Likkutei Sichos: Volume 25 - Vayeshev
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 25: Parshas Vayeshev (Part 1)
Opens with how the Rebbe titled and cross-referenced this sicha, and how carefully the Rebbe chose his words even when describing Yaakov's blindness. Turns to Yosef's two stages of bondage in Mitzrayim and a precise difference in how the Torah describes his success in each — one with the words 'in his hand,' one without — which the Tzemach Tzedek reads as two different levels of hatzlacha, a natural-seeming mazal versus a fully supernatural gift, with stories of the Rebbe overriding what was written in the stars along the way.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 25: Parshas Vayeshev II - Ish Matzliach (Part 1)
Notices that Rashi explains "Hashem was with him" as meaning Yosef constantly invoked Hashem's name only on the middle of three near-identical pesukim, never the first, never the third, and asks why. Traces the deeper problem: Potiphar was an idol-worshipping Egyptian officer who, like Pharaoh, had no concept of the name Havaya, only of Elokim, the aspect of Hashem bound up in nature. Resolves it by showing that only in that one pasuk does the Torah tell us Potiphar himself perceived it, and he could only have connected an unnatural success to Hashem because Yosef never stopped saying so out loud, exactly as Rashi says elsewhere about Yaakov's answer to Yitzchak versus Eisav's silence on the same point.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 25: Parshas Vayeshev (Part 2)
Working through the Rebbe's analysis of Yosef's two forms of Divine success, this shiur traces how greater bitul makes a person more of a keli for hatzlacha elokis. A close look at the Avnei Nezer's resolution of the eved's kinyan-circularity (gito v'yado ba'in k'echad) explains why an eved, unlike a prisoner, still retains a "yad" and credit for his actions, setting up why Yosef's success in jail was a purer, less natural hatzlacha than what he had as Potiphar's servant.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 25: Parshas Vayeshev II - Ish Matzliach (Part 2)
Examines the Gra's willingness to interpret the Zohar independently of the Arizal's system, and the two ways his disciples explained this: either that the printed texts of the Ari were corrupted in transmission, or that the Gra genuinely claimed the right to read the Zohar on his own terms. Traces how this became a flashpoint in the fight against Chassidus, and how Rav Chaim Volozhin's introduction to the Hagahot on Sifra DeTzniuta reframed every apparent disagreement as a correction of Reb Chaim Vital's errors rather than a real dispute with the Ari, a move some scholars consider closer to apologetics than history. Closes with two unrelated topics: a Gemara sugya on whether Rabbi Meir holds that money alone acquires an animal purchased from a butcher, and the meaning behind leaning on a korban with all one's strength.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 25: Parshas Vayeshev (Part 3)
Continuing the previous shiur's theme, this class unpacks two ways to understand why the Torah exempts someone who acts under duress: did he do the act but get a pass, or does forced action not count as his own at all? That analysis becomes the key to understanding why a prisoner has even less metziut than a slave, and why Yosef's complete bitul in prison brought a hatzlacha entirely beyond nature, a level so high that relying on the sar hamashkim rather than on Hashem alone cost him two extra years.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 25: Parshas Vayeshev II - Ish Matzliach (Part 3)
Opens with why Rav Nosson Adler went to such lengths to keep the young Chasam Sofer from even looking at anything tamei, then turns to the dor hamabul: the Kli Yakar's read on why the pasuk skips straight from "seeing" to "taking" for the "bnei elokim," and why the final gezar din came specifically for gezel rather than arayos or avodah zarah. Covers the Ramban's "naval birshut haTorah" — someone who keeps every halachah while indulging every permitted pleasure — and what it actually means to be kadosh. Closes with the Rebbe Maharash's woodchopper story and the Alter Rebbe's rebuke to a wealthy chassid about his failing brother, both making the same point: reward follows effort, not outcome.
Likkutei Sichos, Vol. 25: Parshas Vayeshev II - Ish Matzliach (Part 5)
Opens with the Gittin sugya on a get given "al tnai": can the husband be boel his wife while the thirty-day condition is still unresolved, given that either outcome would make it forbidden? Moves through the four categories of korban oleh v'yored (metzora, yoledes, and two kinds of shevuah) and a Tosafos on why an animal's limbs, but not its nesachim, can still go up on the mizbe'ach the next day. Closes with why the Torah still requires a poor metzora to bring one sheep rather than letting him substitute entirely with birds, tying it to the tzarus ayin that the sefarim say caused his tzara'as in the first place.