Likkutei Amarim Chapter 15 · 5781

00:03 Speaker 1 Good evening. We really have a big crowd here, I can see. All right, we’re up to chapter 15. Let’s briefly review. We said that chapter 15 concludes the introduction. We spoke last week about how, before explaining how to serve Hashem—how I can observe Torah and mitzvos with love and awe, how I can reach perfection in observing Torah and mitzvos, how I can reach a point where I never stumble in any transgression, always observe every mitzvah, and never... Thank you. Yes, important. And never pass up a single mitzvah, which seems like something impossibly far away—the author of the Tanya gives us an introduction. It’s a long introduction of fifteen chapters. Today we’re up to its final chapter. The introduction itself has two parts. From chapters 1 through 12, the Alter Rebbe explained who we are: our inner makeup, how each of us has two souls, a G-dly soul and an animal soul; the qualities of each soul, what each one wants, how it works, its essence and its garments, how they fight each other, and who I am. We learned all that in chapters 1 through 12. Then, before actually explaining how to serve Hashem, he gives us a three-chapter introduction to how we should approach serving Hashem, before we actually begin contemplating and fighting the yetzer hara and so on. So first, what should our general approach be? He divided that into three points, presented in three chapters. The first was chapter 13, where he said a person must never consider himself a tzaddik. Even when he feels he has advanced in serving Hashem, that he is succeeding in overcoming the yetzer hara, that it’s already easier

02:53 Speaker 1 for him to study Torah, that he no longer has to try so hard during davening, and can easily stay focused throughout the davening, looking into the siddur without taking his eyes off it; he’s managing not to speak lashon hara, and so on and so forth. He feels he has made progress in serving Hashem. A person needs to know: “Be in your own eyes like a rasha.” You still have a long way to go; you’re not yet a tzaddik. However far a person progresses, he gave a very extreme example there: even someone who not only looks outwardly like a complete tzaddik, but acts like one and feels like one—even he must still consider himself like a rasha. He needs to know he has a way to go. A person must not think he has reached perfection. That’s the first point, the first preparation for serving Hashem. That’s chapter 13. In chapter 14 he explained that although a person must consider himself like a rasha, he must also know that this is within his power. Everyone can do it. What does “everyone can” mean? I don’t feel that I can. He said, he explained... Thank you very much. He said that Hakadosh Boruch Hu created the human being in a physical way that shows everyone that he can. What does that mean? Where do we see it physically? In each of us, the head is above and the heart is below. The head is the dwelling place of the G-dly soul. The heart is the dwelling place of the animal soul. So physically, the head is above the heart; the G-dly soul is above the animal soul. How does that express itself? He explained there, in chapter 14, the previous chapter, that it’s the same spiritually. Every person can, if he only wants to, choose good at every moment. It depends on him. A person isn’t born a rasha or born a tzaddik.

04:54 Speaker 1 A person is born with free choice. He has a yetzer tov and a yetzer hara. But what? Hakadosh Boruch Hu put the yetzer tov in a stronger starting position. It’s above; it’s higher. What does “higher” mean? That if he wants to, he can. There’s no such thing as “I can’t.” And he explained at length what it means that if I want to, I can. Since at every moment of a person’s life, if he only wants to, he can overcome the yetzer hara, there is no reason in the world not to do it. So choose good now. Now you face another challenge. Choose good again. Now the yetzer hara tries again to put some thought into your mind. Choose good again. You can do it every time.

05:40 Speaker 2 There’s no...

05:41 Speaker 1 What?

05:42 Speaker 2 There’s no, there’s no end to it.

05:45 Speaker 1 There’s no end to it—that’s the other side of it: this is hard work, and it never ends. That’s the other side. But the point he explained in chapter 14 is that a person needs hope, confidence, complete faith and confidence, a clear knowledge that this is within his power. So what was chapter 13? Chapter 13: “Be in your own eyes like a rasha.” Chapter 14: hope and confidence that I can do it. He also explains why I can. What’s still missing? What you pointed out: knowing that this is hard work. Chapter 15 comes to explain that. After all, everyone needs to take to heart that this really isn’t easy work. Hakadosh Boruch Hu didn’t bring us down here, bring our souls into this world, to play or to enjoy ourselves. Enjoyment is in the World to Come.

06:42 Speaker 2 How do you explain that to someone who doesn’t... I mean, we believe... that isn’t our life. Someone who doesn’t—never mind. Sorry for the question.

