Pekudei

The sicha for parshas Pekudei is the second sicha in Vol. VI of Likkutei Sichos.

The Rebbe says that the book of Shmos ends with the words “b’chol maaseihem”, in all their travels. The whole sefer of Shmos, as the Midrash says, describes the exodus from darkness into light, therefore we have to conclude that this going from darkness to light is also expressed in the words “b’chol maaseihem” because since they are the closing words, like the signature of the entire sefer, they must represent the essence of the sefer.

So we need to understand the connection between the travels and the going from darkness into light. We also have to understand what the Midrash means when it says that the whole of sefer Shmos is about leaving the darkness and going into light, since the sefer begins with Yakov and his family going down to Mitzraim, which is what began the golus. So how can the Midrash say that the entire sefer of Shmos describes going from darkness into light?

We will understand this by first explaining the simple meaning of the words “b’chol maaseihem”. Here the word “maaseihem” means the places from which the Jewish people traveled. It was actually the encampments that are called “maaseihem”, as Rashi says, a place from which they then packed up and traveled onwards therefore the place itself is called travels.

These encampments in the desert, the Gemarrah says were considered permanent settlements. The Jews camped according to G-d’s instruction, and then broke camp also according to G-d’s instruction, so while they were camped, being that it was a Divine instruction, their encampment was permanent, until such time as they were told to move on. The question is, if these camps were permanent by G-d’s instruction, why are they called travels? Since the encampment was also a preparation for a further journey, it was not only a place where they stayed but also the starting point for the next travel therefore it had both virtues – it was a resting place, and the beginnings of the travel. So it took credit for the eventual travels as well.

What does all this mean?

The Rebbe explains that everything in the world, all physical existence does not exist for itself but only as a means towards an end. However this is not true of the Jewish people. Every aspect of a Jew’s life, everything that a Jew does is the end in itself. That is why it says that the world was created for the Jew and for the Torah, not that the Jew is a means towards an end, but rather everything else was created as a means, as a tool for the Jew and for Torah.

From this we can understand that all the travels, every stage of growth and development in a Jew’s life is in itself a complete and total avodah and not only a stepping stone to the higher level; that even though we have to continually grow from level to level, and each level is a preparation for the higher level that is going to follow, yet it doesn’t mean that the previous level was only a tool that exists for the purpose of the higher level.

When a Jew refines and elevates physicality of this world, by using it l’shem shamayim, for a heavenly purpose, for example, when he eats with a heavenly purpose in order to have the strength to serve G-d, then he elevates the eating into something G-dly. So this affect that the Jew has on the physical turns it into something G-dly, brings about a change from the time that the mitzvah is performed and into the future.

The purpose of the world from creation is only for the sake of having a Jew make of it a dwelling place for G-d, yet since the world and the physical objects in the world are only a means towards that end, therefore the time and the condition of the physical object before it is used for a mitzvah doesn’t have a justification in and of itself, it exists only on the condition that it will in the future be used for a mitzvah and be elevated and refined. Therefore is only a preparation for that mitzvah. So the physical object can be described as a means to an end.

This is not the case with a Jew. Since the essence is the Jew himself in all aspects of a Jew’s life therefore through the growing, the going from strength to strength, when the lower level brings him to a higher level, not only is the higher level attained, but through attaining it we complete and fulfill the purpose of the lower level. This elevates the lower level itself to the higher level.

The object used for a mitzvah, before it is used for a mitzvah, does not serve any purpose, and when it is used for a mitzvah, it stops being the physical object that it was and becomes an object of G-dliness. The previous state is cancelled once it becomes a mitzvah, whereas by a Jew, every step, every level a Jew is on, is itself part of the purpose of creation and not a means towards an end. Even though he is going to a higher level, he takes with him the level that he was on before, and it itself becomes the higher level, thereby becoming fulfilled and completed.

And this is the meaning of “bchol maaseihem”. Every encampment, wherever a Jew camps, not only regarding the gradual growth of a Jew in his personal life, but also the maasos, the travels, that were instructed by G-d, whereby the Jew comes to a certain level and this is where G-d wants him to be, and yet from that level he will eventually break camp and travel onwards to an even higher level, then the encampment itself becomes elevated in that further travel. And although this elevation in reality comes only after he breaks camp and starts again to travel, since the camping itself was a necessary preparation to traveling further, therefore in the very essence of the encampment is also the virtues of the level that would be achieved in the future travel.

On the posuk, these are the travel of the Jewish people when they came out of Mitzraim, the Alter Rebbe explains that it says travels in the plural to mean that with every one of the forty two journeys that they had, they went out of Mitzraim. Even though physically they left Mitzraim on the first travel, when they went from Ramses to Succoth, in essence, every time they broke camp in their forty two travels, they were leaving Mitzraim. This is because until they came to Eretz Israel, they had not yet completely left the state of Mitzraim, meaning restrictions and limitations, and with every one of the forty two travels, they further left the state of Mitzraim.

