Parshat Bereishis
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Every year, when we roll the Torah back to its first verse, I feel as if we are being handed the plans of the world before the building begins. I had no insight of my own to add to this sheet. My part was to read our teachers closely, check their facts and sources, and add a short note under a point wherever something needed correcting. What I can offer here is the thread I found running through them: why Hashem wanted this physical world, darkness and struggle included, and what He wants us to do in it.
Here is our parshah in brief. In six days Hashem creates the world, from light to humanity, “male and female” in the Divine image, and on the seventh day He rests and sanctifies it. Adam is placed in Gan Eden with one command: not to eat from the Etz HaDaas (Tree of Knowledge). He names the animals, and Chavah is built from his side. The nachash persuades Chavah to eat, Adam eats too, and they are sent out of the Garden. Kayin kills Hevel, and Shes is born. Ten generations later wickedness has spread, but “Noach found favor in the eyes of G‑d.”
The Rebbe begins with a puzzle: why was light created on the first day, before there was anything to see? His answer is the architect’s. A builder fixes the purpose first and only then lays bricks, and the purpose of the world is a “dwelling place in the lower world,” where Hashem’s hiddenness turns into revealed presence. “Since light was thus the purpose of the creation, and the purpose is the first thing to be decided on in the order of a work, light was created on the first day.” Then the light is hidden, and it works quietly through every stage: “While a building is under construction, its final shape is not apparent, except in the mind of the architect.” Each of us is a small world, so each morning, when we wake as a new creation, we can set the purpose first. And darkness is not only something to avoid. The goal is “changing the darkness itself to light, by positive commitment to good.”
The Rebbe returned to Rashi’s very first comment on the Torah more than to any other: why does the Torah begin with creation and not with the first mitzvah? Its deeper lesson, he teaches, is that the whole of our everyday life is to become holiness. When Jews asked the Rebbeim for permission to move to the Land, the answer was: “Make Eretz Yisrael here.” Rabbi Manis Friedman, coming from a completely different direction, lands in the same place. After forty years of manna in the desert, becoming farmers, soldiers and leaders “felt sinful” to our people. So before the mitzvos of the physical world, Hashem reveals in the first verse that He created the earth too, and Rabbi Friedman gives Him these words: “what serves me best is Human Service... when you eat in a G‑dly fashion when you farm in a G‑dly fashion when you run a business in a G‑dly fashion that’s serving me.” When I put the two side by side, I saw that Rabbi Friedman’s reading matches the Rebbe’s: the opening Rashi is about turning worldly life into “Eretz Yisrael.”
Rabbi YY Jacobson takes us into the home. Hashem says, “I will make for him a helper against him,” and Rabbi Jacobson, following the Alter Rebbe’s Torah Ohr and the Netziv, teaches that the difference is itself the help. A wife helps “by the fact that she is dissimilar to him that she is not identical to him that she has her own perspectives her own personality.” Without that tension, each of us stays “fixed in his or her own orbit.” Then he takes it all the way up. Hashem, too, chose to create a world that hides Him and even opposes Him, because His deepest pleasure comes when a person “cracks the shell of his physicality” and finds the Divine spark within.
Rav Dynovisz reads the two trees as soul and body. The Etz HaChaim is the neshamah, the Etz HaDaas is the body, and the sin is the moment they were torn apart: « la faute a séparé l’âme du corps ». Their full reunion will come with the resurrection. Until then, he says, « notre vrai travail à nous et c’est pas évident, c’est d’être dans l’action », like Yaakov, who learned to act in the world.Translation: “the sin separated the soul from the body” · “our real job, and it isn’t easy, is to be in action”
Rabbi Reuven Wolf, teaching the Alter Rebbe’s maamar on the new heavens and the new earth, explains why only we can do this work. However beautiful Gan Eden is, it holds only a “ray” of Hashem’s light. Souls there can enjoy it but cannot add to it: “when we’re pure Spiritual Beings... we can experience the lights of ganeden but we can’t increase it.” Here below, obstacles push the soul until an infinite love breaks through: “when the energy is produced by an obstacle it’s a million times more than the energy that is self-produced.” Like spring water that has fought its way up through the earth, the service that pushes past resistance is the purest of all.
So our teachers meet. The Rebbe tells us the purpose came first, and that the darkness is there to be turned into light. The Rebbe and Rabbi Friedman tell us that the field, the shop and the kitchen table are where Hashem wants to be served. Rabbi Jacobson shows that even the friction in a marriage, and the hiddenness of the world itself, can be the help we need. Rav Dynovisz asks us to bring soul and body back together through action, and Rabbi Wolf shows that the obstacles are the fuel. This physical world, with all its struggle, is not a mistake to escape. It is the building site of Hashem’s dwelling.