06:58 Speaker 1 No, it’s a good question, but I’m not going into that right now. It depends very much on whom you’re speaking to and what you’re speaking about. There’s an order to what needs to be learned first and what comes later, and how you draw a person toward serving Hashem. The general principle—and this is what we said—is set out. It isn’t related to what we’re learning now. The general principle is already written in the Rambam, in Hilchos De’os, at the beginning of Hilchos De’os: serving Hashem for the sake of Heaven, doing what is true because it is true, is a great undertaking. You can’t come and say that to small children. Tell a small child, “Listen, you have to serve Hashem for the sake of Heaven,” and he won’t cooperate. At first you have to educate him with treats and nuts. Later, when he’s a little older, you offer him money, because a child’s mind is drawn to money. Later, when he’s a bit older, he understands that money isn’t the most important thing in the world either. You tell him, “Listen, I’ll give you honor. You’ll be a rosh yeshivah, you’ll be somebody, people will think highly of you, remember you, praise your name.” That appeals to him more. Honor is worth a bit more than money. Then he understands that honor, too—envy, desire, and honor—are among the three things that drive a person out of the world. You tell him, “Listen, you’re right, honor isn’t the goal. There’s something higher: Gan Eden.” Later you explain to him that even in Gan Eden there are different levels and degrees. That’s how, little by little, you accustom him to serving Hashem for its own sake. It really is hard work. But Tanya is the Book of the Beinonim. The Book of the Beinonim. Tanya isn’t speaking to someone who is only now beginning to serve Hashem. I mean, no. Tanya is speaking to a Jew

08:51 Speaker 1 who wants to serve Hashem. I’ll explain how. A Jew reads the verse in the Torah, “For the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it,” and is startled. How is it close to me? This isn’t someone at the beginning of the road. It’s someone who has already studied Torah and knows what it’s about, and suddenly he’s told, “Listen, you can observe all of Torah and mitzvos, all of it, with joy, and it’s very close to you.” He doesn’t understand what is being asked of him. Tanya speaks to such a person. Me? If you said a tzaddik, I’d understand. Someone who was raised and taught, born, I don’t know, into a family of tzaddikim—I understand, he had a good upbringing. But me? What do you want from me? I’m an ordinary person. I have no special talents and no lofty soul. I was born into an ordinary family. What? That’s for tzaddikim. It’s not for... I can’t do it. Tanya says: No. The Torah says it’s close to everyone. The Torah is speaking to him, to the beinoni, not to someone who now needs convincing to come closer. That’s not what Tanya is addressing. All right? Good. So the third and final stage in our inner preparation for serving Hashem is knowing that the work is hard. And although each of us has the power to succeed—we will certainly succeed if we only want to—it’s hard work. That’s our chapter. Let’s look inside. Chapter 15: “And with this we can understand what is written: ‘Then you shall again see the difference between the righteous and the wicked, between one who serves G-d and one who does not serve Him.’” That’s a verse in the Prophets, in the Book of Malachi. And the Gemara—the question is a question from the Gemara. Tanya doesn’t quote the whole question here; it explains the verse without first asking the question. The Gemara asks: What new point is the prophet telling us? That in the future we’ll be able to distinguish between a tzaddik and a rasha? Well, all right, now we can’t distinguish, but in the future we will, and we’ll also distinguish

11:00 Speaker 1 “Between one who serves G-d and one who has not served Him.” So apparently the verse is talking about four levels, right? A tzaddik, a wicked person, one who serves G-d, and one who does not serve Him. The Gemara asks a simple question: What is the difference between a tzaddik and one who serves G-d? What is the difference between a wicked person and one who does not serve G-d? Aren’t they the same thing? If he serves G-d, he’s a tzaddik. If he doesn’t serve G-d, he’s wicked, right? Apparently. The Gemara says no, there is a difference. There is a difference between, uh, someone who does not serve G-d and a tzaddik. Listen, uh, a knock at the door. The Gemara says: What is the difference between someone who doesn’t serve Ha—Hakadosh Boruch Hu? He doesn’t serve G-d, but he isn’t wicked. There’s a difference. What is it? Sorry—what is the difference between one who serves G-d and a tzaddik? Let’s put it this way. One who serves, uh—

12:12 Speaker 3 No, can you serve as a tzaddik?

