Years ago when I learned parshat hashavua and needed pshat I would rummage through my Mikraot Gedolot and the sfarim that I had at home. My father z”l who was born in Galicia and studied in a Galician yeshiva owned what are considered the standard works of the great Chasidic masters. But due to my youth I didn’t appreciate them. The contents of these works are arranged according to the parshat hashavua but they won’t really help you if you’re looking for pshat. For example if you want help knowing what the ephod looked like the Sfat Emet should not be the first place you look.

To understand a passage in a Chasidic commentary the reader has to be receptive to the idea that the Rebbe wishes to explain. For this week’s dvar Torah I will discuss the opening comments of the Noam Elimelech to this week’s parsha. I hope that I will merit to explain his words correctly.

The Noam Elimelech is a collection of the Torahs said by Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk. Rabbi Elimelech was one of the great disciples of the Magid of Mezritch (who was the greatest disciple of the Ba’al Shem Tov). It was Rabbi Elimelech who brought Chassidut to Galician Poland. Among Chasidim Rabbi Elimelech was known as Der Rebbe Reb Meilech and possessed an awesome reputation.

Here is the opening passage of the Noam Elimelech to this week’s parsha:

I don’t think a newcomer to Chassidic thought can look at a work like Noam Elimelech once a week to see what he says on the parsha and expect to learn something. As the reader can see from the passage that I translated, Rabbi Elimelech takes phrases from the parsha and uses them as points of departure to expound a point of Chassidic thought.

The only way that I can see to study the ideas of the Noam Elimelech is to study the book as a whole. Reading the book as a whole will introduce the reader to the phrases used by Rabbi Elimelech, and then the patterns will become apparent. Eventually the reader will become used to the way that Rabbi Elimelech gives new meanings to words in order to convey Chassidic ideas (as he does with the word t’zave in this week’s parsha). After becoming familiar with Rabbi Elimelech’s style of drash you can then actually listen to what he is saying and enter his world of Chassidic thought.

So what is Rav Elimelech saying in this week’s parsha? One of the main themes developed by Rav Elimelech is the centrality of the tzaddik. When learning Chassidic texts one of the words encountered often is shefa. “Shefa” means “bounty,” specifically the bounty Hashem brings to us on Earth. Chassidic thought is concerned with our relation to Hashem. Rabbi Elimelech, one of the earliest tzaddikim, explains that the tzaddik functions as the person who is capable of affecting the upper worlds where the roots of all that is on Earth exist. He proves in this week’s parsha that these roots exist in Heaven, from the creation of light. In one pasuk in Daniel it says that light exists with Hashem. But we know that Hashem created light on earth! So Rabbi Elimelech says that on Earth we have mere Earthly light. The root of light is by Hashem. And it’s not only light that has a “root” in Heaven. Everything on Earth has a root in Heaven, and it is the tzaddik who can cause the changes in these roots and affect events on earth. Actually the tzaddik is commanded to bring about these changes (it does not seem to me that Rabbi Elimelech denies that t’zave means “command”- rather he says the command refers to bringing the shefa to Earth). The tzaddik’s reward is represented by the shemen zayit of the parsha- the pleasure that the tzaddik enjoys from seeing Hashem’s people prosper.

This is just one dvar Torah from the Noam Elimelech. To someone coming from a rigorously pshat oriented background the drashot of Rabbi Elimelech seem besides the point, and I confess that I suffered from this shortcoming in my own youth. But ignoring Rabbi Elimelech’s Torah would be cheating oneself and denying oneself insight into one of the most revolutionary forms of Jewish thought to arise in our history.