In the spirit of י״ט כסלו, because today is כ׳ כסלו, I decided that the class should be understanding the role of a Rebbe. We always talk about a Rebbe, the Rebbe, the Rebbe, and to understand what does Torah, Chassidus have to say about what is the role of a Rebbe, basically, what is the function of a Rebbe. When I mentioned it before or after Maariv, someone asked me, \"Why are you telling the Rebbe what he's supposed to do? You're telling the Rebbe?\" And I said, \"Well, it's for us to understand, because we always know that we have a certain relationship with the Rebbe, so we have to at least know what this is all about in order to understand what our relationship is and what our relationship should be.\" And when we're talking about a Rebbe here, we're not talking about a rabbi of a Shul, or a Rav in a community, or a Rebbe, as they call it in a classroom, but we're talking about the Rebbe. Rebbe, the word Rebbe, which means teacher, but the one that we're talking about now is the one that has the abbreviation, the three letters make up the words ראש בני ישראל, the head of בני ישראל. Which is connected to the other Pasuk where it says that there is such a concept as צדיק יסוד עולם, צדיק who's the foundation of the world. And that's the concept of a Rebbe that we're going to be discussing. Now, as we all know, this is an expression used by Chassidim, a Rebbe of Chassidim. It all started from the Baal Shem Tov. Baal Shem Tov was a Rebbe of many, many Talmidim and Chassidim, and then after the Baal Shem Tov passed away, his Talmidim took over, and from then on, all the generations, we have a Rebbe, Rebbe and then you have Chassidim. But the truth is that this is not something new that came from the Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov did not make anything new. Not the Baal Shem Tov, not other חסידישע רביס, חסידות בכלל didn't make anything new. We all know that there's a famous expression: חדש אסור מן התורה. If it's new, it's forbidden. You can't have We have the Mesorah, Yidden have the Mesorah, the tradition handed down from generation to generation, and there is nothing new. Even a Navi, it says, אסור לחדש דבר. A Navi couldn't come up and say something new if it wasn't given before from Sinai. When we say there are certain things that we find in Chassidus or by Chassidim or what the rebbes said or did, what they did was they stressed certain points that were there from before in Yiddishkeit, but they were not stressed strong enough. So the Baal Shem Tov stressed it, or other rebbes stressed it, and that's what we say is the דרך החסידות. There's nothing new in Yiddishkeit, in the derech, in the way of Chassidus. It's just stressing different things. Just to use as an example, we know that by Chassidim, they always stress simcha. They have to be b'simcha, you have to be happy, and there are different expressions from different רביים, מצוה גדולה להיות בשמחה, it's a mitzvah. Chassidim were called, from the Baal Shem Tov's time on, before they got the title Chassidim, some people used to call them די פריילעכע, the happy ones. But is it something new that Chassidus came and discovered, made up something new? It's a pasuk: עבדו את ה׳ בשמחה, you have to serve השם בשמחה. It's a pasuk in chumash where Hashem says why will He, God forbid, punish the Jews, תחת אשר לא עבדת את ה׳ אלקיך בשמחה ובטוב לבב, you didn't serve Hashem with simcha, the way the Rambam explains that this is the peshat in the pasuk. I'm just using it as an example that what Chassidus says is not new, it's just to stress and to emphasize certain points that were not emphasized before. I'll use another example. In the beginning of Shaar HaYichud VehaEmunah, which is one of the the parts of Tanya, the Alter Rebbe explains that Hashem created the world, obviously, but every second, He keeps on recreating the world. Every second, every moment, He keeps on saying the עשרה מאמרות, the 10 statements that Hashem said when He created the world, He keeps on saying it over and over again. And he quotes a pasuk. The pasuk says, לעולם ה׳ דברך נצב בשמים, forever, Hashem, Your words are standing in heaven. And then he adds, ופירש הבעל שם טוב, and the Baal Shem Tov explained that what that means is that the words of Hashem that He said when He created the raki'a, the heaven, He said, יהי רקיע, so we might think that He said it once and then the רקיע became, no, forever, Hashem, Your words are in the רקיע, and the same is with all the other nine statements. Now, the truth is this peshat in the pasuk is not from the Baal Shem Tov, it's already written in Midrash Tehillim on the pasuk. So what does it mean ופירש HaBaal Shem Tov, the Baal Shem Tov explained it? So the Rebbe says it doesn't mean he explained it. פירש means the word פירש has another meaning: spread out. He spread spread it out, he emphasized it, he made a big fuss over this statement, and it's a foundation in the philosophy of chassidut, but it's not something new. It's something that comes from midrash. It's something that already says in the Torah before. The same is concerning the topic that we're discussing tonight, is the concept of a Rebbe, and even though we know it started from the Baal Shem Tov with the derech of chassidim and chassidut, but really it is not something that started from the Baal Shem Tov. This is something that's there before. And therefore the explanation that I'm going to give and explain is something that is based on what it says in the Gemara, something that's based on pesukim, it's based on things that we have from before. Just that wasn't emphasized as much, even though it was always true. The Baal Shem Tov emphasized it, and from then on this has been emphasized more. So let's start with trying to understand, what is the inyan of a Rebbe? And we're not talking here about a teacher, somebody who teaches you what to do, like the simple meaning of a Rebbe, as somebody who's your teacher, somebody who guides you, a leader, someone you have a leader. That's not what we talk about a Rebbe. You know, by chassidim the concept of a Rebbe is something much more important, something more holy and greater than that. And that's why we always talk about the Rebbe said this, the Rebbe said that, we're talking about the Rebbe, and there's a concept called by chassidim hiskashrut to the Rebbe, that you have to be tied to the Rebbe. What does that mean? Why do we need that? We as Yidden have a Torah, we have mitzvot, and through learning Torah and doing mitzvot we connect ourselves to Hashem, and that's it. What do we need anymore? We need to know what to do, we have the sefarim. If we need someone to teach us, we'll have a teacher, we'll have a Rebbe, we'll have a Rav to pasken our she'eilot, we'll have somebody to speak to, could even have a Gadol b'Yisrael, which we have. Why do we need the concept of a Rebbe? What does this add? Why is it not enough just to have Torah, mitzvot, and do without what a Rebbe stands for? So we have to know what a Rebbe is.