12:14 Speaker 1 Sorry, no. What is the difference between one who serves G-d and one who does not serve G-d? The Gemara says this: Someone who does not serve G-d—what does that mean? He reviews his lesson a hundred times. He does not serve G-d. Every time he learns a mishnah—we’re talking about the time of the Mishnah, yes?—he learns a mishnah. There are no books, no computers. He has to—whatever he leaves the beis midrash without having engraved in his mind, he doesn’t have. So he has to review everything a hundred times. Why? He doesn’t want to forget. So he learned a mishnah. Now, uh, Shammai the Elder said a mishnah, and he’s sitting before Shammai or before Hillel or, I don’t know, before Yishmael or Rav Tanchum. A mishnah has just been taught, and he reviews it a hundred times to make sure that even when he walks out the door, he won’t forget it. That is someone who does not serve G-d. What is called someone who serves G-d? He reviews his lesson a hundred and one times. That is the Gemara’s answer. One who does not serve G-d reviews his learning, the mishnah, a hundred times. One who serves G-d—that’s something else entirely. He reviews his learning a hundred and one times. Huh?

13:23 Speaker 3 You could also—you could state the tanna’s question.

13:25 Speaker 1 That is the answer of the—of the Gemara.

13:27 Speaker 3 Of the Gemara. The tanna’s answer, fine.

13:30 Speaker 1 So that only explains the difference between one who serves G-d and a wicked person—between one who serves G-d, one who does not serve G-d, and a wicked person. A wicked person is someone who doesn’t keep mitzvos. Someone who serves G-d—even someone who does not serve G-d—does not serve G-d, but he learns Torah, learns and learns, puts effort into it. Yes? So he isn’t wicked. We already understand that the Gemara is really explaining the difference between someone who does not serve G-d and a wicked person. The Gemara explained that; we got it. What is the difference between one who serves G-d and a tzaddik? The Gemara says nothing. It stops there. It explained the half concerning the difference between the one who does not serve and the wicked person, but it didn’t explain the difference between the one who serves and the tzaddik. It didn’t say a word. In the following lines, the author of Tanya comes to explain the other side. What is the difference between one who serves G-d and a tzaddik? Let’s look inside. “For the difference between... the difference between one who serves G-d and a tzaddik is... that ‘one who serves’ is in the present tense: he is in the midst of the service, which is the battle against the yetzer hara to overcome it and drive it out of the small city, so that it should not clothe itself in the limbs of the body. This is truly great work and toil, to fight it constantly. This is the beinoni.” So what is one who serves G-d? One who serves G-d is a—

14:57 Speaker 3 A beinoni.

14:58 Speaker 1 He isn’t a tzaddik; he’s a beinoni. But the tzaddik is not called “one who serves G-d.” The tzaddik is called, uh, a “servant of Hashem.” He isn’t serving; he is a servant. He has already finished the work. It’s no longer—this is already a description of who he is, like calling someone a sage or a king. He isn’t a student of wisdom; he’s a sage. He has already become a sage or a king. So too, he has already—the tzaddik has already worked and completely finished the work of battling evil, until “he drove it out and it went away,” and “his heart is empty within him.” So the author of Tanya has given us the answer to the other side, which the Gemara didn’t give. What does that tell us? It tells us that now we really understand that there are three levels here: a wicked person, a tzaddik, and someone who serves G-d or does not serve G-d—someone in the middle. What isn’t so clear to us is the difference between “one who serves G-d” and “one who has not served Him.” We learned at length about the difference between a tzaddik, a wicked person, and a beinoni. We know the nature of a tzaddik, the nature of a wicked person, and the nature of a beinoni. Why does the Gemara divide the beinoni into two kinds, “one who serves G-d” and “one who has not served Him”? A beinoni is a beinoni. What difference does it make whether the beinoni reviews his Torah a hundred times or a hundred and one times? Does that make him a fourth kind of person? What? What? What’s hidden here? The author of Tanya goes on to explain that among beinonim, too, there are two levels: “one who serves G-d” and “one who has not served Him.” And yet, even though he does not serve—he is called someone who does not serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu—nevertheless, he is not wicked. How can he not serve and also not be wicked? If he doesn’t serve, how is he not wicked? How does he avoid transgressions if he does not—