And the plan already holds its ending. The Rebbe teaches that “The spirit of G‑d hovered over the waters” is “the spirit of Mashiach”: the goal is built in from the start. Before a dangerous mission, the Tzemach Tzedek wrote at his mother’s grave: “I know that G‑d will find a way to save His people. May it be His will that I merit to have a hand in their deliverance.” And the Rebbe adds: “The only question is whether we will take an active role or not.” Rav Dynovisz goes so far as to say that even the nachash will do teshuvah in the end, since נחש and משיח share the same numerical value. As we begin the Torah again from its first word, may we choose that active role, may each morning open with its own “Let there be light,” and may we soon see the hidden light of the first day shine openly, when Mashiach comes, may it be very soon.
Why was light created first? (Torah Studies; LS X pp. 7–12, §1–3)
The Rebbe begins with a puzzle. Light is only useful once there are things to see. If light were simply preparation for later creations, it would have come just before the plants or animals, not on Day One. The Sages make it harder: they say the first light was immediately “hidden for the righteous in the world to come” (Chagigah 12a). The Zohar adds that אור (light) and רז (secret) have the same numerical value, which pairs revelation with concealment.
The Rebbe answers with the Midrash’s image of G‑d as an architect “looking into the Torah” as His blueprint. A builder fixes the purpose first, and only then lays bricks. The purpose of the world is a “dwelling place in the lower world,” where G‑d’s hiddenness (darkness) turns into revealed presence (light).
“Since light was thus the purpose of the creation, and the purpose is the first thing to be decided on in the order of a work, light was created on the first day.”
A hidden light runs through every day of creation (§4–5)
Each later day ends with “and G‑d saw that it was good,” and “good” echoes the light (“G‑d saw the light, that it was good”). A purpose works in two ways: openly at the start, and quietly at every stage, steering the work toward the plan. That is why light is a “secret”: a building’s final shape is visible only to the architect until it is finished. After 6,000 years of human service, the light will shine again as on Day One. Where is it hidden meanwhile? In the Torah, which serves as the builders’ drawings.
“While a building is under construction, its final shape is not apparent, except in the mind of the architect.”
You are a small world: begin each day with “Let there be light” (§6–7)
Each person is a microcosm of the world, so the same order applies to us. First, set the purpose on waking, when we are a “new creation.” Then let that purpose quietly shape every act by aligning it with the Torah. Darkness has a purpose too. It exists not just as something to avoid but as something to transform. For anyone who despairs, the Torah’s first word answers: Bereishis, “for the sake of” Israel and Torah, both called “beginning.”
“Not merely by driving out the darkness (evil) by refraining from sin, but by changing the darkness itself to light, by positive commitment to good.”
Rashi’s first comment holds “the wine of the Torah”: make Eretz Yisrael here (LS 10, Bereishis 1, §1–3)
From 5725 to 5749 the Rebbe explained a Rashi at every Shabbos farbrengen. Rashi’s opening comment (“Why did the Torah begin with ’In the beginning’? ... ’The strength of His works He related to His people, to give them the inheritance of nations’”) was the one he raised most often. Since Rashi wrote no preface, this opening sets the theme for the whole commentary.
The basic lesson: don’t be shaken when the world calls Torah “illogical.” The deeper lesson: Eretz Yisrael has a spiritual counterpart, a life lived fully by Torah and mitzvos, and conquering the Land has one too. That means making all of one’s everyday activity (“all your deeds for the sake of Heaven”; “know Him in all your ways”) into holiness, even “stealing” time from eating and sleeping for Torah. When Jews asked the Rebbeim for permission to move to the Land, this is what lay behind their answer:
“Make Eretz Yisrael here.”
“...conquering the worldly modes of conduct from the prevailing norms of the nations at large and transforming them into Eretz Yisrael.”
The spies’ mistake and the nations’ complaint (§4–7)
How could the spies, who were “virtuous” when chosen, say that even “the Master cannot remove His possessions”? The Rebbe reads it as a spiritual argument. G‑d made nature and told us to guard our health, and He said “do not rely on miracles.” So, they reasoned, material things are His “possessions” and cannot be fully turned into holiness. Better to stay in the “desert,” where people serve G‑d without engaging the world.
That is a grave error. The very reason the material world exists is for it to become G‑d’s dwelling. The nations’ charge, “You are robbers,” grows out of the same idea: in worldly matters “one must follow the prevailing norms of the world at large.” The Rebbe answers from the precise wording of the verse. Knowing that the world is “His works” isn’t enough. What matters is that “the strength of His works,” its inner purpose, was “related” (higid) to His people. Higid means “conveyed,” not just “told.”
“G‑d conveyed and transmitted the strength – the inner motivating force of His works – to His people.”
