Parshas Ki Seitzei

The maamarim 8

1. 1 כי תצא למלחמה על אויביך ונתנו ה׳ אלקיך… When You Go Out to War against Your Enemies Prayer is a daily battle with the animal soul: just as fire from heaven once consumed the offering on the altar, contemplation in prayer draws down the “fire above,” which burns away the animal soul’s craving for worldly pleasure and turns it into a burning love of G‑d. Yet no one can change his nature alone; G‑d’s help comes through the Torah and the mitzvos. Maamar 1.14 paragraphs~55 min160 sourcesEnglish
2. 2 כי תצא למלחמה על אויביך וגו׳ “When you go out to war against your enemies,” etc. Prayer is a daily war against the animal soul. By his own effort a person wins the outer heart, the love born of contemplation; this victory earns, as a gift from above, an illumination of the point of the heart, rooted beyond the worlds, which transforms the garments of thought, speech and action. The point’s very essence, from Atzilus itself, transforms the emotions themselves; it is revealed when one longs for it and seeks G‑d’s “face,” and it rises, through Torah, mitzvos, teshuvah and weeping, to cleave to G‑d Himself. Maamar 2.20 paragraphs~1 h174 sourcesEnglish
3. 3 ביאור כי תצא An Explanation of “When You Go Out” Man’s tzelem, the “image of G‑d,” has three levels named by its letters: the tzadi, G‑dliness clothed in the soul, which is the captive “woman of beautiful form”; the lamed, the soul’s mazal that remains above as a makif; and the mem, a still higher makif. The steps of the Torah’s passage on the captive woman describe how that captive G‑dliness is gathered, freed from the “garment” of kelipah and raised through ever higher levels of teshuvah. Maamar 3.Biur14 paragraphs~1 h 5 min182 sourcesEnglish
4. 4 כי תהיין לאיש שתי נשים האחת אהובה והאחת… “If a man has two wives, the one loved and the other hated” The G‑dly soul descends to wage a daily war, in prayer, with the animal soul, the “hated” wife of the verse. Because the animal soul’s root is very high, from “before any king reigned,” its refinement brings the boundless love of “with all your might,” greater than the love the soul had before its descent: the “firstborn” comes from the hated one. Maamar 4.8 paragraphs~35 min80 sourcesEnglish
5. 5 ולא אבה הוי׳ אלקיך לשמוע אל בלעם ויהפוך… “But Havayah your G‑d was not willing to listen to Bilam” G‑d’s refusal, beyond reason, to hear the accuser answers the Jew’s own love for Him beyond reason, the tip of the yud of Havayah in the soul. And when a penitent cries out “with all your might” from the hidden depths of his soul, G‑d’s love from above does more than ignore his sins: it turns them into merits, the curse into a blessing. Maamar 5.12 paragraphs~45 min96 sourcesEnglish
6. 6 ביאור ולא אבה An Explanation of “But Havayah Your G‑d Was Not Willing” The letters of the Name Havayah map both G‑d’s descent into the worlds and a person’s service: the tip of the yud is the hidden love above reason, the yud and hei are the contraction and expansion that self-nullification and contemplation draw down, and the vav and hei are Torah and the mitzvos. Above them stands a higher Havayah, reached only by the baal teshuvah’s love “with all your might,” which washes sin away and turns the curse itself into a blessing, as at Ne’ilah on Yom Kippur. Maamar 6.Biur10 paragraphs~40 min79 sourcesEnglish
7. 7 כי ההרים ימושו והגבעות תמוטינה וחסדי מאתך לא… “For the mountains shall depart and the hills shall totter, but My kindness…” The Patriarchs are the “mountains” that lift Israel step by step, and the mitzvos draw G‑d’s will down along their three lines; but in exile only teshuvah, which awakens G‑d’s “great compassion” beyond the ordered chain of worlds, can bring the redemption, when the “mountains” will pale before G‑d’s own kindness. Maamar 7.15 paragraphs~1 h 10 min179 sourcesEnglish
8. 8 ביאור הדברים בענין בחי׳ בע״ת דמשכין ליה בחילא יתיר An explanation of the level of baalei teshuvah, who “draw it with greater strength” The tzaddik’s mitzvos draw divine light in measured order, through the vessels of Z’eir Anpin and from world to world. The baal teshuvah’s return arouses “great compassion” from Arich Anpin and Atik, above all vessels, where above and below are equal, so that this light reaches even the lowest level in full. Maamar 8.Biur1 paragraph~5 min14 sourcesEnglish

The Rebbe’s maamarim on this parsha 2

The Rebbe built 2 of his maamarim (5725–5731) on the Alter Rebbe’s maamarim of this parsha. Each maamar’s page summarizes them, with what the Rebbe adds; or see them all together.

• Maamar 1כי תצא למלחמה על אויביך ונתנו ה׳ אלקיך…1 maamar · 5731
• Maamar 2כי תצא למלחמה על אויביך וגו׳1 maamar · 5725

Learn it in seven days Sunday to Shabbos

The Rebbe asked that all the maamarim of the week’s parsha be learned in that week, spread over its seven days. Here is the parsha in seven portions of about equal length.

1. SUNMaamar 1, ¶1–14~53 min
2. MONMaamar 2, ¶1–18~53 min
3. TUEMaamar 2 ¶19 – maamar 3 ¶11~59 min
4. WEDMaamar 3 ¶12 – maamar 5 ¶1~51 min
5. THUMaamar 5 ¶2 – maamar 6 ¶5~52 min
6. FRIMaamar 6 ¶6 – maamar 7 ¶5~57 min
7. SHABMaamar 7 ¶6 – maamar 8 ¶1~50 min