For many decades, HaRav Ginsburgh has identified Chasidut as the true reformation movement in Judaism. In his annual Chai Elul farbrengen, he focused on what sets it apart from other attempts that were not positive. He also charts the direction of the necessary coming reformation in the Jewish mindset. See additional chapters of this discussion here.
This is a slightly edited transcript of the Chai Elul, 5786 farbrengen given in Efrat.
This evening we want to live with the Ba’al Shem Tov and with the Alter Rebbe, Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the founder of Chabad.
What we want to address this evening is how these two luminaries, who were both born on Chai Elul, the essential life of the month of Elul, together brought a revolution to the Jewish world, and to the entire world. We want to understand their message as it applies to us today. We too need a revolution, similar to the one the Ba’al Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe were able to produce.
The Ba’al Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe were born exactly 47 years apart. In Kabbalah, 47 is the value of the unification (the sum) of God’s essential Name, Havayah (י-הוה) and the Name Ekyeh (אהיה), the two Names that correspond to wisdom and understanding—the father intellect and the mother intellect. Wisdom and the Ba’al Shem Tov represent a sudden insight of light, while understanding and the Alter Rebbe represent the feminine capacity to capture that light and contain it. The Alter Rebbe serves as a type of womb to grow the tremendous insight of the Ba’al Shem Tov.
In the Zohar we find two important phrases, that correspond to the Ba’al Shem Tov and to the Alter Rebbe. Together they are the innovation of Chassidut. We need both together.
Two Seminal Ideas
The first says, “There is nothing void or vacant of God” (לֵית אֲתָר פָּנוּי מִנֵּיהּ). The second is that “All before Him is like nothing” (כּוֹלֵא קָמֵיהּ כְּלֹא חַשִּׁיב). The first expression refers to God’s omnipresence. God is everywhere physically and spiritually—in my soul he is in every manifestation of my soul. That is what the Ba’al Shem Tov revealed, in a way that was never known or experienced before.
The second expression means that everything we see and experience is in a state of self-nullification before God’s essence, that’s the essence of the Alter Rebbe’s understanding.
The first expression is in the heart, the second is in the mind. The Ba’al Shem Tov also said that, “the heart of Israel is always alive,” even if it appears that during the exile I am asleep, still my heart is awake and alive. That quality of the heart is what the Ba’al Shem Tov brought to all of us, the entire Jewish people. Before the Ba’al Shem Tov, the Jewish people were in a deep coma. He whispered the name “Israel” (our common name, and his personal name) into our ears and we all woke up. It is the experience of a spiritual resurrection. We came alive again.
How did he do that? By opening our eyes to personal Divine Providence, that some power is here and driving and giving us life, every detail of life, every incarnation is watched over by the Creator, in a way that was not known before the Ba’al Shem Tov. Every minute experience in life is from God because God is omnipresent in the life of each of us.
The Alter Rebbe’s innovation is linked to the notion that all is nullified before God. Perhaps the most important word in Chabad is bittul (בִּטּוּל), meaning self-nullification. Not that all that we see does not exist; it in fact does exist. Yet, at the same time, paradoxically, everything is nullified to God, which means that all is like naught before God.
Both the Ba’al Shem Tov and the Alter Rebbe reveal God’s Presence. But the Ba’al Shem Tov reveals God’s immanence and the Alter Rebbe reveals God’s transcendence. In the language of the Zohar, these are known as God’s light that surrounds all (סוֹבֵב כָּל עָלְמִין) and God’s light that penetrates all (מְמַלֵּא כָּל עָלְמִין). Both are a revelation of the atzmut, the ousia, God’s very essence. They are two faces or manifestations of the very same essence.
Heart and Mind
One of the simple parables to understand the relationship between them (particularly why the Ba’al Shem Tov must come first) can be seen in tefillin. First, we don the hand tefillin, near the heart, which reveals God’s immanence in our lives Then we put on the head tefillin, which are on the head and reveal God’s transcendence. The head tefillin are like a crown above the head. They give us the realization that we are like nothing before God’s Presence.
