The Passion Must Be Yours

Today after Shachris the Rebbe spoke about zealousness and in what context and under what conditions zealousness is praiseworthy. Zeal is a passionate response to the indignation one feels when confronted with something that he just can't let happen. The Rebbe mentioned that if one sees someone doing something wrong and they come to Beis Din and ask what they should do, the court must not give a p'sak or advice but tell the person that he is on his own. Zealousness must be passionate; it must be self-generated. It cannot come about under the direction of others. You have to take care of business because in your gut you know that you absolutely cannot stand to watch this offense take place.

This resonates very much with something the Rebbe told me a few years ago. "You have to be a little extreme if you want to get anything done in this world." That's it, that is what the Rebbe told me. Now, I know good and well that extremism and zeal are two distinct concepts. However, to be zealous about something in today's world is often viewed as extreme. To truly care about something passionately, in a deep and committed way, and to take action based on that caring, to care more about your principles than the commonly accepted status quo, and to ignore what others may think or say about your leaping away from mediocrity and indifference is how I understand the extremism that the Rebbe was referring to.

The Rebbe's brother, HaRav Shloime of Denver, ztz"l, once said, "The place of a decision is the loneliest place in the world." Any decision must ultimately be made by the individual, and all the more so something that requires personally invested passion and fervor.

Anytime a person's resolve is tested, his commitment is strained and he is faced with the decision to give in to his habits and desires or to move himself out of the way this one more time, it is really no different than Pinchas witnessing Zimri's insolent act. If we were to see the heinous, gruesome abuse of a good friend's daughter our blood would boil, our hair would stand on end and we would spring into action, responding violently, passionately and with no reservations, disregarding personal concerns of any magnitude. Were we to view the abuse of our neshomas in a similar light, we would react the same way. How can we stand by and watch while we steal from ourselves, murder ourselves, worship ourselves? So any decision we have to make, hundreds per day, can be approached with the zealousness of Pinchas. In order to do that properly, to harness the passion, however, we must conclude on our own what the appropriate course of action should be. If our teachers give us all the answers, they are in essence disallowing us from finding that place within us that defines who we are.

Finding that passionate responsiveness, both in the avodah of our personal sphere and in the world outside of ourselves, must be self-generated. We can have guides and teachers to help us decode our lives and experiences but at the end of the day, when we need to know if we should push a little more, if we should take the leap, if we should stick by our guns and not give up an inch of the field, we need to look within and listen to Hashem's gift to mankind, the soft, still voice of our intuition.

Increasing Awarness, Changing Habits (audio)

This morning the question was posed regarding how to increase awareness of something in avodah, for example, Hashem's presence or the needs of others. In this short shiur, the Rebbe succinctly explains how to make concrete changes in one's habits by proactively contriving situations that will increase his consciousness as opposed to simply responding to what comes your way.
At the end of the shiur, the Rebbe tells a story of the Chernobyler Magid that relates the importance of doing mitzvos and chesed not because it makes sense to us or because of our good nature, rather because Hashem told us to.

5 minutes, 1.2 MB PLAY DOWNLOAD

Chukas: Tumah and Taharah (audio)

This morning, the Rebbe, shlit"a, fielded a question about the nature of tumah and taharah, ritual purity and impurity. In the shiur, the Rebbe discussed the idea that Hashem defines reality how He sees fit, and that we are not privy to knowing the rhyme or reason behind it. Just like we don't why copper has the qualities to make it a good electrical conductor and why rubber lacks those characteristics, so too we have no insight into why certain things render tumah or taharah. This idea is brought out best by the parah adumah which has the seemingly contradictory qualities. On the one hand it purifies the one who was impure, but at the same time the one who is administering the tahara becomes tamei. It is a chok and a secret, its metziyus (reality), something that the Ribono Shel Olam determines to be. However, once we clarify that truth, we can then step back and ask, "But what can I learn from this?" Chazal suggest insights into the parah adumah; there are lessons to be learned. But the reasons why Hashem established the particular peculiar nature of the parah adumah in the manner that He did remains a chok.

Using tzaar baalei chayim as an example, the Rebbe said that the same concept applies to Jewish morality. The Torah-based set of morals that we adhere are not like universal ethics. Hashem defines what is ethical, not man. So we have to remember that when Hashem says not to pain animals, that is not because it is unethical to do so; it is because Hashem established it as important. When there is a purpose for causing pain to an animal such as shechting an animal to eat or cancer research, Hashem mandates that there is no longer an issue with harming an animal. Once we know that midos and derech eretz are not valuable in and of themselves but only because Hashem defined them as a way of coming close to Him and a means of perfecting man, then we can begin to explore the other comprehensible implications and lessons to be learned.

At the end of shiur the Rebbe quoted a famous vort from the Shem MiShmuel about the nature of tumah.

19 minutes, 4.5 MB PLAY DOWNLOAD