Likkutei Amarim Chapter 4 · 5781

00:00 Speaker 1 Okay, today we’re going to study chapter 4, even though I’m sure you’ve all already learned it and know it.

00:04 Speaker 2 By heart.

00:05 Speaker 8 There’s always something new.

00:06 Speaker 2 We know it by heart, but the content? Not yet... We passed the exam, but not really. Maybe now we can learn it for its own sake.

00:18 Speaker 8 We already learned it for the exam.

00:19 Speaker 1 We spoke about this—we mentioned that in the opening chapters of Tanya, before the Alter Rebbe says anything about serving Hashem, he discusses the souls and the faculties of the soul. First, he speaks generally about the nature of the G-dly soul and the animal soul, in chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 1 explains the nature of the animal soul: it conceals G-dliness, and a person’s sense of self is essentially the animal soul, its foundation. Then, in chapter 2, he explains that the G-dly soul is literally a part of G-d above. After that, in chapters 3, 4, 5, and 6, he begins to explain the faculties of the G-dly soul. So last week we finished chapter 3, the first of the chapters explaining its faculties. In other words, after explaining what the soul is, he explains what its faculties are. What are they? I’m sure you all remember that it has... No, not just intellect. It has intellect and emotions.

01:18 Speaker 2 He mainly explained the intellect, I think.

01:20 Speaker 1 Well, he explained that the intellect arouses the emotions. Later he’ll say that its primary faculty is intellectual, but chapter 3 actually explained that the G-dly soul has ten faculties, and that when a Jew uses those ten faculties, he cleaves to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What does it mean to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? He thinks about Hakadosh Boruch Hu, his heart is stirred with love for Hashem, and his mind is firmly fixed on G-dliness. So he cleaves to Him through the faculties of the soul. In that case, we’ve already explained everything. If chapters 4, 5, and 6 are meant to explain the faculties of the soul—sorry.

02:06 Speaker 8 If you want to answer, you can.

02:08 Speaker 1 If those chapters are meant to... We’ve already explained it.

02:11 Speaker 2 Explained what?

02:11 Speaker 1 We already covered it in chapter 3, right? So what else needs explaining in chapters 4 and 5? Chapter 4 begins: “Every G-dly soul also has three garments.” What does “also” mean? In addition to the ten faculties we discussed, it has three garments. Now why are they called garments? They are thought, speech, and action in the 613 mitzvos of the Torah. Why are thought, speech, and action called garments? On the one hand, it’s clear that a person’s power of speech, thought, and action are faculties of the soul. They don’t belong to someone else. When a person puts on a garment, for example, the garment isn’t him. It comes from a plant, while he’s a human being, right? The garment isn’t him; it’s completely separate. But that isn’t true of the soul. These, too, are faculties of the soul. It’s the soul that speaks, thinks, and acts. Is that clear? So why are they called garments?

03:18 Speaker 2 Because they still aren’t its natural essence. They aren’t the soul itself. They’re something external, something additional.

03:25 Speaker 1 Their nature is so different, so separate, that they’re like a garment, as though they’re separate. They’re an expression of the soul, but it isn’t right to say, as some try to, that calling them garments means they’re something else entirely. No, they’re part of the soul, but a very, very low-level expression of it—so far beneath the soul that... How can we see that these three garments are separate from the soul? Quite simply: say a person has understood something a certain way until now, and someone explains to him that he’s been mistaken all this time. It’s very hard for him to accept. Even if he understands that the other person is right, he finds it hard to change his opinion. Why? Because what he understands is part of who he is. He has to change something within himself, to change his very nature. That’s hard, right? By contrast, say there’s someone he doesn’t like, but for some reason he needs to speak well of him. He has no problem speaking well of him, or even thinking good things about him. A person can decide to speak, act, and think contrary to what he feels and understands. Why? Because these are so separate from him that they’re almost not part of who he is at all. So what is the Alter Rebbe saying? In addition to the faculties that are central to the soul—the intellect and emotions—the G-dly soul also has three garments: thought, speech, and action. What do we need them for? If they’re so lowly and so separate, barely part of the person, why tell us

05:29 Speaker 1 about them at all? What can a person even do with them? A person contemplates, thinks, feels inspired, and davens. He cleaves to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to G-dliness, right? So why do we need the garments? What do they have to do with serving Hashem at all? Is the question clear? That’s what the Alter Rebbe is going to explain in chapters 4 and 5. Okay? And the big surprise isn’t the surprise we talked about last week.

05:54 Speaker 9 That was one of the little ones.

05:56 Speaker 10 Right. Did it sound like that?

05:57 Speaker 9 What? Did you actually say something?

06:00 Speaker 1 It was Ilana’s birthday too, not just Ya’ela’s. Ilana felt uncomfortable about it, so when I asked her, she said, “No, don’t tell.” So I didn’t.

06:10 Speaker 10 And I revealed a few things—

06:12 Speaker 9 Yeah!

06:13 Speaker 10 She really was.

06:21 Speaker 9 You didn’t have a secret.

06:23 Speaker 10 I thought someone was going to be a bride, and then... you didn’t have anything to call it anymore.

06:29 Speaker 9 I said—

06:30 Speaker 1 No, she—

06:30 Speaker 9 Thought that—

06:31 Speaker 10 I was also in the room with Dad on the way.

06:33 Speaker 9 No, maybe they’re headed to Afula. They’re arriving in Afula.

