Shemini

The sicha for parshas Shemini was given by the Rebbe in 1984 on Shabbos parshas Shemini and was further explained on the next Shabbos parshas Tazria.

The sicha primarily deals with a story in the Gemarrah concerning Purim where the Gemarrah says that it is a mitzvah to drink wine until a person cannot distinguish between cursed be Haman and blessed be Mordechai. In connection with this halacha, the Gemarrah tells the story of Rabbah and Reb Ze’arah who celebrated their Purim meal together, and they became drunk, and Rabbah stood up and slaughtered Reb Ze’arah. The next day he prayed for him and brought him back to life. The following year Rabbah invited Reb Ze’arah to share the Purim meal together and Reb Ze’arah said that he couldn’t depend on a miracle happening every year.

This story needs explanation. How is it possible that Rabbah would do such a thing? Even drunk; Rabbah couldn’t possibly do something so cruel and sinful. And then there are more questions.

First of all, why did Rabbah wait until the next day to bring Reb Ze’arah back to life, why didn’t he do it immediately upon realizing that he had killed him? Secondly, the next year, Rabbah doesn’t hesitate to invite Reb Ze’arah once again to share the Purim meal? Thirdly, Reb Ze’arah refuses the invitation not because he is afraid of getting killed, but if he should be killed, that Rabbah won’t be able to again perform the miracle of bringing him back to life? Also the Gemarrah says that they were both drunk. Why is it necessary that Reb Ze’arah was also drunk? From the events of the story it could be that only Rabbah was drunk. What is the significance that the Gemarrah is telling us that they were both drunk?

In Kabbalah, there are mystical explanations and in some commentaries it says that Rabbah didn’t actually kill Reb Ze’arah, it looked like death, or it was a state of fainting, but it was not actual death. The Rebbe says, that since the story is brought in the Gemarrah, and it is given as an illustration for a halacha, it must mean that the story itself can be understood in its literal meaning and that is that Reb Ze’arah was actually killed, and even on that level there are insights to be learned from this story.

So the Rebbe explains as follows:

 There is a story of the death of Nadav and Avihu, which we read in the parshas Shemini. We are told that they died because they did something wrong. But this also needs explanation, because the Gemarrah tells us of the greatness of Nadav and Avihu. In the Torah itself Moshe says to Aharon that the sons of Aharon were greater than them. So how is it possible that they did something wrong, for which they died? The Ohr HaChayim Hakadosh, explains that they died because of their longing to get closer to G-d. Therefore they didn’t hesitate to approach G-d with a cleaving and pleasantness and with an affection and endearment of a sweet kiss until their soul left their body. That is why it says that they died by getting too close to G-d – from the closeness they died. And where it says they brought a foreign fire into the Mishkan, it doesn’t mean that they brought an unholy fire, that it was foreign to holiness, they brought a fire that was foreign to the holiness of the Mishkan, because the purpose of the Mishkan is to bring G-dliness down to earth, and by expiring from the sweetness of the closeness of G-d, they left earth, so it was the opposite kind of holiness, inappropriate for the Mishkan.

After this incident, a kohen was not allowed to enter Mishkan drunk with wine. It is explained in many places, that this means that a person is not allowed to study the secrets of Torah, the Kabbalah, which is the wine of Torah, in a condition of being drunk on the wine, meaning to the point of klos hanefesh, to the point of expiring and the soul leaving the body.

The reason that Nadav and Avihu died because of their closeness to G-d and Aharon and Moshe, did not die from this closeness, is that Aharon and Moshe had the capacity to tolerate this degree of holiness. They were able to absorb the holiness without dying from it. Nadav and Avihu, who were the sons of Aharon, were on a lower level than Aharon and Moshe. They couldn’t handle this degree of holiness, and therefore it brought them to a state of expiring. But after this incident then the Torah warns not drink wine to drunkenness, not study the secrets of Torah to a point of expiring, but rather, as it says concerning Rabbi Akiva, he entered the garden, the secrets of Torah, whole and therefore was able to come back out whole. This means he was able to encompass and absorbed the holiness without his soul leaving his body.

But before this commandment was given, before it was forbidden, there was this state of drunk on holiness that brought people to the stage of klos hanefesh, of the soul literally leaving the body. And that is why Moshe said of Nadav and Avihu that they were greater than Moshe and Aharon, because of their longing and yearning for G-dliness.

Now we can understand the story of Rabbah and Reb Ze’arah much more deeply.

