The Secret of Dust and Ashes: How Embarrassments Elevate Mitzvos
Class No. 15 | Class 1 - Sunday Morning, Parashas Nasso, 28 Iyar 5755 - At the Yeshiva (Continued from No. 14)
The class reveals the secret of the greatness of the holy Patriarchs who were in the aspect of \
Angels were created from all the mitzvos and Torah that Avraham and Yitzchak learned. When Yaakov Avinu (our Patriarch) walked alone in the world to face Esav and Lavan the Aramean, there was no one to help and support him. The ones who guarded and protected him wherever he went were those six hundred thousand angels created from the power of Avraham and Yitzchak. Every letter of Torah that a person learns, when he is bound to the true tzaddik, becomes an angel that guards him, his children, and his grandchildren.
The Power of Absolute Nullification
The Sfas Emes explains that the immense greatness of the holy Patriarchs stemmed from the fact that they were in the aspect of "dust and ashes." Avraham Avinu said about himself:
"And I am but dust and ashes."
Yitzchak was like ashes upon the altar, and regarding Yaakov it is said:
"Who has counted the dust of Yaakov."
Only one who makes himself like dust and ashes can create angels from the letters. Avraham Avinu was completely nullified in reality to Hashem, without any sense of "I" or independent existence. He transformed himself into a holy "mere breath." In the merit of this nullification, he became the foundation of the entire world, as the Sages expounded on the verse, "These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created (behibar'am)" – an anagram for "with Avraham" (b'Avraham).
The tzaddik, who is in the aspect of dust, encompasses the entire world within himself and becomes the "Foundation Stone" upon which the world is established. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov explains (Likutey Moharan, Torah 5) that the world is divided into seven climates, and corresponding to them are seven shepherds. Every person is responsible for a specific part of the world, and he must create angels to guard the area that belongs to him. When there is strict judgment or sorrow in the world, the person appointed over that part feels it, and his role is to sweeten these judgments through joy and by reading the tales of tzaddikim.
The Secret of the Sotah Waters and the Level of Avraham Avinu
This secret of the dust is also revealed in the Torah portion of the Sotah (suspected adulteress). This woman, who undergoes a process of humiliation and embarrassments before everyone's eyes, drinks water mixed with dust from the floor of the Tabernacle. The Rambam rules that if she is pure, after she drinks from the water she will be strengthened, her face will shine, and if she was barren – she will be blessed with children, specifically a male child.
Why does she merit all this abundance? Because through the embarrassments she endured, she ascends to the level of Avraham Avinu, who was "dust and ashes." When a person goes through embarrassments and remains silent, he merits reaching the level of the holy Patriarchs.
Embarrassment as the "Slaughtering" of Pride
Rebbe Nachman says that a person should strive every day to experience some embarrassment, because without embarrassments, nothing can ascend On High. Sometimes a person wakes up early, prays for four consecutive hours, and immediately begins to swell with pride: "I am the greatest tzaddik, I am the greatest scholar, the most holy, the most separated from worldly desires."
When Hashem wants to "taste" the mitzvah of that person, He, so to speak, cannot. This mitzvah is considered a "limb torn from a living animal," which is forbidden to eat, because it is full of the "blood" of pride and ego. Hashem cannot swallow the prayer of a person who is more puffed up with pride than the Creator Himself.
In order for Hashem to be able to accept the mitzvah, it must undergo "shechitah" (ritual slaughter). The embarrassment a person goes through is the slaughtering of pride. When he is embarrassed and his blood is spilled, the murky blood of pride flows out, and only then can Hashem taste and delight in his mitzvos.
This is the secret of what Yitzchak said to Esav:
"And make me delicacies such as I love."
Delicacies "such as I love" means mitzvos without pride. Only when a person is willing to be in the aspect of dust and ashes, to accept embarrassments with love and to subdue his ego, does he become the foundation of the world and merit that all his prayers and mitzvos will ascend and be accepted with favor before the Master of all.
Part 2 of 4 — Lesson No. 15