06:35 Speaker 10 No, I’ll tell you too: I thought, okay, maybe I’ll surprise them, maybe I’ll surprise them, and then he suddenly found out. Yeah. How funny.

06:43 Speaker 9 No, I meant something else. I thought she was already [unclear] the flight benefits, the raffle.

06:49 Speaker 10 Wow, wow, how funny. The second bed.

06:51 Speaker 1 Let’s get back to our subject. So the big surprise—the Alter Rebbe’s novel point here... What? Did I say something?

07:00 Speaker 9 You said “surprise.” That got my attention.

07:01 Speaker 1 Oh, sorry. Really, all of Chassidus is one great innovation. But you see it in every chapter, in every maamar of Chassidus. In Tanya, the Alter Rebbe introduces another principle, another idea, in each chapter. The big surprise in this chapter is that although the soul’s garments are only garments, separate from it and seemingly insignificant, it is specifically through the garments that we connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu more than through the intellect and emotions. That’s the chapter’s overall message. Let’s look at the text: “Every G-dly soul also has three garments, which are thought, speech, and action in the 613 mitzvos of the Torah.” How does a person use these garments? “When a person performs all the practical mitzvos through action”—he doesn’t make do with some of the mitzvos, but performs all of them—“and through speech engages in explaining all 613 mitzvos and their laws.” He speaks not just about some or most of the mitzvos, but about all of them, everything he can; all his speech is devoted to this. “And through thought, he comprehends all that he is capable of comprehending in the Pardes of Torah.” You see that the Alter Rebbe keeps emphasizing “all,” “all,” “all.” Why? Because when all of a person’s thought, speech, and action are immersed in the Pardes of Torah, in Torah and mitzvos, “all 613 organs of his soul are clothed in the 613 mitzvos of the Torah.” In the previous chapter, how many faculties did we learn there are?

08:47 Speaker 11 Ten.

08:48 Speaker 1 Ten. What does he say here? 613.

08:52 Speaker 11 Those are organs, not faculties.

08:53 Speaker 1 Yes. So, generally speaking, the soul has ten organs and ten faculties. More specifically, as we’ve learned several times, the soul has 613 particular faculties. And when a person is wholly immersed—his action, speech, and thought—in the mitzvos of the Torah, all 613 organs of the soul are clothed in the 613 mitzvos of the Torah. Why all of them? Simply put, all the mitzvos are ultimately practical mitzvos. Aren’t there mitzvos that aren’t practical?

09:39 Speaker 11 There are mitzvos that can’t be performed in practice. Mitzvos involving speech that are considered actions.

09:45 Speaker 1 There are mitzvos involving speech, and there are mitzvos called “duties of the heart.”

09:48 Speaker 11 Faith and love.

09:49 Speaker 1 There’s a mitzvah to believe, a mitzvah to love, and so on. Right? So those aren’t practical mitzvos. But—

09:54 Speaker 11 The constant mitzvos.

09:55 Speaker 1 But even with these mitzvos, it says—Chassidus explains—that the measure of the mitzvah is that it should reach the point where he feels it in his heart, where it becomes something he can feel. In other words, ultimately all the mitzvos need some expression in the physical substance of the body. So when a person performs a mitzvah, the physical body, the faculty of action, takes part in it. That is what does the work. But for there to be an action, first he has to speak about these laws and think about them, right? So in general, if he is wholly occupied with all 613 mitzvos in thought, speech, and action, then his entire soul is constantly clothed in all the mitzvos, because every mitzvah contains all three. That is in general. But more specifically, there are mitzvos more closely associated with the garment of thought, mitzvos in which the garment of speech is more involved, and mitzvos of action. In general, we said that the soul has three garments, faculties called garments: thought, speech, and action. So now he says specifically: “The Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of his soul are clothed in the Torah knowledge he attains in Pardes, according to his capacity for understanding and the root of his soul Above.” How does a person attain Torah knowledge? How does he understand? Through thought. Right? Chochmah, Binah, and Daas are the faculties of the soul we discussed in the previous chapter. If his Chochmah, Binah, and Daas are engaged in thinking about Torah, then those faculties of the soul are clothed in thought, and thought is clothed in Torah. Through this, the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of his soul are connected to Torah. Right? So the faculty of thought is the garment that connects the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of his soul with Torah. And if a person wants the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of his soul to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu without thought—

12:24 Speaker 11 Speech and action.

12:26 Speaker 1 There is no such thing.

12:29 Speaker 11 But what can he do?

12:32 Speaker 1 If a person wants to cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu through the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of his soul, to connect those faculties in his soul to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, how does he do it? How?

12:43 Speaker 11 Use his intellect.

12:44 Speaker 1 By understanding. Understanding what? Thinking about matters of Torah. So it turns out that although the garment of thought is something much lower and separate, and so on—all the things we discussed earlier—without the garment of thought, the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of his soul cannot connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. All right? It serves as a connecting faculty. Now, “the Torah knowledge he attains in Pardes, according to his capacity for understanding and the root of his soul Above.” First, he has to make an effort according to his ability. One person can do less; another can do more. But when a person exerts himself with all his strength, he uses his full capacity for understanding to clothe the Chochmah, Binah, and Daas of his soul. If he does not use his full capacity, they will not be completely clothed. And second, it is also according to the root of his soul Above.

13:52 Speaker 11 He cannot know that?