Now the truth is the question that I just asked now, even though it seems like a question that's been asked the last 200 years by those people who opposed Chassidut, but the emet is, it's not a question asked 200 years. It's a question that's already asked in Chumash. We learn in Chumash the story of Moshe Rabbeinu with Korach. What was Korach's טענה? If you look in Chumash, Korach said, כי כל העדה כולם קדושים ובתוכם השם, all Yidden are holy, and Hashem is with them, in them. מדוע תתנשאו על קהל השם? He said to Moshe Rabbeinu, to Aharon, why do you make yourself bigger than all other people? And as Rashi says, he said that all the Yidden are holy, he meant to say all the Yidden stood by Har Sinai. We know that every single Yid stood by Har Sinai. We all heard אנכי השם אלוקיך from Hashem directly. We all have the Torah from Hashem, so what do we need you for? Now, he did not mean to say that we don't need a leader. Every simple human being understands that every nation, every group has to have a leader. Without a leader, nothing's going to work. Even l'havdil the goyim understand that you have to have a leader. You have to have teachers, everyone understands you have to have teachers. If you won't have teachers to give over, to teach, then you won't be able to transmit whatever philosophy you have. In our case, it's not philosophy, it's Torah, but you have to have it. And you have to have people, some are greater scholars greater than others, that's obvious. Korach did not fight against that concept. The best proof is Korach himself was a leader. Korach himself was from שבט לוי, and שבט לוי were a step above. There were סתם אידן, then you have Levi and the Kohanim. But שבט לוי were special. Korach, when he טענה'ט that we're all equal, that's what he came to say. He said we're all equal, never said that I want to give up my role as being a Levi. He didn't mean that. So he meant yes, we will stay as Leviim, so we will be special, we are princes, we are special. So what was his טענה against Moshe Rabbeinu? His ta'anah against Moshe Rabbeinu was that we understand we need teachers, we understand we need leaders, but the concept of what Moshe Rabbeinu stands for, that type of leader, which as we will see soon, the concept of what a Rebbe is, that's what he didn't accept. So the question of why we need a Rebbe is not a question that's asked now, it's a question that Korach asked. And obviously Korach was wrong. We know what happened to him, because there is a need of a Rebbe, and I will explain it soon. But it's not only the need of Moshe Rabbeinu in his time, but just like Moshe Rabbeinu in his time played a certain special role, not just as a leader, but a special role in Yiddishkeit, so, too, in every generation. When Moshe Rabbeinu was nistalek, passed away, Yehoshua took over, and he was then the Moshe Rabbeinu. And it says in the Midrash, אין לך דור שאין בו כמשה. There's no generation that doesn't have someone like Moshe. And it says in Tikunei Zohar, התפשטותא דמשה בכל דרא ודרא, there is a hitpashtut, an extension of Moshe Rabbeinu in every generation. And there are two pshatim there, that's true. One pshat is that in every single ייד we have a little bit of Moshe Rabbeinu, but then there's the other pshat that every generation we have a person who's an extension of Moshe Rabbeinu, an התפשטותא דמשה. Because this concept of what Moshe Rabbeinu was is needed in every generation, and that is the meaning of the פסוק, צדיק יסוד עולם, the צדיק which is the foundation of the world, and that is needed always. It says in the Midrash that ראה הקדוש ברוך הוא בצדיקים שהם מועטים, השם saw that there are not too many צדיקים, עמד ושתלן בכל דור ודור, He planted the צדיקים in every generation, a little bit, or one in a generation. They're all different levels, but there's always one צדיק יסוד עולם. What is this inyan behind it? Why do we need it and what is this inyan of having Moshe Rabbeinu, besides being Moshe Rabbeinu as a teacher and a leader? And Moshe Rabbeinu in his time who brought the Torah to us, but that was his time. Later on, the Torah was given and that's it, but Yehoshua continued what Moshe was. So let's understand that. So, we'll just explain it by first in a simple way, from a simple perspective, and then go a little bit deeper, the way Chassidut explains it from a deeper look. We know that the Gemara says that משה רבינו מלך היה, משה רבינו was a king. He had a halachah of a Melech, of a king, of מלך ישראל. Yehoshua, it says, was a Melech. Actually, in the pasuk when it says, ויהי בישורון מלך, so there are two pshatim: one pshat is it goes on Hashem, and one pshat it goes on Moshe Rabbeinu. So the pasuk refers to Moshe Rabbeinu as a king, even though he didn't wear a crown, he didn't have a throne, but he was a Melech. It says מלך היה, the Gemara says in זבחים, מלך היה.