Naming the animals: what the angels could not do (LS 15, Bereishis 3, §1–5)
The Midrash says G‑d showed the animals to the angels, who could not name them. Adam said, “This is an ox; this is a donkey.” Yet the angels knew every creature’s spiritual source: the ox comes from the “face of an ox” in Yechezkel’s chariot. So why couldn’t they name it?
The Rebbe explains that a physical animal “cannot at all be compared to its spiritual source”. Knowing the source is not the same as connecting the two. Va-yikra, “he called,” also means “he called forth.” Adam drew each creature’s source down into its physical being. An angel cannot live in the material world and stay bound to G‑dliness at the same time; that is why the nefilim “fell.” Man, made of “higher and lower” elements, can.
“Adam called forth the name – the spiritual source – of the created being, and in doing so enabled it to be manifest within the physical being that was created from that source.”
“...the names of all created beings as they are referred to by all people (even by children and ordinary people) would express the letters that represent their spiritual source.”
From Adam to Sinai, and the animal within us (LS 15, Bereishis 3, §6–10)
Adam’s naming was a first step. At Sinai, the decree separating “higher” from “lower” was lifted, and transcendent G‑dliness (Havayah) became “Elokecha,” your strength. Applied to us: before the Shema we tell the animal soul that its source, the angels, serves G‑d “with a great clamor.” Adam’s achievement is what makes that reminder work. Still, the ultimate goal is for the world’s submission to come from itself.
The Rebbe ends with the Rebbe Maharash. Animals come from the lofty world of Tohu, which is why “a youth will lead them.” בהמה (“animal”) reads בה מ”ה, “Mah [bittul] is in it,” while אדם only equals מ”ה (45) in gematria. So the world’s apparent resistance is, at root, deep bittul waiting to serve.
“On the contrary, the world will stand in utter bittul and serve the Jews, enabling them to transform it into an everlasting dwelling for G‑d’s Essence.”
Free choice, teshuvah, and taking part in the plan (Keeping In Touch)
Before Adam, the world obeyed G‑d “by force.” Man was made to recognize G‑d on his own initiative, which means he can fail. Why does G‑d allow sin? “To provide an opportunity for teshuvah.” Most of Adam’s life was spent repairing his sin. “The spirit of G‑d hovered over the waters” is “the spirit of Mashiach”: the goal is built in from the start, and our only choice is whether to join it. The page opens with the Tzemach Tzedek’s note at his mother’s grave before a dangerous mission to Moscow:
“I know that G‑d will find a way to save His people. May it be His will that I merit to have a hand in their deliverance.”
“The only question is whether we will take an active role or not.”
The two trees: soul and body; the sin as their separation (00:00–03:46)
He opens by saying the parasha is entirely in code: « toute la Torah est codée et surtout la parchat beréchite ». Citing the Zohar and the Arizal, he says the plan was for Adam and Chavah to eat from the Etz HaChaim (Tree of Life) during the three Shabbos meals. That would have given them the strength to eat from the Etz HaDaas (Tree of Knowledge) and turn its evil into good: « l’arbre de la connaissance serait devenu l’arbre du bien ». The Etz HaChaim is the neshama and the Etz HaDaas is the body, including the intellect, which can serve evil too. Death is simply the separation of soul from body, « la faute a séparé l’âme du corps ». Their permanent reunion will come at the resurrection.Translation: “the whole Torah is in code, and above all Parshas Bereishis” · “the Etz HaDaas would have become the tree of good” · “the sin separated the soul from the body”
Woman as Binah and inner life; “Bereishit” = bayit (house) (03:46–09:43)
Man and woman are compared:
- Woman is Binah, the 8th sefirah, above the seven of nature. So she holds more supernatural power: « une femme authentique a beaucoup plus de force surnaturelle que l’homme ». She turns the man’s « graine » into a child. As the Talmud says, she « porte la circoncision en elle », and circumcision on the eighth day also points to Binah.Translation: “an authentic woman has far more supernatural strength than a man” · “seed” · “carries the circumcision within her”
- Man stands for the outer world. For millennia the man went out to work while the woman stayed « clouée à la maison avec ses gosses ».Translation: “nailed to the house with her kids”
He reads בראשית as bayit + reishit: history begins in the home, and « La maison de l’homme c’est sa femme ». A husband’s whole task is to “enter his wife’s inner world” and draw the blessing from her; she is « la couronne de l’homme ».Translation: “a man’s home is his wife” · “the crown of the man”
