The Bar Mitzvah Maamar בר מצוה מאמר

1. The Bar Mitzvah Maamar בר מצוה מאמר On the occasion of the Bar Mitzvah of Betzalel Yaakov Chaikin, Made and designed by Betzalel.

2. A Maamar is a Chasidic discourse said by the Rebbe to his Chassidim. It is traditional that when a Chabad boy turns 13 he says a Maamar in that was once give over by a the 5th Lubavitcher Rebbe in owner of his Bar-Mitzvah. This Maamar is very complex and therefore is difficult to understand. To help me understand and to make it interesting for the people listening I put this project together.

3. PEREK ALEF

4. מדרש תילם R’ Eliezer recalls Yidden: “Hashem, we want to learn Torah Day and night, but we don’t have the time.” = Hashem: “If you put on Teffilin it will be as if you learn Torah day and night.”

5. The Questions of the Maamar 1) How does putting on Teffilin exempt one from learning Torah? 2) What do the two have to do with each other?

6. מגיד דבריו ליעקב חוקיו ומשפטיו לישראל מדרש : “There those who tell people to do things and don’t do them themselves, but HakodoshBoruch Hu does what he tells us to do. מגיד דבריו …ליעקב – He tells HIS words to Yaakov, HIS attributes and HIS laws to Yisrael.

7. When Hashem tells us to do the Mitzvahs and we do them Hashem does the Mitzvahs as well. So when Yidden put on Teffilin we cause Hashem to put on Teffilin = G-D

8. Razal: What does it say inHashem’s Teffilin ?ומי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ When Hashem puts on Teffilin He sees the wordsומי כעמך ישראל גוי אחד בארץ. So when Hashem puts on Teffilin He brings the quality of the Yidden down into the world. So when Hashem puts on Teffilin Yidden become greater.

9. השקיפה ממעון קדשך מן השמים וברך את עמך ישראלLook down from your holy heavens and bless your people Yisrael We are like nothing in the eyes of Hashem. If we sin what does it matter to him? Hashem is high above the whole world and we are nothing. All the worlds are like nothing to him and only a ray of a ray of His name is on them.

10. כד סליק הקב"ה לעילאHashem removes himself from this world • The חיות of Hashem removes itself from the world. • The worlds becomes like nothing to Hashem. • The world is run as if Hashem is in a sleep. • When some one is asleep his intellect leaves the brain and he doesn’t concentrate; when Hashem sleeps His intellect to run the world is “removed”.

11. We want Hashem to wake up from His sleep and run the world. We want the “אור אין סוף ברוך הוא” back into the world. We want His Chochma and Chesed and we want “His face to light up. The way for this to happen is by learning Torah and doing Mitzvos.

12. השקיפה ממעין קדשך מן השמים וברך את עמך ישראל הבט משמים וראה We learned earlier the posuk: השקיפה ממעון קדשך מן השמים וברך את עמך ישראלthe interpretation is that Hashem should look down at us and bless us. The deeper meaning is we should break the word שמים into two words מיםשם saying that Hashem should look at us though water. We know that water is Torah so we want Hashem to look at us through Torah and then we appear bigger.

13. נפתחו השמים ואראה מראות אלקיםThe heavens opened and I saw sights of Hashem We can understand this Posuk with a Moshol of a lit up magnifying glass. A lit up magnifying glass is the level of Shomayim which is the level of Torah. You can see much better with a magnifying glass than without one. When Yidden learn Torah, Hashem looks at us through a magnifying glass.

14. ומי כעמך ישראל גוי אחדבארץ means that Yidden bring the level of Echodinto the world so that it can be revealed.

