Parshas Vayikra
1. At the beginning of Parshas Vayikra (the portion of the offerings) it says: "אדם כי יקריב מכם קרבן להוי׳" ("When a man of you brings an offering to G‑d"). This is not understood: if the meaning is only the plain one — that "מכם" ("of you") refers to the word "אדם" ("a man"), i.e., that a person from among you will bring an offering — it should have said "אדם מכם כי יקריב" ("a man of you, when he brings"). Why does it say "a man, when he brings of you"?
It is well known what is said about this in Chassidus: that the verse thereby also comes to explain the concept of offerings in a spiritual sense — in the service within the soul of man.
Well known, too, is the inference of our Sages1 on the verse "ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם" ("They shall make Me a Sanctuary and I will dwell among them"): "It does not say 'within it,' but 'within them' — within each and every Jew." From this it is understood that all the services that took place in the physical Mishkan and Beis HaMikdash exist also in spirituality — in the spiritual Sanctuary that is found within every Jew.
This applies to all the services. All the more so the service of the offerings: even in the physical Sanctuary itself — where, plainly, it was a physical service and a physical animal was offered — it was, in its inner dimension, also a spiritual service.
That is why, at the time the offering was brought, there had to be the participation of the Kohanim with their service and of the Levites with their song and music, which are spiritual matters. As it says in the Zohar2: "דכהני בחשאי וברעותא דלבא" ("The Kohanim in silence and with the desire of the heart") — drawing down; "ולויים בשירה וזמרה" ("and the Levites with song and music") — elevation from below to Above.
Thus the service of the offerings, even in the Beis HaMikdash, was a spiritual service — and all the more so the service of the offerings as it takes place within every Jew.
The explanation of the verse according to the interpretation of the Alter Rebbe3: "A man, when he brings" — when a person wishes to be brought close to G‑dliness (for the concept of a korban is the drawing close of the faculties and senses)4 — then "of you an offering to G‑d": you must offer up from yourselves.
2. Within this itself there are two particulars: a) "of you" — the offering of the G‑dly soul; b) "מן הבהמה" ("from the animal") — the animal that is found in a person's heart, i.e., the animal soul, regarding which the verse goes on to enumerate: "מן הבקר ומן הצאן" ("from the cattle and from the flock") — the particular levels of the animal soul, as explained in Chassidus5.
And the ultimate purpose is not in the service of the G‑dly soul for its own sake, but specifically in the refinement of the animal soul. This too is alluded to in the verse. With the words "of you" it says "an offering to G‑d (Havayah)," whereas after it says "from the animal, from the cattle and from the flock," it concludes "לרצונו לפני הוי׳" ("for his favor, before G‑d") — "before Havayah"6, higher than Havayah — because the refinement of the animal soul reaches higher, as it is written7: "ורב תבואות בכח שור" ("Abundant crops come through the strength of the ox"). Therefore the offering of "of you" reaches only the Name Havayah. True, the offering of "of you" is also not to "Elokim," which is numerically equal to "hateva" (nature) (G‑dliness that conceals itself in nature), but specifically to Havayah, as explained in the Zohar8 on the verse "זובח לאלקים יחרם" ("He who sacrifices to Elokim shall be destroyed"). Nevertheless, it does not come to the elevation attained through the refinement of the body and the animal soul, for through this specifically one reaches even higher — "before Havayah," entirely beyond the order of hishtalshelus — as it says9: "כד אתכפיא סטרא אחרא אסתלק יקרא דקודשא בריך הוא בכולהו עלמין" ("When the sitra achra is subdued, the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, ascends in all the worlds") — a light that is in all the worlds equally10.
3. In the order of offering an animal physically, the first thing one had to see to was that the animal be whole. It had to be examined to make sure it had no blemish, and only then "ירצה לקרבן" ("it shall be accepted as an offering"). The same applies to offerings in spirituality. In the service of offering the spiritual animal, before one goes to offer up the animal soul to G‑d, one must first see to it that the animal — the animal soul — be whole and have no blemish11.
Therefore, at the beginning of the service comes examination: examining every corner of one's soul — in the intellect, in the emotions, and especially in the three garments of thought, speech and action — in order to know the things that are not right, and to correct them.
For the examination to be done with genuine intent of the soul ("אדעתא דנפשיה"), and not in the manner of "מצות אנשים מלומדה" ("a commandment of men, learned by rote"), he must know that this touches him in the very life of his soul. Then the examination will be as it should be, and he will also actually carry out the corrections that are required, for he knows that this touches the very life of his soul.