The Arizal’s “decoding”: a sexual reading of the sin (09:43–13:56)
The trees are « des codes ». In the Arizal’s version, Hashem told the couple: « Hashem a dit à Adam et Ève, vous unirez uniquement pendant shabbat ». On Shabbos the husband would have reached his wife’s inner world, and together they would have overcome evil. Adam couldn’t wait and united with her on the day he was created, « Pour le plaisir, uniquement, pour l’extériorité ». Then he fell asleep. Chavah, shocked (« Tu as fait ton truc et tu t’endormes »), met the nachash, « un homme d’une beauté inimaginable », who seduced her, caressed her and said “je t’aime.” He jokes « Elle est tombée dans les pommes » (literally “she fell into the apples,” French for fainting) and tells the men: « Ne ronflez pas après l’union. Interdit. » He concludes that Chavah « Elle est pas si à blâmer que ça ». He also says the nachash’s human form shows there were already human-shaped creatures before Adam’s childrena.Translation: “codes” · “Hashem told Adam and Chavah: you will unite only on Shabbos” · “for pleasure only, for externality” · “you did your thing and you fall asleep” · “a man of unimaginable beauty” · “she fainted” · “Don’t snore after the union. Forbidden” · “she is not so much to blame”
After the sin: male domination as a curse; the 130 years (13:56–16:33)
He reads “tu domineras ta femme” as a punishmenta. Men think they rule, but « C’est la femme qui est audessus de l’homme », which Mashiach will reveal. Adam and Chavah separated for 130 years: 100 stands for Keser (the woman) and 30 for Malchus (the man, who is king thanks to her), so the nachash broke the Keser–Malchus union. Since then, « l’homme écrasait complètement sa femme » for millennia, « même chez nous ».Translation: “it is the woman who is above the man” · “the man completely crushed his wife” · “even among us”
Brothers at war: Kayin and Hevel, Yaakov and Esav, Yehudah and Yosef; the remarks about young women (16:33–23:54)
Once soul and body are split, the body becomes « le monde laïque » and the soul a spirituality cut off from the world. Kayin stood for total secularism and Hevel for disconnected spirituality. « Abel passait son temps à critiquer Caï » instead of helping him back, so, he says citing the Arizal, the one responsible for Hevel’s murder « c’est Abel lui-même »a. In a side exchange with the audience he says the woman has fallen more than the man: young women go « en moitié nu dans la rue » to seduce men, because men have become animals. Yaakov was also at first purely spiritual until he learned to act in the world: Leah = Binah, Rachel = Malchus. Yehudah selling Yosef is another case of evil entering good. He adds: « On n’est pas le peuple élu hein, on est le peuple choisi », since each of the 70 nations has its own mission.Translation: “the secular world” · “Hevel spent his time criticizing Kayin” · “it is Hevel himself” · “half-naked in the street” · “we are not the ’elected’ people, you know; we are the chosen people”
“Evil has entered good, and good has entered evil” (23:54–28:08)
His thesis: « Le mal est rentré dans le bien et le bien est rentré dans le mal ». His examples:Translation: “evil has entered good, and good has entered evil”
- Eliezer, Avraham’s “rosh yeshiva,” was the son of Nimroda.
- Sons of Nazis who converted and became rabbis in Bayit Vegan and near Tiberias.
- Rabbi Akiva descended from Sisera, Ruth came from Moab, and a sage descended from Nero.
- Haman’s descendants taught Torah in Bnei Brak.
When a member of the audience objects that collectively there is more evil in good than good in evil, he agrees.
Political-historical excursus: Germany, Hitler, Amalek, Ukraine, Iran (28:08–34:34)
- The WWI cemetery: at a cemetery near Lille he saw a non-Jewish grave marker next to a Magen David, which he takes as proof of Jewish–German brotherhood. Germany, he says, was first to emancipate the Jewsa.
- Hitler: Hitler was Austrian, born there « pour détruire tout le projet de Hertzel »b.Translation: “to destroy Herzl’s whole project”
- Amalek: « Tous les grands nazis étaient Amalek »; « Amalek s’est reproduit dans deux pays, l’Iran et l’Allemagne ».Translation: “all the leading Nazis were Amalek” · “Amalek reproduced itself in two countries, Iran and Germany”
- Ukraine: « les plus grands assassins de juifs, c’est les Ukrainiens »c. Europe supports Ukraine because it is preparing the war of Gog.Translation: “the greatest murderers of Jews were the Ukrainians”
- Biden and Iran: Biden is helping Iran get the bombd.
- Avodah Zarah: the Talmud (Avodah Zarah) says the war of Gog will be an alliance of the West with Persiae.
