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HH - special thanks to MW for doing the initial translation.
Letter 58
B.H. 11 Eyar 721 (27 April,
1961), Tiberius.
My dear Mr. Z. Shazar, member of
the holy group of the Master of Prayer, who is the wonder of all wonders of the
Creator, may He be blessed, upon whom depends all of the salvations of all
Israel. Peace, and life, and all goodness.
I shall go wholeheartedly (Psalms 26:1) to perform my
obligation, to remind you and to encourage you at every instance to run away to
the Tzadik and to think about the true tachlis (ultimate purpose), because I am
obligated to serve the Tzadik and to fulfill his command and his desire, that
he yearns to bestow from his goodness to all of Israel — but you have free
choice. And Hashem in His mercy will help us and incline our choice for the
good, that we may merit to begin from now to spend all of our days to look for
and to seek the True Tzadik, who dug and revealed wells of living water to heal
sick souls of Israel, for us and for our generation and for all generations of
the seed of Israel; and anyone who wants to merit to draw from these holy wells
words that vitalize the soul forever and for all eternity, shall come and merit.
And if the obstacles spread out before him like iron bolts and
copper doors, it is already known to us that it is impossible to draw close to
the Tzadik except by breaking powerful obstacles. Remember well all of this,
and pull yourself together and be strong, and don’t be what they call a
shlemazelnik (good-for-nothing, luckless, dysfunctional).
The awesome story of the Master of Prayer - an extraordinary and
awesome story, wonder of wonders. And besides the roots of the matters and the
great inner meanings that are in all of these stories, which are extraordinary
and greatly hidden from human intellect, also according to the simple meaning
there are sensible ethical lessons (mussar haskel – Proverbs 1:3) explained in
each and every topic, wondrous and very powerful mussar (ethics), and it
greatly arouses the heart to draw close to Hashem, may He be blessed, and it
speaks generally about nearly every type of mistake and distortion and false reasoning
of fallacy and error that is found in the world, and about the clarification
and fixing of them.
Everyone acknowledges that the main thing is the tachlis
(ultimate purpose). And everyone must acknowledge that anyone who tries harder
and is closer to the ultimate purpose, [he] deserves to be head and king over
all. However, from the time that the great storm wind confused and overturned the
world completely, from sea to dry land and from dry land to sea, and from
desert to civilization, etc., and the king, and the queen, and the princess,
and the infant, and the entire holy assembly of the king and his men were
separated and scattered, then all of the worlds were confused and their true
order upset, and all the people of the world were confused, and separated, and
divided into various groups according to the matter of the investigation of “what
is the ultimate purpose?” And each group erred and became greatly confused by
their wicked desires, by their strange viewpoints and reasonings fictitious and
fallacious, until they became distorted and erred greatly and overturned the
truth to its complete opposite. Some of them said that the main tachlis
is honor, to chase extremely, Heaven forbid, after honor and to attain it.
Because there are people who are overly inflamed after honor, and chase
ardently after honor, and lose their eternal world and also this world for the
sake of a little honor that they want to attain. This one wants to be honored
and esteemed through his wealth, that he should have fame and glory among
noblemen, and officers, and the elite of the land etc., and this one wants to
be honored and esteemed through his Torah and his avoadu (service of HY),
and tunnels all of his days to be accepted as a rabbi and a leader. Which, in
truth, is to the contrary — this matter is the actual opposite, because the
main purpose of all the creation is only the glory of Hashem, may He be
blessed, and His Torah and His True Tzadikim, which is impossible to merit this
only when one minimizes his own honor completely and flees from honor
completely, in truth, and is aware of his own smallness and lowliness, and he; "the
despised in His eyes is disgusting, and he honors those who fear Hashem (Psalms
15:4)," and he strives and exhausts all of his days to increase the glory
of the Omnipresent One, which is the glory of the Torah and the True Tzadikim,
and truly nullifies his own honor completely - and they reversed the truth to
its complete opposite, and they strayed from viewpoint to viewpoint and from
rationale to rationale, until they said that the main purpose is honor, and
they had evidence, and proofs, and great rationalizations about this - that the
main goal is honor - to chase after honor exceedingly, may the Merciful One
save us from this view.
And so too, the other group erred in their wicked reasoning and
veered from rationale to rationale, until they went crazy and said that murder
is a mitzva (divine commandment), and it is the tachlis (main goal), and they
had evidence and many proofs of this. And really, even though it seems
far-fetched to believe that there could be found people like this, who would
have rational that murder is a mitzva (divine commandment), still, there
actually are errors like these in the world, to the point that it is possible
to be mistaken by them, into saying that murder is a mitzva, until they came to
anger and actual murder. And similarly with the rest of the factions, (and) each
one had for themselves many rationales for their errors, until it was possible
to really be mistaken in them.
To be continued, with the help of Hashem.
The scribe, who sacrifices his soul for the sake of the good and
the salvation of your soul in truth, and may your peace (-well-being) grow for
lengthy good and healthy days.
Yisroel Odesser
