Prayer and the Tzaddik

Rav Nachman taught this piece of Torah in the summer of 1805, during a period of mourning over the death of his young son, Ephraim. This teaching discusses the tzaddik’s mission of ‘repairing’ and restoring those around him, the difficulties and troubles of this labour and the way in which these obstacles nevertheless enable him to express his Torah.

Rav Shagar’s comments were compiled based on a transcript of a shiur delivered at the Mekor Chaim Yeshiva in 1985, a piece from Rav Shagar’s teaching on the 9th Torah, and excerpts from collections from Rav Shagar’s last years, when he dealt with this topic as well as the subjects of Lag Ba’Omer and other memorial ceremonies of tzaddikim.

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A. The Tzaddik, Fixer of Souls

Know that there is a field, and in it there grow very beautiful trees and grasses. The grandeur and beauty of this field and its plants cannot be conveyed, and fortunate is the eye that gazed upon this sight. And the trees and grasses are an expression of the holy souls that grow there. And there are some souls here and there that are bare, moving to and fro outside of the field, awaiting and anticipating tikkun [repair, restoration] so that they may enter and return to their place… and they all look to the master of the field, who will be able to occupy himself with their repair. And there is a soul, whose repair can only be completed by the death of another soul or through the mitzvah and observance performed by another soul. And one who wishes to pull himself together and assume the role of the field’s caretaker and owner – he must be measured, strong, brave, intelligent. He must be a great tzaddik, for this must be a person at a high level indeed. And there is one, who cannot finish [in his role] until his death, and even for this he must be very great.

In this teaching, Rabbi Nachman discusses the relationship between the tzaddik – described as the ‘owner of the field’ – and the chassidim (followers) that surround him. The tzaddik occupies himself with tending to the trees and grasses in the field: the repair of souls. As the owner of the field, the tzaddik must know how to tend to everyone, to nurture and assist with every soul’s growth so that it may reach its potential.

Rabbi Nachman describes this as the relationship of a Rebbe to his chasidim, though this may apply, too, to the way a teacher treats his students or a father raises his children. The common element in these relationships is the former figure’s embodiment of the role of a gardener tending to his plot. A sensitive, perceptive instructor or father can imagine the child or student in maturity, just as one can anticipate a plant growing into a specific kind of tree. The most essential aspect of this type of education is not transmission of particular content, but the cultivation of something within the student’s very being – for this is an offering of eternal value. There are times when a person is lost mentally or spiritually, afflicted by self-contradiction, self-alienation or a detachment from emotion and thought. The fundamental role of the teacher and tzaddik here is reframing the thought process: revealing a new way of seeing what is inaccessible to the individual alone.

Rav Nachman continues by noting another matter that I do not understand completely. He claims that there are times when a tzaddik can only carry out tikkun (repair) through his death.^[1] This type of tikkun appears to be mystical.^[2] In Hassidic thought, it is believed that the presence of the tzaddik grows even greater after his death. The source for this idea is found in the Talmud: “As Rav Chama bar Chanina said: ‘Tzaddikim are greater in death than in life.”^[3] So, too, we find in the Holy Zohar: “A Tzaddik who has departed can be found in a great many more worlds than during his lifetime.”^[4] In Torah 66^[5] Rav Nachman explains (similarly to the Rav Shneur Zalman of Liady, basing himself off of Chazal and the Zohar’s pronouncements)^[6] that the tzaddik‘s presence is made all the more significant precisely after his death because the trappings of a live body are no longer. The emergence of the soul – without its containing vessel – allows for its wider, boundless presence to be revealed.

Additionally, as with any departure or loss, absence evokes the greatest yearning. Absence intensifies the importance and uniqueness of the thing that is lost, thus, further sharpening its ‘presence.’ The hidden is that which cannot be tangibly revealed as it cannot be grasped from outside; it is ‘the event of the subject.’ Every human has a hidden point of view, stemming from his own being as a subject. Thus, it is precisely at the moment of passing – when man ceases to be a subject – that he is revealed in a fuller way than before to those around him. This is the case with both a high-level teaching that descends from above only with the tzaddik’s death, and so, too, with the strength of the tzaddik himself.