- Infiltrators in government: Israel’s government contains « infiltrés » who pretend to be Jews.Translation: “infiltrators”
- Why Hashem chose the Jews: « Si je réussis avec eux, je réussis avec tout le monde ».Translation: “if I succeed with them, I succeed with everyone”
Germany = Girgashites; “9 million” (34:34–47:09)
Germans: they come from the Canaanite Girgashites, which he says is why the French say « cousin germain »a. Their hidden hatred produced the Nazis, who killed « C’est pas 6 millions, c’est 9 millions »b.Translation: “first cousin (literally ’German cousin’)” · “it’s not 6 million, it’s 9 million”
The “vav of union”; judge the person, not the ideas (47:09–57:51)
- The vav of union: the vav (like “and”) joins upper and lower worlds, soul and body, man and woman, and soon Israel and the 70 nations. Amalek, he says, stands against that unity.
- Amalek and the Name: Amalek cut the Divine Name down to י-ה, as if telling Hashem « Reste en haut et fous la paix », just as Nimrod did with Bavel.Translation: “stay up there and leave us alone”
- Ethics: respect any good person whatever their ideas: « Regarde l’homme. Si c’est un homme bien ».Translation: “look at the person. If he is a good person”
- His non-Jewish students: “tens of thousands,” thousands of whom keep kosher or are circumcised.
- Etymology claim: “British” comes from « Brit ich »a.Translation: “brit ish — ’covenant of man’”
Conclusion: action; the good side of Esav becomes Mashiach; the nachash repents (57:51–01:01:29)
« notre vrai travail à nous et c’est pas évident, c’est d’être dans l’action », like Yaakov, who took on « les mains de Essav » (he said this earlier, at about 00:21:16). The good side of Esav (who had the courage to kill Nimrod) was reincarnated in David, and David in Mashiach: « Le masiar c’est une réincarnation du bon côté de » Esav. Even a bad man has good sides; his example is Trump, « un sacré coureur de Jupon » but a great friend of Israel. The chain runs nachash → Kayin → Esav → Mashiach; נחש and משיח share a numerical value, and « le serpent fera tchouva et deviendra le masiar ».Translation: “our real job, and it isn’t easy, is to be in action” · “the hands of Esav” · “Mashiach is a reincarnation of the good side of” · “quite a womanizer” · “the nachash will do teshuvah and become Mashiach”
The Divine Name appears in history, not in creation; Beriah vs. Assiah; the yeshiva student and the soldier (01:37–29:31)
The Tetragrammaton first appears in full at Bereishis 2:4, where the toldot (history) begin. That’s why the first commandment names the G‑d of the Exodus: « nous ne sommes pas intéressés par le D.ieu créateur nous sommes intéressés par le D.ieu acteur ». The verse flips “heaven and earth” into “earth and heaven.” Beriah sees from above (heaven first) and Assiah from below (earth first), and he says that settles a dispute between Beis Shammai and Beis Hillela. It also teaches that in Hashem’s eyes there is no difference between the yeshiva student and the soldier. And since the Name appears in the Assiah half: « le véritable but de l’histoire c’est de révéler D.ieu sur un champ de bataille ». Further, « les soldats moraux sont beaucoup plus haut en vérité que le plus grand des maîtres de la Torah ». Israel is « la seule armée au monde qui se met en danger » to spare civilians, which he takes as a sign of the generation of redemptionb.Translation: “we are not interested in G‑d the Creator; we are interested in G‑d who acts” · “the true purpose of history is to reveal G‑d on a battlefield” · “moral soldiers are in truth far higher than the greatest of Torah masters” · “the only army in the world that puts itself in danger”
Isha = esh + hé: woman is the fire of creation (30:04–43:05)
Man was made from earth, water and breath; the missing element, fire, arrives with the woman. אשה is “the fire of the hé,” the letter by which this world was created. Water and breath appear in the creation story, but the word אש does not; its true place is woman: « la femme brûle plus que le feu lui-même ». That is why everyone runs after women and why redemption depends on Jewish women. Man becomes « ich » only through her: « tant que tu n’es pas avec une femme tu n’es pas encore riche [ich] ». Hashem waited until Moshe married to speak to him: « D.ieu attend son mariage pour se révéler à lui »a.Translation: “woman burns more than fire itself” · “as long as you are not with a woman, you are not yet rich [ish]” · “G‑d waits for his marriage to reveal Himself to him”
The yud that tempers the fire; Adam as a doormat (43:05–52:38)
In איש the yud separates aleph from shin, because the man’s role is to temper the female fire by rooting himself in the highest, invisible light. Before the sin, « la femme était complètement au dessus de l’homme »: « ouvre la bouche ». Adam was « une serpillière totale ». Today, a vulgar man gives in to forbidden women because « le grand feu aspire le petit feu ». Still, it is called Adam’s sin: « c’est la faute de Adam si tu avais été un homme ça serait pas arrivé », like an officer who answers for his troops.Translation: “the woman was completely above the man” · “opens the mouth” · “a total doormat” · “the great fire draws in the small fire” · “it’s Adam’s fault: if you had been a man, it wouldn’t have happened”
