A vort from the Rebbe on this week's פרשה, פרשת תצוה. פרשת תצוה we learn about the בגדי כהונה, about the garments of the kohanim and the garments of the Kohen Gadol. One of the garments of the Kohen Gadol was the אפוד, and concerning the אפוד Rashi writes like this: לא שמעתי, I didn't hear, ולא מצאתי בברייתא, and I didn't find in a ברייתא, פירוש תבניתו, the explanation what it actually looked like. But ולבי אומר לי, my heart tells me, שהוא חוגר למאחוריו, that it was something that you worn to the back, רוחבו כרוחב גב איש, and it's wide the same width as the back of a person, can mean סינר, it looks like a kind of skirt, שחוגרות השרות כשרוכבות על הסוסים, like the noble women wear when they're riding on the horses. So Rashi uses a lashon here ולבי אומר לי, which is a strange lashon. Many times we find that Rashi, when he says something that he's not sure but he thinks so, he says ואני אומר. In this Rashi itself Rashi says אני אומר. Why does he say here ולבי אומר לי, my heart tells me?

So the Rebbe explains it like this: The melamdim, the teachers, would tell the children in cheder, when they learn this Rashi, that Rashi says this looks like the type of skirt that the שרות, the noble women would wear, likhora, what does that add? The people who learned Rashi probably never saw any of these noble women to know that this will explain it to them better. So they tell a story that Rashi was once walking in the street and he saw one, a noble woman that was riding on a horse, dressed with this kind of skirt, and Rashi felt very bad. Why did they מלמעלה from Shamayim make him see something like this? So later on, when he wrote his פירוש על חומש and he was writing the אפוד, he felt better, because from here he understood what the אפוד looked like. So he understood why they showed it to him in Shamayim, even though it's not really tzniusdik to see something like that, but they showed him so he should be able to understand the אפוד better. And Rashi brings it specially to tell us that everything that a person sees has to be used for avodat Hashem.

And based on that, the Rebbe explains why Rashi says לבי אומר לי, my heart tells me. Why? Because this that Rashi saw something and used it to understand an inyan in Torah is not mamash similar to the famous vort of the Baal Shem Tov where he said that anything a Yid sees or hears, even in worldly matters, is for him to learn a lesson how to serve Hashem. But usually we're talking about things which are not forbidden, things which have no, nothing negative about it, just not something holy, something secular that you see. Here Rashi saw something which borders with something not tzniyusdik, because the Gemara actually says that a woman riding a horse is not tzniyusdik, etc. etc. So when he saw this noble woman riding a horse, this was something that was not just neutral, something that not so good. Nevertheless, Rashi was able to use that also for avodas Hashem, for understanding an inyan in Torah. And this koach that a Yid has that whatever he sees no matter what it is, even if it's not so good, he should be able to turn it around and use it for avodas Hashem, that comes because a Yid has his neshamah, has his nefesh, which is a chelek of the אויבערשטער, מצד that everything is kedushah. So even if something, he's not allowed to look at it, but if something comes to him, and even if it seems to be something that's not so good, he should right away turn it around and use it for something good. That koach comes from the יחידה שבנפש. And that's what Rashi means when he says לבי אומר לי, the way the Rebbe explains, it came from my heart, my heart tells me that this is a way to understand the ephod, because the heart represents the nekudah of the nefesh, because it says the nekudah of the nefesh is in the lev, in the heart, so it comes from the heart, from that nekudah, that point of the nefesh, this essence, essential part of the nefesh, that gives a Yid a koach that anything that he sees that comes his way should be used to avodas Hashem, that gives him the koach of we call it in חסידות אתהפכא, to transform something that's not good into good. And that's what Rashi wants to teach us by saying לבי אומר לי, according to the פנימיות הפשט, the deeper pshat in Rashi, to tell you that every Yid has this heart, has this יחידה שבנפש, has this nefesh within him, and therefore he's able to take anything that he sees no matter what it is to be able to turn around and transform it into kedushah.