An Anecdote about the Baal Shem Tov

(from Siach Sarfei Kodesh, 1989 ed, pt.iv, p.103, #1; my translation)

I heard that the holy rabbi from Sudilkov¹, author of the Degel Machaneh Efraim and grandson of the Baal Shem Tov², after getting married became very devoted to study and he studied mainly Gemara with Rashi and Tosafot, thus straying a little from the Hasidic way.
The Baal Shem Tov used to go out on walks with him sometimes, which caused distress to the the holy rabbi from Sudilkov because it took him away from his study. Once when they were walking they ran into a visitor from another town. The Baal Shem Tov inquired about a certain person from that town and the visitor told him he was very devoted to study. The Baal Shem Tov replied: "I envy him that he can be so devoted to study, I myself don't have time for it since I spend it all in the service of the Creator Blessed Be His Name." As soon as the rabbi from Sudilkov heard these words come out of the Baal Shem Tov's mouth with such holiness and purity they entered his heart and he started behaving in the Hasidic way.

¹Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim from Sudilkov (1748-1800) aka the Degel Machaneh Efraim.

²Israel ben Eliezer (1698–1760), aka the Baal Shem Tov was the founder of the Hasidic movement.

An anecdote about Rabbi Avraham of Chekhanov

(from Siach Sarfei Kodesh, 1989 ed. pt.iv, p.5, #3; my translation)

I heard from an old hasid that every time that the holy Rabbi Wolf of Strikov¹ came to the holy Rabbi from Kotzk², he had to tell him something about his holy father Rabbi Avraham of Chekhanov³. Once, he came to Kotzk and the Kotzker Rebbe asked him to tell him something about his holy father. Rabby Wolf replied that he didn't have anything to say. The Kotzker Rabbi was surprised and asked him "Do you really have nothing to say?"
At this point Rabbi Wolf recalled that when he was taking leave of his holy father before traveling to Kotzk and was in a big hurry, his father asked his mother to give him a saucer of tea to drink before his trip. His mother gave him the tea, but he didn't drink it and it just sat there . His father asked him why he wasn't drinking, and he answered that "it's overcooked (ie boiling hot)" (Yiddish: "s'ist kachidig"). Hearing this, his father shouted at him: "Didn't our Sages say (Shabbat 40): 'A secondary vessel does not cook'"?⁴ To this the holy Rabbi of Kotzk replied: "This is what I wanted to hear."

From this we can understand their greatness, that the holy Gaon of Chekhanov could not bear to hear language containing even a hint that went against the words of our Sages⁵.

¹Rabbi Ze'ev Wolf of Strikov (1807–1891)

²Rabbi Menaḥem Mendel of Kotsk (1787–1859)

³Rabbi Avraham Landau of Chekhanov (1784–1875)

⁴"R. Isaac b. Abdimi said: I once followed Rabbi into the baths, and wished to place a cruse of oil for him in the bath. Whereupon be said to me, Take [some water] in a second vessel  and put [the cruse of oil in it]. Three things are inferred from this: 1. Oil is subject to [the prohibition of] boiling; 2. a second vessel cannot boil; 3. making it lukewarm is boiling it". (BT, Shabbat 40a)

⁵In Yiddish the word for "boiling hot" (kachidig) comes from the word "to cook" (kochen).

The Kedushat Levy on Sukkot

The following is a teaching from Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev. It is taken from the middle of a drash on Passover, but it concerns Sukkot and the day of Shmini Atzeret. His prooftext is Numbers 29:35:

לה  בַּיּוֹם, הַשְּׁמִינִי--עֲצֶרֶת, תִּהְיֶה לָכֶם:  כָּל-מְלֶאכֶת עֲבֹדָה, לֹא תַעֲשׂוּ.

35 On the eighth day you shall have a solemn assembly (atzeret): you shall do no manner of work;

It is known that all that which is drawn down and flows in from the Blessed Holy Creator happens through the seven middot that channel those influences through to us. This is why the holiday of Sukkot is eight days, because seven days correspond to these seven middot and the eighth day corresponds to becoming the receiver of what flows in from above. Therefore the eighth day of Sukkot is called "Atzeret" as is written "On the eighth day your shall have an atzeret." (Numbers 29:35). That is to say that which is drawn down and flows in from the Blessed Holy Creator during seven days of Sukkot through the seven middot, is then contained and absorbed in the eighth day through one's ability to become the recipient of these influences. This is the meaning of "you shall have an atzeret:" what flowed in from above will stop in "you", in other words you will receive it and it will be absorbed in you.

