Vaeschanan

The sicha for parshas Vaeschanan is in Vol. II of Likkutei Sichos.

The Rebbe begins the sicha that it says, then Moshe set aside three cities which are the areh miklat, the cities of refuge where a person who accidentally kills another person has to go into exile. The roads that led to the cities of refuge, the Gemarrah tells us, were wide and well-established roads, and at each crossroad there was a sign, saying “miklat, miklat” that pointed to the cities of refuge in order for the person to be able to get there quickly and find his way easily.

And since this was the physical conditions and preparations for the physical cities of refuge, it must also be true in the spiritual cities of refuge, where the neshama, the G-dly soul, runs to hide from the vengeance of the animal soul, as it says regarding the Torah, that the words of Torah are a refuge. This is the spiritual refuge where the neshama goes to refresh itself and get away from the animal soul. So in the spiritual city of refuge, these same conditions must also be reflected, must also be true.

In fact, it's really the other way around. It's not that what exists in the physical, exists also in the spiritual, but the other way around - because it exists in the spiritual, that's why it exists in the physical, it devolves from the spiritual into the physical. As the Shalah says concerning the fact that the Torah speaks in human language, that's only the way we perceive it. Really, the Shalah says, the Torah is speaking about spiritual things - only we pick up on the physical meaning of those words as they come out in the physical.

And so it is with all matters of Torah, including also the cities of refuge, all the details that we see in the physical city of refuge are there and are what they are because they are devolved from the spiritual cities of refuge in which all of these details exist.

Now if we merited, if we were on the level, then we would be able to see all of Torah as it is above in the spiritual, and know from that, what is going on in the physical. We would be following a direction from above downward, starting off with the higher and leading to lower, to the physical because everything in the physical world has its origins in the spiritual reality. When we understand the spiritual reality, then we would know, we could predict how the physical reality is going to turn out.  This is expressed in a story involving the Rebbe Rashab.

One year, medical science discovered an artery in the brain, which facilitated memory and concentration.  So the Rebbe’s brother came into the room and told the Rebbe about the discovery.  The Rebbe Rashab went into the next room and came back with a small manuscript of Chassidus that was written by the Mitteler Rebbe. He showed him where in that maamer there are six or seven lines, where the Mitteler Rebbe mentions that in the brain there is this artery that is mobile, it moves, and it facilitates memory and concentration. When this artery is facing the part of the brain that houses chochma and binah, it helps to remember. When it is facing the part of the brain that contains the daas, it helps concentration. That's why when a person wants to remember, he looks up, he tilts his head upwards, and when a person wants to concentrate, he tilts his head downwards.

When the Rebbe showed this to his brother, his brother said that the Mitteler Rebbe was a great medical scientist. The Rebbe Rashab said to him, “ the Mitteler Rebbe knew how the spiritual supernal human being is put together, and therefore he could predict how the physical human being works as well. He worked his way from the reality in the spiritual to a truth also in the physical.”

And certainly in matters of Torah, if we merited, we would be able to see how it is in the spiritual and then know how it will come out in the physical. And in fact, this is how the study of Torah will take place in the World to Come after Moshiach, we will understand the spiritual and then derive from that information about the physical. But since were not on that level yet, so we have to study all subjects of Torah as they are the physical and then from that figure out how they are in the spiritual, following a path of  “from the bottom upwards.”

In the physical cities of refuge, the person killed unintentionally goes there to find his refuge. But also a person who killed intentionally has to go to the city of refuge until his case comes to court and it's decided whether he's innocent or guilty. So even a person who killed intentionally is protected by the city of refuge until his case comes to court.

Just as with the physical city of refuge, we have to have well paved roads leading to the cities so that people could travel easily along those roads and you also have to have signs wherever there is a crossroad or a fork in the road to show the people which way to go, the same is true also in the spiritual city of refuge.

Aside from the fact that the words of Torah are our refuge, and the path to the Torah has to be a well-paved and wide road, in addition to this G-d also sets up signs pointing to the city of refuge, showing us which way to go. Because a person has freedom of choice, as it says, “I place before you today life and good, death and evil,” so a person has the choice to pick either life or death, good or bad.  So if the path is wide and well paved, but there is no sign telling a person which way to go, by his free choice, he could actually choose the wrong way, he could choose the path of death and evil.

And that's why G-d stands like a sign and says  “miklat, miklat,” He warns the person to go on the right path and not to take the wrong path, which is why G-d says, “ choose life.” So G-d is standing like a sign and saying choose life, this is the way to life.

Because of our freedom of choice, which all of us have, a person is capable of choosing that which is evil, thinking that he's making the right choice.  So everyone is in need of help from above, that G-d should help them and show him, which is the right path. So G-d says, go in this direction, the direction the leads to life and goodness because even Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai said, that he didn’t know which direction he would be taken after he passes away.  So certainly, everyone else who is not on the level of Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai in their freedom of choice and in particular because of the darkness and the double darkness of the golus of today, everyone is capable of making this mistake of choosing death and thinking that it is life.