Nakedness = missing letters; the nachash holds the vav-hé (52:38–01:18:57)
Man has the yud and woman the hé, so « il leur manquait deux » letters, the vav and the final hé: Hashem’s “garment,” Hashem as He acts in history. That is the true meaning of “they were naked.” The nachash is introduced with וְהַנָּחָשׁ, which begins with vav-hé: « les deux dernières lettres du nom divin se trouve sur le serpent ». He wanted the yud-hé, and he persuaded Chavah she could gain the vav-hé (value 11, the “crown”). Instead, they lost even the yud and the hé. So he is no longer ich but Adam, and she is no longer isha but Chavah (“we lost the vav-hé”)a. Amalek is the nachash’s heir, cutting the Name in two. He ends: « la force libératrice n’est autre que la force destructrice » once it is repaired, so the nachash will become Mashiach.Translation: “they were missing two” · “the last two letters of the Divine Name are found on the nachash” · “the liberating force is none other than the destructive force”
The puzzle of “ezer kenegdo” (~03:32–06:25)
Jacobson opens with Bereishis 2:18: “It is not good for man to be alone; I will make for him a helper against him.” How can one woman be both? “If she is a helper she is not against him; if she is against him she’s not a helper.” Rashi solves it by splitting the cases: if the husband merits, she helps; if not, she opposes. Jacobson calls this “a difficult explanation in the verse,” because the verse describes one wife who is both at once.
“how can the same woman be an a zurka nagda [sic: ezer kenegdo] if she is a helper she is not against him” (~04:44)
The Alter Rebbe and the Netziv: the difference IS the help (~06:25–09:46)
He offers another reading, rooted in the Alter Rebbe’s Torah Ohr and spelled out practically by the Netziv in Ha’amek Davar. A wife’s greatest help comes through her otherness: her own perspective, personality and character create a tension that makes growth possible. Without it, “they would remain in the same form,” because every person is “fixed in his or her own orbit.”
“by the fact that she is dissimilar to him that she is not identical to him that she has her own perspectives her own personality” (~08:38)
What happens in homes where she stops disagreeing (~10:23–13:36)
With jokes along the way (“when I am alone in the forest... am I still wrong?”), he describes a common pattern. A husband shouts down his wife’s disagreement, and she either shouts back or “learns to remain silent.” Some wives go further and repress their own opinions and feelings. The biggest loser is the husband, who “remains stuck in his own paradigm,” however brilliant he is, because “there’s no human being who’s perfect.”
He adds a caveat: this is not a “biblical injunction upon every woman to disagree with her husband 100 percent of the time,” nor permission to criticize disrespectfully. What is wrong is a home where “his wife must always agree with his opinion.”
“who loses most out of this the husband” (~12:31)
The Netziv’s example: the angry husband (~14:45–17:30)
Reading from Ha’amek Davar: when a hot-tempered husband is raging, a wife who agrees and “added fuel to the fire” seems to be an ezer but is really kenegdo, against his true interest. A wife who calms him seems kenegdo and is really the ezer. “When you’re angry you’re drunk on your anger.” Here he cites an unnamed master’s advice to wait “61 minutes” before acting in anger.
“initially he may get very upset with her why don’t you agree with me... but later he will figure out that by being against him by disagreeing with them she’s actually helping him” (~16:59)
Two wedding blessings: joy that flows from the bride (~18:00–20:38)
The Alter Rebbe contrasts two of the Sheva Brachos. One ends “who gladdens the groom and the bride”: the joy starts with him and passes to her. The last ends “who gladdens the groom with the bride”: she is the source. Sometimes the husband “would not reach the state” by himself, and his wife, “in a sensitive and wise and clever way,” brings him there.
“from her joy from her clarity of vision he can also grow” (~20:06)
Keeping the balance: be kind and be a mensch (~20:38–21:39)
How do you keep the “against him” from swamping the “helper”? Some spouses think “it’s always a mitzvah to argue.” His general answer is to be mature and kind, to be a good mensch, and to be able to “celebrate another person’s happiness and success.”
“Two in the beginning, one in the end”: the Talmud and the tefillin (~21:39–30:45)
The Talmud (Berachos 61a): Hashem first thought to create two (male and female), then created one Adam, then separated them. Jacobson follows Rabbi Moshe Avigdor Amiel (rabbi of Antwerp, later chief rabbi of Tel Aviv), who reads this as a model for marriage. At the start of any decision there are two people, each free to “challenge his or her spouse to grow taller... deeper... finer.” At the end, the couple finds “one unified pattern of behavior.”
The tefillin: the head tefillin have four separate compartments, while the arm tefillin hold the same four passages on one parchment in one box. At the level of the head (analysis), difference is healthy. At the level of the arm (action: the budget, the children, the vacation, the restaurant), there must be one path.