The Ba’al Shem Tov is our heart, and the Alter Rebbe is our brain and they must function together. Nonetheless, the heart precedes the brain, the hand tefillin precede the head tefillin. First the Ba’al Shem Tov, the heart of all of Israel is revealed and then comes the Alter Rebbe, his spiritual “grandson,” who reveals the Ba’al Shem Tov’s mindset.
The Chatam Sofer
Instead of “revolution,” let us use another term that can sound somewhat strange to the Orthodox ear: a “reformation.” Chasidut is a holy reformation of Judaism. The Chatam Sofer, who according to Chabad tradition is referred to as the lower tzaddik, used to say that whatever is new is forbidden according to Torah (חָדָשׁ אָסוּר מִן הַתּוֹרָה). This was a play on a halachic concept called, “the prohibition of the new,” which refers to grain that was harvested before the Omer offering. But the Chatam Sofer used it to say that we are forbidden from changing any mitzvah or custom in Judaism. His reason was that he lived in Germany where the Reform movement started. Because it was not a positive reformation, the Chatam Sofer fought it.
But the Chatam Sofer was also present during the time that Chasidut expanded. He did not use this expression against Chasidut. In fact, just the opposite. He is the last posek, halachic authority, who was accepted by the entire Orthodox world, Chasidim and non-Chasidim alike (from thereon everything is under dispute).
His own mentors were Rabbi Nathan Adler and Rebbe Pinchas Horowitz the Ba’al Hahafla’ah. The latter was one of the greatest Chasidic Rebbes. Rabbi Nathan Adler is sometimes called the Ba’al Shem Tov of Germany, a very interesting figure that we cannot devote time to right now, but a great figure who was entirely inspired by the inner teachings of Torah (pnimiyut HaTorah). Despite the Chasidic movement being a reformation of Judaism, the Chatam Sofer did not oppose it at all. If we understand what the difference between Chasidut and the Reform movement is, we can understand what the next reformation should be like.
What is Reformation?
To re-form, is to give something a new form. In the Torah this is called, “Degarbment and Engarbment” (פּוֹשֵׁט צוּרָה וְלוֹבֵשׁ צוּרָה). You take off one form (one garment) and put on a new one. The initials spell “explosion” (פִּצּוּץ). This phenomenon is akin to an explosion—to remove the old form and put on a new one.
Why did the Chatam Sofer fight against the Reform movement in Judaism? Because it stripped off halachah and tried to replace it with something else. But the Chasidic movement removed something from consciousness and adopted a new mindset. Chasidut is a spiritual reorientation of what the Torah’s objective is, what the mitzvot are for. It is a reevaluation of our intent without changing an iota of our practice.
English is an Indo-European language. In all these languages the root “re” (used as a prefix especially) means to “return,” to go back. The return, the teshuvah from that state of being, is to go back to the source. I turned my face away from God and now I turn my face back to God.
When I return my face to God, my state is higher than it was before (originally). That is why a tzaddik cannot stand in the place that a ba’al teshuvah can stand. The ba’al teshuvah is turning back to God, when he recognizes the greatness of the Torah and the mitzvot, he feels he is coming home. Like a Jew visiting the Land of Israel for the first time. There is something innate in the soul that experiences this. This is the secret of the yearning of the Jewish soul.
The verb to return (לָשׁוּב) is most often used in the Tanach with reference to the Land of Israel. From here, this consciousness of God spreads to the entire world, that is the meaning of the Land of Israel will spread over the entire world. This is one of the points that we will build on to explain what a new reformation requires.
Three Negative Reforms
Whoever has studied a bit of Kabbalah and Chasidut knows that there are four Worlds. The highest is the World of Emanation (Atzilut), where there is consciousness of only God, there is nothing else. From there God created three lower Worlds, which do experience self-consciousness, which is not completely true, but God wants it, so that we can rectify it. These are the Worlds of Creation, Formation, and Action (or Deed).
To fully apply the prefix re to the Worlds: in the World of Creation, we must re-Create, in Formation, we must re-From, and in Action, we must re-Do. We can use the word re-construct for the World of Action.
