Likkutei Amarim Chapter 18 · 5781

00:03 Speaker 1 Take the sheets and hand them out. The sheets are important today. All right, shall we start?

00:21 Speaker 2 We can.

00:23 Speaker 1 Today we’re beginning to study... chapter 18. Chapter 18 is the beginning of the second part of Tanya. Now, officially, the first part of Tanya has fifty-three chapters, and then there’s a second part, Shaar Hayichud Vehaemunah. But within Tanya itself, within the fifty-three chapters about the avodah of the beinoni, there are also several sections, groups of chapters. As we’ll see in a moment, the first seventeen chapters we’ve studied until now are the first section, and the second section is the next eight chapters, beginning with our chapter. At the end of the previous class, we asked why Tanya is so long. The whole of Tanya comes to explain, “For the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it.” How can a person reach perfection in serving Hashem, so that he never neglects a mitzvah and never commits any of the transgressions? The Torah says it’s very close, so the Alter Rebbe explained how it’s very close. Every person has a head, has a mind, and his mind is under his control. He can contemplate and think about whatever he wants. If he thinks about the greatness of Hashem, love and fear of Hashem will indeed awaken in him. And if he loves Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he’ll perform the mitzvos, because love is the root of all the positive mitzvos. And if he fears Hakadosh Boruch Hu, he won’t commit transgressions, because fear is the root of all the prohibitions. Then he went even further: even if, when a person contemplates the greatness of Hashem, he can’t manage it—he just can’t. He doesn’t have the kind of mind that can grasp Hashem’s greatness so deeply that it reaches his heart and awakens love and fear. He can’t do it. But what happens? At least when he contemplates the greatness of Hashem, he reaches the conclusion that he ought to love Hakadosh Boruch Hu.

02:29 Speaker 1 He doesn’t actually have love of Hashem, but he reaches the conclusion, the decision, that he should. And he wants to. He very much wants to... he wants to have love of Hashem. In practice he doesn’t have it, but he knows he wants it, and he truly does want it. That decision and that assent in his heart, says the Alter Rebbe, are also enough. They’re also enough. Even someone whose understanding is too limited to bring forth fear of Hashem openly in his heart—as he says there in chapter 16—nevertheless, since he can awaken love and fear in his mind, in the hidden recesses of his heart and mind, so that he has a decision in his mind and assent in his heart, that’s enough. He already won’t commit transgressions; he’ll already perform all the mitzvos. That’s enough. Nothing more is needed. Since he spent seventeen long chapters explaining how it’s so close for everyone to keep all the mitzvos—you just have to contemplate the greatness of Hashem, and the rest will follow—he’s essentially finished explaining the verse. What’s missing?

03:36 Speaker 2 That his understanding won’t translate into practice.

03:39 Speaker 1 No, no. He’s finished explaining it. He doesn’t address those matters anymore. That’s it; he’s explained it. He’s explained what needs to be done: how to contemplate the greatness of Hashem. Go learn how. Study Kabbalah; study these matters as they’re presented in many places. No, that’s not... that’s not in Tanya. He doesn’t discuss it any further. He’s explained it.

04:01 Speaker 2 But you said that...

04:06 Speaker 1 Ah, Tanya is a guide, a guide to serving Hashem. It’s a recipe for how to serve Hashem. It doesn’t discuss what you should contemplate. Maybe a little in the later chapters, but that isn’t relevant to the avodah he spoke about earlier, where the mind awakens the intellect so that there will be feeling. He doesn’t discuss that; it isn’t the subject. So here’s the point: after the Alter Rebbe says on Tanya’s title page that he wants to explain thoroughly the verse “For the matter is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it,” he says he’ll do so “in a long and short way, with Hashem’s help.” Right? Those words are there at the beginning. There are several explanations of what the Alter Rebbe means. The simple explanation is that the Alter Rebbe is saying, “Listen, I have two ways. One way is short but long, and the second way is long but short.” What does a way that is short but long mean? Chapters 1 through 17 are the short-but-long way. Just contemplate the greatness of Hashem, and immediately you’ll have love and fear, keep all the mitzvos, and avoid transgressions. It’s a piece of cake. All you have to do is contemplate the greatness of Hashem, and that’s it; everything else happens on its own. So it’s a short way. It’s a piece of cake. But what’s the catch? It’s short but long. As you say, for that you need to study a lot and know a lot and contem... The logic behind it is very simple and short. The way is short, but to carry it out, first, it takes a long time, and second, it takes enormous effort. A person has to struggle with himself constantly. Most importantly, how can you say it’s very close? You have to contemplate, you have to make an effort. What about someone who never had the chance to study? How will he contemplate?