Let's look a little bit at the concept of a Melech. You know there is a mitzvah to have a king, one of the תרי״ג mitzvot: שום תשים עליך מלך, you shall appoint a king upon you. And the Chachamim tell us, what does it mean you shall put a king on you? שום תשים עליך מלך, put a king on you. A king, what do we put a king on our head? What do you mean put a king upon you? And that's the expression that it says: you shall appoint a king on you. So the Gemara says what it means is שתהא אימתו עליך. Yes, he shall be on top of you, you shall have the fear of the king over you. You should have yirah, that's part of the mitzvah. We have to have fear for the king. And we have to show the greatest hisbatlut, the greatest self-nullification towards the king, which was the reason why, even according to halachah, you have to bow down when you would see the king. And the question is why would there be such a mitzvah? Why would Hashem want that we should have fear of another human being? Why shouldn't we have fear only from Hashem? That's the normal way, Hashem is the One and that's it. From a human being we should have fear? We should bow down to a human being? Obviously not as a god, chas v'shalom, but even as a king, why should there be such, and it's a mitzvah! And the king has rights that Hashem gave him. It says in halachah that a king has a right to kill somebody if he's a מורד במלכות, if he revolts against the king. Why? What is this mitzvah of a king? To understand that, let's go to another question. We know that later generations, in the time of Shmuel HaNavi, the Jews came to him and said, we'd like to have a king. And Shmuel was upset. And he came to Hashem and he said, Hashem, the Jews are asking for a king. And he's upset, why do they need a king for? And Hashem said, you're right, I'm also upset. השם מלככם, השם is your king. What do you need a king for? And He told Shmuel, when they they don't want a king they want a king, you think that it's an insult to you because Shmuel was the navi, it's an insult to you: לא אותך מאסו כי אותי מאסו, it's an insult to Me. It's something against Me, not against you. Now what was wrong with them asking for a king? This is a question all the meforshim ask. The Rambam, in his Sefer Yad Hachazakah, which is not a sefer of commentary, but halacha, and he doesn't ask questions and give answers, he asks this question. And there are different answers given. But one of the main answers that's given is that there are two reasons why a nation, the Jewish nation would need a king. One reason is, like any other nation, we need, like we said before, leaders. It says in Pirkei Avot: אלמלא מוראה של מלכות איש את רעהו חיים בלעו. If you wouldn't have a government and a king, people would swallow each other alive. Pashut, you need to have a king that there should be מורא מלכות, you should be afraid of the king. A king runs a country, so the country is civilized and it runs on a normal way and it's it's it's a country. That's one reason. That's the reason why lehavdil all goyim need leaders and kings. But there's another reason: when Hashem gave the mitzvah of having a king, that's not what He had in mind. He had in mind a spiritual reason why He said that we should have a king. When He said to have a king, He meant to say you should choose, and obviously with Hashem's haskamah or Hashem would give you the choice, a human being who is such a great tzadik, and this human being is so close to Hashem, he is so batel to Hashem, he is completely there is self-nullification there to Hashem, that if you are close to this person, he will bring you close to Hashem, too. That's what it was. That's what Hashem wanted. A king like David Hamelech, we're talking the one that's supposed to be, not like we had some bad kings which because there's free choice, so some, some times people chose the wrong king, but the concept of a king that Hashem wanted was to have a human being who is the greatest tzadik, and he is batel to Hashem completely and it is through him that we could become batel to Hashem, too. There's a halacha in Gemara, we know that when we daven Shemoneh Esrei, the din is like this: we start off ברוך, we bow down our knees; אתה, we bow down our heads; and השם, we straighten out. And there are only a few places in שמונה עשרה that we're supposed to bend. Then the Gemara says when the king would daven Shemoneh Esrei, he would start off by saying ברוך אתה and bend his head, כיון שכרע שוב אינו זוקף, he wasn't allowed to pick up his head till the end of שמונה עשרה. Why? Because putting down his head was a reminder that he is supposed to be different than every other Jew. He is supposed to be so much batel to Hashem that he was supposed to stand that way throughout שמונה עשרה. That was the level of the king. He was the greatest tzadik. That's why when Hashem chose the first official king - we said before Moshe was a king, Yehoshua was a king, but the first official king, Shaul HaMelech - so the Torah, the פסוק describes Shaul HaMelech. So one of the things it says about שאול המלך, משכמו ומעלה גבוה מכל העם. He was so tall that from his shoulder and up, he was taller than everybody. Let's understand: when the פסוק wants to describe the greatness of Shaul HaMelech, so what we're saying is that he was very tall, so who cares if he was very tall? What difference does it make to us if he was taller, he was short? And the answer is, it's trying to say how great Shaul HaMelech was. It says, בן שנה שאול במלכו, שאול was a year old when he became king. A year old when he became king? He had no aveirot like a year old child, that's what it means. And when it says he was משכמו ומעלה, from his shoulder up taller than everybody, what it means is his madrega, his level was so great that what he had, so to speak, in his shoulder was above everyone else's head. The head is the place