Rabbi Asher Freund, one of the singular tzaddikim of Jerusalem, was born to Rabbi Aryeh Mordechai and Chayah Rivkah Devorah, descendants of Rebbe Aharon HaGadol of Karlin, and married Tzivya, the daughter of Rabbi Avraham Sternberg, among the rabbis of Tzfat. From his youth he assisted the poor, the downtrodden, and the broken-hearted, and over the years established the organization "Yad Ezra." People turned to him from throughout the world to seek his counsel and blessing. He was a chasid of Rebbe Avraham Elimelech of Karlin, and after his passing, under the influence of his friend Rebbe Gedalyah Koenig, he would visit Rabbi Avraham Sternhartz, who held him in high esteem. In his younger years he studied in chavruta with Rabbi Binyamin Rabinowitz. He befriended Rabbi Avraham Elimelech Shapira of Grodzisk, Rebbe Shalom Noach Berzovsky of Slonim, and Rebbe Simchah Bunim Alter of Ger. Among his practices was the custom of hitbodedut (private, spontaneous prayer and reflection), and he was known as a "healer of souls," treating those with mental affliction through the path of faith; psychiatrists and psychologists would regularly consult with him. "The Way" was the crown jewel of Rabbi Asher's teaching, and he devoted himself greatly to bringing people to teshuvah and drawing them close to pure faith in God. He departed this world on Motza'ei Yom Kippur, 5764 (2003), having prepared his disciples for the fact that this would be the day of his passing, and was interred on Har HaMenuchot.
Rabbi Tzvi Fuchs of Haifa related: On Rosh HaShanah many years ago, as a young man, I spent time in the presence of the holy Rebbe Moshe Mordechai of Lelov, of blessed memory. The Rebbe mentioned the subject of teshuvah (return to God) and said: “One must return in teshuvah.” One of the elder chasidim asked: "And how does one do teshuvah?" The Rebbe replied: “Teshuvah can be merited and attained through the quality of truth. One who holds fast to the level of truth can return in teshuvah.” And he did not elaborate.
The following day, on the Fast of Gedalyah, I traveled to Meron. I ran into Rebbe Asher in the cave of the Rashbi. I went over to greet him, and Reb Asher asked me: "The Ten Days of Repentance have begun. Have you done teshuvah?" "How does one do teshuvah?" I asked. The words I had heard the previous day from the Rebbe of Lelov were still echoing in my ears. Reb Asher gave me a warm smile: "Through holding fast to the quality of truth, one can do teshuvah."
I was greatly stirred. This was ru’ach hakodesh openly revealed. The very words I had heard the night before from the Rebbe. I told Reb Asher what the Rebbe of Lelov had said and asked him what the words meant. How does one merit teshuvah through the quality of truth? Reb Asher explained the matter by way of a parable:
Reuven the wealthy man sat eating his evening meal in his well-stocked kitchen. Suddenly he heard knocking at the door. He went to open it and was irritated to see a gaunt pauper standing there. "Have mercy," the pauper pleaded, "give me something to eat or a little money, otherwise I will die of hunger." But Reuven pushed him away angrily and gave him nothing. The pauper, who was on the very brink of death from starvation, did indeed die shortly afterward. Reuven heard of this and felt no particular regret.
Some days later he sat with several friends, businessmen like himself. He was on the verge of signing an agreement that would yield him great profits. Just as they were about to sign, there was a knock at the door. He went to open it and saw a gaunt pauper pleading for his life. Had he been alone in the house he would have treated him as he had treated the first, but now he could not. It was not fitting. He was surrounded by friends who would think poorly of him. His reputation would suffer. With a show of generous spirit he opened his wallet, drew out a thousand dollars, and handed the money to the pauper with a magnanimous smile. The room filled with murmurs of admiration and looks of astonishment. "What a philanthropist,” “What a tzaddik, compassionate and gracious.” The pauper himself was beside himself with gratitude. "You have saved my entire family," he said with emotion. "I asked for a single coin, and you gave me a thousand dollars. How blessed are the Jewish people."
