The Secret of Rectifying the Body and the Externality: Breaking Free from the Garments of the Serpent

Lesson No. 419 | Sunday, 18 Tishrei, 3rd day of Chol HaMoed Sukkos 5765 - Yahrtzeit (anniversary of passing) of the Holy Rebbe - Part 1.

After a high spiritual elevation, the first obligation is to study simple Halachah (Jewish law) in order to build vessels. Through this study, we begin to rectify the externality of the worlds and the material body, which leans after the lust for eating and is compared to...

From the High Lights to Simple Halachah

During this hillula (celebration of a tzaddik's passing), the heavens opened up in the aspect of "And I saw visions of God." However, immediately afterward, we must open the books of the Rambam (Maimonides) and the Turim. There are those who think that studying the Rambam and the Turim belongs in "kindergarten" and are embarrassed to study it, because they think they are no longer at that level. But the truth is that we are indeed in kindergarten, and we must know and acknowledge this.

We must finish the entire Rambam and all the Turim within a year. This is a very easy and simple language, and without it, we will not begin anything. It is impossible to understand the Gemara (Talmud) without this basic study. When one reads the Rambam and then the Raavad, one begins to understand what the Gemara wanted. When the Rambam says one thing and the Raavad says another, from the contradiction and the difficulty, one understands the intent of the Gemara. Whoever studies Gemara without understanding it, it is better that he recites Tehillim (Psalms).

Therefore, after such a hillula, with dancing until the morning and a Shacharis (morning) prayer with tremendous enthusiasm, one simply needs to sit and study. To open the Rambam for a few hours, to finish the "Book of Knowledge" (Sefer HaMadda), and afterward to continue to the "Book of Seasons" (Sefer Zemanim) and the "Book of Love" (Sefer Ahavah). Now, as we are dealing with the laws of the festival, everyone needs to start studying the "Book of Seasons," and afterward move on to the laws of prayer, blessings, tefillin, and the sanctification of the new month.

Rectifying the Externality of the Worlds in the Month of Tishrei

From engaging in the laws of the seasons, the Gemara discusses why the molad (new moon) of Nissan was on Wednesday night, and explains that on Wednesday night the luminaries were hung in the sky. We rule like Rabbi Yehoshua that the cycle of the sun was created in Nissan, and therefore the Blessing of the Sun (Birkas HaChamah), which is recited once every twenty-eight years, always takes place in the month of Nissan, when Hashem hung the sun.

The question is asked: If Hashem hung the sun in Nissan, why do we celebrate Rosh Hashanah in the month of Tishrei?

The holy Arizal explains in Shaar HaKavanos that in Tishrei we begin to rectify the externality of the worlds.

The goal is to purify the externality, because fundamentally, there should not be a material body as it is today. Rebbe Nachman says that the body in its current state is not truly a body, but rather it is the aspect of the "Sitra Achra" (the Other Side/forces of impurity), the aspect of the serpent. Since the sin of Adam HaRishon (the First Man), we are inside "garments of skin," which are actually the "garments of the serpent."

A person must know that his material body, as he perceives it, is not his true essence. This body seeks lusts, wants to eat, and wants to sleep. Because of this, a person is liable to eat enormous amounts, much beyond what he truly needs.

Breaking Free from the Lust for Eating and the Toxins of the Body

In the past, people were healthier, simply because they did not eat so much. There was no abundance of food, and therefore there was nothing to poison their bodies. Today, we see a multitude of diseases and various medical problems, and everything stems from food. A person today eats in one day what they used to not eat in an entire month.

Rabbi Levi Yitzchok Bender zt"l would repeatedly tell us in his classes: "You should know, what you eat today in one breakfast, we did not eat over an entire Shabbos." We sat with Rabbi Levi Yitzchok for twenty years, asked him countless questions, and learned a great deal from him. Once, before the holiday of Pesach (Passover), I asked him: "What did the seventh day of Pesach look like in Uman?"

He recounted that on the seventh day of Pesach in Uman, there was barely a minyan (quorum of ten men) in the Kloyz (synagogue). People simply lay in their beds from sheer exhaustion. For seven days, they had no food. On the first night of Pesach, they ate the five k'zeisim (olive-sized portions) of matzah, and that was it – there were no more matzahs. There were philanthropists who donated a few coins to each family so they could buy a little matzah, and the parents had to hide the matzahs from the children so they wouldn't eat them out of extreme hunger even before the Seder night.

In those difficult years under the rule of Stalin, may his name be erased, who confiscated all the money for the benefit of developing the army and ammunition, a terrible famine prevailed. The situation reached a point where it was a literal mortal danger to go out into the streets. He told of one woman who went outside blurred from hunger, and did not return. They simply kidnapped her, cooked her, and ate her. A child who went out into the street was in danger of being caught and eaten. All the days of Stalin's rule were fraught with heavy famine.

But on the other hand, whoever managed to survive this terrible famine came out healthy and robust. He did not introduce any toxins into his body. This illustrates the words of Rebbe Nachman, that the lust for eating entirely stems from the filth of the serpent. Today we are clothed in "garments of skin," inside a body that is the aspect of a serpent, and from here stem all the material lusts that distance a person from the tikkun (rectification) of his soul.

Part 2 of 4 — Lesson No. 419

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