where you have the greatest, you know, the kochot and all the the intellect and everything else. He, in his shoulder, which is a lower madrega, his shoulder was greater than everyone else's head. That's what kind of great tzadik Shaul HaMelech was. And that's why Hashem chose Shaul he should be the king, because by being the king, he is the person that is so close to Hashem that he is able to make the people who are battel to him close to Hashem. In other words, by us being battel to the king, and not because of the human being of this person, because he's a human being, but because of the kedushah that he is so close to Hashem, he is able to elevate us and bring us close to Hashem, too. Now let's not confuse this. We know a halachah that we're not allowed to have any intermediate between us, intermediary between us and Hashem. We are spoke we are connected to Hashem directly. Not like להבדיל להבדיל להבדיל other religions who claim that you have to have something in between, we're not allowed to. We are close to Hashem. We're not saying, chas v'shalom, that the king like David HaMelech or Moshe Rabbeinu was a person who was in between Yidden and Hashem. Now the difference is, in between is usually a separation. That's forbidden. We're not separated from Hashem, there's no one that is between us and Hashem. We're talking about somebody who doesn't separate between us and Hashem, somebody who connects us to Hashem, somebody who through him we are able to be close to Hashem. That's what Moshe Rabbeinu was. That's why Moshe Rabbeinu said, אנכי עומד ביניכם ובין השם אלקיכם להגיד לכם דבר השם, I stand between you and and the Yidden, between Hashem and you, you and the Yidden and Hashem, to bring you the words of Hashem. So there it means very literally, he came to Hashem and he brought down the Torah. But besides that, it means he is the one that's able to make us closer to Hashem, he's able to teach us And as I'll explain a little later, more than just teach us, and it is through him that we are able to be close. That was the mitzvah. And that's why when the Jews came to Shmuel HaNavi, and they said we'd like to have a king ככל הגוים אשר סביבותי, like all the nations around us, Shmuel and Hashem were very upset. For that you need a king? Like all the nations around you? Hashem said I would expect you Jews to be better than that, that you don't even need a king to be civilized. For that you should be on your own. What you need is a king that I wanted is that you're connected to Hashem. And you had Shmuel HaNavi, and he was similar to what a king is. And like we said before, earlier you had Moshe Rabbeinu. So basically, the concept of Moshe Rabbeinu is not just teaching, but he is the one that connects us to Hashem. And that's why it says in the Zohar that Moshe Rabbeinu is called רעיא מהימנא. רעיא מהימנא the literal translation is the faithful shepherd. But then there's another meaning: the shepherd of faith. A shepherd feeds his flock. Moshe Rabbeinu was called the shepherd of faith. He fed the Yidden emunah, faith. He brought the emunah into the Yidden that they should have the proper emunah in Hashem. And why do we use the term he fed them, eating? And just in short, because the difference between food and other things like clothes, clothes is something that's on the outside of the person. Food goes inside and becomes part of the person. You are what you eat. It becomes, like the Rambam says, דם ובשר כבשרו, blood and flesh of the person himself. While clothes is superficial. Now, clothes has an influence on the person, has an effect on the person, and you could change through clothes, but it's still not part of you. You could put it on, you could take it off, it's a superficial thing. But food that you eat, that is you. And the same thing with emunah. Emunah, it is possible to have it in a superficial way, which we call אמונה בבחינת מקיף, superficial. You believe! And I'll repeat again, I mentioned it last night and I always mention this because this is a very fundamental philosophy in Chassidus, that you could have a גנב going to steal, and at the same time he's asking Hashem to help him. If he's asking Hashem, he believes in Hashem, so why is he stealing? And if he's stealing, how does he daven to Hashem? The answer is he believes in Hashem, but it's only superficial, not enough, it didn't penetrate into his true being, it didn't become one with him. It's not real to him, that's really what, it's not real. So he believes, but then to make him stop doing something he shouldn't, that doesn't happen. If he'll see a policeman come, he'll stop, because that's real! But this is not real. So it's not united, not one with him. What we have to have is have the emunah real. The emunah should be not like a garment that we wear on the outside, the emunah should be like food that we eat inside. And that's the pshat, he feeds emunah to the Yidden. There's a pasuk actually that says ורעה אמונה, means you should graze on emunah. And the question, what do you mean graze on emunah, how do you eat emunah? Yes, it doesn't mean to eat emunah, but the emunah should be really real in your mind. And this was what Moshe Rabbeinu did. Moshe Rabbeinu was the one that brought Yidden closer to Hashem, in a way that he made them have the proper emunah that it means that they really, really understood the truth of Hashem, and Hashem is the true and only being, the true real being, that they should really mean it, not just say it. It's very easy to say. It's very easy even, not so easy, but you could behave accordingly, but deep down, not necessarily does it mean that it's true. So you've gotta put it into your mind, and that was Moshe Rabbeinu. And this is what the function of a king at that time was, and what we call the function of a Rebbe. But this is just a little bit, there is much more to it.

