"Room" number three hundred fifty-five in the hall of Hayom Yom.
Wednesday, 19 Cheshvan 5704.
Shiurim: Chumash, Chayei Sarah, revi'i, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, 19th of the month, from chapter 90 through chapter 96 inclusive.
Tanya, on this day we continue Iggeres 29. The daily portion begins on page 149 with the words "v'hinei ohr", and concludes on page 298 with the word "chad".
The source of the daily saying is a sichah delivered by the Rebbe Rayatz on Simchas Torah of the year 5701. There is an introduction there preceding this passage, and it is worth presenting it first in order to understand the flow. It is told there about one of the chassidim of the Alter Rebbe and the Mitteler Rebbe, who was called Reb Zalman Zezmer. Reb Zalman Zezmer would always relate that in his town there was a Jew who was a great lamdan, and a person of good middos in a wondrous and rare way - it was hard to find people with such good middos; only that this Jew knew nothing of chassidus.
Once that Jew asked Reb Zalman: what did chassidus introduce that is new? Reb Zalman answered him: "Chassidus elevated the mochin above the middos" - chassidus gave the mochin greater weight than the middos.
After a while that Jew traveled to the Alter Rebbe, entered for yechidus, and asked that same question: what did chassidus introduce that is new? The Alter Rebbe said to him at first: listen, animals too have middos, except that with them the middos are natural - for example, the raven is cruel by nature and the eagle is merciful by nature; whereas with human beings the middos are not natural, but rather according to intellect. And why did the Holy One, blessed be He, not make it so that with human beings too the middos would be natural? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted that with a Jew the middos should be the result of his avodah, and not the result of a natural instinct.
That lamdan, a man of tremendous middos, heard these words, began to examine himself, and arrived at the conclusion that all the good middos he has had until today are essentially like those of an animal - this is his nature, and he has not yet worked on himself. He took this to heart so internally that he fainted on the spot, in the yechidus.
After some time he awoke, and when he came to himself he again asked the Alter Rebbe - after having understood that his situation is not good - well then, what now? What is chassidus? To this the Alter Rebbe answered him, and this is the daily saying in "Hayom Yom": "The reply of the Alter Rebbe in yechidus: chassidus is Shema Yisrael" - the essence of chassidus is expressed in the two words "Shema Yisrael".
What is the meaning of "Shema Yisrael", and what is the hint contained in it? The Alter Rebbe explains: "Shema - the initial letters of Se'u marom eineichem". That is, when a Jew says "Shema", he must contemplate on high. "And it says 'marom' and not 'shamayim'", among his words the Alter Rebbe added a word that is not brought here: "like the explanation of the Ibn Ezra" - that the Ibn Ezra distinguishes and says that there are two levels: there are stars that one can see and perhaps even count, and there are stars on a higher level, of whose quantity we have no conception at all. That is, "shamayim" is the lower aspect, which there is perhaps an ability to absorb, whereas "marom" is far loftier.
So the Alter Rebbe tells him: "'Marom' is high, high" - "marom" is high and even higher, meaning entirely beyond a person's grasp. If so, when a Jew is told "Se'u marom eineichem", the aim is "to reach [to] that which is above intellect" - that he should reach and connect to levels that cannot be absorbed at all in taam vada'as, because they are exceedingly lofty.
But on the other hand, in the continuation of the verse - after "Se'u marom eineichem" - the verse says "u're'u mi bara eileh". What is meant by the second part? "And this itself - [one must] understand it with intellect, as it says "u're'u mi bara eileh"" - that is, chassidus is to take the loftiest matters, which are entirely above taam vada'as and above any grasp, and to see how one brings them down into the intellect as well, so that the intellect should grasp even that which is above intellect - as it says "u're'u mi bara eileh", that "re'u" means that a person sees and internalizes and connects to that which is above intellect. This is chassidus: to take the most abstract and loftiest matters and bring them down in taam vada'as.
An interesting expression that the Rebbe once wrote to Shazar is noteworthy. In the summer of 5717 the Rebbe sends him a sichah that he said before children who had returned from summer camp, and attaches this sentence: "In the course of my work in bringing minds closer" - the Rebbe writes about himself - "I have become convinced that one of the most difficult things is to transpose matters from the teachings of chassidus into a language understandable also to those who are for the time being on the outside". That is, to take the deepest matters and bring them down into a language understandable also to those who are on the outside; this is one of the most difficult things, but this is in fact the avodah of chassidus - to bring down the "marom", that which is entirely above intellect, below, in a manner that it can be understood with the intellect as well.