Rebbe Avraham Weinberg of Slonim, who departed this world on the 11th of Marcheshvan, 5644 (1883), was known eponymously as the "Yesod HaAvodah" after his book. He was the founder of the Slonim chasidic dynasty. He was born in the year 5564 (1804) to Rebbe Yitzchak Matisyahu, who was close to Rebbe Asher the First of Stolin. In his youth he was close to Rebbe Noach of Lechovitch, and afterward to Rebbe Moshe of Kobrin, who continued his path. After Rebbe Moshe's passing, he led a congregation in Slonim. He authored many works, and his important book Yesod HaAvodah is among the rare chasidic works not written as a commentary on the weekly Torah portions, but rather as a systematic exposition setting forth the fundamental principles of Chasidic thought. Like his predecessors in the Lechovitch-Kobrin-Slonim lineage, he was known for his singular bond with the Land of Israel and its settlement, and served as head of Kollel Reissin, which supported the Jewish community in the Holy Land. He likewise encouraged many of his chasidim to make aliyah to the Land of Israel and even sent three of his young grandsons to make aliyah to the Land at the age of thirteen. When those close to him expressed wonder at this step, he said that "a time of terrible concealment will come… and I wish that a remnant of our fellowship be established in the Land of Israel so that there may be a nucleus around which to gather." In time it became clear that through this act he had indeed ensured the continuation of his legacy, for from those very roots, the Slonim Chasidic dynasty was rebuilt after the Holocaust.
When the Nefesh HaChaim of Rabbi Chaim of Volozhin was published on the matter of Torah study lishmah (for its own sake), the Yesod HaAvodah said: "What shall I do? Whichever book of the Sages I open, whether the Talmud, the Zohar, or a Midrash, the meaning of Torah study does not appear to me to agree with what Rabbi Chaim wrote." He then composed the holy book Yesod HaAvodah, saying in Yiddish: “Ich hob tzibrochen meine alle beiner oif dem," “I have broken all my bones over this.” The difficulty was in ensuring that he would have no personal stake in the matter whatsoever, and that all he wrote that differed from the Nefesh HaChaim would be strictly for the sake of Heaven.
***
Rabbi Berel Avigel's was a great Torah scholar and rabbinic judge in the city of Slonim, and would travel to the holy Rebbe Noach of Lechovitch, of blessed memory.
Once, one of his fellow rabbinic judges raised a formidable difficulty in a certain matter. When Rabbi Berel returned home, a wondrous resolution to the colleague's question came to his mind. As he was walking, he met the Yesod HaAvodah. Rabbi Berel said to him: “It is good that I have met you, for my thoughts are troubling me greatly. A certain rabbinic judge posed a weighty difficulty, and now, thank God, a wonderful resolution has occurred to me. I do not know what approach to take: should I go to his home and relate the resolution to him so that he will know that among the chasidim there are scholars as well, or should I not go, since this would merely be following the evil inclination, which always seeks to cause me to falter due to pride.” The Yesod HaAvodah told him to continue on his way home and not to share the resolution. Rabbi Berel acknowledged to him that he had felt within himself that this was indeed the truth.
***
The Yesod HaAvodah once said to Rebbe Yehudah Leib, the father of Rebbe Mordechai Chaim of Slonim, that he should review a tractate until he knew it by heart, so that he would be able to fulfill the commandment to speak words of Torah, “when you travel on a path” (Deuteronomy 6:7). And if he was concerned that such study might involve an element of Torah study not for its own sake, he could repent for that afterward. But in the meantime, he would gain the knowledge of a tractate firmly in hand.
A Dispute for the Sake of Heaven
The matter of Torah study for its own sake was absolutely central to the teaching of the Yesod HaAvodah. He once said of the verse, "those who understand Torah do not know Me" (Jeremiah 2:8) that this refers to those who study Torah with the aim of possessing it, abusing it to suit their needs. When the true intention of learning—namely, cleaving to God—is absent, the Torah becomes a captive, limited and unable to perform its true purpose.