4. When he engages in the work of examination and reflects on his standing and state with genuine intent, he will often realize that even if at present he is not a transgressor, nevertheless "וחטאתי נגדי תמיד" ("my sin is ever before me"): the sins he committed over the course of his life (from his earliest youth on), including those he committed before bar mitzvah12, still remain, for he has not yet fully rectified them.
The proof that he has not yet rectified the sins and has not yet done teshuvah as he should: had his teshuvah been as it ought to be, his service would have been stronger, for the fact that he was previously "in a parched land and the shadow of death" should have aroused in him a great yearning and love for G‑dliness — a love through which "זדונות נעשו לו כזכיות" ("willful sins become for him like merits")13 — and he sees that with him it is not so.
On the contrary, when he contemplates his situation as it truly is, not wanting to make things easy for himself and not wanting to deceive himself, he feels that he stands in the very opposite picture: not only have they not "become like merits," but it has remained a transgression, which therefore draws him to a transgression — "עבירה גוררת עבירה" ("one transgression draws another")14. He thus sees that he has not yet done teshuvah as it ought to be done.
That is to say, the "my sin is ever before me" is, in his case, not because in his present standing and state his earlier teshuvah is insufficient and he needs a higher teshuvah15; rather, he never rectified his matters in the first place, and they are "a separating screen between him and his Father in Heaven"16, interrupting and preventing him from the service of G‑d.
So when he contemplates all this, and also knows the greatness of the concept of offerings — that offerings are the drawing close of the faculties and senses, until they become absorbed in the fire Above, and "רזא דקורבנא עולה עד רזא דאין סוף" ("the mystery of the offering ascends to the mystery of the Infinite")17 — he asks himself: What connection does he have to offerings, and how can it be "accepted as an offering to G‑d" when "אין בו מתום" ("there is no soundness in him")?!
To answer this question, my revered father-in-law, the Previous Rebbe18, adds to the Alter Rebbe's interpretation of the word "of you": "מכם ובכם הדבר תלוי" ("of you — and on you the matter depends"); it depends on yourselves. Regardless of his standing and state, and of what he has gone through until now, nevertheless the matter depends on him — to the point that every Jew can say19: "מתי יגיעו מעשי למעשי אבותי אברהם יצחק ויעקב" ("When will my deeds reach the deeds of my forefathers, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov?").
5. The order of offering a sacrifice physically is that after one has ascertained that the animal is unblemished, without a defect, it must be slaughtered. Even after the slaughter, the body of the animal remains whole; only its life-force is taken out. Then it is offered on the altar, where its physical body too is burned — with all offerings, the fats, and with the burnt-offering (olah), the beginning of the offerings, the whole animal, "כליל למזבח" ("wholly for the altar") — in the G‑dly fire that would descend from Above.
So too in spirituality: after one corrects the blemishes, there must be slaughter — slaughtering the body and the animal soul, i.e., taking out the zest and vitality from physical matters. The physical things themselves remain whole, but they are without zest; he uses them only in order to have added strength in the service of G‑d, as the saying goes20: "חמרא וריחא פקחין" ("Wine and fragrance make me wise"), and21 "דלא אכלי בישרא דתורא" ("because I had not eaten ox meat") ... [OCR unclear] ... "the reason of the matter." This is, after all, the directive "בכל דרכיך דעהו" ("Know Him in all your ways")22: that all matters be for the sake of Heaven. Or, deeper still: not only using physical things for the sake of holiness, but making them themselves into a mitzvah and holiness — like eating on Shabbos and Yom Tov, or like tzitzis from physical wool and tefillin from physical parchment.
And then there can be the offering: that the body and the animal soul become absorbed in the G‑dly fire within the soul, as it says, "רשפיה רשפי אש שלהבת י-ה" ("Its flashes are flashes of fire, a flame of G‑d"), and our Sages said: "like the fire Above"23. This is the love of the soul for G‑d — and in it the body and the animal soul become absorbed, so that the animal soul too receives a love for G‑d, as it says, "ואהבת את הוי׳ אלקיך בכל לבבך" ("You shall love the L‑rd your G‑d with all your heart"), and our Sages said24: "בשני יצריך" ("with both your inclinations").