06:11 Speaker 1 Or someone whose intellectual abilities aren’t so strong, or whose heart isn’t so receptive and contemplation has no effect on him—what will he do? How can you... I understand that it’s close, but it isn’t very close! Certainly not for each and every person. So the Alter Rebbe says, I have... I have another approach to serving Hashem. Let’s set the previous way aside for a moment and see how we can serve Hashem in another way—not through the mind ruling the heart, but differently. The second way—I called it the short... actually, the long-but-short way. What does this second way, which we begin studying today, say? It says this: I’m a Jew; I have a neshamah. Being a Jew means I have a neshamah. What does my neshamah want? My neshamah wants to connect with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. My neshamah wants to daven. My neshamah wants to keep mitzvos. My neshamah wants to study Torah. My neshamah wants to spend all its time thinking and speaking only about Hakadosh Boruch Hu. That’s what it wants. This is called the neshamah’s natural love. The neshamah’s nature is love. So, says the Alter Rebbe, why do I have to make an effort to produce love of Hashem? What for? I already have love. I don’t need to produce something new here. I only need to reveal that same love that’s hidden in me all the time, that I don’t feel—to bring it out of hiding. Once it’s revealed, I won’t need to produce anything new, because I already have something here: a ready-made love inside me. I only need to reveal it, not produce it. That’s the idea. All right? This way,

08:27 Speaker 1 the Alter Rebbe lays out over eight chapters. Before we dive in, I want us to look at this diagram and see what it means. We can see in the first row—the second one, actually—that these chapters are divided into three groups. We have two chapters, 18 and 19, on hidden love; three chapters where he discusses the oneness of Hashem and idol worship; and another three chapters on revealing the hidden love. What does that mean? The Alter Rebbe says this: to awaken that natural love of the soul, first you have to get to know it. How can I prod it or give it a poke if I don’t know where it is, what it looks like, or what it does? I don’t even know its characteristics. I don’t know what awakens it. I don’t know what moves it. So first the Alter Rebbe devotes two chapters, 18 and 19, to teaching us what that love of Hashem is, what hidden love is, what the G-dly soul’s love looks like. Two chapters. Then, after he—during the explanation of the... I won’t go into all the boxes below, simply because time is short and I want us to manage to study chapter 18 too. After he explains what this love is, what do we learn, in general, from those two chapters? That there’s a situation in which this love awakens in every one of us without our doing anything. When? When a Jew is backed against the wall and told: either convert, or we’ll kill you. At that moment, this love bursts forth. At that moment, it comes out into the open. What does “comes out into the open” mean? The person is ready to give up his life; he’s ready to die rather than be separated from the oneness of Hashem. Now, clearly, a person who his whole life never had a

10:37 Speaker 1 Love of Hashem—he doesn’t have it, because he has never contemplated Hashem’s greatness in his life. He wasn’t born into a Chassidic home, either, and he doesn’t even observe the mitzvos. He doesn’t go through his day-to-day life feeling love of Hashem. So when that same person, even one of the most spiritually distant Jews, is stirred to self-sacrifice, what is happening? Does he suddenly begin to feel love of Hashem? No. Does this person, who is now actually giving up his life, feel love of Hashem in his heart? A certain stubbornness awakens in him.

11:16 Speaker 3 Now look.