And this happens during the holiday of Sukkot, because then the entire community of Israel gains the ability to receive the fullness of inflows from the Blessed Holy Creator by having elevated themselves on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur with great devotion to God and having cleansed themselves of materiality and physicality and reached the moment of the elevation of all the worlds. Then, during the days of the Sukkot holiday, new inflows and enlightenment are drawn down for them through the seven middot and by means of their elevation to God on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur they become fit to be vessels that receive all the inflows from the seven days of Sukkot on the eighth day and are then able to hold (la'atzor) and take in the inflow into themselves.

RAV SHAGA"R ON THE "HOLY REBELLION" AND THE RENEWAL OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH

A teaching on Yom Kippur from Rabbi Shimon Gershon Rosenberg, z"l

...there are times during the Holy
Days that we do manage to shed real tears, to feel
real heart-ache. We may even really feel G-d's mercy
and love. These tears, though, are not those we have
been commanded to shed. The mercy we feel is not
that written about in the sundry holy books. Truthfully,
the one gate that opens to real tears, to G-d's mercy,
is that called rebellion. One must find the ability to
leave behind the outer shells of religion, the courage
to burn one's religious party membership card and to
look deeply and truthfully at oneself. One needs to look
intelligently, without any illusions, free from one's own
desires as well as from various societal notions and
filters. This is the first step of the non-religious, but it is
also a necessary condition for real religiosity.

R' Zadok, in one of his works, ventured that Abraham,
was the only one called "my lover" - Avraham ohevi - due
to the fact that Abraham was not born religious, but rather
searched for G-d on his own. His descendents were already
born into a good Jewish home,frum from birth. R' Zadok's
teacher's teacher, the Kotzker, explained the verse "This is
my G-d and I will emulate Him, the G-d of my fathers and
I will exalt Him" (Exodus 15:2) in the following manner.
"My G-d," the private, personal relationship is mentioned
first. This is the G-d whom you can know and to whom
you can cleave. Only this direct relationship, honest
and completely free, can bring fulfillment of your own
personal truth and integrity. Anyone can find this if he is
courageously open to doing so. Only after this can "the G-d
of my fathers" turn arrive.

In one of R' Nachman's deeper discourses, "Blow [the
Shofar of] Reproach" he describes the prayers of Rosh
Hashana from the stance of law and judgment.

The Other Side draws [strength] from the attribute of mercy. .. 
Then the mercy on our side is lessened and even the small 
quantity of mercy that is left is linked to the attribute of 
cruelty. .. " (Likutei Tanina 8) 

The mercy found in the religious world is oftentimes
cruel, closed-off with no possibility of actual humane
contact. Religious mercifulness becomes in itself cruelty,
a taunting of those most in need. The path to redemption
lies in prayer, prayer as he understands it, as judgment,
dictum:

For example, Pinchas, zealously fighting against Zimri as it is 
written, "Pinchas stood vyipalel (פלל) the root for both prayer 
and incrimination! legal argumentation]" (Ps. 106-30). The 
Sages explained: He stood in judgment with his Creator ... so 
the letters in vyipalel are an acronym for "he threw [his staff]
before Pharaoh, it was a serpent" (Exodus 6:9). One must 
throw the staff of his might, that is his prayer, to the serpent ... 
in order that the serpent will swallow this prayer, for this is 
the way to extract all the holiness that he has swallowed. .. 
through this are created proselytes ... and through this the 
glory of G-d grows and increases. 

What is this prayer-as-judgment, the prayer of Rosh
Hashanah, the prayer thrown to the Other Side to be
swallowed so as to free the converts? R' Nachman's
intent seems clear. G-d's glory is revealed, surprisingly,
by converts. This is an idea which he expresses many
times. The religious tradition itself, built as it is upon
socially accepted norms, cannot serve as a conduit for
the objective presence or glory of G-d. The dictum of
Rosh Hashanah, the prayer-as-judgment, is an inverted
judgment - it is prayer as litigation with G-d. It does not
distract from the injustice, the despair and disparity of
this world. However, miraculously, it is this prayer that
sticks in the throat of the Other Side, who thought at first
to swallow it with delight. The reason is clear: this prayer
frees Man from the religious despair itself. From here he
can move on to a higher level of faith - concrete belief
and redemption.

