THEMES of Featured Chasidic Masters Articles

"You will eat the very old [grain], and you will remove the old to make way for the new."

Rabbi Avraham Dov of Avrutsh (who passed away in Safed in 1841) teaches that in the beginning of one's spiritual journey, one initially feels very close to "the very old" G-d; that he grasps His depth, His truth, His grace.

Paradoxically, it is precisely when the feeling of "I have G-d" withers away and is replaced by the sense of a void that you are actually closest to Him.

"If you will walk in [the ways of] My chukot."

In His love and concern for us, G-d is pleading with us, so to speak, "if only you would take the above ideas to heart! If only the direction in which you are going, the way in which you walk, the areas in which you seek to grow and develop, were 'in My statutes,' i.e. the way of the Torah and of holiness!"

G-d promises us that if we learn His Torah and keep His laws, He will give us everything that we need. But our learning must not be like letters are written with ink on parchment or paper, but must be like engraving with the letters etched upon our hearts and souls. The best way to do this is by learning not only the revealed Torah but also the hidden Torah – Kabbalah.

This week’s Biblical Torah portion enumerates forty-nine (!) curses that will befall those that transgress the law. But why would G-d want to curse His own children?! Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi explains that these "curses" are "in truth, nothing but blessings," blessings in disguise.

On an ostensible level – the conscious, revealed dimension – they appear as curses. But in an even deeper dimension – in the unconscious, hidden dimension – the inner workings of these apparent "curses" are nothing but profound blessings, so profound that they can only be expressed in a concealed and disguised fashion.