11:18 Speaker 1 This way and no other. I’m prepared to die; I will not change my religion. “But, you know, you don’t even wear a kippah at all.” He doesn’t care. He has no love, no awe, nothing—no feeling. So this love tells us two things. First, it can move a person to the point of giving up his life. It has tremendous power. Second, it doesn’t have to become openly felt. For this love to affect me, I don’t need to feel love in my heart. It’s enough for me to awaken it. Right? Those are the two conclusions. The Alter Rebbe says: Okay, then, if I don’t need to reveal it, only to awaken it, I don’t need that kind of contemplation. I just have to remember that it exists, and the moment I remember it, it will have its effect on its own; I won’t commit transgressions. At least, that’s the general idea. Fine, but that only works for idol worship. If I remember that I have love of Hashem, remember that I have a G-dly soul, I won’t worship idols. But we want this love to affect me with regard to all the mitzvos, right? So that I won’t commit any transgressions at all, and it will lead me to fulfill all the mitzvos. Right? The Alter Rebbe says: Very simple. I’ll explain it to you. The Alter Rebbe says: Come and see that, in fact, all the positive mitzvos flow from the oneness of Hashem, and all the prohibitions flow from the prohibition against idol worship. Every time you commit even the smallest transgression in the world—even a rabbinic prohibition, something that seems so minor—it has the very same effect on your soul as idol worship. Exactly the same, with no difference. And every time you perform even the smallest mitzvah, it has the same effect on your soul as actually sanctifying

13:34 Speaker 1 Hashem’s name. That’s what he explains afterward, in chapters 20 through 25. So when I know what this love of mine is, what this G-dly soul is and what it wants, and I’m also aware that every mitzvah and every transgression directly affects that love, then whenever I face a struggle with the yetzer hara, it will be enough for me to remember that this hidden love exists within me. That alone will keep me from transgressing. Okay? All clear so far? That’s the general concept. Now we’ll begin learning chapter 18 and what it’s about. We said that chapter 18 is the first chapter in which the Alter Rebbe explains what this love is: a hidden love within me that I don’t need to bring into being. It already exists; I only need to reveal it. Chapter 18: “To further explain very clearly the word ‘very’ in the verse, ‘For the matter is very near to you.’” We’ve already learned how the matter is near to you. But how is it very near? “One must know with certainty that even someone whose understanding of Hashem is limited, and whose heart is incapable of grasping the greatness of the blessed Ein Sof”—he hasn’t studied, and his heart isn’t so soft and refined that it readily takes things in. He has a coarse heart and cannot “bring forth from that understanding love and awe.” Even in his mind and understanding alone, he can’t do it. He cannot bring forth love, not even in his mind and heart. Nevertheless, “the matter is very near to him: to observe and perform all the mitzvos of the Torah, and Torah study, which is equal to them all.” And here comes a surprise. Although he cannot bring forth love of Hashem in his heart, he can awaken this hidden love and then fulfill all the mitzvos, including Torah study. How will he fulfill them? “With his mouth and in his heart, truly, from the depths of his heart, in genuine truth,

16:05 Speaker 1 with love and awe.” That is astonishing. The love we bring forth through contemplation of Hashem’s greatness—that, the Alter Rebbe says, is not something everyone can achieve. It’s a little difficult; it takes contemplation. And even if you don’t have love in your heart, you should at least have assent, a decision in your mind, at least assent in your heart. You don’t have love. But when we’re talking about the hidden love, even if you don’t actually feel it, it exists. It is real and very powerful. In other words, there is an advantage specifically for a Jew who isn’t so intellectually gifted—specifically a Jew... you’re using your brain, old man. Specifically a Jew whose understanding is limited, who cannot bring forth love and awe in his heart: he, of all people, can serve Hashem more easily. For him it is nearer—and nearer “very”—“with his mouth and in his heart, truly, from the depths of his heart, in genuine truth,” even more than for someone who brings forth the love and awe discussed in the earlier chapters. What are we talking about? “The hidden love in the heart of all Israel, which we inherited from our forefathers.” There’s no need to bring anything into being here. I was born with it; it’s within me. But for me to be able to use it in practice, for it to affect me, “one must first explain very clearly the roots of four matters.” Count them. “The root of this love”—what is its root in the soul?—“and its nature.” What does “its nature” mean?

