The Sefer Of Seekers

Rabbi Yussi Zakutinsky

By Yochanan Gordon

The Jewish people are not new to the publication of books. In fact, we have been dubbed “the people of the book.” A visit to your local seforim store will treat you to a wall-to-wall variety of books and seforimspanning practically every topic imaginable.

In most cases, these books are produced by authors who write books by trade. They possess a wealth of knowledge and an appealing writing style that provide inspiration and enlightenment, which lead to the sale of books.

However, in Talmudic reasoning there is the person and the information, both of which are separate and distinct.

Every so often a book is printed wherein the content that fills its pages is not only information that was transmitted from the mind of the author onto the page by way of the hand and pen but are words that animate the page and the reader long after they were spoken or written by the author.

The sefer that I am referring to is Sefer Mevakshei Yichudecha by Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky, shlita, the rebbe of Khal Mevakshei Hashem in Lawrence, NY. The sefer consists of the rebbe’s derashos from 2023–2024, was prepared for print by Pinchas Birnbaum and published by Zuf Publishers, and is available in four volumes covering all five books of the Torah, Shabbos, Holidays, yahrzeits and Chassidic yomim tovim. The seforimpurveyors that I have spoken to both here and abroad attested to the fact that the sefer is flying off the shelves as quickly as they are being restocked. This is not just a testament to the content that fills the pages but is very much connected to the personality who has become an internationally acclaimed household name and someone who is a mentor to young bochurim, newly married couples, mechanichim the world over, and accomplished talmidei chachomim, some of whom far surpass the author in years.

The sefer possesses a series of very impressive approbations by Rav Gamliel Hakohen Rabinowitz, the rosh yeshiva of the Kabbalah Yeshiva Shaar Hashomayim and author of many seforim on Kabbalah; Admo’rRav Itche Meir Morgenstern of Beis Medrash Toras Chochom in Yerushalayim; Rav Avrohom Zvi Kluger, ravof Beis Medrash Nezer Yisrael in Beit Shemesh; the Mekubal Rav Dov Hakohen Kook from Teveryah; Rav Nison Dovid Kivak, rosh yeshiva of Yeshivas Me’iras Einayim and well-known Breslov mashpia from Yerushalayim; Rav Yechezkel Nadler of Beis Medrash Shai Olamos dedicated to the study of nigleh and nistar; Rav Sholom Kaminetzky of Yeshivas Philadelphia; and Rav Moshe Weinberger of Kehillas Aish Kodesh of Woodmere.

Each of the haskamos is worth studying in its own right and speaks volumes in praise of the author, his Torah erudition, and his sterling character. However, one approbation, in fact the shortest one in words, said the most for me. And that is the haskamah of Rav Dov Hakohen Kook of Teveryah. He writes, “Both the Sefer and the person are unique. For I have seen the rav, the author of this work, whose inside and outside are aligned in the trait of humility and clarity in Torah, signed Dov Ben Shoshana in honor of his mother and Ben Buzi Hakohen in honor of his father.

Among all else, Rav Dov Kook, a noted mekubal, is perhaps the humblest person in this generation who knows humility when he sees it. And of all the character traits that stood out when the rav and the mekubal met it was his humility coupled with his clarity in Torah that stood out most to the great tzaddik.

In fact, one of the divrei Torah that I came across, in the second of the two volumes on Shabbos, is emblematic of this consciousness of bittul, which is a foundational principle of the Baal Shem Tov and penimiyus haTorah in general.

Here is a summary of the dvar Torah on page 125 in the first of the second two volumes:

Shabbos is not simply a holier version of the weekdays. From the soul’s perspective, each day of the week exists in its own spiritual “universe,” rooted in a different sefirah. The six weekdays emerge from the six middos (chesed through yesod) and contain a mixture of good and evil that must be refined through weekday activity.

Shabbos, rooted in malchus, is fundamentally different: it contains no admixture of evil and therefore requires no clarification. This is why weekday labor is forbidden on Shabbos—engaging in it drags Shabbos down into the spiritual realm of the weekdays.

Because Shabbos is entirely pure, the souls drawn down on Shabbos are exceptionally elevated, which explains why intimacy for a talmid chacham is ideally on Shabbos, a time of untainted holiness.

The paradox is that malchus is the lowest of the sefirot—possessing nothing of its own—yet Shabbos is the holiest day. The Arizal resolves this by explaining that the six higher sefirot, aware of their strength, can descend into the weekdays to refine evil. Malchus, aware of its vulnerability, refrains from descending, and precisely because of this “weakness,” it is lifted higher into Atzilus and receives Divine flow from the highest realms.

This dynamic reflects the essence of the Jewish soul. True holiness emerges not from strength or self-sufficiency, but from recognizing one’s dependence on Hashem. A Jew’s perfection lies in comfort with imperfection and reliance on Divine assistance, unlike the gentile mindset, which cannot tolerate lack. Shabbos embodies this truth—its holiness flows from what it lacks, and its song is one of humility that draws down the highest sanctity.

The sages teach to only give the hidden Torah to one who possesses a deep existential restlessness. It sounds paradoxical, but the author possesses this deep existential restlessness simultaneous with an unparalleled cognitive lucidity, which enables him, despite his young age, to identify the nekudah of every matter both in Torah and in the world at large.

The title of the Sefer Mevakshei Yichudecha seems to be a play on words from Ana B’Koach, which in Kabbalah is known as the 42-letter name of Hashem. This name is employed when there is a spiritual elevation or upgrade from one realm to a more transcendent one. There are 42 words in half Kaddish, which is situated at the point when a lower world gives way to a higher one.

To live in the presence of Reb Yussie Zakutinsky and to expose oneself to his Torah, which Rav Kook had said the first time he looked into one of his collections was Toras Eretz Yisrael, is to constantly be climbing from one spiritual world to the next while remaining firmly in this world.

Among the revolutionary Chassidic treatises there is the book of the righteous, the Noam Elimelech, authored by the Rebbe, Reb Elimelech of Lizensk; the book of the in-betweener, known as the book of Tanya, authored by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi, the Alter Rebbe of Chabad; and the book of Reshaim which tradition has it was a reference to Likkutei Moharan.

The publication of Mevakshei Yichudecha by Reb Yussie Zakutinsky, shlita, opens up a new imprint of Torah and that is the book of the seekers. 

Yochanan Gordon can be reached at [email protected]. Read more of Yochanan’s articles at 5TJT.com.