And so we all need that G-d should help us and point us in the right direction so that we make the right choice and go in the right way.

But if we want G-d to help us and lead us away from the wrong choice and along the path of life and goodness, then we have to do something equal and similar to deserve it. We have to go out onto the roads, where the roads are forked and there is a choice that needs to be made, and we have to stand there and tell other Jews, which way they should go - we have to go out there and scream “miklat, miklat “ - go in the right path, go in the path of goodness, away from the avenger, the Satan, away from the yetzer hara, the evil inclination. 

And this is the job and the responsibility that lies on everyone of us to place ourselves in every area of doubt and to announce loudly and clearly, which is the right way, and which is the wrong way.  And although this puts the person himself at the crossroads, in a place where there is a road that leads away into bad direction, yet he shouldn't be intimidated by this, he should know that this is his job, this is the responsibility that is placed on him. As Reb Mordechai HaTzaddik said in the name of the Baal Shem Tov, a neshama comes down into this world and lives for seventy or eighty years in order to do a Jew a favor, either physically or spiritually. Certainly if the soul can spend 80 years on earth just do a Jew a favor, it is perfectly justified that a person should stand on the crossroads and help Jews make the right decision. And as a result of this and in reward for this, G-d will show the person the right path for himself, so he will be able to find himself on the road of life and goodness.

When he comes to the crossroads, and he is standing there screaming
“ miklat, miklat” and he shows another person which way to go, it's possible that the person won't even listen to him. He doesn't even know if there is going to be anyone there, doesn't know if anybody will hear him at all, and even so, none of this should stop him, none of this should discourage him, he has to be a sign that points to life and to goodness, and then G-d will protect him, that he should find his way to the miklat, away from the yetzer hara, away from the Satan.

And though he will feel that he hasn't accomplished anything, he has fulfilled his obligation: he stood at the crossroads and pointed to the good and to life.

For this G-d will show him the way of good and life, even though he is still an oved Elokim, and not an eved Elokim, which means he still has a yetzer hara, and his yetzer hara has not gotten any weaker in the course of time, but on the contrary, has gotten stronger because it is exercised so often and yet this yetzer hara which could lead him to make the wrong choice, G-d forbid, to choose death and evil, G-d will protect him from it.

The previous Rebbe once pointed out the difference between the Baal Shem Tov and other tzaddikim who lived in his generation. The others ran yeshivas, and offered Torah knowledge to those who were seeking it and to those who would come to them to study. Whereas the Baal Shem Tov and his talmidim, they would travel from place to place, from city to city and from town to town, in order to meet Jews and inspire them there.

And just as it is the difference between the Baal Shem Tov and the other tzaddikim, the same also is true concerning the spiritual areh miklat, the spiritual cities of refuge. There is a difference between the way it is al pi halacha and the way it is according to Chassidus. According to halacha, they would place a stone at the crossroads and on the stone they would make a sign and the sign would point in the direction of the cities of refuge. So the stone itself didn't speak to anyone but if someone was looking for the city of refuge and could at least read, the sign would point him in the right direction.

The same is true also in the spiritual areh miklat. There are people make themselves available, by going from their home cities and they go away to a place where there is a crossroads, where there is little Jewish information, and there they make themselves available, like a stone for anyone who's capable of reading that they would come to them and read what they were writing, and then they would find the direction to the areh miklat.

So although this is a great sacrifice, going away from your city and living in a place where there is not much Jewish knowledge and information, but this is certainly not enough. Because we are not meant to be like a stone or like a pillar that stands in one place.

There is an expression concerning a clock. A clock is always going, always running, constantly moving and yet going nowhere, it doesn't move from its spot. And that is not the way a chassid is supposed to be. According to Chassidus, a person is not meant to be a domain, an inanimate object, he has to be a m’halech, a person, alive and warm, a leberdik mentsch, and not wait till some one comes to ask for help, he has to be energetic and enthusiastic and he has to move. If he goes somewhere and sees a Jew, he has to run to help him, he has to find a way that he can help him and guide him to the miklat.

And that's the responsibility the Rebbe placed on young people, particularly the students, yeshiva bochurim, that for a couple of weeks, they should to travel the country or the world, and scream “miklat, miklat” This is the direction that leads to life and good. They should be like signs but living signs not stone signs that remain stationary. Signs that are alive and warm and enthusiastic that show the way to the miklat.

The Gemarrah says and the Rambam mentions it also that a person should always see himself in the world as perfectly balanced on the scale between good and evil. We must always look at every person as being perfectly balanced. And so the next act that person is going to do will determine which way the scales will tilt- for his merit or the opposite.  And not only this person, but also the whole world, meaning all of history, all the generations to come, and all the generations that have come and gone, all of it makes up a balanced scale. The good and the evil of all the generations are all balanced, and with the very next act, the entire history and the entire balance of the world is dependent. 

