In memory of Rabbi Tzvi Meir Steinmetz, known as Tzvi Yair, on his yartzeit, the twelfth of Elul

Tzvi Yair once asked the Rebbe whether his time would be better spent learning Chassidus than writing poetry. The Rebbe answered that his poems would bring many people to learn Chassidus.

On the eleventh of Nissan, 5732, Tzvi Yair brought the Rebbe a collection of poems he had written over the years for that day.

One of them was about the transformative nature of the farbrengen, how we come with our Bikurim, our first fruit offerings.

However when we come to the farbrengen, not all of our gifts are the way they should be, we come with mixed baggage, both good and bad. At the farbrengen the process of birur of Tikun takes place, through “the fire of his word” negativity is burned away and the good is uplifted on high. We have begun to set some of the poems to music please see here https://www.youtube.com/@TheRebbesPoet For an in depth analysis of the poems he gave the Rebbe visit www.therebbespoet.com

A whole matzah
A year after he handed over that collection, on erev Pesach, the Rebbe put a whole shmurah matzah into his hand and blessed him for success in his writing.

He had spent the season packing matzah for other people. He did it every year for decades and reported on it each time, synagogue by synagogue, with the totals written out: fifty packages here, thirty there, a hundred and forty-six to the Hebrew-speakers’ committee, several hundred more to individuals, some four hundred in all. He called it the first of the Rebbe’s campaigns and said he was especially careful about it. One year he mentioned a small refinement, a הידור. Until then he had packed the matzos in plain bags with nothing printed on them, so that nobody knew where the gift had come from. His daughter pointed out that Tzach had printed bags, explaining the purpose of the gift and ending “in accordance with the directives of the Lubavitcher Rebbe.” This year, he wrote, they would know, and not only this year but retroactively, across all the years that had gone before.

He wrote to the Rebbe about it the following Nissan, in his birthday report, under the heading he kept for his literary work. He had been listing the encouragement he had received from writers and educators, and then came to the Rebbe’s own:
גם כ״ק אד״ש הרעיף עלי בכמה הזדמנויות דברי עידוד אשר באו כדשן בנפשי, והאחרון הגדול, אות חסדו אשר נגה עלי בערב חג הפסח העבר בתתו לי מצה שמורה שלימה וברכת הצלחה ביצירה ספרותית

The Rebbe has poured words of encouragement on me on several occasions, and they came into my soul like rich food. The greatest of them was the last: the sign of his kindness that shone on me on erev Pesach a year ago, when he gave me a whole shmurah matzah and a blessing for success in my literary work.

It was the third time. And then he begins to reason:
ואומרה לנפשי: הלא דבר הוא אשר מכל השתדלויותי יעלה כ״ק תמיד על נס את יצירתי הספרותית
And I said to myself: surely this means something, that out of all my efforts the Rebbe always singles out my writing.
ואחפוץ לדעת זאת: אולי הפעולה הזאת היא אצלי בבחינת ״במאי זהיר טפי״ וזה עיקר תפקידי בימי חלדי וכל השאר טפל
And I want to know this: perhaps this work is, for me, in the category of what a person is especially careful about, and this is my chief task in my lifetime, and all the rest is secondary.
ואם כן דבר, אולי מן הראוי וההגון והרצוי להקדיש למלאכתי זאת (אשר אמנם ארוכה המלאכה וקצרה המראה) יותר תשומת לב וזמן מאשר הקדשתי לה עד עתה
And if that is so, perhaps it is fitting and proper and desirable to devote to this work of mine more attention and more time than I have devoted to it until now.
And then the request:
אשר על כן בקשתי מרובה, אשר יחונני דעתו והדרכתו בנידון זה
And therefore my request is great: that he favour me with his opinion and his direction in this matter.

Nine days later it was erev Pesach again, and the Rebbe gave him another whole matzah.

He decided what it meant. A year on, writing on the ninth of Nissan, he says so:
לקראת יום י״א ניסן, הנני בזה למלא את ברכתו (וכנראה גם פקודתו) של כ״ק אד״ש בנתנו לי אשתקד בער״פ מצת שמורה שלימה, לאמור: כי המצה השלימה היא אות וסימן לקובץ שירים חדש בשנה שבעל״ט

Toward the eleventh of Nissan, I am herewith fulfilling the blessing, and evidently also the instruction, of the Rebbe in giving me last erev Pesach a whole shmurah matzah, that is to say: that the whole matzah is a sign and a token of a new collection of poems in the coming year.
He read a piece of matzah as an order and spent the year filling it. The reading is his own, and he marks it as his own with that וכנראה, evidently. Then he submits the collection בנשיאת לב ורעד נפש, with a lifted heart and a trembling soul.