When we say that the concept of a Rebbe is to connect us to Hashem, I'll explain it more, also from the Gemara. The Gemara says, based on the פסוק ובו תדבקון, the pasuk says, you shall cleave, connect to Hashem. And the Gemara asks, וכי אפשר לדבק בשכינה? Can we connect to the Shechinah? The Gemara uses the question, says השם אלקיך אש אוכלה הוא, השם is fire, can you cleave to fire? But what it really means is, fire is just an expression of something that's more spiritual. We can't touch it, we can't... Can we connect to Hashem? What, can we say Shalom aleichem to Hashem and hold His hand? What do we do to, how do we say ובו תדבקון? And the Gemara answers, הדבק בתלמידי חכמים, cleave, connect yourself to תלמידי חכמים, to tzadikim, and then you will be connected to the Shechinah. Now the simple peshat means, yes, be close to תלמידי חכמים, listen to what they say, help them. The Gemara actually says, stay around them, do business with a תלמיד חכם, give him, support a תלמיד חכם, that's fine. But there's a much deeper peshat than that. And that is in the beginning of Tanya, actually we just started learning Tanya over again because Kislev we started, in a day or two we'll get to the פרק שני, the second perek, and there the Alter Rebbe explains exactly what this means. What does that mean by connecting to the a תלמיד חכם you connect yourself to Hashem? And this is what he says. And he gives a mashal, he gives a parable of a child, a child that's born, and the child is connected to the brain of the father. But which part of the child really feels connected? The child is a complete body: he has brain, he has a heart, and he has hands, and he has feet. Now, the head, the brain is the part that feels connected because he understands his father, he understands what he is, and why's his father, and how's his father, and he's actually his mind, in many case most cases, the brain of a person's goes along the same way as the father's brain, so there is a connection that's felt. What about the other parts of the body? The way the other parts of the body are connected to the father is by them being connected to their own brain. Being that all parts of the body are connected to the brain, and the brain is connected to the father, so that's how the other parts of the body are connected to the father. So how are they connected? It is through the brain. The brain is outright connected to the father, the father's brain, understands, and it's close. And the other parts of the body, because they're part of the same body and they're connected to the brain, they are connected to the father. כלל ישראל as a whole is like one big body. And just like in a body you have different parts, you have the brain and you have the heart and the eyes, you even have the feet, and then as it says, you even have the toenails, which is the lowest level, which means there are some neshamot, some Yidden who are in the level of brains, some Yidden are on the level of the eyes of כלל ישראל, some are the heart, some are the hands. Some neshamot are very low level. Some are all the way down to the tzipornayim, to the toenails. So how are all these parts connected to the father? It is by being connected to the brain. That means that you have the tzaddikim, and tzaddikim, they are considered the brain of כלל ישראל, and then the other Yidden who are the other parts of the body of this כלל ישראל, they connect themselves to their brain, and through this brain they're connected to Hashem. Now when we say that, we're not saying chas veshalom that the other Yidden are connected to Hashem through an intermediary of something else. It's their own body! It's part of themselves. Actually, this is written in a teshuvah in the Chatam Sofer, it's not from Chassidut even. The Chatam Sofer writes, someone asked him a question on a Gemara. The Gemara says that if you have a מי שיש לו חולה בתוך ביתו, if you have a person who is sick at home, ילך אצל חכם ויבקש עליו רחמים, go to a tzaddik, to a talmid chacham and he'll daven for him. So he asks him, how can you go to a talmid chacham or to a tzaddik to ask him to daven for you? We know that din is that you have to daven to Hashem yourself. You're not allowed to ask others to daven. You're not allowed to, it's a halachah, you're not allowed to pray to a malach, to an angel, say angel, Malach Michael, go to Hashem and daven for me. We could ask him, take my tefillah and bring it up to Hashem, that yeah. And by the way, when you do that, clean it up a little bit to make it look nicer, we do that, says the malachim do that. But to say, you go, we're not allowed to. So how So someone asks the Chatam Sofer, how are we allowed to ask a tzaddik, go to the daven to Hashem for me? A zechut is something else, but here we're tal- not about zechut, we're talking about asking the tzadik to pray for you. How can we do that? And you know what he answers? When you ask a tzadik to pray for you, it's not asking somebody else. All כלל ישראל is one big body! Imagine if your foot hurts, and your mouth is going to pray. You'll say, well, my foot has to pray himself, the foot has to daven to Hashem, is going to ask the brain to daven to Hashem? Say, well, it's the same body, it's all one. Not only that, where do you feel the pain? You feel the pain in the brain. כלל ישראל is one big body, that's what the Chatam Sofer says, and we ask the tzadik to daven because he is our brain, and not only that he is not a different entity that's davening for us, he feels the pain that we have even more than we feel it ourselves. selves. And therefore, when he is davening, he's davening for himself, and we are not asking him, he's davening himself. Actually, the Chafetz Chaim mentions something about this concerning a different Gemara, where the Gemara says in Ta'anit that if there is no rain, it says ילך אצל חסיד שבדור. Gemara uses the term chasid, which by the way in Gemara is even a stronger, greater term than the term tzadik. So it says, go to the chasid of the generation, let him daven for rain. How can you do that? Because this is all one big body. And this is the depth of what the Gemara means when it says, in order to connect yourself to Hashem, you have to connect yourself to a tzadik. When you have the tzadik, the tzadik who is close to Hashem, and he is the brain, and you are being close to that brain, automatically you, being part of that brain, are close to Hashem. Not with somebody that מפסיק, that interrupts, separates, but on the contrary, this makes all of us close to Hashem. And this is the function of the, of the tzadik. That's his, basically his job, that's the role of what a tzadik plays, that's what a Rebbe is. Not just a teacher, but he is the one that through him we are connected to Hashem, we are connected to Hashem, but he's the one that makes it happen, whether, as we said before, because he is batel to Hashem and makes us batel. This type of tzadik is a person that, we said before, he, being such a great tzadik, he is the brains of כלל ישראל. He also is what Chassidut calls a נשמה כללית. נשמה כללית means the general neshama, a neshama that includes all other neshamot, and all other neshamot are branches of this neshama. Because we do find such a thing, and we all know that, that there are neshamot, general ones, and then there are branches. Like for instance, it says that in every generation there are 600,000 neshamot. True, it says, it says in different places: Kabbalah, in זוהר, ששים רבוא נשמות, 600,000 neshamot. That's not true! Ein ayin hara, we have 13 million Jews, not 600,000 Jews. We had 18 million Jews, and we have there were times that there were many millions of Jews, so what do you mean there is always ששים רבוא, only 600,000 Jews? The answer is, there are 600,000 neshamot, and the rest are branches. So certain people, we don't know exactly who they are, but certain people are general neshamot and others are branches. Just similar to when we say that a husband and a wife are really two parts of the same neshama. There's one neshama that came down, split, came down to two separate bodies, and now they're two strangers completely. Now Hashem makes them meet again and get married, and then they become united again. But we see here the concept of branches of neshama. So just like we say there are branches of 600,000, these 600,000 themselves are also branches of more general and more general, till finally there is one neshama that is the general neshama that all other neshamot are branches of that one neshama. That's called a נשמה כללית. And it is important for all other neshamot to get connected to that one neshama because that brings out what they have as a neshama much stronger, which is what we said before, makes their connection to Hashem more, because they connect themselves to the shoresh, the root, of their neshama, which is like the brain, we said before. And it's theirs! It's not that when they connect with the, through the tzadik to Hashem, it's through the tzadik. They are part of the tzadik, and therefore they're connected directly to Hashem. And I'll explain this a little bit more in detail in a few moments.