17:06 Speaker 1 serve Hashem? “Because he has never committed even a minor transgression.” Remember in chapter 1, when we discussed what a minor transgression is? Remember, we said it wasn’t even a matter of the words of the Sages, not even a rabbinic prohibition—it’s not even, not even, not even. So if he doesn’t serve G-d, how has he never committed even a minor transgression? What kept him from transgressing? What? “And he has fulfilled all the mitzvos that it was possible for him to fulfill.” He has never neglected a mitzvah in his life. How can there be such a person? He’s so casual about it. He doesn’t serve, he makes no effort, and yet he has never stumbled into a transgression and has never neglected a mitzvah. How is that possible? “And even in Torah study, which is equal to them all, his mouth never ceases from learning.” This is someone who doesn’t serve G-d. His mouth never stops speaking words of Torah. You can’t come and try to talk to him about things that aren’t Torah. He doesn’t understand you, he doesn’t hear you—doesn’t hear you. What? What do you mean, he doesn’t hear? He hears only words of Torah. He keeps mitzvos, but it doesn’t count. He doesn’t serve, he doesn’t serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. What kind of person is this? What are we talking about? Rather, we’re talking about a Jew who “wages no battle against the yetzer to defeat it.” Blessed are You, Hashem our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word everything came into being. He wages no battle against the yetzer to defeat it “through the light of Hashem that shines upon the G-dly soul in the mind, which rules over the heart, as explained above.” The yetzer doesn’t defeat him, and that’s why he doesn’t transgress. But the reason the yetzer doesn’t defeat him isn’t that he fought it and won. No. Rather, “because his yetzer does not oppose him at all to prevent him from studying Hashem’s Torah and serving Him, and he has no need to fight it at all.”

19:29 Speaker 1 What does that mean? He has a yetzer hara, and the yetzer hara... He defeats the yetzer hara without fighting it.

19:40 Speaker 4 How is he a beinoni?

19:41 Speaker 1 Huh?

19:42 Speaker 4 How is he a beinoni?

19:44 Speaker 1 That’s what the Gemara says: he’s called a beinoni.

19:48 Speaker 4 But the beinoni does fight the yetzer.

19:50 Speaker 1 What?

19:50 Speaker 4 The beinoni does fight the yetzer.

19:51 Speaker 1 This beinoni, who is called “one who has not served Him”—the Gemara calls him a beinoni, and he has not served Him. He doesn’t fight the yetzer. No, there are two: one who serves Him and one who has not served Him. What? We’ll soon see the difference between the one who serves and the one who has not served. Right now he’s explaining what “has not served Him” means. A beinoni is a beinoni. That means he doesn’t commit transgressions, he does mitzvos, and his mouth never ceases from learning. But he—he—the yetzer does not overpower him. But the yetzer—what’s the point? The yetzer doesn’t fight him. The yetzer doesn’t fight him. Why doesn’t he have to defeat the yetzer? Because the yetzer doesn’t fight him. What does it mean that the yetzer doesn’t fight him? So he explains. What? We’ll see right away. He goes on, on page—um, on this page, to explain what it means that the yetzer doesn’t fight. He has a yetzer, but it doesn’t fight. “For example, he is by nature diligent in his studies from birth, because of the predominance of the melancholic temperament.” There are people like that who tend toward... depression, it’s called, yes. He’s always down, his nose to the ground. A person like that is... What’s it called, uh, the opposite of an optimist? A pessimist. What? The opposite of optimistic: pessimistic. A pessimistic person, someone with a melancholic temperament. He’s pessimistic. What does it mean to be pessimistic? Everything is always dark for him. What does “dark” mean? He’s always heavy. He’s a heavy person, as we say, yes? He prefers to be alone; he doesn’t like company. So if a person like that is in an unfortunate situation, in an unfortunate family, in an unfortunate social environment, then he’ll go wherever that takes him. But if a person like that is in a—at a yeshivah, he learns in yeshivah, and at the yeshivah they give him a page of Gemara. They give it to him, and it’s interesting. All in all, it’s interesting. Very interesting. Chassidus. So he puts all his—all his melancholy into learning. He immerses himself; he doesn’t...