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The tzaddik’s skill as the ‘owner’ of the field – endowed with the ability to fix and tend to others – is drawn directly from his own suffering. The tzaddik experiences suffering that is both physical and spiritual in nature – the downfall and torment of the soul. The tzaddik can only offer advice and heal another by virtue of his own personal experience.

It is interesting to compare this insight to Rav Kook’s description of individuals with ‘universal’ souls (נשמה כללית): people whose souls have absorbed the problems of the generation, problems that are not particular to that individual but rather are symptomatic of the cultural and moral problems of that period. Such a person is acutely sensitive – far more than the average individual – to the crises and the contradictions that destabilise his era and is intensely tortured by this situation.^[7] When Hassidim turn to him for help, the tzaddik not only sees subjective, particular problems requiring a personal solution. Rather, the tzaddik perceives objective problems as well, ones that express a loss of harmony in the real world. Rav Kook emphasizes that such a ‘universal’ soul can find a way in which the contradictions of the chaotic world can come to be reconciled. Such an individual formulates a harmonious position, one that doesn’t just alleviate the pain of the generation but delivers a full tikkun.^[8]

In our generation, this is an especially prominent issue in the dati leumi (National Religious) sphere. A person growing up in the dati leumi community is influenced from all directions: the world of Torah and mitzvot, but also Western culture, Zionism, and more. These sources cannot always be synthesized, and this is not our fault; the world of Torah and that of civilization in general are made to conflict and contradict one another deeply. Thus, the Haredi world is far more absorbed – intensively, entirely – in the world of Torah: there is a rootedness whose absence in the dati leumi sector leads to a feeling of alienation from mitzvot.

This phenomenon is not a personal one: it is an objective problem. One who enters the world of Torah under the influence of Western modes of thought will experience and perceive it differently than one who has not been subject to other cultural influences. Holding these two worlds side-by-side can cause distortions^[9] and deficient characters – for these are the symptoms of the inherent disharmony in this kind of integration. The contradictory encounter of these two worlds is not only fueled by their incompatible ideas but is rooted in the fundamentally different systems of thought and perspective.

Let us take an example: Western thinking prompts us to characterize the world of Torah in a theoretical manner – scientific or philosophical – as a coherent, definable entity. Yet this approach robs us of vitality and flow, an understanding of the complicated dynamics of the Torah. Unlike those who come from ‘within,’ we are likely to be distant from the halachic, scholarly language of the Torah. Oftentimes, living in two worlds makes us perceive a Torah deeply estranged from contemporary reality.

What is the role of the modern-day rebbe? A rebbe in our times – that ‘universal’ soul of our generation – must find a solution to this distress that can appeal to a wide audience. He cannot lead his congregation back to the Haredi world: this population no longer belongs to that sector, it is not able to – nor does it want – to adopt Haredism. Such a move would also not be the proper way to carry out a solution. The tzaddik’s society has already taken in new ideas and approaches: some of these are definitively good, and they have acquired a place and a value. The tzaddik, therefore, must know how to elevate himself to a viewing point from which he can see the ‘big picture’: a perspective from which the contradictions can be included in a meaningful spiritual world, where the distortions vanish, and a true synthesis of old and new as one is born. This is not a rational, cerebral conclusion but a lived solution: personal experience. The rebbe – the tzaddik- can solve others’ problems because he himself lives the problems, experiencing them even more sharply than his fellows. His suffering is stronger, greater – and that is precisely why he can offer a true solution.

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B. Prayer – The Fixing of Speech

Know that when the souls bear fruit – when they fulfil the will of God – then they brighten the eyes of the owner of the field, and [his eyes] are able to look out and see the place they need to see, and this is what is mentioned with “the field of watchers” (Numbers 23:14). But when they do not do God’s bidding, God forbid, then the owner’s eyes darken. And this is the aspect of “the field of weepers” (Mishnah Ohalot 18:4). For weeping blurs vision, as it is written, “And the clouds return after the rain.”(Ecclesiastes 12:2). Our rabbis understood this as follows: “This is the vision that follows weeping.”(Talmud Shabbat 151). But when his eyes are shining and seeing, in the way of “the field of watchers” mentioned above, then he is able to look at each and every one and summon him to his purpose. That is, the [owner of the field] can observe each individual’s speech, determining if he has not wholly achieved repair – for he is still distant from his purpose – and then the owner leads him to the purpose, and speech becomes whole.

