Parshas Ki Seitzei - The Secret of Great Mercy and the Power of Torah

"And with great mercy I will gather you": Where is the mercy hiding?

"Behold, the world needs great mercy, both spiritually and materially" (Likutey Moharan 105).

The world needs great mercy! In both spirituality and materiality, everyone needs mercy. Everyone needs salvations, miracles, shidduchim (marriage matches), and complete healing for family and friends. Every single person begs for mercy, everyone pleads for mercy, but they do not know where the mercy is. They ask, "Why is there no parnassah (livelihood)? Why is there no healing? Why is this one sick and that one sick? Where is the mercy?"

People do not even know how to ask for this great mercy. In truth, Rebbe Nachman says that mercy is within reach; mercy is not so far away, it is actually very close. "And the mercy is before everyone's eyes, as it is written, 'It is not far off, nor is it in heaven.'" Everyone begs for mercy without knowing where it is, and the Rebbe reveals that mercy is "before everyone's eyes" – the mercy is right in front of your eyes!

Hashem wants to shower you with mercy. Hashem wants to help you, to have compassion on you. Hashem loves you, and Hashem wants to give you all the mercy in the world—to give you parnassah (livelihood), salvations, miracles, children, healing, and Torah. Hashem wants to give you everything! Why did Hashem create you? He did not create you to suffer; He wants to give you everything! Just be a good child, listen to the voice of your Father. Hashem, may He be blessed, is not far from you.

Awakening Hashem's Prayer Through Torah Study

"There is mercy, and there is mercy. There is simple mercy of Zeir Anpin (the lower Divine manifestation of emotion), and there is great mercy of Atika Stima'ah (the hidden, highest level of Divine will and compassion), as it is written (Isaiah 54), 'And with great mercy I will gather you.' We need mercy, but due to our many sins in this generation, there is no one who can pray in a way that can draw down this mercy... and the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself must pray for this... And how can we bring it about that He, may He be blessed, will pray? Through Torah."

The Rebbe says that we must awaken mercy in the world, the great mercy of Atika Stima'ah (the hidden, highest level of Divine will), as it is written, "And with great mercy I will gather you." Yet, there is no one who can pray well enough to draw down this great mercy, because no one truly knows how great Hashem is, how infinite Hashem is, and how good Hashem is. Because of the overwhelming distress and poverty, the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself must pray for this. It is best that Hashem Himself prays to draw down the great mercy, because how much do we really know how to pray? Even if we come to the Western Wall and pray there, and recite the entire Book of Psalms, that is wonderful! But it is still not the true, complete prayer. We need Hashem Himself to pray!

So how do we cause Hashem Himself to pray for us? This is only through Torah study. The Rebbe reveals an awesome, novel concept here: If we learn Torah, then Hashem will pray for us, and He Himself will take care of us, and He Himself will give us everything: parnassah (livelihood), complete healing, children, miracles, and salvations. If we want to awaken Hashem so that Hashem Himself prays for us and draws great mercy down upon us, it is only through studying Torah. For who can sweeten the harsh decrees? Only Hashem Himself!

Hashem wants to give us everything! Hashem asks that we help Him pray; Hashem wants us to give Him the energy to pray, so to speak. "And I will make them joyful in My house of prayer" – Hashem says, I also pray! Help Me pray. The moment a person takes it upon himself to learn Torah, mercy is immediately awakened for him, and Hashem Himself prays for him. A person might think it is possible to run the world without Torah study, but there is no such thing! People simply do not know; they lack the emunah (faith) that through Torah study, mercy is drawn down to them.

Creating New Worlds Through the Power of In-Depth Study

The Rebbe says that the world needs great mercy, but it is impossible to awaken this mercy except through Torah study, specifically in-depth study. Even if a person cries out and prays, if he does not learn Torah, he cannot awaken mercy from Hashem, may He be blessed. Because Hashem says to him—what are you crying out about? What are you praying for? You want to live? Why do you live? To eat more cholent, more kugel, more pizza? Is that what you live for? You need to live in order to study the Torah of Hashem so that your mind will open up.