22:08 Speaker 1 His surroundings don’t interest him. The Rebbe said that he—he had a melancholic temperament. Right. Right, right. Right, right, right. The Rebbe testified about himself more than once that he had a melancholic temperament. I love learning. I don’t learn because I have to fight my yetzer and force myself to sit down and learn. No, I love it. It’s pleasant for me. I enjoy it. When the guys call me to play outside—I don’t know, soccer; I don’t know what the girls play—I say, “Leave me alone. I’m happy here.” They tell a story about Rabbi Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi, of blessed memory. It’s an account that was written down: when he was a bochur in 770, many years ago, he was there with one of the very first groups. Summer came in the United States, vacation time, and the whole community, including the Chabad people, went up to the mountains. Each Chassidic group had some sort of vacation place, a private house—I don’t know exactly how it worked. They stayed there for a few months. And it wasn’t just them; the whole country went up to the mountains because of the summer heat. So the bochurim at that time would go there too, to do mivtzoim in the mountains, and the Rebbe encouraged it. But there was one bochur in the entire history of Lubavitch whom the Rebbe forbade to go to the mountains for mivtzoim: Mordechai Shmuel Ashkenazi. He wanted to go and wrote to the Rebbe that he wanted to leave the next day too. The Rebbe told him, “You stay and learn. Your place is here.” So he learns not because he’s fighting himself. He learns because his nature draws him to learning. He doesn’t need to fight his yetzer. Likewise, he has no struggle with desire for women, because by nature he is cold toward it; he isn’t drawn to it. And with other pleasures of this world, too, he naturally lacks a feeling for their enjoyment. There are people like that

24:24 Speaker 1 who are very drawn to the pleasures of the world, and there are others who...

24:29 Speaker 5 are drawn to books.

24:31 Speaker 1 Or who just aren’t... the world doesn’t appeal to them all that much. So what’s surprising about the fact that the yetzer doesn’t manage to defeat him? The yetzer simply doesn’t fight him that hard. It doesn’t draw him toward prohibitions and desires. Therefore, he doesn’t need to contemplate Hashem’s greatness so deeply and, through his understanding, give rise in his mind to a spirit of awareness and fear of Hashem, to guard himself against transgressing the prohibitions. He doesn’t need to arouse love of Hashem in his heart in order to cleave to Him through observing mitzvos and learning Torah, which is equal to them all. He doesn’t need to arouse either fear or love in his mind and heart. The hidden love in the heart of all the Jewish people, who are called “those who love His name,” is enough for him. After all, every Jew has a soul. It’s something you’re born with. You don’t have to work for it or make an effort for it. Everyone has a soul. How does the fact that I have a soul show itself? I don’t feel my soul, but somewhere inside every Jew, it does operate. He has a soul. When any Jew does a mitzvah—just gives something, helps a poor person—he feels good about it. It does him good. A Jew learns Torah, a Jew davens, and it gives him a good feeling. Where does that good feeling come from? Did he get some prize? Did someone offer him something for it? No. He did a mitzvah, and that makes him feel good. This feeling that doing something to draw closer to Hakadosh Boruch Hu makes me feel good—that’s called the hidden love. Every Jew feels it, even if he doesn’t know he’s Jewish. It’s something in everyone’s heart, and it works without stopping. Nonstop. Somewhere in the background, it’s there all the time. So the Jew we’re talking about here is a Jew who sits in yeshivah, who learns, who is

26:38 Speaker 1 in a religious environment. So, all in all, he stays with it—he observes mitzvos. The yetzer hara doesn’t fight him very hard. He has the hidden love in his heart. So why does he do mitzvos? Why doesn’t he commit transgressions? The hidden love. He feels good with Hakadosh Boruch Hu; he feels good with the mitzvos. He knows what he’s supposed to do. There’s nothing in particular pulling him the other way. So, as a matter of course, he doesn’t stumble into transgressions, and he fulfills all the mitzvos. That makes him a beinoni. What did we say the definition of a beinoni is? A beinoni is someone who has a yetzer hara and nevertheless doesn’t stumble into transgressions. So this is exactly that picture. Except what? He doesn’t fight. Fine. Why does he have to fight? He can be a beinoni without fighting. Why does he have to fight? “Therefore he is not called one who serves Him at all, because this hidden love is not at all the result of his own action and effort.” He was born with it. “Rather, it is our inheritance from our ancestors, passed on to all Israel.” And as explained later, from chapter 18 through chapter 25, this matter of the hidden love. Eight chapters. “Likewise, even someone who is not naturally diligent in his learning, but has trained himself to learn with great diligence”—that’s already a more advanced level of “one who does not serve Him.” There’s a person who doesn’t serve Him because he doesn’t fight at all. And there’s another one—why is he called “one who does not serve Him”? How do you show that he doesn’t serve Him? He reviews every passage a hundred times. How many of us review a lesson a hundred times? Not me.

