The Secret of Lowliness: The Key to Eternal Life, Shabbos Delight, and the Light of Chanukah

Lesson No. 47 | Lesson 1 - Sunday, Parashas Vayishlach, 10 Kislev 5756 - Yeshiva Class

Rebbe Nachman teaches that a person's main vitality and greatness lie in attaining true lowliness. Through learning Torah, accepting insults with love, and the illumination of Chanukah, a person merits to nullify his pride, attain eternal life, and taste a semblance of the World to Come through the delight of Shabbos.

When the gates of wisdom and knowledge are opened for a person, Rebbe Nachman says in Likutey Moharan (Torah 72), he is able to truly see his own lowliness. A person's entire vitality is the feeling of "and let my soul be as dust to all" – the understanding that I am the lowest, a transgressor and a sinner, and yet Hashem allows me to enter the synagogue and does not chase me away.

"But as for me, in the abundance of Your lovingkindness I will enter Your house; I will bow down toward Your holy temple in awe of You" (Psalms 5:8).

The Midrash Rabbah (Parashah 32) expounds this verse regarding Noah. Some say that Noah was only a tzaddik relative to his generation, but Noah himself interpreted this to his own detriment. He said: "How am I a tzaddik? My generation is like captive infants (who do not know any better), but I had a grandfather like Methuselah and a great-grandfather like Enoch who became the angel Metatron. I am much worse than them!" Noah truly held that if anyone needed to drown in the Flood – it was him.

The same is true of King David. On the preceding verse, > "You destroy those who speak lies; Hashem abhors the man of bloodshed and deceit" (Psalms 5:7), the Midrash says that David compared himself to Doeg and Achitophel. David said: "I was wicked like them, perhaps even worse, for I had a father like Yishai who was completely without sin. But what is the difference between us? They despaired, forgot their learning, and stopped coming to the Beis Midrash (study hall) out of immense shame, whereas I – 'in the abundance of Your lovingkindness I will enter Your house.'"

Learning Lowliness from the Tzaddikim

A person's ultimate pleasure is when he sees that, in truth, he is as wicked as all the wicked people, and perhaps even worse than them. This is the greatest vitality a person can possibly have.

They tell a story about Rabbi Mordechai of Chernobyl, who traveled to spend an entire Shabbos with a certain tzaddik. That tzaddik did not speak any words of Torah throughout the entire Shabbos. Rabbi Mordechai wondered: "What did I come here for?" After the Grace After Meals of the second Shabbos meal, that tzaddik said to him: "One comes to tzaddikim only to learn lowliness."

The goal is to observe their conduct, their manner of speaking, to see how they are insulted yet do not answer back. They are insulted but do not insult others, they hear their disgrace and do not reply, they act out of love and rejoice in suffering – they literally feel vitality when someone insults them. And we find regarding Hashem: > "Wherever you find the greatness of the Holy One, blessed be He, there you find His humility" (Megillah 31a). Because the essence of greatness is lowliness.

The Power of Torah Against Despair

When a person learns Gemara for eight hours a day, should he become arrogant? On the contrary! If he is truly learning, he arrives at lowliness. However, the Torah gives him the strength not to fall into despair and depression.

He says to himself: "True, I am the worst of everyone, but thank God I have eight pages of Gemara in my pocket today! What immense vitality I have, that a wicked person like me merited to learn so much Gemara!" The moment he is filled with Torah, fear of Heaven, holiness, and prayer, he does not care that everyone else surpasses him and is better than him.

Lowliness is not sadness. Lowliness is a person's entire vitality. The main resurrection in the Future to Come will only be for the points of lowliness that a person managed to accumulate in his lifetime. Every time a person remembers that he is worse than everyone else, he accumulates another point for the Resurrection of the Dead. > "Awake and sing for joy, you who dwell in the dust" (Isaiah 26:19) – whoever makes himself like dust in his lifetime is the one who will rise in the resurrection.

