The two hundred and fourteenth "room" in the hall of Hayom Yom.
Tuesday, 26 Sivan 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Korach, Shlishi, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, 26th of the month, we say the second half of Chapter 119, from the letter Mem starting with the word "Mah" until the end of the chapter, "lo shachachti".
Tanya, continuing Chapter 7 in "Shaar Yichud Vehaemunah". The daily shiur starts on page 166 with the words "vezeh gam ken inyan", and ends with the words "bepoel mamash".
The daily teaching refers to a verse in the weekly Torah portion of Korach, in the Tuesday section. There is a description in the Torah of the sons of Korach who were swallowed up in the earth, as Moshe Rabbeinu said: "But if Hashem creates a creation, and the earth opens its mouth", and the verse describes "veyerdu chayim sheolah" ("and they went down alive into the pit") - that Korach and his congregation went down to the pit, to the depths, while they were alive. This is the description in the verse.
There are two interesting ways here to understand the inner meaning of the verse, and mainly how to translate it into a Jew's avodah of Hashem, and not necessarily in relation to Korach and his sons during the time of Moshe Rabbeinu.
As an interesting note: The Rebbe cites as the source for the teaching a sicha from Simchas Torah 5691 by the Rebbe Rayatz. Yet, when opening Sefer Hasichos 5691 on Simchas Torah, one finds there perhaps only four or five words, like floating letters and codes, and it is impossible to find this entire teaching there. If so, what is the meaning of this?
Many used to transcribe the sichos of the Rebbe Rayatz. Sometimes the Rebbe Rayatz himself wrote down his sichos; sometimes others wrote them, and the Rebbe Rayatz added, corrected, and the like; and sometimes they were written, and the words remained as people's private records. In practice, what entered the official Sefer Hasichos in our hands is either sichos that the Rebbe Rayatz himself wrote, or, most likely, sichos that chassidim wrote and the Rebbe Rayatz added corrections and notes to them - and this is what remained as the official printed sicha.
In this sicha of Simchas Torah, one can see that it is present before us from the handwriting of one of the chassidim, and even at the end of it that chassid writes in parentheses that the words at the end are missing. To what was written, the Rebbe Rayatz added very brief points, and this is what was printed, and therefore it is indeed very difficult to understand the matters.
However, in another sicha from that same farbrengen, which is available from the handwriting of another chassid and is located in the Rebbe's library, one can see the entire sicha as it appears here. That is to say, the Rebbe took the teaching not from the famous and known version of the farbrengen, but from what another chassid wrote, and there the matter appears at length exactly as it does here.
Let us return to the content of the teaching. The teaching presents two extremes regarding the state of "veyerdu chayim sheolah": on the one hand, a description of a tremendous descent, and on the other hand, a description of hope and the ability for a very great ascent - and both are folded into the same sentence.
Let us read the language: "Veyerdu chayim sheolah". On the one hand, this is a description of the most degraded state - since "sheol" (the pit) is a term for a very low place, and a term for a person who is, in his behavioral and psychological state and in his yiras Shamayim, in the "lowest pit"; "that they even think they are 'alive'". Sometimes a person is so distant and completely out of touch that, from his perspective, he is alive, while in fact he is in the pit and he assumes he is alive. This is the expression "veyerdu chayim sheolah" in the sense of the great descent within it.
And on the other hand, we do not remain with the statement that there is such a tremendous descent here, but rather in that very same statement lies great hope.
"The blessing in 'veyerdu chayim sheolah'" there is a blessing, there is hope, there is a good statement. What is that statement? In the manner of the other verse, which is stated in a later Torah portion (and not in the Torah portion of Korach): "Uvnei Korach lo meisu" ("And the sons of Korach did not die"). What happened to the sons of Korach that they did not die? As is known and the Gemara says, the sons of Korach, even when they went down to the lowest pit along with the whole family, the Holy One, Blessed be He, preserved a high place for them, so that they would not truly be lost, and as it is described that they "did teshuvah" even though they were there. The Gemara says "a place was fortified for them and they did teshuvah", and there is another version: "a place was fortified for them and they recited a song there", and the commentators explain that the intention is that they did teshuvah.
And indeed, over the years they emerged and sprouted from the earth, and entire families grew from them, and they even recited a song while they were in the depths of the earth. And from here we have in Tehillim the chapters of "Mizmor livnei Korach" ("A song of the sons of Korach") - since they were inside the pit, and they said words of song and thanks to Hashem.
If so, in the way that it says "uvnei Korach lo meisu", one can also state the lofty meaning in the words "veyerdu chayim sheolah": "because teshuvah is only effective as long as one is alive, and this is the blessing, that even in the pit they will be alive and will be able to do teshuvah" since teshuvah is only effective as long as a person is alive. A person can do teshuvah only while he is alive - simply speaking, that when a person dies he can no longer rectify, and as long as the soul is within him it is possible to do teshuvah, and afterwards it is impossible.
And also in the psychological sense: when a person still feels vitality, feels hope and feels light, he can uplift himself and know that he has not been lost and that it is within his power to rectify his life. But a person who assumes that he is already dead and that the situation is lost - he indeed despairs and cannot uplift himself.
And this is the blessing that Korach's family had: that even in the pit they would be alive. "Veyerdu chayim sheolah" - they went down to the pit, but they remained alive, in the sense that they would be able to do teshuvah. That is to say, even when a person is at the very bottom, his soul exists and hope must remain, and therefore he can do teshuvah even in this state. This is the blessing within that very word itself: there is a description here of the most lost situation, but there is also in that same word a description of the greatest hope - that in any situation a person should know that it is within his power to rectify and do teshuvah.