to the deed, and it turns out that his whole day is in a movement of learning.
Tzedakah, that all day he works and earns, and from his money he gives tzedakah, which is one of the Holy One's own middos, and in this way his money too becomes a dwelling place for Him. And though he gave only a little, a tenth or a fifth, it does not touch only the money he gave, for the fifth raises everything along with it.
In the next section we will continue with the Alter Rebbe's words further on in this chapter.