18:06 Speaker 4 Its essence.

18:10 Speaker 1 Let me explain briefly, in a few words. Love is attraction, right? Attraction. Love is attraction, generally speaking. Attraction to what? Every love is an attraction to something particular. Right? There is love of food, whose nature is to be drawn to eating. There is a love whose pinnacle is love and pleasure of a different kind. Every love has its own aim: what it wants, what that love is about. In spiritual matters, too, there are many, many kinds of love—not only different levels, but different types. Even on the same level, there are different types of love. There is a love whose aim is, “I want to gain something for myself,” and there is a love where I want to draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, to feel Hakadosh Boruch Hu close to me, like a son who wants to feel close to his father. He enjoys the closeness itself. And then there is a son who wants to draw close to his father—but why? Not so that he will be close to his father, but so that his father will have pleasure from him. He loves his father; he doesn’t love himself. Right? He wants his father to... So in spiritual matters, too, there is a love whose aim is to draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, and there is a love whose aim is the opposite: for Hakadosh Boruch Hu to have pleasure from me, and so on. So to understand—to awaken this love, excuse me—if I want to awaken it, I need to know what that love wants, what its aim is, how I can reach it. I need to get to know it. And we also need to understand how it is an inheritance to us—what it means to inherit love. I know what it means to inherit money. What does it mean to inherit love? How do you inherit love? A person inherits traits, but... And we also need to understand how awe is included in it. After all, the G-dly soul has lo—its essence is love of Hashem. We’ll go a little...

20:37 Speaker 1 We’ll go into more detail later. Its whole nature is love. It wants to draw close to Hakadosh Boruch Hu in this way; it wants to come close. But we learned at the beginning of Tanya, in chapter 3, that love is the root of all 248 positive mitzvos, and fear is the root of the 365 prohibitions, right? So if I also want to guard against transgressing prohibitions, it isn’t enough to awaken love. I also have to awaken fear. But if that hidden love is love, how will it help me keep the prohibitions? We must say that within that love, fear is also concealed in some way. So we need to understand how; otherwise, how will we arrive at fear? So these four points—the root of this love, what it is, how we inherit it, and how fear is also included in it—he will, with Hashem’s help, explain in the first two chapters, 18 and 19. In the first chapter, he explains how we inherit it and what its root is, and in the second chapter he’ll explain the other two points. And the point is this: the Patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, are the Divine chariot. The analogy of the chariot is brought in Chassidus in many places to explain a number of things. The general idea of the analogy is that a chariot is completely nullified to its rider. A servant, too, is nullified to his master. A servant does what his master tells him. A soldier is nullified to his commander, right? So what’s the difference between the nullification of a servant—incidentally, Chassidus has a whole explanation of this. There are levels of nullification to Hakadosh Boruch Hu. There’s what’s called a Canaanite servant, a Hebrew servant, a Hebrew maidservant, and so on—different levels of nullification. The highest level of nullification is that of a chariot. What does “chariot” mean here? A chariot is a carriage, right? As long as we’re talking about one person being nullified to another—like a Canaanite servant to his master, like a son to his father,

23:11 Speaker 1 like a Hebrew maidservant to her master, and so on—ultimately, there’s the person who is nullifying himself, and there’s the master or father or commander to whom he is nullified. They’re two different people. A carriage, by contrast, has no will. It doesn’t want anything. It wants nothing at all.

23:34 Speaker 5 So why was Moshe humble?

23:35 Speaker 1 What?