The Rebbe answered in his own hand:
ז״ע נתקבל [קובץ השירים] ות״ח ת״ח (וכמובן — ודאי יו״ל כמו דע״ע). וג״ז מזכיר ומעורר השייכות המיוחדת דחה״פ (וכתוצאה — גם ימי ההכנה דחג זה) לשירה, ו(לאח״ז) ושיר — ל׳ זכר דוקא דלעת״ל וכנאמר בהגש״פ: ונאמר לפניו שיר חדש
Received just now, and many thanks. And obviously it should certainly be published, as until now. And this too recalls and awakens the particular bond between Pesach, and consequently also the days of preparation for this festival, and שירה; and afterward שיר, in the masculine specifically, of the time to come, as it says in the Haggadah: and we shall say before Him a new song.

For most of the last fifty years the poems were accessible to only a small number of people. Rabbi Yanki Tauber has translated a number of them on Chabad.org. The rest sit in three Hebrew volumes, in a rich biblical Hebrew woven through with talmudic, midrashic, liturgical, kabbalistic and chassidic allusion, and they arrive on the page bare, with no translation and no notes, nothing to tell you that a phrase in the third line is lifted whole from Yeshaya or that an image in the fifth belongs to a passage in Berachos. A reader who does not already carry those texts in his head reads a beautiful surface and misses most of what is under it.

We have been working to change that. Every poem is being set out line by line with an English translation facing it. The translation does not try to be a poem in its own right; it is a guide to the meaning, meant to open the Hebrew rather than replace it. Beside each line are suggestions as to the sources it may be drawing on and the poetic techniques at work in it, so that a reader can weigh for himself what the poet was doing and what he was working with. The full treatment is at therebbespoet.com. We are also setting the poems to music, with the translation alongside, in the hope that hearing them will carry them further than reading them alone.

Ki Savo opens with a man walking to Jerusalem. He has watched his field all season, and when the first figs ripen he ties a thread around them so he will know which ones are his to bring. He puts them in a טֶנֶא and carries them up.

הִתְוַעֲדוּת חֲסִידִים
Chassidic Farbrengen
א
מִקָּרוֹב וּמֵרָחוֹק
From near and far
הֵם בָּאוּ בַהֲמוֹנִים
they came in throngs
וְהַטֶּנֶא בִּידֵי
baskets in the hands
נְעָרִים וּזְקֵנִים.
of young and old

The basket is the one from Devarim 26:2, the טֶנֶא a farmer fills with his first fruits and carries up to Jerusalem. Here it is in the hands of chassidim arriving at a farbrengen.

ב
וְהַסַּלִּים הָרַבִּים
And the many baskets
מְלֵאִים וַעֲמוּסִים
full and laden
מַחְשָׁבוֹת וּמַעֲשִׂים
with thoughts and deeds
רָעִים וְטוֹבִים.
evil and good

First fruits are רֵאשִׁית fruit, the first and the best. These baskets hold whatever the year produced. The poem piles up מְלֵאִים וַעֲמוּסִים together, full and then laden on top of full, and nobody has picked through it on the way.

ג
בְּחֶדְוַת־חֲרָדָה
In joy of trembling
הֵם עוֹטְרִים שֻׁלְחָנוֹ,
they crown his table
וּטְנֵאֵי־נַפְשָׁם
laying the baskets of their souls
לִפְנֵי הֲדוֹמוֹ.
before his footstool

Gladness and dread in one word-pair.
הֲדוֹם is the word Tanach uses for the Beis HaMikdash itself, the footstool beneath the throne. So when the chassidim set their baskets לִפְנֵי הֲדוֹמוֹ, before his footstool, the poem is not reaching for a vague picture of lowliness at G‑d’s feet. It is naming a building, and putting a table where the building stood.
The gesture is the ceremony’s own: the phrase וְהִנִּיחוֹ לִפְנֵי describes the basket set down before the mizbeach in Devarim 26:4.
Elisha was not a kohen, and still he was brought לֶחֶם בִּכּוּרִים as a gift, from which the Talmud learns in Kesubos 105b that whoever brings a gift to a talmid chacham is as one who offered Bikurim, first fruits.