Rabbah, whose name implies greatness and Reb Ze’arah, whose name Ze’arah in Aramaic means small, were celebrating the Purim meal together. On Purim no distinctions are made between the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the adult and the child, therefore Rabbah wanted to join with Reb Ze’arah and celebrate together. In the process Rabbah was going to bring Reb Ze’arah up to his level. This is the significance of “and they got drunk” meaning they got drunk on the wine of Torah, on the secrets of Torah. At that meal Rabbah revealed to Reb Ze’arah the secrets of Torah that were on a much higher level than that which Reb Ze’arah had been on. It was the level of  “ad delo yada”, until they completely disconnected from their bodies. Both Rabbah and Reb Ze’arah reached the state of “ad delo yada”, but the result was different. Reb Ze’arah, whose name implies smallness, didn’t  have  the capacity  to  contain  this level  of revelation of
G-dliness, to the point where his soul simply refused to stay in the body and so  he  literally  died.  Rabbah,  although  he  too  was  experiencing a
G-dliness that was above that which was usual for him, had the capacity to contain even this higher revelation. Therefore it did not bring him to a state of expiration where his soul left his body.

And this is the meaning of that Rabbah got up and shechted Reb Ze’arah. We are told in the Gemarrah that the word shechitah means elevation. For example, by schechting an animal it is elevated from the level of animal into the world of the human, that the human being can eat it.

So in this story, Rabbah schechting Reb Ze’arah means that Rabbah elevated Reb Ze’arah, he drew him up to a higher level, a level that Reb Ze’arah could not contain in the restriction of his body, and so the soul wanting to retain that holiness, had to leave the body in order to be free to merge with this greater holiness, just as it was with Nadav and Avihu.

Now this also explains the use of the word “kom Rabbah” that Rabbah got up and schechted him. What does it mean that “he got up”? It means that he rose to a higher level. He elevated himself on Purim to a higher level, the level of “ad delo yada” as we will explain later, and took Reb Ze’arah with him to this higher level.

So how did Rabbah schecht Reb Ze’arah? By “kom”, by getting up, by rising to the higher, a level that Reb Ze’arah could not tolerate and it caused Reb Ze’arah to die. Reb Ze’arah himself could never reach this level, and that’s why “kom Rabbah and schacht Reb Ze’arah – it is not that Reb Ze’arah himself, like Nadav and Avihu, entered into a level of holiness that they couldn’t handle. Reb Ze’arah couldn’t do this to himself because he existed in a time after the mitzvah was given that the wine of Torah should not be indulged in unless you can survive it. So Reb Ze’arah would not have indulged in this level of holiness since he knew he could not survive it. But Rabbah elevated him to the level on which Rabbah could tolerate it, but it was intolerable for Reb Ze’arah, and so he passed away.

How is it that Rabbah would do this to Reb Ze’arah, knowing that there is a commandment that this should not be done, that G-d wants people to remain in their bodies and live on earth? So we might say that Rabbah did not expect Reb Ze’arah to reach such a level of expiring. And so it came as a surprise to Rabbah that Reb Ze’arah couldn’t handle this degree of holiness.

Concerning Rabbah, it was not a question of violating the principle of G-d wants souls to stay in bodies because he knew that the next day he would bring him back to life. So even after Reb Ze’arah died, it wasn’t to Rabbah going against the divine plan of souls staying in bodies, because the next day he brought him back to life. And so the experience of klos hanefesh, the experience of this degree of G-dliness was actually a very positive experience which explains why the next year Reb Ze’arah was willing to do it again. He wanted to experience that level of miseres nefesh, that level of expiring in the pleasantness and the sweetness of G-d. But he was afraid that the next year the miracle wouldn’t happen to bring him back to life. Once the soul leaves the body, it is very difficult to convince the soul to come back. That’s why the Gemarrah says that the next day Rabbah prayed and brought him back to life. He pleaded with his neshama to come back because it is not easy to get a neshama to willingly come back into the body. So Reb Ze’arah said, I am not sure that this year, if this happens again, we will be able to prevail on the neshama to come back a second time. The miracle won’t necessarily happen every time.

This all can be connected to a story of the Alter Rebbe and the Malach, the son of the Maggid. When the Alter Rebbe first arrived at the Maggid’s yeshiva to study Chassidus, it was arranged that the Maggid’s son, Reb Avraham the Malach, would be the Alter Rebbe’s learning partner. The Alter Rebbe would teach him nigleh, Gemarrah, and Reb Avraham, the Malach, would teach the Alter Rebbe Chassidus. This was the Alter Rebbe’s earliest study of Chassidus.

