Editing Arachin (section)

== The Alter Rebbe ==
The Alter Rebbe had a custom during a certain period that anyone who wanted to become close to him had to ask him a question in Nigleh (revealed Torah). It is told about the Chassid Rabbi Hillel of Paritch that in his early days, he would travel from town to town where the Alter Rebbe was passing through during his wanderings. However, in every town he reached, the Alter Rebbe had already preceded him and left the city. Because of this, he never met him face to face. On one occasion, Rabbi Hillel decided to be clever and arrived at a planned town before the Alter Rebbe's arrival, and hid under the table where he was expected to expound on Chassidus, while preparing a difficult question he wanted resolved in tractate Arachin. When the Alter Rebbe entered, he heard him saying in his holy melody, "The young man who has a question in tractate Arachin should first evaluate himself, and only then come and ask." When Rabbi Hillel heard this, he fainted on the spot under the table, and only got up after the Alter Rebbe had finished his profound discourse on Chassidus and had already left the town.

The Rebbe explains this incident by stating that tractate Arachin proves that the true value of every Jew is not measured according to the visible divine service, evidenced by the fact that the value of every Jew of the same age is equal regardless of differences in their level of divine service.

A similar expression was said by the Alter Rebbe to one of the disciples of the Vilna Gaon named Rabbi Yosef Kalbo: "If one thinks they know the simple meaning of Arachin – then they do not know."