Kuntres Acharon - Essay Eight

[Word had evidently reached the Alter Rebbe that the chassidim of a certain synagogue did not permit a worshiper who would pray at length to lead the services, because some individual there was pressed for time.

In this letter of admonition, the Alter Rebbe writes that it is better for this person to even forgo participation in the congregational responses of Barchu and Kedushah (if it is absolutely impossible for him to remain longer), than to keep his fellow-congregants from praying at length.

For deliberate prayer involves life itself, and, indeed, prolongs one's life; by cutting short the prayers of others, this busy individual tampers with their very lives.

The Alter Rebbe also explains that meditation during prayer with the goal of revealing the love of G-d that is concealed within the heart of every Jew, constitutes an obligation explicit in the Torah - "And you shall love the L-rd your G-d...."]

I have heard with foreboding and am deeply grieved, [writes the Alter Rebbe], that G-d's People are preventing [1] one who yearns for the life and longevity of all our brethren, from leading the services in this small sanctuary [2] - [the synagogue] - of our [chassidic] brotherhood.

[The person who leads the service at a measured pace and thus enables his fellow-congregants to pray at length, provides them all with life and longevity.]

As our Sages of blessed memory teach, [3] "Three things prolong the days of man," and one of these is prolonged worship.

Even one extremely pressed for time, who finds it utterly impossible to wait until the congregational response called Kedushah in the repetition of the She-moneh Esreh by this person who leads the prayers [slowly], far better is it for him to forgo hearing Kedushah and Barchu than to tamper with the lives of those who desire life, and hence desire to pray at length.

The Torah does, [after all], exonerate the compelled. [4]

[Moreover]:

The Reader [in the Hebrew text the Alter Rebbe uses the tern Shliach Tzibur - the Public Messenger] discharges his obligation for him [5] of hearing Kedushah and Barchu even though he did not hear them recited, [6] just as though he had heard, and this - [hearing from the Reader, even without reciting] - is counted precisely like responding. [7]

[Unlike other instances of duress where the Torah indeed exonerates the individual concerned but does not consider him to have performed the omitted act, in this instance he is considered to have done so, for the Reader discharges his obligation for him.]

The Gemara [8] notes this in reference to "the people in the fields" who are considered to be under duress, and fulfill their obligation of reciting the Shemoneh Esreh prayer itself, [and not only of participating in the responses of Barchu and Kedushah], with the Reader's repetition, as if they had actually heard it from him.

Kedushah and Barchu are also included [among those obligations which are fulfilled through the Reader's prayer.

This being the case, a person under duress should obviously not inconvenience others who seek to prolong their prayers].

This we have searched out and verified, [9] even regarding the early generations of the Sages of the Mishnah and Gemara, whose Torah study, not prayer, was constant and their primary service.

[Even with them, prolonged prayer was related to life and longevity.]

It is even more emphatically true at this time, in the period just preceding the advent of Mashiach, when our Torah study is not constant because of the difficulty of our times.

The primary service in the period just preceding the coming of Mashiach is prayer, as Rabbi Chayim Vital (of blessed memory) writes in Etz Chayim and Pri Etz Chayim. [10]

Surely then, it is fitting and proper to devote ourselves utterly to it.

This - [prolonged prayer buttressed by the disciplined contemplation of G-d's greatness] - is an actual Torah-mandated imperative to those who understand the efficacy of at least a little profoundly-considered meditation, each according to his measure, in the ordered enumeration of the praises of G-d, blessed be He, [11] in Pesukei DeZimrah and in the two blessings preceding Shema, [viz.], Yotzer [Yotzer Or] and Ahavah [Ahavat Olam],in order to arouse through [these blessings] the love latent in the heart of every Jew, so that it attain a state of revelation in the openness of the heart during Keriat Shema itself, [which follows these two blessings].

[In some individuals, as discussed in chapter 41 of Tanya, a feeling of love or awe of G-d will be aroused by a brief effort of meditation, and in others, only by a deeper and longer stretch of meditation.]

This is the meaning of the commandment of love that appears in the verse, [12] "And you shall love [the L-rd your G-d] with all your heart...," that is reckoned first [13] among the 613 mitzvot.

Thus the Rambam, of blessed memory, writes [14] that this is a fundament of the Torah and its root, and the source of all 248 positive commands.

[Concerning these commandments the Alter Rebbe states in chapter 4 of Tanya, "For he who fulfills them in truth, is he who loves G-d's Name."