13:56 Speaker 1 He cannot know it. But the Igeres Hakodesh discusses what our Sages said: “He has no portion in the G-d of Israel.” What does a “portion in G-dliness” mean? It has to do with Divine Providence over each individual. We will not go over it now; it is not our subject here, but it is explained there at length. In brief, the point relevant to us is that some people are more drawn to the Midrashim in Torah. That really draws a person in. Someone else is very drawn to studying nigleh, the revealed dimension of Torah. There are people who come into our shul, the Chabad community shul in Afula. You walk in and see that the same three or four fellows are always sitting at this table, learning Gemara together. On Shabbos! Other things do not interest them. At the table next to them, or at the other end of that same table, another two, three, or four are studying halachah. Two tables over, you will see someone studying the Rebbe’s sichos, and another person beside him at that table. He does not study the edited sichos; he specifically studies farbrengens. That is what draws him. Why is each person drawn to a different part of Torah? That is called the portion a person has in the G-d of Israel. It comes from the root of his soul. Each person is drawn to certain subjects in Torah because of the root of his soul.

15:35 Speaker 11 The way you explain the Tanya—what is that called?

15:39 Speaker 1 I explain the plain meaning.

15:41 Speaker 11 Of the Tanya.

15:42 Speaker 12 It is still the plain meaning. I am saying, it is the plain meaning.

15:44 Speaker 1 No, obviously it is the plain meaning. We are not...

15:48 Speaker 11 Maybe.

15:50 Speaker 1 I do not know more than that, either. And more than that does not interest me. The plain meaning, avodas Hashem: what do we need to do with these things? How do we put them into practice? There are explanations of the Tanya that go into great depth; there is no shortage of them.

16:05 Speaker 12 That is fine. I mean, the plain meaning is fine.

16:07 Speaker 1 No, it is not that there are none. There are explanations like that. But when a person exerts himself to the full extent of his ability in attaining Torah knowledge—where? In the part of Torah to which the root of his soul is truly drawn—then all his Chochmah, Binah, and Daas are truly connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu through the garment of thought. And the emotions? We said the emotions also have to be connected to Hakadosh Boruch Hu somehow, right? Intellect alone is not enough. “The emotions, which are fear and love and their branches and offshoots, are clothed in the fulfillment of the mitzvos, in action and speech.” What does speech mean? Torah study, which is equal to them all. What does that mean? What is the explanation? How are the emotions connected to action and speech? How is thought or understanding connected to thought? That needs no explanation. Everyone understands that you cannot understand without thinking. Right? But why are emotions connected to action and speech? Because when someone—because an emotion expresses itself in action; a real emotion expresses itself in action. And can there be action without emotion? Yes, but it is not the same. Why? What question is he asking? What is he trying to say? That through the garments of speech and action, the emotions can also connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Just as the intellect itself, Chochmah and Binah, cannot connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu without the garment of thought, so too the emotions cannot connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu without the garment of speech. Why? He thought, he contemplated, love of Hashem was aroused in him, and he is connected. Why does he need the garment of... Do you understand what I am asking? Yes? So he actually explains: “Because...” What does “because” mean? It means there is a question here, something we do not understand. What is the connection between emotions and speech and action? He says: “Because love is the root of all 248 positive mitzvos; they flow from it, and without it they have no true fulfillment.” They do have fulfillment. A person can perform the mitzvos without love, too. But if

18:40 Speaker 1 a person’s fulfillment of the mitzvos is without love, it is not true fulfillment. What does “not true” mean? “For one who truly fulfills them...” What does it mean to truly fulfill the mitzvos? What is the difference? He is performing a mitzvah right now. What does it mean that he truly fulfilled it, or did not truly fulfill it?

19:02 Speaker 12 Rabbi, look at those who came out of captivity, the hostages who put on tefillin while they were held captive. That was as it should be, truly.

19:10 Speaker 1 Yes, yes, but the truth is...

19:11 Speaker 12 Some people do it out of habit.

19:13 Speaker 1 Something done by rote, too—a habit. She lit the match, lit the candle, and fulfilled the mitzvah. What does it mean, “truly” or “not truly”? A mitzvah without intention is like a body without a soul. Hm? It is connected to intention. Yes, but why? Why is it so important that it be done with intention? If there is no love in it, if the mitzvah is not performed out of love, out of feeling, why is that not truly fulfilling it? He is performing the mitzvah. Why is it not true fulfillment? What is the problem? So he explains. Why is fulfilling mitzvos in speech and action without intention not called true fulfillment? “For one who truly fulfills them loves Hashem’s Name and desires to cleave to Him in truth.” What is called the true fulfillment of a mitzvah? True fulfillment of a mitzvah means performing it for its own sake, for the sake of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, not for some other purpose. Right? Not as something done by rote, and not out of habit, but performing the mitzvah in order to connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The word mitzvah is related to the word tzavsa, togetherness, and to tzivui, commandment—to connect, to connect. So proper, true fulfillment of a mitzvah has to be for the purpose of connecting to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Right? When will a person truly perform a mitzvah with that as his goal? If he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and that love is what moves him to perform the mitzvah, then his mitzvah will be true. Simple. Hm?

21:02 Speaker 13 There are many paths to love.

21:03 Speaker 1 What? There are many ways to awaken love, certainly. We’re not talking about how to awaken love. We’re talking here about why... What did he ask? What do we need the garments of the soul for? Why explain the garments as part of this? Who cares about them? So he explains here in this chapter that without the garments, it’s impossible to connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. A person can have love for Hashem without any connection to the mitzvos. But if his love for Hashem isn’t clothed in mitzvos—we haven’t finished the explanation yet—he won’t be able to connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

21:39 Speaker 13 Someone who doesn’t keep mitzvos doesn’t connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu?