So from this we understand that the difference between the traveling and the encampment is like the difference between being in Mitzraim and leaving Mitzraim. With each travel, they got closer to the Eretz Israel, to geulah, which means they were constantly leaving the state of Mitzraim. Every time they camped, the encampment was not a movement towards Eretz Israel, but rather an interruption of the travel, where they were being held back from Eretz Israel. And therefore it represents a state of golus, of having to sit and wait before going on towards geulah.

However when the posuk refers to the encampments as “travels” it is telling us that the geulah happens even while we are encamped. Not only because every moment that goes by we are closer to it, since there is a limited time to how long the golus lasts, just as there was a limited time to how long the Jews were in the desert, so with every passing moment the time comes closer to the moment when we will be out of golus, but it is telling us that the camping itself is part of the geulah.

Since the whole purpose of being in golus, of being away from our land, is only in order to achieve a higher level of G-dliness, which will take place with the geulah, and we can’t get to that higher level of G-dliness without first going through the golus, so even though the golus itself seems to be only a preparation to the geulah, as a stepping stone, as a means to an end, the truth is that when it comes to the Jew, who is going through the golus, here the golus itself in its inner essence is in fact an act of geulah.

According to this, we can also understand the words “bchol maaseihem” being the signature and conclusion of the sefer that is called “v’elu shmos Bnei Israel” these are the names of the Children of Israel. This comes after sefer Bereishis where we are told about the Avos, the Patriarchs, not the Children of Israel. The Patriarchs were higher than the world,  higher than the concealment that the world represents, the concealment of G-dliness. And since the whole purpose of creation is that the tachton, the lowest world should become a dwelling place for G-d, that’s why the maaseh Avos, the events in the lives of the Patriarchs, were only a sign and a preparation, paving the way for the children to reach the Promised Land, which the parents did not.

The sequence of the events described in the book of Shmos is that the Jews came to Egypt, to a lower level, yirada lamata, and then the darkness of the golus began, and after that, G-dliness was brought down into the world, even to Mitzraim, bringing about the exodus from Mitzraim, and how G-dliness came down through the Giving of the Torah, and further with the construction of the Mishkan, with the ultimate conclusion being that G-d’s presence filled the Mishkan.

And then the Torah tells us the words “b’chol maaseihem”, describing the encampments as travels. Even the places where we stopped are also called travels. This highest level that we achieved at the conclusion of sefer Shmos existed even at the beginning of the sefer, where it talks about the Jews coming to Mitzraim, into golus, because that coming in to golus, was in essence a geulah, as the Midrash says about the entire sefer of Shmos that it describes the coming out of darkness into light.

Therefore the coming down into Mitzraim, and the suffering and darkness of Mitzraim, which seems to be merely a stepping stone and a preparation for the geulah, is much more than that because everything that happens to a Jew is justified within itself, and not just a means to an end.

To explain this idea that a Jew is not a means to an end, in a footnote the Rebbe mentions that when a Jew sins, the essence of the sin, even while he is sinning, is the tshuva that will follow. Now even though the sin itself, which goes against G-d’s will, cannot be redeemed, because the only way to correct the sin is by rejecting it, the effect it had on the Jew, the fact that a Jew found himself in darkness, that he had gone down a level, further from G-dliness, is only for the sake of the tshuva that must inevitably come at the end. The fact that the sin dragged him down, and brought him in contact with unholiness, that contact is itself a necessary part of the tshuva, and when the person does tshuva, then that experience itself will become part of the G-dliness and the sin becomes the mitzvah.

This helps us understand why through tshuva out of love this sin is erased and removed retroactively. Since it exists only because of the tshuva, therefore when the tshuva comes we retroactively realize that the sin that existed previously was really part of this tshuva. So we are not rejecting the experience, but we are adding to the cumulative experience of G-dliness, that no matter what level a Jew is on, even while he is sinning, the effect of the sin on him is merely a step towards the tshuva, and will be included in the tshuva. Even that temporary experience of being in contact with sin is not a means to an end but it is itself part of the end; it is part of the tshuva that inevitably must come.

However we find the expression in the Gemarrah that, “I was created only to serve my Creator”. Is a Jew a means to an end or is he the end in itself? The Rebbe says that since in essence the Jew and the Creator are really one, the fact that the Jew was created to serve his Creator is the essence of the Jew himself. He does not leave his existence to serve G-d, he serves G-d by his existence unlike all other creations in the world, who serve G-d by giving up and surrendering their existence.

And so this is what the Rebbe is saying, that when a Jew stops along the way towards geulah and it seems like he is being held back from geulah, and that he is being delayed, and instead of going towards geulah he is sinking into the golus, the Jew has to know that no step, no experience, no encampment along the road towards geulah, is anything but geulah itself.

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