Standing and waiting

"Over and above personal problems, there is an objective challenge to over­come inequity, injustice, helplessness, suffering, carelessness, oppression. Over and above the din of desires there is a calling, a demanding, a waiting, an expectation. There is a question that follows me wherever I turn. What is expected of me? What is demanded of me?

What we encounter is not only flowers and stars, mountains and walls. Over and above all things is a sublime expectation, a waiting for. With every child born a new expectation enters the world.

This is the most important experience in the life of every human being: something is asked of me. Every human being has had a moment in which he sensed a mysterious waiting for him. Meaning is found in responding to the demand, meaning is found in sensing the demand."

Abraham Joshua Heschel

I would add that fear and trembling, in the kierkegaardian sense of an existential anxiety, is also found in sensing that demand, more precisely in the gap between that demand and where we usually live our lives: in ignorance of  what our role is in fulfilling the demand and in disconnection from what prompts it. Concerning this the Netivot Shalom writes that "...it is said that his own personal world "stands", on the three things that strengthen a Jew's stand so that he can fulfill his task and purpose in any situation and through this rectify that which pertains to the root of his soul." (http://atailtolions.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-netivot-shalom-on-root-of-ones-soul.html)

First words upon arising

מוֹדֶה (מוֹדָה) אֲנִי לְפָנֶֽיךָ מֶֽלֶךְ חַי וְקַיָּים. שֶׁהֶֽחֱזַֽרְתָּ בִּי נִשְׁמָתִי בְחֶמְלָה. רַבָּה אֱמֽוּנָתֶֽךָ

Modeh (modah) ani lifanekha melekh ḥai v'kayam sheheḥezarta bi nishmahti b'ḥemlah, rabah emunatekha.
I offer thanks before you, living and eternal King, for You have mercifully restored my soul within me; Your faithfulness is great.

"One needs to be careful with one's words...Thus when a person wakens from sleep, he or she is a new being, as the verse states 'renewed every morning.' If one's first words concern non-sacred matters, and all the more so, if one's words are not as they should be, then even if afterwards one prays and studies, all of one's words follow as branches of those first words." (Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer aka the Baal Shem Tov, "Pillar of Prayer" Ch.2 #16)

According to this advice from the Baal Shem Tov, the first middah to practice in the morning is zehirut, vigilance concerning one's speech. One needs to be careful with the words of the modeh/modah ani: weigh them each one by one - which one feels light and strong and lifts me out of bed (which one is heavy and doesn't connect)?
modeh - can I feel grateful this morning? if not move on, because the yetzer will quickly move in to make me feel bad that I can't feel gratitude.
ani - don't read it by itself, but together with what follows: ani lefaneikha - I am never I alone, I am always "I-before-you." Can I feel this now, take it into they day?
melekh chai v'kayam - read it as "that which lives and by living makes alive." Do I feel this making-alive in me as I wake up and start my day? What will I make alive by living today?
sh'echezarta bi nishmati - my soul has been returned to me, do I feel it? now it's a good time to feel the breath in the neshamah, how am I breathing? I pause for a few minutes to focus on how I breathe.
b'chemlah - this brings me back to 'ani lefaneikha', you have given me something not because I deserve it, but out of mercy, how can I bring this into my day today?
rabah emunatekha - full faith in me, this is the first gift as I wake up sitting here in bed without merit yet full of merit.

The Netivot Shalom on the Root of One's Soul

an excerpt from Netivot Shalom on Pirkei Avot on the mishnah "Shimon the Righteous was one of the last survivors of the Great Assembly.  He used to say: On three things the world stands: on the Torah, on the service, and on deeds of loving kindness." 

"This can also be understood by way of divine service: the world stands upon the personal world of each and every person, because each and every person is a microcosm. And as it is taught in "Yesod Ha'avodah"[1] in the name of the Holy Ari, from the day of the creation of the world each and every person has been assigned a certain task to be carried out in accordance to the root of his soul and it is for the rectification of that particular matter that he came down into this world. And it is also written that each and every day since the creation of the world comes with a special task that must be rectified on that very day, so that every person every day is like a special creation and a microcosm.
It is in this context that Shimon the Righteous comes to show how a Jew can make his world stand when confronted with crises in his life in such a way that he may fulfill his task and purpose in his world. The mishnah introduces him as having been "one of  the last survivors of the Great Assembly" in order to say that after the demise of the members of the Great Assembly he came to teach the last generation what possibilities are still open for a Jew to fulfill his task and purpose in the midst of life's turmoil: when dark forces overwhelm him and he is surrounded by troubles, how can he fulfill his task and purpose in his own personal world for which he had come into the world. Concerning this it is said that his own personal world "stands", on the three things that strengthen a Jew's stand so that he can fulfill his task and purpose in any situation and through this rectify that which pertains to the root of his soul.