21:41 Speaker 1 What?

21:42 Speaker 13 Someone who doesn’t keep mitzvos doesn’t connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu?

21:47 Speaker 1 Not in that way, certainly not. What do you mean?

21:49 Speaker 13 All right, he doesn’t connect in— I don’t connect in—

21:53 Speaker 1 Come, let’s look at it. Let’s see the explanation inside. He hasn’t finished; we haven’t finished the explanation. So far he has only said that truly keeping mitzvos, genuinely keeping a mitzvah, means doing it in order to connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. And for that to be genuine, it has to come from love. He loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu, wants to connect to Him, and therefore keeps the mitzvos. But why, really? Why? At first glance, you could ask a simple question. What do I want? To connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. How do you connect to Him? By loving Him, right? I love Him, and then He is revealed to me and I feel Him, right? How? I’ll contemplate the greatness of Hashem, as we discussed in the previous chapter. I’ll have love and awe in my heart, and there I am, connected. Why do I need a mitzvah?

22:51 Speaker 13 Because he said it’s specifically through a mitzvah that one connects to Him.

22:54 Speaker 1 But why?

22:55 Speaker 13 That’s how He wanted it. He wanted it; He said, “This is what I want.” Instructions for use: if you want to connect to Me, do it—

23:01 Speaker 1 So the Rebbe gives a simple reason: “For it is impossible to truly cleave to Him except through the observance of the 248 precepts, which are, so to speak, the 248 limbs of the King,” as explained elsewhere. The love and awe a person has are limited. How much love can a person have? How big is his heart? How much feeling does he have?

23:26 Speaker 13 All the... wings—that love and awe are wings? Isn’t that right?

23:29 Speaker 1 No, that’s chapter 42.

23:31 Speaker 13 It’s very confusing—

23:33 Speaker 1 37.

23:34 Speaker 13 That’s a year and a half already.

23:35 Speaker 1 No, not 42. 37, 38, 39.

23:39 Speaker 13 No, that’s more than a month.

23:46 Speaker 1 A person’s love and awe are limited. Why are they limited? Because a person is limited. And something limited cannot grasp Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is infinite. That’s the simplest, most basic idea. So how can one grasp Hakadosh Boruch Hu? By keeping the mitzvos He gave. When I connect to His mitzvos, that’s how I can connect to Him. He gave them; they are His. As long as my connection to Hakadosh Boruch Hu is based on my own faculties—even the loftiest faculties of the greatest tzaddik—they are nothing. They are absolutely nothing. With those, it’s impossible to grasp Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to cleave to Him or to connect to Him. How can one connect to Him? By cleaving to what He gave. He gave it; it’s His. When I connect to what He gave, I connect to Him. So this is the answer to the question. What did he ask at the beginning? Why must we say that the middos connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu specifically through mitzvos performed in action or speech? Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the words of Torah, speaking words of Torah, and the mitzvos. So when I connect to them, I connect to Him. But if I contemplate and do everything with my own faculties, and that contemplation awakens love and awe, then wonderful as that love and awe may be, they cannot cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So first there has to be what we discussed in the previous chapter: contemplating Hashem’s greatness—how He fills all worlds and encompasses all worlds, and all the levels discussed there. Then love and awe will awaken in him. He’ll have love and awe; he’ll want to connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. How

25:44 Speaker 1 will he connect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu? He’ll keep mitzvos, and then he’ll be connected. Yes. So that’s the logic. And awe—he goes on; until now he’s spoken only about love. “And awe is the root of the 365 prohibitions, for he fears rebelling against the King of kings, Hakadosh Boruch Hu.” How does awe work? Just as love is the root of the positive mitzvos because he wants to cleave to Him, awe is the root of the prohibitions because he is afraid to act against His will. He understands that sin is serious and wrong, and he fears sin. He has kabbolas ol. “Or a more inward awe than this: he is ashamed, before His greatness, to rebel in the presence of His glorious eyes and do what is evil in His sight—all the abominations that Hashem hates, which are the kelipos and sitra achra, whose nourishment from the person below, and hold on him, come through the 365 prohibitions.” That’s a second kind of awe. There are two kinds of awe. There is the awe of kabbolas ol, where he fears sin. I’m not talking about... There are several kinds of awe in general. Why is a person afraid to do something? I’m not talking about Hakadosh Boruch Hu now, but about our world. There are three reasons a person might refrain from doing things that are undesirable.

27:07 Speaker 14 Punishment.

27:07 Speaker 1 First, then, fear of punishment. In Chassidus, fear of punishment isn’t called awe at all. He isn’t afraid of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. He isn’t afraid of Hakadosh Boruch Hu; he’s worried about himself. He doesn’t want to be punished. That isn’t called awe at all. Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of awe: fear of sin and awe of Hashem’s exaltedness, or a sense of shame before Him. What’s the difference? With fear of sin, he fears the sin. He understands that sin is bad and doesn’t want to do bad things. What is awe of His exaltedness? He isn’t afraid of the sin; he has awe of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What does that mean? It’s like... he would feel uncomfortable doing it.

27:58 Speaker 14 Respect.