He warns against both bad reactions: collapsing (“you’re always right... I’m always wrong”) and intimidating (“I’m the boss”). “Both ways are destructive.”
“on analytical level diversity not only is it not negative its constructive it’s positive” (~28:04)
“when it comes down to practicality to implementation here you have to have oneness” (~30:13)
Hashem’s own “helper against Him” (~30:45–37:11)
On the mystical level (Torah Ohr), Hashem was “alone” before creation. He chose to create a world that hides and even opposes Him, with humans able to “deny him... ignore him.” Why? Because His deepest pleasure comes when a person “cracks the shell of his physicality” and finds the Divine spark. That is why the verse uses both names: Havayah (revelation) and Elokim (concealment). It is also why the first Jew is named Yitzchak, “laughter”: Sarah says “Elokim made laughter for me,” joy born out of concealment.
“G‑d’s profoundest pleasure and help stems precisely from that position [sic: opposition] to him” (~32:52)
“so the next time your wife disagrees with you or the next time you disagree with G‑d... don’t get frustrated and don’t get depressed on the contrary this is an opportunity” (~36:38)
A teaser: Hashem doesn’t want “heavenly service” (~00:00)
The video opens with its punchline in Hashem’s voice: “so G‑d says in the beginning I created heaven and earth serving me is not real [sic] is not restricted to heaven.”
In the Torah, the first words “should say it all” (~00:36–01:48)
Many books have throwaway introductions, but the Torah is not like them. “G‑d is speaking,” so no word is “filler.” The first words should “tell you the whole story.”
“in the tolerant [sic: Torah] the first words should say it all” (~00:36)
Rashi’s question: why not start with the mitzvos? (~01:48–04:45)
Rashi asks why the Torah, a book of mitzvos, opens with creation and a whole book of genealogy (Adam, Noach, the Patriarchs, Yosef) instead of starting at the first mitzvah. Friedman points out that the question itself teaches something: “no part of the Torah can be dismissed as introductory or secondary.”
Rashi’s answer, and why Friedman calls it “a stretch” (~04:45–11:35)
Rashi, quoting the Midrash, says the opening lets Israel answer the charge of stealing the Land: Hashem made the earth and gives it to whom He wills. Friedman pushes back. Is that “going to be our biggest problem? ... I think we have more serious problems.” Historically, he says, after the Mabul (Flood) the Land went to Shem; the Canaanites, descendants of Cham, took it, so Shem’s descendants (the “Semites”) took it back. And conquest is how land has always changed hands.
“which country in the world hasn’t been stolen from another country” (~09:55)
“what a stretch the entire book just so that we can say G‑d gave us the land” (~07:27)
Going deeper: “you don’t belong here,” wherever Jews go (~11:35–15:02)
In Spain, Eastern Europe, Babylon and even Israel, Jews have heard “this is not your place.” Friedman reads the unconscious message behind it: “you are a Heavenly Nation, then why are you on Earth?” He calls it “in a sense... a compliment.”
The tribe of Levi, and the question Jews ask themselves (~15:02–21:59)
Levi received no land because its life was “purely spiritual.” Is the whole Jewish people a nation of Levites? The real question doesn’t come from antisemites. Jews ask it of themselves. Why honest scales, if we are not meant to be businessmen? Why farming laws such as the forgotten sheaf? Why eat at all? “We should be fasting... ascetic.” He sees a felt contradiction between “our spiritual mission and our Earthly life.”
“the truth is the question doesn’t come from anti-semites this question is something that Jews ask themselves all the time” (~16:35)
From the desert to the farm, and Hashem’s answer in the first verse (~21:59–26:00)
For 40 years in the desert the Jews lived a “Heavenly existence”: manna, miraculous water, clothes that never wore out. Then they were told to become soldiers, farmers and political leaders, and “it felt sinful.” So before giving mitzvos that involve the physical world, Hashem reveals the secret in the first verse: He is creator of the earth too, and earthly service is what He wants.
“Heavenly service doesn’t really appeal to me at all what serves me best is Human Service... when you eat in a G‑dly fashion when you farm in a G‑dly fashion when you run a business in a G‑dly fashion that’s serving me” (~24:18–24:51)
“now you know everything the rest is all details” (~25:26)
Why study a “new heaven and new earth” this week (~00:35–03:31)
He opens by asking the class to “free ourselves up from all the stuff that has been bombarding us this week” and “go visit Gan Eden.” He says the maamar was given in 1804 on Friday night of Parshas Korach. His guess is that it was Shabbos Rosh Chodesh, when the haftarah is Yeshayahu 66, which contains the verse “the new heavens and the new earth.”