28:25 Speaker 5 I think even three times is a lot already.

28:26 Speaker 1 What?

28:27 Speaker 5 I think even three times is a lot already.

28:29 Speaker 1 Th—

28:29 Speaker 5 Three is a lot.

28:31 Speaker 1 For us, even three is a lot, although it says in halachah that four is the minimum.

28:42 Speaker 5 Four is the minimum.

28:44 Speaker 1 It says in halachah that reviewing your learning four times is the minimum. That’s also why, in the Gemara—if you pay attention, it’s hinted at in the Gemara. On every page of Gemara, if you’ve ever opened one, there’s the Gemara in the middle, surrounded by Rashi’s commentary. In the small print of Rashi’s commentary, there’s text above the column, below the column, and along the sides. Below the column it varies: sometimes four lines, sometimes a hundred. Above it, there are always four lines, throughout the Gemara from beginning to end. The person who laid out the Vilna edition did it deliberately, to allude to that halachah that you need to review your learning four times. Four is the minimum.

29:24 Speaker 5 When you’re ready.

29:25 Speaker 1 Huh?

29:25 Speaker 5 When you’re ready, we’ll... Some people need to review it once more.

29:27 Speaker 1 No problem.

29:30 Speaker 5 No problem. No, everyone needs to study it one more time for the test.

29:45 Speaker 1 I’m not telling you to do that; I’m just saying what you’re supposed to do. This is already a more advanced level of “one who does not serve Him.” There’s a person who doesn’t serve Him because he really isn’t putting effort into serving Hashem. He doesn’t commit transgressions, but he doesn’t fight his yetzer. Then there’s a person who, at one time, when he began serving Hashem, really did find it hard. He worked on himself. Any of us can imagine that training yourself to review everything a hundred times takes work. But he did it so many times that he got used to it. Today it’s no longer work; today it’s his standard practice. But now that he’s used to it, they tell him: “Listen, you want to serve Hashem? Review it one more time.” That extra review won’t add anything to his knowledge; it won’t help him learn it better. He’s learned it a hundred times. He knows it backward and forward. What will one more time add? What it adds is that now he’s making an effort.

31:10 Speaker 5 Breaking his habit.

31:12 Speaker 1 He’s breaking his habit. Our Sages said that this effort is worth more than all hundred times. “But he has trained himself to learn with great diligence, so that it has become a habit, a second nature. This hidden love is enough for him, unless he wishes to learn more than he is accustomed to. This explains what is said in the Gemara: ‘One who serves G-d’ is someone who reviews his lesson a hundred and one times, while ‘one who does not serve Him’ is someone who reviews his lesson only a hundred times. For in their days it was customary to review each lesson a hundred times, as the Gemara explains there with the example of the donkey-drivers’ market: they could be hired to travel ten parasangs for one zuz, but eleven parasangs cost two zuz, because that was beyond their usual route.” Once, back then, we lived in Kfar Chabad, and... we traveled a lot. Transportation wasn’t what it is now—not that it’s so great today either, but back then there weren’t many private cars or much public transportation. Anyway, we would often arrive by bus at the Tel Aviv central bus station and need to get to Kfar Chabad. And you’d know there was no bus for the next five, six, seven, eight hours. So we’d take a taxi. We had no choice. It was a regular thing, once or twice a week. Always the same story. We lived in Kfar Chabad II. “Can you take us to Kfar Chabad?” “Yes.” “How much?” Was it ten shekels? Fifteen shekels? I don’t remember. Let’s say fifteen shekels. No problem. We’d get in the taxi and reach the entrance to Kfar Chabad. “We live over there.” “Ah, Kfar Chabad II. Why didn’t you say so? That’s double the fare.” “Excuse me, sir, what do you mean, double the fare? It’s another hundred meters.” “What? The fare is for Kfar Chabad. That’s not... that’s not... that’s outside my usual route. And outside my usual route, you pay double—another thirty...” I don’t know where.

33:19 Speaker 1 This is Kfar Chabad. Another thirty seconds and we’re done. That one extra time has never helped us. And this isn’t a new idea. It’s already written in the Torah and in the Gemara, and it’s brought in Tanya: for the donkey drivers, that one trip beyond their usual number is only a tenth more distance, only a hundredth more distance. But you pay double.