28:00 Speaker 1 That kind of reverence. Yes, exactly. Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t want this. Am I going to do something He doesn’t want? All right, I myself don’t understand why it’s so terrible. But... yes, my father doesn’t want it. I’m not going to do such a thing. It wouldn’t feel right. Yes, that’s called awe of His exaltedness. It’s a much more inward kind of awe. He doesn’t refrain because he’s afraid; he does it because he... That’s called awe of His exaltedness. So up to this point, he has explained the role of the three garments—thought, speech and action—through which one connects to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to G-dliness. What did that explanation leave us with? That the garments are really something very lowly. They are only a radiance of the soul. They are separate, not the person’s essence at all, and so on. But they have an important role. Right? That, essentially, was the explanation.

28:56 Speaker 15 A more critical role.

28:58 Speaker 1 A critical role; without them, it’s impossible. Yes. How did our Sages put it? The world can’t exist without tanners and without... I don’t remember what. Without shoemakers, I think. But woe to the person who is a tanner. A tanner is someone who processes hides. That’s... the word our Sages use is “tanner.” It has quite a smell. Have you ever been to a leather-processing factory?

29:22 Speaker 15 No, we didn’t know how, because we... how they make it.

29:24 Speaker 3 We’ve been to a cowshed.

29:26 Speaker 1 No, a cowshed is nothing like it. Nothing like it. It really has a smell, and it sticks—to the person, too.

29:36 Speaker 15 You saw something funny.

29:38 Speaker 1 Rotting hides.

29:41 Speaker 15 Don’t you remember the days when we came back from there?

29:43 Speaker 3 Huh?

29:43 Speaker 15 Don’t you remember the days when they came back from the leather factory?

29:47 Speaker 3 Who?

29:47 Speaker 15 The people who went to see. Didn’t they go to see how they make [unclear]?

29:50 Speaker 1 I went two or three times. I went because it interested me; I went to see.

29:54 Speaker 15 You know how he went to... purify himself.

29:56 Speaker 3 Where is there a factory like that around here? Not in Netanya.

29:59 Speaker 1 In Netanya. In Netanya there’s a very nice Jewish man who welcomes everyone. He takes groups; people come to him. Yes, you can take a tour. There’s [unclear] there, and a place.

30:08 Speaker 3 If you’re interested.

30:10 Speaker 1 It’s very interesting. It’s a fascinating tour, a fascinating tour. Vats, machines. How they do it today—it really is fascinating.

30:18 Speaker 15 I only had cars.

30:20 Speaker 1 At any rate...

30:21 Speaker 15 Recording.

30:21 Speaker 1 So the world can’t do without people who process hides. But woe—woe to the person for whom Providence has designated that work. Yes. So, seemingly, what we’ve understood up to this point is that the garments of the soul are critical. They’re important. You can’t do without them. Yes, but still, that isn’t the whole story. Here, in the second half of the chapter, the Rebbe begins to explain the opposite: not only are the garments of the soul critical because of the role they play; they are lofty in their own right. “And these three garments, which derive from the Torah and its mitzvos, although they are called garments”—as though they were something separate from the soul—“for the nefesh, ruach and neshamah, nevertheless their stature and greatness are infinitely higher than the stature of the nefesh, ruach and neshamah themselves.” The garments of the soul are loftier...

31:25 Speaker 3 Than the soul itself.

31:26 Speaker 1 Yes. Now, he isn’t saying that they’re higher at their source; they themselves are higher. Whenever you see this in the words of our Sages, it says, “Yes, it’s lower, but its source isn’t.” Here they are higher than the soul. And how much higher? Infinitely higher than the level of nefesh, ruach, and even neshamah. Are you hearing this? The powers of action, speech, and thought are higher than the neshamah within a person’s soul, than the divine soul itself. For a statement like that, you have to bring proof. On what basis are you saying it? So the Rebbe [unclear] immediately brings a source for everything; he doesn’t leave anything unsupported, as it says in the Zohar. Where does it say this in the Zohar? “The Torah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one.”

32:23 Speaker 15 What’s the connection?

32:26 Speaker 1 Meaning—what’s the connection? The Rebbe explains the Zohar. The Torah is Hakadosh Boruch Hu’s wisdom and will in particular. Understanding the Torah is His wisdom, and the halachos are His will—what He wanted, right? And Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself is entirely one. With regard to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, we learned in chapter five... the first one, that He is the knowledge, He is the Knower, and He is what is known. With Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there’s no distinction between Himself and His wisdom. He is His wisdom, He is Himself, and He is His will. So if the Torah is His wisdom, and His wisdom is Him, then the Torah, the mitzvos, and the halachos are Him—His very essence and being. For He is the Knower and the knowledge, and so on, as explained earlier in the name of the Rambam. Wait, wait, wait, sorry. We know that “no thought can grasp Him at all.” What does that mean? No thought can grasp Hakadosh Boruch Hu, because we are limited and He is unlimited. Not only our thoughts—even the thoughts of the higher worlds cannot grasp Him. No thought, any thought at all—even the thoughts of the angels—nothing called “thought” can grasp Him. Yet when I learn Torah, I think I understand it; at least I understand part of it. So I do grasp it. If I say that the Torah is Him, how can I grasp and understand the Torah? Hmm? Something doesn’t add up here, right? So the Rebbe immediately asks: Although Hakadosh Boruch Hu is called Ein Sof, and “His greatness is beyond searching,” and our Sages said that no thought can grasp Him at all—and not only Him; the same is true of His will and His wisdom, which no thought can grasp either. Where is that written? As it is written, “There is no searching out His understanding.” And it is written, “Can you fathom G-d?” And it is written, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts.” Even the thought of Hakadosh

34:53 Speaker 1 Boruch Hu. We say that in a human being, thought is a separate garment. But even the thought of Hakadosh Boruch Hu—what is called “thought” with Him—even that cannot be grasped. So how can you say that this is the Torah, which I am able to grasp?