This commandment - "And you shall love" - is the obligation imposed by the Torah to meditate during prayer in order to arouse and reveal one's latent love.

As to the emotion of love itself, a commandment is obviously impossible and irrelevant: if one has it, he has it, and if not, no command is going to produce it.

Thus, in reply to the question, How is it possible to mandate love?, the Maggid of Mezritch points out [15] that the subject of the command is not the love but the meditation that will assuredly lead one to experiencing it.

When one considers ("Hear, O Israel") [16] how "the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is one," one will surely come to love Him.

The key verb (Ve'ahavta) is thus not not be understood as a command ("You shall love"), but as an assurance ("You will love").]

For regarding the love latent in the heart of all Israel by birth and nature, there can be no command at all, [for it already exists.

Rather, the command is that this latent love be revealed; moreover, that it be felt not only by the G-dly soul, but by the animating soul as well, which previously did not harbor it at all.]

This is apparent to the understanding, that while the love is concealed it is still lodged within the divine soul alone.

Only when it attains to a state of revelation in the animating soul is it revealed in the heart in the left chamber, the abode of the animating soul. [17]

[Since this soul animates the entire body, the person as a whole will be permeated with this love.]

This is the meaning of the "elevation of the sparks" mentioned there in Etz Chayim and Pri Etz Chayim [10] in reference to prayer: [through prayer one elevates the sparks of holiness that fell from Tohu].

And for this reason prayer is the primary service in the period just preceding the coming of Mashiach - in order to seek out and elevate the sparks, and so on.

This may take place either through the transformation [18] or the subjugation of the animal soul to the divine soul, as is known.

"For the blood is the soul..." [19] and hence the life-force of man, and the blood is renewed daily through food and drink, and [the man] is affected and improved by his garments and his shelter, and so on.

[By directing his eating and drinking to the holy goals of the divine soul, one refines and elevates the sparks found within the food and drink. The refinement of the sparks latent in all these physical things is effected by revealing one's innate love of G-d during prayer. In our days prolonged prayer and meditation are thus a necessity.]

It was different, however, in earlier generations, when the divine souls were of a higher order, and the refinement and elevation of the sparks were instantaneous by means of Keriat Shema alone [20] and the blessings preceding it, and the abridged Pesukei DeZimrah, and so on. [21]

[These prayers alone then sufficed to reveal the Jew's love of G-d, and brought about the resulting beirurim of the sparks.]

This will suffice for the discerning.

   

Notes:

1. (Back to text) Cf. I Shmuel 2:24.

2. (Back to text) Cf. Megillah 29a, commenting on Yechezkel 11:16.

3. (Back to text) Berachot 32b.

4. (Back to text) Nedarim 27a, commenting on Devarim 22:25-27.

5. (Back to text) The Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 124:1.

6. (Back to text) Ibid. 591:2.

7. (Back to text) Ibid. 124:2.

8. (Back to text) Rosh HaShanah 35a.

9. (Back to text) See also Igrot Kodesh (Letters) of the Alter Rebbe (Kehot, N.Y., 5740), sec. 15.

10. (Back to text) Pri Etz Chayim, Shaar HaTefillah, ch. 7.

11. (Back to text) Tur Orach Chayim, sec. 52.

12. (Back to text) Devarim 6:5.

13. (Back to text) Note of the Rebbe Shlita: "This requires some further examination. (In Sefer HaMitzvot of the Rambam this appears as the third positive command. In the Zohar I, 11b, the order is (1) awe, (2) love, (3) knowledge of G-d, and so forth.)

    "Note the idiom of our Sages, of blessed memory (in Avodah Zarah 73a), Rishon Rishon Batel [where each successive portion of wine poured into the vat is nevertheless called `the first'].

    "Note also that in Chinuch Katan [see Vol. III in the present series, p. 817, and notes there], love is the root of all positive commandments (including the positive commandment of awe (which in turn is the root of all prohibitory commandments) and hence) the source of all the commandments."

14. (Back to text) Beginning of chapter 2 of Hilchot Yesodei HaTorah.

15. (Back to text) See also the Addenda to Or Torah by the Maggid of Mezritch (Kehot edition), sec. 12.

16. (Back to text) Devarim 6:4.

17. (Back to text) Tanya, ch. 9.

18. (Back to text) Ibid. ch. 10.

19. (Back to text) Devarim 12:23.

20. (Back to text) Berachot 13b, citing the case of Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi.

21. (Back to text) The Alter Rebbe's Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chayim 52:1.