After the friends had gone and the successful transactions were signed, Reuven felt deep inner satisfaction, far greater, in fact, than the joy of the successful deal. The charity he had given brought him more pleasure than anything else. The pauper's emotional words would not leave his thoughts. The exclamations of admiration from his friends gave him indescribable pleasure. But the fact that he himself had sent someone just like this from his home when no one was watching, and had left him to die of hunger? That he no longer remembers…
Shimon the wealthy man, by contrast, went through precisely the same experience. He too had sent the first pauper away and left him to perish in hunger, and had rewarded the second generously, but only because his friends' eyes were upon him. The difference between the two wealthy men is this: in Shimon's case, after his friends had left, he recalled how a month earlier he had driven the first pauper from his home and indirectly caused his death and instead of feeling pride, he was filled with sharp pangs of regret. "I have not changed at all," he thought to himself. "Had my friends not been watching, I would have thrown the second pauper out of my house just as I did the first. If so, the charity I gave was only because God orchestrated different circumstances—my friends who were with me. It was not I that arranged for my friends to be there and observe me and my conduct toward the poor man. How then can I take pride in something that is not mine?"
"Do you understand?" Reb Asher concluded his explanation. "Teshuvah means to return—to return, to give everything back to the Creator, to understand that if it were not for the circumstances He orchestrated, we would stumble into every sin in the world and would never do a single good deed. How can we take pride in our good deeds? They came about because of a set of circumstances that we cannot control. The good deed we performed is not ours!"
"Remember this," Reb Asher guided me. "You will not be able to fully grasp it now, but think about it again and again, and live with it at all times, until it becomes an inseparable part of your thinking."
***
A student related: I once spoke with Reb Asher about teshuvah, and he said to me: "Do you know what teshuvah is? Teshuvah is to be joyful. Teshuvah is joy." Afterward I found something almost identical to this in the Degel Machaneh Ephraim (at the end of the book, in the section of Likutim). These are his words:
"For in joy you will go forth from all the impure husks and from the exile, and if a person receives everything with joy, he thereby draws joy upon himself and upon all things and upon all the world, and all agents of iniquity will be scattered from him and his transgressions will be forgiven."
[from Reb Asher Mitalmeedav]
In Chasidic teachings and in stories of tzaddikim, much is spoken of teshuvah with joy and confession done out of joy. How is this done? The soul-reckoning that Reb Asher describes seems filled with bitterness, even dejection. Can a person in whom there appears to be nothing truly good be joyful?
The Tanya—the Book of the Beinonim (intermediate people, those that are not righteous but also not wicked)—is a book for ba’alei teshuvah, for individuals who want to return to God. If the beinoni behaves as he should, he does teshuvah even before he sins, by hearing God’s prohibition echoing through him and refraining from the sin in the first place. Yet the beinoni carries an evil inclination (yetzer hara) that is as fierce as that of the wicked individual, and he is prone to stumble. His mode of serving God is that of a ba’al teshuvah. Indeed, it is well known that the Alter Rebbe wanted the followers of the Ba’al Shem Tov’s teachings to be called ba’alei teshuvah rather than chasidim.
The pinnacle of the Tanya in this sense is the passage from the holy Zohar that states, "Weeping is embedded in the heart from one side and joy is embedded in the heart from the other side.” Particularly in our generation—a generation of teshuvah, of return to God—the foundation for leading a balanced Divine service can be found in chapters 26 through 34 in the Tanya. These chapters, which form their own unit, speak of the relationship between joy and bitterness. In essence, these chapters teach us how bearing opposites in the heart—weeping on one side and being joyous on the other—is the inner dynamic of the ba’al teshuvah.
What are the sources of the weeping and the joy in the heart? On the simple level, the weeping is because of our sins and our distance from God, while the joy is because of the teshuvah itself—remorse for the past and resolution for the future. But there is also a deeper, existential dimension to each of these movements of the soul. As Reb Asher taught, teshuvah flows from the recognition of the basic lowliness inherent in the human being. We, like all humans, are flawed and lacking. We are liable at any moment to err and to sin. But to this he adds the conclusion that all the good within us flows from the constant Divine assistance we receive—assistance that speaks of great and unceasing love and compassion, forever pouring forth to the person.