35:09 Speaker 15 So why should I be able to grasp it?

35:11 Speaker 1 Huh?

35:11 Speaker 15 What makes it possible for me to grasp it?

35:13 Speaker 1 I do grasp it. I understand what I’m learning. What does that mean? This is what they said about it: “Where you find the greatness of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, there you find His humility.” What does that mean? Hakadosh Boruch Hu contracted His will and wisdom into the Torah’s 613 mitzvos and their halachos, and into the combinations of letters of Tanach and their interpretations in the Aggados and Midrashim of our Sages, of blessed memory. Usually, whenever we say that Hakadosh Boruch Hu “contracted” something, what does contraction mean? Someone tells me, “We reduced the... number of workers at the factory; there was an efficiency drive.” We made it a bit smaller, right? In the simple sense, contraction means a bit less. Yes. But that’s not what it means here.

36:08 Speaker 15 Contraction like a funnel.

36:09 Speaker 1 Huh?

36:10 Speaker 15 Contraction like a funnel.

36:10 Speaker 1 Contraction like a funnel means a bit less. Before there was—

36:14 Speaker 15 It’s the same amount; it just passes through something narrower. It’s just like that.

36:18 Speaker 1 Yes. So contraction here is—again, with a funnel, it passes through slowly, one bit after another, not all at once. Here, the Rebbe’s expression in Yiddish is that He, so to speak, squeezes Himself in. Hakadosh Boruch Hu squeezes Himself into the Torah and mitzvos. Into every halachah a person learns—even a one-line ruling in Shulchan Aruch: this is permitted, this is forbidden, this is required; here you make a blessing, here you don’t. Within every halachah, all of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, His very essence and being, is present. Every halachah. Every detail that a Jew understands in his mind—within each and every detail, His essence and being are present. If I don’t feel it, then I don’t feel it. But this is what Hakadosh Boruch Hu did. What does “I am Hashem your G-d” mean? Our Sages said of the word “Anochi”: “I wrote and gave My very self.” I wrote and gave My self, My essence. Where did Hakadosh Boruch Hu place His essence? Within every letter and—but the Rebbe spells it out. In general, within the Torah’s 613 mitzvos. And not only that: within their halachos too, all the halachos. More than that, not only within the halachos but within the combinations of letters, each and every letter. And not just those of the Torah—all the letters of Tanach, and even all their interpretations in the Aggados and Midrashim of our Sages, of blessed memory. Why did Hakadosh Boruch Hu do this? So that every neshamah—and not only a neshamah, but even a ruach and even a nefesh—not neshamah, ruach, and nefesh as they are above, but neshamah, ruach, and even nefesh as they are clothed in a human body—could grasp them with its understanding and fulfill whatever can be fulfilled of them in action, speech, and thought. And through this, it becomes clothed. What becomes clothed? A person’s soul, with all ten of its faculties, in these three garments, which—

38:49 Speaker 15 The Torah becomes clothed?

38:51 Speaker 1 No.

38:52 Speaker 15 How would it become clothed in itself? The soul—

38:56 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu contracted Himself into the Torah’s halachos and mitzvos, into every detail. Why did He do that? So that a person’s soul could grasp Him and connect with Him. How? The soul clothes itself in thought, speech, or action, and thought, speech, and action become clothed in the mitzvah, or in its halachos, its words, or the understanding of it. And that is Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. This is why the Torah is compared to water. The Torah is compared to all sorts of things—to at least all seven species, to honey, to milk, to dew, and I don’t know what else. Many things. But in the Gemara, one of the things the Torah is compared to is water. Why water? Our Sages say there: “Just as water descends from a high place to a low place, so the Torah descended from its place of glory, which is His blessed will and wisdom—and the Torah and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are entirely one, and no thought can grasp Him at all. From there it traveled and descended through the hidden gradations, from level to level in the chainlike descent of the worlds, until it became clothed in physical things and matters of this world.” What’s the point of comparing the Torah specifically to water? Why not compare it, for example, to an apple that falls from above to below?

40:36 Speaker 4 Because water goes as low as it possibly can.

40:39 Speaker 5 That’s always its nature. It’s always like that.

40:42 Speaker 1 Oil too.

40:45 Speaker 4 But oil spreads out more.

40:46 Speaker 5 Water can also rise back up.

40:49 Speaker 4 Water can go straight down through even the smallest hole.

40:52 Speaker 5 It always seeks out anywhere it can flow, after all.

40:59 Speaker 1 A thing can be down here for different reasons. Why is it down here? Maybe it was born here, or... it was born here. This is its place. Why is the earth down below? It has nowhere else to be. This is where it is. Or something else might really belong above; it’s a higher thing. But what happened? It was thrown down from above. Something made sure it would be down here. Yes, something pulled it down.

41:36 Speaker 4 That’s what he wants to say.

