HUMILITY AND CHAI ELLUL

Dear Family,

I hope everyone is well.

Mazal Tov to Freida whose birthday is next week. Wishing you a wonderful year with lots of new growth and development, in joy.

Mazal Tov Chava whose birthday is also next week, a few days later. Wishing you a successful year Chava with all the new things that you are doing. Hatzlocha.

Yesterday was Chai Ellul, 18th of Ellul, which is the birthday of both the Baal Shem Tov and the Alte Rebbe.

After the passing of the Baal Shem Tov, his son Rabbi Tzvi was appointed to lead the Chassidim.

1 year later during Shavuos meal on the first yohrtzeit of the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Tzvi announced that his father had appeared to him and instructed him to transfer the leadership to the greatest disciple of the Baal Shem Tov, Rabbi Dov Ber of Mezeritch, also known as the Maggid of Mezeritch.

As opposed to the Baal Shem Tov, who would travel from place to place, the Maggid stayed in Mezeritch, and from there he sent out his disciples to establish centres of Chassidic life throughout Russia, Poland and even Germany.

He passed away 19th Kislev 1872

One of his most famous disciples was The Alte Rebbe who established Chabad Chassidus, but the Maggid had many famous disciples.

In the following story, the Maggid taught an important lesson on HUMILITY

The Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid, and the Alte Rebbe had 2 points that comprised the essence of their Service expressed in prayer, ie

1. Clinging to Hashem (dveikus) - light
2. Self-nullification (bitul) - vessel for the light

The Baal Shem Tov teachings stressed the dveikus, and the bitul was implied as already included.

The Maggid's path was to separate out the two. Thus there were 2 clear pillars of Service, clinging and self-nullification.

The Alte Rebbe wanted his Chassidim to create many 'vessels' through self-nullification that would spread the light that Chassidus had accessed. There is very little mention of dvekus in the Alte Rebbe's teachings. It is not missing, but concealed. Ie exactly opposite to the Baal Shem Tov

The story that occurred was when 2 of the Maggid's disciples (brothers), came and asked him to honour them by discussing some of the revealed aspects of Torah.

The Maggid began elucidating a very complex topic in Torah, and then revealed major difficulties with his own explanation, and then responded to these difficulties with another explanation.

He kept explaining and revealing new flaws, with genius, and repeated this 9 times.

The 2 brothers who were Torah geniuses, literally had to squeeze their heads to employ every ounce of their intellect just to follow it.

After the brothers left, the Maggid remarked 'THEY ALMOST PUSHED ME DOWN!'

What did the Maggid mean by this?

The answer is connected to what the Baal Shem Tov said moments before he passed away from Tehilim 36:12, 'LET NOT THE FOOT OF PRIDE OVERTAKE ME.'

This is something that was also told about the Holy Arizal.

What the Maggid was saying was that in order to speak such great Torah learning to the 2 brothers, he had to knowingly put himself in danger of becoming aware of his own greatness.

But because of his love of Israel, ie because of his concern that the 2 brothers should attach to the light of Chassidus (Torah's inner dimension) through himself, he had brought himself to the very precipice of the great abyss, TEETERING ON THE VERY EDGE OF LOSING HIS SELF-NULLIFICATION (BITUL).

In the end the Maggid was BH successful in preventing this fall.

Wishing everyone a Gut Shabbos, and good Ellul preparations for Rosh Hashanah