Lifting the Fallen: The Tzaddik at the Well

6“Yaakov lifted his feet …” We can read this as a hint. The tzaddik embraces all of Israel, and he lifts up everything in Israel that has sunk low, Heaven forbid, to bring it to holiness. That is “Yaakov lifted his feet.” For even Israel's transgressors are “as full of mitzvos as a pomegranate.”¹ But such a mitzvah has no strength to rise to the holy heights, because the sins extinguish it and have brought it down to the feet, far below. The tzaddik who serves in truth draws the holiness out of the kelipah, the husk that hides holiness, and raises it up to Hashem. So “Yaakov lifted”: the tzaddik, who is called by the name Yaakov, lifts and raises on high “his feet,” the holiness that has fallen to the feet. “And went to the land,” artzah: he comes to walk among earthly things, artziyus. But it is the land “of the people of the east,” bnei kedem: earthly things that concern the Creator, blessed be He, Who is kadmono shel olam, the One Who was before (kedem) the world.

7a“And he looked, and behold, a well in the field.”² Here the verse shows us the path by which the tzaddik reaches this level of lifting fallen holiness: he always looks into the inner depths of the holy Torah. For the Torah is called a “well,” as in “the well that princes dug,”³ and its inner depths are called a “field,” the “field of apples.” So “a well in the field” means that the Torah, the well, exists above all for the sake of the field: its inner depths, the field of apples. A person comes to grasp the Torah's inner depths through three levels that Hashem, blessed be He, placed in man: nefesh, ruach and neshamah, the three levels of the soul. Once a person breaks his animal nefesh, he will attain the nefesh of the intellect. After that he will reach ruach. And once he holds fast to the true service of the Creator as his stronghold, he will reach neshamah. Through these three levels he will come to grasp the inner depths of the holy Torah.

7b“And behold, three flocks of sheep were lying there beside it”: the verse hints here at these three levels, through which a person comes to the Torah's inner depths. And he gains more than that: he will bring a good flow of blessing to Israel. So “for from that well they would water the flocks”: the flocks are holy Israel, the holy flock. “And the stone on the mouth of the well was large”: the verse is explaining that the root of holiness is on high. The holy letters are called “stones,” as Sefer Yetzirah says.⁴ In the upper worlds the letters are great, while to us Hashem gave small letters, as the holy Zohar says: “There are great letters and small letters.”⁵ We are obliged to sanctify and purify ourselves and to bind the small letters to the great letters above, and this comes through the nefesh, ruach and neshamah that a person attains. The stone, then, is the letters, and the large stone is the great letters. They are “on the mouth of the well”: in the upper world, which is called “the mouth of the well,” for there is the root of holiness.

8“All the flocks would gather there”:⁶ once a person gathers together all three levels, nefesh, ruach and neshamah, then “they would roll the stone.” Rolling is turning over: with this holiness they turn the attribute of judgment into the attribute of mercy and sweeten the harsh judgments at their root. “And water the sheep”: then they bring a flow of blessing to Israel, the holy flock. “And put the stone back in its place”: they also bring about the binding and union of the small letters with the great letters above, which is their true place.

9“Yaakov said to them, ‘My brothers, where are you from?’”⁷ The tzaddik's thoughts always rise within him. He thinks always of the fear of Hashem, and searches and inquires into every way of fearing Hashem and serving Him, blessed and exalted be He. It is as if his thoughts were speaking to one another, to tell him what cause and what act make a person's heart awaken to His service. So Yaakov's question to the shepherds is the tzaddik's question to his thoughts, “My brothers, where are you from?”: in what way, and from what cause, did your awakening to His service come? “They said, ‘We are from Charan’”: his musings and thoughts answer him that the very beginning of their awakening to fear came from Charan (חרן), from remembering the wrath, charon (חרון), of having angered His great Name. Above all, it comes through a sin that is, because of our many sins, all too common. When a person stumbles into the impurity of an emission at night, the man trembles and starts, and fear, quaking and horror seize him. Through this a person's heart awakens to His service, as he says, “How could I have angered the great and awesome Name with my evil deeds, and stumbled in my sin?”

