SWEET DISCIPLINE AND DISCIPLINED LOVE

Dear Family,

I hope everyone is well.

Mazal Tov Mazal Tov to Mommy whose birthday is next week. Wishing you a wonderful year with lots of nachas from all the Family!

Mazal Tov Penina for your birthday next week. Wishing you a happy year with much achievement in all areas of gashmius and ruchnius!

Mazal Tov again to Shmuly who is farbrenging tonight with all his friends in celebration of his birthday which was today. Enjoy! Lechaim!

2 aspects of one theme came up this week in relation to Parshas Vayera, from the Rebbe and his father R' Levi Yitzchak, which I would like to share.

The angel comes to inform Avraham and Sarah, in their old age, that they will have a son.

Our Sages teach that the date of this visit was Pesach, and that Yitzchak's birth was on Pesach the following year.

Everything in Torah is very precise, and so what is the significance that Yitzchak was born on Pesach?

R' Levi Yitzchak explains that Pesach, which falls in Nissan, is a time of Chesed - Divine KINDNESS and outpouring of love (Hashem took us out of Mitzraim at this time)

Yitzchak embodied the attribute of Gevurah - RESTRAINT and Discipline (the Kabbalists explain that certain souls are derived from specific Divine attributes, and regarding Yitzchak it says 'And the FEAR of Yitzchak).

This strengthens the question even more - Why was Yitzchak who represents Gevurah, born on Pesach which is a time of Chesed?

R Levi Yitzchak answers that this is the Kabbalistic concept of 'Sweetening of Judgements' - Unbridled strictness could lead to relentless punishment, and therefore it needs to be tempered and sweetened with Chesed ie kindness.

And the other way around. Avraham represents Chesed - KINDNESS (as it says 'Avraham who Loved Me'). The Rebbe explains in this weeks sicha from Vol 15:

In V 21:30 Avraham is proving to Avimelech that a particular well which he had dug belonged to him (Avraham)

Yet the Zohar calls it the well of Yitzchak?

It is true that the Pelishtim had filled up and blocked Avraham's well, and Yitzchak had re-dug it, but it was still Avraham's well? So why does the Zohar call it the well of Yitzchak?

The explanation is that the root of the word Pelishtim is from the Hebrew word mefulash an open thoroughfare. This is why our Sages say that the Pelishtim were scoffers - this is triggered when the heart is too open and perforated on all sides.

They hijacked Avraham's unbridled KINDNESS and corrupted it into the joy of scoffing (blocked up his well)

However when Yitzchok redug this well, with his character of RESTRAINT, the Plishtim did not now have further access to it, and it would therefore endure forever.

So who did the well belong to in ESSENCE? How do we resolve these natures of Kindness and Restraint?

The Zohar says 'No avodah (service) matches the avodah that is out of LOVE AND JOY.

It is only that the for the joy (derived from Love) to endure, it must be preceded by the FEAR of G-D and the acceptance of the Yoke of Heaven.

Gut Shabbos to all!