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A Person Coming to the Tzaddik (Holy Man)67

“Raising her eyes, Rebekah saw Isaac. (She alighted from the camel and said to the servant, ‘Who is that man walking in the field toward us?’ And the servant said, ‘That is my master.’) So she took her veil and covered herself.” (Gen 24:64–65)

And Rashi commented, “Rebekah saw Isaac”—she saw him as splendid and awe-inspiring.

The words require clarification. And it would seem to allude to the effect on the person who journeys to the tzaddikim. It is normal for every person to view himself as upright, and specifically one who studies Torah and engages in prayer and devotion will feel in his heart that he is already on the level of a tzaddik. However, in approaching the tzaddik, one becomes fearful and is given to awe, and he sees that his deeds are really nothing at all. He descends from his level in his own eyes in that though he had considered himself a tzaddik and a person of moral and spiritual rank, he now comes to the level of t’shuvah (repentance) as he examines his deeds and perceives that they are not as they should be. And as he notes the very high devotion of the tzaddik, he feels shame in his own deeds and qualities and grasps the need to repair them and to serve God on a higher level with greater energy. This is brought about by his journey to the tzaddik. And it is known that Isaac both personified the quality of awe (yirʾah), connected with the world of repentance, and directed his contemporaries to strive to improve their actions.

This is inferred from the verse, “Raising her eyes, Rebekah saw Isaac. She alighted from the camel . . . .” The word camel (gamal) is related to the root gemul (gemilut ḥasadim, engaging in acts of lovingkindness and charity), for she fell from her former level (in her own eyes), realizing now that she hadn’t really performed good deeds at all in the world. She lowered herself from her former self-estimation and came to the world of t’shuvah, exemplifying the effect on persons as they come to the tzaddik. Rashi alluded to this in explaining that she saw Isaac as majestic and awe-inspiring: she now perceived his wholeness of repentance and, amazed at the deficiency of her own deeds up to that time, was determined to repair them. And she came to the world of t’shuvah, the world of Binah (the s’firah, “Understanding”), from which the fifty gates of Understanding branch out, realizing the need to repair all of them.

For there are five levels of every soul: nefesh, ru’aḥ, n’shamah, ḥayah, and y’ḥidah [the first three of which are naturally found in each person, while the latter two, of a higher nature, must be earned and acquired during the course of one’s life], and the repentant must repair all of them in terms of those fifty gates. Now five multiplied by fifty adds up to 250, a number having the numerical equivalence (in terms of g’matria) of the word tzʿaif (scarf or veil), conveying that she repaired all five parts of her soul, each having fifty gates. And “she covered herself,” for through engagement in t’shuvah, one receives a garment which protects a person from all the accusing agents.

Comment: With the establishment of Hasidic courts came the practice of a follower’s making a periodic journey to his tzaddik, sometimes on holydays and special occasions or at other times as well. Though Kalonymus Kalman, it appears, never actually assumed the role of a rebbe, the preacher, on more than this occasion, strove to dissect the inner meaning of such a journey to a tzaddik.

In the above homily, Rebecca, who has journeyed from her prior location in Haran to Isaac’s location in Canaan to become his wife, is thought to exemplify the role of a follower journeying to the tzaddik, the Hasidic holy man, and Isaac, in that sense, is portrayed as a tzaddik.

With her first actual sighting of Isaac, Rebecca is thought here to undergo the transformation that Kalonymus Kalman ascribes to the followers in their viewing the tzaddik and experiencing his presence, namely a realization of the gulf separating them from the holy man, the gulf between a person’s self-estimation and the ideal that far transcends that reality. So Rebecca, in her very initial impression of Isaac, goes beyond her more common norm of devotion and lovingkindness. Though she had been described as an exemplar of lovingkindness in not only consenting to draw water for a stranger at the well but, in addition, in her offering to draw water also for his animals (Gen 24:15–20), with the very sight or sign of presence of the tzaddik-figure the homily presents her as challenged by Isaac’s incredibly higher norm and level.

That transformation is a movement from a person’s sense of spiritual self-satisfaction in the direction of t’shuvah. It is clear, however, that t’shuvah, normally translated as “repentance,” is not necessarily a matter of repenting for some kind of negative behavior. It is rather a questioning of the quality of one’s deeds in light of a perpetually higher standard of holiness. This definition colors all mention of t’shuvah in this collection of homilies.

A more subtle suggestion underlies this homily: the perpetual danger of spiritual smugness. Any degree of self-satisfaction is a hurdle in the way of that person’s real spiritual growth. It blinds oneself to one’s own blemishes and fosters in a person an unreal self-image. Kalonymus Kalman’s spiritual guide, Elimelekh of Lyzhansk, who so accentuated the role of the tzaddik in his teachings, explained that a true tzaddik does not see himself as such; if he does, that is a sign that he is not a tzaddik and has far to go to reach that level.68

In this passage, Kalonymus Kalman recast an episode in the account of the biblical foreparents in terms of the social reality of Hasidism with the figure of the tzaddik and the practice of pilgrimage to the tzaddik, and the subject of this homily focuses on the relationship between the Hasidic holy man and his followers. In that sense, the preacher leaped over the tremendous gulf separating the patriarchal biblical period from Jewish life in Eastern Europe. This homily hence clearly illustrates quite emphatically the common tendency of a commentator to read the past in terms of one’s present.

67. Maʾor va-shemesh, I, 15b.

68. Noʿam ʾElimelekh (No’aḥ) 23.