The Secret of Concealment: The Power of the Name Havayah and the Inner Work of the Tzaddikim

Lesson No. 40 | Friday, Parashas Ki Savo, 20 Elul 5755

An in-depth discourse on the obligation to always place the Name of Hashem before one's eyes, the awe required when standing before the King of Kings, and the secret of the concealment of Hashem and the tzaddikim who walk in His ways.

A person who stays awake all night must hold on until the very end, and not go to sleep in the early morning hours, thereby missing the time for prayer. He must wait until the Shacharis (morning) prayer at vasikin (sunrise), for if he misses the proper time for the recitation of the Shema and prayer, "his bread has fallen into the pit" (a Talmudic idiom meaning he has lost the main thing). The constant, ongoing work of a Jew must be in the aspect of:

"I have set Hashem always before me" (Tehillim 16:8).

The Name of Havayah, blessed be He, must be before one's eyes twenty-four hours a day. Today, we pronounce the Name with the letters of Adnus (Lordship), but in the Future to Come, just as it was in the Beis HaMikdash (Holy Temple), we will mention the Name of Havayah exactly as it is written, face to face. Today, Hashem is hidden and concealed, but in the Future to Come, He will be completely revealed.

The Power of the Explicit Name

All the secrets of true Kabbalah are founded upon this great and holy Name. When a person acts with the Name of Havayah before his eyes, he will succeed in all his ways. All the inner, hidden, and concealed powers, and all the salvations he never even dreamed of, are revealed through this Name.

"If a person constantly places the Name of Havayah before his eyes, slowly but surely, all the secrets of the Torah will be revealed to him, and he will merit prophecy."

Praiseworthy is the one who merits to always place the Name of Hashem before his eyes. He is guaranteed that secrets and hints will be revealed to him that were never revealed to any tzaddik before him, because Hashem is ready to reveal completely new things in every generation and on every single day, for He is Infinite (Ein Sof).

Awe and Fear Before the King of Kings

When a person sees the Name of Hashem before his eyes, he understands that he is standing before the Great King, whose glory fills the entire earth. In such a state, he must not make any unnecessary movements—not in how he sits, not in his gestures, and not in opening his mouth wide.

The Gemara in Tractate Pesachim (57b) tells of a Kohen Gadol (High Priest) named Yissachar of Kfar Barkai, who was highly fastidious and performed the sacrificial service wearing silk gloves so as not to dirty his hands with blood. Once, a dispute arose between the king and the queen regarding which meat was tastier—lamb or goat. They decided to summon the Kohen Gadol, who offers the sacrifices, to decide the matter.

When asked, the Kohen made a dismissive gesture with his hand and said, "If a goat were better, they would offer it for the daily Tamid sacrifice, and not a lamb." For that single dismissive gesture before the king, it was decreed that his hand be cut off. From this, we can learn a kal vachomer (an a fortiori argument): If before a flesh-and-blood king a person is punished so severely for a slight gesture of disrespect, how much more so before the King of Kings. "For every single movement, a person will have to give a strict accounting." The only movements permitted before Hashem are gestures of mercy and supplication.

The Secret of Concealment: Emulating the Creator

The tzaddik Rabbi Shalom Yosef, the son of Rabbi Yisrael of Ruzhin, explained the verse:

"You have made him slightly less than the Divine, and crowned him with glory and splendor" (Tehillim 8:6).

Hashem is "hidden and concealed, the most hidden of all hidden things." Therefore, the entire spiritual work of the tzaddikim is to emulate their Creator—to be as concealed as possible. "As long as a person is hidden and concealed in the ultimate state of concealment, he resembles his Creator."

If a person is a true tzaddik, every day he becomes more concealed than the day before. "Any publicity a person has, even the slightest bit, is a sign that he now has some disconnection and distance from Hashem." A person's entire essence is to always remain in concealment. Therefore, a person must pray endlessly that people should not know of him, and that he should have no publicity whatsoever.

The Seal of Hashem: The Parable of the Report Card

To understand just how concealed Hashem is, and how He does not seek to prove Himself, a story is told about Rabbi Yisrael Salanter, who was once staying at an inn. The innkeeper was a simple Jew. Suddenly, a heretic entered and began to mock faith. This heretic took a piece of non-kosher (treif) meat and declared, "If it is truly forbidden to eat non-kosher food, I am ready to die right now! Look, I am swallowing the meat, and let's see if Hashem will kill me." He ate it, and of course, nothing happened to him. The innkeeper saw this and began to feel confused in his faith.

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter sat there and did not answer him a word. A few hours passed, and at noon, the innkeeper's son returned from school bringing a report card filled with high praise: "Excellent in playing music," "Excellent in singing," and so on.

Rabbi Yisrael turned to the boy and said, "Come, sing something for me, play a tune for me. I want to test you to see if this report card is real. Maybe you paid a bribe? Maybe the principal is your cousin?" The boy refused, but Rabbi Yisrael continued to press him. The father, the innkeeper, intervened angrily: "What do you want from the boy? Don't you believe the report card? It has the stamp of the principal and the school right here!"

Rabbi Yisrael answered him, "Now you have received the answer to the question that bothered you this morning. Hashem took us out of Egypt with miracles and wonders, and gave us the Torah before the eyes of six hundred thousand Jews. The Torah is signed with thousands of signatures from entire generations. So, just because some heretic does a foolish act, do you expect Hashem to start proving Himself all over again? To collapse the ceiling on him?"

Hashem is hidden in the ultimate state of concealment, and He does not care if heretics rise up and deny Him. Our spiritual work, and the work of the true tzaddikim, is to walk in His ways:

"Just as He is merciful—so too, you must be merciful... Just as He is concealed—so too, you must be concealed."

The ultimate purpose is "for the creation to emulate its Creator" and to walk in the path of "walking humbly," without any desire for publicity or revelation, but only with humility and absolute concealment.

Part 1 of 2 — Lesson No. 40

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