A person builds himself through the Torah; without Torah, he is not yet a human being. If you do not learn Gemara, at best you are like a sheep, and at worst you are like a snake—eating and drinking like an animal, sleeping like an animal. You are not yet a human being at all; you do not yet possess the Divine image. You build yourself only through the letters of the Torah: another letter, another Rashi, another Gemara, another Ritva. This is how you build yourself piece by piece, this is how you build your mind. You simply construct yourself through the letters of the Torah. As long as you do not have the Shas (Talmud) in your head, you are not considered a human being at all.

The Rebbe says in Torah 105 that teshuvah (repentance) means learning Gemara. If you want to do teshuvah, start learning Gemara. You are full of resentments, full of bad thoughts—learn Gemara and you will have no resentments, you will have no bad thoughts. Hold the Gemara in your hand and everything will work out for you; your thoughts will settle, everything will fall into place! Because your mind is scattered, flying, soaring in all directions, you need to connect the pieces of your mind. And connecting the pieces of the mind, the Rebbe says, is only achieved through Torah study.

When a person learns Torah in-depth, and he immerses his intellect into the Torah, he creates new worlds! He creates a new reality! Suddenly, he has new laws of nature! He has the money to travel to Uman! Suddenly, he has abundance in spirituality, abundance in materiality! Because he created a new world. Before, he was in a world where he had no money, and now he is in a world where he already has money! Because it has become an entirely new world. Every single moment a person creates new worlds; if a person learns Torah in-depth, he creates new worlds every second.

The Light of the King's Face is Life: Emerging from Concealment to Revelation

Life is a cycle of concealment and revelation, concealment and revelation. If the concealment is this world, if it is idle matters, sadness, illusions, and all sorts of hopes where we felt entitled but ended up disappointed, making us feel like we are in some kind of failure—then we must remove this concealment. We must emerge from this hiddenness.

And even if we only desire completely spiritual things, and only ask that our successes be that everything we have learned comes to light, and so on—any such thing, if it is on our terms, in our concepts, from our perspective, our worldview, and our feelings, and we have inserted our own ego into it, then no matter how wonderful it is, it is still a concealment. Because it essentially hides this entire reality that was revealed on Purim in all its intensity: that in truth, there is nothing else, nothing at all, only Hashem.

Because on Purim, everything seemed lost, seemingly hopeless, a decree of total annihilation. Yet, within this mistaken, confused, limited human existence full of personal biases, the point of Divine revelation emerges and illuminates the darkness. This means that we must emerge from any form of concealment into revelation, into the revelation of Godliness. This was essentially the portion of Queen Esther, whose name signifies concealment (hester), while her book (Megillas Esther - the Scroll of Esther) signifies revelation (megillah).

Insights on the Parshah: The Power of the Collective in the War Against the Evil Inclination and Amalek

"When you go out to war against your enemies..." (Devarim 21:10)

The Gemara states: "You shall not go out except in a camp." Even though every individual must fight against their evil inclination, nevertheless, the battle should be waged by including oneself within the collective of the Jewish people. One's intention should be that the entire Jewish nation will succeed in the battle of Hashem, because the collective depends on the individual, and then the power of the community's battle goes out with him.

The Sages said that "camp" refers to the limbs of a person. For there is a collective power within every detail, and similarly, every person is called a "microcosm." To the extent that a person directs all their limbs and gathers them all toward this single will, so too will they be able to include themselves within the collective of the Jewish people. (Sfas Emes).

"Remember what Amalek did to you on the way... and he struck those of you who were trailing behind you" (Devarim 25:17-18)

The tzaddik Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Peshischa zy"a would say: The mitzvah to "Remember what Amalek did to you," and the adjacent mitzvah to "Erase the memory of Amalek," are both stated in the singular form. There is a moral lesson in this for the Jewish people: in every generation, Amalek was only able to defeat the individual Jew who separated from the collective, whom the Cloud of Glory expelled outside the camp (as Rashi explains, Amalek only managed to harm those people—"those trailing behind"—whom the Cloud expelled due to their sins).

In contrast, the masses of the Jewish people, who clung to one another in brotherhood and friendship, were protected by the Cloud, and they did not fall into the hands of Amalek. This path must serve as a guiding principle for us and our children after us: as long as the Jewish people dwell in unity, "Amalek" (a term for the enemies of Israel) will have no dominion over them.

