We now begin the opening lines of chapter 42. In the previous chapter we studied the various levels of yiras Shamayim (fear of Heaven), all of them included under the heading of yirah tata'ah, the «lower» fear. Now the practical question presents itself: how does a person actually arrive there? How does he awaken this in his own soul and genuinely connect to caring, to yiras Shamayim? Where is it supposed to come from? A person is sitting inside a bubble of the vanities of this world, and suddenly he decides that he wants it. From where does this come to him?
In this chapter the Alter Rebbe reveals something wondrous, practical and important, and it is fitting that we learn to treasure and appreciate the remarkable thing that we have been given.
«והנה במה שנתבאר לעיל בענין יראה תתאה יובן היטב מה שכתוב בגמרא על פסוק ועתה ישראל מה ה' אלוקיך שואל מעמך כי אם ליראה את ה' אלקיך» - «With what has been explained above regarding yirah tata'ah, we can now understand well what the Gemara says on the verse: And now, Israel, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you, but to fear Hashem your G-d.» The plain sense of the verse is that the sum total being asked of a Jew is something light and easy: that he have yiras Shamayim. On this the Gemara asks the question that arises on its own: «אטו יראה מילתא זוטרתא היא?» - is fear of Heaven such a small matter, that one can say of it «what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear»? Arriving at yiras Shamayim is a very great thing! And the Gemara answers: «אין! לגבי משה מילתא זוטרתא היא וכו'» - yes, indeed; for Moshe it is a small matter.
At first glance the answer does not resolve the question at all, it simply moves it elsewhere. Had the verse said «And now, Moshe, what does Hashem your G-d ask of you but to fear» - fine, for Moshe Rabbeinu this is a small matter. But the verse does not say «and you, Moshe,» it says «and now, Israel,» and it is speaking to every single Jew. In the Alter Rebbe's words: «דלכאורה אינו מובן התירוץ, דהא שואל מעמך כתיב» - seemingly the answer is not understood, for it says «asks of you»: the Holy One is asking of you, of every single Jew, not of Moshe Rabbeinu.
But the Gemara knew the question perfectly well, and gave a real answer: every single person has within him an aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu, and with respect to that aspect within him, yiras Shamayim truly is a light matter. In the Alter Rebbe's words: «אלא הענין הוא כי כל נפש ונפש מבית ישראל יש בה מבחינת משה רבינו ע"ה» - «rather, the matter is as follows: in every single soul of the house of Israel there is something of the aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him.» Every Jew, whoever he may be, receives from Moshe Rabbeinu a spiritual gift and tremendous powers that Moshe plants in his heart; Moshe Rabbeinu's representative is present in the heart of each and every one.
Why specifically from Moshe Rabbeinu? There have been many tzaddikim throughout history. To this the Alter Rebbe continues: «כי הוא משבעה רועים» - «for he is one of the seven shepherds.» Among all the tzaddikim there are seven who are called the «seven shepherds,» and they are also the seven ushpizin familiar to us from Sukkos: Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, Moshe and Aharon, and in the Zohar others are brought in this context as well (Yosef, Shlomo). It is not our subject here to spell out exactly who all seven are; in any case it is clear that Moshe Rabbeinu is one of the seven shepherds.
Why are they called «shepherds»? Like a shepherd who feeds his flock, leads it and guides it. And they are not shepherds for their own generation alone, but shepherds for all the generations, from then until today: enduring and eternal.
And why are seven shepherds needed? Why is one not enough? Because each shepherd provides a particular thing, a different domain. It is not that each one has his own flock; all seven shepherd the entire flock, only that each one draws down something different: every Jew receives a certain thing from Aharon HaKohen, a certain thing from Avraham Avinu, and so on.
The Alter Rebbe continues and defines what the seven shepherds do: «הממשיכים חיות ואלקות לכללות נשמות ישראל» - «who draw down vitality and G-dliness to the totality of the souls of Israel.» It is worth paying attention to the vav he added here. The ear would have expected «who draw down G-dly vitality to the totality of the souls of Israel,» whereas here the Alter Rebbe splits it into two: chayus (vitality) on one side, and Elokus (G-dliness) on the other. [In the sefer Shiurim BeSefer HaTanya a saying is brought in the name of chassidim, in connection with the well known story that the Alter Rebbe sat for several weeks over a single vav in Tanya, whether to include it or not, that the reference is to this vav of «chayus ve'Elokus»; and elsewhere I have seen that the vav in question is the one in chapter 41, in the phrase «ראשית העבודה ועיקרה ושרשה».]
Chayus: a person serves Hashem, davens, learns, helps a Jew, and it should all be done with chayus, with life and vitality. That vitality is what the seven shepherds provide.
Elokus: that it should not grow into ego and a feeling of self-inflation, but rather that a person should manage to do all this while feeling, in the midst of it, his own bittul to the Holy One. The sense of G-dliness and the bittul to the Creator within one's doing is likewise given by the seven shepherds.