But first let us consider the failed attempts at these re-formations. In the World of Emanation there is only God, there is no evil there at all. In Creation there is a little evil and mostly goodness. Formation is half and half. The World of Action is mostly bad and there is a little bit of good.
There were three failed attempts to reform. The most well-known are the Reform and Conservative movements, less well known is the Reconstructionist movement. In terms of adherence to the performance of mitzvot, the Reform movement did the most practical damage. But when it comes to faith in God, the Reconstructionist movement did more damage. In Reconstruction, the idea is that there is “peoplehood” (עַמִּיּוּת). As a community, Jews observe, but they should not believe in the God of Israel. Reconstruction advocates for belief in Spinoza’s god. They argue that like any Darwinian-Evolutionary principle, nature simply prefers goodness over evil. But there is no personal God, there is no one to pray to. In general, they embrace the ancient Greek belief that the universe was not created and that God is not the Creator. Reconstruction is the negative type of World of Action. By damaging the simple faith of a Jew, they destroy the natural frumkeit that resides in the World of Action. The Reform movement claims that we are not obligated to do anything. The decision whether to perform a mitzvah or not is entirely up to the individual. This represents a re-formation of the World of Formation. The Conservative movement is a little bit better and therefore represents a negative image of the World of Creation.
We need this structure to understand how to perform a positive reformation.
The Ba’al Shem Tov’s Reformation
Rebbe Isaac of Homil used to say that before the Mashiach can come, we will need a new order of three tzaddikim: the Ba’al Shem Tov, the Maggid, and the Alter Rebbe.
Another interesting phenomenon from English. Recreation means שַׁעֲשׁוּעִים. It means to play, to engage in some hobby. In English of 500 years ago it didn’t mean to have a good time, it just meant to re-create something. How did it come to mean enjoyment? The way the etymology is explained is that to re-create something you must re-fresh it, re-vive it. The Ba’al Shem Tov revived the Jewish people, by whispering our essential name into our ear, awakening us from our deep coma.
When I am in a state of tension or stress, it can be so hard that it can break me. Even a scholar who is so immersed in his Torah study, can come to a negative state of psychological tension. What should he do? He’s on the verge of having a breakdown. The suggestion offered by Reish Lakish, the Talmudic exemplar of a ba’al teshuvah is that sometimes the nullification of Torah is its foundation.
The Ba’al Shem Tov explains this statement many times. He says that even though the angels that are called “living beings” (חַיּוּת) are running and returning constantly, they run to reach their goal, but they also return to a state of rest. A Torah scholar’s goal is to know the entire Torah, to be a genius, a great scholar in Israel, but that can cause tremendous stress. It also gives him a tremendous amount of self-importance (יֵשׁוּת). To alleviate the stress, he must nullify his learning and thereby nullify himself. He is in a sense re-creating himself. He is refreshing his consciousness.
Spiritually that means to realize that all I have achieved to date, all my accomplishments are egotistic, and the success belongs to God, not to me. I should continue learning Torah, but not out of drive to succeed, not out of competitiveness. I should have a hobby and rest. Then when I return to learning, it will be a different experience altogether. You will be a ba’al teshuvah, whose essence is lowliness (שִׁפְלוּת), not self-importance.
The Ba’al Shem Tov’s soul root is identified with Rabbi Chanina ben Dosa. Of all the Sages, he was a famous miracle-worker, close to a prophet. Once his daughter poured vinegar instead of oil into the Shabbat candles. She lit the wicks and then came to her father crying that it would not continue to light. Rabbi Chanina said to her, What do you care? He who told the oil to burn, can tell the vinegar to burn just as well. So, the candles burnt for the entire Shabbat. How did he do this?
The Ba’al Shem Tov explains that if a person can reach a state of “nothingness” (אָיִן), his previous state of being can spontaneously metamorphosize into another state. He who made oil burn can make vinegar burn. He himself, Rabbi Chanina was in a state of nothingness, and so could say that the letters of “vinegar” can permute or transform into the same letters that provide the “oil” with its burning power, and even better. By coming to nothingness, one can change reality. First, you change the permutation (the order) of the letters of the object and then you can give it a new face, a new creation.
