A vort from the Rebbe on this week's parashah, Parashat Mikeitz. At the end of Parashat Mikeitz we learn that when the שבטים left מצרים, Yosef had his עבדים put in his cup, his becher, into the sack of בנימין. And when they left, he had them chase them and search the bags and found the becher, and he told them that they stole this cup, and he brought them back to Yosef to מצרים. And Yosef told them, \"How did you do such a thing?\" And the פסוק says, \"ויאמרו אליו\", they said to him, to יוסף, \"למה ידבר אדני כדברים האלה\", why would you say, speak this, why do you say this? \"חלילה לעבדיך מעשות כדבר הזה\", it's impossible for your servants, which means impossible that we would do such a thing. And on the word חלילה לעבדיך, Rashi says, what does that word mean? \"חולין הוא לנו\". The word cholin means mundane, secular, or however we'll translate it. It's cholin, meaning לשון גנאי, it's a word of disgust, it's a word to saying it would be disgusting for us to do such a thing.

And the Rebbe explains this very interestingly. We know there are two things: there's kedushah, and there is chol. Kedushah holiness, chol is secular things, regular things, mundane things, things which are not holy. Bay a Yid, a Yid there is no such thing as things which are just chol, just cholin. Even though there are things which are cholin, a Yid is not only involved in learning Torah and doing mitzvot, which are holy, a Yid has to work also. The פסוק says that you should work, \"ששת ימים תעבד ועשית כל מלאכתך\", you should work six days a week, and you should do your work. So we do get involved in mundane things, like eating and drinking and working, but that's not cholin, that's not really mundane. There's an expression in Gemara, \"חולין שנעשו על טהרת הקודש\". You could have cholin, simple things which are not holy, but that's done with the purity of kodesh. This is not the simple peshat of the words, but the spiritual, the deeper meaning of these, this expression is that the cholin, even the cholin things that we do, the mundane things we do, is also connected to kedushah. As the pasuk says, \"בכל דרכיך דעהו\", whatever you do, your own things, you shall know Hashem, it should be a way of serving Hashem. And it says in Pirkei Avot, \"כל מעשיך יהיו לשם שמים\". All your things, anything that we do, even our own, not holy things, eating and drinking, etc., etc., should be for the sake of Hashem. B'meila it comes out that in truth, there is no such thing as חולין ביי a Yid. The chulin that we do is really holy, is really al taharat hakodesh. And that's what Rashi says they said to him: How could you claim that we stole? That חולין הוא לנו לשון גנאי, even just plain chulin, to stay it should be chulin on its own is a לשון גנאי, is a disgusting expression. Bay a Yid it's disgusting that there should be such a thing that's not serving Hashem, it's only chulin. And that's the deeper meaning of the words of Rashi, \"חולין הוא לנו לשון גנאי\". For us, chulin is a לשון גנאי. So how could you claim that we stole, when even other things which are not forbidden, but they're just plain chulin we don't have, it's a disgusting thing for us? So how could you say that we stole? And that's the lesson we take for us, that a Yid has to always remember there's no such thing as חולין ביי a Yid. Chulin is a לשון גנאי, because even the chulin, even our own things that we do, have to be for the sake of Hashem, and b'meila they turn into עבודת השם, into service of Hashem, and they turn into something holy.