And when a bochur is traveling around in these crossroads, in order to show others how to find their way back to their Father in heaven, will think for a while, how the whole world, in all the generations that were and will be, are all balanced perfectly on the scale and with the very next act that a Jew will do, he will tilt the world in one direction or the other, then this student will not be able to be an inanimate sign that doesn't move, but he will be enthusiastic and intense in his desire to help him to find the right way. And by doing that he will tilt this person and the whole world towards blessing and towards merit.

He will go everywhere, and find Jews everywhere and explain to them that the whole world is balanced and that this person is balanced between good and evil, even if he happens to be a terribly sinful person, the balance is there because with one act of tshuva, in one hour, in one second he can shift the scale to the opposite direction and make the entire condition for himself and the world one of merit and goodness.  On the other hand, he has to know that he has freedom of choice to choose the unholy, G-d forbid, and by doing that he could bring terrible damage, so he has to be careful that he should choose the right path, the path that leads to life and good. And then having made that choice, the bochur will help him find his way towards the good.

Now there are those who think that they've gone out and they’ve traveled and they've made an effort, but they didn't accomplish much, or accomplished nothing. The truth is, that that is not the decisive factor, the crucial factor, wether you accomplish or you don't accomplish.  We find that there is a mitzvah to search the house for chometz, so you go and you search, you spend entire night looking for chometz, and if you don't find any chometz, there is nothing wrong, there is nothing lost, or wasted because the idea is to search for the chometz and that he fulfilled.

The same is true for the spiritual search for a chometz. Those who travel and think they've accomplished nothing, that they wasted all that time on the roads and at the crossroads away from the centers of learning and so on, and yet accomplished nothing. That doesn't change the fact that he did what he was told to do and the reward for mitzvah is the mitzvah itself which means the fact that doing the mitzvah attaches you and connects you to the Commander.

But what's more, although he thinks he accomplished nothing - he's exhausted, and he comes back empty-handed, and his friends will have complaints to him, and will criticize him, aside from the fact that he has nothing to show. So as we said before, whether you accomplish anything or not, is not the crucial question. In the truth he did accomplish, he just doesn't know what he accomplished. The fact that he went and put in the effort leaves no room for doubt that he did accomplish something. The Frierdiker Rebbe said many times the name of his father, that it is guaranteed that any effort expended for Yiddishkeit, is never wasted, it must bring some result.

One of the ways that he accomplishes but doesn't know that he accomplished is that when he goes out on a shlichus mitzvah and he is traveling the stones that he is stepping on, the road that he travels on, are elevated by the fact that he is traveling or stepping on them on the way to doing his mitzvah. And in that way he purifies the atmosphere, the space itself, as is well known.  But that is something that he doesn't see and can’t put it into an account or a report, and he wants to accomplish something, not in the world in general, but he wants to accomplish something in the mission and the purpose for which he was sent, he wants to be able to bring Jews closer to G-dliness, closer to their Father in heaven. So the fact that he is elevating the stones and the roads in which he is traveling, this is not what he was sent to do. The truth is, he accomplishes in what he was sent to do as well.

And that's as follows: when a Jew is sitting in his apartment, and he looks through his window and sees a young man with a beard, this reminds him of how his father or his grandfather used to look and he then remembers how his father told him everyday getting up in the morning to say Modeh Ani and before going to sleep, he should say Shema Israel. And as he is sitting there remembering all of this, he whispers the words of the Shema or the Modeh Ani to himself, to see if he still remembers. And that moves him and arouses within him a feeling of Tshuva. Or a child comes home from school, and he says that there was a visitor at the school, a young man with a beard, and he was selling books on Jewish topics.  And he wanted to sell the child a pamphlet or booklet on Judaism. But the child says that he refused to buy it. When he tells his father and mother, they are reminded by this of their obligation to Yiddishkeit, and Jewish education and to raising the child as a Jew, and at that moment their entire thinking and their entire orientation, must be affected for the good.

Now the truth is, if a young man goes out and feels that he accomplished nothing, or doesn't see any of his accomplishments, he should feel broken hearted, he should feel that he was not worthy to have a inward, a pnimiyusdik affect on people, where he actually sat and talked about Yiddishkeit with them, but at least in the makif way, in the indirect, transcendent way he did have an effect on the people with whom he came into contact.

And the Rebbe tells the story, how young man told him that there was a rabbi who came to a farbrengen once, and the rabbi is a teacher and also a principal of a school and so when he came back from the farbrengen he had to tell the children about what he had seen. And he described to them young people, who daven a lot, who learn a lot, who are very devoted to Yiddishkeit, and the children couldn't believe such a thing exists in today's day and age. So the rabbi called the young chassid, who had brought him to the farbrengen and asked him to come to the school to be in a living example for the children, to show them that Judaism is very much alive and they asked questions, and that caused an improvement in the Yiddishkeit of the entire community.

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