The sixty-eighth "room" in the palace of Hayom Yom.
Wednesday, 28 Shevat 5703.
Shiurim: Chumash, Mishpatim, revi'i, with Rashi's commentary.
Tehillim, the 28th of the month, from chapter 135 through and including chapter 139.
Tanya, still in the middle of chapter 25. The daily shiur begins with the word "vechayotzei", until page 32, which ends with the words "Baruch Hashem kel v'naim".
The daily teaching comes from the Baal Shem Tov, as we will see in a moment. As the Rebbe Rayatz describes in his letter, this is something that was passed down from generation to generation, from Rebbe to Rebbe: the Rebbe Rayatz says that his father, the Rebbe Rashab, told it to him, having heard it from his father the Rebbe Maharash, who heard it from his father the Tzemach Tzedek, who heard it from the grandfather - the Alter Rebbe, and the Alter Rebbe heard it from the Baal Shem Tov's disciple, Reb Mordechai, who brought these words. So let us see what the Baal Shem Tov says.
The heading reads "One of the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov", relating to the verse "ki tireh chamor" ("when you see the donkey"). What does it mean, and what do we learn from the words "ki tireh chamor"? The Baal Shem Tov explains: beyond the plain meaning - that one must help a person who is struggling beneath a load together with his donkey - the Baal Shem Tov says: "ki tireh" ("when you see") does not mean merely that you should look and see with your eyes, but rather "when you look with careful examination". At what? At the "chamor" - which is "at your chomer (your materiality), which is the body"; the material side of a person.
And when a person contemplates the "chamor", what does he see? As is spelled out in the teaching of the Baal Shem Tov, "you will see" two things. What are the two things? The first is "your enemy": you will see that the body, the materiality, is your enemy. Whom does it hate? "It hates the soul, which yearns for G-dliness and spirituality". A Jew's soul yearns for G-dly and spiritual matters, and the body is "your enemy" - it hates the soul and its yearning for spirituality. That is the first thing you will see, that you should become aware of.
And the second thing you will see with this vision - "and you will further see that it is crouching beneath its burden": the body crouches, and does not want to carry out the task that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave it. It has a "burden", meaning a task - "which the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the body, that it should become refined through Torah and mitzvos". The Holy One, blessed be He, gave the body a task and a purpose: that it become refined through Torah and mitzvos. The Holy One, blessed be He, gave the body a purpose - there is Torah, there are mitzvos, fulfill them, and then the body will become more refined. But it is "crouching beneath its burden", that is, "and the body is lazy about fulfilling them" - it does not want to carry out the mission the Holy One, blessed be He, gave it.
Interestingly, there is a maamar of chassidus that the Rebbe Rayatz said on Shabbos Parshas Mishpatim 5704 - the Shabbos on which this verse appears - the dibur hamatchil "Ki Tireh Chamor". There the Rebbe Rayatz explains this idea at great length, with all the details of the thinking of the lower part of a person - why it does not want and is not willing to cooperate, and so on.
And here the verse continues: since the body does not want to, "and perhaps it will arise in your heart" - perhaps it will arise in the heart of the Jew, in the heart of the soul: I am dealing here with an enemy, and with one who does not want to carry out the purpose; if so, what should be done with it? It would occur to you "that you should refrain from helping it" - that you should stop helping your body exist in a healthy and good way, the sort of way "that would enable it to fulfill its mission".
"For if you begin with fasts and mortifications to break the materiality" - for perhaps you will think that if you begin with fasts and mortifications you will help matters: the body does not want to carry out its mission and keeps running wild in its conduct - so I will begin to afflict and torment it, to break the materiality; and then perhaps the body will finally understand that this palace has an owner - for perhaps it is precisely because of the fat and the pampering that it resists.
Says the Baal Shem Tov: "Behold, it is not in this way that the light of Torah will dwell". If you want the Torah to dwell in your body, the way is not through fasts and mortifications and not through breaking the materiality; this is not the way and this is not the purpose. For the Holy One, blessed be He, wants a dwelling place in the lower realms - He wants to dwell in the world, with the body - and therefore breaking the body is not a proper way.
Regarding this the verse continues and concludes: "rather you shall surely help along with it" - "azov" in the sense of assisting: assist the purpose and the mission "with it", with the body. Do not set the body aside and say "I will learn Torah in a way that the body will not eat and not drink, it will be tired and, G-d forbid, unhealthy, and I will do Hashem's will without it" - it does not work that way. "You shall surely help along with it", and as the Baal Shem Tov concludes - "to refine the body and purify it", to purify the body specifically by enabling it to eat and drink and so on, "and not to break it with fasts and mortifications". One must not break the body with mortifications.
The Rebbe brings this idea in many places. There is a lengthy sicha in the first volume of "Likkutei Sichos" on the parsha that speaks of Avraham and Sarah, in which the Rebbe explains that Avraham and Sarah are an allusion and a parable for the soul and the body: the soul is called "Avraham", and the body is called "Sarah". And the verse says that the Holy One, blessed be He, tells Avraham Avinu "whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her voice" - according to the interpretation that "Sarah" is the body and "Avraham" is the soul, it turns out that the soul is being told: whatever the body tells you, listen to it. And what is the plain meaning of this? The Rebbe brings at length the entire teaching of the Baal Shem Tov and explains that this is exactly the intent: if you want to serve Hashem, it must be with the body, with "Sarah"; and it is specifically in this way that you can serve Hashem, for the whole point of a dwelling place in the lower realms is with the body.
In this context the Rebbe brings, in that same sicha, a story with the Tzemach Tzedek that expresses this same idea. The Tzemach Tzedek was once asked about a bris milah, where there were two options as to which mohel to bring: one - a very chassidishe mohel, who knew all the kavanos and the writings of the Arizal and so on, but was not so professional at performing the bris; and the second - another mohel, a very simple Jew, who was not learned in kabbalistic matters and secrets, but knew how to do the job properly. The Tzemach Tzedek said that one should take the simple one, and he explained: at a bris milah what matters is the physical - one simply has to cut physically; and what relevance do spiritual matters have here? The Rebbe brings this story too in connection with strengthening the idea that a Jew's task is with the body, and not to break the body.
Therefore one should not run after spirituality at the expense of the body; one must make sure the body is strong and healthy. Many times the Rebbe wrote letters to students who conducted themselves in such a manner, who broke their bodies. To a student who learned in the yeshiva in Brunoy, Rabbi Nissan Nemanov, the Rebbe wrote: "Go speak with Rabbi Nemanov, perhaps you will do a hataras nedarim there; but it is clear that your fasts and the diminishing of your fat and blood are not the way - eat on time and guard the health of your body". And so in very many letters, that this is the direction one's avodah of Hashem should take.
We will conclude with the sequence we see in the Rebbe's teachings, which corresponds to the order of the Rambam. These days we are in Sefer Nashim: we have already learned the allusion in previous teachings to Hilchos Ishus, then Hilchos Gerushin, and the previous teaching corresponded to Hilchos Yibum V'Chalitzah. The next set of laws in the Rambam is Hilchos Naarah Besulah. And what is the connection to this teaching? Here we say that the body hates the soul, hates G-dliness and spirituality, and wants its own loves and the love of the body. And the entire subject discussed in Hilchos Naarah Besulah is precisely about this - about a person whose bodily desires lead him to do what is detailed there in those laws; and it is all because for him the body and its desires take up space, and not the soul and G-dliness. And how the Torah instructs that he be dealt with there in order to rectify this matter - this is exactly the teaching that corresponds, according to the sequence of things, to these laws in the Rambam.