Rabbi Nachman describes the owner of the field as one who possesses the power to perceive and observe the speech of every single being. The topic of speech features prominently in the teaching of Rabbi Nachman. Speech is the soul; “And man was a living soul,” (Genesis 2:7) is translated by Onkelos as “a speaking spirit.’ Speech is man’s life-force in its outward expression. The Mahara”l of Prague describes it as follows: ‘For man’s form is that of a bond between the intellectual soul and the body together, and this thing is itself the ability to speak, which is a union of soul and body…and speaking is the end-goal of his form.’ The soul is described as the inner being of man expressed in his thoughts, feelings and consciousness. The primary external expression of the soul, one which embodies the transition between man’s inner and outer being, is speech.

It should also be added that speech is not only a translation of thought, but rather the spontaneous expression of the soul. Emotions develop until they turn into speech. Speech could be one direct action, rather than an activity split into two parts (thought followed by speech). Inner thoughts are one with speech, and thus it is an expression of the spirit.

In this teaching, Rabbi Nachman places great value on speech. By exploring and listening deeply to the words of his followers, the tzaddik – the gardener – can know if they are far from their purpose or close to it. We are not discussing the case of a liar who comes to the tzaddik, and the tzaddik – with a penetrating gaze and clear vision – perceives the lie: this is a crass, vulgar kind of lie. According to Rabbi Nachman, the tzaddik identifies a lie of a different sort: an existential lie. Speech must be said in a luminous form, transparent, clear and bright – an expression of the soul. But is the speaker disconnected, living in the gap between himself and his speech? How far is he from his purpose, and does he live his life in pursuit of that purpose?

Rabbi Nachman continues by connecting this subject to the avodah of prayer, as he writes:

Because every single utterance is a whole world, and when a person stands and prays and utters words of prayer, he is gathering shoots and flowers and beautiful roses. Like someone who walks in a field, picking roses and flowers one by one until they are collected all together into one bunch. Then he continues collecting more, one by one, into another bunch, then joins the two…

And when an utterance emerges, this utterance emerges from the soul…And the utterance comes and is heard by his ears, as our Sages of blessed memory said, ‘Make heard to your ears that which you release from your mouth’ (Berakhot 13), then the utterance pleads and asks the soul not to part with it. And just as soon as the first letter comes out, like the letter “bet” from the word “Barukh,” it begs the soul to not be separated from it. How can it part from me, when the connection and love between us is so great?

Prayer is a gathering of souls; every utterance of prayer is a part of the soul, emerging from it. In a number of Hassidic books, we find the idea that prayer, tefilah, comes to repair the speech of man, to mend the relationship between his speech and his inner being. When one prays with the necessary sensitivity, he knows whether his praying is sincere or fake, words leaving from one’s lips alone. Even if he wants to have kavvana in his prayer, he can sense whether true feeling is present, whether he identifies deeply with what is being said.

The role of prayer in this respect is to teach a person to speak from within. This is not a rhetorical lesson but an inner mending, bringing one to the point where words reflect inner truth. If prayer is directed towards God, then its purpose is to examine the relationship between the Creator and me, to see whether our relationship is real. Rabbi Kook, too, says that clarity of speech expresses the person’s repaired, renewed status: “A person can know his spiritual state by looking to the clarity of his speech. To the extent that the spiritual light burns within him, he will sense that every single utterance goes out like an arrow, like a rush of living water…and carries out its actions in the world.”

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C. Collecting Flowers: Joining Words Together in Prayer

Rabbi Nachman likens the status of prayer to a gathering of blossoms and flowers (similarly, souls are compared to grasses and trees). What is the meaning of this image? In prayer, I speak words that should be said with truth, spirit, a resonance of life and music. These are the blossoms and flower of which Rabbi Nachman speaks.

For example, when I say the word “Ashrei,” I can concentrate on osher (happiness). What is happiness? What is the experience of joy? I should feel this from within, and thus, that happiness becomes an inner light, not just a superficial saying.

And so, too, when I say, “Ata gibor” (You are brave), I have the opportunity to consider: What is courage? I am not asking for a definition of courage, but for the feeling that is evoked by courage.