23:36 Speaker 5 Why was Moshe—

23:39 Speaker 1 Why was Moshe a servant? Now, that’s a concept. In terms of nullification, Hakadosh Boruch Hu actually says about Moshe Rabbeinu, “Woe for those who are gone and cannot be found.” What a loss, those Patriarchs! What tremendous nullification they had! In terms of prophecy, Moshe Rabbeinu was greater than the Patriarchs, but all right, each one in his own respect. No, that’s not the point here. A chariot means that it’s nullified in such a way that it has no will of its own. It’s simply the wheels that take a person wherever he wants to go. Likewise, a car can’t suddenly decide it wants to drive somewhere else. It doesn’t want anything. So the Patriarchs are the chariot. And because this is such a lofty and wonderful level, attained only by the Patriarchs, they merited to draw down a nefesh, ruach, and neshamah for their children after them, forever. That’s a reward. The fact that each of us has a G-dly nefesh, ruach, and neshamah is a reward the Patriarchs received. It really isn’t natural for a person to inherit love. Hakadosh Boruch Hu gave the Patriarchs a gift. Where does it come from? So that’s how he finished explaining how we inherit it. What is its root? Where does that love, that G-dly soul, come from? From the ten sefiros of holiness in the four worlds: Atzilus, Beriah, Yetzirah, and Asiyah. Each person receives that soul according to his level and his deeds—one more, another less. “According to his level” means the level of the soul he was born with, and “according to his deeds” means what he does. We’ve already seen that a person can work very hard and put great effort into serving Hashem, and then a higher soul can become invested in him. In special cases, even the soul of a tzaddik may become invested in him, and he may merit to serve Hashem completely. So it depends on his level and his deeds. In any case, even the lowest of the low and the sinners of Israel, who have neither

26:10 Speaker 1 deeds nor stature, receive at conception a nefesh of a nefesh of Malchus of Asiyah. That is the lowest level within the holiness of Asiyah. Nevertheless, since that Malchus of—Malchus of—Malchus of Asiyah is, after all, one of the ten holy sefiros, and in the holy worlds everything includes everything else, each thing also contains all the others. So that Malchus of Asiyah includes all the sefiros—all of them. And if it includes all of them, that means Chochmah of Asiyah is also present within Malchus. Within Chochmah of Asiyah—and we already know this; actually, not from here, we’ll learn it in many places, in chapter 42, I think—is invested the Chochmah of Malchus of Atzilus. And within the Chochmah of Malchus of Atzilus, the light of Ein Sof, blessed be He, actually shines, as it is written, “Hashem founded the earth with wisdom,” and “You made them all with wisdom.” It follows that Ein Sof, blessed be He, is invested in the faculty of Chochmah in a person’s soul, whoever that person may be. In any Jew, it can descend and become clothed in more garments, with more concealments and veils. But ultimately, every Jew is descended from Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, and therefore has a holy soul. And that holy soul, even if it is on the very lowest level, includes within it—and shining within it, perhaps in greater concealment, but shining and present there nonetheless—is the light of Ein Sof Himself. And its faculty of Chochmah, together with the light of Ein Sof, blessed be He, invested in it—in the Chochmah of a person’s soul—extends throughout the entire soul, giving it life from its head down to its feet, as it is written, “Wisdom gives life to those who possess it.” At every level and in every world, Chochmah is the beginning of that world, and from it vitality spreads to the whole—to the whole body, to the whole world. The same is true of a person’s soul. The Chochmah in a person’s soul is the source of its vitality, and from it all the limbs receive their life. Actually, this needs explaining. It needs clarification. I’ll just

29:03 Speaker 1 raise the question, because I’m sure that, in one way or another, all of you have it somewhere in the back of your minds. Do I get my life from my head? I eat and breathe. That’s what keeps me alive, right? My head is very important, but is my head what gives me life? Yes?

29:24 Speaker 6 It commands.

29:25 Speaker 1 What’s that? It commands, but it says that vitality begins with it. So...

29:33 Speaker 6 It’s supposed to direct things.

29:37 Speaker 1 The heart, the liver—I don’t know. The body’s vitality seemingly doesn’t come from the head.

29:42 Speaker 6 It gives orders.