When a person knows his condition and constantly feels the loving Divine Presence, he can receive help from Heaven. His pride does not block him from acknowledging his need for help, while his faith in God's goodness, love, and assistance protects him from falling into despair and hopelessness. This perspective lends an entirely different meaning to the entire process of teshuvah, transforming it from an annual accounting of good deeds versus transgressions, in which one seeks to minimize losses and maximize gains, into a genuine return to God Himself. "If you return, O Israel… return to Me" (Jeremiah 4:1).
It is told that when the Alter Rebbe was in the Russian prison, a senior official came to interrogate him, though he presented himself as a simple clerk. Realizing the Alter Rebbe’s great stature and character, the official—who was himself a cultured man, well-versed in the Bible—first asked the Rebbe whether he might pose a question. Rabbi Shneur Zalman agreed, and the officer asked: "Can you explain God’s call to Adam 'Ayekah,’ meaning, ‘Where are you?’ after Adam had sinned and was hiding between the trees of the garden. For how is it possible that the Almighty did not know where Adam was?"
The Rebbe replied with a question of his own: "Do you believe that the Torah is eternal and applies in every generation, in every place, and to every person?" "Yes, I believe this," said the officer. The Rebbe then said: "This is the meaning of God’s question: every day the Almighty calls out to every person and asks him 'Ayekah'—‘Where are you’ in the world?" And in Yiddish the Rebbe said: "Vu halstu in der velt? "—"Where do you stand in the world? "
"A person's time is limited," the Rebbe continued. "A finite number of days and years is given to him in which to do good with his God and with his fellow human beings. It is for this reason that God asks him 'Ayekah,' meaning take heed and reflect upon where you stand in your world, how long you have been in this world, and what have you done with all those days and years." The Rebbe then turned and looked at the officer and continued: "Take yourself, for instance. You have lived such-and-such a number of years. What have you done with them? Have you done good for anyone?" The officer was deeply moved by the interpretation and by the fact that the Rebbe seemed to know his exact age. He placed his hand on the Rebbe's shoulder and exclaimed "Bravo!" Afterward, when he met with the Czar, he spoke in the Rebbe's defense and praised him highly.
God asked Adam ‘Ayekah’ on Rosh HaShanah—the birthday and the day of the sin of Adam. Each Rosh HaShanah this question reverberates through the expanse of the world, and God calls out to each and every one of us: Ayekah? What have you done this year, and in all your years? Taken to heart, this question stirs in us trembling, weeping, and remorse. Yet the sensitive ear hears that God is asking it out of compassion, out of His longing (see Job 14:15) that each and every one of us live our lives to their fullest potential. God is asking us to return to Him, to understand that only through our connection with and mimicking of God’s goodness can we indeed live our lives fully.
The encounter between human lowliness and Divine compassion is what is known in Kabbalah and Chasidut as a “unification” (יִחוּד). Divine compassion can enter where the human being feels He is lacking. Unification implies the restoration of a face-to-face relationship between God and man. When I feel myself to be wanting, to be lacking, to be needful of all the goodness that God represents, His compassion for me is awakened and He greets me with compassion and love. Moreover, the unification runs both ways. Just as we need God and our connection to Him, God, as it were, “needs” us and our devotion. God did not have to create the world. But when He did, in His love, He chose to reveal Himself to us as King and chose the Jewish people as His consort, for “a king without a queen is neither a king nor is he great” (Zohar 3:5a) Recognizing this transforms teshuvah into joy, for the sorrow over our shortcomings arises from a sense of rejection, from the fear that we may not be worthy of love. But when we feel God as a loving King, and ourselves—individually and collectively—as the beloved queen cherished despite all her imperfections, the weeping is suffused with great joy.
(From HaRav Ginsburgh’s classes of the 18th–20th of Elul, 5781)
