The Tzaddik Who Will Bring Us to the Tree of Life — Rabbi Eliezer Berland shlit"a for the Holy Festival Days

All of a person’s avodah in these days—the days of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkos, Hoshana Rabbah, Shemini Atzeres, and Simchas Torah—is to merit the “Tree of Life,” meaning the service of Hashem.

After Adam HaRishon sinned, the path to the “Tree of Life” was sealed. Hashem placed “the flame of the revolving sword” and the Keruvim to guard the path that leads to the “Tree of Life.” From then on, anyone who wants to enter the “Tree of Life” (the service of Hashem) finds obstacles and delays standing in his way—brought about by the Keruvim and by “the flame of the revolving sword.”

Rashi explains: “the Keruvim” (= destructive angels), “the flame of the revolving sword” (= something that threatens him so that he will not enter the Garden again)—it threatens him and frightens him from entering the “Tree of Life.” A person becomes afraid to learn Torah, afraid to get up for Chatzos, to do Hisbodedus, to go out to the field. He is afraid to travel to the graves of Tzaddikim. He is afraid of Arabs—what are “Arabs”?! Arabs don’t exist at all, as it is written: “Behold, nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are considered like the dust on a scale”—they don’t exist; they are not truly there.

Rabbi Nosson explains that in these days we must open the path to the “Tree of Life.” In these holy days we must strengthen ourselves, break through, and reveal the path to the “Tree of Life”—the path to serving Hashem. As long as a person is still in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, he has obstacles, fears, doubts, and confusions; he doesn’t know what counsel to take within himself. But through Emunas Chachamim one merits to enter the Tree of Life, as Rabbi Nosson says: “And complete counsel in the service of Hashem is impossible to attain except through the true Tzaddikim of the generation” (Likutey Halachos, Sukkah 3). A person must find a Tzaddik who can bring him straight into the “Tree of Life,” who will bestow upon him the mochin of the Tree of Life, who will bring him into the “Tree of Life.” Then he will have no divided counsel, no confusion, no fears. He will merit to overcome all the obstacles, all the delays that come from the Keruvim and from “the flame of the revolving sword,” and he will enter into the service of Hashem.