The hours spent at work
Suppose someone davens for forty-five minutes in the morning and learns for another forty-five minutes. Then he goes to work. If he regards the working day as entirely outside his relationship with Hashem, he may feel that only a small part of his life has spiritual meaning. Most of his waking hours seem disconnected.
The work of kelipas nogah changes how he approaches those hours. He is earning a living for his family. He can be careful with his conduct, with the way he treats the people around him, and with his shemiras einayim. He can ask Hashem for help with his parnassah, his livelihood, and recognize who gives him the ability to succeed.
The Torah describes the thought a person must guard against:
וְאָמַרְתָּ בִּלְבָבֶךָ כֹּחִי וְעֹצֶם יָדִי עָשָׂה לִי אֶת־הַחַיִל הַזֶּה׃
You may say in your heart, “My strength and the power of my hand made this wealth for me.” (Devarim 8:17)
Recognizing Hashem within one's work is part of bringing this world into kedushah. The obligation to provide for one's family and the obligation to serve Hashem meet in the way a person works. Those hours contain choices through which his relationship with Hashem can continue.
The rav calls this making a dirah betachtonim, a dwelling for Hashem in the lower world. His point is that the working day itself can disclose a relationship with Hashem. He mentions Reb Noson's prayers about livelihood as a way to carry this recognition into business. The exact passage is not specified in the shiur.
The same question comes up with food and money more generally. We need to eat. We need an income. How much of our attention should food occupy? How much work do we need to do? At what point does a legitimate need begin to govern the person? These questions require judgment precisely because they concern things that have a proper place in life.
Yaakov and Lavan name the same pile of stones
Rebbe Nachman finds this struggle in the encounter between Yaakov and Lavan. The Haggadah expounds the words Arami oved avi as referring to Lavan's attempt to destroy everything. The complete verse is part of the declaration brought with the first fruits:
וְעָנִיתָ וְאָמַרְתָּ לִפְנֵי ה׳ אֱלֹקֶיךָ אֲרַמִּי אֹבֵד אָבִי וַיֵּרֶד מִצְרַיְמָה וַיָּגָר שָׁם בִּמְתֵי מְעָט וַיְהִי־שָׁם לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל עָצוּם וָרָב׃
You shall declare before Hashem, your Elokim: “An Aramean sought to destroy my father. He went down to Egypt and lived there with few people, and there became a great, powerful, and numerous nation.” (Devarim 26:5, following the Haggadah's reading of the opening phrase)
Why does this teaching draw attention to Lavan as an Aramean? Rebbe Nachman connects Arami to Aramaic, the language of Targum. Lavan's attempt to draw strength from Yaakov takes place through this middle level.
When Yaakov leaves Lavan, Lavan pursues him. They eventually set up a pile of stones as a witness to their agreement. The Torah records two names for that one pile:
וַיִּקְרָא־לוֹ לָבָן יְגַר שָׂהֲדוּתָא וְיַעֲקֹב קָרָא לוֹ גַּלְעֵד׃
Lavan called it Yegar Sahadusa, and Yaakov called it Gal-ed. (Bereishis 31:47)
Both names mean a heap of witness. Lavan's name is Aramaic. Yaakov's name is lashon hakodesh. The Torah preserves the difference in language even though the two names describe the same thing.
Rebbe Nachman explains that Lavan seeks access to kedushah through Targum. Yaakov brings Targum into lashon hakodesh. He takes the middle level and connects its good to kedushah.
The rav also contrasts Lavan with Esav. Esav is associated with red and with open wrongdoing. Lavan's name means white. In the rav's account, this white appearance can be more dangerous: a destructive desire presents itself as clean and respectable. He recalls a source for the comparison without a clear identification. An openly forbidden act is identifiable as forbidden. A desire that presents itself as respectable can be harder to examine. Likutey Moharan 1 describes the yetzer hara appearing as a white fire: it can dress its proposal in the appearance of a mitzvah. A person then needs to examine where that proposal is taking him.
Lavan's pursuit of Yaakov illustrates the disguise. He speaks of wanting to kiss his children goodbye, presenting himself as an affectionate father rather than an enemy. The rav connects that appearance to the Haggadah's severe description of Lavan's intention to uproot everything. This is why he spends so much time on permitted desires: a person may readily identify an outright prohibition while finding it harder to recognize when a legitimate need has become controlling.
The comparison with Lavan belongs to the same question we face in ordinary life. Something may look quite acceptable while steadily increasing a person's dependence on money, food, or another desire. The appearance alone does not answer how it is being used.
Rabbi Shimon and the weekday world
The Gemara describes Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and his son leaving the cave after twelve years. They see people plowing and planting and are distressed that people are occupied with temporary life while eternal life is available. A heavenly voice sends them back to the cave. After another year, they emerge again. Rabbi Shimon repairs what his son's gaze damages.
Near the beginning of Shabbos, they meet an elderly man running with two bundles of myrtle. The man explains that he is carrying them in honor of Shabbos, one corresponding to zachor and one to shamor. Rabbi Shimon tells his son to see how dear the mitzvos are to the Jewish people. Their minds are settled.
This encounter shows a person taking things from the physical world and preparing them for kedushah. He is running on Erev Shabbos, the time that connects the working week to Shabbos. The weekday world can be brought toward Shabbos through the way a person uses it.
The Aramaic of the Zohar belongs in this discussion too. Rabbi Shimon's Torah reaches into the language of Targum. The work includes bringing the middle level into kedushah.
There is also a connection drawn in the chassidic sefarim between Gal-ed and Lag BaOmer. The letters of gal, gimel and lamed, total thirty-three. This reading connects Yaakov's work with Targum to the Torah of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. The thirteenth year in the cave is connected here to echad, one, whose letters total thirteen: the physical world can be brought into a life of connection with Hashem.
Two further readings develop the same point through the Torah's description of leaving Egypt:
וַיְחַזֵּק ה׳ אֶת־לֵב פַּרְעֹה מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם וַיִּרְדֹּף אַחֲרֵי בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל יֹצְאִים בְּיָד רָמָה׃
Hashem strengthened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued the children of Israel, while the children of Israel were going out with an upraised hand. (Shemos 14:8)
Targum renders the final words bereish gali, openly or with head held high. The rav recalls two readings connected with the Baal Shem Tov and tentatively remembers Toldos Yaakov Yosef as their source. A matching printed passage is in Degel Machaneh Ephraim, Beshalach 4-5. That located parallel is separate from the rav's uncertain recollection.
The first reading rearranges the initials of Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai to form bereish. Gali, revealed, points to the revealing of his Torah. The Zohar's teaching is connected to release from exile. A second reading rearranges the initials of Rabbi Yisrael Baal Shem and connects gali to the spreading of his teachings. The spelling used for this allusion is Baal Shem, without adding Tov. Both readings find this allusion within Targum itself, the language whose good is being brought into kedushah.
An angel does not have the same avodah. The Gemara discusses angels' lack of recognition of Aramaic. The rav asks why this particular language should be different. He explains that an angel belongs to its assigned spiritual side, while a human being lives with a holy neshamah and mixed physical circumstances. We must choose what to make of those circumstances. That capacity gives a human being work an angel cannot perform.
The Gemara's own discussion in Sotah 33a includes qualifications: it distinguishes individual prayer from communal prayer, and it gives a heavenly voice and Gavriel as answers to apparent exceptions. Those qualifications keep its statement from becoming an unqualified claim that no angel can ever recognize Aramaic. The rav's explanation concerns the particular human avodah represented by Targum.