Stories of the Torah Portion: A Divorce According to the Mishnah and the Power of Trust in Hashem

"He shall write her a bill of divorce and place it in her hand"

One day, a young woman entered the study of Rabbi Eizel Charif zt"l, the Rav of Slonim, and cried out with tear-filled eyes: 'A great tragedy has recently befallen me—my husband, my provider, left the house one morning, and now I am left like a shipwreck tossed upon the water.' Rabbi Eizel urgently summoned the husband and began speaking to his heart, urging him to return home and live in peace with his wife. However, the husband rejected all of the Rav's pleas and declared with great firmness: 'I despise this woman, and I cannot bear to live under the same roof with her!'

'If that is the situation...' Rabbi Eizel exclaimed, 'give your wife a get (bill of divorce) immediately, and free her from being an agunah (a chained woman)!' The husband pondered for a brief moment and then said: 'I am willing to give my wife a get in exchange for a hundred rubles...' When the wife, who was waiting in the adjacent room, heard this, she burst into bitter tears and cried: 'Where will I get a hundred rubles? I am desperately poor and do not have a single penny to my name!'

Rabbi Eizel was deeply moved by the woman's words. Without saying a word, he took Tractate Kiddushin from the bookshelf, opened it to the very first page right in front of the astonished husband's eyes, and said to him: 'Read aloud what the Mishnah says here: "A woman is acquired (married to her husband) in three ways, and she acquires herself (is freed from the marriage) in two ways... through a get or through the death of the husband." Now the choice is yours to make—through which of these two ways found in the Mishnah will your wife be freed from the chains of marriage in which she is currently bound...' The stubborn husband was absolutely terrified by the Rav's words and agreed to write a get for his wife unconditionally...

The Power of Trust in Hashem

There is a story of a villager who lived with his wife for over ten years and was not blessed with children. Some of his acquaintances told him: "The time has come for you to divorce your barren wife and marry another woman, who will quickly bless you with the fruit of the womb." However, the simple villager rejected this suggestion from his acquaintances, feeling in his straightforward mind that it was improper to cause such anguish to a righteous Jewish woman.

Once, a Chassid who was one of the prominent students of the Maggid, Rabbi Yisroel of Kozhnitz zy"a, stayed as a guest in the villager's home. The villager poured out his bitter heart to him and asked for good advice to rescue him from his distress. The visiting Chassid said to the villager: "If you listen to my advice, go early to the door of the great Maggid of Kozhnitz, who has already brought swift salvation and redemption to many barren women." The villager and his wife hurried to the Maggid and begged him to bless them with viable offspring.

The elderly Maggid looked at the faces of the visitors and finally declared to them decisively: "If you want a son, you must place fifty-two gold coins on my table—the numerical value of the word 'ben' (son)." "Fifty-two gold coins?!" the villager cried out in astonishment. "That is a massive sum, found only in the hands of the exceedingly wealthy. Perhaps the Rebbe would settle for ten gold coins?" But the Maggid stood by his demand, insisting that the man must promptly bring fifty-two gold coins in full.

Having no other choice, the villager returned home and began searching for silver coins. Finally, he gathered a bag full of coins amounting to twenty gold pieces and came to the Maggid. "Let the Rebbe see how much money is in this bag!" the villager pleaded. "Please settle for the number of gold coins I have brought this time." "You must bring fifty-two gold coins," the Maggid repeated, "and not a penny less."

The villager threw both his hands upward in a gesture of despair and called out to his wife: "Come, let's leave here. Hashem will help us even without the Maggid!" At that very moment, Rabbi Yisroel's eyes lit up, and he called out to them with a confident voice: "Go to your home in peace, for your salvation from On High is near." Not many days passed before the words of the tzaddik were completely fulfilled, for great is the power of trust in Hashem that flows from the depths of the heart...

A Prayer of the Afflicted: Open My Mind to Your Torah

Master of the Universe, full of mercy, Almighty, from whom no purpose can be withheld. Master of the Universe, open my intellect and my mind so that they may be receptive to the study of Your Torah. May I merit a tremendous desire to study Torah ceaselessly, day and night, and may nothing in the world be able to stop me from learning Torah. Let me feel the joy of the Torah and the love of the Torah in all my 248 limbs and 365 sinews. May all my limbs be enriched and delight in the study of Torah, and may the holy intellect of Torah study spread throughout all my 248 limbs and 365 sinews.