You know that you have a reason to be happy. You finished learning something difficult, held back an angry response, or managed to daven with more attention. But knowing it has not yet changed how you feel.
Part of you would like to celebrate. Another part looks on and says, “What are you making such a fuss about?” You can explain the value of the mitzvah very well. You still cannot get yourself to dance.
This is where Rebbe Nachman's eitzah of milei dishtusa, lighthearted or apparently silly things, becomes practical. Sometimes the obstacle is a part of ourselves that needs a simpler way into the simcha. We can give that part something it can enjoy, and allow the deeper joy to emerge with it.
Bringing more of life into the circle
We began with the circle in Likutey Moharan II:23. Someone stands outside the dancing, uninterested and unhappy. When he joins, the joy can reach him too. Rebbe Nachman uses that picture for bringing sorrow itself into simcha.
The inward work includes more than noticing one good part of the day. A person also brings before Hashem the parts that trouble or embarrass him. Even his distance can help him appreciate the mitzvah he has managed to do: someone struggling as he is has nevertheless put on tefillin, said words of tefillah or resisted a temptation.
That prepares us to hear the beginning of Torah 24: mitzvah gedolah lihyos besimcha tamid. Tamid asks for an avodah that can reach the different parts of a person's life. His ruchniyus and gashmiyus, the time he recognizes as avodas Hashem and the time that seems merely ordinary, all need a place in that relationship.
The discussion of Shevat gives us several pictures for that work. It leads toward Adar and the added simcha of Purim. The rav describes Tu BiShevat as the beginning of a thirty-day preparation for Purim: start working on simcha before Adar arrives. This is his application of preparing for a Yom Tov, rather than a new calendar ruling. Waiting for the month to change will not, by itself, change how we feel.
When both become kodesh
The Torah describes maaser behemah, the tithe of animals:
וְכׇל־מַעְשַׂר בָּקָר וָצֹאן כֹּל אֲשֶׁר־יַעֲבֹר תַּחַת הַשָּׁבֶט הָֽעֲשִׂירִי יִֽהְיֶה־קֹּדֶשׁ לַֽה׳׃
Every tithe of cattle and sheep, whatever passes beneath the staff, the tenth shall be holy to Hashem. (Vayikra 27:32)
לֹא יְבַקֵּר בֵּֽין־טוֹב לָרַע וְלֹא יְמִירֶנּוּ וְאִם־הָמֵר יְמִירֶנּוּ וְהָֽיָה־הוּא וּתְמוּרָתוֹ יִֽהְיֶה־קֹּדֶשׁ לֹא יִגָּאֵֽל׃
He shall not distinguish between good and bad, and he shall not exchange it; if he does exchange it, both it and its replacement shall be holy, and it shall not be redeemed. (Vayikra 27:33)
The attempted exchange does not remove the holiness of the first animal. The second becomes holy as well. The law prohibits the exchange, even though it describes the sanctity that results when someone makes it.
Bnei Yissaschar, Shevat 1:1, records that the four initial letters of hamer yemirenu vehayah hu correspond to the arrangement associated with Shevat: hei, yud, vav, hei. The monthly arrangements refer to the four letters of Hashem's Name. Because two of the letters are the same, they have twelve distinct arrangements, associated here with the twelve months. Nisan uses the usual order; its familiar verse is:
יִשְׂמְחוּ הַשָּׁמַיִם וְתָגֵל הָאָרֶץ יִֽרְעַם הַיָּם וּמְלֹאֽוֹ׃
Let the heavens rejoice and the earth exult; let the sea and all that fills it roar. (Tehillim 96:11)
Here, the Shevat verse is being used as a remez for drawing another part of life into kedushah. We begin with something holy and something ordinary. We might imagine that bringing them together will leave the ordinary part unchanged, or pull the holy part away from its place. The picture offered by the end of the verse is that both become kodesh.
The word hamer also suggests mar, bitterness, in this homiletic reading. The bitter part is being brought into the avodah as well. It need not remain permanently outside the circle of simcha.
This is a remez alongside the law. It gives no permission to make the exchange that the very same verse forbids. Nor does bringing a painful or failed part of life into teshuvah make its wrongdoing permissible.
Eating gives us an ordinary example. The association of Shevat with eating appears in the Sefer Yetzirah tradition cited by Bnei Yissaschar, Shevat 1:2. Eating is a bodily activity. Yet a person can eat in a way directed toward kedushah during the week as well as on Shabbos. His physical life can receive its direction from the same source as his learning and davening. The fruit remains connected to its root.
The eleventh ingredient
Likutey Halachos, Hilchos Kriyas Shema 2, develops the picture of ketores. Ten of its ingredients are joined by the chelbenah, whose unpleasant smell makes it a striking part of the mixture. The part that seems least suited to a beautiful fragrance is included in the ketores itself.
The number ten has a particular place in the account of kedushah. Sefer Yetzirah 1:4 says that the sefiros are ten, neither nine nor eleven. A minyan is ten. Against that background, the eleven ingredients of ketores become an image of reaching the part that seemed to stand outside.
The rav stresses the completeness of ten and invokes the language of bal tosif and bal tigra, adding or subtracting. His comparison concerns the symbolic structure of kedushah. Sefer Yetzirah is specifically describing the ten sefiros; it does not make every holy thing have ten parts or turn every different count into a halachic prohibition.