When I say, “Avinu” (Our Father), I can think of my father, and his significance in my life. I can consider my state of fatherhood, of the significance of my children. Then I can meditate upon fatherhood and motherhood in general, because according to the Kabbalists at this point I am involved not with the concrete word but with light, with the essence that is expressed in our world by the terms ‘father’ or ‘mother.’ It is difficult to speak of this light in words. It is a deeply human melody.

And if one proceeds thus, from letter to letter, from word to word – then this is the act of collecting: collecting melodies, flowers, souls.

On the topic of a teaching by the Baal Shem Tov, the Maggid of Mezeritch says that one must bring words and letters back to their roots:

Rabbi Israel Baal Shem (Peace Be Upon Him), said: ‘You will make an opening in the ark (Genesis 6:16) – so that it lights up the ark’ – these were his words. Because in every letter, there are worlds of souls and Godliness, and they rise, and weave together, and join with one another, with Godliness, and then the letters weave together, and join with one another, and they make a word. And then true unities are joined together in Godliness, and so all the worlds are united as one, and they rise and create joy and great delight without measure.

According to the Maggid’s interpretation, the Besht proposes a way to elevate the word by bringing it back to its ‘light,’ to its essence – to the profound, deep point within the word which has a bearing on my life. If we return to a previous example, let us consider the word abba, father. The connection of the thought and the word upon pronunciation is not an externalization of the internal, a movement from inside-out: prayer does not outwardly express my inner feelings. On the contrary, it is a movement from the outside-in: I bring my inner feelings to match and merge with the words that surround me.^[10]

We can describe Rabbi Nachman’s teaching in the following way: When I am walking in the field, I allow the atmosphere – the freedom, the fresh air – to surround me, to be immersed in it. In doing so, I experience renewal inside through that which is occurring outside of me. In the very same way, I attempt to bring myself to merge with the words of prayer: to allow their essence to reach me through their recital, to enable them to overwhelm me. This is achieved by perceiving the spirituality in letters and words, by letting them act upon and awaken me.

The topic of the close connection between prayer and the one who prays can also be seen in another teaching by Rav Nachman (תורה ט), in which he describes the differences between various nusachs (versions) of prayer:

Know that there are 12 tribes that correspond to 12 constellations (Tikkun 18 and 25), and every single tribe has its own particular version, and each tribe’s prayer enters through its own separate, special gate, and every tribe with its prayer arouses the strength of its constellation among the 12 constellations, and the constellation shines down light and nourishes the plants and all the other things that need it…

The writings of The Ari (Rabbi Isaac Luria) describe 12 gates corresponding to 12 tribes, representing the different pathways of prayer. Every tribe had its own nusach with a distinct path for prayer, and for this reason one should not switch from nusach Ashkenaz to Sefard (except for the Ariza”l’s own nusach, which synthesized various nusachs into one).^[11] Rabbi Nachman validates the existence of a different nusach for every tribe, for every nusach has within it a singular, unique kind of light. Every nusach is a different entrance, a gate for the prayer of every heart, unique in language and expression.

The Sefardi nusach, for example, contains repetitions that express the soul’s longing. In the Eighteen Benedictions we say, “And give blessing,” then again “Good years of blessing,” or “Because we’ve trusted you, relied fully and truthfully upon your great kindness.” These reiterations and additions – missing in the Ashkenaz version – are not only reflective of diverse traditions: they accentuate and emphasize different things. I once prayed from a siddur of the Edot Hamizrach and my prayer seemed to have a different resonance. Similarly, even saying the name of God with an Ashkenazi, Sefardi or the ancestral Yemenite syllabic pronunciation – each one of these creates a different light.

Thus, Rabbi Nachman teaches that every person should find his own prayer, the gate most appropriate to him.

Later in Teaching 9, Rabbi Nachman connects this to finding the best for a partner and career. Rabbi Nachman does not see work as an incidental, instrumental matter but a substantial, personal, unique and irreplaceable activity. Therefore, by locating his particular, special place in prayer, one can also find his livelihood and his match. Prayer is an encounter with the most personal point in man, a point that no one but him can recognize and identify. From this perspective, a person’s longing for his ‘roots’ is right and true, while the attempt to create a monolithic nusach may create an artificial synthesis that does not fit anyone.