29:44 Speaker 1 It gives orders, right. So I’m not going to get into that here. I’m only mentioning it because I imagine that, in one way or another, the question is hanging in the air for everyone. This is explained at great length in the maamarim of the Mitteler Rebbe. There he shows, using actual physical analogies, that even physical vitality really does come from the head. But just know that there is such an explanation. As for our subject now: sometimes the sinners of Israel bring down very lofty souls that had been in the depths of the kelipos, as it says in Sefer Hagilgulim. If you were born to someone like that, a sinner of Israel, a Jew who commits transgressions, the Rebbe says that doesn’t mean you necessarily have a lowly soul. Not at all. Sometimes it’s actually just the opposite. Why?

30:36 Speaker 6 The Nephilim.

30:36 Speaker 1 Hmm?

30:37 Speaker 6 The Nephilim.

30:37 Speaker 1 For example?

30:38 Speaker 6 The Nephilim.

30:40 Speaker 1 The Nephilim? Why would they have lofty souls? They’re angels, I think. Angels aren’t souls. Angels are created beings. No. For example, there’s a very well-known story the Rebbe told in the first maamar he delivered, on Yud Shvat 5711. In it, the Rebbe tells a story about Ahavas Yisroel from each of the Rebbeim. Remember that part of the maamar? Hm? So, about the Rebbe Maharash. The Rebbe relates that once he traveled... I’ll tell it in two lines. He traveled to France and went into a casino, and there was—

31:17 Speaker 6 The Rebbe Maharash?

31:18 Speaker 1 Yes, that’s how I remember it. There was a certain person there, and then he put his hand on his shoulder and said to him, “Jew, non-kosher wine dulls the mind and heart,” something like that. And from that Jew came a large family of chassidim. Incidentally, the French chassidim say they now know which family it is, but they won’t reveal it. They didn’t tell me, at any rate. These are Jews they know. What? They know, they know which family it is, yes.

31:54 Speaker 6 A very prominent French family.

31:58 Speaker 1 Oh, you knew about that? I’m not telling the story itself now, even though it’s a beautiful story, but—

32:09 Speaker 6 It was in a maamar.

32:11 Speaker 1 It’s a well-known story. The Rebbe tells it in the maamar in two—didn’t he mention the name?

32:17 Speaker 7 No, briefly—

32:19 Speaker 1 The story—maybe I’ll be brief about it... The Frierdiker Rebbe tells the story at great length. Okay. The Rebbe mentions it in the first maamar in just two—there’s a story like this in two lines. All right, so this is an example of a very lofty soul. The Rebbe says there in the maamar—and in the Frierdiker Rebbe’s original telling—that a soul so lofty had not come down into the world for several generations. But what happened? It was among the kelipos. Now why does that happen? Why would such a thing happen? Because Hakadosh Boruch Hu does not make unreasonable demands of His creations. Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t... “Unreasonable demands” means He doesn’t, how do you say it, look for a way to catch them out. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is fair. So if the kelipos and the sitra achra have seized a lofty soul, Hakadosh Boruch Hu won’t take it out of there by force. He won’t do such a thing. He won’t do that to them. They, too, have some right to a source of life. Now the kelipos themselves have this treasure in their hands. They won’t release it easily. They’ll let it descend into a physical body only if there’s a real chance they’ll get something out of it. So if they can bring it down into a body born to parents who are so coarse, who commit such transgressions, and so on, and it receives that kind of upbringing, then there’s a good chance that Jew will grow up and commit many transgressions. And he commits those transgressions with his soul, so his transgressions have power, they have significance. That draws down an enormous amount of life-force for them. So in a case like that, they’re willing, here and there, to release such a lofty soul in their possession. That’s why it can happen that sometimes, specifically among the simplest people and those who commit transgressions—specifically among them. It doesn’t have to be that way, right?

