The seventy-fourth "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Tuesday, 4 Adar I, 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Terumah, Shlishi, with the commentary of Rashi.
Tehillim, 4th of the month, from chapter 23 through and including chapter 28.
Tanya, chapter 27, from the words "uvechol bechinas", until, on that same page on daf 34, the sentence ending with the word "tzaddikim".
The daily teaching appears in a letter that the Rebbe Rayatz wrote on 15 Tammuz 5695. The letter spells out a very important point, and it is titled "Three Levels in Emunah". The Rebbe Rayatz says there that there is an emunah that comes by way of investigation, that is, a person contemplates and arrives at the conclusion that there is something above intellect, and this strengthens his emunah. There is another kind of emunah called "emunah kabbalis" - which comes as a tradition from father to son, received, each son receiving it from his father. And there is a third level called "emunah peshutah", simple faith, which is found in the innermost part of the soul of every Jew.
When he speaks specifically about the first emunah, the one called an investigative emunah, which a person arrives at through his intellect, one can see its great advantage according to the saying of the Shelah, who says on the verse in the song of "Az Yashir": "Zeh Keili ve'anveihu, Elokei avi va'aromemenhu". If you feel that the Holy One, blessed be He, is "Keili", He is yours - because you yourself understood and internalized it - then "ve'anveihu", from the expression "ani ve'Hu", I and He, in one word. But if the Holy One, blessed be He, is for you only "Elokei avi", the G-d of my father, that you received it as a tradition from your father alone, then "va'aromemenhu" - He is elevated and removed from you. So he is speaking of the great advantage in a person reaching this by his own powers.
But then the Rebbe Rayatz says a point, and this is the daily teaching: in order to arrive at an investigative emunah - that is, in order to learn, understand and internalize such lofty matters - there is a very basic rule. He brings the expression that just as fire and water cannot dwell in one vessel, so too in the heart of the believer, love of Hashem and love of this world cannot dwell together. They cannot reside together, and a person has to decide what he wants; therefore, as long as his "tov taam", his pleasure and delight, is in material and physical matters, there is no chance that he will have a "tov taam" and delight in intellectual matters, and certainly not in G-dly matters.
Therefore, in order to succeed in learning and internalizing intellectual matters, and certainly G-dly ones, a person must first uproot the "tov taam" in worldly matters, and afterwards work on himself to have a "tov taam" and desire for loftier matters. Without this there is no ability at all to advance in this. He calls this by the very same expression written in Tanya in chapter 42 - "yegias basar" and "yegias nefesh". There in Tanya the Rebbe Rayatz wrote exactly the same expression, that in order to bind our soul with the Holy One, blessed be He - since our soul is within a body - great and immense toil is required.
The first is "yegias basar", toil of the flesh. What is toil of the flesh? In Tanya it says that a person must "crush" the body, that is, remove from it the pleasure and "tov taam" in worldly matters. And the second is "yegias nefesh", toil of the soul, that is, that he should have the ability to concentrate and contemplate G-dly matters. This is the language in Tanya in chapter 42, and this is the idea that appears in the daily teaching, which the Rebbe takes from that letter.
Let us read the wording: "The first preparation for occupying oneself with theoretical intellect" - what is the first preparation so that a person should be fit at all to occupy himself with theoretical intellect - "and with G-dly intellect in particular", and especially when it is a matter of G-dly intellect, all the more so. The first condition is "a) yegias basar", and he explains what it is: "to remove the tov taam from worldly matters" - the "tov taam" that a person has from worldly matters he must remove from himself. And the additional thing he must do is "b) yegias nefesh", and it is: "to awaken the tov taam in intellectual matters in general and in matters of Elokus in particular". That is, the whole avodah of a person is with "tov taam" - in what he takes delight: first in the aspect of "sur mera", to remove the "tov taam" in worldly matters; and on the other hand in the aspect of "aseh tov", that he should have a "tov taam" in intellectual matters and in matters of Elokus.
And one may say that the source of this is in the writings of Kabbalah, based on what is brought about Rabbi Zeira, that when he wanted to move from studying the Talmud Bavli to studying the Yerushalmi - both of them Torah - he had to fast, according to the versions, forty fasts or a hundred fasts, in order to forget the mode of study and the approach of the Bavli, so that he could absorb the Talmud Yerushalmi; meaning, it interferes with him. Or, as they say, that a soul ascending from this world to the higher world must pass through the "nahar dinur", to forget the "chizu dehai alma", the vision of this world, for otherwise it cannot absorb the light Above. He is saying the same idea here: within life in the world there is no possibility of occupying oneself with deep or G-dly matters without disconnecting from that which interferes in worldly matters.
We will conclude with the connection of this teaching to the sequence in the seforim of the Rambam. We are now in the teachings that correspond to Sefer Kedushah, and yesterday we saw the teaching corresponding to the general topic of Hilchos Issurei Biah, which are the first halachos in Sefer Kedushah. The daily teaching corresponds exactly to the final halachos - perhaps the last one or the last two - in Hilchos Issurei Biah, the halachos that summarize Hilchos Issurei Biah.
There the Rambam says, and we will read a portion of his wording: "It is fitting for a person to subdue his inclination in this matter and to accustom himself to extra holiness... and to distance himself from levity and from drunkenness... and to occupy himself with broadening his mind in wisdom". The Rambam says that if a person wants to be immersed in G-dly matters, he must disconnect himself from all those matters of levity and frivolity that cause him to descend, and only in this way will he be able to connect and broaden his mind in wisdom. And this is exactly the content of the daily teaching in "Hayom Yom".