We know it says in the Zohar: ישראל ואורייתא וקודשא בריך הוא כולא חד, that Yidden and the Torah and Hashem are all one, all one. And therefore, whatever we find concerning Hashem, we find concerning the Torah, we find concerning Yisrael. Now we know Hashem is one. Only one, there's השם אחד, השם is one. If Hashem is one, everything else that we have in the world comes from Hashem. It's a manifestation of Hashem's being, where he puts himself in making everything exist, that is all אין עוד מלבדו, there's nothing but Hashem, all this comes from Hashem, but he, so to speak, made himself come out that it should be in a form of ריבוי, which is not, chas veshalom, gods, but it's all from him. But really there's only one Hashem, that's nothing else. In Torah we have the same. We say תורה אחת, there is one Torah. So people think one Torah means that there is only one Torah, not two תורות. True, but what it means is, not only that there is only one Torah, the whole Torah is only one point. All words of Torah are branches of one word. All mitzvot of the Torah are branches of one, one mitzvah. And that is אנכי השם אלוקיך, I am Hashem your God, that is the one It says, Tanya, different places that, you know, we have 613 mitzvot, 365 negative mitzvot, 248 positive mitzvot. So it says, all 365 negative mitzvot come from one מצוה, לא יהיה לך אלוקים אחרים, do not have any other gods. And that's the source of all negative mitzvot. All positive mitzvot come from אנכי השם אלוקיך, the positive one. But it says between the two, אנכי השם אלוקיך is the first because even the negative mitzvot, after all, come from this one mitzvah, אנכי השם אלוקיך. Now this one mitzvah, אנכי השם אלוקיך, is one of the 613 mitzvot. It is one of the individual mitzvot, but it's one mitzvah which contains all other mitzvot. And when we do all other mitzvot, we constantly have to connect every mitzvah to אנכי השם אלוקיך. When we put on tefillin, we put on tefillin because Hashem is the God and he wants me to put on tefillin. We don't wear shatnez because אנכי השם אלוקיך and he said not to wear shatnez. So it's not enough just to do the mitzvah of not wearing shatnez and keeping Shabbos. We have to constantly remember that we're keeping Shabbos not because it's the seventh day we have to keep Shabbos, because it's from Hashem. In other words, we have to connect every individual mitzvah to that one mitzvah, which is the general mitzvah. And the same is with Torah. We learn all kinds of things in Torah, we learn Gemara, we learn all kinds of things, and we constantly have to remember how we that all is connected to אנכי השם אלוקיך, to this one word of Torah, \"I am Hashem your God\", the first mitzvah. If a person learns Torah and, chas v'shalom, forgets אנכי השם אלוקיך, pretty bad. And it could be there were people who were not even religious, lehavdil, even goyim, who study Torah, study Chumash, Tanach, even Gemara, but their Torah was not the real Torah. They might have learned the same book, so to speak, but that's not Torah because they didn't connect it to אנכי השם אלוקיך. When we learn Torah, we know that. That's why it says in the Midrash that if someone will tell you תורה יש בגוים, that goyim have Torah, don't believe him. If they'll tell you they have chochmah, wisdom, believe him. What do you mean they don't have Torah? Like I said, some goyim learn Torah. The Torah they learn is not Torah, they learn the chochmah they learn. When they learn a פסוק חומש, they're learning chochmah, wisdom, but they're not learning Torah. What's Torah? If it's connected to אנכי השם אלוקיך. So we have that in Torah and in mitzvot, that whatever, even though we have many details, there is one mitzvah, one dibbur of Hashem, which is the כללותדיקע דיבור, and everyone comes from it. And every mitzvah is holy and every mitzvah is important, it is not, but that all these mitzvot are connected, and we have to keep in mind, have to connect it to אנכי השם אלוקיך. The same is in neshamot. We are all neshamot, and every one of us has the great neshama, but there is a נשמה כללית, and this one neshama is the one that we're all branches of. There's one neshama, and that one neshama we're all branches, like mitzvot from אנכי השם אלוקיך, which is one mitzvah. And just like by mitzvot we constantly have to have in mind that these mitzvot, these individual mitzvot, are connected, we connect it to the first one, we have to connect the neshamot to the נשמה כללית. And this is the concept by Chassidim of hiskashrut, connect to the tzaddik, because if you connect to the נשמה כללית, which is the one that is the one neshama which we are all branches of and we're therefore we're just as holy, you can't say one is holier than the other, I'll tell you why: because every one neshama that comes off this one main neshama has everything a neshama needs. I think the example, I'm thinking of this in an example: a cell. From one cell, you could create a whole human being. You could create from one cell, you could clone, in theory—they haven't done it yet, but they will—a whole human being, and you take one cell. Why? Because every cell contains everything else that the whole body has. So every neshama is like a cell which contains everything else, and it all is part of this one big neshama. But we have to connect ourselves to that one big neshama because like we have to connect all parts of the Torah to that one, this is the idea of what a Rebbe is, the נשמה כללית. That's why צדיק יסוד עולם is the yesod, is the foundation, and he's the one that makes us closer with the like the mashal that Alter Rebbe gives with the child that's connected to the father, the parts of the other parts connected through the brain. Now based on that, it says other things in Chassidut concerning this, a tzaddik like Moshe Rabbeinu, that all השפעות, all the things Hashem gives to the world, has to go through that tzaddik.