34:26 Speaker 1 Usually it isn’t that way, but it’s possible to discover a very lofty soul specifically among them. So a Jew can’t say, “I was born this way or that way; I’m not this, I’m not that, and I don’t have the strength.” Listen: first, you’re a child of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, and you have that within you. Second, you may have even more. So what is this root of the soul we’re talking about? What is that— We’ve already learned that this love, this G-dly soul, comes from the level of chochmah, right? And what is this chochmah, the foundation, the first root of the G-dly soul? Chochmah is the source of intellect and understanding, and it is above binah. Binah is the understanding and grasp of an idea, while chochmah is above understanding and grasp. We won’t explain it now. I hope you know a little about it. Chochmah is their source. That is what the word chochmah means: koach mah, the “power of what”—something that is not yet grasped or understood, not yet apprehended. So chochmah is made up of the two words koach mah. On the one hand, it’s a power; on the other hand, you ask of it, “What? What is it?” You ask what it is because it cannot be grasped. So it’s a thing and its opposite. It’s not two different things. Sometimes we speak of two sides of the same coin, right? What does that mean? A number is stamped on one side and a picture on the other. It’s the same coin, but it has two sides. Here it isn’t two sides of the same coin. It’s two opposites within the very same thing. This same faculty, on the one hand, is a power. As a power—the faculty of chochmah—it is the first of all the soul’s faculties. Life-force begins with it; it is the root of all a person’s life-force. On the other hand, what is the essence of this faculty? That it is nothing in its own right; it

36:46 Speaker 1 cannot be grasped.

36:47 Speaker 8 So that is, essentially, G-dliness.

36:50 Speaker 1 On the one hand, it is G-dliness: it cannot be grasped; it is the Infinite Light. That’s what we said. On the other hand, it is already a faculty.

37:00 Speaker 8 So it contains opposites.

37:02 Speaker 1 Hmm?

37:02 Speaker 8 It contains opposites.

37:03 Speaker 1 It contains opposites. In a certain sense you could say that, yes. It isn’t the wording the Rebbe uses, but it fits. It cannot yet be apprehended, and therefore the Infinite Light, blessed be He, can dwell within it. Because “no thought can grasp Him at all.” The Infinite Light is exactly that: it is light, but it is infinite. Intellect—and we’ve discussed this more than once—is all about grasping. You grasp an idea by setting its boundaries: this applies up to here; this belongs within the idea; according to the explanation, that doesn’t belong within it. This does and that doesn’t. This is inside and that is outside. The whole function of intellect is to define and grasp an intellectual idea. Hakadosh Boruch Hu is the Infinite Light. You can’t grasp infinity by putting it into a vessel, within a definition. It won’t fit. Infinity cannot be grasped—

38:13 Speaker 9 And apprehension?

38:14 Speaker 1 Apprehension is a definition, a vessel; it imposes limits. The whole way the mind grasps an idea is by limiting it. You cannot limit the Infinite Light. So intellect, understanding and apprehension cannot grasp the Infinite Light. But chochmah can grasp the Infinite Light. Why? Because chochmah is koach mah. It cannot itself be grasped. It is above apprehension. It has no form, no limitation. Since it has no independent reality of which you can say, “It’s like this and not like that,” the Infinite Light can dwell there.

38:54 Speaker 8 Wait, so what is the root of Pharaoh, then?

38:56 Speaker 1 Of whom?

38:57 Speaker 8 Pharaoh.

38:58 Speaker 1 Pharaoh? How did you get to Pharaoh?

38:59 Speaker 8 He also contains opposites of... He’s very

39:02 Speaker 1 great, and on the other hand, he’s Pharaoh.

39:09 Speaker 8 Ah!

39:09 Speaker 10 It’s precisely because Pharaoh is so great that they chose him. They can’t enter into reality.

39:13 Speaker 8 Maybe that’s a good thing, in a way?

39:16 Speaker 10 Because...

39:17 Speaker 1 There is Pharaoh as he exists in holiness, and there is Pharaoh as he exists in this world. They aren’t the same Pharaoh.

39:25 Speaker 8 No, I mean in holiness.

39:34 Speaker 1 I don’t remember right now exactly where Pharaoh is up there on the scale of the sefiros, but it isn’t a matter of chochmah.

39:46 Speaker 8 The opposite.