“I have a heavy heart but I have a lot of light coming in my mind so I hope the heavy light that’s coming in the mind will cleanse the darkness in the heart” (~05:51)
Bookends: “Heaven is My throne” and “the new heavens” (~04:04–15:05)
The first maamar in Torah Ohr doesn’t open on “In the beginning G‑d created.” It opens on Yeshayahu 66:1, “Heaven is My throne and the earth My footstool.” The last maamar in Likkutei Torah is on Yeshayahu 66:22, the “new heavens.” Wolf reads all of Chassidus, and all of history, as framed by these two verses:
- Hashem created a world with only a “ray” of Himself in it.
- Humans “pump” Hashem Himself in, until the heavens are His throne: a throne is where the person himself sits.
- Then, in the seventh millennium, Hashem “does a little remodeling.”
He calls this “my own little thought.”
“the Heaven and Earth that G‑d created only has a tiny minuscule of divinity in it then G‑d charged the human being to pump G‑d into the world” (~10:12)
“now Hashem says now that I’m here let me show you what I can do” (~12:53)
Adam’s job: to “work and guard the garden,” even remotely (~18:57–21:36)
“To work it and to guard it” (Bereishis 2:15) means the 248 positive and 365 negative mitzvos. Adam’s banishment didn’t end the job. “He was fired? No.” We keep working the garden “remotely,” watering it from this lower world, and souls enjoy the results “after 120.”
“he’s continuing to work the garden but he’s working the garden remotely” (~20:31)
Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden) has only a “ray”; only souls in bodies can bring more (~22:46–30:26)
However exquisite it is, Gan Eden shines with only a ray of Malchus, Hashem’s “tail end,” as he puts it. Anything stronger would “electrocute” created souls. Souls in heaven can enjoy that light but cannot increase it. The improvement is to bring Hashem Himself in: “He sits down on the heavens,” and His “feet” reach all the way to the physical earth.
“when we’re pure Spiritual Beings... we can experience the lights of ganeden but we can’t increase it” (~28:50)
Fighting the “skin of the snake,” and Chavah’s “very good idea” (~30:26–34:37)
Souls in bodies are much weaker, yet they can do one thing heaven can’t: overpower a body poisoned by the snake. Here Wolf adds a provocative reading of his own. Chavah wanted the work to be more potent, so she chose to “sin a little bit” to make the body lower. “In the end it was really good,” because “the greater the darkness the greater the light.”
“she had a very good idea she said in order for our work to be really potent we got to sin a little bit” (~33:34)
“as we know in the end it was really good that they s[inned]” (~34:05)
Fuel from obstacles: the soul’s “lava” (~34:37–41:13)
In heaven, a soul’s love is fueled by its understanding, which is finite, so it can only draw a finite “ray.” On earth, obstacles “poke the soul... till it breaks through,” and an infinite love “comes spilling out.” This is why the baal teshuvah stands higher than the tzaddik, and “you don’t have to sin to be a baal teshuvah.” Being far from Hashem is enough. He ties it to Israel that week.
“when the energy is produced by an obstacle it’s a million times more than the energy that is self-produced” (~37:48)
“you’re driven to serving G‑d because you’re close to him but... on Earth you’re drawn to the service of Hashem because you’re far from him” (~40:05)
“Better one hour of teshuvah in this world” (~43:51–47:14)
He draws on Avos 4:17 [reference added] (“better one hour of repentance and good deeds in this world than all the life of the World to Come”) and the line “You are holy and Your Name is holy.” Gan Eden lives on Hashem’s Name (rays). Our deeds bring “You yourself” into the Name. He also refers to the Tzemach Tzedek’s long notes on the mitzvos and korbanos. After summarizing the dense section, he admits: “the way the Alter Rebbe said it none of this was here,” meaning those Kabbalistic layers come from the notes.
“who can even fathom how much teshuvah [captions: ’chuv’] and Good Deeds was done in this world this week” (~46:31)
Spring water, a dam, and the key of compassion (~1:33:10–2:01:31)
Hashem “doesn’t wake up from a little tap.” Reaching Him takes an infinite yearning, and that only erupts against blockage. Wolf gives two images:
- Spring water: after a joke about California gas prices and Fiji Water, he argues that the purest, crispest water is water that has fought its way through the earth.
- A dam: block a river and it bursts through with far more force.
He says prayer, “a ladder standing on the earth whose top reaches heaven,” is built to produce this “rapture” (“with all your me’od”). The practical key, which the Alter Rebbe develops next, is compassion for one’s own soul: “you come to a place where you pity your own soul.” He closes on Jewish unity after October 7.
“the cleanest most refreshing crazy water is order [sic: water] that the water that broke through the darkness” (~1:39:12)
“you mess with one of us you mess with every single Jew” (~1:59:22)