Herein lies the essential dispute between the Yesod HaAvodah and the Nefesh HaChaim: does the adjective “for its own sake” (lishmah) refer to learning Torah, “for the sake of knowing the Torah,” as the Nefesh HaChaim understands, or does it mean learning Torah “for the sake of cleaving to God,” as the Yesod HaAvodah maintains? According to the latter view, the Torah serves as an intermediary—a connecting link between the Jewish people and the Holy blessed One. The dispute was so fundamental that the chasidim of Slonim relate that in the first edition—or in the manuscript—of the Yesod HaAvodah, the phrase “and not like the Nefesh HaChaim” appeared repeatedly.
This does not mean, heaven forbid, that the Rebbe of Slonim diminished the importance of knowing Torah; his own instruction to learn a tractate by heart (even if the pride one would feel for having achieved this would require repentance) challenges such a conclusion.
Still, we would like to look at these two opinions regarding what learning Torah for its own sake means. What is the relationship between these two interpretations: knowing Torah and cleaving to God?
Let us begin with a numerical analysis: the sum of “knowing” (יְדִיעָה) and “cleaving” (דְּבֵקוּת) is 611, the value of “Torah” (תּוֹרָה)! This immediately indicates that to a degree, both interpretations are true. There is indeed a mitzvah to know the Torah, as explained at length in the Laws of Talmud Torah by the Alter Rebbe. To this purpose, the Lubavitcher Rebbe instituted the campaign of daily Rambam study. Yet while performing the mitzvah of learning Torah to know it, there is a real proclivity to seek to recognition as a scholar, or even for the sake of being honored for the Torah one has learned. This extraneous motive disqualifies the lishmah of fulfilling the mitzvah of knowing the Torah for the sake of knowing Torah alone. The Tanya treats this extraneous motive as requiring rectification, and until that rectification is made, the Torah one has learned remains “earth-bound.”
Below this is the level of learning Torah for an ulterior motive, such as to be appointed a rabbi and the like. This would be an example of learning Torah not for its own sake at all and corresponds to the three impure husks. Learning for the sake of knowing which includes extraneous motives such as honor corresponds to the realm of the intermediate husk, kelipat nogah, which can be redeemed in the future by changing one’s attitude. This level is the secret of the verse “the path of the righteous is as the light of nogah, growing ever brighter until the full light of day” (Proverbs 4:18), describing the movement from learning for the sake of knowing the Torah to learning for the sake of cleaving to God through the learning—from the imperfect lishmah (which is nonetheless a mitzvah of God) to the true lishmah.
The desired union of knowing and cleaving is the understanding that knowledge itself is the vessel for cleaving to God. In this union, the Chasidic energy of learning described as “chaotic lights” are united with the “vessels of rectification” associated with the non-Chasidic diligence in learning.
So far, we have surveyed three levels of lishmah. To add our fourth level, let us consider the following additional story from the Rebbe Avraham of Slonim:
“Establish for Your servant Your word, which is for Your awe”
Once, a young man approached the Yesod HaAvodah and asked for his blessing that he might become a great Torah scholar. The tzaddik replied that King David had asked: “Establish for Your servant Your word, which is for Your awe” (Psalms 119:38). He then explained that the Torah, which is God's word, is given to one in accordance with his yirat shamayim, his awe of Heaven.
If so, everything begins with pure awe of Heaven, just as it is written that the giving of the Torah at Sinai was accompanied by “awe in the mind, fear in the heart, trembling in the inner limbs, and shuddering in the body,” so too here. Awe is an essential rectification of the heart, and Torah learning depends on one’s heart. This dependence is hinted to in the letter lamed (למד), whose meaning is “learning” (לִמּוּד) and the initials of whose name spell the phrase, “fill your heart with knowledge” (לִבְּךָ מָלֵא דַּעַת) or alternately, “a heart that understands knowledge” (לֵב מֵבִין דַּעַת). This is the secret of "my heart has seen much wisdom" (Ecclesiastes 1:16).
“Awe” (יִרְאָה) is an anagram of “seeing” (רְאִיָּה). Seeing with awe is akin to the Sages’ instruction that when repeating a statement, one should envision the originator of the statement, its source, before him. Likewise, seeing that God is the Master of the Torah we learn, we should be learning with the recognition that God is, as it were, standing right before us, teaching us. This should fill one with the awe of embarrassment (יִרְאַת בֹשֶׁת) and awe of God’s exaltedness.