Once after they had learned a particularly profound subject in Chassidus, Reb Avraham the Malach found the Alter Rebbe sitting and eating a bagel with butter. He was very surprised and asked about the meaning of this eating. The Alter Rebbe answered that during the study of this profound and deep Chassidic idea, he felt that his soul was about to leave his body, and therefore he ate in order to keep his soul connected to his body, and not expire from the sweetness and holiness of what they had studied. He did this because G-d wants the soul to stay in the body.

How is it that the Alter Rebbe had come to the verge of expiring from the ecstasy and needed to eat a bagel with butter in order to keep his soul in his body, and Reb Avraham the Malach, who not only studied it along with the Alter Rebbe, but actually taught it to the Alter Rebbe, did not reach this stage of expiration, of ecstasy?

Reb Avraham the Malach was as his name implies an angel. He was angelic. His whole existence was barely physical to begin with. That is why he was called the Malach. That stage of barely being connected to his body, was a constant state, permanent state in Reb Avraham. Therefore he could maintain it. But other than on rare occasions, we don’t find that the Alter Rebbe described as a malach. In fact, the Alter Rebbe’s character was the exact opposite. With the Alter Rebbe, everything had to be brought down into the world of action, “hamaasei hu ha-ikar”, as expressed in the Alter Rebbe devoting himself to reaching out to others, in making baalei tshuva and so on.

And so when the Alter Rebbe experienced this high degree of the sweetness of Chassidus, he knew that without the bagel and the butter to make it even more of a physical pleasure, in order to keep the soul in the body, the body had to experience a physical pleasure to counteract the great pleasure that the soul was feeling in the G-dliness of what he had learned. But this level of klos hanefesh doesn’t seem to be relevant to our times. What can we learn from it?

The Rebbe said that he heard the story told by the Mudgetzer Rebbe when he was in Berlin, he was consulting with the doctors there, concerning his health and they determined that he needed an operation. But because he had a weak heart they weren’t sure that he would be able to undergo it. The Mudgetzer Rebbe said that they should allow him to sing a niggun and once he has entered into the pnimiyus of that niggun, he will be unaware of anything that is going on around him, and from this dveikus in the sweetness and the pleasure of the niggun, they could perform the operation without anesthetic and he wouldn’t feel anything. This is what he did, they performed the operation and it was successful.

And so we see that in our generation, or at least in the generation just prior to ours, it is possible for a Jew to get such pleasure, and get so into the pleasure that he doesn’t feel his physical existence at all.

There is a similar story concerning the Rebbe Rashab, who was once traveling together with the Freidike Rebbe, and they came to Vienna. As was their custom, they stayed in a hotel, in separate rooms, connected by a common room that they shared together between their two rooms.

When the Freidike Rebbe came into this room, he saw his father, the Rebbe Rashab sitting on the sofa, with his eyes open but totally unaware of what was going on in the room. After an hour, the Rebbe came back again and he saw his father is still sitting in exactly that position, he hadn’t moved at all. This happen again and again. Hour after hour, the Rebbe Rashab sat motionless, lost in thought as if he was in some other world. After the Rebbe Rashab woke up, he didn’t know which day it was or where they were, and he asked the Freidike Rebbe indirect questions to find out where they were and what day it was, without being obvious. Later the Rebbe Rashab told the Freidike Rebbe that the subject matter of the famous maamarim of the year Ayin Bais, were formulated in the Rebbe Rashab’s mind during those hours that he was sitting there in that hotel.

This is similar to the state of klos hanefesh. When the Rebbe Rashab came out of the dveikus, he didn’t know the time or place - time and place being the main ingredients of the physical universe, zman and makom - his dveikus  and his  being absorbed  into the  holiness and  the sweetness  of
G-dliness was so great that it separated him from time and space which is the physical universe. And that is similar to leaving the physical state – klos hanefesh. The soul leaves the limitations of the body, and even though it didn’t physically leave the body itself, it leaves the properties of the body, because the body is always restricted and controlled by time and space.

And so we see from this, that in our generation it is possible to have some of this experience of klos hanefesh that Rabbah and Reb Ze’arah had, that Nadav and Avihu had, and that Reb Avraham the Malach and the Alter Rebbe had, and then closer to our generation the story of the Rebbe Rashab.

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