The Alter Rebbe’s Reformation
The sign of a true ba’al teshuvah is that to reach a higher level of being, he rests or nullifies his previous level. That rest is a state of nothingness (ayin), and one of the ways to do that is through recreation. The Alter Rebbe explains this in chapter 33 of the Tanya.
The Sages say that God gave us 613 commandments. Then came Habbakuk the prophet and founded them on one mitzvah alone: faith. One pillar that holds them all, as it says, “A tzaddik [and Your people are all tzaddikim] lives by his faith.”[1] The Alter Rebbe explains that a person, when he feels there is too much weight on his shoulders, even the weight of all the commandments, all he has to do is believe in the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of One God.
Before Maimonides everyone believed that God is omnipotent—that He can perform whatever miracles He wants. Came Maimonides and also created a type of reformation in Judaism’s mindset. He emphasized and revealed in the deepest way that God is omniscient—that God and His knowledge is one. This does not negate free will in any way, even though it may seem to be a paradox. Then came the Ba’al Shem Tov and added that God is also omnipresent, both physically and spiritually. To experience this through Divine Providence that is personal was an innovation of the Ba’al Shem Tov.
So, everything says the Alter Rebbe in chapter 33, if I remove all obligations from my consciousness—not that I don’t want to be obligated, but I am suffering now from tension that is caused by this consciousness and I need to release that tension—then I need to reduce it all to one thing: faith in God. I remove everything from my mind and focus only on my belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then my soul will be resurrected, and naturally I will desire and be able to perform all the 613 commandments with joy in a way I wasn’t able to do before.
This is an example of how the Alter Rebbe brings a new meaning to the well-known saying of the Sages that demonstrates how sometimes the nullification of Torah is what sustains Torah. Removing the tension that comes with responsibility allows my true self to be revealed. What achieves this is our simple faith in God being One. All three “omnis” are faces of the same one God, the same one reality. I am then filled with joy, I am resurrected, and that empowers my ability to perform all 613 commandments.
The Torah’s Body and Soul
All this was an introduction to explain what the difference between a negative reformation and a positive reformation is. We do not want to reform the body of the Torah, we want to reform the soul. All the negative reformations focused on the body. God loves the body. One might think that God loves the soul and so you shouldn’t change the soul of the Torah. But the opposite is true.
The body of the Torah should never change. Clearly this refers to cancelling mitzvot, God forbid. But it also includes not putting energy into renewing mitzvot in a superficial manner—such as renewing the Sanhedrin, introducing Techelet, etc. The common attitude is that renewing these institutions or actions would be a valid reformation, but in truth, our energy should be devoted to reforming the mindset of Judaism, not the mitzvot. It is the soul that needs to be reevaluated and do teshuvah. That is the “reckoning” (חֶשְׁבּוֹן נֶפֶשׁ) that we do during Elul. What exactly is this re-creation and revival of the spirit, the soul of Torah in the right way. Recreation is the state of “nothingness” between the old being and the new state of being. It is the change in the way you envision your life.
The Purpose of Creation and the Chasidic Reformation
The Torah’s first word is “In the beginning” (בְּרֵאשִׁית). The first letter, bet, is like the word “in the merit of” (בִּשְׁבִיל). Just as the Sages say that God said about Rabbi Chanina that the entire world eats in his merit, and he himself makes do with a bag of Carobs. The sustenance of the entire world depends on Rabbi Chanina. The Ba’al Shem Tov explains that this word “in the merit of” (בִּשְׁבִיל) also means a “path” (שְׁבִיל). Rabbi Chanina created a spiritual path in the merit of which the entire world could be sustained. The Ba’al Shem Tov said that he inherited that path, that channel.
There are a number of explanations given by the Sages regarding “for what” (in the merit of what) did God create the world. But according to what we just explained in the name of the Ba’al Shem Tov, God created the world in the merit through the path of Torah and through the path of Israel.
What comes first, the Torah or Israel? Rashi holds that first Torah and then Israel. The Sages state in the midrash, that “the thought of Israel preceded everything,” even Torah.
