The two hundred sixty-first "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Sunday, 14 Menachem Av, 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Eikev, we begin a new parashah, the first section with the commentary of Rashi.
Tehillim: On the 14th of the month, one recites from chapter 72 through and including chapter 76.
Tanya: On this day one completes Iggeret Daled in Iggeret HaKodesh. The daily portion begins on page 106 with the words "vezehu tzedek," and concludes with the ending of the iggeret, with the words "selah amen ken yehi ratzon."
The Rebbe first brings a practice, that on this day, 14 Menachem Av, "at Minchah we do not say Tachanun". As is known, on the following day, 15 Av, about which the Mishnah states "there were no festivals for Israel like the fifteenth of Av," Tachanun is not said; and on the day before it, the eve of 15 Av, as the Alter Rebbe writes in his Siddur before "Lamnatzeiach," in the list of days on which Tachanun is not said — he notes that also on the eve of 15 Av Tachanun is not said. And this is what the Rebbe brings here.
Afterward comes the daily teaching. Its source is a sichah that the Rebbe Rayatz delivered on this date, 14 Menachem Av, two years earlier — for this saying was printed in Hayom Yom for 14 Menachem Av 5703, and the Rebbe Rayatz said it on 14 Menachem Av 5701. In that talk the Rebbe Rayatz elaborates at length on the matter under discussion here. Let us begin reading, and we will also add further points that are written there.
And so said the Rebbe Rayatz on 14 Menachem Av 5701: "14 Menachem Av 5701 — fifty years have passed since the day my father, the Rebbe [Rashab], told me that I should begin to write down the stories he tells me." That is, his father, the Rebbe Rashab, would relate to his son, the Rebbe Rayatz, various matters and stories; and when the Rebbe Rayatz was eleven years old, in the year 5651, his father told him to begin writing down all the stories that he hears.
In that same talk the Rebbe Rayatz goes on to relate that during that period his father would study various subjects with him from time to time; and he specifies: Ramban on the Torah, Chumash with Ibn Ezra, Mishnah, Tanya — many subjects that his father would study with him. On one occasion he studied with him the Mishnah in Pirkei Avot, "Make for yourself a rav and acquire for yourself a friend," and told him that the masters of the mesorah say that the true virtue of "Make for yourself a rav" is "and acquire for yourself a friend" — that one should not read it "u'knei lecha chaver" but rather "ve'kaneh lecha chaver"; and he brought to him that this is what the Alter Rebbe said.
Let us examine the continuation of the saying: "When the Tzemach Tzedek began to write on matters of nigleh and Chassidus, the Alter Rebbe said to him: 'And acquire for yourself a friend,' and kaneh (with a kamatz under the kuf and a segol under the nun) — meaning a quill — 'for yourself a friend'" — the Tzemach Tzedek began already at the age of eight to write on matters of the revealed Torah and the teachings of Chassidus, and at the age of nine he would write transcriptions of the maamarim he heard from his father, and even then he wrote "like one elderly and experienced." At that time, when he began to write at the age of eight, the Alter Rebbe — his grandfather — said to him: "It is written in the Mishnah, 'And acquire for yourself a friend,'" and he explained that the word should be read not as "ukeneh" but as "vekaneh," and what is the meaning of the word "kaneh"? It is from the word for a quill with which one writes. That is to say, "vekaneh lecha chaver" — let the quill be your friend; for when you write down the matters, you internalize them, and they become part of you. This is the counsel that the Mishnah gives to a person.
Now he adds here a further point that the Rebbe Rashab added: "Once my revered father [the Rashab] said in the name of the Alter Rebbe" — once, when the Rebbe Rashab repeated this saying in the name of the Alter Rebbe, "'kaneh' — an expression [meaning] a quill — 'get yourself a friend,' and my revered father explained the quill of the heart" — he added and explained that the intention is not specifically to a quill, to the feather with which one writes, but rather to the "quill of the heart." "Kaneh" is also one of the terms for the windpipe, which is connected all the way to the heart; meaning that "get yourself a friend" — the windpipe connected to the heart shall be your friend.
What does this mean? "Everything one learns, one must "live"" — everything a Jew studies, he should study again, internalize it, experience it and live it. When you yourself experience these things in your heart, that is their true imprint — not an imprint on the page, but an imprint upon your heart and upon your soul; this is the true imprint that accomplishes the matter.
This idea, although here it is cited in the name of the Alter Rebbe, actually appears in much earlier works as well, such as "Or Hayashar" and "Kav Hayashar." In one of these works, "Erchei Hakinuyim," the author brings in his introduction the words of King Shlomo in Mishlei, "ki tishmerem bevitnecha" (for you shall keep them in your innards), and points out that the words "ki tishmerem bevitnecha" — the three letters kaf, tav, beit — are the initial letters of the word "katuv" (written). "Katuv" is "ki tishmerem bevitnecha," which includes both the keeping in the heart and the writing, which are the two interpretations that we brought here on "kneh lecha chaver" (acquire for yourself a friend): both a quill in its literal sense and the quill of the heart. This is the saying that the Rebbe Rayatz related as he heard it from his father.