Knowledge in Five Stages
To the foundational pair of knowing and cleaving, then, awe has now been added. But is this all that a Torah scholar requires? There is also the need to delve deeply into the Torah and to study it with penetrating analysis! And indeed, the word “knowing” (יְדִיעָה) itself may be interpreted as an acronym for “awe” (יִרְאָה), “cleaving” (דְּבֵקוּת), “knowing” (יְדִיעָה), “reflection” (עִיּוּן), and “immersion” (הַעֲמָקָה).
A complete process thus emerges: From the pure awe of “gazing upon the glory of the Giver of the Torah,” the student comes to cleave to Him—the secret of the crown of the letter yud. Then the light of cleaving illuminates within the vessel of knowing, and the knowing ascends from one elevation to the next through reflection (iyun) and deep immersion (ha’amakah). The ultimate purpose of these two last stages is to expand and broaden the vessel of knowing so it can receive ever greater measures of the essential light of cleaving to God.
Cleaving and Knowing — Speaking and Internalization
Study from within supernal awe is study from a state of self-nullification, or bittul, in Hebrew. In this state, one has no sense of oneself whatsoever. This is the inner experience of the sefirah of wisdom in the intellectual soul, which controls the external aspects of wisdom associated with knowing and comprehension. The manner in which the inner experience, self-nullification, controls the external faculties of wisdom is described as “the heart’s interior governs the mind’s exterior” (פְּנִימִיּוּת הַלֵּב שַׁלִּיט עַל הַמֹּחַ).
With regards to learning Torah, there are two distinct mitzvot: the mitzvah to know the Torah, which is fulfilled in the mind and the heart, and the mitzvah of engaging in the learning itself, which is fulfilled specifically by the mouth, by uttering the words of Torah vocally. The Sages learn this from the verse, “for they give life to those who find them,” which is read as “for those who utter them through the mouth.” Though awe is experienced in the heart, we identify the cleaving that it creates with what is uttered by the mouth, not with the words as they are subsequently engraved in the mind and on the heart. In fact, only after one has repeated one’s learning orally, with awe, with cleaving, and out of a state of selflessness, can one remember the teaching in the mind and grasp it in his heart allowing for true acquisition of the Torah.
Why is cleaving related to words uttered by the mouth. As explained in the Tanya, cleaving to God is the secret of “He will kiss me with the kisses of His mouth” (Song of Songs 1:2), referring to spoken words of Torah which mingle the Divine spirit with the learner’s breath creating a type of “union of kisses” (זִוּוּג נְשִׁיקִין). This is the spiritual version of the Divine injunction that “they shall be one flesh,” a unification of Torah remembered in the mind (coupling) and grasped in the heart (creating new life).
Symbolically, the one learning Torah is a mother, who bears the child within her, the product of the union between the student and God during the learning. This is hinted to in the verse, “For it is pleasant when you guard them within yourself, [after] they are established together upon your lips” (Proverbs 22:18).
The Tanya (ch. 5) teaches that learning Torah allows for a unification with God that is unlike any other. For not only does God’s wisdom penetrate the individual’s mind, he is also immersed and grasped by it. In light of what we have said here, within the person's intention, the desire to be grasped by Torah (and God) must precede the desire to grasp. This dynamic of being grasped by Torah and grasping it are a form of “run and return.” The greater the run, the greater the return: the greater the desire to be absorbed in the Torah, the greater the subsequent knowing will be.
Amazingly, the gematria of “11th of Cheshvan” (יא חֶשְׁוָן)—the day of passing of both the Yesod HaAvodah and of our matriarch Rachel—is precisely that of “for its own sake” (לִשְׁמָהּ)! Our matriarch Rachel, the secret of the lower hei in God’s essential Name, Havayah, rises from exile and is united with Ze’er Anpin her husband through Torah study for its own sake—for the sake of elevating the lower hei, the Divine Presence—the Shechinah, and with her elevation all of reality is rectified fulfilling the verse, “and you who cleave to Havayah your God are all alive today” (Deuteronomy 4:4).