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Rabbi Nachman describes a prayer performed through uttering words and sensing the ‘scent’ that they release. This type of prayer differs from other prayers described by Rabbi Nachman, such as existential prayer (man addressing God as one speaks with his peer) or the use of shouting in prayer. In this Torah, the description is fragrant and sweet – we are speaking of a prayer of wandering, of pleasure. Not everyone can engage in each type of prayer suggested by Rabbi Nachman, and sometimes even one type can be a challenge; thus the prayer of one single person is likely to be a mixture of several methods. I will add here that there is yet another type of prayer – mystical prayer – described by the Admor HaZaken: a dveykus (attachment, closeness) without words, a prayer in silence.

Regarding “Why do you cry out to Me?” (Exodus 14:15) and “The Lord will battle for you, you hold your peace!”(Exodus 14:14), it is known that speech is related to the aspect of wisdom…Our rabbis said: A wise man does not speak before someone who is greater than him (Pirkei Avot 5:7), as one who comes before a king, etc. And this is because “Since one is preoccupied with swallowing – he does not expel”: since he is consuming, he does not bring forth. When the Red Sea parted, the Children of Israel experienced a revelation of Divine Presence from above, from the aspect of wisdom. For this reason, it says: “You hold your peace” (literally, ‘Be quiet’), with the aspect of silence. Thus the Shemoneh Esrei – as it is like that revelation, through the aspect of nullification – is not voiced aloud.

When one is on an elevated level, he is able to arrive at a thought that cannot be formulated in words: in his thought he sees the substance of the idea. For example, when I see a book, as I say to myself, “I see a book,” I am engaged in revealing something. At the same time, I am also engaged in concealment in speech. I report the vision I have experienced to myself, and in doing so – verbalizing that I see and what I see – speech creates a disconnection between me and the very act of viewing the thing itself. Even when we are simply walking on the street, we are always speaking, constantly reacting to reality. This .endency prevents us from seeing this reality directly, unmediated.

For example, when I say the word, “moon” – this is not the actual moon. The word is connected to a multitude of associations that conceal the real moon. To see the true moon, I must know how to be silent. I must do that which the Admor HaZaken describes as ‘The Parting of the Red Sea’: to reach a primal world, the essence of the thing that is usually obscured by chatter. Thus, we can experience the world primally, directly ‘through a newborn’s eyes’.
Thought – a kind of reflexive activity – defines, causing me to feel a particular way. My subjective reading of reality is the interpretation that I lay upon my vision. The thing itself is not exactly the interpretation I give it. Therefore, it is only through observation – without verbally-mediated interpretation – that the nuances can reach us directly. In our encounters with other human beings, we are first and foremost engaged in interpretation, and mostly fail to see their being: it is through being silent that we can reveal the other. From this perspective, the more the world makes contact with the essence of .things, the more the words and letters fade: only silence and stillness remain.

As the piece continues, Rabbi Nachman emphasizes the bond between the one who prays and the words of the prayer. Dveykus (attachment, closeness) occurs as the person lingers over the pronunciation of the prayer. As one hears his own prayer, becoming aware of the words released from his mouth, he does not wish to part from the inner, spiritual dimension revealed within. The words infuse life into him, creating feelings and longings that bring him to encounter eternity, and he does not want to leave this ‘space.’ At the end of the second paragraph, Rabbi Nachman writes:

The principle is that one creates a singular ‘unity’ of the whole prayer, and every utterance that he utters will contain within it all the utterances in the prayer: from the beginning to the end of the prayer, it is all one. And as he is poised on the last word of the prayer, he should still be meditating on the first word – in .this way he can pray the whole of the prayer.

Rabbi Nachman calls upon us not to forget the beginning of the prayer as we conclude it. This principle can also be applied in other contexts, for example: the birth of one’s child. As the years pass, the feeling when a child is first born – the excitement of the beginning – is easily forgotten. But it is crucial to remember that initial moment, and in doing so to experience renewal and energy. With any line of work, one must always remember the strong emotions of the start. Immersing oneself in the present too often comes at the expense of forgetting the beginning. Viewing the whole journey gives one a broader perspective on highs and lows of the whole. Thus one is liberated from both fleeting rapture and momentary depression: one looks at the world from a balanced point of view, a perspective of greater objectivity.

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^[1]  See the teaching of Torah 7 and Rav Shagar’s lesson about it for further elucidation.

