The eighty-first "cheder" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Tuesday, 11 Adar I, 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Tetzaveh, shlishi, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, the 11th of the month, from chapter 60 through and including chapter 68.
Tanya, today we are in chapter 29, from the words "uchmaamar Hillel" until page 36, in the passage ending with the words "ha'adam atzmo".
Before us is a short saying whose source is a letter written by the Rebbe Rayatz on 12 Tishrei 5695. The letter was written to a Jew who had asked the Rebbe about Kaddish D'Rabbanan in the davening, and the Rebbe Rayatz addresses that matter at length; but within the letter, as a sort of parenthetical remark, he tells him the daily saying, and adds a few more words.
And this is what he tells him: "It is known and accepted regarding the kavanos of tefillah, that those whose minds are not up to having kavanah - whether because of a lack of knowledge, or because they do not have the capacity to remember the particular kavanos during tefillah". As is known, anyone familiar with the concepts as they appear in Kabbalah knows that every passage in davening has a special kavanah, and in Hashem's Name sometimes this kavanah and sometimes that kavanah, and so on. The Rebbe says that there are people who are not at such a level of concentration that they would know how to have in mind, during davening, all the kavanos written in the writings of the Arizal and the like - either because of a lack of knowledge, in that they do not know at all what to have in mind and are not at fault for this, or because they do not have the capacity to remember the particular kavanos at the time of davening; for even if he learned them beforehand and indeed knows them, he is not able during davening to remember all the particular kavanos that are supposed to accompany each and every sentence and each and every matter.
If so, what should such a person do about the various kavanos of tefillah? The Rebbe writes to him: "It is enough that they have a general kavanah - to daven to His blessed Name, and he should have in mind that he asks that his tefillah be accepted before Him, blessed be He, with all the kavanos explained in the seforim of Kabbalah". He does not need the particular kavanos of each and every word according to the levels to which that passage is directed; rather, a general kavanah suffices for him: to daven to His blessed Name, and to have in mind that he asks that his tefillah be accepted before the Holy One, blessed be He, with all the kavanos explained in the seforim of Kabbalah - even though he is not familiar with them, or is familiar with them but does not remember them. This is a very general kavanah.
Later in the letter the Rebbe says that it is clear that when a Jew stands up to daven and thinks in his heart, "Master of the world, may my tefillah be accepted before You and be considered as though I had in mind all the kavanos of Kabbalah" - when a person feels this way, the Holy One, blessed be He, hears the tefillah of every mouth, and this certainly has its effect, even if he does not have all the required kavanos. And it makes no difference which tefillah is being spoken of - whether a person davens because he needs certain requests, or because he knows that tefillah is his opportunity to unite with the Holy One, blessed be He - this general kavanah is a sufficient kavanah.
And there is a sichah in which the Rebbe addressed those who argue against putting on tefillin with Jews in the street, claiming that the Jew putting on tefillin does not have all the required kavanos, and if so, what is the benefit and what is the mitzvah he is doing worth? The Rebbe answered that it is explicit in Shulchan Aruch that the minimal kavanah required in order to fulfill one's obligation is the general kavanah - that I am now doing a mitzvah and I want to fulfill my obligation of what the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded me. And this general kavanah is present in every Jew who stretches out his arm; and even if he does not know all the details, the general approach itself is certainly a sufficient matter.
And in a sichah on Shabbos Devarim 5730 the Rebbe says that on the contrary - sometimes a person who does not know all the details at all and has such a general kavanah is in a better position; for when a person does have kavanah and begins to focus, and does not know exactly whether he is making a mistake in it or whether the matter is not precise, this is worse. It is better that the matter be entirely clean - what is written, what the Holy One, blessed be He, says.
And there the Rebbe relates that in the time of the Tzemach Tzedek they printed siddurim in the nusach of the Alter Rebbe, and they inserted into Hashem's Names all sorts of vowelizations - for according to Kabbalah there is a difference between a segol and a patach and the like. The Tzemach Tzedek was displeased with this, because the Alter Rebbe, in writing the siddur and the nusach, wanted the siddur to be suitable also for a person who has no concept at all of Kabbalah, so that he would have the matter as it is.
The Rebbe asked at a farbrengen: seemingly, why was the Tzemach Tzedek displeased? Let there be the vowelization and let there be everything - whoever knows will have kavanah, and whoever does not know will look at it in a general way; what is disturbing about that? Rather, says the Rebbe, on the contrary: when all sorts of vowelizations stand before one's eyes and the person does not know, and he begins to think but does not know what to think about them - he is liable to spoil things. It is better that there be nothing, that his thought be clean and with one general kavanah; this is far more beneficial than for a person who enters into the details and does not know exactly what the particular kavanah in them is.
So this is the point: that a person should have a general kavanah. And there is a well-known expression that appears in maamarim of chassidus, as one of the mekubalim said when he was asked which kavanos he has during davening: "I daven with the understanding of this child" - I daven like a child. When a child says "Baruch atah Hashem", he does not know this level or that level, that here is this world and here is that world; and when you ask him what he means when he says "Baruch atah Hashem", he answers that "Hashem" is the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself, without any details. So that mekubal says that he davens "with the understanding of this child" - and this general kavanah has the deepest and greatest significance.