(From the maamar beginning Basi LeGani, 5712)
Parshas Zachor
6. The war of Amalek against the Jewish people we find, in general, at four times: a) Immediately after the Jews left Egypt. b) In the last years that the Jews were in the desert, before they entered Eretz Yisrael (except that then Amalek disguised himself as a Canaanite)25. c) In the first years of their being in Eretz Yisrael, after the appointment of King Shaul and before the building of the Beis HaMikdash (for such is the order of the three things they were commanded upon entering the Land: appointing a king, the war against Amalek, and building the Beis HaMikdash). d) In the generation of King Moshiach.
The history of the Jewish people, from the time Jews became a nation upon leaving Egypt to receive the Torah, divides into two eras: a) When the Jews were in the desert and had nothing to do with the physicality of this world; their needs — which divide into food, clothing and shelter — they had from the manna, Miriam's well and the Clouds of Glory. b) When the Jews entered the land of the seven nations in order to make it into Eretz Yisrael. This era also includes the time of exile, when Jews are in the lands of the nations in order to prepare there the "עתידה ארץ ישראל שתתפשט בכל הארצות" ("Eretz Yisrael is destined to spread out over all the lands") — to make of them a dwelling place for Him, blessed be He.
Of the four above-mentioned times of the wars of Amalek, the first two were at the beginning and at the end of the first era, and the other two — at the beginning and at the end of the second era.
From the fact that we see that of the two wars of the first era, the first was with an open Amalek and the second with a disguised one (as a Canaanite), this is proof that of the two wars of the second era too, the first war, in the days of Shaul, was with an open Amalek, and the second war — in the generation of King Moshiach, our generation, the generation to which Moshiach comes, speedily in our days — is with a concealed Amalek.
7. Regarding the war of Amalek at the beginning of the first era, it says "אשר קרך" ("who happened upon you"), and the Midrash26 explains: "karcha" is from the term "kerirus," coldness. He did not, G‑d forbid, kill; he only cooled them off.
When the Jews were going toward the Giving of the Torah, wanting to proclaim "na'aseh" before "nishma" ("we will do" before "we will hear") — that whether they would understand or not understand, they would fulfill what they would hear — Amalek comes along and cools them off.
He does not argue, G‑d forbid, that they should not go to receive the Torah — he too, after all, is a grandson of Avraham and Yitzchak. He argues only: "What is all this excitement, that you leap out of your skin and cry out 'na'aseh' before 'nishma,' taking upon yourself to act before you know what it is about? You are, after all, a person of intellect — and the proof is that you are to be given a Torah which is "חכמתכם ובינתכם לעיני כל העמים" ("your wisdom and understanding in the eyes of all the nations"). It does not befit a person of intellect to leap out of his skin and jump out of measure and limitation, out of his reason and understanding — and especially to cry out 'na'aseh,' that he will do everything he hears, whether he understands it or not." Amalek, too, is a grandson of Avraham and Yitzchak, and he agrees to Torah study, but not to the conduct of "יעקב איש תם יושב אהלים" ("Yaakov, a wholesome man, a dweller of tents"). He argues: "a dweller of tents" — studying Torah — agreed; but "a wholesome man" — not asking first what it is about and what will be demanded of him, but na'aseh before nishma — to this he does not agree. He holds with the approach of Esav — "איש יודע ציד" ("a man who knows hunting"): he understands, he calculates how much he can grasp and take on, he assesses his powers with his intellect — how much he will learn and how much he will fulfill. He goes with an order of nishma and then na'aseh: first hear and understand — only then can one assess whether one can do it or not.
On the contrary, he argues: since the Torah is truth, and it is after all a matter of wisdom, what difference does it make whether one puts na'aseh before nishma or the reverse? Either way, even if he puts nishma before na'aseh, he will surely also arrive at the na'aseh, for it is, after all, required by reason.
Against this the Torah warned, so that one should know that through the approach of "who happened upon you" — coldness — there subsequently comes about the second interpretation of "asher karcha," from the term "keri" (impurity)27. Its meaning is that from the inner vitality that was given for "פרו ורבו ומלאו את הארץ וכבשה" ("Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and conquer it") — to take over the whole world and make of it a dwelling place for Him, blessed be He — from that very vitality comes the increase of the powers of the kelipos, may G‑d save us28. And this begins with the first interpretation of "asher karcha" — coldness. From "a man who knows hunting" one arrives at "איש שדה" ("a man of the field"), going out and away from the tents — the tents of Shem and Ever, the Written Torah and the Oral Torah.