41:37 Speaker 1 Like an apple. Its place is on the tree. But at some point it was knocked off the tree, and then it fell down. We could give another example. There’s a third kind of thing—and the Torah is like this. It is above, but where does it belong? It belongs below. Where does the Torah belong? Where does water belong? What is water’s place? Down below. What is it doing in the clouds? If someone lifted it up there, or it’s up there for one reason or another—I don’t know—but the moment it can, it comes down. And when it comes down, it comes down as it is. It isn’t like light, which gets weaker the farther it is from its source. Water remains as it is. It doesn’t want to be above; it wants to be below. Even when that same water is above, its drive, its nature, is to be below. That’s the point. That’s the nature of the element of water. So why is the Torah compared to water? Yes, its place of glory is up there, but the Rebbe doesn’t say that the Torah’s source is above. Its place of glory is there. It is in heaven. That is its place of glory, not its source. The Torah is something that belongs below.

43:19 Speaker 4 But it was there for a very, very long time.

43:21 Speaker 1 Right. They kept it there for a long time.

43:24 Speaker 4 Right.

43:27 Speaker 1 The Torah preceded the world by two thousand years. It was there two thousand years before the world was created. They kept it up there for a long time. But from the time it was created, it was created for the sake of this world below. It belongs down here. What’s the proof?

43:45 Speaker 4 The whole world.

43:46 Speaker 1 That the angels asked for it. When the angels asked for the Torah, “Place Your glory upon the heavens,” it had no business being there. That isn’t its place.

43:59 Speaker 4 Where is our place?

44:01 Speaker 1 Hmm?

44:02 Speaker 4 Where is our place?

44:03 Speaker 1 Good question.

44:04 Speaker 4 Here. Because we’re needed here.

44:07 Speaker 1 That’s why the Torah is compared to water. And it descended below, hidden in the steps. In the verse, “in the clefts of the steps”—when there are stone steps, they’re often a little old, with holes where all kinds of animals and plants hide. But the deeper point is that water flows down from above through the hidden holes in the steps, without anyone seeing it. It makes its way from above to below. True, when it arrives below, it’s hidden. We don’t sense that it is Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, but it arrives below as it is. “And it was clothed in physical things and matters of this world, which comprise virtually all the mitzvos of the Torah and their laws, and in combinations of physical letters, in ink upon parchment, in the twenty-four books of the Torah, Nevi’im, and Kesuvim.” Why all this? “So that every thought can grasp them.” Hakadosh Boruch Hu created—made—the Torah so that a Jew could connect with Him. And what is the Torah? The Torah is the mitzvos and the laws. Hakadosh Boruch Hu placed Himself within the Torah and brought it down, down, down, until everyone could grasp it.

45:27 Speaker 4 Are they absorbed in it?

45:28 Speaker 1 Hmm?

45:29 Speaker 4 Are they absorbed in it?

45:30 Speaker 1 In Hakadosh Boruch Hu?

45:31 Speaker 4 In the Torah.

45:33 Speaker 1 Of course.

45:35 Speaker 4 It comes out—

45:35 Speaker 1 And when the Jewish people abandon it, it puts on sackcloth. What—what happened? The Midrashim about Purim and all that.

45:40 Speaker 4 What does it mean that it puts on sackcloth?

45:41 Speaker 1 The songs the children sing in kindergarten. I’ll send you the audio drama of the...

45:49 Speaker 4 Yes, because I don’t...

45:50 Speaker 1 Every Purim, every year before Purim, I sit and listen to it—the children’s story, the story of the Megillah.

45:59 Speaker 4 Hila, how, how, how did you work that into the story?

46:02 Speaker 1 No, no, I put that in.

46:04 Speaker 4 Oh, right.

46:04 Speaker 6 What?

46:07 Speaker 4 Wow, that’s a bit... I remember once giving my mother mishloach manos on a disc and all that.

46:16 Speaker 1 “And even speech and action, which are below the level of thought, grasp them and are clothed in them. And since the Torah and its mitzvos clothe all ten faculties of the soul and all its 613 limbs...” We already know what the ten faculties of the soul are, right? And also what its 613 limbs are. And when a person engages with all the faculties of his soul—as he said at the beginning of the chapter, remember? Do you remember?

46:47 Speaker 4 We remember.

46:48 Speaker 1 That with all the faculties of his soul, he learns, fulfills all the mitzvos he can, speaks all the words he can, and understands everything he can, according to the root of his soul.

46:58 Speaker 4 All of it, all of it.

46:59 Speaker 1 All of it, all of it.

47:00 Speaker 4 Every bit of everything.

47:01 Speaker 1 So when he is completely immersed in the thought, speech, and action of the Torah, his entire soul is truly bound in the bond of life with Hashem. The bond of life is the—

47:13 Speaker 4 In which other chapter did you mention the bond of life?

47:15 Speaker 1 Hmm?

47:16 Speaker 4 You mentioned another chapter besides the bond of life.

47:18 Speaker 1 Come on, we encountered this term in Igeres Hakodesh. There are two places in Tanach where it’s mentioned. Yes, the bond of life—we said that it’s... Nowadays you have to give an address for everything.

47:31 Speaker 4 No, it’s...

47:31 Speaker 1 Generally, the bond of life refers to the middos of the World of Atzilus. It’s... Sometimes it refers to other things. Usually it’s the essence of G-dliness. So when a person’s soul is clothed in Torah, it is bound in the bond of life, within the Divine light. “And the light of Hashem truly surrounds and clothes it from head to foot.” So he said two things here. First, when a person immerses himself in Torah and mitzvos, he is bound in the bond of life, and as a result, the light of Hashem surrounds and clothes his soul. Like when you say a person covers himself with a blanket: he covers himself with the blanket, and the blanket covers him. Yes, those are the two sides. As it says—he brings two verses for this: “My Rock, in Whom I take refuge.” That’s the person’s action: he takes refuge in Hashem. “And it is written, ‘You surround him with favor like a shield.’” A shield surrounds a person on three sides—a battle shield. They hold it like this in their hand. It’s that sort of—

48:47 Speaker 7 Like the Maccabees’ shields.