Baal Shem Tov explains a Gemara. The Gemara says, כל העולם כולו ניזון בשביל חנינא בני, וחנינא בני די לו בקב חרובין מערב שבת לערב שבת. What it means is like this: there was a great tzadik, Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. He was probably in his time the greatest tzadik. Gemara says the whole whole world is fed, which means is supported, בשביל, which means because of my son Chanina. The whole world is existing in the zechut of my son Chanina, that's what Hashem says. And my son Chanina himself, for him, he is satisfied with one little basket of carob a whole week to eat. All the food and everything in the world comes because of him. That's what the Gemara says. Comes the Baal Shem Tov and says that the word בשביל, בשביל means because, but the word שביל also means a road. In Hebrew, שביל is a road. The whole world is fed in the road, it goes through the road of Rab Chanina ben Dosa, because the צדיק הדור, it goes through him. Why? Because we know that everything that happens in the world is because of the Yidden. That's for sure. בראשית בשביל התורה, בשביל ישראל, the world is created and exists because of the Yidden. Since the Yidden are all branches of Moshe Rabbeinu, of, in that case, Rab Chanina ben Dosa, so it's all because of Rab Chanina, not only because, it goes through the צינור, we call the pipe of Rab Chanina ben Dosa or Moshe Rabbeinu. That's what Chassidus says a peshat in the פסוק when the Yidden complained, \"We want meat.\" And Moshe Rabbeinu said, \"מאין לי בשר? Where do I have meat from?\" And Rashi asks, \"How could Moshe say that? Moshe didn't believe that Hashem could give meat? Hashem could do anything. So Hashem wasn't capable of giving, supplying the Jews in the desert with meat that Moshe wondered?\" Moshe said to Hashem, \"All the Whatever you'll give them won't be enough. Where do I get meat from?\" So Chassidus says the peshat is he didn't question Hashem's ability. Moshe Rabbeinu knew that since the hashpaah of giving meat had to come through him, he said, \"I can't lower myself to the level of supplying meat to the Jews who want a taavah, who want this desire of meat.\" That's the meaning of מאין לי בשר, because Moshe Rabbeinu being the biggest anav, but at the same time, he was humble, but he knew the truth. Being humble doesn't mean that you're stupid. Some people think, well, if you're humble, it means that you think, \"I'm stupid,\" you think, \"I'm\" Doesn't mean that I'm a liar. A person humble doesn't say, well, I'm A person knows Shas. Humble means I don't boast about it, I don't take credit for it, because I feel that Hashem gave me that present, and I have a good head. But someone will say no, that's what he shouldn't boast. They once asked the Alter Rebbe, when he came to visit a certain גדול בישראל, they asked him, \"You know how to learn?\" He says, \"You know Shas?\" So he said, \"I know half.\" So he asked him, \"Which half?\" He said, \"Whichever one you want.\" He didn't want to boast that he knows Shas, but he couldn't lie. A person that's humble doesn't mean he doesn't know who he is. Moshe Rabbeinu was the most humble person from all human beings that ever will existed and will exist. Moshe Rabbeinu didn't know that he received the Torah? Moshe didn't know he was the leader of the Yidden? He knew! He was humble. That means he didn't take credit for it, he didn't become a baal gaavah because of it, but he knew his position. So Moshe Rabbeinu knew that it has to go through him, and therefore he said, \"I can't do it. I can't lower myself.\" So Hashem said, \"You know what? Get together 70 זקנים, and you'll lower to them, and through them it'll go.\" But that's what it means, cuz Moshe Rabbeinu knew his position. Moshe Rabbeinu said, \"שש מאות אלף רגלי העם אשר אנכי בקרבו.\" He said, \"There's 600,000 feet of people which I am amongst.\" Now, it's an expression when you when you talk about when you count soldiers, you call, what are they called, footmen? Foot soldiers, feet. What does it mean here? So it says Moshe knew that he's the head and other Yidden are like the feet. He knew his position. So Moshe said, \"מאין לי בשר?\" because this is what Moshe Rabbeinu is. So Moshe Rabbeinu in his time, then Yehoshua in his time, David Hamelech in his time, and every generation there has to be a tzadik yesod olam, somebody who through this this is the person that connects the Yidden to Hashem, connects them to Hashem, not chas v'shalom separates, brings them closer to Hashem, and makes them be mekushar to Hashem, and that's the concept of being mekushar to a tzadik. The question that one might ask is what's after ג׳ תמוז? Well, the truth is this concept could also continue after the tzadik physically does not exist in this world. He was in this world and brought about all the things that a tzadik like him is supposed to bring, and afterwards it still continues. It says in Tanya, brought from the Zohar, that a צדיק ישתכח בכולא עלמא, he's here even more than before. There's a Yerushalmi, it says in Yerushalmi that Shimshon HaGibor, who was in his time the leader, the שופט, the judge, says he judged the Yidden for 40 years. And the Yerushalmi asks, \"It's not true, he only was a judge for 20 years.