R' Shlomo on Yoseif HaTzaddik : The Foundation of Yesod

Now I want you to open your hearts in the deepest depths.

Where does G-d put all his blessings? The Gemara says (Uktzin 3:12) ‘Lo Matsa Hakadosh Baruch Hu Klee Machzik Mracha Ela Hashalaom’, G-d couldn’t find a vessel to put his blessing into besides the vessel of peace.

Why is peace a vessel for blessing? But even deeper, what is peace? To make peace is between two opposites. The Gemara says (Chagiga 12a) that heaven, shamayim is a combination of two words, Eish and Mayim, fire and water. Fire and water are so to speak the two biggest enemies in the world. The Ribbono Shel Olam makes peace between them. Since peace is above all that, you can make peace between fire and water, between all opposites in the world.

Now open your hearts in the deepest depths.

Do you need any more opposition between actually having something and not having it, between being and not being

You know something friends, G-d wants to give us so much. Let’s say I have a hundred dollars, and suddenly I don’t have it anymore. G-d blesses me that I should have more, but in order to put in more, I have got to make an infinite vessel to contain what G-d wants to give me. The only thing which is infinite is peace because it’s beyond fire and water, beyond all the oppositions. The only thing which is infinite is peace.

Now everybody knows that from the ten emanations and from the seven emotions Avraham Avinu was love, Yitzchak was strength and Ya’akov is beauty. Who is the top with peace? Heilige Yosef Hatzadik. Yosef was Yesod, a foundation. Foundation is the combination of love and strength, which is even more than beauty. It brings peace between love and strength.

So Yosef is a combination of two things. On the one hand it says ‘Vayave Yosef Es Dibasam’ (Breishis 37:2), when Yosef saw something bad he spoke up. As much as he was completely filled with peace, when he sees something wrong he speaks up. However he is also looking for his brothers in the deepest way. ‘Es Achai Anochi Mevakesh’ (ibid. 37:16). He was also called an Avrech (ibid. 41:43 see Rashi there), Avrech means Av Bachochmah, a father in wisdom, and Rach Bashanim, he was young in years.

So Reb Nachman says this means that he has both minds, Mochin DeKatnus and Mochin DeGadlus, the little mind and the high mind. What does it mean to have both minds at the same time? I want you to understand something very deep. Let’s say someone sees me with the biggest criminal in the world. So they will come up to me and say ‘listen, this guy is the biggest murderer and criminal in the world. How can you hang out with him?’ If I answer back ‘my mind is so high and big that it doesn’t even matter, I can handle it all’, how does it sound to you? You don’t have a big mind, you don’t have a small mind, you don’t have a mind at all. Some people’s minds are so high but gurnisht… when it comes down to it there is nothing really there.

You see what it is, peace is not when there is fire and water and I just put them together. Peace doesn’t mean I’m infinite and I don’t care about anything. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care what you did in your life, just come in and have a meal with me, it just doesn’t go this way. You see friends, peace is the utmost combination of love and of strength. Without this holiness of peace, most people are just lost. They don’t know when to speak up when something is wrong and they don’t know how to point out when something is right.

Ya’akov Avinu knows exactly when to love and when to go strong, it’s a very high level. Yosef is something deeper than that, Yosef is everything together at the same time and instant. Just like the foundation of a house holds up all functions of the house at the same time. Ya’akov Avinu is completely open, he knows when to love and he knows when to push away. Yosef is both at the same time and this is what a foundation is all about. The foundation of yiddishkeit, the foundation of serving G-d is not that I know when to push away and I know when to love, but that it’s absolutely taking place in my heart at the same time.

So here Reb Nachman say that the highest level in the world is when you give your life to G-d, because what does it mean to give your life to G-d? It is absolutely chasadim and gevuros together. I love G-d so much that I am ready to die for G-d which is the utmost gevurah, the utmost strength. The highest thing in life is to be completely given to G-d which is always a combination of utmost love and utmost strength. Therefore even the lowest yidele is willing to die before G-d because basically, we yiddelach are filled with peace. To be filled with peace means that we have this utmost love and this utmost strength, and they are both alive within me at the same time.

Now listen to this, let’s go one level deeper.

What does it mean to have a foundation? When you have a foundation it means you mamesh have a connection. I can be filled with love but it doesn’t mean that I am connected to love. I can be filled with strength but it doesn’t mean that I am connected to it. Yesod, foundation means that I am connected to it. A lot of people do everything good their whole life but there is something wishy-washy about them because they are not connected to what they are doing. A person can be a yidele for two thousand years but when you taste this yid, there is something missing. I can be married to my wife for two thousand years, we never had a fight and we love each other but inside there is nothing, no connection. Some people can fight all the time but there is something very deep connected between them. I’m not saying that it’s better like this, but there is a connection. Yosef, the foundation means to be absolutely connected to what you are doing and how are you feeling.

This is how Yosef Hatzadik makes it. He was the first yidele who lasted in exile, he went through everything in the world. From the lowest, by being in prison, to the highest, being a king. Do you know how he made it? He always knew ‘I am a yidele’, because he was connected.

Now listen to this most beautiful thing.

The foundation is the vessel but this is not the highest level yet, it’s only the vessel. What is the Master of The World putting into this vessel? He is putting the greatest blessing in the world. The greatest blessing is if you can speak before the Ribbono Shel Olam. The greatest blessing is that you are so close to G-d that you can mamesh daven, pray, and that you can learn and utter words of holiness.

This is the aspect of Malchus, kingdom. This is what being a king is all about.

Speaking has to be a combination of both elements. Every word you utter has to be on the level of love and has to be on the level of strength. Imagine I love a girl very much and I tell her ‘I would love to marry you’, so she would say ‘listen, call me back next week’. There has to be some gevurah in it. If I walk up to a girl and scream to her ‘I want you to marry me’ then it still won’t go. Gevurah without Chesed is also bad. Real learning, real words…

When real holy people talk they always have both aspects together. It’s utmost love and utmost strength because you have to realize that holy also means the combination of the utmost strength and love together.

You know my friends, when the Bobover Rebbe’s son got married, hundreds of people came to the wedding. Nebech, his first wife was killed and he had eight children. This son that got married was the only one that was left over. You can just imagine how he felt at the wedding. He was so very broken and at the same time very high. There were hundreds of people giving him little kvitlach with their names on it. There was no time to say a lot, so I gave him a kivitele and he said to me two words, Chen Vachesed. Now friends, I’ve heard the words ‘chen vachesed’ hundreds of time in my life, but it was mamesh on the level of Malchus. Chen Vachesed… just two words that changed my life forever.

This is Yosef Hatzadik, the Yesod, the foundation which it the utmost combination of both.

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