10aThis awakening is what the Tanna, the sage of the Mishnah, meant: “Reflect on three things and you will not come into the hands of sin. Know where you came from: from a putrid drop.”⁸ “Where you came from” means: where did you come from to begin in the service of the Creator, blessed be He? Remember how you stumbled in your sin through an impure occurrence; that is “a putrid drop.” “And where you are going”: what cause and what way will bring you to go forward in His service? Remembering that you will return “to dust, worms and maggots.” This brings a person great humility, and humility is the main thing, the root, for a person: through it he will go on growing stronger in the fear of Hashem and in His holy Torah. “And before Whom you will in the future give judgment and accounting …”: once you remember the first two things, you will be granted a sense of the greatness of God.

10bThis humility is the meaning of “He saw, and behold a ladder set on the ground …”⁹ Sulam (סלם), “ladder,” written here without a vav, has the numerical value of Sinai (סיני): 130 each.¹⁰ So the ladder is what brings a person to grasp the Torah given at Sinai, and that is, above all, humility: “set on the ground” hints at great humility. “And its top reached the heavens” is the holiness he will reach through it. His longing must be very, very great, to reach in his holiness higher and higher, without end or limit. He must always long and say, “When will I reach the place of my fathers?”¹¹ “And behold, angels of God ascending …”: when a person speaks in holiness, a holy angel is created from every word that goes out in holiness. These are the “angels … ascending”: they stir the awakening from below, the first move made by man. “And descending on it” is the awakening from above that answers it, with a good flow of blessing upon Israel.

11To return to the verses about Yaakov and the shepherds: “He said to them, ‘Do you know Lavan the son of Nachor?’”¹² His thoughts ask one another whether they have set their hearts to know the stray thoughts and ulterior motives that come to a person while he learns the holy Torah, which was given as black fire upon white fire.¹³ So “Lavan,” whose name means white, hints at the Torah. “The son of Nachor” (נחור) is the same word as nicharu bi (נחרו בי), “my mother's sons were incensed against me”:¹⁴ the ulterior motives and the incitement of stray thoughts that come in the middle of learning. “They said, ‘We know’”: his thoughts answer him, “Yes, it is so, we know. We have set our hearts to watch over this always.” “He said to them, ‘Is it well with him?’”¹⁵ Hashalom lo asks about wholeness, shleimus: “True, you take care to watch for ulterior motives and stray thoughts. But this I ask you: have you set this trait right and made it whole, so that your learning is whole, without any ulterior motive?” “They said, ‘It is well; and here is Rachel his daughter, coming with the sheep’”: “Because we are always trembling and afraid, like a ewe, a rachel, before her shearers,¹⁶ through this we have made our traits whole in learning the holy Torah.” And “Rachel his daughter” hints at fear, which is called “daughter,” as love is called “son.”

12“He said, ‘Look, the day is still long …’”¹⁷ The tzaddik says this too: perhaps you will say, “The day is still long for engaging in His service; once I am free of the affairs of this world, then I will begin His service.” Do not say so. “It is not the time to gather in the livestock,” mikneh: this is no time to gather in the acquisitions, kinyanim, of this world, “for our days on earth are a shadow.”¹⁸ Rather, do this and you will succeed. “Water the sheep”: hashku (השקו), “water,” is read as neshikah (נשיקה), a kiss: let the matters of this world, the physical things, be to you like a kiss. A kiss is only a brief brush of the lips; so let your thoughts about the affairs of this world be only a brief brush with them, something you do because you must. “And go, pasture them”: the main thing is to cleave to the Creator, blessed be He, in complete deveikus and wholeness. The verse in Rus hints at the same: “Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Rus clung to her.”¹⁹ Orpah (ערפה) hints at physical things, which are called oref (עורף), the back of the neck: they should get only a kiss. “But Rus clung to her” hints at the matters of His service: Rus (רות) speaks of sating Him, leravoso (לרוותו), with songs and praises,²⁰ and for this complete deveikus is needed.

13“They said, ‘We cannot, until …’”²¹ His thoughts answer him. You may say, “Surely we cannot begin His service ‘until all the flocks are gathered,’ only with all three levels, nefesh, ruach and neshamah, and that is very hard for us.” Here is my advice to you: “While he was still speaking with them”²² means when you begin to speak words of Torah. “Rachel came with the sheep”: then see that you speak with fear and awe, as we saw in Rachel, the ewe before her shearers. “That belonged to her father” is complete fear: the fear of the Creator, blessed, praised and exalted be He, Who is our Father in Heaven. May He deal kindly with us and set His love and His fear in our hearts forever and ever. Amen.