15. PEREK BEISUnderstanding Torah

16. אלפים שנה קדמה תורה לעולם Torah came 2000 years before the world We know that time is part of the creation of the world. If time is a creation of the world how did Torah come 2000 years before? “Came before” must mean “higher” than the world (by the level of 2000 years). -2000 01

17. The source of this world is from midos. When it talks about the creation of this world it says “ששת ימים עשה" It doesn’t say בששת – in six days It says ששת ימים עשה ששת ימים = ששה מדות עליונות (Six days = six midos of Hashem) ששת ימים עשה means that those six midos were brought down into the level of עשיה

18. בראשית = ברא שיתHe created [with] six. Just like the Posukעולם חסד יבנה can be understood in two ways: The world was created through Hashem’s kindness. The world was created so kindness could take place(=“the building of midos”). So too בראשית = ברא שיתcan be understood to mean the building of midos

19. Torah is higher than the world because it is comes from Hashem’s intellect whereas the world comes from Hashem’s Midos (as we saw above). We know intellect is higher because it doesn’t need a recipient Even a person who is alone can sit and think thoughts However Midos involves a recipient. For example the Midah of Chessed: if there is nobody to be kind to the whole Midah of Chessedcan’t be practiced.

20. This can be proven by the פסוק והוא יושב פתח האוהל כחום היום He [Avraham] sat at the opening of his tent in the heat of the day We see by Avraham Aveinu that when he wanted to do kindness he sat at the edge of his tent looking for someone to be kind to because without a recipient you can’t be kind.

21. זכור רחמיך וחסדיך כי מעולם המה Remember your mercies and kindnessesbecause they are (forever) [from the world] Mercies and Kindnesses are Midos and they are connected with this world. Now we can understand the עץ חיים‘s statement, "כשעלה ברצונו הפשוט להיטיב לברואיו" Meaning that it’s Hashem’s nature to be kind and that’s why he created the world.

22. The level of Intellect is not brought down at all in the creation of the world. • However: • Raza teach us that Hashem created the world with ten things, the first three being Chochma, Bina and Daas (which are all intellect). • In SeferYetzirah it says that Hashem created the world with three things, ספר, סופר וסיפור & we learn in the Mammerושאבתם that סופר is Chochma and ספר is Binah. • Does this not mean that intellect was involved in creation?

23. The level of מוחין involved in creation is not pure intellect. It is only מוחין שבמדות – the level of intellect found in Midos but not בעצםמוחין (pure intellect). This is the meaning of the 2000 (אלפים) years that Torah preceded the world. אלפים is אאלפך חכמה and אאלפך בינה (which are intellect).

24. PEREK GIMMEL

25. Now we can understand R’ Eliezer’s teaching: Yidden: “Hashem, we want to learn Torah Day and night,” We know that learning Torah brings Intellect into Midos. Which is a great and wonderful quality. “But we don’t have time.” Hashem: “If you put on Teffilin it will be as if you learn Torah day and night.” By us putting on Teffilin we cause HakodoshBoruch Hu to put on Teffilin.

26. The explanation of Hashem’s name, HakodoshBoruch Hu is זו"ן דאצילות (the Six Midos and Malchus of Atzilus). ז"א (the six midos) is Kodash and Malchus is Boruch. These correspond to Day and Night. Kodosh is Day and Boruch is night. When Moshe Rabenu [OBM] was in Shomayam, when the Malochim said “Kodosh” he knew it was day and when they said “Boruch” he knew it was night. Boruch Kadosh Day Night

27. The concept of HakodoshBoruch Hu putting on Teffilin is the bringing down of the level of intellect into midos (as explained earlier). [This level intellect is pure intellect.] That is way a Child who is not yet 13 is exempted from putting on Teffilin because he only has “KatnosHamochin” (“small intellect”) and is not yet called "איש". When He turns 13 and is called “איש”, through putting on Teffilin he causes HakodoshBoruch Hu to do so.

28. Tefilin = bringing down (actual) intellect This is the same as learning Torah Hashem says “Observe the Mitzvah of Tefilin, I will consider it as if you learnt Torah day and night” Because through Tefilin we accomplish the same as through learning Torah

29. Why does Hashem say, “If you put on Teffilin it will be AS IF (כאילו) you learn Torah day and night?” When we learn Torah it reaches into the very air of the world. However when we put on Teffilin it only enters the root and source of the world. That is why Hashem said it will be asif you learn Torah day and night because he will consider putting on Tefilin exactly as if the intellect was being brought into the actual world below.