One must conduct oneself in the way of Yaakov, "the wholesome man," for then one goes on the right path, as the Gemara* says on the verse "תומת ישרים תנחם" ("The wholesomeness of the upright shall guide them"): if one goes with wholesomeness, then "shall guide them" — one goes on the straight path. But as for those who do not hold with the approach of "עמא פזיזא" ("a hasty people"), who argue that Torah is a matter of intellect, and especially when it concerns a very lofty and deep intellect one must not leap out of one's skin but must approach it in an orderly way — nishma and then na'aseh — in the end: "וסלף בוגדים ישדם" ("and the perverseness of the treacherous shall destroy them"); from this comes about the second interpretation of "asher karcha," as mentioned above.
8. This was the war of Amalek at the beginning of the first era. At the end of that era, in the last years of the generation of the desert before the Jews entered Eretz Yisrael, Amalek again came to wage war against the Jews. But here he only played a trick, a ruse: he dressed himself in the garments of a Canaanite so that no one would recognize that this was the same one who had waged war at the beginning of the forty years.
In the second war he did not come as a son of Avraham and Yitzchak, but as a Canaanite, a gentile. In matters of Torah and Judaism he does not interfere at all. "At the time you are learning and want to conduct yourself as a Jew," he argues, "I don't interfere — do what you want. I demand only one thing: in the matters that belong to the land of Canaan, learn from me; subordinate yourself to a Canaanite."
He came to the Jew and argued: "Now that you are completing your education with the training of the generation of the desert, and must prepare to enter the land of Canaan and occupy yourself with all thirty-nine labors of mundane work, you must learn the ways and practices of the land of Canaan, so that you can gain a foothold in the land.
If you do not learn the practices of the land of Canaan and subordinate yourself to them, you cannot expect that when you come into the land of Canaan you will be able to live through it there, to make your way through the world and remain a Jew — that is, to have both enough for expenses and the observance of Shabbos and Yom Tov, giving tzedakah, giving the children an education according to Torah, etc. How will you manage all that?"
And this is what the Midrash30 says on the verse "וישב ממנו שבי" ("and he took some of them captive"): that the Canaanite king of Arad took from the Jews a Canaanite maidservant. The Canaanite does not take from the Jews something that is intrinsically theirs; he takes no more than a captive — something the Jews themselves had taken captive from the world. In Torah study and the fulfillment of mitzvos he does not interfere; he only wants that upon going out of the four cubits of Torah and coming into the world, one should conduct oneself like a Canaanite, lehavdil.
The Torah revealed that within the arguments of the Canaanite king of Arad, Amalek is concealed. For a gentile has no hold at all on a Jew: a Jew is entirely holiness and a gentile is entirely the opposite, and there can be no joining of two opposites. But when a Canaanite comes to wage war while an Amalek is clothed within him — who, after all, descends from Avraham and Yitzchak — then various arguments sprout forth, with the results of Amalek's arguments: "ויזנב בך כל הנחשלים אחריך" ("and he struck at all the stragglers behind you").
When the Canaanite king of Arad comes along and says that one should learn the ways of the land of Canaan, since specifically through this one will be able to enter it, one must know that not only is this not a way to make the land of Canaan into Eretz Yisrael — "ארץ אשר עיני הוי׳ אלקיך בה" ("a land upon which the eyes of the L‑rd your G‑d are") — but on the contrary, it is something that wages war against the Jews and against Eretz Yisrael. Clothed within it is the very same Amalek who did not want to let the Jews receive the Torah, and who cooled them off from all matters of holiness. The Torah revealed even more: not only is an Amalek — who disrupts the Giving of the Torah and the spirituality of the Jews — clothed within the Canaanite king of Arad, but even more than that, clothed within it is something that disrupts and wages war against the Jewish body, as was revealed in the days of Purim — the true inner intent of all these arguments: "להשמיד להרוג ולאבד" ("to destroy, to kill and to annihilate"), G‑d forbid, all the Jews — the body as well.
One must know that the way to enter Eretz Yisrael is not to go in the path of the Canaanite king of Arad, but on the contrary: "ויחרם אתהם" ("and he utterly destroyed them").
9. As said earlier, at the end of the second era too — before we are to enter Eretz Yisrael, "a land upon which the eyes of the L‑rd your G‑d are, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year," which is our generation — one must first win the war of the Canaanite king of Arad.
What is his war? He comes to a Jew and say[s] ... [OCR gap: the source text breaks off here and resumes mid-sentence; a portion of the text appears to be missing] ... remain whole, literally, in his 248 limbs and 365 sinews.