This is the meaning of the title «shepherds»: the flock cannot exist without the shepherd. Every single Jew, whoever he may be, even one who does not know at all that he is a Jew, by the very fact of his existence belongs to the flock of the Jewish people, and these shepherds give him chayus and Elokus. He can cover it over and interfere with it, but it is actually there within him; and if he will brush off the dust, he will discover what tremendous powers he has from each and every one of the seven shepherds.
The Alter Rebbe continues: «ומשה רבינו ע"ה הוא כללות כולם» - «and Moshe Rabbeinu, peace be upon him, is the inclusive totality of them all.» Of all seven shepherds, Moshe Rabbeinu is the singular and unique one, for he is the general category that contains all the shepherds. That is why we find expressions used about him that were never said about any of the other shepherds:
«There is no generation that does not have in it someone like Moshe» - and it does not say «there is no generation that does not have in it someone like Avraham,» or like Yitzchak, or like Yaakov.
«Moshe, you have spoken well» - in the Gemara we find that one of the Tanna'im turned to his colleague, whose name was not Moshe at all, and upon hearing a true and correct Torah insight from him called him «Moshe,» that is to say: he saw in him the aspect of Moshe.
And so the Alter Rebbe continues: «ונקרא רעיא מהימנא» - «and he is called the faithful shepherd.» Even though all of them are seven shepherds, the title ra'aya mehemna is said of Moshe Rabbeinu alone.
Each of the seven shepherds draws down one specific, defined thing: Avraham Avinu is the man of chesed, and his matter is love and the love of Hashem; Yitzchak is gevurah, and so on. Moshe Rabbeinu, by contrast, draws down something general, without which whatever the other six shepherds give has no existence and no result. And what is it? «דהיינו שממשיך בחינת הדעת לכללות ישראל» - «namely, that he draws down the aspect of daas to the totality of Israel.»
What is daas? It does not mean information. As we already learned in chapter 3 of Tanya, daas means connection to something, as in the verse «והאדם ידע את חוה» - «and the man knew Chavah,» where «knew» means connection and bonding. That verse is the proof text, since it cannot possibly be explained in any other way than connection and attachment. In other words: a person can do many good things and know many things, and with all that still not be connected to it; he does not feel that it is his, that it is «him.» But when a person feels the thing, he and it become one.
There can be a Jew who does not know much Torah, who knows one verse or two; but that one verse he lives, he experiences, he feels, he is moved by. And opposite him there can be a person who knows all of Tanach by heart, forwards and backwards, and all of Shas as well, but he only knows it, while his own world is somewhere else entirely. «Knowing information» is one thing, and daas is something else entirely.
Daas, then, is internalization. And that is its role in the sequence of chochmah, binah and daas: chochmah and binah are the flash of insight and the understanding, and once a person already has complete understanding, daas comes and takes that understanding and connects the person to it, until it becomes part of him. And if daas was never joined to it, no result will ever grow out of all that understanding. Everything a person received from the other shepherds is important, but the daas for it, the connection to it and the caring about it: that is what Moshe Rabbeinu gives him.
One might ask: in practice it all comes from Avraham Avinu, for he was the first, he spoke with everyone and instilled daas in them, and so he merited and accounted for all of them. This is true, and we find something similar in the Rebbe's first maamar, Basi LeGani: in the order of the generations Avraham is the first and Moshe Rabbeinu is the seventh, and the whole distinction of the seventh lies precisely in his being seventh. On the one hand «all sevenths are beloved,» and on the other hand, who made him the seventh? Without the first he would not be a seventh at all, and to reach a seventh you need the first. Indeed, it all comes from the first, and his honor stands in its place, first of the first. But in actual practice, in order for every Jew to have daas in what Avraham Avinu gives him, he needs Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe takes nothing away from Avraham Avinu's honor; he provides the general thing that connects all the particulars together. That is why we do not attribute to Moshe Rabbeinu any one particular, any one «color» such as chesed or gevurah, but rather a person's inner connection to the whole thing.
And so it emerges: Moshe Rabbeinu, who lived three thousand three hundred years ago, is the one from whom each and every person receives; and in every single generation sparks of Moshe Rabbeinu come down, as we shall see further on. And since that is so, every Jew has the ability to reach yiras Shamayim as well: once there is in him the aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu and he receives from him, and regarding Moshe Rabbeinu it is indeed «milsa zutarta,» a small matter, then for him too it becomes a small matter. All he has to do is awaken it and connect: to have daas for Moshe Rabbeinu, to connect to Moshe and to receive from Moshe.
In summary: in this portion we opened chapter 42, which answers the question of where a person is to get yiras Shamayim from. The Gemara asks «atu yirah milsa zutarta hi?» and answers «for Moshe it is a small matter,» and seemingly «asks of you» is written, meaning of every Jew; but the answer is that in every soul of the house of Israel there is something of the aspect of Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe is one of the seven shepherds who draw down chayus (vitality in one's avodah) and Elokus (bittul to the Creator) to the totality of the souls of Israel, and he is the inclusive totality of them all and is called ra'aya mehemna, because he draws down the aspect of daas: the connection and internalization, without which nothing the other shepherds give can produce any result.
In the next portion we will review the material and continue further in the words of the Alter Rebbe, with G-d's help.