A Good Eye and Establishing Generations

In the span of a single hour, thousands of people pass through a person's mind, and he immediately dismisses each one: "Reuven is worthless, Shimon is a hypocrite, Levi is a loafer." If a person would stop his thoughts, he would see that he is only nullifying others. He must think the exact opposite: "Reuven gives charity, Shimon sits and learns, and Levi is raising ten children, thank God!"

In Midrash Shocher Tov (on Psalm 45) it is stated: > "Instead of your fathers shall be your sons – Rabbi Elazar bar Yosi said: In the future, every single Jew will have children as numerous as those who left Egypt." If a person would serve Hashem with simplicity and earnestness, he should merit while still alive to see six hundred thousand descendants, just like our Patriarch Jacob, who went from seventy souls to six hundred thousand within seventeen years.

The secular world tries to fight the natural increase of the Jewish people. They bring two parrots and a fish aquarium into the world, and see that in a few decades no trace of them will remain, while religious families multiply ten times faster than them. Because of this, they have a strong desire to eliminate the religious public. It is told of a journalist from 'Maariv' who discovered many years ago that one of Shimon Peres's aides (whose name was Nimrod) met in Geneva with PLO representatives and told them: "If you want to harm Jews – only harm the religious ones." When the journalist confronted him with the information, he was shocked and tried to deny it, but after hours of interrogation, he confessed and said: "I said it and I believe it, and that is what needs to be done." Their goal is to stop Jewish proliferation, but our task is to continue multiplying life in the world, to fulfill "and may you see children born to your children, peace upon Israel."

Shabbos Delight and an Inheritance Without Boundaries

The pleasure of the World to Come cannot be attained right now, because we are confined within a physical body. In anything that has a limit, one cannot attain spiritual pleasure. But regarding Shabbos, which is a semblance of the World to Come, our Sages said: > "Whoever delights in the Shabbos is given an inheritance without boundaries" (Shabbos 118a).

How does one merit this? Only through lowliness. When a person feels that he is a zero and nothingness, and finds in every Jew a point that is better than himself – he steps outside his own boundaries. He receives an inheritance without boundaries and feels what true Shabbos delight is.

The human body wants to feel "and you shall be like God," to feel more important than everyone else. This was the sin of Adam HaRishon (the First Man). But a person must say: "Let my soul be as dust to all. What do I care if everyone is greater than me? Will that take away my portion in the World to Come?"

Whoever comes with humility strips himself of materialism and becomes literal "nothingness" (Ayin). As the holy Rebbe of Vizhnitz said on the Mishnah "If I am not for myself, who will be for me": "When I nullify my 'I' (Ani) and turn it into nothingness (Ayin), I ascend to the Sefirah of Binah (Understanding), which is called 'Who' (Mi)."

The Secret of the Chanukah Candle: The Oil of Wisdom

Rebbe Nachman brings in Sichos HaRan (Section 261) that every person must look with an "eina pekicha" (an open eye) to see his own lowliness and the exaltedness of Hashem. A truly clever person is one who knows that everyone else is better than him. Korach was clever, but he spoke foolishness and thought he was greater than Moshe Rabbeinu. Moshe Rabbeinu, on the other hand, was the most clever, and therefore he saw that everyone was better than him and was the most humble of all men.

This is the secret of the Chanukah candle. The oil represents wisdom, the aspect of eyes, as it is stated regarding Adam and Eve: > "And the eyes of both of them were opened" (Genesis 3:7), and Rashi explains: "This is said in reference to wisdom."

Before the sin, they thought they could be like God, but when wisdom illuminated them, their eyes were opened and they saw where they truly stood. Through the oil of wisdom of the Chanukah candle, the light is kindled, and a person explicitly sees his own lowliness.

Attaining lowliness nullifies pride and lashon hara (evil speech), for lashon hara stems only from a person thinking he is better than his friend. This is the secret of the Talmudic statement regarding Chanukah candles: "Until the foot (regel) ceases from the marketplace" – the foot represents pride. Through the oil of wisdom, one merits complete emunah (faith), true lowliness, and from this, one merits the illumination of Shabbos and eternal life.

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