In the previous section we looked at the makeup of the soul of the beinoni, the "intermediate" person: on the level of action, in thought, speech and deed, he does not fail, but on the emotional level a constant war is being waged. There are moments when the yetzer hara tries to awaken a craving, and there are moments when the divine soul rules and holds the field. Now the Alter Rebbe adds a fascinating phrase, and in it we find the moments of grace that the beinoni is granted.
"כי אם בעתים מזומנים" - "except at certain fixed times":
The beinoni has certain hours, certain minutes, certain situations in his day in which he is like a tzaddik. In those moments he has no war at all: his nefesh habahamis, his animal soul, is fast asleep. It does not speak and it does not stir up any desire. These are only isolated moments, but they exist, and from them the beinoni draws the energy and the fuel to hold out for the entire rest of the day. All day long he is fighting with himself not to fall, and therefore he needs a respite in which the yetzer tov is the sole ruler, with nothing to contend with at all.
When do these "fixed times" occur? At the time of Krias Shema and tefillah.
The four recitations of Krias Shema:
Over the course of a day a Jew says Krias Shema four times, and Kabbalah explains that each one is a stage unto itself, with its own spiritual content:
In the morning blessings, before "Hodu."
In Shacharis, an obligation from the Torah itself.
In Maariv, an obligation from the Torah itself.
Krias Shema al hamitah, before going to sleep.
The second one, the one said within the davening itself, carries the greatest spiritual force and authority, and it is there that a person is asked to arouse in himself thought, hisbonenus (contemplation) and attentiveness at the highest level.
"שעת מוחין דגדלות למעלה" - "a time of mochin degadlus Above":
The time of Krias Shema, and the Shemoneh Esrei that follows it, is a special time in the upper worlds, called "a time of mochin degadlus Above," a time when expanded consciousness shines. And below too, in this world, in the Alter Rebbe's words, "it is a time of readiness for every man." True, a person is free at any time and at any hour to sit down, contemplate the greatness of the Creator, and awaken love of Hashem within himself. But there is a time that is called the "time of readiness": the gates are open from Above, and he is given divine assistance to succeed better at his task.
This does not necessarily mean lofty levels. A chassid was once asked whether he had love of Hashem, and he answered: "a slight tickle." Complete love is a level in itself, but that "slight tickle" during davening is exactly what is asked of a person, to awaken in his heart the good resolutions that will keep his whole day running as it should.
What is tefillah?
Tefillah is not the recitation of a text. The obligation of prayer is "service of the heart," as we learn from the verse "and to serve Him with all your heart." Certainly tefillah is a positive commandment, and one must say all the words even when the kavanah is absent, but the words are its external layer, while the essence of the mitzvah is the work of the heart. A person who says all the words without knowing what he is saying and without thinking about anything has not prayed; he has collected words. Kavanah is not a lovely addition to the mitzvah, it is the inner content of the act.
The avodah of the beinoni at the time of tefillah:
The beinoni knows how to make use of the divine opportunity he has been given, and he davens properly, and then his animal soul falls completely asleep: he has nothing to struggle with and no foreign thoughts. The Alter Rebbe lists three things here:
"מקשר חכמה בינה ודעת שלו להשם" - "he binds his chochmah, binah and daas to Hashem": since Above this is a time of mochin degadlus, the mind below too, a person's own chochmah, binah and daas, must be bound at this hour to the Creator.
"להעמיק דעתו בגדולת אין סוף ברוך הוא" - "to immerse his mind deeply in the greatness of the blessed Ein Sof": during tefillah a person must deepen his understanding and contemplate the greatness of the Creator.
"ולעורר את האהבה כרשפי אש בחלל הימני שבלבו" - "and to awaken the love like fiery coals in the right chamber of his heart": that this contemplation should give birth in the heart to a feeling of love for the Creator.
"Love for the Creator" is lofty, abstract language, and the question is how it actually finds expression.
One of the great tzaddikim of Poland, Reb Dovid of Lelov, told of a simple shepherd who used to contemplate the greatness of Hashem at length, since being out in the field with the flock leaves plenty of room for thinking, but who had never learned and did not know how to apply his excitement or how to clothe it in anything. At first he began to whistle on his pipe and said: "Master of the World, I am whistling in Your honor out of my great love for You." When that did not calm him, he began to run with the flock and said: "I am running in Your honor." Finally he climbed to the top of the hill and said: "Master of the World, in Your honor I am rolling from the top of this hill all the way down." He rolled, he fell, and he did not get up. That tzaddik said that what this Jew did caused a stir in the upper worlds and was accepted as an olah, a burnt offering to Hashem, because it came out of genuine simplicity and out of not knowing: he did not know how to express the force of his heart, and so he looked for ways that are not ways.
Love that clothes itself in Torah and mitzvos:
But when a Jew is asked to awaken love for the Creator, the Alter Rebbe immediately continues: "לדבקה בו בקיום התורה ומצותיה מאהבה" - "to cleave to Him through fulfilling His Torah and His mitzvos out of love." There is no such thing as love standing on its own, "I love the Creator," without tefillin and a mezuzah, without Shabbos and learning Torah and honoring parents. There is no love that does not clothe itself in mitzvos.
This very idea is written in Krias Shema itself: "And you shall love Hashem your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might," and immediately afterward, "And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart, and you shall teach them to your children and you shall speak of them... and you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand and they shall be tefillin between your eyes, and you shall write them on the doorposts of your house." You love the Creator, and you have to put that love into practice in mitzvos. That is a Jew's love.
How does one arrive at "V'ahavta"?
A person cannot press a button so that the moment he says "V'ahavta" his heart bursts out in love of Hashem. The sages of Israel saw that a person has to be prepared for this state, because in order for the heart to be moved, the mind has to go first and supply it with the information: a person contemplates something, and out of that contemplation an attraction to it is awakened in him.
That is why they established that before Krias Shema we say the two blessings, "Yotzer Or" and "Ahavas Olam." At length they tell of the greatness of the Creator: of creation and the six days of Bereishis, of the angels and the manner of their service, of the exodus from Egypt and the splitting of the sea. Here a person contemplates the greatness of the blessed Ein Sof. If he thinks about what he is saying, there is a chance that by the time he reaches "V'ahavta" love will indeed be awakened in him. But if the earlier words too were nothing more than words, nothing will come of it.
To summarize: In this section we learned that the beinoni has "fixed times," moments in which he has no war at all and his animal soul is asleep, and these are the time of Krias Shema and tefillah, which give him the strength to hold out all day. We noted the four times Krias Shema is said and the special quality of the one within davening; that it is "a time of mochin degadlus Above" and a "time of readiness" below, when the gates are open and divine assistance is at hand. We clarified that the essence of tefillah is service of the heart and not the recitation of words, and that the avodah of the beinoni at this hour is to bind his chochmah, binah and daas to Hashem, to immerse himself deeply in the greatness of the blessed Ein Sof, and to awaken love like fiery coals, a love that clothes itself specifically in the fulfillment of Torah and mitzvos, and that the contemplation in the blessings before Krias Shema is the preparation for it.
In the next section we will continue with the theme spelled out in Krias Shema, and go deeper into how the preparatory contemplation gives birth to the love that brings a person to cleave to Hashem through fulfilling the Torah and its mitzvos.