ד
עֲרוּכִים בַּסָּךְ
Arranged together
פְּרִי הִלּוּלִים
fruits of praise
וְעִנְבֵי רוֹשׁ —
and poison grapes
לְתִקּוּן נִוְהִים,
yearning for repair
לִגְאֻלָּה מְשַׁוְּעִים,
pleading for redemption
כְּמֵהִים עַד בּוֹשׁ.
longing beyond shame.

The phrase פְּרִי הִלּוּלִים names the fourth-year fruit consecrated as praise in Vayikra 19:24. The phrase עִנְבֵי רוֹשׁ comes from Ha’azinu in Devarim 32:32, the fruit of a vine gone bad. Both sit in one basket with a dash between them.
The last three lines say what the people know they are carrying. They are כְּמֵהִים עַד בּוֹשׁ at the end of it, longing past the point where longing is comfortable.

ה
וּבַעֲלוֹת הַמִּנְחָה
And at the hour of the offering
וְרָצוֹן בְּנַפְשׁוֹ —
as the will rose in his soul
וַיִּפֹּל בָּהֶם
There descended upon them
לַהַט אִשּׁוֹ.
the blaze of his fire

The phrase בַּעֲלוֹת הַמִּנְחָה comes from Elijah at Mount Carmel in Melachim I 18:36, where he asked a people wavering between two loyalties to stop wavering, and fire came down and settled it. The verb וַיִּפֹּל echoes verse 38.
A person should be careful about the Minchah prayer, says the Talmud in Berachos 6b, since Elijah was answered at that hour, which the Zohar calls an עת רצון time of favour. The poem has רָצוֹן בְּנַפְשׁוֹ instead, the will rising in his soul. Perhaps the hour of favour comes down into him, and from him onto the table.

ו
וּבְהִתְלַקַּח הַשַּׁלְהֶבֶת
And as the flame caught hold
וַתֹּאכַל לָאֵפֶר
it consumed to ash
כָּל חַטָּאת וְכָל אָשָׁם –
every sin and every trespass
וְגַם מְזִמּוֹת הָאָוֶן
and even the schemes of iniquity
אֲשֶׁר בַּלְּבָבוֹת
harbored in the hearts
כָּלוּ בֶעָשָׁן.
vanished into smoke

The word הַשַּׁלְהֶבֶת carries the definite article, and behind it stands שַׁלְהֶבֶתְיָ-ה of Shir HaShirim 8:6, the flame many waters cannot quench. The phrase כָּלוּ בֶעָשָׁן is taken word for word from Tehillim 37:20, where it describes the end of the wicked.

ז
וְכָל פֹּעַל צֶדֶק,
And every righteous deed
כָּל רַחַשׁ בָּר,
every pure stirring
כָּל צָקוּן לַחַשׁ –
every whispered prayer
מִמַּעֲמַקֵּי תְהוֹם
from the uttermost depth
בְּלַהַב דְּבָרוֹ
in the fire of his word
עָלוּ מָרוֹם.
ascended on high

A rising list: the deed, then the stirring too small to be called an action, then צָקוּן לַחַשׁ from Yeshaya 26:16, a word that appears nowhere else in Tanach and means something close to pressed out under pressure. The least of the three is named last.
The phrase בְּלַהַב דְּבָרוֹ names the fire of his word. Is not My word like fire, says Yirmiya 23:29. The tzaddik’s holy speech is the vessel through which his vitality reaches those bound to him, says Igeres HaKodesh, chapter 27.
The closing עָלוּ מָרוֹם echoes עָלִיתָ לַמָּרוֹם in Tehillim 68:19, which the Talmud in Shabbos 89a reads as Moshe ascending Sinai for the Torah.

My mother, Mrs. Rochel Yaffe, compiled the biography of Tzvi Yair, The Rebbe’s Poet, which can be purchased here.
The poem appears in volume 2 of כל שירי צבי יאיר under the title מראש צורים at page 267, among the poems for the eleventh of Nissan. It was presented to the Rebbe on the eleventh of Nissan, 5732. Hebrew text © Family Steinmetz; reproduction permitted with attribution. English edited by RY from an AI draft.