^[2] See Rav Nachman’s description of the elderly Baal Shem Tov: “If, God forbid, the tzaddik of that generation cannot sweeten [the environment], then he may fall precipitously from his high plane, because of the difficulties upon him; or he may depart and pass away entirely, God forbid. it is then, through his death, that his soul will sweeten the troubles. And such was the Baal Shem Tov’s passing, as he would say that he would pass due to the actions of Sabbatai Zevi…because they spoke wickedly of the community, and these rumours fell to the great man of that generation – and the Baal Shem Tov was at that time the leader of the generation, and for this reason he departed (Torah 207).

^[2] In Rabbi Nachman’s teachings, we find a different approach – one that interprets contradiction as something that brings clarity (rather than chaos). See Vol 1, p. 321 and this volume, Torah 64. See also Rav Shagar in “An Argument for Heaven’s Sake” in be-Tzel ha-Emuna, p. 209-225 and Luhot ve-Shivrei Luhot, 139-162.

^[3] Babylonian Talmud Chullin 7b.

^[4] Zohar 3: 71b.

^[5] For example, there he wrote: “And this is why it is important to be present at the tzaddik‘s passing, even if you were not a follower. Because in those moments, the spirit from above is revealed down below and great insights are shown. For this reason it very significant to be there in that moment, and it is a good omen for a long life.”

^[6] See Iggeret Hakodesh, Tanya: Likkutei Amarim 27. The Middle Admur also records this idea in the Sayings of the Middle Admur: Teachings on Weddings (New York 1991, p. 519).

^[7] See,for example, Orot Hakodesh 2 (Jerusalem, Israel: 1985), רטז-ריז.

^[8] In Rabbi Nachman’s teachings, we find a different approach – one that interprets contradiction as something that brings clarity (rather than chaos). See Vol 1, p. 321 and this volume, Torah 64. See also Rav Shagar in “An Argument for Heaven’s Sake” in be-Tzel ha-Emuna, p. 209-225 and Luhot ve-Shivrei Luhot, 139-162.

^[9] See, however, “At the gate of the Academy” Le-hair et ha-Ptachim, p.199-208.

^[10] As Rabbi Yaakov Yosef of Polonne said in the name of the Besh”t: “And I learned from my teacher, the primary purpose of Torah and prayer is to cleave to the internal spirituality of the Infinite Light (or ein-sof) that is embedded in the letters of the Torah and of prayer” (Toldot Yaakov Yosef, Jerusalem 1973: Vayetzeh, 89).

^[11] See, for example, Rabbi Emanuel Chai Riki’s description: “And the ancestral custom should not be changed, especially in prayer, because the categories of minhag (custom) stem from categorical divisions at the root of souls… And if one does not himself know the customs of his forefathers, he should take upon himself the customs of Rabbi Chaim Vital who took on the Ariza”l’s customs, which were mainly based on the Sefardi prayer order, to perform the rectification needed above” (Mishnat Hassidim, Jerusalem 1981: 46). See also the letter of Rabbi Dov Ber, the Maggid of Mezeritch: “Regarding the diversity of nusachs in prayer, and the inquirer’s doubts about how to act in this case, I said the following: Such things I cannot clarify in a letter. But it is already known that the Rabbis said that there were 13 times for bowing in the Temple corresponding to 13 gates (Mishna Shekalim 6)..And the point of prayer is for each person to ascend through his gate. For prayer is a ladder with its bottom touching the earth and its top in the skies, and every gate has its own special joints – and thus we have various, different nusachs. And the 13th gate is for the one who does not remember his tribe,and does not know through which gate to enter the King’s courtyard. The 13th gate is directed as the 13th rectification of “V’nakeh” (and clean), being rectified and receiving tikkun from all the other 13 tikkunim. And the Ariz”al – for whom the paths of the horizon shine – taught the people who did not know their tribe and composed a prayer order collected from several different nusachs. And perhaps the inquirer will say: Why is there a need for 13 gates, when the 13th gate includes them all? The answer is that when every tribe and its nusach was known, it was undoubtedly better to enter through one’s own gate. And we see an allusion to this in the niggun of “Tefila L’Ani Ki Yaatof.” But in this time, when we cannot identify the tribes nor each particular nusach, one should follow the way of the Ari”zal, which is a proper fit for everyone (Magid Devarav LeYaakov, ed. Rabbi Shatz-Oppenheimer, Jerusalem 1990: 167-168.)