48:48 Speaker 1 Yes, exactly. “This is His blessed will and wisdom, clothed in the Torah and its mitzvos. And therefore they said: One hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world is better than all the life of the World to Come.” Why? Because in the World to Come, people truly experience delight, and the delight of the World to Come has no comparison at all in this world. You can’t imagine it in any way. But what do they delight in? What is the source of that delight? The radiance of the Shechinah.

49:19 Speaker 7 Right.

49:20 Speaker 1 That is the delight of comprehension, and no created being, even among the higher beings, can comprehend more than some glimmer of Hashem’s light. That’s why it’s called the radiance of the Shechinah. Where is it found? What does “the World to Come” mean? Here, the World to Come means Gan Eden. Right? “One hour of teshuvah and good deeds in this world is better than all the life of the World to Come”—meaning everything in Gan Eden. Where is Gan Eden? Gan Eden is, as we said, in the World of Yetzirah, in the World of Asiyah; perhaps the higher Gan Eden is in the World of Beriah. What is there in the World of Beriah, in the higher Gan Eden? The radiance of the Shechinah. And when a person fulfills Torah and mitzvos, studies laws, speaks words of Torah, what surrounds him now?

50:07 Speaker 7 Hashem Himself.

50:07 Speaker 1 Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, His very essence... the bond of life in Atzilus. That’s something else entirely. But as for Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself, “no thought can grasp Him at all.” What, then, is the only way to grasp Hakadosh Boruch Hu? Not through a person’s own thought. That’s impossible. Rather, when a person’s thought grasps and is clothed in the Torah and its mitzvos, then it grasps and is clothed in Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. The word “them” here is apparently a printing error. It should be deleted. That’s a note from the Rebbe. For the Torah that we observe and Hakadosh Boruch Hu are one. So through Torah—through studying Torah and fulfilling mitzvos—we can connect with the very essence of Hakadosh Boruch Hu, infinitely higher beyond comparison. That’s what we said earlier: the soul’s garments are infinitely higher than the soul itself. How can that be? After all, the Torah has been clothed in lowly physical things. How can you...? How, how? How can it be that this mitzvah I perform physically is the essence and being of Hakadosh Boruch Hu? I see a physical thing here. “Although the Torah has been clothed in lowly physical things, it is like embracing the king, for example.” This is an analogy the Alter Rebbe brings in several places in different forms: embracing the king, embracing a friend. There are several analogies like this. What is the analogy here? “There is no difference in the degree of his closeness to the king whether he embraces him when he is wearing one garment or when he is wearing several garments, since the king’s body is within them.” When a person embraces the king, it doesn’t bother him that the king is wearing several garments. He knows the king is inside the garments; he doesn’t think, “Well, I’m embracing the king through...” No, that’s

52:15 Speaker 1 not called actually embracing him. No one would think that.

52:19 Speaker 7 No, no, he’d hurry.

52:20 Speaker 1 Huh?

52:20 Speaker 7 No, no, he’d hurry.

52:23 Speaker 1 Yes. That’s a thought that wouldn’t occur to anyone. Right? He... So that’s how we need to view fulfilling Torah and mitzvos. True, it’s through a garment, but... By the way, what is the garment?

52:39 Speaker 7 The thought.

52:42 Speaker 1 Thought is not the physical thing. The garment is not the physical thing. The physical thing is Hakadosh Boruch Hu Himself. The garment is the powers of our soul. Thought, speech, and action are the garments—the power of action, the power of thought, right? And it also works the other way around. Not only does a person embrace the king, but the king also embraces him with his arm. Again, these are the two movements: one from the person and one from the king. Even when the king’s hand is clothed in his garments, as it says, “His right hand embraces me”—that is the Torah, which was given from the right, the aspect of chesed and water. So both things are happening here. Hakadosh Boruch Hu embraces us. How? Through His right hand, the Torah, which is His right hand. And we become clothed within Him, so we are surrounded by Hashem’s light and cleave to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. So in this chapter, chapter 4, the Alter Rebbe explained that in addition to the soul’s powers, the soul also has garments. At first we wondered why the garments were needed at all. Then he explained at the beginning of the chapter that the garments are very important; without them, it is impossible to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. Then, in the second half of the chapter, he explained something further: not only are the garments so important that we cannot do without them, but the garments themselves have a quality loftier than that of the soul itself. That is why we can connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu only through the garments. So we have now finished explaining both the soul’s powers and the soul’s garments. Right? Then we can move on to discussing the animal soul.

54:26 Speaker 7 Well?

54:26 Speaker 1 Huh? There’s another chapter in between. Remember we said there were three chapters?

54:30 Speaker 7 He discusses the particular quality of the garment of thought.

54:38 Speaker 1 In this chapter he spoke about the soul’s garments. As I said, there are three garments: thought, speech, and action. Three garments. In the next chapter he will speak about the special garment, the garment of Torah, the garment of thought. That deserves its own discussion, because the way we connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu through the garment of thought is much loftier than the way we connect through the garments in general. With Torah, there is something special that the other garments do not have. That is why we need an entire additional chapter just to understand what is special about the garment of thought.

55:33 Speaker 7 Okay. So we’ll continue. [unclear]