Video Audio Text The Alter Rebbe now goes on to explain that in addition to this function of mitzvot as garments for the soul, they also serve to unite the sublime spiritual level of Keter, with the physical objects with which the commandments are performed. As such, they resemble pillars that connect the highest part […]

Video Audio Text וז”ש בזוה”ק פ’ פקודי (דרכ”ט ע”ב) דאינון עובדין טבין דעביד בר נש משכי מנהורא דזיווא עילאה לבושא כו’ וחמי כו’ בנועם ה’ וכו’ This is the meaning of the statement in the sacred Zohar, Parshat Pekudei (p. 229b), that “the good deeds (i.e., the mitzvot) which man does, elicit a garment from […]

Video Audio Text The Alter Rebbe now focuses on the distinctive quality inherent in the halachot of the Oral Torah. It is these halachot that reveal the Supernal Will, by defining what it actually requires of us in the performance of the mitzvot, in order thereby to draw down this lofty level of Divinity. והנה […]

Video Audio Text This is a reasoned message of encouragement in which the Alter Rebbe urges his chassidim not to reduce their fixed annual commitment to charity for the Holy Land, even though their circumstances may have altered. He reminds them once again (as above in Epistle XXI), that what counts is not only the […]

Video Audio Text המחיה כל הברואים שבכל ההיכלות עליונים ותחתונים, שהן בבחינת מספר וחשבון This [Sefirah of Malchut] animates all the created beings that are in all the upper and lower Heichalot, which are all subject to counting and reckoning (cheshbon), כמו שכתוב: אלף אלפים ישמשוניה as it is written,22 “A thousand thousands (i.e., a […]

Video Audio Text Interdependence and brotherly love among Jews strike far deeper than the visible interpersonal plane. Indeed, if they are lacking, the pain is felt by the Shechinah itself, the Divine Presence. For the Divine Presence is the heart of the Jewish people, who themselves constitute the organs. A deep-seated organic disorder that affects […]

Video Audio Text The above discussion relates only to the drawing down of Divine vitality from the Shechinah into the created worlds, which parallels the emanation of the spirit of life from the heart and its diffusion throughout the entire body. The Alter Rebbe will now go on to explain the second aspect of this […]

Video Audio Text Just as the Alter Rebbe opened the first Epistle in this series1 with a blessing — occasioned by the good news that most of the chassidic congregations had completed their annual study of the Talmud — so, too, this final Epistle begins with a blessing. Evidently, this blessing too was occasioned by […]

Video Audio Text אבל: צדק לפניו יהלך, הוא לשון זכר However, the verse,22 “Tzedek shall go before him,” is in the masculine gender, both the noun (tzedek) and its matching verb (yehaleich). היא מדת החסד המתעוררת בלב האדם מעצמו This refers to the attribute of kindness that is aroused in a man’s heart of his […]