33:46 Speaker 6 I thought they... I thought they got it.

33:49 Speaker 1 Got it, got it. And therefore, that hundred-and-first time, beyond the habit he has been accustomed to since his youth, is equal to all the others and surpasses them by far, so that he is called one who serves G-d. This is a different kind of Jew. He isn’t just a beinoni; he isn’t someone who doesn’t serve Hakadosh Boruch Hu. This is called a fourth type: a beinoni who serves G-d. Something else entirely. Because to change one’s habitual nature, one has to arouse love for Hashem, and this can happen in two ways. Here’s the first hint of what’s coming in Tanya: either by contemplating the greatness of Hashem in his mind, so that he can rule over the nature in the left chamber of the heart, which is filled with the blood of the animal soul that comes from kelipah—the source of that nature. This is the laborious service of the beinoni. What is the beinoni’s complete service? The first kind of service, which he’ll explain in the next two chapters, 16 and 17, is the laborious service of the beinoni: the mind rules over the heart. He contemplates the greatness of Hashem so deeply and powerfully that this understanding in his mind penetrates his heart and kindles a blazing fire of love, longing and desire, a soul yearning for the greatness of the blessed Ein Sof. That is the laborious service of the beinoni. Or he can arouse the hidden love in his heart. Everyone has a hidden love, but usually it doesn’t reveal itself. But it can. Now, ordinarily, when does the hidden love reveal itself? When someone is ready to give his life. Right—when does that usually happen, when it happens?

36:02 Speaker 6 No.

36:03 Speaker 1 Huh? When someone is put up against a wall and told: either you observe the mitzvos, or you stop, or we’ll kill you. Then suddenly he says Shema Yisroel. It has happened in every generation: Jews have faced situations like that, and suddenly we’ve seen them ready to give their lives, to go all the way. Excuse me, last night you weren’t observing mitzvos. What happened now? Suddenly, Shema Yisroel. What? What? His hidden love was aroused. So usually—first of all, we see that this hidden love has tremendous power. When the hidden love comes into action, it matters to a person more than his own life. He is ready to die rather than give up his hidden love. In practice, the power of the hidden love is infinite. The thing is, in our everyday lives we don’t feel it so much—we don’t feel it at all. The Alter Rebbe tells us, and will explain in the following chapters, from chapter 18 through chapter 25, that... that’s not true. Each of us, through a certain kind of contemplation, can illuminate this love and reveal it. So it isn’t quite like contemplating the greatness of Hashem and arousing love in your heart. That kind of love is complete service. It really is harder. But arousing the love that is already within me is also service. It isn’t simple or easy, but it is possible, and it’s much easier than arousing love in the heart. You don’t have to create love through contemplation; you only have to reveal the love that already exists. That’s easier, it’s simpler, and it too is called service for a beinoni. On line ten: “This too is called service: to fight one’s nature and inclination by arousing the hidden love in one’s heart.” So both of these kinds are called serving G-d: either he arouses love by contemplating the greatness of Hashem,

38:24 Speaker 1 or he arouses the hidden love. That is called serving G-d. “But when he has no struggle at all, this hidden love, in and of itself, is not called his service at all.” So what have we learned from this chapter? The Gemara holds up and praises a Jew like this—not someone who merely doesn’t commit sins. There can be a Jew who doesn’t commit sins, who doesn’t neglect mitzvos, whose mouth never ceases from learning, who is wholly immersed in Torah—and the Gemara says about him: he... he isn’t serving G-d. That isn’t the point; that isn’t what’s called for. What is called for? Whom does the Gemara praise? Someone who makes an effort. Hey, but a person who makes an effort and fights his yetzer sometimes loses, and sometimes he does come to commit sins. While that person who doesn’t serve Hashem doesn’t commit sins. The Gemara says: no. A Jew who fights his yetzer is worth not just more to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, but incomparably more. He is a different kind of Jew. Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t want our successes. Hakadosh Boruch Hu isn’t looking for angels. Hakadosh Boruch Hu isn’t looking to see us with wings. Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants us to serve Him, and every one of us can do that. And now that we know who and what we are—that we don’t have to think of ourselves as tzaddikim, that it is within our power to succeed, and that all Hakadosh Boruch Hu wants from us is to see our effort, how we want to draw closer to Him—we’re ready to begin learning how to serve Hashem in practice. That will be in the coming chapters, starting with chapter 16, the next chapter: the two great principles.