The Ba’al Shem Tov explains that these two opinions are both true. Before the contraction, Israel precede the Torah and connect to God directly. But after the initial contraction, they connect to God through the Torah. The Zohar says that after the initial contraction, there are three knots that connect (God, Torah, and Israel). But before the contraction—and we can still experience that state that precedes Creation, according to the Ba’al Shem Tov in Divine Providence and according to the Alter Rebbe in God’s transcendence—the thought of Israel precedes the Torah.
This is a good way to explain the positive reform of Chasidut. Chasidut changes the order: which is for which? Are Israel for the sake of keeping the Torah. This means that without the Jewish people keeping the Torah, there is no Creation. The world has a blueprint, the Torah and that blueprint must be applied by someone. So that leads to the mindset that “Israel are for the sake of the Torah.” This was the mindset of just about all Jews before the Ba’al Shem Tov’s reformation.
To reform properly, you cannot change even the minutest detail of halachah. That is why the Maggid of Mezritch gave the Alter Rebbe the monumental task of writing an updated Shulchan Aruch, to show that Chasidut does not change halachah. It was vital that this be done, not only not changing anything, but bringing all the updated rulings. His name, Shneur means two lights—the light of the Tanya and the light of his Shulchan Aruch.
Now came the Ba’al Shem Tov and taught that Israel (the Jewish people) do not exist for the sake of the Torah, but the opposite. The Torah is for Israel; it is meant to reveal the deepest essence of Israel. As it says in the Tanya, that the Divine soul of Israel is an actual part of God. Torah is what reveals that.
This is the essence of what the Chasidic Reformation is about. Not a single halachah is cancelled. These changes are changes of orientation then, of structure of the institutions of Judaism of Jewish society. The center of the community is no longer the rabbi, but the rebbe. This is a positive reformation because the rebbe does not violate an iota of halachah and in fact serves as a living example of how a person leads a Torah life. The rebbe wants others to look at him and learn from him how to serve God correctly, each person according to his ability. This is especially true in Chabad, which demands that each individual serve God with his or her own energy and ability.
So, the positive Chasidic reformation was a shift in our mindset about who is for the sake of who? From a mindset that the Jewish people are for the sake of Torah (the mindset of after the contraction) to the view that the Torah is for the sake of the Jewish people.
What can be the next reformation, the next recreation?
The Necessary Coming Reform: Becoming Emissaries to the World
The next reformation has to do with whether the Jewish people exist for the sake of something else. It can be said in two ways. The first sounds easier: the Jews are for God. The greater novelty is that the Jews are for the world.
The initial question is why did God create the world? The two answers were “for Torah” and “for Israel.” Since there are two options, you must ask which came first. If you already realize that Israel are above the Torah then they are for the sake of the world. This is the same as saying that Israel is for God, because God has a passion to have a dwelling place here below. The ultimate purpose is for Israel to go out of themselves. God does not need the world, He is self-sufficient. By creating the world, He went out of Himself, as it were.
By analogy, if we say that the ultimate purpose is Israel, then it must be a self-sufficient form of Israel. Just as God is self-sufficient without Creation and yet He goes out of Himself to create the world, so even though the Jewish people can exist independently of the world, we too have a passion, a yearning to go out of ourselves into the world. The change in mindset is that the Jewish people need to be emissaries to the world, to be for the sake of Creation.
To make the change we need a new Ba’al Shem Tov, a new Maggid of Mezrtich, and a new Alter Rebbe who will show that we are not here to live in a ghetto. We are meant to leave the ghetto and go out into the world, without changing an iota of the Torah. If we stand any chance of surviving it is by being proud of our body—the observance of the mitzvot—but our purpose, our soul, is to rectify the world—to bring peace on earth. If there is no peace on earth than God is not dwelling in the world. We must stop wanting to be correct in ourselves, in our conduct, and understand that the world was not created for us, but rather for God to dwell in the entire world and we are the emissaries that make that happen.
See additional chapters of this discussion here.
[1]. Habbakuk 2:4.
