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For this week, Parshat Tzav, I would like to share a Chassidic thought (a “vort“) on the Haftorah traditionally read with this Parsha, which is from the book of Jeremiah, rather than the special Haftorah read this year for Shabbat HaGadol.
First, however, a quick word about Chassidic divrei Torah.
Classically, Torah hermeneutics consists of four pillars: p’shat (literal meaning), remez (allegory, hint, or allusion), drash (homiletic interpretation), and sod (mystical or hidden meaning). These four elements are traditionally referred to as Pardes (פרדס), the Hebrew acronym for פשט, רמז, דרוש, סוד. While Chassidic thinkers utilized all four of these pillars in their expositions, remez disproportionately dominated their discourses. The claim was not that their remez-informed interpretation was necessarily the p’shat of the pasuk. Rather, the verse served as a hook for a spiritual idea they sought to convey. Albeit, given their expansive application of the principle of שבעים פנים לתורה—the theological view that the infinitely interpretable words of God yield seventy different ways of reading the text—their remez exposition thus becomes one of the pasuk’s many legitimate meanings. Nevertheless, it was clear to everybody, Rebbe and chasidim alike, that the primary goal was to convey a spiritual message and not to provide interpretive commentary.
With that in mind, let’s explore a Chassidic, remez-style dvar Torah.
In this week’s Haftorah, the prophet Yermiyahu attributes to God a litany of complaints about the Jewish people. Among them is the critique that אבדה האמונה ונכרתה מפיהם. The p’shat meaning is that this is a single lament repeated twice for emphasis: God bemoans that the Jews lost their faith (“אבדה האמונה”) AND it has been severed from their mouth (“ונכרתה מפיהם”). In short: they lost their faith in Me, and they no longer express belief in Me.
Reb Mordechai of Lechovitch z”l (1742-1810), a prominent Rebbe who originally emerged from the Karlin Chassidut, offers an alternative reading. For him, the second clause (ונכרתה מפיהם) is not a mere repeat of the first, but an explanation. He reads the verse as follows: In the first clause, God complains that אבדה האמונה—the Jews in Yermiyahu’s time lost their faith. Then, in the second clause, God answers an implicit question His audience would naturally wonder about: Why did that happen? What caused their loss of faith? To that implicit question, God answers: ונכרתה מפיהם—the loss of faith came about because their beliefs were cut off from their mouths; they stopped expressing and articulating their faith.
Reb Mordechai of Lechovitch z”l thus interprets God as articulating a foundational spiritual principle, one that is frequently emphasized and oft-repeated in Chassidic thought. This core tenet is that to cultivate a life of emunah and deep faith, mere belief in our minds and hearts is insufficient. For faith to be fortified, it must be actively verbalized. The logic is rooted in the classical halakhic adage, דברים שבלב אינם דברים—mere thoughts are fleeting and insubstantial; they carry no significant weight. If we want our interior world to be substantive and permanent, we need to articulate it, and to do so often. This is the process by which we internalize our beliefs and inculcate them into our very being. If we fail to give them voice, we will eventually lose them, resulting in אבדה האמונה: our faith will wither.
To cultivate a life of deep and robust faith, it is not enough to harbor it in silence; one must be actively talking about it. If we fail to give vocal expression to our rich and cherished convictions, they become passive and untested, destined to atrophy. Our values cannot just be held in abstraction as theoretical concepts; they must be articulated and lived perpetually, giving them shape and actualizing them.
And while the pasuk primarily addresses the individual’s loss of faith due to a lack of expressiveness, this lesson is all the more urgent when raising children or teaching students. If we want to grant our charges the immense gift of a rich inner life of faith and deep emunah, we need to verbalize and share it with explicit intention and regularity. We can’t expect them to infer it through osmosis by watching us; we need to actively transmit it through spoken word and open dialogue.
Finally, while Reb Mordechai z”l was primarily discussing the realm of בין אדם למקום (the relationship between a person and God), the same spiritual dynamic is undoubtedly true in the realm of בין אדם לחבירו (our interpersonal interactions), specifically with our family, friends, and loved ones. If we want the love in our hearts to flourish, it must be actively cultivated; it is not enough to simply feel affection in silence. We must explicitly voice our love and the value our loved ones bring to us. As R. Mordechai z”l teaches us, this cultivation can only happen if we give constant, audible expression to our interiority, turning abstract feelings into concrete affirmations of their worth.
Beliefs and convictions are not static states of being but dynamic processes that require constant cultivation through expression. When we give vocal and tangible form to our inner world, we bridge the gap between abstract thought and lived reality. Conversely, if we fail to externalize our internal commitments, they inevitably begin to wane. This is because silence often leads to a slow detachment; without the reinforcing power of speech, even our deepest passions can become passive and untested. As the legal maxim suggests, Devarim sheb’lev einam devarim: if our internal reality is not made external, it remains fleeting and impermanent. To maintain the integrity of our soul, we must ensure that Avdah Emunah never becomes our story because our deepest commitments were Nichretah MiPihem.
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