39:47 Speaker 1 Hmm? So, since every Jew has chochmah—we spoke about that earlier, right? And what is that chochmah? It is koach mah, that which cannot be grasped. And because it cannot be grasped, the Infinite Light can shine within it. Therefore all Jews, even women and even the unlearned, believe in Hashem. He can’t explain why he believes. He believes. Tell him Hakadosh Boruch Hu doesn’t exist, and he’ll hit you. Ask him to prove that He exists, and he’ll get even angrier. What do you mean, prove it? What are you talking about?

40:28 Speaker 8 Just say—

40:30 Speaker 1 Huh?

40:30 Speaker 8 You can simply suggest something else.

40:32 Speaker 1 Yes. What do you mean? What is there to prove? Are you normal? Yes. That’s called the power of emunah. It’s as clear to him as the sun. Thinking otherwise is unthinkable to him. It isn’t something the intellect can grasp. So if he doesn’t understand it and can’t explain it even to himself, where does that certainty come from?

40:55 Speaker 8 It exists, and that’s that.

40:56 Speaker 1 Because you have chochmah. Emunah is above knowledge and apprehension, for “the simpleton believes everything, but the prudent understands.” The verse “The simpleton believes everything” is said about Moshe Rabbeinu. Generally speaking, why do we use “simpleton” to mean someone foolish in ordinary speech?

41:22 Speaker 8 Because he believes everything.

41:24 Speaker 1 Because he believes even something he could understand. Something so simple—you can just understand it. What are you, a simpleton? Can’t you see? Don’t you understand? Right. So for us, “simpleton” is a derogatory term. But if we’re speaking about G-dliness, something the intellect truly cannot grasp and that can be grasped only through emunah, then “the simpleton believes”—there, only a simpleton can believe. The one who insists on understanding, the discerning person, cannot. Intellect gets in the way of emunah. And with respect to Hakadosh Boruch Hu, Who is above intellect and knowledge, “no thought”—no thought can grasp Him. Not only our thoughts, but even the thoughts of angels, and even the thoughts of the supernal sefiros. No thought can grasp Him at all. All are like simpletons before Him, blessed be He, as it is written: “I was foolish and knew nothing; I was like an animal with You.” If I am foolish and know nothing, and I feel like an animal, then I am with You—“I am always with You,” and so on. In other words, it is by being foolish and like an animal that I am always with You, not through understanding and apprehension. Through understanding and apprehension I cannot draw close to You. And so every Jew has a G-dly soul from the holy sefiros. Within all of this, ultimately, there is also chochmah. And within chochmah the Infinite Light shines, and the Infinite Light means emunah. Therefore even the most frivolous and the transgressors among the Jewish people will, for the most part, give up their lives to sanctify Hashem’s name and endure harsh torture rather than deny the one Hashem, even if they are ignorant and unlearned and do not know Hashem’s greatness. Right, because what awakens in them here isn’t really love. It’s emunah. And even the little they do know, they don’t contemplate. Now someone is... is giving them

43:38 Speaker 1 Torture—are they thinking about the greatness of Hashem then? “They do not give up their lives because of any knowledge or contemplation of Hashem at all. Rather, they give up their lives without any knowledge or contemplation, simply because it is as though denying the one G-d is utterly impossible, without any reason, argument, or answer at all.” Suddenly it’s so clear to you that you have to keep the mitzvos. Yesterday you thought otherwise. “This is because the oneness of Hashem shines in and gives life to the entire soul by being clothed in its faculty of chochmah, which is beyond knowledge and comprehensible understanding.” That’s the end of chapter 18. So in chapter 18 we learned the first half of the hidden love. We learned that the hidden love is a natural love, the nature of the G-dly soul. Every Jew has it thanks to the Patriarchs, and its source is in the soul’s faculty of chochmah, where the light of the infinite, blessed be He, shines. And in each and every person, it is revealed at a moment of sanctifying Hashem’s name. In the next chapter, with Hashem’s help, we’ll learn what that love wants, what it aspires to, what it wants to receive. We’ll see that in the next chapter, with Hashem’s help. Blessed are You, Hashem, our G-d, King of the universe, by Whose word all things came into being.