The two hundred and thirty-third "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Sunday, 15 Tammuz 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Pinchas, first parashah with the commentary of Rashi.
Tehillim, on the fifteenth of the month, chapter 77 and chapter 78.
Tanya, we continue today with Chapter 3 of Iggeret HaTeshuvah. The daily portion is found on page 184, beginning with the words "achen kol" and ending with the word "taanit".
The daily saying is composed of two parts, and one can even see in the way it is printed a certain gap between the first section and the second. The first part is taken from one maamar of the Rebbe Rashab, and the second part from another maamar, also of the Rebbe Rashab.
The source of the first section is a maamar of the Rebbe Rashab, dibbur hamaschil "Ve'eleh Toldos" (Sefer HaMaamarim 5669). In that maamar there is a passage in which the Rebbe Rashab writes at length about the relationship between soul and body, and brings various examples showing how much the body and the soul influence one another.
He says that we observe that a person who has a physical, bodily pain — immediately the matter is felt also in his soul, and it disturbs him from contemplating, thinking, and being focused; bodily distress brings about distress of the soul. And so too the reverse, on the positive side: when there is bodily pleasure, the soul too takes pleasure — a person who eats on time and sleeps properly and so on, is able to work with contentment. The Rebbe Rashab also brings the words of the Gemara concerning Rabbah, who would say "milsa d'bedichusa" (a humorous matter) before the lesson — and thereby brought about an opening of the mind and heart.
And likewise a spiritual pleasure acts upon the body, as in the wording of the verse "a good report fattens the bone" — a person who hears a good report, his physical body, his bones, expand. And regarding this is the account in the Gemara, that Andrianus was appointed king — "a good report fattens the bone."
And then he adds in that same maamar, in parentheses, what the Rebbe brings here in the first part of the saying. Let us read it directly: "My master, my father, my teacher and Rebbe [the reference is to the Rebbe Rashab] writes in one of his maamarim: "From the soul's delight in Elokus, there can result a fattening in the body"".
In parentheses the Rebbe Rashab notes that it is not only from pleasure like "a good report fattens the bone" — which is indeed a pleasure, but in the end a pleasure from something tangible, as in the story of the Gemara cited there, where the minister took pleasure from hearing that he was about to become king, which is a pleasure from something very tangible that affects even the body. Rather, he adds, even a pleasure that is entirely of the soul and spiritual — from the abundance of spiritual pleasure in matters of Elokus — can affect the body, that the body will simply be fatter and larger as a result of the pleasure of the soul.
In that maamar he does not bring an example for this, but only the idea. However, the second passage, which is the continuation, is taken from another maamar of the Rebbe Rashab — the dibbur-hamaschil "VeKibel," from the year 5678, nine years later. In that maamar the discussion is precisely about the same subject — the relationship between body and soul — with the same examples as in the previous maamar.
And after he brings the concept of "a good report makes the bone fat," he brings an example in parentheses [in the first maamar too it was in parentheses] regarding how a spiritual and soulful pleasure affects the body, and this is the next segment in the saying: "It is said of Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl that he was fat in his body." Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl became fat in his physical body, and from what? "From answering 'Amen, yehei shmei rabba'" — from the fact that he answered "yehei shmei rabba," and he had a soulful pleasure from this G-dly matter, and this caused, quite literally, that he became fat in his body. Again the same idea, in an example that a soulful pleasure acts upon the body and upon the physical.
And such a tzaddik, Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl — whose story the Rebbe Rayatz brings in one of the places where he quotes it — adds and says: "As is told about my grandfather, Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl." Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl was the grandfather of the Rebbe Rayatz, and how so? The Rebbe Rayatz was the son of the Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah, the wife of the Rebbe Rashab; the Rebbetzin Shterna Sarah was the daughter of the Rebbetzin Chana; the Rebbetzin Chana was the daughter of Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael of Cherkas; Rabbi Yaakov Yisrael of Cherkas was the son of Rabbi Mordechai of Chernobyl, who was the son of Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl. That is to say, the Rebbe Rayatz is a genuine relative, and through three generations of daughters — this is in fact the grandfather of the Rebbe Rayatz.
Interestingly, in one of the sichos of the previous Rebbe he says that this idea — that spiritual matters have an effect on the body — has already been written from time immemorial. In the Gemara there is a story about Rabbi Abahu whose "face lit up" from having found a new Tosefta — that is, when a person hears something new, the light shows in his eyes. But the Baal Shem Tov innovated that this is not merely a momentary thing that appears on a person at that time, but rather the matter becomes tangible, until it becomes like nourishment for him — the physical body, as a result of a report, of study, and of spiritual pleasure, becomes physically larger and broader, literally as from eating and drinking.
To conclude, let us examine the connection to the continuation of the Yad HaChazakah of the Rambam, after a break of several days. This saying alludes to the final laws of Sefer Kinyan in the Rambam, where we currently are — Hilchot Avadim. And the entire matter of Hilchot Avadim begins when the servant says "I love my master," and how to relate to that. And here this is actually an example of Rabbi Nachum of Chernobyl, a servant of Hashem whose service was in the manner of "I love my master," a love so great that literally fat formed in his physical body, drawn from the spiritual and soulful love for the Divine matter.