\" And the Yerushalmi answers, \"Because after he passed away, they continued Following in his footsteps, and there it says that the Plishtim were afraid of the Yidden because of him and they followed him, he was still considered a judge. Actually it calls him the judge. The fact that we don't see him doesn't change the fact that he could still be, as we would call it, just to use a term, running the show, even though we don't see him. Let's imagine when the Frierdiker Rebbe left Russia, and left Chassidim in Russia. At that time, most of them had not didn't expect at all ever to see the Rebbe again. They didn't expect they hardly even weren't even able to write letters. So as far as they were concerned, the Rebbe is, you know, being across the sea in the United States is like like to us now, the Rebbe someplace in the highest worlds. But he was still here, and they knew the השפעה that they get is connected to the Rebbe. The same thing with us now. The main thing is that since we know that we're so close to Mashiach, so this is only a temporary thing. See, for a long-term thing, it's like a very hard to understand how this works, but if it's only a temporary thing and a short while, and the Rebbe said Mashiach is coming soon, so he said it 10-12 years ago, but, you know, sometimes we think of 10-12 years as a long, long time, but sometimes, you know, just time flies and 10-12 it just it's just 10-12 years, and so to in another short while, and it's considered when he said that Mashiach is coming soon, this is called soon, especially if you make a cheshbon. From when Moshe Rabbeinu came to the Yidden in Mitzrayim to tell them you're going out till they actually went out took about a year. They were 210 years in Mitzrayim, so a year is called you're going out soon. We're in galut for close to 2,000 years, so how long is soon if you compare it? So it's another short while. So if it's a temporary thing, so then we could imagine, we could understand that even though it's like, you know, temporary went on vacation or went someplace that we don't have see with our own eyes, and it's not easy, believe it, surely not easy, but the same way as it wasn't easy for the Chassidim then, when the Rebbe went to left Russia and they were left alone and they still knew that this is the צדיק הדור, so the same thing we have now. But the idea is the same that all the השפעות and everything has to go through because he is the one that the צדיק יסוד עולם that connects us. And this is why it says that a Rebbe, which I said before is an abbreviation, ראש בני ישראל, has another word, נשיא. The abbreviation of the word נשיא is ניצוץ של יעקב אבינו, a spark of Yaakov Avinu. Why Yaakov Avinu? Because Yaakov Avinu, it says, was a נשמה כללית, he was a נשמה that contained all the נשמות. That only Yaakov. Yitzchak not, because he had a son Esav, Avraham not, because Avraham had a son Yishmael, but Yaakov was נשמה כללית, contained all the נשמות. Just like Adam HaRishon it says, Adam HaRishon was the one neshama that contained all the neshamot from all generations. So it says in the Gemara on יעקב, שופריה דיעקב מעין שופריה דאדם הראשון, the beauty of Yaakov was like the beauty of Adam HaRishon, but what it means deeper that he was the same idea as Adam HaRishon, he contained all the neshamot. A נשיא, a Rebbe is also a נשמה כללית that contains all the neshamot, and therefore, since he is the one that contains, our connection to him makes us stronger and in רוחניות it connects us to Hashem. And this is all besides the fact that the concept and the role of a Rebbe is to teach and to teach and to give Torah, and the more he teaches, the more you learn, we get more knowledge of Hashem and connect to Hashem, more knowledge of Torah, as we see by the Rebbe. And this is also after ג' Tamuz with all the ספרים and everything that we learn, there is for hundreds of years enough to continue everything. It won't be hundreds of years, it's just going to be a few years, a short while, or a day or two, and we hope it'll be soon, but there's so much that the connection is still there, and it's up to us now to be to connect. From his side, he definitely gives everything that he's supposed to, and we, from our side, should be the proper כלים, and if we're the proper כלים, we'll be zoche that Mashiach will come soon and then we'll be reunited with the Rebbe again and we'll see him through our flesh eyes, eyes of flesh, במהרה בימינו ממש. The connection. Huh? Like I said by mitzvot. All mitzvot are are are are detail are branches of the one mitzvah, but we, when we do the mitzvah, have to keep in mind, you know, that this is connected to אנכי ה' אלקיך. So too we are connected anyway. It's true, you're 100% right. It says that every Jew is connected to the tzaddik of the generation, even those that fight the tzaddik. It says in that same perek of Tanya, הפושעים ומורדים בתלמידי חכמים, those that fight the tzaddik are also connected, because it can't be different. The only difference is if you feel the connection, you're connected like face-to-face. If you don't feel the connection, it says, like a person who wants to give Has to, for some reason, give a present to his enemy. So he has to give it. What does he do? Walks over, says, \"Hey, take it!\" Throws it behind his back. So you're connected and you're giving, but you're giving it in a backward way. So the connection that they have is in a backward way, but it has to be. Yeah, everyone's connected. They just don't feel it. Just like every mitzvah is connected to this one mitzvah, and if you don't have in the mind, you don't feel it. Okay. Just to repeat for those people who are