The ketores is brought into the Kodesh HaKodashim on Yom Kippur. Its inclusion of the chelbenah belongs to a high avodah of kedushah. Reb Noson connects this with the verse:
שֶׁמֶן וּקְטֹרֶת יְשַׂמַּֽח־לֵב וּמֶתֶק רֵעֵהוּ מֵעֲצַת־נָֽפֶשׁ׃
Oil and incense gladden the heart, and the sweetness of a friend comes from heartfelt counsel. (Mishlei 27:9)
The joy reaches even the part that, on its own, does not smell pleasant. Applied inwardly, these are the parts of my day that I would rather leave out of the account: the worries, the shame, the struggles. They also need a way to approach Hashem.
Kerisos 6b teaches that a communal fast must include the sinners of Israel, learning from the chelbenah in the ketores. Reb Noson applies the teaching to tefillah and to bringing sorrow into simcha. The point is inclusion of people who need to return. It does not require a minyan to find an additional visibly sinful person before its prayer can be valid.
Shevat is the eleventh month when counting from Nisan. Yosef is Yaakov's eleventh son. These become further associations in the explanation here: the work of reaching another part, beyond the place already recognized as holy. The correspondence rests on those counts; it is not a claim that every traditional mapping of months to shevatim pairs Shevat with Yosef.
Making an acher into a ben
Rachel gives two expressions when Yosef is born:
וַתַּהַר וַתֵּלֶד בֵּן וַתֹּאמֶר אָסַף אלוקים אֶת־חֶרְפָּתִֽי׃
She conceived and bore a son, and said, “Elokim has gathered away my disgrace.” (Bereishis 30:23)
וַתִּקְרָא אֶת־שְׁמוֹ יוֹסֵף לֵאמֹר יֹסֵף ה׳ לִי בֵּן אַחֵֽר׃
She named him Yosef, saying, “May Hashem add another son for me.” (Bereishis 30:24)
The first looks toward the removal of her disgrace; the second is a tefillah for another son. The inward reading here attends to the words ben acher. Something feels acher, other, separate, outside. Yosef's work is to bring that acher toward being a ben, a son who belongs.
We see Yosef maintaining his avodah in a place far from his father's home:
וַֽיְהִי כׇּל־נֶפֶשׁ יֹצְאֵי יֶֽרֶךְ־יַעֲקֹב שִׁבְעִים נָפֶשׁ וְיוֹסֵף הָיָה בְמִצְרָֽיִם׃
All the souls who came from Yaakov's own descendants were seventy souls, and Yosef was in Egypt. (Shemos 1:5)
Rashi explains that the verse tells us Yosef remained in his righteousness: the Yosef who tended his father's sheep was the Yosef in Egypt, even after becoming a ruler. The further application here is that Yosef carries the kedushah of his earlier life into the place that seems outside it.
That gives a person something to work with in his own life. He has an inward part that knows it belongs to Hashem. He also has parts that feel like strangers to that relationship. The avodah is to reach them and bring them toward belonging.
The rav also recalls a teaching in the name of the Baal Shem Tov about Acher. Chagigah 15a recounts the heavenly call to return, with Acher excepted, and R Meir continuing to urge him to return. In the homily recalled here, the part called acher seems shut out; Yosef's avodah is to reach even that part and bring it toward being a ben. The exact Baal Shem Tov source is still unlocated. This inward application is distinct from the Gemara's account of Acher himself.
The explanation recalled here in the name of the Lubavitcher Rebbe joins this with the two names Yosef Yitzchak: Yosef, bringing the acher toward being a ben; Yitzchak, suggesting laughter and joy. Its place in the argument is that joy helps draw in what otherwise stays apart.
Sarah's words give the association of Yitzchak with laughter:
וַתֹּאמֶר שָׂרָה צְחֹק עָשָׂה לִי אלוקים כׇּל־הַשֹּׁמֵעַ יִֽצְחַק־לִֽי׃
Sarah said, “Elokim has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me.” (Bereishis 21:6)
We can hear the connection with avodah:
עִבְדוּ אֶת־ה׳ בְּשִׂמְחָה בֹּאוּ לְפָנָיו בִּרְנָנָֽה׃
Serve Hashem with joy; come before Him with joyful song. (Tehillim 100:2)
Torah 24 asks us to work on a simcha that can continue beyond the moments we already identify as a mitzvah. Even an ordinary bodily pleasure can be directed toward making room for that service.
The opposite of pushing someone away
Arakhin 16a teaches that ketores atones for lashon hara. Reb Noson explains the connection in Hilchos Kriyas Shema 2. Lashon hara finds a fault in a Jew and uses it to accuse and distance him. Ketores includes the chelbenah and points toward drawing close the person who has fallen.
The two movements run in opposite directions. One says that the flaw defines the person and leaves him outside. The other looks for how he can be brought toward kedushah.
The same movement can take place in the way I speak to myself. The discussion leaves aside the precise halachic question of speaking lashon hara about oneself. Its concern is the way repeated accusations can stop a person from recognizing the value of any mitzvah he does.
I can acknowledge that I am struggling and still see that this mitzvah matters. In fact, the struggle can help me appreciate the effort it required. The purpose is to return, rather than to use the memory of a failure to prevent another good act.
This continues the earlier discussion of the machol and the choleh, the dance and the sick person. The image is of repair and return to life. The spiritual account of simcha and refuah remains distinct from a medical promise that a dance will cure a particular illness.