For the fact that the Torah is called "תורת חיים" ("a Torah of life") and of the mitzvos it says "וחי בהם" ("and he shall live by them") does not refer only to after one hundred and twenty years, in the World to Come; it is meant also literally: if one wants a Jew to be alive physically, in his body, in this physical world, the only way to this is the study of Torah, the Torah of life, which gives him eternal life in this physical world, and the fulfillment of the mitzvos — "and he shall live by them" — that he be a living Jew in all his 248 limbs (corresponding to the 248 ... [the source text ends here; the Sicha continues beyond this page]
Notes
1) See above, p. 165.
2) Zohar III, 39a. See also Biurei HaZohar, beginning of Parshas Vayeitzei; Likkutei Torah, Va'eschanan, discourse beginning "Veyadata" (the second), ch. 2; ibid., Sukkos, discourse beginning "Ushavtem" (the second), ch. 1.
3) Discourse beginning "Ushavtem Mayim," Sukkos 5701 (Sefer HaMaamarim Kuntreisim, Vol. II, p. 450a–b); Kuntres Limmud HaChassidus, ch. 12. See also Likkutei Torah, discourse beginning "Adam Ki Yakriv."
4) Sefer HaBahir, sec. 46 (109). See also Zohar III, 5a; Shelah, Tractate Taanis (211b). See also Pri Etz Chaim, Shaar HaTefillah, ch. 5.
5) Kuntres HaTefillah, ch. 8.
6) Likkutei Torah, discourse beginning "[OCR unclear: לכאר] etc. Adam Ki Yakriv."
7) Mishlei 14:4.
8) Zohar III, 5a. — Based on this, the precise wording of our Sages (Menachos 110a), "to the adversary to dispute," is better understood. — As for what is stated (Menachos, ibid.) there regarding the Name "Kel" as well, see Zohar III, 31a; 132a.
9) See Tanya, ch. 27; Likkutei Torah, beginning of Parshas Pekudei; ibid., Parshas Chukas, discourse beginning "Al Ken Yomru," ch. 2.
10) See discourse beginning "Basi LeGani" 5710, ch. 1; "Basi LeGani" 5711 (Sefer HaMaamarim Basi LeGani, Vol. I, p. 34; Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat, Vol. I, p. 8).
11) The explanation of the matter is understood in light of what is explained in Torah Or, Mikeitz (33c); Hosafos to Torah Or (201d); and elsewhere.
12) Pokeach Ivrim, ch. 21–22. See also Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, end of sec. 343; Sanhedrin 55b.
13) See Tanya, ch. 7.
14) Avos 4:2.
15) See Tanya, ch. 29; Iggeres HaTeshuvah, end of ch. 11.
16) See Tanya, ch. 17.
17) See Zohar II, 239a; Zohar III, 26b.
18) Discourse beginning "Basi LeGani" 5710, ch. 2.
19) Tanna DeVei Eliyahu Rabbah, ch. 25.
20) Yoma 76b, according to the version cited in Tanya, ch. 7, and in several places in Chassidus.
21) Bava Kamma 72a.
22) See Rambam, Hilchos De'os, ch. 3; Tur and Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, sec. 231.
23) Shir HaShirim 8:6; Yalkut there. For an explanation of the connection between the love of the G‑dly soul and the fire Above, see discourse beginning "Basi LeGani" 5712, ch. 3 (Sefer HaMaamarim Basi LeGani, Vol. I, p. 40; Sefer HaMaamarim Melukat, Vol. I, pp. 22–23).
24) Berachos 54a.
25) Bamidbar Rabbah 19:20; Tanchuma, Parshas Chukas, cited in Tosafos, Rosh Hashanah 3a, s.v. "Vayishma HaKenaani."
26) Tanchuma, Parshas Teitzei. See also Likkutei Sichos, Vol. II, end of p. 387 ff.
27) Tanchuma, there.
28) Tanya, ch. 6.
*) Shabbos 88, beginning of side b. See also Likkutei Sichos, Vol. II, p. [OCR unclear].
30) Yalkut Shimoni, sec. 764; Rashi's commentary on the Torah.
Key Lesson
The true offering to G‑d is "of you" — examining oneself honestly, removing the zest from physical pursuits, and drawing even the animal soul into love of G‑d; and however far one has fallen, "the matter depends on you." Likewise, Amalek's "coldness" and the Canaanite's demand to live by the world's ways outside the study hall must be met with wholesome, unconditional commitment — na'aseh before nishma — in every part of life.