---

[1] "Yesod Ha'avodah" by Rabbi Avraham Weinberg Alter of Slonim (1804 or 1809 - 1883)

The Netivot Shalom on Pirkei Avot

It was in a mussar class with Rabbi Ira Stone that I first heard about Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezovsky (or Brazovsky) of Slonim's zt"l writings on Pirkei Avot. Subsequently I bought the book, started reading it and wanted to know more about its author and his teachings.

With one exception* Rabbi Shalom Noach Berezovsky's teachings are available only in Hebrew. His main opus is called Netivot Shalom, "Pathways of Peace" and, in the tradition of calling a Rebbe by the title of his main work, its author is also known as "the Netivot Shalom". In its entirety it consists of seven volumes, five devoted to commentaries on the Torah and two containing more general writings on mussar, Torah and holidays. Like most of the other publications by the Mechon Emunah Ve'Daat associated with the Beit Avraham Slonim yeshiva in Jerusalem, these volumes are beautifully produced and a delight to hold in hand, look at and learn from.
The Va'Yikra volume, in addition to the commentaries on the weekly parasha, also contains the Netivot Shalom's schmuessen on selected sayings from the six chapters of Mishnah Pirkei Avot. In his wisdom, the publisher has also made available large photocopied excerpts from the volumes in low cost pamphlet form. "Netivot Shalom on Pirkei Avot" (נתיבות שלום על פרקי אבות) was one of the first such publications, followed by others on Chanukkah, Purim and the Holocaust.

I continued reading the Netivot Shalom on Pirkei Avot in chevruta with someone who has a great love and knowledge of Pirkei Avot: every Shabbat we would devote some time to reading and translating a little. The Hebrew text is not particularly difficult, but one must bear in mind that it is a transcription of the Rabbi's sichot kodesh, "holy talks," delivered  at the seudah shlishit during summer Shabbats**. As such, they display some of the elliptic and repetitious nature that oral teachings tend to have. Although in the beginning these might be a distraction, as one reads on they coalesce into something familiar and become the Rabbi's voice.
As we read on, I started taking notes of what we had translated and ended up with a full translation of the first chapter and parts of some others. Together with my chevruta we brought the translations to an adult class and the translation of the first sicha, on "A person who wants to be saintly should fulfill the precepts of Avot," is now available here.

* "Nesivos Sholom : Haharugoh Olecha - Essential Perspectives on the Holocaust "
**In Slonim, like in other chassidic communities, the seudah shlishit is an exalted occasion: it is what the Zohar calls the ra'ava d'ravin, the "most favorable of favorable" times for being in presence of the divine.

The Netivot Shalom on the primacy of middot

an excerpt from Netivot Shalom on Pirkei Avot, Ch.1

"...as our Rabbis of blessed memory said in the baraita of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair, 'Saintliness leads to holy inspiration.' Thus, their words make it clear that putting into practice the teachings of [Pirkei Avot] leads one to prophecy." ...Thus someone who "fulfills the precepts of Avot" attains the highest level a person can reach, that of holy inspiration and prophecy. And the Holy Rabbi Chaiym Vital wrote  to the effect that the Torah does not mention the middot because the Torah was given after the rectification of the middot. The middot themselves are the vehicle by which the Torah is instilled since the Torah can only dwell in a person who has refined his middot...

. . . . . .

The work involved in refining one's middot is harder than the entire Torah. It requires a fundamental change in the cast and character of one's soul, this change being the purpose for which a Jew descends into the world. For example, our sages have said: "Envy, desire and (the pursuit of) honor remove a person from the world." Thus a person who pursues envy, desire or honor excessively needs to change in a fundamental way in order to be able to uproot these pursuits... Indeed, the matter of middot is at such a high level that only someone who has refined and purified his middot can be a vehicle for instilling the Torah."