The twenty-fourth "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Monday, 13 Teves 5703.
Lessons: Chumash, Vayechi, sheini, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, the 13th of the month, from chapter 69 through chapter 71 inclusive.
Tanya, we are in the middle of chapter 9, from the words "Ach hinei" until the words "kerishpei eish".
A short saying whose source is a letter that the Rebbe Rashab wrote to the Rebbe Rayatz, and among the things that the Rebbe heard in the year 5690 from his father-in-law, the Rebbe Rayatz. The Rebbe wrote it in his reshimos, and here he copies the saying. It is a very short saying, but its message is wondrous and demanding.
Let us first read the entire saying as it is, and afterwards we will expand on it a bit. The first sentence: "When one sets up a lantern, those who desire light gather, for 'light draws' - light pulls toward itself". The light draws people to come to it.
Regarding the expression "when one sets up a lantern": there is a letter that the Rebbe wrote to the mashpia Rabbi Nissan Nemanov in the year 5712, who was a mashpia in the yeshiva in Brunoy, France. The Rebbe arouses him to make plans for the farbrengens that should be held in the month of Kislev, and writes to him that one must see to it that the farbrengens should not take place only in the yeshiva or in the homes of the chassidim, but should also take place in all the shuls that are relevant, and likewise that one should make an effort that the farbrengen be publicized in the newspapers and in additional ways.
The Rebbe explains to him the idea - why the matter needs to be publicized: since there is the saying "when one sets up a lantern", which draws the light, those who are outside also need to know that a lantern has been set up, and if they will know - they too will gather around it.
And where must one set up the lantern? In the street - in a place that is "outside". There are those whom one can reach directly and speak with, and there are those whom one cannot even meet and whom you do not know; but the very fact that you publicize and people know that you set up a lantern - that itself draws the light.
And as the Rebbe once emphasized in a sicha, a saying different in its wording but identical in its idea: the Rebbe Rashab once said that a chassid is like a "lamplighter". Once the arrangement was that in the streets there were points of illumination, and a person had to go around with a torch of fire, reach every point that was meant to spread light, and light it. So too is the chassid: there are many Jews, and every Jew is a potential for light, and therefore one must go and illuminate.
On that same occasion the Rebbe Rashab said: sometimes you do not see people around you - perhaps because there are no people, or because they are there but hidden away in all sorts of holes and crevices. Still you are not exempt from your task: you must light the lantern, and then people will gather around it who will hear that there is a lantern here, and in the end they too will themselves become lamplighters.
The expression in the saying - who gathers? "Those who desire light gather." In the expression "desire" there is a very interesting emphasis. In the year 5708 the Rebbe wrote a letter to the chassid Rabbi Yehuda Chitrik, and aroused him that he could have an effect on other Jews and bring them close to chassidus - like oil, whose nature is to permeate everything and penetrate every place.
Rabbi Chitrik wrote back to the Rebbe and asked what to do with people who are closed up within themselves and within their own world, whom it is difficult to reach - how can one bring them out of this state? The Rebbe answered him with this saying, and told him: be precise in the wording. It says "when one sets up a lantern, those who desire light gather" - who are "those who desire"?
The Rebbe says that it is written in chassidus that there is a difference between the word "cheifetz" (desire) and the word "ratzon" (will): "ratzon" is an external will, and "cheifetz" expresses an inner will. The meaning of this: there are Jews who say outwardly that they do not want at all, that they are not connected and are not interested; but the truth is that every Jew, in his innermost depths, does want - there is no Jew who does not want, as in the well-known ruling of the Rambam in matters of divorce, that every Jew truly wants to do the will of Hashem.
Consequently, since every Jew wants inwardly, even if the matter is not visible at the moment openly, then every Jew is one who "desires" the matter. And if you will only set up a lantern, you will cause that all the Jews who desire - and who are those who desire? Every Jew is one who desires - the inner desire within them will be aroused outwardly, and then they will truly come and draw close to the lantern.
In another letter the Rebbe writes, that if it is said "one sets up a lantern" and the lantern draws light - then when one sets up the luminary of chassidus, the luminary within the Torah which is the teaching of chassidus, which is far more than a lantern, certainly and certainly people will gather around it. And this must be done in a way that even one who is in another street, who is not near the lantern and the luminary that was lit - one must convey the message to him in the appropriate letters, so that he will know that here there is a lantern, that here they are lighting the light, and this itself will draw him.
And this brings us to an interesting point that the Rebbe Rayatz once wrote. There were chassidim who wrote to the Rebbe Rayatz two claims, perhaps two questions: one - that they have no one to whom to speak chassidus; they want to, but there is no one, there is nobody with whom. And the second - even if there are "clients", there is no one to say it; even the people themselves do not feel worthy and fitting enough to say it.
The Rebbe Rayatz answered them thus: to the claim that there is no one to whom to say it - one must remember the saying that I heard from my father, which he wrote to me in a letter, "when one sets up a lantern, those who desire it gather". What does it mean "you have no one to whom to say it"? Set up a lantern, and you will see that suddenly there are those who are aroused and want, and they will gather around you.
And to the second claim, that there is no one to say it, and that you feel that you are not connected - many times the Rebbe Rayatz would say: "I have seen tangibly", that a person who thinks he cannot, begins, and after a time one suddenly sees that he succeeds in saying it in a wondrous and good way, and truly brings about a revival, a resurrection of the dead, in his entire surroundings. So too a person who thinks he does not know, cannot and is not capable - one must begin from his "I do not know", and in the end he will see that he too can accomplish a very great deal.